This is just a very brief post to say thank you to everyone who followed my blog while I was away, who sent me letters, pictures, coffee, cards, words of support and kept me going when things were looking really quite bleak in Xinjiang. I recovered from my illnesses, came home in July, and spent the summer as a couch potato, the effects of which I'm now trying to reverse back at the uni gym.
It's wonderful to be back :)
Friday 9 October 2009
Sunday 7 June 2009
Feeling Chesty in the Qi
Last Saturday I had an annoying dry cough; by the evening it had got worse, and by the time I came home from supper I was feeling a little ill. Turned myself into bed around 2330 and proceeded to have a night of mad dreams, frequently waking up covered in sweat, hot all over. Sunday came and went in a relatively uncomfortable headachey fevery sweaty way. After my shower Sunday night I went to bed and shivered most of the night, in what felt like the opposite to the previous day. All this time I was coughing, and coughing up phlegm. I woke on Monday morning at 0430, just a few short hours after going to sleep, with nothing in my stomach, zero blood sugar, and a desperate need for the toilet. When I reached the bathroom however, it became obvious I was going to pass out, immediately post flow as it were. Brilliant. Stopping myself from passing out, and with my ears ringing, I quickly drank some water and got some sugar in me before returning to bed but unable to sleep until about 0630. Now the fun begins.
Feeling better, but not much so, I decide to go and see a doctor. This is, after all, about the first time I can remember being unwell for more than 1 day (operations not counted). Usually I have a short burst of illness, it goes, I get better, simple. So this time, on Day 3 of feeling bad, I wanted to know what was up. My friend Bruce took me to a hospital, and helped me get set up (when you arrive you need to buy a special record book, which is just for the doctor to chronicle your symptoms and his treatments; it comes with a swipe-card too, which is then personalised to you, enabling you to get test results etc) and book an appointment. I say book, you basically pay a couple of yuan and get a ticket with a number. It was 1400.
When we got to the 3rd floor, we found all the departments closed until 1530. Yes, a 90 minute break in the middle of the day. What? Apparently if we needed treatment at any time of day we could go to the emergency dept, but they wouldnt have specialists or anything ... so we had to wait an hour and a half for the doctor to come off his lunch break, and then see other people who came in the morning and who now had X-rays and godknowswhat needing reviewing. Finally, it was our turn. The doctor conducted his examination in English and Chinese, looked at my throat, listened to my list of symptoms but didnt listen to my chest or take a temperature (strange no?) or BP reading ... before ordering me a blood test and an X-ray, and telling me to come back with the results (before 1900, since that's when they close shop).
First you have to pay - this isn't the NHS remember! - and then you take your receipts with you to the various testing depts. Blood test on the second floor, a five second jobby, nothing traumatic, though I did question why the woman doing my blood test was herself hooked up to a drip. X-ray on the first floor, again a quick thing, though they said the prints would only be ready after 1810. Drat, why so long? Bruce and I collected my blood results after half an hour from a swipe-card-operated machine, and then he had to leave for a meeting. At 1750 I decided to chance it, and went early to collect my X-rays. They'd been sitting there for god knows how long! Damn it, I could have been doing something other than sitting on a bench feeling ill because I was hungry but there was nothing to eat in the whole hospital (no coffee shop, nothing). Up to the doctor, who looked at my results and told me I had "lung disease" though I'm fairly sure that his English translates to "chest infection" because I damn sure do not have lung disease. Whatever, there were streaky lines across my lungs, not good.
Despite previously telling him no drips (the Chinese LOVE drips but I happen to believe if I can swallow there's not much need for one, and certainly people in the UK get ill and get better all the time without ever having a needle put inside their veins), he prescribed three drips over three days and some other medicines besides. First of course, I had to buy the medicine ... down to the first floor again. Here there are three counters, A, B and C. At counter A I was able to pick up some of my medicines and pay for them. At counter B they told me to go to counter C, where I paid for the medicines from counter B before going back and collecting them. Then I had to go back up to the doctor to show him I had the right meds and for him to tell me how and when to take them ... 麻烦 (ma fan) is the Chinese for "troublesome" or "hassle" and it definitely applies to their hospital system. So, the result, one drip a day for three days, one antibiotic tablet twice a day, four cough medicine capsules twice a day, and some horrible disgusting powder that I am still not quite sure about four times a day. Oh and because it was after 1900 (he was running late, hmmmm here's a thought, dont take 90 minutes off in the middle of the day) I had to go to the emergency dept to get started on my first drip.
To say I was nervous is an understatement, but I knew it was something I had to get on with, so I went. I'm not sure what caused my initial reaction but about 5 seconds after the drip needle was inserted my heartrate shot up, I started sweating uncontrollably, and everything went white and ringy. Of course the nurse had left the room by then. About five minutes later and my panic attack was over, the only discomfort remaining being the numbness alternating with pins and needles in both hands. And even that stopped, leaving me feeling quite alright for the remaining hour and a half that I sat with a needle in my hand. Finally it was over and I could go home, via something small to eat, and get some sleep. The next day's drip was a lot better (I told the nurse about my ordeal and she said it was because the liquid went into me too fast, so she squeezed the bag a bit to limit the air inside, and I felt a lot better, but the drip did take twice as long and being hooked up to a drip for 3 hours wasn't much fun either). By the third day of treatment I had become quite used to it though I remain a little aghast at the lack of hygiene considering these people do this day in day out - sure they wear masks, and spray everything with some kind of antiseptic, but they dont use gloves (yeah they're playing with needles and not using gloves), and I've sat right in front of them as they take the needle out of a patient next to me and excess liquid shoots across the floor. Is it any wonder I didn't want more of this?
I went to see the doctor again on Friday. This time there were no blood tests or X-rays, just a quick consultation, a repeat prescription minus the drips (phew) and told I can go to class again whenever I want. I guess I must be getting better. My breathing is a lot easier now, and I'm not coughing up that much any more. Hurray. Now if I can just stay well for another 44 days I might be able to leave China in July.
(Total cost of meds - 150rmb for blood test and x-ray, 285rmb for one set of meds, 285rmb for another, something like 285rmb for the third, approx 1000rmb in total)
Feeling better, but not much so, I decide to go and see a doctor. This is, after all, about the first time I can remember being unwell for more than 1 day (operations not counted). Usually I have a short burst of illness, it goes, I get better, simple. So this time, on Day 3 of feeling bad, I wanted to know what was up. My friend Bruce took me to a hospital, and helped me get set up (when you arrive you need to buy a special record book, which is just for the doctor to chronicle your symptoms and his treatments; it comes with a swipe-card too, which is then personalised to you, enabling you to get test results etc) and book an appointment. I say book, you basically pay a couple of yuan and get a ticket with a number. It was 1400.
When we got to the 3rd floor, we found all the departments closed until 1530. Yes, a 90 minute break in the middle of the day. What? Apparently if we needed treatment at any time of day we could go to the emergency dept, but they wouldnt have specialists or anything ... so we had to wait an hour and a half for the doctor to come off his lunch break, and then see other people who came in the morning and who now had X-rays and godknowswhat needing reviewing. Finally, it was our turn. The doctor conducted his examination in English and Chinese, looked at my throat, listened to my list of symptoms but didnt listen to my chest or take a temperature (strange no?) or BP reading ... before ordering me a blood test and an X-ray, and telling me to come back with the results (before 1900, since that's when they close shop).
First you have to pay - this isn't the NHS remember! - and then you take your receipts with you to the various testing depts. Blood test on the second floor, a five second jobby, nothing traumatic, though I did question why the woman doing my blood test was herself hooked up to a drip. X-ray on the first floor, again a quick thing, though they said the prints would only be ready after 1810. Drat, why so long? Bruce and I collected my blood results after half an hour from a swipe-card-operated machine, and then he had to leave for a meeting. At 1750 I decided to chance it, and went early to collect my X-rays. They'd been sitting there for god knows how long! Damn it, I could have been doing something other than sitting on a bench feeling ill because I was hungry but there was nothing to eat in the whole hospital (no coffee shop, nothing). Up to the doctor, who looked at my results and told me I had "lung disease" though I'm fairly sure that his English translates to "chest infection" because I damn sure do not have lung disease. Whatever, there were streaky lines across my lungs, not good.
Despite previously telling him no drips (the Chinese LOVE drips but I happen to believe if I can swallow there's not much need for one, and certainly people in the UK get ill and get better all the time without ever having a needle put inside their veins), he prescribed three drips over three days and some other medicines besides. First of course, I had to buy the medicine ... down to the first floor again. Here there are three counters, A, B and C. At counter A I was able to pick up some of my medicines and pay for them. At counter B they told me to go to counter C, where I paid for the medicines from counter B before going back and collecting them. Then I had to go back up to the doctor to show him I had the right meds and for him to tell me how and when to take them ... 麻烦 (ma fan) is the Chinese for "troublesome" or "hassle" and it definitely applies to their hospital system. So, the result, one drip a day for three days, one antibiotic tablet twice a day, four cough medicine capsules twice a day, and some horrible disgusting powder that I am still not quite sure about four times a day. Oh and because it was after 1900 (he was running late, hmmmm here's a thought, dont take 90 minutes off in the middle of the day) I had to go to the emergency dept to get started on my first drip.
To say I was nervous is an understatement, but I knew it was something I had to get on with, so I went. I'm not sure what caused my initial reaction but about 5 seconds after the drip needle was inserted my heartrate shot up, I started sweating uncontrollably, and everything went white and ringy. Of course the nurse had left the room by then. About five minutes later and my panic attack was over, the only discomfort remaining being the numbness alternating with pins and needles in both hands. And even that stopped, leaving me feeling quite alright for the remaining hour and a half that I sat with a needle in my hand. Finally it was over and I could go home, via something small to eat, and get some sleep. The next day's drip was a lot better (I told the nurse about my ordeal and she said it was because the liquid went into me too fast, so she squeezed the bag a bit to limit the air inside, and I felt a lot better, but the drip did take twice as long and being hooked up to a drip for 3 hours wasn't much fun either). By the third day of treatment I had become quite used to it though I remain a little aghast at the lack of hygiene considering these people do this day in day out - sure they wear masks, and spray everything with some kind of antiseptic, but they dont use gloves (yeah they're playing with needles and not using gloves), and I've sat right in front of them as they take the needle out of a patient next to me and excess liquid shoots across the floor. Is it any wonder I didn't want more of this?
I went to see the doctor again on Friday. This time there were no blood tests or X-rays, just a quick consultation, a repeat prescription minus the drips (phew) and told I can go to class again whenever I want. I guess I must be getting better. My breathing is a lot easier now, and I'm not coughing up that much any more. Hurray. Now if I can just stay well for another 44 days I might be able to leave China in July.
(Total cost of meds - 150rmb for blood test and x-ray, 285rmb for one set of meds, 285rmb for another, something like 285rmb for the third, approx 1000rmb in total)
Saturday 30 May 2009
Idio (ma) tic
The Chinese have an idiom for just about everything, and they use them a lot. Indeed, if you want to get anywhere really serious in China (as a foreigner I mean) with your language, you probably need to know a good few for everyday use. I know barely any, because they can be quite hard to learn (four words to represent whole concepts, with underlying stories, etc) and because we just don't seem to be taught them so often. I digress.
Here's one of them: 将错就错 (jiang cuo jiu cuo) which means "to leave a mistake uncorrected and make the best of the situation" ... I think this is supposed to convey a sense of chivalry and ability to let things slide - the example in our books was of a boy who had his birthday; his sister brought him a cake, but he was leaving his room, so he placed it carefully outside a friend's, and thought he would collect it when he got back; however, when he returned, the occupant of the other room was celebrating HER birthday, and was eating the cake he'd left; rather than fix the error and complain about them eating his sister's gift, he just said he'd seen someone leave it there and run off, thus 将错就错.
I see it in a different way around me (a most comic way I should add) - the Chinese inability to ask for advice or help with their English, and just plough on regardless of error. The Foreign Language Club at my uni has been organising "trails" (I think they mean trials) for an English speaking competition ... the title of the last debate was "Culture Smart or Science Intelligent?", and while I get the general idea ("Which is more important - Culture or Science?"), it somewhat amazes me that they didnt even think to ASK for some advice on this, and instead leave their garbled Chinglish on a sign for all to see ...
And let's not forget the student(s) who ask me to help them with their English, notably one guy I saw on Monday. He asked me to speak into his MP3 player so he could record my voice and get good pronunciation for the aforementioned speaking competition. I took a look over his work and asked, "Do you want me to read this as it is, or correct the mistakes first?" ... He came back with, "But I did it all myself, there are no mistakes". After a bit of yes there are, no there aren't-ing between us I said, "Look, you asked for my help, do you want it or not? If you're so sure there are no mistakes in this, why ask me to look at it and read it for you?" ... ah, he saw the light, and accepted my help. Sheesh, I go to Bruce every week with questions! My Chinese is far from perfect. Why would their English be any different?!
Most impressive however, are tshirts. I am really writing this whole post because of tshirts ... Here are some crackers (and if I can find out where they are, I will try and get some, though may not be able to wear them in Britain (in public)).
