Story of how the ChinaSpeak Method began
Hey you!
Thanks for visiting this page. Like you, I’m always curious on the background story of things began so thought I’d openly share the journey and how ChinaSpeak accidentally started and grew.
The Big Smoke
It was 2001 and I had accepted my first job and moving East coast to the big smoke – hustling and bustling Sydney, moving even further away from family not knowing anyone. Life was fun and exciting, exploring new places, learning new things and meeting new people.
After almost 2 years though – the high demands, long hours including weekends, early start and grind to work in the rat race at the consulting multinational really wore down my soul and truth be told made me question what I was doing. On a project for American Express, I knew all the cleaners by name having regularly left at 3 in the morning and heading back in at 8am.
While on my time off, I explored other options, learning new things even working part time as a massage therapist at bars and pubs and taking a Buddhist monastic retreat (living like a monk). Not at the same time though. I know almost polar opposites right?!
One of the things I also did was to enroll and train with Cambridge University on the rare spare weekends I had for several months learning to teach ESL English as a Second Language, finally graduating with my CELTA qualification.
After several more demanding projects, things began to slow and the company had to lay off a large number of employees. Fortunately, some might say, I was one of the few still left standing with a role after a lot of colleagues were let go.
With all this going on, I was actively looking for other opportunities as a back-up just in case my head was on the chopping board. After a brief spell, I decided it was time to resign and thus handed in my notice. However, management kindly offered and asked why don’t I take a sabbatical and then decide after coming back from a break. Deciding it was risk-free, I took them up on it.
the wild west
One of the opportunities that came up was working in China – teaching English. But I didn’t want to go to the Big Smoke anymore like Beijing or Shanghai – both tier 1 Chinese metropolis cities. A new school was opening up in Urumqi, Xinjiang – the land of towering mountains and never-ending deserts, home to the Uighur people. It was the Wild West frontier bordering Tibet, Kazakstan and Russia.
That was the siren call beckoning me and I decided to leave everything behind in Sydney save a few clothes and books.
wild west China
Flying in and arriving at the Urumqi airport in the evening at dusk was quite an eye-opener.
My first thought was – oh oh. They don’t have much electricity here… The whole place was very dimly lit by only a few lights. It was almost black when I stepped out of the airport. I can’t remember how I got to the city but I somehow made it.
Teaching in
One of the things on my bucket list was to speak Spanish.
I’m warning you… Alex can’t stop talking!
Hopefully there’ll be a video sometime soon…
The first few people who motivated Alex to start ChinaSpeak
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