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Published: November 26th 2011
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George, Winter gear
Trying out some new togs Photos:
…..inured; to habituate to something undesirable, especially by prolonged subjection.....such a great word, it deserves to be in common currency. “Si le” is a great little Chinese idiom that easily translates into English, in fact we use exactly the same phrase, “to death”. Not as much though. In Chinese you can say, “E si le”, (Hungry to death), “Bao si le”, (full to death), “Wu liao si le” (bored to death), etc, etc, …...
…..after more than two years in China I am inured to the following: people, even on occasion, young women, hawking & spitting in public, pillion passengers carrying babes in arms on the back of e-bikes & scooters, (with no head protection, of course), total disregard for traffic lights, lane discipline, the use of mobile phones while negotiating busy junctions while others are running red lights & threading their way through traffic approaching from the side, little old ladies pulling, or pushing, me aside to get off the bus, not knowing what the hell is going on when simple transactions & activities do not run smoothly. See the return from Nanjing, below.....
…..the real road accident figures for China. Recent outcry over an
accident where an overcrowded bus of kindergarten children was hit by a coal truck. Exponential increase in vehicle sales in a country where no one either knows or pays much attention to basic road rules. Saving grace in the cities is that, where there are more people the traffic slows to a non-lethal crawl. While I was trying to find the real, (ie; not official government ) figures on road accidents. CAR SALES FIGURES 40,000/day last month !!!
In 2010, Chinese police officially recorded 219,521 traffic accidents that led to deaths or injuries, including 65,225 fatalities, a fall of 3.7 percent on the previous year. In a study published by the World Health Organization in 2010, however, experts found that such official data seriously undercounted the number of road deaths in China, which they estimated to be almost twice the number reported by police. Doubling fatality numbers to 130,000 in a year makes it about 9.8 per 100,000 people, many more than UK & Oz, surprisingly, to me anyway, still less than the USA at something over 14 per 100,000!.....
…..don't write names, even your own, with a red pen. The colour is
Thanksgiving Turkeys
Aussies & Poms don't celebrate it but we don't mind the food a sign of death I am informed as I oblige a Chinese teacher by writing my English & Chinese names....
…..the smoke is almost cleared &, despite approaching December the weather is still, apart from a few cold days & chilly nights, remarkably mild & with the clearest skies we're likely to see for a while.....
…..Alex, Patrick & I go to Nanjing to register for the HSK, the Chinese language exam which we think we're ready to tackle, if only at the elementary level. After getting to Nanjing university & finally enlisting the help of a most obliging language student to direct us to the obscure office we are seeking. “You want to do the exam in April next year?”. “No, next month”. “Too late to register now”. Damn it! At least I am intending to stay overnight. Patrick & Alex return after we all decide to study hard enough to take the level 2 exam in April. I go to meet one of last year's teachers, Evi, who is living with her brother, studying & teaching in Nanjing. They have an apartment near the city centre, close to the university.....
…..it's great to see Evi
Evi & I, Nanjing
Evi, a great guide in a city I don't know very well looking trim, happy & glad to get news from Yangzhou. She has two part time teaching jobs in addition to mornings studying Chinese at the Uni. We eat at a tiny pizza place which no one not in the know would ever find. Great pizza much cheaper than the Pizza Hut to which I reluctantly followed George last Friday. She told me to bring my violin. I follow her to Finnegan's Wake, the ridiculously (high) priced Irish bar where I played a few tunes almost a couple of years ago. We meet a couple of her friends, also teachers but leave before I am called on to play cheesy old songs which I'm not really interested in playing any more. She has some friends in a band at a place called Sanchos, so I make my excuses & go.....
…..it's a Chinese blues-rock band & when I finally get to join in at Sanchos the band & audience are all interested in the violin, not a usual instrument for that sort of band. Unfortunately I've forgotten my lead & playing through a microphone is always fraught with problems. Still they're happy to repeat the experiment so, if I go
Street Traders, Nanjing
No place for OCD sufferers again it could be much better with the right equipment. Note: get my electric violin sent over from Australia.....
…..at Nanjing Dong Che Zhan, (Eat bus station), I buy my bus ticket to return to Yangzhou. It's ¥55 instead of the ¥35 on the way here. There's no attendant at gate 4, according to my ticket the departure gate, just someone who appears to be a passenger sitting on the rail. I go to ask the lady at the neighbouring gate. The other “passenger” follows behind & tries to usher me through. The official attendant confirms it's the right gate. He shows me to an old VW Santana, the model utilised for taxis here & asks for my ticket. I'm confused now. He insists . I reluctantly get in & he goes to get another three passengers. He then drives us to Yangzhou, quicker than the bus I have to say & also drops me off on the 32 bus route to the school, much closer than the West bus station. He then goes to the Yangzhou East bus station to find some passengers to take back on one of his thrice daily trips!.....
…..the arbiter of campus
Sancho's, Nanjing
Radio, lead singer standards & behaviour, the Penguin man, is going through a clean up China phase, starting with bikes & scooters parked conveniently near apartments. Notes are left on the seats, in Chinese & English, to move them to the carpark under the cafeteria. Sure enough he's out the next morning, with a small team of workers & an ancient trike, confiscating recalcitrant cyclist's machinery. ¥50 to get your bike back.....
…..as the light & heater switch Nazi I do cop some flak. It's just that the world is not ready for environmentally friendly practices. The reason given by one foreign teacher, who shall remain nameless, for leaving the door open while huddled next to an electric bar heater is that it gets too hot with the door closed. It's the start of the downfall of the Green Reich.....
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