"I AM A CAT PERSON" (printed around a fish skeleton outline)
"FUCKER" (yeah, just that, in yellow on a purple tshirt)
"IM FUCKING AWESOME" (plain blue print on a white tshirt)
"KING OF AFRICA" (back of a leather jacket, with a map of Africa. kid had no idea)
"I AM NOT BLACK (I LIKE BLACK)" (first line in massive white letters on a black leather jacket, second line in smaller white letters underneath)
"GOODNEWS DELIVERIES"
"IN THE SHOCK"
and the best one yet, seen about an hour ago ...
"HALIBUT COD FILLET PLAICE" (and some other fish whose names i forget, printed in a list running down this girl's pink tshirt
Seriously guys, learn when to ask for advice about this kind of thing. Mind you, there are some really stupid Westerners going around with dumb "Chinese" tattoos, which is probably worse than a tshirt, all things considered.
Here's one of them: 将错就错 (jiang cuo jiu cuo) which means "to leave a mistake uncorrected and make the best of the situation" ... I think this is supposed to convey a sense of chivalry and ability to let things slide - the example in our books was of a boy who had his birthday; his sister brought him a cake, but he was leaving his room, so he placed it carefully outside a friend's, and thought he would collect it when he got back; however, when he returned, the occupant of the other room was celebrating HER birthday, and was eating the cake he'd left; rather than fix the error and complain about them eating his sister's gift, he just said he'd seen someone leave it there and run off, thus 将错就错.
I see it in a different way around me (a most comic way I should add) - the Chinese inability to ask for advice or help with their English, and just plough on regardless of error. The Foreign Language Club at my uni has been organising "trails" (I think they mean trials) for an English speaking competition ... the title of the last debate was "Culture Smart or Science Intelligent?", and while I get the general idea ("Which is more important - Culture or Science?"), it somewhat amazes me that they didnt even think to ASK for some advice on this, and instead leave their garbled Chinglish on a sign for all to see ...
And let's not forget the student(s) who ask me to help them with their English, notably one guy I saw on Monday. He asked me to speak into his MP3 player so he could record my voice and get good pronunciation for the aforementioned speaking competition. I took a look over his work and asked, "Do you want me to read this as it is, or correct the mistakes first?" ... He came back with, "But I did it all myself, there are no mistakes". After a bit of yes there are, no there aren't-ing between us I said, "Look, you asked for my help, do you want it or not? If you're so sure there are no mistakes in this, why ask me to look at it and read it for you?" ... ah, he saw the light, and accepted my help. Sheesh, I go to Bruce every week with questions! My Chinese is far from perfect. Why would their English be any different?!
Most impressive however, are tshirts. I am really writing this whole post because of tshirts ... Here are some crackers (and if I can find out where they are, I will try and get some, though may not be able to wear them in Britain (in public)).
"I AM A CAT PERSON" (printed around a fish skeleton outline)
"FUCKER" (yeah, just that, in yellow on a purple tshirt)
"IM FUCKING AWESOME" (plain blue print on a white tshirt)
"KING OF AFRICA" (back of a leather jacket, with a map of Africa. kid had no idea)
"I AM NOT BLACK (I LIKE BLACK)" (first line in massive white letters on a black leather jacket, second line in smaller white letters underneath)
"GOODNEWS DELIVERIES"
"IN THE SHOCK"
and the best one yet, seen about an hour ago ...
"HALIBUT COD FILLET PLAICE" (and some other fish whose names i forget, printed in a list running down this girl's pink tshirt
Seriously guys, learn when to ask for advice about this kind of thing. Mind you, there are some really stupid Westerners going around with dumb "Chinese" tattoos, which is probably worse than a tshirt, all things considered.
Monday 18 May 2009
The Great Firewall of China
You might have heard about it, China's systematic blocking of certain websites. Earlier this year, someone somewhere in the world put something up on Youtube criticising the Chinese over their management of Tibet. Almost overnight, the GFW blocked Youtube in its entirity. There is one way round it, you can use a special proxy site and watch a certain amount (usually around 5 minutes) for free every 8 hours (or pay 1.50 euros to receive more access). This is ridiculous.
And now, this week, Blogspot has been blocked (at least from my home connection, I've not tried on other connections or other computers), which makes updating very tricky. I am currently using a proxy site to bypass the so-called firewall, but it is hassle and I'm not even sure it will work when I come to actually POST this.
It's annoying that I should have to resort to this kind of thing, though I'm probably (in part) one of the reasons for it happening in the first place, it's not like I say very positive things about this country. Here's one more negative - China, you fooled the world into giving you the Olympics, and you are currently successful in pushing your economy Westward, but if you ever hope to free yourself from this ridiculous "developing country" ball to which you have chained yourself, and integrate properly with the so-called First / Civilised world, you will have to relax your grip on the population and let them see what the world really is.
Or, here's a start for you, let Chinese people see the real CHINA. The China that prevents mourning parents from visiting the crappily-built schools that collapsed in the Sichuan earthquake last year (while other surrounding buildings remained upright) which form the last place their children were seen. The China that wants to keep an entire town in a semi-destroyed state to create a national site for people to visit and remember the tragic natural disaster which killed thousands (in part due to rushed, poor Chinese architecture). The China which is closing its citizens' eyes to anything they don't want them to know about. The differences between the Chinese higher "education" system and that found in Western countries (seriously, tell me of a European country which requires you take a politics exam in the knowledge of your nation's history and government - according to their version! - and then uses THIS mark over the academic exams to determine where in the country - ie how close to Beijing! - you can study). The China where a "Teaching University" not only has rules on the lowest height permitted for students, but also rules against disabled candidates attending university to become teachers (because a "teacher must be perfect"). The Chinese government which is running scared.
In my gym there's a guy who wears a tshirt saying "I love China more than ever" ... well I hate China more than ever. The more I hear about how life works here the more I will be happy to leave. In 64 days' time I will be on a plane to Dubai, and then home. I know expense scandals, two ongoing stupid wars, and a healthcare system with a questionable future awaits me, but when I compare general life to this, I cannot wait to be back.
And now, this week, Blogspot has been blocked (at least from my home connection, I've not tried on other connections or other computers), which makes updating very tricky. I am currently using a proxy site to bypass the so-called firewall, but it is hassle and I'm not even sure it will work when I come to actually POST this.
It's annoying that I should have to resort to this kind of thing, though I'm probably (in part) one of the reasons for it happening in the first place, it's not like I say very positive things about this country. Here's one more negative - China, you fooled the world into giving you the Olympics, and you are currently successful in pushing your economy Westward, but if you ever hope to free yourself from this ridiculous "developing country" ball to which you have chained yourself, and integrate properly with the so-called First / Civilised world, you will have to relax your grip on the population and let them see what the world really is.
Or, here's a start for you, let Chinese people see the real CHINA. The China that prevents mourning parents from visiting the crappily-built schools that collapsed in the Sichuan earthquake last year (while other surrounding buildings remained upright) which form the last place their children were seen. The China that wants to keep an entire town in a semi-destroyed state to create a national site for people to visit and remember the tragic natural disaster which killed thousands (in part due to rushed, poor Chinese architecture). The China which is closing its citizens' eyes to anything they don't want them to know about. The differences between the Chinese higher "education" system and that found in Western countries (seriously, tell me of a European country which requires you take a politics exam in the knowledge of your nation's history and government - according to their version! - and then uses THIS mark over the academic exams to determine where in the country - ie how close to Beijing! - you can study). The China where a "Teaching University" not only has rules on the lowest height permitted for students, but also rules against disabled candidates attending university to become teachers (because a "teacher must be perfect"). The Chinese government which is running scared.
In my gym there's a guy who wears a tshirt saying "I love China more than ever" ... well I hate China more than ever. The more I hear about how life works here the more I will be happy to leave. In 64 days' time I will be on a plane to Dubai, and then home. I know expense scandals, two ongoing stupid wars, and a healthcare system with a questionable future awaits me, but when I compare general life to this, I cannot wait to be back.
Tuesday 12 May 2009
More Happenings From Chinaland
The Chinese reaction to Swine Flu (sorry, Type A H1N1 Influenza) is to aggressively quarantine anyone suspected of having it, or of having been in contact with someone who may have had it. Also, to lock up all of Shanghai's Mexicans, regardless of whether or not they have even BEEN TO MEXICO in the past so many weeks ... So basically, having failed miserably to warn the world about Bird Flu and SARS, neither of which thankfully got off the ground in a big way, the Chinese pendulum now swings to the opposite side. I'm willing to bet that, like the word for "logic", traditional Chinese has no word for "middle ground".
In other news, I went to the post office to send a parcel to my girlfriend and the following conversation took place:
[In the room where you have to buy the boxes, opposite the International Counter itself]
Worker: Go to the counter to check you can send all that in one box. ("All that" is a DVD, an item of clothing, and a letter)
[At the counter]
Worker: You can't send this all together.
Me: Why not?
Worker: This is written stuff, and these are articles. You can send the letter on its own and the items in a box.
Me: Why? I've done it before! Look, I'm not blaming YOU, but every time I come here there is some problem and the workers here all say "Oh it's just the regulations", so today, right now, I would like to see these regulations please.
Worker: (perplexed) I'll just go ask my supervisor. Wait a moment.
[She comes back after a minute or two]
Worker: Just a moment I have to make a phone call.
[Another minute passes]
Worker: Okay you can send them all together.
What the hell was that all about? I'm going back with a Chinese friend and I'm demanding a copy of their regulations now, this is ridiculous, I'm willing to bet half the stuff they've told me is just made up by someone who simply didn't like the aesthetics of whatever it was I was doing (writing addresses in red ink for instance) ... In future I'm just going to hide letters with my articles and sod them, I can even declare a letter's presence on the customs form, since I'm almost certain they don't speak / read English at the International Counter.
What a barmy country. Im home in 71 days.
In other news, I went to the post office to send a parcel to my girlfriend and the following conversation took place:
[In the room where you have to buy the boxes, opposite the International Counter itself]
Worker: Go to the counter to check you can send all that in one box. ("All that" is a DVD, an item of clothing, and a letter)
[At the counter]
Worker: You can't send this all together.
Me: Why not?
Worker: This is written stuff, and these are articles. You can send the letter on its own and the items in a box.
Me: Why? I've done it before! Look, I'm not blaming YOU, but every time I come here there is some problem and the workers here all say "Oh it's just the regulations", so today, right now, I would like to see these regulations please.
Worker: (perplexed) I'll just go ask my supervisor. Wait a moment.
[She comes back after a minute or two]
Worker: Just a moment I have to make a phone call.
[Another minute passes]
Worker: Okay you can send them all together.
What the hell was that all about? I'm going back with a Chinese friend and I'm demanding a copy of their regulations now, this is ridiculous, I'm willing to bet half the stuff they've told me is just made up by someone who simply didn't like the aesthetics of whatever it was I was doing (writing addresses in red ink for instance) ... In future I'm just going to hide letters with my articles and sod them, I can even declare a letter's presence on the customs form, since I'm almost certain they don't speak / read English at the International Counter.
What a barmy country. Im home in 71 days.
Thursday 30 April 2009
Swine Flu
Okay, so it's not here in China (yet), but if news from the UK's officials is anything to go by, it will be round the world in a matter of weeks rather than months (thanks to air travel, mass movement of populations, and so on). Joy. They also said that's just a "maybe" and we'll have to wait and see - don't you just love certainty? - and finally that of the many viruses out there, if you were to choose one, the strain of Swine Flu that seems to be emerging in people outside of Mexico is one of the "better" viruses with which one could hope to be infected. Beautiful.
As and when it does hit China, I am sure the spread across the country will be RAMPANT, thanks to the behaviour of the average Chinese (about which I have blogged previously and at length - think spitting, coughing, sneezing, and so on, all without protective measures like tissues). And I wonder how the Chinese medical system will cope. Actually I don't wonder very much about this at all - those who have money and insurance might be able to get themselves SOME KIND of medication (whether it's on par with Western stuff is doubtful), and in the worst cases there might even be hospital beds (clean? You must be having a giraffe!) and life support systems (in Urumqi, I'm not holding my breath).
The British Embassy kindly sent an email round to say that at the moment there's nothing to worry about, and if there IS a pandemic, there will be no arrangements made to repatriate British citizens (makes you wonder why we paying taxes at all really when our politicians have just given themselves a pay rise but our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are ill-equipped and citizens in a country with a crap healthcare system can't even get a free or discounted emergency ticket home should a disease reach pandemic proportions).
Anyway, I'm rambling a bit; to conclude, I have just 84 days until I leave this country. I hope Swine Flu can wait a little longer to spread itself, but at the same time, if it happens it happens, and I'll just have to deal with it if it happens to me ... now, can anyone send me some Tamiflu? Pretty please?
[[Actually, if it reaches mammoth proportions I wonder if they'll shut the uni down ... in which case Mum, sack off your trip here and I'll be back home ASAP, assuming transport still works!]]
As and when it does hit China, I am sure the spread across the country will be RAMPANT, thanks to the behaviour of the average Chinese (about which I have blogged previously and at length - think spitting, coughing, sneezing, and so on, all without protective measures like tissues). And I wonder how the Chinese medical system will cope. Actually I don't wonder very much about this at all - those who have money and insurance might be able to get themselves SOME KIND of medication (whether it's on par with Western stuff is doubtful), and in the worst cases there might even be hospital beds (clean? You must be having a giraffe!) and life support systems (in Urumqi, I'm not holding my breath).
