We're really enjoying our weekends here....

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We had a great weekend! With Mel and Renee we walked to one of the smaller villages nearby before catching the bus to Guangshui Town where we spent a few very enjoyable hours. The little village was so interesting. It had small family sawmills and many little one room noodle making 'factories'. The rooms all had narrow rollers through which the noodle dough was flattened and then it was cut and hung out to dry on wooden racks. The local blacksmith had the most marvellous face - I would love to take some close up photos of some of the older people! Hopefully I will get some eventually. We always ask permission to take photos with people in them and quite often they don't allow it.
The village was very poor and we spent some time there trying to talk to the local people. They were very friendly but unfortunately no one spoke any English so the conversation was the usual nods, laughs and shrugs. We will go back there again in the near future. After leaving there we walked to the main road and caught a minibus to Guangshui Town. It is from here that we have to go to catch the train to Wuhan as our city is not on the railway line. Guangshui Town is even poorer then where we live, and smaller in size. Many of the side streets were unpaved.
Though many westerners would pass through the town by train enroute to Beijing the locals don't see them as the train only spends 5 minutes in the station. There have been no foreign teachers in Guangshui Town so westerners are a definite novelty and the whole time we were there we had groups of local people following us around - talking and pointing. There was no ill feeling but it made us realise that just the few foreign teachers that have been to Guangshui City in the last couple of years have made it easier for us to walk around in the city we live in. We are certainly watched and we hear people talking about us the whole time but crowds don't follow us around. You become very used to hearing 'Laowai' which means foreigner as you walk down the street.
The countryside between the 2 Guangshuis is very scenic - at the moment it is covered in small plots of land covered in spring vegetables. The rape plant is covered in yellow flowers and very pretty. The countryside looks like a patchwork quilt. All the farmers get to their own small plot by walking around the raised edges of the other small plots. Many local people are out every day tilling the fields by hand. The weather here is getting warmer every day and last weekend was the first weekend we have seen the local men out fishing. They were fishing in the 'lake' which we can see from our bedroom window - a rather dirty polluted pond! Another reason not to eat fish! They fish with long 5 metre bamboo poles with a short line. We are also starting to see children flying kites and the students spend their little free time playing shuttlecock.
We found out yesterday that we don't actually live in Guangshui! We live in the city of Yingshan, which is west of the Guangshui (Guangshui Town) on all the maps. Guangshui City is the modern name for Yingshan but at this stage the new name is not on any maps. All the old people still call it Yingshan. We were a little confused ourselves as we only ever found one Guangshui on the map we bought with us from Australia - and that was fine until we arrived here and found 2 Guangshui's!
Also yesterday we - or rather Jerry - opened a bank account with the Bank of China. We were planning on opening a joint account but you can't get joint accounts here! It was such a process to open the account I decided against it - anyway by then the bank had closed. There was the usual realms of paperwork to fill out and Jerry had to type his password in 8 times during the process.
Thankfully Champion was with us to translate. The next problem we have is trying to work out how to convert yuan to $US. It appears only one bank can do it in the province and though we have the information about what we need to do it none of the staff in the bank know how to do it! Also we've been told (in the information from the agency that sent us to China) that we must get tax receipts from our pay office to allow us to convert up to 70% of our wage. The school keep telling us that we don't have to pay tax as the school and not the government is paying our wages! The tax we would have to pay on our wages is only 25 yuan ($4). Nothing is easy here - but we'll keep battling on. We don't plan on converting any money at this stage but will certainly want to at the end of the year. It will take us till then to sort this out I'm sure!
When we were at the bank the security company came to collect the money. They drive an ordinary van which pulls up outside the bank. Four very heavily armoured men clamber out the back and stand around the van with rifles drawn. They look very evil and wear bullet proof vests and heavy black helmets. Meanwhile the tiny female bank employees carry the money out in steel boxes across the footpath, through the general public, to the van where the guards open the back door and watch while the women put the money boxes into the back. We asked Champion if many banks in China get robbed. He pointed to a sign outside and said ' That sign says that the Government will praise anybody who shoots dead a bank robber.' It appears you are also allowed to beat a bank robber to death with Government approval. He said that every bank in China had the same sign so not many banks get robbed. I only hope I'm not around if something happens at a bank because I know those guards wouldn't hesitate to use their rifles.
