Dear students, I am very happy to join you here in BNUZ as a new teacher of English. Let me tell you something of my background. I grew up in the suburbs of the city of Manchester in the north of England. As a boy I liked to play football very much and was a young fan of Manchester United.

After graduating from secondary school, I attended the University of Durham, in the far northeast of England, where I studied politics. Then, after some years working in a government office in London, I returned to undertake postgraduate study in politics at the University of Manchester. College life was enormous fun for me, intellectually and socially, and I hope you too will have a wonderful and rich experience at BNUZ.

I have spent nearly all my adult life in education, as student and teacher, and of course I believe in the power and importance of education as the source of all-round development, for individuals and societies.

My connection with China goes back to 1992, when I first arrived in Shanghai on a slow boat from Japan. Back then, Shanghai and the other places I visited (Hangzhou and Guilin) were pretty undeveloped and foreign tourists were quite rare. Since then I have visited China several times, and then in 2007 I decided to become an English teacher here. I came to Jiangsu province to teach in a college, and stayed there two years. After that I worked in Guangxi and Jiangxi before coming to Zhuhai.

For me, living in China is sometimes challenging but almost always exciting and I have learnt so much from my students about their lives, families and dreams for the future. Of course I miss my family and other aspects of English life (such as the food!), but the lifestyle and climate of southern China suits me, compared to the cold, damp and fairly grim conditions in England (in summer and winter!). Learning some Chinese has helped me greatly adapt to life here, and has enabled me to meet new friends.

I live on my own in Zhuhai, and miss most my two teenage