The British Embassy kindly sent an email round to say that at the moment there's nothing to worry about, and if there IS a pandemic, there will be no arrangements made to repatriate British citizens (makes you wonder why we paying taxes at all really when our politicians have just given themselves a pay rise but our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are ill-equipped and citizens in a country with a crap healthcare system can't even get a free or discounted emergency ticket home should a disease reach pandemic proportions).
Anyway, I'm rambling a bit; to conclude, I have just 84 days until I leave this country. I hope Swine Flu can wait a little longer to spread itself, but at the same time, if it happens it happens, and I'll just have to deal with it if it happens to me ... now, can anyone send me some Tamiflu? Pretty please?
[[Actually, if it reaches mammoth proportions I wonder if they'll shut the uni down ... in which case Mum, sack off your trip here and I'll be back home ASAP, assuming transport still works!]]
Friday 24 April 2009
In Addition to my Previous Post
Following on from the daytrip with XNU, I should add:
1) it was lovely of them not to tell us there'd be cameramen and film crews following us all day, taking our images without permission (did I mention that before or did I forget?)
2) I was speaking to a bloke in the gym, a fourth year Pakistani medical student at the neighbouring medical university and he told me in his first year there they did exactly the same trip, well the tree-planting anyway, complete with photographers and film crews.
Sodding China, all the bloody same.
1) it was lovely of them not to tell us there'd be cameramen and film crews following us all day, taking our images without permission (did I mention that before or did I forget?)
2) I was speaking to a bloke in the gym, a fourth year Pakistani medical student at the neighbouring medical university and he told me in his first year there they did exactly the same trip, well the tree-planting anyway, complete with photographers and film crews.
Sodding China, all the bloody same.
Monday 20 April 2009
A Day Out With Xinjiang Normal University
Last week our teacher told us we were planting trees on Monday. Tanya and I thought she meant just us and a couple of other students (from our class and from others), mainly because we asked her and she seemed to tell us that it was just a chosen few while the others had class. Well, in China, if they say something, NEVER EVER BELIEVE IT.
This morning we got to the school gate and found a coach full of students, from at least four different classes, hardly the "select few" we'd been led to believe. Then it transpires we're going to a power company first, then a consumables company (Maiquer for anyone who knows / cares), then lunch, and finally tree planting in the afternoon. All this accompanied of course by some man (does he work for the uni? who knows?) wearing his CCP lapel badge oh so proudly. Let the fun begin.
The trip to the city / town where all this was taking place took about an hour (though of course no one told us about any of this prior to our arrival in the morning - we thought we'd be planting trees on campus for heaven's sake), and it was getting hot (well in my books it was, almost everyone else on the coach including Marta and Tanya were wearing coats and scarves - it was AT LEAST 20C at this point, that's definitely WARM at least), the A/C wasn't switched on on the bus at any point during the day - stupid Chinese (this is not the first time it has happened).
Anyway this smaller town looked AWESOME compared to Urumqi. I saw a double decker bus (I know! In China! WTF?), the streets were noticeably less crowded, as were the roads, there was visibly less litter, and at a traffic-light-controlled roundabout they had the nifty countdown thing that tells you how long the lights have until they change (also present I might add in a small city in Jiangsu province, maybe 1/10 the size of Urumqi or less) - why the hell is Urumqi so backwards if it's the largest city in this region?!
The trip to the power company (TBEA) was okayyy, nothing special; they tried to give us a quick tour round their show-off room, and they started with an intro in Chinese and English before saying they'd hand over to one of their younger employees who'd just come back from finishing his degree in the USA. Poor bloke, first up he tried to use a mic which actually distorted his voice to the point even I couldn't work out what he was saying, and secondly he was asked (politely) by the group to please talk in Chinese because (surprise surprise) they were 90%+ non-English speakers! Crestfallen, he handed back to his boss who conducted the tour in Chinese while I swam around checking out the scale models of their power plants and so on. There was a video presentation, some questions and answers (during which he asked where we were all from and upon finding out I was English tried to strike up a conversation - awkward? Somewhat, considering I really didn't know what to say!) ... Leaving the building we found a whole workforce apparently putting on a dance for us, until I realised it was just the daily workers' exercise (they troupe you outside, play some silly marching style tape, and you exercise in time to the music - to be honest, while it looks ridiculous due to the wholly Communist overtone of the music / idea in general, forcing people to at least stretch a bit and take some exercise isn't exactly a bad thing, right?)
On to the Maiquer company HQ (or something). Maiquer is a major bread and milk producer in China, for those who don't know. Shame their tour was so crap, it consisted of seeing one largish room filled with merchandise, then outside to a corridor leading down one side of a building - entering this, you had to cover your feet, but it was obvious they didnt clean the covers very well because my first one had chewing gum on it, the dopey girl giving them out thought I was being thick when I held it up and tried to tell me what to do with it, I had to actually hold the chewing gum up to her eye so I could get another cover, seriously they breed retards in this country. Anyway the corridor was just to show off some adverts but actually we were walked through there so fast we hardly had time to notice. We could just have skipped this and gone straight to the cafeteria where they sat us down to drink some milk samples (out of date? Tanya and I thought so, judging by one of the labels), and one of the employeers stood and talked for a long time about the company (he even kept going when it was obvious no one was listening) ... some way through this I took the liberty of going to their toilets. You have to take your shoes off and wear a pair of company-provided sandals (so glad I had my socks still on) to keep the room clean. Not much point though, it stank horribly and looked grotty - I hope they treat their food with more hygiene! *bleurgh*
Lunch was a restaurant affair, heaps of food, way too much, the Chinese tradition of feeding-your-guest-too-much-to-show-hospitality definitely in action there, though from my point of view it just screams WASTE, which is really quite unacceptable given that this nation still defines itself as "developing" and should therefore not be wasting anything! Don't get me started on this. Anyway it was edible and I wasn't sick, my company was good (a Korean family and two Kyrgiz students) and we had no problem making conversation at least!
The final stop of the day was tree planting. We drove out to a dusty field in the middle of nowhere save for some rather large impressive newly-built structures, were given an intro on how to dig the holes, fill them in slightly, plant the tree, complete the filling and move on, and were then issued with shovels, gloves, and some name cards (on which you were supposed to write you name, nationality, the date, and any message you wanted to leave, and the whole thing could be hung on your tree when you finished) and a pen. Bottled water came round later, which was great because by this time it was the hottest part of the day, and even Tanya and Marta were feeling it (jackets off and scarves being used as hats) ... I paired up with a Kazakh girl I didnt know (she's in another class) and we got cracking. She turned out to have some English, but we kept mainly to Chinese for the sake of conversation / learning, but she was good company :) The first hole we dug was great (they had marked out holes in white chalk, to show the rough size needed) but we'd neglected to find a hole with a tree next to it, so there was nothing to plant after all our effort! We moved on to another hole (with a tree this time!) and dug it properly, planted it, and filled out our name cards before taking photos and naming "our child" (Nick by the way, so it can be Nikita or Nicholas depending whether you think it's a boy or a girl we planted) ... Our next tree was much easier, the hole was ready-made but needed neatening up, but there was no digging at least :) Our second tree-child is Chris for anyone that cares (Chris for a boy and Christina for a girl) ... we planted one more, but the effort involved was so much less than for the first two that we didnt fill out cards for it and subsequently never named our third baby tree (aww how sad).
Off home on the coach, where we basically sweltered and tried not to die as the A/C still failed to materialise. Luckily going home seemed quicker than the morning's journey. I'm now at home and have realised I have a very basic sunburn (nothing peeling or burning hot skin just an itchy red) on my forearms. My neck seems to have escaped this time, but I'm going to hunt out the E45 now and invest in some sunblock when I visit the supermarket tomorrow. That's about all, when I put the pics on the computer I'll see about uploading a couple here :)
(Oh and despite the Azerbaijani muppets being there, there wasn't a single incident of ADHD hyperactive disrespectful disobedient nonsense from any of them, all day ... the mind boggles)
This morning we got to the school gate and found a coach full of students, from at least four different classes, hardly the "select few" we'd been led to believe. Then it transpires we're going to a power company first, then a consumables company (Maiquer for anyone who knows / cares), then lunch, and finally tree planting in the afternoon. All this accompanied of course by some man (does he work for the uni? who knows?) wearing his CCP lapel badge oh so proudly. Let the fun begin.
The trip to the city / town where all this was taking place took about an hour (though of course no one told us about any of this prior to our arrival in the morning - we thought we'd be planting trees on campus for heaven's sake), and it was getting hot (well in my books it was, almost everyone else on the coach including Marta and Tanya were wearing coats and scarves - it was AT LEAST 20C at this point, that's definitely WARM at least), the A/C wasn't switched on on the bus at any point during the day - stupid Chinese (this is not the first time it has happened).
Anyway this smaller town looked AWESOME compared to Urumqi. I saw a double decker bus (I know! In China! WTF?), the streets were noticeably less crowded, as were the roads, there was visibly less litter, and at a traffic-light-controlled roundabout they had the nifty countdown thing that tells you how long the lights have until they change (also present I might add in a small city in Jiangsu province, maybe 1/10 the size of Urumqi or less) - why the hell is Urumqi so backwards if it's the largest city in this region?!
The trip to the power company (TBEA) was okayyy, nothing special; they tried to give us a quick tour round their show-off room, and they started with an intro in Chinese and English before saying they'd hand over to one of their younger employees who'd just come back from finishing his degree in the USA. Poor bloke, first up he tried to use a mic which actually distorted his voice to the point even I couldn't work out what he was saying, and secondly he was asked (politely) by the group to please talk in Chinese because (surprise surprise) they were 90%+ non-English speakers! Crestfallen, he handed back to his boss who conducted the tour in Chinese while I swam around checking out the scale models of their power plants and so on. There was a video presentation, some questions and answers (during which he asked where we were all from and upon finding out I was English tried to strike up a conversation - awkward? Somewhat, considering I really didn't know what to say!) ... Leaving the building we found a whole workforce apparently putting on a dance for us, until I realised it was just the daily workers' exercise (they troupe you outside, play some silly marching style tape, and you exercise in time to the music - to be honest, while it looks ridiculous due to the wholly Communist overtone of the music / idea in general, forcing people to at least stretch a bit and take some exercise isn't exactly a bad thing, right?)
On to the Maiquer company HQ (or something). Maiquer is a major bread and milk producer in China, for those who don't know. Shame their tour was so crap, it consisted of seeing one largish room filled with merchandise, then outside to a corridor leading down one side of a building - entering this, you had to cover your feet, but it was obvious they didnt clean the covers very well because my first one had chewing gum on it, the dopey girl giving them out thought I was being thick when I held it up and tried to tell me what to do with it, I had to actually hold the chewing gum up to her eye so I could get another cover, seriously they breed retards in this country. Anyway the corridor was just to show off some adverts but actually we were walked through there so fast we hardly had time to notice. We could just have skipped this and gone straight to the cafeteria where they sat us down to drink some milk samples (out of date? Tanya and I thought so, judging by one of the labels), and one of the employeers stood and talked for a long time about the company (he even kept going when it was obvious no one was listening) ... some way through this I took the liberty of going to their toilets. You have to take your shoes off and wear a pair of company-provided sandals (so glad I had my socks still on) to keep the room clean. Not much point though, it stank horribly and looked grotty - I hope they treat their food with more hygiene! *bleurgh*
Lunch was a restaurant affair, heaps of food, way too much, the Chinese tradition of feeding-your-guest-too-much-to-show-hospitality definitely in action there, though from my point of view it just screams WASTE, which is really quite unacceptable given that this nation still defines itself as "developing" and should therefore not be wasting anything! Don't get me started on this. Anyway it was edible and I wasn't sick, my company was good (a Korean family and two Kyrgiz students) and we had no problem making conversation at least!
The final stop of the day was tree planting. We drove out to a dusty field in the middle of nowhere save for some rather large impressive newly-built structures, were given an intro on how to dig the holes, fill them in slightly, plant the tree, complete the filling and move on, and were then issued with shovels, gloves, and some name cards (on which you were supposed to write you name, nationality, the date, and any message you wanted to leave, and the whole thing could be hung on your tree when you finished) and a pen. Bottled water came round later, which was great because by this time it was the hottest part of the day, and even Tanya and Marta were feeling it (jackets off and scarves being used as hats) ... I paired up with a Kazakh girl I didnt know (she's in another class) and we got cracking. She turned out to have some English, but we kept mainly to Chinese for the sake of conversation / learning, but she was good company :) The first hole we dug was great (they had marked out holes in white chalk, to show the rough size needed) but we'd neglected to find a hole with a tree next to it, so there was nothing to plant after all our effort! We moved on to another hole (with a tree this time!) and dug it properly, planted it, and filled out our name cards before taking photos and naming "our child" (Nick by the way, so it can be Nikita or Nicholas depending whether you think it's a boy or a girl we planted) ... Our next tree was much easier, the hole was ready-made but needed neatening up, but there was no digging at least :) Our second tree-child is Chris for anyone that cares (Chris for a boy and Christina for a girl) ... we planted one more, but the effort involved was so much less than for the first two that we didnt fill out cards for it and subsequently never named our third baby tree (aww how sad).