We also found out that the teachers at the school earn around 800 to 1000 yuan a month which is less than a quarter of what we earn. I think their rent is free but we know that they have to buy their water from the school - at 3 yuan a bottle. We get ours supplied for free. It's all a little embarrassing but they have really opened up the last couple of weeks and have become very chatty. The grade 3 students had to sit for their oral English entrance exams for university acceptance last weekend and the teachers were talking to all the English teachers from the university who came to monitor the exams. It appears that they emphasised that native English speakers didn't use 100% correct grammar when they speak and if they ever wished to speak like a Western person they also had to forget their grammar rules. Obviously some of the teachers didn't think our grammar was as correct as they thought it should have been! Their knowledge of our grammar is almost scary - they are brilliant! Since the weekend they have been going out of their way to talk to us!
We also paid out phone bill yesterday. We've been waiting for one to arrive and when it hadn't we checked with the school. They said that you don't get phone bills in China - at the end of each month you just go into the phone company and give them your number and they tell you how much you owe! If you don't pay you can still make calls but not receive any! We paid 3 months phone bill which came to 269 yuan - over half belonged to Mel's father (the previous teacher). He told me that he thought we would have to pay for his bill as he couldn't pay it before he left. Our bill is up to the 21st of this month so the same thing will happen to the next teacher here - they will be left with our phone bill as we'll be leaving around the 15th of the month. David tried to leave money with the school to cover it but they wouldn't take it! The rental on the phone is 15 yuan month (under $3). We've barely used the phone but the couple of quick calls (literally under a couple of minutes each) we've made to Australia accounted for most of our share of the bill. There is no charge for phone calls we make within the school grounds.
We managed to sort out our mobile phones too this week! We bought Chinese numbers in Shanghai which worked until we tried to recharge them in Hubei. The school listened to the message that came up and told us we had bought the wrong numbers for Hubei and would have to buy new numbers for here. We didn't totally believe them as we bought the numbers our trusty 'Lonely Planet' guide book advised us to buy. We put it into the 'don't need to worry about it yet' basket and only last week braved the phone office and found somebody who spoke a little English. We handed over our previously bought recharge cards and she used them to recharge our phones! It was too easy! And we've still got the same phone numbers.
China is one challenge after another! But we've had some great meals the last couple of weeks...the vegetables taste so much better with a tiny dab of butter and our cheese days have become the highlight of our culinary week! Yesterday we had the day off as the students had to attend an inspirational lecture on the benefits of study. It was due to last 40 minutes but ended up going for 3 hours! The lecturer was a 72 year old scientist who had previously been head teacher here. Today during lessons at the old school I asked the students whether they enjoyed it - I heard a lot of 'too long' mutters! The students from the old school had to walk to the new school to attend the lecture, and then walk back to their school. It was an hours walk each way. They were very lethargic today in class and said they were very tired. We also found out that the Japanese built the old school after they invaded China. Many of the people in this area were killed by the Japanese at the time - they often mention it to us. We hope to find out more about the history of the area.
Next week we have 2 days holiday. On Monday afternoon the students will return to their homes for the Quing Ming festival. They don't start school again until Thursday. The festival remembers those who have passed on - they return with their parents to the villages that their grandparents lived in and the male children (fathers and grandsons) sweep the tombs of the dead. They clean, weed, light fire crackers and burn offerings of paper money at the tombs. The women don't clean but 'spend the time on their knees' so I guess that means they pray while the men clean. The shops are full of firecrackers and wads of paper money. We are planning on catching a bus to Suizhou that day with the girls. It is an old town about an hour west of here. It doesn't have a lot of cement buildings and still retains the old Chinese feel - at least in parts of the city. We are all looking forward to visiting it.
Since we have arrived in Guangshui we have seen amazing changes take place. There is so much building going on. All low key - no cranes or anything like that - all the buildings are built by teams of workers who swarm the sites. All the bricks are carried by hand in baskets to the site and the men clamber up and down bamboo frames tied together with plastic ties to actually reach the top of what they are building. The city will look very different by the time we leave I think.
Tomorrow I start my 5th lesson with the students. We are doing a lesson on music which they are looking forward to. I have promised that they can sing Celine Dion's 'My Heart will Go On' from 'Titanic'. It is their favourite western song. Thankfully I was able to find a copy of it for sale in Guangshui - for me to learn the words as I'll have to sing loudly along as well! Hopefully by the end of 26 lessons my singing will be at least slightly better then it was at the beginning of the first lesson. However first they have to sing a song that they don't know and listen to a few other segments of music.

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Photos

Guanghsui Town - 20 minute taxi or bus ride away - where the train line passes through
We live in Guangshui City - the larger version!