My wife teaches English and French at a private international school owned by a large international corporation. Initially the school was only open to children of workers at the corporation, but they recently opened it up to anybody.

Due to the international nature of both the school and corporation, the company has created what they call their living quarters, or the LQ. This consists of about twenty high-rise buildings, which house around 500 apartments. In addition to this there are another 25 or so townhouses across the canal. All of this is located in a large compound – complete with nice walking paths, parks, playgrounds, and even piped-in classical music for the evening hours. It is located across the street from the school and it creates a very lovely community.

For incoming teachers/workers they have a little motel they put you in while you are getting your apartment ready. This isn’t the Ritz or even Best Western or even Motel 6, but it was comfortable enough for a few days.

There were two things we noticed upon arrival into our room. First, the air conditioners are nothing like I’ve ever seen before. They are a little bit like American window units, without the bulkiness or the dripping water, except they do not hang out windows but rather are stuck into the walls just below the ceiling. They also come with remote controls.

Remote-controlled air conditioners with only Chinese writing can be quite confusing to a jet-lagging couple of Americans, to say the least. We spent a good long while pressing buttons on the remote hoping to find some sort of chilled air. Eventually we realized the welcome package the school had given us had instructions in English on how to work the remote.

With a chilled room and showered bodies, we proceeded to bed where we found the second strange thing in our little Chinese hotel – the bed was hard as a rock. I’m not talking about a firm mattress like you might find at Sears, but a completely solid, hard bed. It was definitely a mattress but it was harder than any I have ever felt. I contemplated sleeping on the hardwood floors for at least they seemed to have a slight give to them.

We were so exhausted from our flight that it didn’t much matter. We slept the sleep of the righteous, or at least of the jet-lagged.