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!]]
Thursday 30 April 2009
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
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