The story so far, and what's coming next...

We're not quite a year in, but the end of the winter break seems like an appropriate time to take stock of what's been achieved since we kicked things off in the spring of 2018, and to announce some changes as we move forward...

What began as a fairly impulsive decision to strike out from some of the more unsavoury and negative elements of the expat community here quickly developed into a regular meetup attended by foreigners and locals alike. Weekly attendances rose to around 30 and the busiest events saw more than 40 people turn up - our groupchat membership topped 100! Due to the somewhat unexpected popularity of these events, we branched out into organising BBQs, KTV nights, CS days out and, more recently, overnight trips.

This all culminated in the first Liuzhou Meet & Learn Christmas Party, which you can read more about here. This event was hugely oversubscribed, and really well received. It's provided the impetus to continue with what we're doing and make things bigger and better next year.

Of course, we haven't gotten everything right and this has very much been a learning experience for everyone involved. A concern throughout has been that the group might resemble an 英语角 'English Corner' or 英语沙龙 'English Salon', a kind of event that's prevalent throughout China, whereby people meet up to practice speaking English. Famously used by unscrupulous locals to make money, and slimy expats to hit on local girls, it's something we definitely don't want to emulate.

So, as things move onwards and upwards, and to better reflect the social aspect of the group, the Chinese year of the pig will see a new name and a new platform. We want to redirect the focus away from language learning, as successfully fostering better relationships between the local and expat communities will give members a more natural environment for language practice anyway. So, from this point forward, we'll be known as: "Liuzhou Social / 柳州圈" and we're starting a new WeChat Subscription Account to make sure our Chinese members can also view blog posts about the group.

We've also got lots more things planned, from a special event to welcome people back from the New Year holiday, to bigger overnight trips, as well as continuing with the regular meetups. If you're a local, or coming to Liuzhou to live, work or simply visit, we'd love for you to get involved - please get in touch via email. And, in other exciting news, this week will see the opening of our own English training school; we look forward to welcoming enthusiastic teachers into our community so, if you're interested, please send us a message.

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KTV

Everyone loves KTV. Everyone. If you don't like sitting in a dark, enclosed space, listening to your friends murdering classic mandopop hits at ear splitting volume, there has to be something wrong with you. I've heard people ask what the point of learning to read Chinese is, what with the use of pinyin as a phonetic system, and the ability to use your phone to translate text. The answer is obvious: if you can't read characters, how will you sing Chinese songs at KTV? In China, and across Asia, KTV culture is huge and, if you want to engage with life here, learning to sing a couple of songs in the local language will get you a lot of kudos. At Liuzhou Meet & Learn, we organise regular KTV evenings, and I'm always surprised by how good people are at singing, particularly our local Chinese members - unfortunately, us foreigners don't always hold up our end of the bargain and I've witnessed some performances that made my ears bleed. I admit to bei...

射箭 - Archery

As the end of the winter break draws near, we decided to release our inner warrior and shoot some arrows... Global tensions are high at the moment, relationships between super powers increasingly strained - who knows when things will suddenly flare up and tip over into full scale war? After the inevitable apocolypse, we're going to need skills like archery so, ever one to plan for every possible eventuality, I decided Liuzhou Meet & Learn shouldn't leave these kind of things to chance. Like a band of merry men we went to the local archery range for a lesson and some practice. After a being taught the basics of posture and technique, we got to the shooting and, in a suprising turn of events, we actually weren't that bad at it, definitely more Robin Hood than Friar Tuck. Apart from one member though, who kept hitting my target instead of the one in front of him; but I won't name and shame. *ahem* Isaac. If you're interested in joinin...

国庆节 - National Day

Famous for being the busiest travel week of the year, when foreign residents who've spent any period of time in China will tell you to stay at home to avoid the crowds, 国庆节 National Day, or 黄金周 Golden Week, is a public holiday where seemingly the entire country leaves their villages and crowds into the cities and popular travel destinations. I experienced the holiday last year and, as such, decided to stay in Liuzhou this time, to avoid (not entirely successfully) being jostled and gawped at by tens of thousands of farmers. Besides, one of our members at Liuzhou Meet & Learn has some connections within the local tourism department and wanted some foreign volunteers to be taken around the city to attend the various events taking place. So, four members from our group set off to be photographed doing everything from walking around, to eating noodles, to being force fed tea by members of the local ethnic minority groups. One thing that is so seductive about living in a sm...

Liuzhou Meet & Learn

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