Off home on the coach, where we basically sweltered and tried not to die as the A/C still failed to materialise. Luckily going home seemed quicker than the morning's journey. I'm now at home and have realised I have a very basic sunburn (nothing peeling or burning hot skin just an itchy red) on my forearms. My neck seems to have escaped this time, but I'm going to hunt out the E45 now and invest in some sunblock when I visit the supermarket tomorrow. That's about all, when I put the pics on the computer I'll see about uploading a couple here :)
(Oh and despite the Azerbaijani muppets being there, there wasn't a single incident of ADHD hyperactive disrespectful disobedient nonsense from any of them, all day ... the mind boggles)
Friday 17 April 2009
A Class Act All The Way
I've not blogged in a while - this is either because nothing's been going on, too much has been going on, or I've become terminally lazy and bored with everything and lost my will to journal events that will probably only make me angry when I read them again. However, I've summoned the strength to do just that, right now, for your benefit. And by benefit I mean "read this, and if you have an inkling of sense you'll never ever come to Xinjiang Normal University".
I've complained about the Stanleys before; but now I realise I've been slightly wrong - the root of the problem lies with three Azerbaijani students (two brothers and one sister). They are a nightmare. The youngest one (16?) cannot produce anything other than a monotonous non-stop tirade of sound when asked to read out loud (ignoring punctuation and even omitting a rest between paragraphs, let alone sentences); the middle sibling (Gulaga, I feel it's okay to mention his name since he writes it on EVERYTHING - the board, the desks, maps on the wall, the windows, you name it) is probably the most annoying possibly-ADHD person I have ever met, and he lacks social skills and a suitable mental age to boot ("teacher teacher pick me pick me", or simply not shutting up when the teacher is talking, or walking round the classroom in the middle of lessons, or - like most of the other students - dashing out when his phone rings to answer a call ... all this from a 17 year old dressed in a suit and carrying a briefcase, playing the man about town), and finally the oldest one, 18 I am told ... he seems to be the most normal of the three but this isn't saying much. He still lacks an attention span or any kind of common manners or courtesy that should be shown toward a teacher / in a university environment.
This week I've had the pleasure of seeing all these Central Asian students packing up their bags and preparing to leave about 10 minutes before the end of the lesson because they figured we were done with the interesting part of the class and the teacher's a bit of a pushover (she is, I have no idea how or why she puts up with so much shit from the class - someone told me on Monday she threw some chalk at these kids ... I said if I was the teacher I would throw the KIDS out of the window and be done with it; I went further to say if I was their teacher they'd all be dead by now, and I'm not kidding.) They need high-speed lead injections to their brains, the sooner the better.
It's not just these younger ones who can't pay attention either though - this week also saw an older woman in the class (I estimated 40+ though my friend says I'm being a bit harsh) committing such an act of duncery (I made that word up but it's rather nice I think you'll agree) that I actually turned around and reprimanded her. Gulaga had just spent a good couple of minutes embarrassing himself by answering the teacher's "What is the abbreviation for this type of train in China?" with "They are green", and I thought after the fairly obvious correction by the teacher there'd be no one else misunderstanding the simple question, but nooooo I was wrong. Behind me, this behemoth of a woman (seriously, she could do with losing a bit of weight) tries to answer the next question (identical but about a different type of train) with "They are white" ... I actually turned round and exasperatedly half-spat the words "ABBREVIATION not COLOUR" in Chinese ... god, would it kill them to listen? And if they don't understand could they just keep shut like I do most of the time?
While I'm on the subject of keeping shut, would it be possible for them to close their gobs while I'm being asked to read out loud? It would be the least they could do.
The worst thing about all this is not that their Chinese is better than mine (after all I kind of expect that from people who learnt all their Chinese in China and who havent had to go to high school because when they got here with Daddy from Azerbaijan he arranged for them to come straight to uni via an admissions contact of his so they wouldnt have to "do Biology, Chemistry, Physics, all those HARD subjects" as the youngest of the three put it) but that this is supposed to be a better class than I was in last semester!
Then again, what do you expect from the university who has not only managed to lose an exchange contract with a British uni (as far as I know, after just 2 years of sending students here, Newcastle has cancelled the exchange, or at least not offered it for this coming year), but also lost a contract with the US State Dept for English teachers (because they treat them all like shit, literally, and they simply wouldn't stand for it). Apparently Anniwar, the useless sack of crap who was supposed to be in charge of the foreign exchange people, has now been moved to a different department (but not sacked for some reason), so maybe there is hope for the future; however, as long as the university keeps allowing un-vetted foreign nationals in on the basis that they have money alone, and until it learns what a university ought to be like, I doubt very much that anything is going to change.
Rant over, I'm off to sleep. This week has been less than exciting. Next week I get to plant a tree or something. See how THAT goes.
DAYS TIL I AM IN THE UK: 95
I've complained about the Stanleys before; but now I realise I've been slightly wrong - the root of the problem lies with three Azerbaijani students (two brothers and one sister). They are a nightmare. The youngest one (16?) cannot produce anything other than a monotonous non-stop tirade of sound when asked to read out loud (ignoring punctuation and even omitting a rest between paragraphs, let alone sentences); the middle sibling (Gulaga, I feel it's okay to mention his name since he writes it on EVERYTHING - the board, the desks, maps on the wall, the windows, you name it) is probably the most annoying possibly-ADHD person I have ever met, and he lacks social skills and a suitable mental age to boot ("teacher teacher pick me pick me", or simply not shutting up when the teacher is talking, or walking round the classroom in the middle of lessons, or - like most of the other students - dashing out when his phone rings to answer a call ... all this from a 17 year old dressed in a suit and carrying a briefcase, playing the man about town), and finally the oldest one, 18 I am told ... he seems to be the most normal of the three but this isn't saying much. He still lacks an attention span or any kind of common manners or courtesy that should be shown toward a teacher / in a university environment.
This week I've had the pleasure of seeing all these Central Asian students packing up their bags and preparing to leave about 10 minutes before the end of the lesson because they figured we were done with the interesting part of the class and the teacher's a bit of a pushover (she is, I have no idea how or why she puts up with so much shit from the class - someone told me on Monday she threw some chalk at these kids ... I said if I was the teacher I would throw the KIDS out of the window and be done with it; I went further to say if I was their teacher they'd all be dead by now, and I'm not kidding.) They need high-speed lead injections to their brains, the sooner the better.
It's not just these younger ones who can't pay attention either though - this week also saw an older woman in the class (I estimated 40+ though my friend says I'm being a bit harsh) committing such an act of duncery (I made that word up but it's rather nice I think you'll agree) that I actually turned around and reprimanded her. Gulaga had just spent a good couple of minutes embarrassing himself by answering the teacher's "What is the abbreviation for this type of train in China?" with "They are green", and I thought after the fairly obvious correction by the teacher there'd be no one else misunderstanding the simple question, but nooooo I was wrong. Behind me, this behemoth of a woman (seriously, she could do with losing a bit of weight) tries to answer the next question (identical but about a different type of train) with "They are white" ... I actually turned round and exasperatedly half-spat the words "ABBREVIATION not COLOUR" in Chinese ... god, would it kill them to listen? And if they don't understand could they just keep shut like I do most of the time?
While I'm on the subject of keeping shut, would it be possible for them to close their gobs while I'm being asked to read out loud? It would be the least they could do.
The worst thing about all this is not that their Chinese is better than mine (after all I kind of expect that from people who learnt all their Chinese in China and who havent had to go to high school because when they got here with Daddy from Azerbaijan he arranged for them to come straight to uni via an admissions contact of his so they wouldnt have to "do Biology, Chemistry, Physics, all those HARD subjects" as the youngest of the three put it) but that this is supposed to be a better class than I was in last semester!
Then again, what do you expect from the university who has not only managed to lose an exchange contract with a British uni (as far as I know, after just 2 years of sending students here, Newcastle has cancelled the exchange, or at least not offered it for this coming year), but also lost a contract with the US State Dept for English teachers (because they treat them all like shit, literally, and they simply wouldn't stand for it). Apparently Anniwar, the useless sack of crap who was supposed to be in charge of the foreign exchange people, has now been moved to a different department (but not sacked for some reason), so maybe there is hope for the future; however, as long as the university keeps allowing un-vetted foreign nationals in on the basis that they have money alone, and until it learns what a university ought to be like, I doubt very much that anything is going to change.
Rant over, I'm off to sleep. This week has been less than exciting. Next week I get to plant a tree or something. See how THAT goes.
DAYS TIL I AM IN THE UK: 95
Friday 20 March 2009
Milk
Milk comes from cows.
Cows exist in China (they must do, they eat enough beef in this corner of the world).
Ergo, milk exists (and must have existed for a long time) in China.
Why then is milk not part of the diet, not involved in any cooking processes, and only a relatively modern addition to the Chinese supermarket shelves? (Also, could they get their act together and start selling it in something more than a 243ml BAG WITH FOIL-COVERED HOLES FOR STRAWS? Oh and UHT milk in cartons does NOT need refrigerating until it has been opened - if you've opened all the milk cartons in the supermarket already, I want to know what's going on!)
Someone please explain :) Thanks!
Cows exist in China (they must do, they eat enough beef in this corner of the world).
Ergo, milk exists (and must have existed for a long time) in China.
Why then is milk not part of the diet, not involved in any cooking processes, and only a relatively modern addition to the Chinese supermarket shelves? (Also, could they get their act together and start selling it in something more than a 243ml BAG WITH FOIL-COVERED HOLES FOR STRAWS? Oh and UHT milk in cartons does NOT need refrigerating until it has been opened - if you've opened all the milk cartons in the supermarket already, I want to know what's going on!)
Someone please explain :) Thanks!
Thursday 19 March 2009
Guess You Had To Be There ...
In the last week I have seen:
* A girl, about 4 years old, squat down outside a clothes market, spill the contents of her bladder on the pavement, not wipe (or even be offered one, the mother was just watching impassively from a distance with the other child), and happily jump up and run back to join them before they walked off, fresh urine gracing the pavement.
* A toddler, about 2 years old, squat and relieve herself on the floor of a restaurant in which I was eating (actually I didn't SEE this, I heard it from where I was sitting, the splash was quite audible thank you - I leaned over the table to check I wasn't imagining things, and the yellow puddle was more than a giveaway). The mother / co-proprietor of the restaurant just said to the grandmother to get the mop. In she comes, I don't even know if the mop was damp let alone wet, there certainly wasn't a bucket to accompany it (the Chinese havent got a clue what mopping is really like or for) and she "mops" the urine up, except it's not really mopping is it? It's just SPREADING it across the floor to evaporate faster.
* Finally, this week I have seen a grandmother sitting outside on a step, grandchild in lap, now you would have the child on a knee or something right? Or sideways? Or facing you? Or anything really, EXCEPT facing out, one leg on each of your legs, the split trousers (remember my rants on them?) gaping open exposing all to the elements and anyone who happens by. I don't know whether the grandmother was making the soothing "shhh" noises they use to encourage their kids to go, and I don't want to know.
I've been told urine is sterile at the point of exit; true or not, you wouldn't clean your pans with urine just because of this, and you would certainly balk if someone had a slash right in front of you, in a dining area no less.
This is foul, disgusting, backwards, dirty, horrible, filthy, unhygienic, irresponsible behaviour, and I cannot see why it is happening in a major city, in a region which borders on at least 7 other countries. What the hell kind of impression do you get of China if THIS is the first place you see, and THESE are the people who live here? I could understand if it was a village maybe, but a fairly developed city of 2 - 3 million people, with cars and internet, chain stores, internationally sourced goods?
Can you imagine Birmingham, Nice, or Dusseldorf with people like this? China needs a kick up the arse (and possibly one to the crotch).
* A girl, about 4 years old, squat down outside a clothes market, spill the contents of her bladder on the pavement, not wipe (or even be offered one, the mother was just watching impassively from a distance with the other child), and happily jump up and run back to join them before they walked off, fresh urine gracing the pavement.
* A toddler, about 2 years old, squat and relieve herself on the floor of a restaurant in which I was eating (actually I didn't SEE this, I heard it from where I was sitting, the splash was quite audible thank you - I leaned over the table to check I wasn't imagining things, and the yellow puddle was more than a giveaway). The mother / co-proprietor of the restaurant just said to the grandmother to get the mop. In she comes, I don't even know if the mop was damp let alone wet, there certainly wasn't a bucket to accompany it (the Chinese havent got a clue what mopping is really like or for) and she "mops" the urine up, except it's not really mopping is it? It's just SPREADING it across the floor to evaporate faster.
* Finally, this week I have seen a grandmother sitting outside on a step, grandchild in lap, now you would have the child on a knee or something right? Or sideways? Or facing you? Or anything really, EXCEPT facing out, one leg on each of your legs, the split trousers (remember my rants on them?) gaping open exposing all to the elements and anyone who happens by. I don't know whether the grandmother was making the soothing "shhh" noises they use to encourage their kids to go, and I don't want to know.
I've been told urine is sterile at the point of exit; true or not, you wouldn't clean your pans with urine just because of this, and you would certainly balk if someone had a slash right in front of you, in a dining area no less.
