Editor considers foot binding in effort to stay warm

---

….. Da Ren Fa, our local shopping centre, doesn't mean 'Big People's Market' as I previously supposed. In fact it's even wrong in the Roman alphabet. It should be Da Run Fa. I've been told the characters mean 'Big Profit Output', which makes sense, but the nearest I can find to the middle one means “intercalation”, an astronomical term which doesn't make sense here at all.....

….Sun. looks a little foggy but turns out to be a drizzly rain. Lunch with George & family on Sunday. Hare, Chicken soup, fish, beef, vegetables, do fu, rice.... They are all so courteous. Drizzle has turned to heavier rain with the odd flake of snow. I decide to leave my bike & go back on the bus. Qiao Ming, George's father, walks to the bus stop holding an umbrella over my head after I refuse to take one of theirs for fear of forgetting to bring it back.....

…..apparently the Party sometimes commandeers the school's auditorium for party meetings, as it does this week. It involves fabricating a tubular steel framework with a sign about 10m long to hang over the entrance to the auditorium, easels with large coloured graphs of progress (I'm guessing as I can't actually read the Chinese characters) & 2 large frames with pictures of flowers to welcome the Party members. Oh, & the red carpet.....

…..the shifts in the wind direction are reflected in the direction of the smoke from the power station chimneys. Looking from the school or the way in to Yangzhou, when it's blowing to the left the wind is from the east & is generally warmer. To the right & the wind is from the west or northwest & is a biting cold that cuts through inadequate clothing quite easily. At least recently the power station has been visible & the sky is blue. Although the temperature is never that far from freezing the heat from the sun can be felt during the day. It makes all the difference, physically & mentally.....

…..skin gets dry & cuts or grazes take ages to heal. The combination of cold weather & chalk drying out the skin. I must remember hand lotion from George's parents.....

…..the cold water tap on the water dispenser on the landing outside the dormitories froze up for the first time this winter, but only for a short time early in the morning.....

…..talking of freezing I am preparing for a trip to Harbin (Haerbin) at the start of our month long spring holiday. To go with my padded jacket I now have a pair of leather motorcycle gauntlets which are actually big enough to fit over my woollen gloves. I picked them up at the Blue Market for ¥50, about Au$8. Finding a pair of warm boots to fit my size 12 feet might be a problem. I must figure out what my shoe size is in centimetres, which is what the ever logical Chinese use in place of whatever it is the English sizes are.....

…...I go all the way to the West bus station to get an English map of Yangzhou. Paul, the newly arrived Australian teacher from Perth, comes along, just for something to do I think. It takes about 30 to 40 minutes & 2 buses from the school. Being early evening we look for somewhere to eat & find a small, Moslem, cafe-style restaurant near the bus station. The picture menu on the wall clinches it. I know enough Chinese to fill in the gaps & we have a great meal. Why do they leave the noodles so long when you have to eat them with chopsticks though? When we get on the bus to go back I go to have a look at the maps. Alas, they dropped out of my jacket pocket somewhere en route. I waste about ¥4 on busfares & still no map.....

…..I posted a few pictures on the Photobucket site of a couple of paper-cut pictures I collected recently as I've never seen this technique overseas & it might give some idea of the styles & skill required. The girl playing the flute is a bit smaller than A2 size & each white area is the result of the black paper being cut away to reveal the white background. Similarly the A4 Jackie Chan portrait is done in an almost comic book style by cutting out a single sheet of red paper. I got the latter from an artist who had a display at the university teacher's birthday I went to a few weeks ago. She was charging ¥5 each or less than Au$1, for the portraits (unframed). The girl with the flute was bought for ¥75 in Nanjing, already framed!.....

…..I get replacements for the English maps I bought then misplaced (lost!) on Thursday.....

…..Saturday evening. A potluck party & karaoke for the foreign teachers in the party room near our dormitories. A shared meal where everyone brings a plate or pot of something & some drinks. This time we have more Chinese teachers involved which make it more inclusive & interesting than a few foreign teachers & the occasional guest. Mr. Deng, the music teacher from across the landing, is a great performer, his son (the one we call Ding-Dong) turns out to be a second Michael Jackson in the making if his dance moves are anything to go by & his wife brings Yangzhou Chao Fan - Yangzhou fried rice - very nice.....

…..Rainy, from administration, shows her vocal talents. She is keen to be in our embryonic supergroup. Gyu also turned up for our Wednesday lunchtime rehearsal. They can both sing & will look far better front of stage than I would! We're not sure how it will get off the ground with a one month Spring Holiday break coming up. As the number of band members increases arithmetically the problems of getting them together for rehearsals increases exponentially.....

…..new foodstuff discovered or introduced this week; youzi, a large fruit, about 10cm in diameter, yellow, with segments like an orange or grapefruit inside a thick skin. The taste is like a less sour version of a grapefruit. I don't particularly like grapefruit but youzi is good. Then there is dou zhi ping, a snack which consists of sticks of doufu with lots of chili & various flavours of nai cha (milk tea), also called zhenzhu nai cha (pearl milk tea) from the various things used to flavour it, small balls of tiny fruits or tapioca, always the right size to fit through the large diameter straws.....

…..why is it so slow a process to learn to understand people speaking Chinese to me. One word, rather one syllable, might illustrate the problem. Shēng (note the high tone on the e, one of four tones that can also change the meaning). Shēng, by itself, can mean variously, to be born, to grow, raw or uncooked, sound, voice, to ascend, to raise, a litre, a domestic animal, the rising of water or a nephew. (There are a few more.....). In combination, Yishēng means doctor, shēngyïn - voice, huāshēng - peanut, & they're only the ones I've learned so far. Their's only won thing four it. Isle have two stick two a moor logical language.....

Great photo, audio or video opportunities missed this week:

…..a busy junction at about 8pm, an e-bike, mum with a toddler standing on the footplate hanging onto the handlebars, a young girl on the low, precarious seat at the back holding a well wrapped baby.....

…..the reduced but hardy band of formation dancers outside the hotel over the New Bridge, in freezing conditions on a weekday night, still going through the moves to badly amplified music.....

…..the pathetic look on the face of the ratbag in class 3/9 who, after refusing to walk with me to the teacher's office for continually disrupting the class was lifted by the hood of his jacket & dragged there & dumped unceremoniously inside the door. At the end of the class he was sent back by Liu Cui Ping, the class teacher, to say, “I'm sorry.....”

---