Ain't no Sunshine when she's gone

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New photos on:
http://s251.photobucket.com/albums/gg311/draftwrite/

…..the Gaotie, the high speed train being rolled out across eastern China at a phenomenal rate, is already revolutionising our travel to Shanghai. From here it's approximately the same distance as from London to Edinburgh, (which, I just looked it up, takes about 5 hours by train). With speeds up to 300kph, from Zhenjiang, just across the river it only takes about 1 hour 20 minutes. If enough people are going it's reasonable to take a taxi from the school to Zhenjiang, (about 45 minutes), at a cost of about ¥140 or $6 per head for 4 passengers, then about ¥120 per head for the Gaotie, (under $20), & you're there. Aircraft style seats, plenty of legroom, smooth enough to write during the trip. On this beautiful, sunny autumn weekend it doesn't get much better.....

.....I'm going to Shanghai partly to buy shoes in my size. My feet are, in the (as usual, logical), size system used here, 48cm. 44cm is the largest generally available. The other reason is to celebrate Brad's birthday. He ends up finding some French friends & we don't really see much of him until he arrives to meet us at the Pearl Tower in Pudong around midday on Saturday. It turns out to be too expensive, ¥180 to get to the highest accessible point. That's lower than the observatory in the nearby Shanghai World Financial Centre, (¥150). That will soon to be outstripped by the 632m tall Shanghai Tower, under construction, which is a lot taller than when I was last in Shanghai a few months ago. For comparison the Empire State building, (the benchmark for tall buildings when I was a kid), is 443m tall, including the spire on the top.....

…..I manage to locate a shop specialising in large shoes. It's a small storeroom on the second floor but they have a big selection of shoes, boots, casual & formal, men's & women's. I buy a pair of hiking boots for ¥230, or around $35. If they turn out to be good I can buy more shoes next time I'm there.....

…..hot water. The ongoing saga. “Hot” water has been imported from the nearby power station since the school's hot water system gave up the ghost, before I came to Yangzhou. You'd think with hot water only being scheduled on four occasions a day, an hour in the morning from 6.30am, an hour at lunchtime from 11.30am, another hour early evening from 5.30 then a luxurious 3 hours from 8.30pm to around 11.30pm it wouldn't be that difficult but availability is patchy at best. I'm with the majority of Chinese here. I can't sleep comfortably unless I've had a shower. Most of our foreign teachers seem to prefer to shower when they get up. Some have been going to breakfast then rushing back hoping the water, cold at 6.30am, might be at least lukewarm by 7.20am. Luckily it's been warm when I usually have a shower, after 11pm. If it's not I make a complaint straight away & don't let it go until it's fixed. The morning crowd have been muttering for weeks now but still no reliable hot water in the morning. Winter draws on.....

…..Sunshine has gone home to Kunming, in south west China. She just doesn't like the cold, damp winters here in Jiangsu. She's round here to record some of the songs we've done at the coffee bar in the past & gives me one of her own oil paintings. The paint is still wet. See the photo. We'll be sorry to see her go.....

…..Mike has finished the go-karts he offered to make for our special English class students. I get the job of drawing an instruction sheet for the students to put the karts together before racing them out in the grounds at the end of the Friday & Sunday afternoon classes. I see Mike raising his eyebrows when he sees that I have labelled the tools “spanner”, not the American English “wrench”. No, US English is just another form of the language among many others. Most other English speaking countries are familiar with US English, & are at least partially conversant with the old fashioned weights & measures but Americans struggle with other terminology &, even after years overseas, never seem to grasp the metric system. It's as interesting as observing China.....

…..as though it hasn't been busy enough here this semester, with increasing assessment of our work by the school's Foreign Affairs department & by peers during meetings watching filmed classes, Sports Day & our usual Hallowe'en Haunted house are here again.....

….those who know me will know that running is not my forte, especially long distance, (for me that's over 200m!). I can run to catch a bus though . That's usually within 100m so, in the absence of enough other volunteers I end up in the foreign teachers team, ready to take last place in the 4 x 100m relay. Steve, (first off), & Brad, (fourth), run pretty well. Chance & I are not really at the peak of our powers. In fact, I never had a peak, more of a long, very low plateau. You could get to the top in a couple of steps. Maybe that explains why my legs were a little sore this afternoon after running just 100m.....

…..being typecast in the role of hunchbacked skeleton at the Hallowe'en Haunted House hasn't improved matters. Wait in the washroom while the students nervously file by then creep up from behind as they're concentrating on the horrors that lie before them. It works a treat. Who would have thought when I got this job as a teacher one of my tasks would be to lurk in the toilets waiting to pounce on students. Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction.....

.....Alice Yang, one of the best Chinese English teachers here, has kindly agreed to teach Chinese to Patrick, Alex, Steve & I. Steve is making remarkable progress, ready to take the Han Yu Shui Ping Kao Shi, (HSK, the Chinese exam for foreigners) at Level 2 already, after much less than than a year in China. The remaining three of us are now realising how much work we have to do to get through Level 4.....