This is foul, disgusting, backwards, dirty, horrible, filthy, unhygienic, irresponsible behaviour, and I cannot see why it is happening in a major city, in a region which borders on at least 7 other countries. What the hell kind of impression do you get of China if THIS is the first place you see, and THESE are the people who live here? I could understand if it was a village maybe, but a fairly developed city of 2 - 3 million people, with cars and internet, chain stores, internationally sourced goods?
Can you imagine Birmingham, Nice, or Dusseldorf with people like this? China needs a kick up the arse (and possibly one to the crotch).
Thursday 12 March 2009
Some Random Musings on Today and Tomorrow
I'm really quite uninterested in my birthday but for anyone who cares, it's happening tomorrow, I will be 22, and no it is not the first birthday I have had in China so this is yet another reason for it not being special. I will be going to my favourite place in Urumqi - the Texas Cafe - where one of the staff is also celebrating their birthday (a little older than 22 I am told), and from there I don't know, I don't have concrete plans because it seems to be a bigger deal for everyone else than it is for me, and I'm happy enough if I just sit down with some friends and chat.
In other news I woke up this morning, picked slightly at an irritating small scratch that first made itself known on the inside of my left nostril two days ago, and promptly leaked enough blood to fill up my left palm before I made it to the bathroom. Bloody marvellous (pun intended). Still that'll teach me to pick at wounds, as if I didnt learn my lesson 8 years ago.
I then got my timetable confused and went to the wrong class, which happened to be the one not taking place today, so I've missed today's lessons completely. Drat.
On the plus side of it all the weather is LOVELY - sunshine, warm, snow melting away, spring in the air and so on. If only Urumqi had a skydiving centre it would be perfect.
In other news I woke up this morning, picked slightly at an irritating small scratch that first made itself known on the inside of my left nostril two days ago, and promptly leaked enough blood to fill up my left palm before I made it to the bathroom. Bloody marvellous (pun intended). Still that'll teach me to pick at wounds, as if I didnt learn my lesson 8 years ago.
I then got my timetable confused and went to the wrong class, which happened to be the one not taking place today, so I've missed today's lessons completely. Drat.
On the plus side of it all the weather is LOVELY - sunshine, warm, snow melting away, spring in the air and so on. If only Urumqi had a skydiving centre it would be perfect.
Friday 6 March 2009
Back To School
Blah, I've been back less than a week and I've already taken today off ... well it was just reading class, and I suppose I can do the catchup at home; I've moved myself permanently into Intermediate Group 1, which is still (I think) slightly larger than IG2, but (I'm guessing) more productive! The listening work is pretty simple (I think not only has my listening improved, not only is the audio quality a LOT better, but the stuff we are listening to is just EASIER) - I wonder how long this will last, the rest of the class isn't complaining just yet, but their Chinese is better than mine and they must surely be as bored with it as I am (last semester I was bored because I didn't understand enough despite three attempts at listening, now I am bored because I understand 95% of the tapes first time round), plus the teacher takes the lessons really slowly, she doesn't seem to grasp that the material is simple and our Chinese is actually alright by now. *SIGH* ... she also asked a very dunce question of me:
(going round checking people had been noting down words' meanings in their own languages)
her: oh good, good, you looked it up, good. oh, harry, did you look this stuff up? (there is no writing in my book you see)
me: er, sorry? (I didn't understand the word for looking things up, maybe I had forgotten it)
her: did you look these up?
me: "look up"? I don't understand (obviously this was in Chinese)
(she goes to explain it. someone shouts out "did you use a dictionary")
me: *perplexed and a little annoyed that the teacher can be so dense* but the words are given in ENGLISH! i AM English!
her: oh so you understand them all, ah yes i see.
GRAH! WHAT THE HELL?
Apart from that, classes seem to be okay. Chinese people this week have suddenly decided they must ask me "Are you American?", instead of asking where I come from. This invariably results in me telling them exactly where they can go. It's not so much that I mind being called American, it's more that they have the gall to just assume; I don't go around asking if they are Tajiks or Uzbeks for heaven's sake. Another thing that will not score you points is going "WHISSS WHISS" at me in an attempt to get my attention - I am not you dog, you backwards bastards. [The latter happens mainly in markets, not school, though I wouldn't be surprised if next week they all decided that was a decent way to act.]
Oh and in happy-making news, I got my exam results for last semester:
Grammar - 77
Listening and Speaking - 78
Reading - 84
I'm not sure how I pulled off the listening and speaking mark either! Those are all percentages, so they need to be multiplied by 0.85 for conversion to Newcastle's scale, which gives me 65.45, 66.3, and 71.4, a combined conversion of 67.7, not bad considering I swapped to IG1 briefly before the exams but took IG2's exam because I didn't think I would be able to pass IG1 at that time, and didn't revise very well for the IG2 exam anyway :) Makes me think with a bit of effort this semester I might be able to achieve something!
So there you go, I'm back into uni, life continues, oh and it's just 137 days until I leave China. Woop!
(going round checking people had been noting down words' meanings in their own languages)
her: oh good, good, you looked it up, good. oh, harry, did you look this stuff up? (there is no writing in my book you see)
me: er, sorry? (I didn't understand the word for looking things up, maybe I had forgotten it)
her: did you look these up?
me: "look up"? I don't understand (obviously this was in Chinese)
(she goes to explain it. someone shouts out "did you use a dictionary")
me: *perplexed and a little annoyed that the teacher can be so dense* but the words are given in ENGLISH! i AM English!
her: oh so you understand them all, ah yes i see.
GRAH! WHAT THE HELL?
Apart from that, classes seem to be okay. Chinese people this week have suddenly decided they must ask me "Are you American?", instead of asking where I come from. This invariably results in me telling them exactly where they can go. It's not so much that I mind being called American, it's more that they have the gall to just assume; I don't go around asking if they are Tajiks or Uzbeks for heaven's sake. Another thing that will not score you points is going "WHISSS WHISS" at me in an attempt to get my attention - I am not you dog, you backwards bastards. [The latter happens mainly in markets, not school, though I wouldn't be surprised if next week they all decided that was a decent way to act.]
Oh and in happy-making news, I got my exam results for last semester:
Grammar - 77
Listening and Speaking - 78
Reading - 84
I'm not sure how I pulled off the listening and speaking mark either! Those are all percentages, so they need to be multiplied by 0.85 for conversion to Newcastle's scale, which gives me 65.45, 66.3, and 71.4, a combined conversion of 67.7, not bad considering I swapped to IG1 briefly before the exams but took IG2's exam because I didn't think I would be able to pass IG1 at that time, and didn't revise very well for the IG2 exam anyway :) Makes me think with a bit of effort this semester I might be able to achieve something!
So there you go, I'm back into uni, life continues, oh and it's just 137 days until I leave China. Woop!
Monday 2 March 2009
Seasonal Change
It was light at 0900 this morning. What?
It was still light at 2000 this evening. What?
I didn't feel my legs turning to ice as I walked outside. Eh?!
Clearly, changes are afoot.
PS yes I am aware this happens every year. Thank you.
It was still light at 2000 this evening. What?
I didn't feel my legs turning to ice as I walked outside. Eh?!
Clearly, changes are afoot.
PS yes I am aware this happens every year. Thank you.
Chinese Driving License
I wish I knew what they had to do to get a license in China - from the looks of things on the road, not a lot besides rudimentary grasp of what pedal does what and how to turn the steering wheel. Being quick on the brake helps avoid jail, ergo most of them are quite good at that. A lot of people have automatic gearboxes which makes me think they don't actually know much about their cars (for the record, I don't know about how a gearbox really works but I do enjoy the control I have when I drive a manual car over how the engine performs in a given situation) ... the buses are manual-drive and some of the drivers clearly don't know what they're doing, feels like they are taking off in 4th gear sometimes (they may be).
But what gets me the most, and it could just be Urumqi drivers, is reversing. They have not got a clue about going backwards (which is funny considering everything else I say about China and Urumqi is basically saying they are very good at being backwards). Bay parking? Not a clue how to line up. Reversing round a corner? Inch by sodding inch. Part of the reason is they don't think the rear window is very important and it's often blacked out, blocked off, with lots of luggage on it, etc. The other part is, well I'm throwing a wild guess out here, they simply don't get taught about it.
So please, anyone, information on driving licenses in China?
But what gets me the most, and it could just be Urumqi drivers, is reversing. They have not got a clue about going backwards (which is funny considering everything else I say about China and Urumqi is basically saying they are very good at being backwards). Bay parking? Not a clue how to line up. Reversing round a corner? Inch by sodding inch. Part of the reason is they don't think the rear window is very important and it's often blacked out, blocked off, with lots of luggage on it, etc. The other part is, well I'm throwing a wild guess out here, they simply don't get taught about it.
So please, anyone, information on driving licenses in China?
Saturday 28 February 2009
A What A Beautiful Morning
I love waking up. For a few minutes (or however long I spend in my room / house really) I can be not in China. I can use the internet and be someplace else. I can read a book in English. I can think in English or French or just not Chinese for a bit, before I have to go out and face the world.
Well I would be able to if it wasn't for that bleeding idiot on his damn horn again. Seriously, unless you are dead and slumped over the horn, get out of the damn car already.
Days until I am back on British soil: 144 and counting.
Well I would be able to if it wasn't for that bleeding idiot on his damn horn again. Seriously, unless you are dead and slumped over the horn, get out of the damn car already.
Days until I am back on British soil: 144 and counting.
Thursday 26 February 2009
My Holiday Part Four - Shanghai Again
While the weather continued its assault against China we took a 5 hour bus back to the big smoke, Shanghai, where we'd decided our last night in China together was going to be spent somewhere really nice.
* To look at from the outside, the Shanghai Hilton really isn't that elegant. Fortunately, appearances are deceptive and one should never judge a book by its cover.
* When you are a numpty and book a room for the wrong bloody night, it helps to be apologetic and offer to pay any changing fee they may have, but it also helps to have booked the Executive Room and thus appear somewhat above your actual status ;)
* To anyone wondering, yes it was a little expensive. No, it was nowhere near as expensive as you'd pay to stay in the New York, London, Paris or any-other-Western Hilton. Score.
* I don't really know what to say about this bit of the holiday - it was an indulgence in luxury for us both. Staying in the Hilton with a good view of the city, working A/C, windows that opened, 33 floors up, eating out first at Jin Mao tower (the world's highest bar is still Cloud 9 on the 87th floor, a dizzying height which that night put us ABOVE the clouds that hovered low over Shanghai), and then again in Windows Too (a much more down-to-earth establishment both physically and where price is concerned) before coming back to the hotel and crashing out on the bed that (and I quote, almost verbatim I am sure), "can sleep 3 adults" with its multiple pillows and thick soft mattress before having to get up early and make the most of the Executive Lounge breakfast (om nom nom, this was a most satisfying venture).
* Our last day together was just yesterday, but it feels like months ago already. I won't go into grand detail but there were tears and despite the fact we're over halfway through this academic year, my year abroad, the next four and a half months still stretches on into forever. I'm back in Urumqi now and really I'm wishing I wasn't. But I am, and that's how it has to be for the next 140ish days, so I had better crack on with some work and in the words of Lucy, "Learn the Chinese. Learn it good."
* To look at from the outside, the Shanghai Hilton really isn't that elegant. Fortunately, appearances are deceptive and one should never judge a book by its cover.
* When you are a numpty and book a room for the wrong bloody night, it helps to be apologetic and offer to pay any changing fee they may have, but it also helps to have booked the Executive Room and thus appear somewhat above your actual status ;)
* To anyone wondering, yes it was a little expensive. No, it was nowhere near as expensive as you'd pay to stay in the New York, London, Paris or any-other-Western Hilton. Score.
* I don't really know what to say about this bit of the holiday - it was an indulgence in luxury for us both. Staying in the Hilton with a good view of the city, working A/C, windows that opened, 33 floors up, eating out first at Jin Mao tower (the world's highest bar is still Cloud 9 on the 87th floor, a dizzying height which that night put us ABOVE the clouds that hovered low over Shanghai), and then again in Windows Too (a much more down-to-earth establishment both physically and where price is concerned) before coming back to the hotel and crashing out on the bed that (and I quote, almost verbatim I am sure), "can sleep 3 adults" with its multiple pillows and thick soft mattress before having to get up early and make the most of the Executive Lounge breakfast (om nom nom, this was a most satisfying venture).
* Our last day together was just yesterday, but it feels like months ago already. I won't go into grand detail but there were tears and despite the fact we're over halfway through this academic year, my year abroad, the next four and a half months still stretches on into forever. I'm back in Urumqi now and really I'm wishing I wasn't. But I am, and that's how it has to be for the next 140ish days, so I had better crack on with some work and in the words of Lucy, "Learn the Chinese. Learn it good."
My Holiday Part Three - Anhui [Tunxi, Huangshan]
The weather forecast did not look good - rain, rain, a bit of thunder perhaps, and then more goddamn rain. But we had a hostel booked, and Huangshan is supposed to be one of the most beautiful sights in China, so I was determined Lucy and I should at least TRY to see it.
