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Garbage truck, school, Yangzhou
OHS personnel, please look the other way before you spot the exposed belts on the motor... note lack of visibility from stubble burning Photos:
…..Roger Lu, a great guitarist & one of the better speakers of English among our Chinese teachers, recommends I go to Zhenjiang to buy a new new guitar. The one I use in the classroom, that I fell on & split last year when I slipped on a wet walkway, just won't cut it if I'm going to do “professional” gigs. Peter decides he hasn't had a good look around Zhenjiang, a city even smaller than Yangzhou, only around 2 or 3 million, on the south side of the Yangze river so he comes along for the ride. There's not a huge amount to see in Zhenjiang but it's a beautiful day, with a clear blue sky.....
…..we get up early & leave at 8am to go to the Yangzhou West bus Station, more than a half hour trip in itself, & quickly get on the bus for 40 more minutes over the longest bridge over the huge Yangze river. We find the shop whose address Roger has written but, typically for musos, when I call them I find they don't open until 2pm. No problem, we take it philosophically & wander around this city of bad
Sleeping within tent
Mozzies outside, me on the inside teeth, (predominantly the men it seems), & amazing shoes, (exclusively the women).....
…..when the two young music enthusiasts arrive to unlock the shop we are tired of counting our heads after being being stared at so much. There must be some other foreigners in Zhenjiang. There's not a huge selection but the second one is it. Nicely made, good action, bright tone & they offer to fit a pickup for me if I can amuse myself for a couple of hours. We go to look at a CD shop they recommend for Peter, taking in more of the teeth & shoes, (trying not to concentrate on the former). It's finshed when we return. They throw in a well made soft case, everything for ¥1136 or just under Au$165. With the Aussie dollar worth about ¥7 it's around 1/10th of the cost of my Australian Maton guitar.....
.....one problem solved. I buy a mosquito net, more like a tent really, (see the photo). I wake up in the night & hear a mosquito but efforts to track it down fail. It sounded a little bit distant too, I realise the net is functioning like one of those shark cages
New guitar
...all Au$165 worth which allow you to get close to white pointers without getting bitten. The mozzies are throwing themselves against the net in fury while I lay undisturbed inside on my bamboo mat. By morning they've worn themselves out. Great value for about Au$18 all up.....
…..just as I think I'm getting on top of the racking cough which has plagued me since the half marathon it's time to harvest the wheat in the paddocks near the school, (& all over eastern China I suspect, at least in the northern half, where wheat is more prevalent. The harvest is no problem, it's the stubble burning afterwards. The thin, light, transparent air that you probably breathe is just not satisfying, is it? I think they prefer the stuff you can ladle into a bowl, or cut with a knife. Reports from Nantong & other places indicate it's widespread. Luckily the wind has cleared some of it & light rain last night settled some of the rest but, at the start of summer, it looks like a misty European winter's day outside.....
…..of course the stubble burning occurs about two days before Peter & I have our inaugural gig at Gloria Jean's.
Would you wear this dress?
Very elegant Spongebob dress spotted in West Yangzhou Having said we'd do it acoustically we are both glad that Jinghua, the manager, has provided a great little PA system & a couple of microphones. I don't think my voice, now a cross between Joe Cocker on a bad day & Barry White with laryngitis, would have made it. Most of the foreign teachers turn up, plus a large contingent of interested Chinese people & other foreigners. We get through two half hour sets, Jinghua is really happy with the result & it looks as though it will be a regular Friday event. Photos & videos are around but will take a while to collect. As I put on the flyer, “The World Tour starts here”.....
…..I finally have my certificate from the Half Marathon. 2 hours, 31 minutes & 15 seconds. Damn that 1m15s.....
…..after getting a flat tyre I take the rear wheel off my bike & go to find a repairer. The man I find near the Da Run Fa is really a scooter repair shop but, I discover later, he agrees to repair the bike tyre because I am a foreigner & he feels somehow obliged to help! As I collect the repaired
A Real Sunset, Yangzhou
You don't get many of these in Eastern China article a lady comes to join in the conversation. I manage to understand & be understood up to a point but then find she is asking me something I don't grasp, not an unusual event. Another lady rocks up & asks, in good English, if we need any help. It turns out the first lady has seen me at the opening of a lighting shop in Gaoyou, near Kevin's street lighting factory. She is offering me a gig at a factory she works for, a photo shoot with me as a visiting foreigner doing business with their company to show a friendly face to overseas business. I await the call to start another career as a professional foreigner!.....
…..why, when a teacher I don't know, from a school I've never heard of in Yangzhou, offers me a job at the weekend, I take it? Only on the Saturday but teaching three, one hour classes to kids ranging from “very young” to Middle school. It turns out to be pretty easy. The classes are only, (ha ha! here's proof that I've been in China too long), around 20 students. My job is really to get them to speak English, with
F16,, Living Mall, Yangzhou
Unexpected encounter in a shopping mall only the barest of guidelines. I take the guitar, a few pieces of coloured card, (colours were mentioned for the 7 & 8 year olds), a map of the world, (geography & something about culture for the Middle Schoolers).....
…..I end up talking to the older ones about about Australia & comparing with China, finding out how much they know & what their level of spoken English is. It's less than fluent but the hour is soon up. Their estimates of Sydney's population ranges from 10 million to 18 million. They are surprised to find it is only the same as that of Yangzhou, as for Canberra's less than half a million, surely a weird Australian joke. The two younger groups get basically the lesson about clothing I've been doing with Grade 3 all week. I am wearing / not wearing....., He or she is wearing / not wearing....., We are wearing....., etc. I don't even have time to get the guitar out. Also having a Chinese teacher in the class makes it a breeze. Still, after three hours of even subdued speech my throat has had enough.....
…..Damn it! I must have pulled a muscle coughing! It
Burning off the stubble, Yangzhou
Arty shot of an irritating problem feels as though I've been hit with a baseball bat on my right side. Saturday night is a very quiet night in & I'm glad now that everyone was otherwise engaged at dinner time. In the end I am not hungry. Early night.....
…..while I promise not to rant about the internet & THEIR attempts to control it. Paul, our administrator, has asked our school IT department how long this ridiculous situation will go on. Apparently after a certain Party's birthday celebrations, at the beginning of July, the situation should ease somewhat. Tonight, as I write this, I am listening to streaming radio without any dropouts or restarting. Tomorrow could be different. Perhaps my emails are not of so much interest after all. Makes me feel insignificant.....
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