Mike, who called himself MVP.

Michael Victor Pilgrim was born and raised in London, Ontario, Canada. His parents were both born in Canada. His grandfather on his father's side immigrated from England when he was 12 years old and his mom's parents were from Ireland. His mom grew up on a farm outside London, in a family of 8 children. After marriage his parents decided to buy their own restaurant which they ran for 35 years. At 8 years old, Michael started working in the restaurant. He flipped burgers, tended the cash register and took out the garbage.

Michael was the first person on both sides of his extended family to go to university. He attended the University of Waterloo in Ontario, and majored in Psychology and minored in English, graduating in May, 1971. Later, Mike got a Masters of Education from the University of Western Ontario specializing in Guidance Counseling and English, graduating in May, 1972. Two months later he married his childhood sweetheart. They embarked on a four year world tour. They departed from London and drove across Canada and the United States. After reaching Mexico, they returned to Los Angeles and then flew to Hawaii. From there they took a cruise ship called the Oriana to the Fiji Islands, New Zealand, and finally Sydney, Australia.

They liked the down under so much, they stuck around for two years. Before school started, Mike passed the time as a bartender in Melbourne, then headed north. His first teaching position was in the city of Townsville, Queensland. After two terms, he moved to Darwin where he taught at an Aboriginal College. Michael went on to teach in England, Canada, Kenya, the Bahamas, the United States and now China for a total of 45 years, spanning 7 countries.

The China Connection

After living in Florida with his son for eight years following a divorce, Michael suddenly found himself alone in January, 2011 after his son went to university in Canada. He got an email from his cousin asking if he was interested in teaching at a university in China. He decided at 63 years old to submit his application. To his surprise, within a week of submission came a notice of acceptance, inviting him to come teach English at the University of Heilongjiang (黑龙江大学 hēilóngjiāng dàxué, a.k.a. 黑大 hēidà) in Yichun, China. The teaching contract was for three years and he ended up being the only non-Chinese teacher at the university and in the city for that matter. Yichun (伊春 yīchūn) is only 100 km from Russia and an 8 hour train ride to Harbin. Michael was provided an off-campus apartment that was about a baseball's throw away from the university. This allowed him to walk to and from work daily. After having driven for 47 years it was the first time in his life he didn't have a car to drive. He has now been in China for 7 years, all of the time without a car. However, he does have a China drivers license. Outside of teaching at "Heida," Michael bought a Korean restaurant in Yichun, which he has owned for four years.

Ironically, Michael's arrival in Yichun was not entirely planned because at the time of receiving the email from his cousin, she was visiting a friend in Mengzi (蒙自 méngzì), which is located in south Yunnan province. Before applying for the job, Mike searched online about the weather in Yunnan and was pleasantly surprised that the average temperature is around 20 degrees Celsius. Accordingly, he promptly applied for the teaching position, having a preference for warm weather. About a week later, the letter of invitation came from Heida requesting his arrival not in Yunnan, but in Yichun. He quickly looked up the location, only to be shocked that the average temperature there is -3 degrees Celsius. However, being a man of his word and Canadian by birth (not new to the cold be any means) he followed through on his promise and was off to Yichun. He would get a reprieve from the cold by heading to Yunnan each year during the winter.

Life in Tianjin

After 7 years in Yichun, Mike officially arrived in Tianjin on December 21, 2017 to help a Chinese friend run an English school in Heping district. He serves as the Academic Director and manages the attached coffee bar. Michael is hardly all work and no play, he particularly enjoys the life-work balance available in China. In the last 35 years he has not missed one day of work. He attributes his physical well-being to a happy heart and light eating. For the past 45 years Michael has not eaten breakfast or lunch, but rather one meal a day around 8 pm in the evening. His daily routine includes a glass of orange juice in the morning, water throughout the day, and no snacks or food of any kind until evening. The only exception is when a special occasion calls for lunch, whereby he skips dinner, so as to still eat only one meal that day. Dinner is usually of reasonable size and includes a wide variety of cuisine. He loves barbecue (烧烤 shāokǎo), hot pot (火锅 huǒguō), and beer. Mike's daily beer hasn't been missed for the past 50 years. For the sake of socializing, he occasionally drinks China's infamous white liquor (白酒 báijiǔ), though it isn't his favorite and always gets chased with a beer.

Mike was teaching an English class to a group of kindergarten children.

Future Plans

Michael sees life in China as a perfect solution for retirement because money goes much further than back home. The culture intrigues him and there is never a lack of business opportunities or friends to get together with. He loves to play mahjong (麻将 májiàng) and hopes to stick around for some time. He considers Tianjin weather better than Yichun, but it still falls short of Mike's ideal spot which is Sanya (三亚 sānyà). The perfect solution would be splitting time as follows: January to March in Sanya, April to June in Florida (where Mike still owns property), July to September in Canada (good weather and family events), and back to China from October to December in Tianjin. After having been nicknamed for years as such by students, Michael is looking forward to officially becoming a grandpa (爷爷 yéye) in June. His son and son's girlfriend spent 3 months in Tianjin before returning to prepare for the pregnancy.

Mike originally wanted to be a lawyer. He took the LSAT (Law School Admission Test) and applied for law school, then headed off to Europe with his girlfriend for the summer. Upon returning he was dumb-founded to discover his application had been rejected due to an error in handling transcripts. The only option, it appeared was to wait about 4 months and reapply. Rather than sitting idle, based on the suggestion of a friend, he made a complete change in direction and applied for a Masters in Education. This proved to be the proverbial fork in the road, leading to an entirely different career and life course in education. Instead of being locked into a single location due to Bar Association requirements and having a high-pressure work environment as an attorney, teaching has allowed Michael to literally travel the world and get paid while doing so. He sees being in China as the culmination of his career. Mike's love for teaching has left him feeling as though he's never worked a day in his life.