* We moved out to Anhui Province, to a town called Tunxi about 100km from Huangshan (Yellow Mountain), which is what we wanted to see. The bus to Tunxi was about 3 hours, during which time we took in the changing views, as more mountains appeared, and the changing weather, clouds greying up the skyline until we were among them and the beginnings of rain. Architecture changed as well, bringing with it some of the local Hui style buildings, tall and white with black edging and flat roofing which made me comment that you can tell what the climate is like in most places by observing buildings - sloping roofs often mean rainfall, flat roofs often mean drier climes. How wrong was I.
* Arriving in Tunxi we made the discovery that the taxi drivers immediately within the bus station were a) stupid and b) thieving bastards. Having been informed by the hostel that the ride should be no more than 7 rmb, these guys were determined not to use their meters and instead wanted 35 rmb. We haggled for a while, me telling them they had meters and if they were taking us they would damn well use them, them saying it was up to us to haggle. Enough. "Jog on", said we, and followed their directions to the entrance of the complex where taxi drivers were taking people using the meter. The first bloke we met took us and it cost just 5 rmb. Shame he plonked us down at the wrong end of the street, and we had a nice little 10 minute walk with all our luggage along cobbles (the aptly named "Old Street") before reaching our hostel for the next three days.
* The first thing to mention about this hostel - it was FREEZING. They couldnt give us the room I'd booked either, a double-bedded-thing, so instead we had two twin beds in this gigantic room with an A/C unit that failed miserably to raise the temperature even a little. I am by nature quite warm-blooded, and even I found this chilly. Lucy is a cold little creature, if the temperature dips below 10C she gets goosebumps (or so it seems to me) and the room must have been getting close to zero. Brr! But the bed was quite comfortable, the shower worked nicely, the toilet was western and it was clean enough. They had a bar (a little expensive but hey) and some wonderful swallow-you-whole sofas; you could drown in them they were that comfortable.
* Local cuisine was, simply put, oily. We found just one dish that wasn't too thick with oil, and that was because it was a hotpot of soup - better than most I might add. Still, c'est la vie. We made bookings for the next day to go to Huangshan despite the threat of crap weather, and then shivered ourselves into bed. At some point (I forget exactly when) I put a wash on, and then had to deal with the ultimately crap A/C unit that didn't heat nor dry my clothes, and the lack of a tumble drier. By our third day in this hostel, just before leaving, some of my clothes were dry enough to be packed and possibly worn.
* Our trip to Huangshan was a washout. Literally. The skies opened and torrents of rain poured down upon us. The bus ride to Huangshan was about 1 hour, and having bought some provisions (thinking we'd be there a few hours in some reasonable weather) we took a minicab to a destination that was not Huangshan itself but some scenic rivery type place. Ah well, they said we'd not see anything in Huangshan that day anyway what with all the rain and mist. We lasted an hour. After this time we were soaking wet and wanted little else than to be back in the hostel despite the rubbish air temperature back there, and so we just took another bus back and holed up for the rest of the day while I waited for my shoes to dry out and Lucy napped. To anyone who is unaware - Lucy is an awesome napper.
Aside: waiting for the bus back, a bloke pulls up in his car and asks, in Chinese, "to where?" ... I tell him Tunxi and he says, "OK, 150, get in" ... I counter, "Yeah the bus is 15 each, we'll wait" ... "85", he says, "There are no buses now" ... "Oh yeah? Well they [I gesture to the Chinese behind me] say there are, and I know there are, and we'll wait thanks" ... At that moment a bus shows itself and indeed the going rate is just 15. In one way I can't blame them for trying, but I wish to hell they'd just piss off and leave me alone, simply because I have white skin I really don't need their hawking like I'm just some other foreigner who wandered into China without Chinese or local knowledge.
On the plus side we DID get to see part of where Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon was filmed, something that definitely got Lucy's interest, so I suppose it was a win!
* We moved out to Anhui Province, to a town called Tunxi about 100km from Huangshan (Yellow Mountain), which is what we wanted to see. The bus to Tunxi was about 3 hours, during which time we took in the changing views, as more mountains appeared, and the changing weather, clouds greying up the skyline until we were among them and the beginnings of rain. Architecture changed as well, bringing with it some of the local Hui style buildings, tall and white with black edging and flat roofing which made me comment that you can tell what the climate is like in most places by observing buildings - sloping roofs often mean rainfall, flat roofs often mean drier climes. How wrong was I.
* Arriving in Tunxi we made the discovery that the taxi drivers immediately within the bus station were a) stupid and b) thieving bastards. Having been informed by the hostel that the ride should be no more than 7 rmb, these guys were determined not to use their meters and instead wanted 35 rmb. We haggled for a while, me telling them they had meters and if they were taking us they would damn well use them, them saying it was up to us to haggle. Enough. "Jog on", said we, and followed their directions to the entrance of the complex where taxi drivers were taking people using the meter. The first bloke we met took us and it cost just 5 rmb. Shame he plonked us down at the wrong end of the street, and we had a nice little 10 minute walk with all our luggage along cobbles (the aptly named "Old Street") before reaching our hostel for the next three days.
* The first thing to mention about this hostel - it was FREEZING. They couldnt give us the room I'd booked either, a double-bedded-thing, so instead we had two twin beds in this gigantic room with an A/C unit that failed miserably to raise the temperature even a little. I am by nature quite warm-blooded, and even I found this chilly. Lucy is a cold little creature, if the temperature dips below 10C she gets goosebumps (or so it seems to me) and the room must have been getting close to zero. Brr! But the bed was quite comfortable, the shower worked nicely, the toilet was western and it was clean enough. They had a bar (a little expensive but hey) and some wonderful swallow-you-whole sofas; you could drown in them they were that comfortable.
* Local cuisine was, simply put, oily. We found just one dish that wasn't too thick with oil, and that was because it was a hotpot of soup - better than most I might add. Still, c'est la vie. We made bookings for the next day to go to Huangshan despite the threat of crap weather, and then shivered ourselves into bed. At some point (I forget exactly when) I put a wash on, and then had to deal with the ultimately crap A/C unit that didn't heat nor dry my clothes, and the lack of a tumble drier. By our third day in this hostel, just before leaving, some of my clothes were dry enough to be packed and possibly worn.
* Our trip to Huangshan was a washout. Literally. The skies opened and torrents of rain poured down upon us. The bus ride to Huangshan was about 1 hour, and having bought some provisions (thinking we'd be there a few hours in some reasonable weather) we took a minicab to a destination that was not Huangshan itself but some scenic rivery type place. Ah well, they said we'd not see anything in Huangshan that day anyway what with all the rain and mist. We lasted an hour. After this time we were soaking wet and wanted little else than to be back in the hostel despite the rubbish air temperature back there, and so we just took another bus back and holed up for the rest of the day while I waited for my shoes to dry out and Lucy napped. To anyone who is unaware - Lucy is an awesome napper.
Aside: waiting for the bus back, a bloke pulls up in his car and asks, in Chinese, "to where?" ... I tell him Tunxi and he says, "OK, 150, get in" ... I counter, "Yeah the bus is 15 each, we'll wait" ... "85", he says, "There are no buses now" ... "Oh yeah? Well they [I gesture to the Chinese behind me] say there are, and I know there are, and we'll wait thanks" ... At that moment a bus shows itself and indeed the going rate is just 15. In one way I can't blame them for trying, but I wish to hell they'd just piss off and leave me alone, simply because I have white skin I really don't need their hawking like I'm just some other foreigner who wandered into China without Chinese or local knowledge.
On the plus side we DID get to see part of where Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon was filmed, something that definitely got Lucy's interest, so I suppose it was a win!
My Holiday Part Two - Zhejiang [Hangzhou]
Following on from Lucy's arrival and our first night in Shanghai, here is a brief summary of what happened when we went to Hangzhou (in neighbouring Zhejiang Province).
* Day two was spent getting to Hangzhou. Maybe we should have gone to Shanghai South Railway station (I thought there were more trains from Shanghai Railway station though) or got the bus, who knows, we ended up at Shanghai railway with 4 hours before the next train to Hangzhou (this around 1130 as well!) and all our bags so half our afternoon was spent in the waiting lounge just chatting, fidgeting, reading, taking photos and playing games ... great, come to China, sit in a waiting room. But she didn't seem to mind :) Arriving in Hangzhou we finally found the taxi queue and it was long. Not as long as it took to get to our hostel though - the driver missed the destination and we found ourselves walking up a road with no real idea where the place was; luckily we were only a few minutes off target.
* The hostel in Hangzhou was lovely - we had a great room with a four-poster-bed, a showerhead which looked like the sun was raining on us, and A/C that really worked! Cheaper, and better than the hotel. What more could we want? The hostel had a deal with a local restaurant and we got 10% off our meal, so of course we went there the next night as well (though for some reason on that occasion one of the staff felt the need to come over to our table and attempt to talk with us. Actually not with us. Just with Lucy, his first words in English being, "Are you very beautiful?") ... one thing that surprised me was all the restaurants shut at about 2200, which was a bit awkward if you wanted a late meal ... and there were no local shops either. Hmm.
* Our second day in Hangzhou took us to West Lake where we dallied for a long while on the causeway, stopping frequently to admire the views and just hang out together on benches. With your back turned few people notice you are foreign, and so we enjoyed some quiet time. Lunch was reasonable, and then we took a walk to Long Yin Temple (I think that's the name anyway) - should really have taken a taxi but I thought it was closer than it was. Ah well we got exercise at least! And the day was beautiful for walking. We had just enough time for a quick (45 minute) look around one section of the complex, a place I'd been to in 2006, and then they were closing the gates. A young couple gave us a lift back to the hostel for free (they said they were going to Shanghai anyway and the man's logic was that if he was in England I would do the same for him, which is true), which saved all that stupid haggling with rip-you-off-given-half-a-chance "taxi" drivers.
With bad weather approaching, we set out the next day for Anhui Province.
* Day two was spent getting to Hangzhou. Maybe we should have gone to Shanghai South Railway station (I thought there were more trains from Shanghai Railway station though) or got the bus, who knows, we ended up at Shanghai railway with 4 hours before the next train to Hangzhou (this around 1130 as well!) and all our bags so half our afternoon was spent in the waiting lounge just chatting, fidgeting, reading, taking photos and playing games ... great, come to China, sit in a waiting room. But she didn't seem to mind :) Arriving in Hangzhou we finally found the taxi queue and it was long. Not as long as it took to get to our hostel though - the driver missed the destination and we found ourselves walking up a road with no real idea where the place was; luckily we were only a few minutes off target.
* The hostel in Hangzhou was lovely - we had a great room with a four-poster-bed, a showerhead which looked like the sun was raining on us, and A/C that really worked! Cheaper, and better than the hotel. What more could we want? The hostel had a deal with a local restaurant and we got 10% off our meal, so of course we went there the next night as well (though for some reason on that occasion one of the staff felt the need to come over to our table and attempt to talk with us. Actually not with us. Just with Lucy, his first words in English being, "Are you very beautiful?") ... one thing that surprised me was all the restaurants shut at about 2200, which was a bit awkward if you wanted a late meal ... and there were no local shops either. Hmm.
* Our second day in Hangzhou took us to West Lake where we dallied for a long while on the causeway, stopping frequently to admire the views and just hang out together on benches. With your back turned few people notice you are foreign, and so we enjoyed some quiet time. Lunch was reasonable, and then we took a walk to Long Yin Temple (I think that's the name anyway) - should really have taken a taxi but I thought it was closer than it was. Ah well we got exercise at least! And the day was beautiful for walking. We had just enough time for a quick (45 minute) look around one section of the complex, a place I'd been to in 2006, and then they were closing the gates. A young couple gave us a lift back to the hostel for free (they said they were going to Shanghai anyway and the man's logic was that if he was in England I would do the same for him, which is true), which saved all that stupid haggling with rip-you-off-given-half-a-chance "taxi" drivers.
With bad weather approaching, we set out the next day for Anhui Province.
My Holiday Part One - Jiangsu, Shanghai, and Lucy's Arrival
I've been off for a couple of weeks - trying to get some relaxation away from Urumqi (to be honest, once you've been here 6 months, anywhere feels more relaxing / just plain better) ... My first week away wasn't the MOST enjoyable - I think I stayed a couple of days too long at an old friend's place and ended up feeling quite bad about it - not because he wasn't hospitable but because our views on some things differed greatly and after a couple of arguments there really wasn't much else to say. I should just have left. Well I suppose you live and learn.
At least I got to see ONE of my former Chinese students, and maybe I'll see more in July before I come home; and as you've maybe read, I had a drab day in Suzhou, culminating with a couple of hours in a smoky internet cafe half-heartedly updating this blog among other things, before I spent an inordinate amount of cash on some alright coffee and read a book for a bit.
The night before Lucy arrived I really couldn't sleep. It didn't even matter that I'd been out with some friends for a meal and then to a bar, where we'd stayed until I was nicely tipsy. My sleep was fitful and inadequate; sure I got my head down but when I woke up it still wasn't enough. Oh well no time to complain - Lucy's coming to China! :) I forgot the location of our hotel for the first night and spent a frantic half hour working out where we were supposed to be - fortunately I got the information just in time to leave for the airport, taking the bus because it was cheapest and to save the thrill of the Maglev for when I was actually with Lucy (the thrill mainly being hers - I've ridden it at least 4 times before). I think from here in I'll keep things short else you'll be here forever:
* She arrived. Sounds obvious doesnt it? But it's true and it made us both very happy. Within minutes we were bantering like we'd been apart 6 minutes not 6 months. Also my handdrawn "Welcome to China" sign with her name (in English and Chinese) went down well :) Maybe I will post a photo of it later.