…..the mosquito net is off along with the bamboo mat I've been sleeping on since around May. Summer is pretty well at an end, autumn grows cooler, especially the nights, & the quilt will soon have to come out.....

…..a trip to Nanjing to pay the registration fee for the exam. This is China. You can register online but then have to travel to the exam centre to pay the fee & watch while the cheerful staff in a dingy, crowded office write receipts in an old fashioned book then enter the details onto the computer. It's also a chance to catch up with a new friend, Julie, a teacher who introduced herself at the bus station last time I was here. She's a good contact in Nanjing, especially since my old colleage, Evi, left China to go back to South Africa.....

…..I have my violin with me, intending to visit my old mate Tony, the Filipino guitarist & singer at the Don Quixote bar. Julie has some lesson planning to do so I tell her I'll catch up when I'm in Nanjing again. However she is a very “proper” sort of young woman & has never been to a bar of any sort before. Far be it for me to start anyone on the downward spiral to dissolution & ruin but she's interested when I tell her it's not a pumping, strobe-lit, drug infested den of iniquity, rather a laid back little place where Tony sings a few songs. As it is, Tony isn't there, (he's moved to a different venue), but the man & woman singing on the small stage are doing a great job, including a great rendition of Adele's “Someone like you”. She has a look of slightly nervous enjoyment, someone living a little on the edge, but enjoys the music. After finishing a mineral water she goes home to do her lesson planning, her reputation fully intact & no further down the slippery slope.....

…..what else? Some students won't be watching a movie during next week's testing as they haven't made the required number of points in my new scoring system. Steve has helped Elaine put some music to a song she's written & the three of us are to perform it tonight at a competition at the university, no doubt to a huge audience judging by the hall we had to visit this morning for a perfunctory rehearsal. After feeling quite sick last night after the Gloria Jean's gig, (a rare attack of gastro after a meal at the Japanese Ramen restaurant where we often eat before the gig, or maybe lunchtime at La Mian), I'm not at my best but, hey, the show must go on.....

…..I offer to go with my colleague, Martha, to help to find a violin for her 4 year old daughter. On the way, it being lunchtime on parents open day, there are cars all the way along the road & bike lane. As I'm on a crossing near the school a car comes through a gap between the mess of parked cars & hits my bike. Luckily I'm always on the look out for stupid drivers here as most appear to have no idea about how to drive the huge fleet of shiny new cars they are buying by the millions. She's not going very quickly & I push myself off the front bumper with my foot before executing a rather classy roll back onto my feet then extracting my bike, remarkably undamaged, from under the car, parking it vigorously against the front of the car, ensuring the brake lever leaves a reminder on the bonnet & exhausting my repertoire of insults before taking off. I should have employed the Chinese method, lie writhing on the ground until the police arrive, ensure I have enough aches & pains to stay off work for a couple of weeks during which she could pay my salary. She gets off pretty lightly.....

.....while THEY don't have to spend anywhere near as much on elections here as the Americans, (no need when you can keep it all within the government & not bother the people with tiresome ballots), they do take great pains to clamp down on dissidents & the internet, to make sure that, in THEIR eyes at least, so that no embarrassing stories or views leave the country. This one small voice may slip through to inform you that, while the 10 yearly change of leadership is in progress, the internet is, to put it in plain terms, a piece of crap. Streaming radio drops out, sites appear to be blocked sometimes but not always, it's often slow, proxies do not work so Facebook, for instance, is out of the question. anyway, I'm still here, there is life outside of FB so we'll just soldier on. Time for a shower... Oh!...I forgot...the hot water.....

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Photos

Pudong Skyline, Shanghai
From the Bund, across the Huangpu river

Sunshine's Final (?) farewell
Sichuan Restaurant, Yangzhou

Present from Sunshine
One of her finger paintings, in oil

Teachers on the ferry, Zhenjiang
Julie, Erin, Kalyn

Shanghai, evening
Clear sky for a change

The Bund, Shanghai
Elegant by night or day

Pearl Tower, Shanghai
Krista, Alex, Patrick, Niha, Erin, Kalyn

Bird seller, Nanjing
Setting up shop

Temple museum, Nanjing
Improvised slippery dip

Ronnie's, Yangzhou
Amy, Brad, Steve, Jessica, all teachers at our school

Ferry, Yangtse River Zhenjiang
on the way to Shanghai

Scooter sale, Yangzhou
Tempting...

New Office Blocks, East Yangzhou
Almost finished.

Comments

[jackie smith]

Hi Dave
You sound settled now, as though you've finally discovered the questions - and have great hope of interpreting the answers.............. Keep warm - I'm already dreading the upcoming summer (Anglo-Saxon blood has such narrow temperature tolerance). The blog is a delight as always, thank you. Jackie

[Laotou]

Q&A
Hi Jackie, haha! I always knew the questions, but have ongoing problems with the answers. I just worry about it less these days, (usually). Possibly back in Oz for a week or 2 in Feb... hope to catch up then.