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A voice announced the approaching station and instructions for safely exiting the carriage – first in Chinese, and then in English – and then I had a few moments to gather my thoughts and a year’s worth of belongings. I met the head of the English department on the platform at Wúxī train station – a short and cheery man with thinning hair, a slight outline of a potbelly through a crisp white shirt and a keen smile. We exchanged pleasantries after a firm handshake and a series of greetings. After swapping numbers with the other three language assistants with promises to keep in touch, I followed my colleague to a black estate car. The journey was a bit of a blur – a mixture of traveller’s delirium and anxiety – but I recall making out tall buildings and long stretches of road in a seemingly small city. Wúxī seemed unassuming, tentative and kind; it put me at ease. Lucid signs flitted erratically. Dawn light settled on bodies of buildings and busy commuters. There were superstores and modest restaurants. Street signs and tongue twisting consonant clusters. Wúxī: a tidy little city located in Jiāngsū province and a 40-minute train ride away from Shànghăi. Wúxī felt like it could have remained in old China had she committed, but instead decided to go the cosmopolitan route like her more boisterous neighbours. Eventually, she grew weary, practised some affirmations and embraced her idiosyncrasies. And the further we went into our journey the fonder I grew of this little hub of indecision. That it was underrated and snubbed by popular travel guides meant I could explore it with little preconceptions. The cluster of buildings started spreading out and steadily shrinking, and we passed over a wide bridge revealing a scope of the ebbing downtown area. It became obvious that I wouldn’t be living in the centre of the city, and I was cool with that. After a few minutes the car started slowing to a halt. We were in front of school gates, and the security guards studied the car briefly before letting us in. 青山高级中学 ‘Qingshan senior high school’ – a sprawling campus with a 2-storey canteen, an auditorium, a sizeable track field and mere walking distance from an ancient canal and mountain. We pulled up at a 3-storey apartment building at the rear of the campus. Two flights of stairs later, and we were stood in the middle of an empty apartment. After pointing out my fully stocked fridge with cold sandwich meats, eggs, sweet bread and juices labelled with an indecipherable script, a wide-screen TV in my bedroom and a walk-in shower in my bathroom, the head of the English department placed a house key in my hand and told me to rest up as I had two weeks to settle in before the real work began – I would teach 14–16 classes per week for a class average of 50. And then he left. And then I was alone.