* The hotel was adequate. I hadn't gone overboard for the first night, and if the thermostat had worked better we would probably have given the entire place 9 / 10 (clean the carpet and I'd give it a 10) but with the stuffy air inside the room and no way to fix it, my rating sinks to about 5 / 10. I don't know what Lucy thinks, but I'm guessing she mostly agrees. We spent the first day slumming in the hotel room, strolling around the Bund (the Pudong Development Bank interior is still wonderful), sampling some "normal" (ie: cheap, standard-for-Chinese-people) food and then flopping out because the A/C was still crap and the windows didn't open.
Well you win some you lose some, right? And hey, we still had each other :)
At least I got to see ONE of my former Chinese students, and maybe I'll see more in July before I come home; and as you've maybe read, I had a drab day in Suzhou, culminating with a couple of hours in a smoky internet cafe half-heartedly updating this blog among other things, before I spent an inordinate amount of cash on some alright coffee and read a book for a bit.
The night before Lucy arrived I really couldn't sleep. It didn't even matter that I'd been out with some friends for a meal and then to a bar, where we'd stayed until I was nicely tipsy. My sleep was fitful and inadequate; sure I got my head down but when I woke up it still wasn't enough. Oh well no time to complain - Lucy's coming to China! :) I forgot the location of our hotel for the first night and spent a frantic half hour working out where we were supposed to be - fortunately I got the information just in time to leave for the airport, taking the bus because it was cheapest and to save the thrill of the Maglev for when I was actually with Lucy (the thrill mainly being hers - I've ridden it at least 4 times before). I think from here in I'll keep things short else you'll be here forever:
* She arrived. Sounds obvious doesnt it? But it's true and it made us both very happy. Within minutes we were bantering like we'd been apart 6 minutes not 6 months. Also my handdrawn "Welcome to China" sign with her name (in English and Chinese) went down well :) Maybe I will post a photo of it later.
* The hotel was adequate. I hadn't gone overboard for the first night, and if the thermostat had worked better we would probably have given the entire place 9 / 10 (clean the carpet and I'd give it a 10) but with the stuffy air inside the room and no way to fix it, my rating sinks to about 5 / 10. I don't know what Lucy thinks, but I'm guessing she mostly agrees. We spent the first day slumming in the hotel room, strolling around the Bund (the Pudong Development Bank interior is still wonderful), sampling some "normal" (ie: cheap, standard-for-Chinese-people) food and then flopping out because the A/C was still crap and the windows didn't open.
Well you win some you lose some, right? And hey, we still had each other :)
Monday 16 February 2009
I Cannot Wait ...
I am holed up in a smokey Suzhou net cafe as I type this, the weather being abysmal (overcast, rainy, a bit windy) and my friends (who were going to meet me in this city) busy with their first day back at uni ... bah, I will have to see them in July before I come home. Suzhou is supposed to be beautiful; I imagine some days it is, just not today. I've seen only Western-style places and I'm really somewhat bored. I can't even go back to my host's house (in a town 30 minutes away) for another couple of hours because he and his wife are at work. Ah well. In better news, I have ordered an air ticket back to Urumqi for the 25th, and will collect it (and pay for it!) tomorrow, before doing not-very-much for the rest of the day and then going out with my French friend Pascal in the evening ... before Wednesday morning which will undoubtedly be the highlight of the last six months :) I'm a mix of impatient and nervous and until Wednesday I have a feeling that time is going to slow down for me and everything is going to feel like it takes forever ...
Hours until Lucy arrives: approximately 44
Which is 44 too many.
For now I'm off to a coffee bar to sketch some stuff and maybe write a brief letter before heading back to Wujiang and supper and another night with freezing hands because it's not cold enough down here for the local govt to put heating of any sort on so I've got used to a 20C house in middle-of-winter Urumqi and I'm having a hard time getting used to the iceblocks on the ends of my arms now. Vive Wednesday!
Hours until Lucy arrives: approximately 44
Which is 44 too many.
For now I'm off to a coffee bar to sketch some stuff and maybe write a brief letter before heading back to Wujiang and supper and another night with freezing hands because it's not cold enough down here for the local govt to put heating of any sort on so I've got used to a 20C house in middle-of-winter Urumqi and I'm having a hard time getting used to the iceblocks on the ends of my arms now. Vive Wednesday!
Saturday 7 February 2009
Make Your Mind Up
Apologies if I've said this before (I've not checked) but here's something that really irks me, and it's on my mind because someone in class raised it today. People here often blame something I think of as "useless" or "backwards" on China being a "developing country". Well here's the problem: YOU HOSTED THE OLYMPIC GAMES. You might not have done a very good job of it (urgh, don't get me started on Chinese mentality, one example springs to mind of a stadium that was less than packed despite propaganda saying all tickets were sold out; someone complained and the organisers' response was, "Okay tomorrow there will be people, we will find as many uni students as possible, they will be there, and they will be chanting GO GO BEIJING, GO OLYMPICS GO!" When countered with the obvious, "But that's not very spontaneous or exciting" they nonplussed reply went something like, "There will be people there, they will be chanting, they will be excited, what's the problem?"), but you hosted them nonetheless.
China defines itself as a developing country. It leans on this crutch wherever possible. Its schoolchildren are raised to counter queries about the retarded aspects of life here with that as a standard response. I call bullshit. That or China needs to stop lying and accept that it cannot be a developing country if it has hosted the Olympic Games (on this note please do not get me started on why the UK has it for 2012 - yes we are technically "developed" but I think this is a false appearance and that a country really ought to be able to look after its own before taking the masses of others for a sporting event; granted we're not as bad as China though!)
Well it's that or someone in the IOC needs to admit they made one hell of a mistake giving China the games!
China defines itself as a developing country. It leans on this crutch wherever possible. Its schoolchildren are raised to counter queries about the retarded aspects of life here with that as a standard response. I call bullshit. That or China needs to stop lying and accept that it cannot be a developing country if it has hosted the Olympic Games (on this note please do not get me started on why the UK has it for 2012 - yes we are technically "developed" but I think this is a false appearance and that a country really ought to be able to look after its own before taking the masses of others for a sporting event; granted we're not as bad as China though!)
Well it's that or someone in the IOC needs to admit they made one hell of a mistake giving China the games!
Monday 2 February 2009
Normal Service ...
... will resume whenever my computer gets a new charger, at the earliest tomorrow, at the latest on Feb 18 (though Lucy will probably not look too kindly on my jumping on the Mac immediately after she arrives in China, so let's be realistic and say Feb 19 while she sleeps off the jetlag ;) ha ha)
I have written to Apple informing them of my disappointment with some of their products (as well as asking a lot of questions), and I am waiting for the eBay seller whose goods (a 3rd party Apple-compatible charger) were supposed to arrive days ago and who is still evading my question "to which address did you send it?" ... I am NOT a happy bunny.
I have written to Apple informing them of my disappointment with some of their products (as well as asking a lot of questions), and I am waiting for the eBay seller whose goods (a 3rd party Apple-compatible charger) were supposed to arrive days ago and who is still evading my question "to which address did you send it?" ... I am NOT a happy bunny.
Monday 12 January 2009
"Winter Wonderland" (Marlene's Visit Part 1)
Those were the words Marlene used to describe Urumqi on our walk back to my flat after her arrival. Yay, I have a guest, even if her views on this city are slightly different to my own ;) Before I get too many raised eyebrows, Marlene's a fellow student of mine from back home, though she chose to spend this year in sunny (and temporarily cholera-ridden) Haikou, the capital city of Hainan Island in the south of China. (To be precise, off the coast of the mainland, but not Taiwan!) ... Most of the last five months has been a pleasant 25C for her, so arriving at 0100 on Sunday morning, the balmy -15C of Xinjiang was quite a shock, but fortunately not enough to put her off the place!
In the last two days I've done more than I probably do in an average week - that either says something about my extreme laziness, my empty routine, or the fact that when fresh eyes are present there is suddenly more to do and see. Following her arrival we got a taxi back to my place ... let me pause here to tell you about taxis from Chinese transport hubs:
1) When you step out of the airport (most commonly), there will be Chinese people trying to "advise" you not to take a taxi and instead come with them, because "you won't get ripped off, it will be cheaper than a taxi" - tell them NO THANK YOU. Lots.
2) When you get a taxi, it doesn't matter how fluently you speak in Chinese and know the local area (I have been here 5 months, I know exactly where I live thank you and I can tell the driver with 100% accuracy where I need / want to go, especially when that place is my HOUSE), they will just smile and nod and think "okay so he speaks Chinese" but assume you came in from another Chinese city, because you're at an airport. This is bad because he then thinks he can rip you off.
3) When the taxi driver pulls out of the airport, he might need payment for his entrance fee to the airport. This is usually quite cheap (5RMB or so), so even if he's ripping you off, it's not by much. However, the then thinks it's okay not to use the meter - even when you shout at him in Chinese to use it - instead, he "calls his boss" (yeah right, he rings his mate on the CB radio to tell them he has foreigners in his cab, ha ha), and says if he doesn't use the meter, you'll get a better deal. This can be avoided if you know how much a journey should cost and tell him that if he doesnt use the meter he will get just X RMB, the value it ought to be. Finally, yell at him, and make sure he understands in no uncertain terms that you want the meter ON, RUNNING, and that this is not an optional situation.
The chap eventually got the meter running properly (instead of in "scam" mode) and had a laugh about how I was no fool to the system and couldn't be tricked by him. Awww what a shame, buddy, I suppose you think this paints a beautiful picture of life in China when the first thing tourists encounter is one group after another of thieving bastards ...
So back to the main theme, we arrived at my flat around 0200, and were supposed to have hot chocolate and go to bed, but of course ended up talking until about 0430 ... c'est la vie. A lazy morning followed, and I think we were finally out of the house by 1300, to eat lunch (丁丁炒面 for anyone remotely interested) and then onto the post office via a card shop (Mum I have sent Nana a card, I apologise if it is late and I definitely apologise for the conduct of China Post who made me mess up the outside of the envelope because writing an address (or even a return address!!!) is not allowed in red according to their "regulations" - one of these days I am going to go postal (excuse pun) on them and their crappy regulations that mess up EVERYTHING). From the post office we went to a China Mobile to top up Marlene's phone but to our complete lack of shock discovered that branch couldn't do it (not big enough, didnt have the right equipment, or just staffed by imbeciles, who knows?) so we'd have to go to another location (argh, China, in the words of a drill sergeant I once knew, "SORT YOUR SHAGGING LIFE OUT!").
We finally found the other store and then it was no problem to top up her phone; our next stop was a large shopping centre, but today's exhibition of stalls were mainly food based. Word to the wise, Chinese sausages come in all manner of shapes and sizes, most of which are unappealing and the smell of which will most likely make your gag reflex work overtime. Also, salespeople are doubly (if not triply) annoying when they wear a microphone and speak into a loudspeaker despite their stall being tiny and everyone else doing the same thing; we got out of there pretty quickly! The next stop was a large market (Xiao Shou Men, or however it is) to hunt down some thermal leggings and see if we could get Marlene some boots. We succeeded in finding leggings, gloves (Marlene now sports some pretty ladybird mittens), sampling some fried food (friend apple waffle turned out to be alright!) and trawling stalls for a good hour or so in the hope of finding cheap corduroy trousers (we didn't). Aside, Chinese people think "hello, hello" means "come here and look at my stall", which is annoying - best policy, just ignore them.
We stopped off at the same restaurant as before for a lag maan dinner (Marlene's first), and then home for hot chocolates, watching a film (to anyone reading, see Wall-E, it's good!) and bed before 0400. A good first day for Marlene!
In the last two days I've done more than I probably do in an average week - that either says something about my extreme laziness, my empty routine, or the fact that when fresh eyes are present there is suddenly more to do and see. Following her arrival we got a taxi back to my place ... let me pause here to tell you about taxis from Chinese transport hubs:
1) When you step out of the airport (most commonly), there will be Chinese people trying to "advise" you not to take a taxi and instead come with them, because "you won't get ripped off, it will be cheaper than a taxi" - tell them NO THANK YOU. Lots.
2) When you get a taxi, it doesn't matter how fluently you speak in Chinese and know the local area (I have been here 5 months, I know exactly where I live thank you and I can tell the driver with 100% accuracy where I need / want to go, especially when that place is my HOUSE), they will just smile and nod and think "okay so he speaks Chinese" but assume you came in from another Chinese city, because you're at an airport. This is bad because he then thinks he can rip you off.
3) When the taxi driver pulls out of the airport, he might need payment for his entrance fee to the airport. This is usually quite cheap (5RMB or so), so even if he's ripping you off, it's not by much. However, the then thinks it's okay not to use the meter - even when you shout at him in Chinese to use it - instead, he "calls his boss" (yeah right, he rings his mate on the CB radio to tell them he has foreigners in his cab, ha ha), and says if he doesn't use the meter, you'll get a better deal. This can be avoided if you know how much a journey should cost and tell him that if he doesnt use the meter he will get just X RMB, the value it ought to be. Finally, yell at him, and make sure he understands in no uncertain terms that you want the meter ON, RUNNING, and that this is not an optional situation.
