Advertisement
Fish Restaurant, Yangzhou
Not elegant, but great food New photos on:
http://s251.photobucket.com/albums/gg311/draftwrite/ …..China's population growth has slowed dramatically due to the one child policy, far lower than most (fully...?!) developed countries. It still means adding an extra 10 million or so per year, probably around the population of Greece or Belgium. However there are also over 100 million migrants from the country to the cities & they reckon almost another 250 million by 2025. As usual it's hard to get your head around the big picture despite daily seeing the unbelievable amount of construction going on.....
…..I decide to see if I can find some good walking shoes. I'll need to go to the shoe shop in the west end, where they won't just laugh at my size & wave me away. However I'll just have to hope that (THAT) woman is not there, the one referred to in Blog 77 (Smokefog) who almost attacked our African American teacher Charlene last year when we went to the same shop.....
…..George & his friend Amy, Mike & I are in the area so we go to have a look. She IS there, just as objectionable, unhelpful & keen to let us know, despite, (maybe because of!)
Fish Restaurant, Yangzhou
Laminex, chopsticks and really tasty fish the language barrier, that we are spoiling her day by our presence, that hatchet-faced, di yu de biao zi..... I'll leave that in Chinese, although you can probably figure it out from the title..... I mentioned it to Shen Yue, who lives nearby. I was told it's advisable not to use that term but I still think it's totally appropriate.....
…..I am hoping to visit Miss Piggy & her new boyfriend this week but, despite having three days off for the Labour Day holiday there's not enough time to go to Jiangyan. She has to go back to Suzhou on Wednesday afternoon & I have to work on Thursday. She's a little disappointed but sounds happy enough with her new friend to struggle on without me!.....
…..I need to find out how to get this Torrent download program working. I hardly ever download movies & never watch TV programmes. Still I found there's a film of the novel “Germinal” which I read last year thinking, this would make a great movie. They made one in 1993. Every time I try it diverts me to some other screen & yet another site I need to register with. Too hard.....
Steve, Yangzhou
Rehearsing with a new English English teacher, at another school, …..to our foreign eyes there's an almost reckless swapping of QQ & mobile numbers & email addresses in China, even on quite casual acquaintance. I reluctantly gave my QQ number to one of the students at the summer school last year, also one of my Grade three kids that year. She is liable in holidays to send text messages at random times asking what I'm doing, am I busy etc. She's a lovely kid but I do have to assure her sometimes that I am very sorry but also very busy & not able to chat for long. Still, it's a measure of either a greater degree of parental monitoring, assumptions of personal safety or naivety in China.
…..May Day, a night of music at the Old Brewery. After a rehearsal with my new mate Steve then a substantial & ridiculously cheap dinner at the Ding Shui Fang vegetarian restaurant we go to the Old Brewery as I already have my violin with me it's a good chance to jam with the Phillippino band. Working there most nights I think they're glad to have someone get up with a different instrument & change the sound a bit. I
never know what's going to be thrown my way, or in what key. “Sweet Home Alabama” & Adele's “Rockin' in the deep”, last night, among many others. After the first set I find that Steve has been installed as foreign guest of honour at a table of Chinese men who have already insisted he down 3 pints after the obligatory “Gan bei”, (“Do the glass”). After a couple of these I escape back to the stage. I hope Steve doesn't suffer in the morning.....
…..what a strange day. After being asked by a Chinese guy at the Old brewery if I'd help out on Saturday morning by joining some students at his music school in playing a short classical piece, (what? Me? You think I could do that?), I'm assured it won't be difficult. I cycle to the town centre on an absolutely beautiful, sunny morning & find the place. We're to perform in a theatre on the opposite side to the square. The piece isn't too hard though they could have picked an easier key than Eb. I practice for a while with the music student who will also be playing. We finally play to a theatre half
Barbecue, School
Erin, Krista, Alex, Paul full of kindergarten kids whose interest doesn't extend to Schubert played on two acoustic violins aided by one hand held microphone. Why do I agree to these things?.....
…..Samuel takes us all to lunch afterwards. He appears to be in his 20's & trained in Italy, speaks Italian & teaches “Bel Canto” singing with the aid of his fine, tenor voice. How much call there is in China for another Pa-wa-luo-di, (or as he's known in Italian & English, Pavarotti), I have been unable to discover.....
…..on the way back I stop for an ice cream at a Kedi (a local corner shop chain). A man walks out looking strangely familiar but I can't place him. Even after he greets me like a long lost friend & absolutely insists I visit his business round the corner I still can't work out where I know him from. It turns out he's in charge of the camera crew that did the filming for us as professional foreigners, a few YYWs ago. After he's copied the videos onto a CD for me I discover on the way out that his wife is the woman who first approached me to do the
Barbecue, School
Dave, (thanks to John for the photo) professional foreigner gigs, posing as a businessman for promotional videos for Chinese companies. If I can reduce them in size I'll post them later.....
.....some words seem to have a universal ability to generate mirth among kids. A recent lesson, involving places of interest created an unusual degree of hilarity at the mention of Machu Picchu in Peru. Of course, "Picchu" sounds uncomfortably close to the Chinese "pi gu", or "arse".....
…..New word for the week: tanorexia. OK, you all know by now that China is a crazy place to live but hold on, it doesn't have a monopoly on the bizarre. I spotted the word in a news article while checking my e-mail. Tanorexia leads to a compulsive use of tanning salons, in an article about a US mother in court after her 5 year old daughter received burns allegedly after being taken into the tanning booth with her mum. It turns out the mother goes to tanning sessions 20 times a month! If you look at the link it's not hard to believe.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/03/patricia-krentcil-tanning-mom-tanorexia_n_1475138.html …..
previous issues of the YYW are on:
http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Laotou/
Advertisement
Tot: 0.191s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 9; qc: 58; dbt: 0.0917s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb