Published: February 12th 2012February 12th 2012
Birthday Girl
Kalyn's 26th
…..a few of us walk out of the Dong Fang Hong, (Oriental Red), restaurant, on the east side of the school straight into a fireworks display Sunday evening, set up & already fired up by the time, this being China, we just walk past what turns out to be a spectacular & deafening display which goes on for the best part of 15 minutes. We foreigners have to admit that, where we come from, the USA, Canada, the UK or Australia, only a display set up on a special occasion for a whole city would compare with this. The kids are all watching from more than 100m away but we still feel a shower of ash & embers, just before a wall of grey smoke adds another level of uninhaleableness to China's already dodgy air. Hey, I've just created a new word.....
…..there should be a similar display to celebrate if they ever get the hot water “service” working. Remember ordinarily we only get hot water 4 times a day, 6.30am to 7.30am, 11.30am to12.30pm, 6.00pm to 7.00pm &, (Luxury!), 8.30pm until a bit after 11.00pm. Having been promised hot water on the 29th of January
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Niha and Kalyn
…..one reason, since discounted, for the cold water is that the temperature is kept lower so the students, (whose dorms are closer to the tanks), don't scald themselves. No one has taken up our offers of free lessons on how to use a mixer tap to add cold water. We remain dirty to ensure our students' safety.....
…..I am not a betting man. Nevertheless when, as we are walking to Ming Ming for dinner one Saturday night, Mike is talking about his time as the department manager of a company that makes specialised alloys for nuts & bolts for the US attack, sorry, defence, industry. I can't
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John, Niha and Kalyn
…..why, in a country where the most insane levels of packaging are commonplace, where elaborately printed & often silk lined cardboard boxes & hectares of plastic are used as though there is a surplus that must be used up as quickly as possible, why then are eggs always sold loose, in a plastic bag?.....
…..before going to Ningbo for a
Shen Yue
Recording Star!
…..man eats dog. During my usual Sunday lunch after Tianyi's lesson his dad points out a new item. It's a dark meat. Gou. Dog. Supposedly good food for winter. Chinese people, at least in these parts, don't eat it often & it's the first time I've seen it. No, I'm not keen to try it but, at their insistence I find the tiniest piece I can just to taste it. No, if it's not good for my health to eat pig I don't think dog is going to be on my menu. It's quite greasy & I still have reservations about eating meat-eaters.....
….a light sprinkling of snow two nights ago, after we've finished letting
Kalyn
26th birthday
…..another in an increasing list of words that have been transliterated from English using the closest sounds available in the Chinese language. Gypsy becomes Ji-bu-sai, or Ji-bu-sai-ren, Auspicious prophecy competition person.....
…..something about DNA testing in one of the exercises in my Grade 8 textbook. Naturally there are always some who are not satisfied. “Teacher, what does it mean?”. Good thing I have an infallible memory for generally useless information & can spell Deoxyribonucleic acid.....
…..my old mate Traff Mooney from Adelaide sent me a slide show about a mountain in Hunan province where they've made a walkway around the side of a sheer cliff face. Not only that, the path is made from glass! Not only that, it's on Tianmen Shan in Zhangjiajie & we were on it a couple of weeks ago. Because it was covered in snow, we didn't even realise! Maybe just as well.....
…..a request. My private student Tianyi,
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Kalyn, Marc and Erin
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For centuries China stood as a leading civilization, outpacing the rest of the world in the arts and sciences, but in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the country was beset by civil unrest, major famines, military defeats, and foreign occupation. A...more info
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