The chap eventually got the meter running properly (instead of in "scam" mode) and had a laugh about how I was no fool to the system and couldn't be tricked by him. Awww what a shame, buddy, I suppose you think this paints a beautiful picture of life in China when the first thing tourists encounter is one group after another of thieving bastards ...
So back to the main theme, we arrived at my flat around 0200, and were supposed to have hot chocolate and go to bed, but of course ended up talking until about 0430 ... c'est la vie. A lazy morning followed, and I think we were finally out of the house by 1300, to eat lunch (丁丁炒面 for anyone remotely interested) and then onto the post office via a card shop (Mum I have sent Nana a card, I apologise if it is late and I definitely apologise for the conduct of China Post who made me mess up the outside of the envelope because writing an address (or even a return address!!!) is not allowed in red according to their "regulations" - one of these days I am going to go postal (excuse pun) on them and their crappy regulations that mess up EVERYTHING). From the post office we went to a China Mobile to top up Marlene's phone but to our complete lack of shock discovered that branch couldn't do it (not big enough, didnt have the right equipment, or just staffed by imbeciles, who knows?) so we'd have to go to another location (argh, China, in the words of a drill sergeant I once knew, "SORT YOUR SHAGGING LIFE OUT!").
We finally found the other store and then it was no problem to top up her phone; our next stop was a large shopping centre, but today's exhibition of stalls were mainly food based. Word to the wise, Chinese sausages come in all manner of shapes and sizes, most of which are unappealing and the smell of which will most likely make your gag reflex work overtime. Also, salespeople are doubly (if not triply) annoying when they wear a microphone and speak into a loudspeaker despite their stall being tiny and everyone else doing the same thing; we got out of there pretty quickly! The next stop was a large market (Xiao Shou Men, or however it is) to hunt down some thermal leggings and see if we could get Marlene some boots. We succeeded in finding leggings, gloves (Marlene now sports some pretty ladybird mittens), sampling some fried food (friend apple waffle turned out to be alright!) and trawling stalls for a good hour or so in the hope of finding cheap corduroy trousers (we didn't). Aside, Chinese people think "hello, hello" means "come here and look at my stall", which is annoying - best policy, just ignore them.
We stopped off at the same restaurant as before for a lag maan dinner (Marlene's first), and then home for hot chocolates, watching a film (to anyone reading, see Wall-E, it's good!) and bed before 0400. A good first day for Marlene!
Thursday 8 January 2009
Things I Have Seen (And Will Forget If I Don't Blog Now)
At the gym this evening, in the showers:
* Two men alternately sharing a shower because there were none left. JUST WAIT FOR IT TO BE FREE.
* A grown man having soap rubbed on his upper back and shoulders by another grown man, also in the shower. WTF?
* A man (mid-fifties I would say) brushing his teeth in the shower. Frothy mouth, spitting on the floor and everything.
There is a reason I normally try to go at off-peak times. There are lots of reasons my sandals have become part of my shower gear.
* Two men alternately sharing a shower because there were none left. JUST WAIT FOR IT TO BE FREE.
* A grown man having soap rubbed on his upper back and shoulders by another grown man, also in the shower. WTF?
* A man (mid-fifties I would say) brushing his teeth in the shower. Frothy mouth, spitting on the floor and everything.
There is a reason I normally try to go at off-peak times. There are lots of reasons my sandals have become part of my shower gear.
Wednesday 7 January 2009
Tai Da Le (太大了)
The title of this entry "tai da le", means "too big", and is something I hear a lot when discussing China with Chinese people. It usually starts by me saying that I prefer England to China because (diplomatically) I don't like big cities and English cities are smaller than Chinese ones. This usually leads the Chinese person to smile (maybe even laugh) and make the comment "中国太大了" ("China is too big").
I can see an obvious solution to this problem, which would also please the Dalai Lama and countless Uyghurs in this region ;)
Funny how no one in China seems to draw the same conclusion (ha ha).
I can see an obvious solution to this problem, which would also please the Dalai Lama and countless Uyghurs in this region ;)
Funny how no one in China seems to draw the same conclusion (ha ha).
Shrapnel
For the benefit of those not from the UK, "shrapnel" is what we affectionately call our lowest denomination coinage, since our 1p and 2p pieces are brown (another term is "coppers"), small, and have (I'm almost positive) been used in terrorists' bombs over the years as a cheap and ironic way of damaging / killing while implying the reason for the trouble in the first place lies with England (the Queen is pictured on our coins) ... I digress for the sake of clarifying this entry's title.
In Australia, they don't have 1c and 2c pieces. Everything is in denominations of 5c. This is because the government down under realised the very smallest coins were basically pointless and not worth carrying around. This is sensible, Britain should follow suit. We should also have plastic money, a better health service, and Christmas in the summer ;) But China takes it to a whole new level.
* At the top there is the Yuan (元) (also called the Ren Min Bi 人民币, or People's Currency as it literally translates).
* Next comes the Jiao (nicknamed the Mao) - there are 10 Jiao to a Yuan, effectively every Jiao is a 10p piece, and every Yuan is a pound in this system.
* Finally there are the Fen, 10 fen to a jiao, effectively these are the "pennies" of the Chinese system.
However, because economies work differently, the fen is basically useless. Even today with a crashing pound and the world market in a crisis, one fen is worth just £0.001, or 1/10th of a British penny. When I came to China it was worth even less than that, but that's a story of happier economic times. Anyway, 1/10th of a penny will not get you anything, even in China, even in Urumqi (one of the cheapest places going I believe). The only time one encounters this phenomenon is in supermarkets, and I HATE it. If my bill was 99 Yuan, and I gave 100, I would get 1 Yuan change. If it was 99.50, I would get 5 Jiao change (the Jiao are actually worth something you see, and theyre relatively easy to keep track of, since theyre almost 100% in note form), but if the bill is 99.01, I will get a few Jiao and an irritating Fen or two for good measure. The Fen come in denominations of 5 and 1 (remember there are 10 fen to the JIAO, damn it!) and they are small coins made of cheap metal, the kind that feels like plastic.
In an otherwise 99.9% note-based system, this is just ridiculous. The government would do well to just get rid of this part of currency since it serves almost no purpose, and the coins must be worth more than their stated value, which might as well read "fuck all".
In Australia, they don't have 1c and 2c pieces. Everything is in denominations of 5c. This is because the government down under realised the very smallest coins were basically pointless and not worth carrying around. This is sensible, Britain should follow suit. We should also have plastic money, a better health service, and Christmas in the summer ;) But China takes it to a whole new level.
* At the top there is the Yuan (元) (also called the Ren Min Bi 人民币, or People's Currency as it literally translates).
* Next comes the Jiao (nicknamed the Mao) - there are 10 Jiao to a Yuan, effectively every Jiao is a 10p piece, and every Yuan is a pound in this system.
* Finally there are the Fen, 10 fen to a jiao, effectively these are the "pennies" of the Chinese system.
However, because economies work differently, the fen is basically useless. Even today with a crashing pound and the world market in a crisis, one fen is worth just £0.001, or 1/10th of a British penny. When I came to China it was worth even less than that, but that's a story of happier economic times. Anyway, 1/10th of a penny will not get you anything, even in China, even in Urumqi (one of the cheapest places going I believe). The only time one encounters this phenomenon is in supermarkets, and I HATE it. If my bill was 99 Yuan, and I gave 100, I would get 1 Yuan change. If it was 99.50, I would get 5 Jiao change (the Jiao are actually worth something you see, and theyre relatively easy to keep track of, since theyre almost 100% in note form), but if the bill is 99.01, I will get a few Jiao and an irritating Fen or two for good measure. The Fen come in denominations of 5 and 1 (remember there are 10 fen to the JIAO, damn it!) and they are small coins made of cheap metal, the kind that feels like plastic.
In an otherwise 99.9% note-based system, this is just ridiculous. The government would do well to just get rid of this part of currency since it serves almost no purpose, and the coins must be worth more than their stated value, which might as well read "fuck all".
Welcome to 2009
Oh boy, it's been forever since I journalled. I'm sure lots has happened, but in the interests of cutting down a ramble, I'd like to keep this entry short (that's so I can make more specific, detailed, and possibly ranty entries in just a moment) ... I hope everyone's (Western) New Year was enjoyable and that there are peaceful and successful times ahead for everyone. I would also hope that everyone had as good a New Year as I did - this is probably the first year in about the last four (definitely the last three) that I have had a better-than-mediocre time. In fact a couple of my more recent New Years have been downright abysmal. If Jibby is reading this, I'd like to apologise for terming last New Year better-than-mediocre ... it was fun ... but if you take "sitting around drinking with one friend" as "fun", then this New Year was four times better ;)
Yup that's right, I sat around with four people and we drank. Ahhhh there's more of a story to it than that I suppose. When I arrived in Urumqi I stayed in the Mai Tian Youth Hostel (which by the way is very nice, and affordable too!) ... having no other plans, and not wanting to go to a smokey Sino-Western bar, I wandered in about a month ago and asked if they'd be having a party, with some of the international guests who would be there. No problem. Ace. A day or two before the party, my friend (Chris) who works there, rang me to arrange the time. Thus, I arrived at 2030 (an hour late) and the place was dead. Just the receptionist. Wow, some party this will be! Chris, when we got him on the phone, said that he was out skiing with some foreigners and that he was sure he'd said the party was on the Thursday. Er, nope, you even confirmed it in Chinese to me, Chris!
No worries, we (I was there with my friend Bruce, also Chinese) will sit around and wait for you if you won't be long. A couple of hours (and a free beer) later, still no sign of them. What the hell? It's 2320 and we hear from Chris that they've stopped skiing and are trying to get a taxi back to the hostel. So we wait. 2345, they finally have a taxi, they'll be there just around midnight, yay. And so it was that at midnight (Beijing time) I found myself in the company of an Israeli, a Frenchman, an Aussie, and a Chinese ... sounds like a bad joke, doesn't it? Of course the beer being free, we started to amass a bottle-collection and talk freely among ourselves - most of the evening became an "identify the wrongs one can observe here" discussion (as you may imagine from my previous entries, there was a lot to say - hence my want for a more detailed blog to follow!) ... at 0200 we celebrated local New Year with a small clinking of glasses and a return to drinking.
0430 and it was time to hit the road ... slightly worse for wear I must admit, though not staggering or feeling nauseous. Even if I had been, the -15C night air would probably have helped sober me up somewhat. I got in around 0450, and was asleep by about 0500. Not a bad night one might say!
(I then woke up at 0740, gave Lucy a call as I'd arranged, and kept her on the phone, probably talking incoherently about nothing in particular, until just after 0800, or New Year GMT, at which point she prudently decided I should go back to sleep, and Skype agreed with her by cutting us off).
Interesting thing to learn from this - the Chinese, although they have their own New Year (coming up, Jan 25 I believe) celebrate the Western New Year on Jan 1st. So I got to go back the next day and do most of the above all over again, hurray!
Yup that's right, I sat around with four people and we drank. Ahhhh there's more of a story to it than that I suppose. When I arrived in Urumqi I stayed in the Mai Tian Youth Hostel (which by the way is very nice, and affordable too!) ... having no other plans, and not wanting to go to a smokey Sino-Western bar, I wandered in about a month ago and asked if they'd be having a party, with some of the international guests who would be there. No problem. Ace. A day or two before the party, my friend (Chris) who works there, rang me to arrange the time. Thus, I arrived at 2030 (an hour late) and the place was dead. Just the receptionist. Wow, some party this will be! Chris, when we got him on the phone, said that he was out skiing with some foreigners and that he was sure he'd said the party was on the Thursday. Er, nope, you even confirmed it in Chinese to me, Chris!
No worries, we (I was there with my friend Bruce, also Chinese) will sit around and wait for you if you won't be long. A couple of hours (and a free beer) later, still no sign of them. What the hell? It's 2320 and we hear from Chris that they've stopped skiing and are trying to get a taxi back to the hostel. So we wait. 2345, they finally have a taxi, they'll be there just around midnight, yay. And so it was that at midnight (Beijing time) I found myself in the company of an Israeli, a Frenchman, an Aussie, and a Chinese ... sounds like a bad joke, doesn't it? Of course the beer being free, we started to amass a bottle-collection and talk freely among ourselves - most of the evening became an "identify the wrongs one can observe here" discussion (as you may imagine from my previous entries, there was a lot to say - hence my want for a more detailed blog to follow!) ... at 0200 we celebrated local New Year with a small clinking of glasses and a return to drinking.
0430 and it was time to hit the road ... slightly worse for wear I must admit, though not staggering or feeling nauseous. Even if I had been, the -15C night air would probably have helped sober me up somewhat. I got in around 0450, and was asleep by about 0500. Not a bad night one might say!
(I then woke up at 0740, gave Lucy a call as I'd arranged, and kept her on the phone, probably talking incoherently about nothing in particular, until just after 0800, or New Year GMT, at which point she prudently decided I should go back to sleep, and Skype agreed with her by cutting us off).
Interesting thing to learn from this - the Chinese, although they have their own New Year (coming up, Jan 25 I believe) celebrate the Western New Year on Jan 1st. So I got to go back the next day and do most of the above all over again, hurray!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
