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A long jog ahead
Once again time to run along a field to get past a police barrierI hope everyone has had a good half year and that the second half is full or prosper and magnificence. Yes I am becoming Chinese. There's no fortune cookies here, god knows where that idea started from, but there's still lots of amusing well wishes. There's a restaurant near me that now my Chinese is getting better I can understand how it's become mistranslated. It is called 'First Noodle Under Ther Sun'. In Chinese the character for best and first are the same depending on when it's used. And 'in the world' is 2 characters, under and sun. So it's actually called 'Best Noodles In The World'.
Anyway I should probally be writing about what I'm doing rather than random observations. So I have been here in China nearly 6 months now and my visa here expires in about the same time as the peaches in my kitchen. I've travelled the north and the west and I have taught children, teenagers and adults, settled on teaching adults which I have now been working full time at this training center for 4 months. working between 40 and 60 hours a week. The singer I mentioned in my last blog manifested
My Chinese drinking buddies
Of which the chap on the left is the only English speaker into my girlfriend, but before long her parents decided the chain had got too slack and with a few simple commands reeled her back home to the far west of China. Much to the poor girls distress. So we split up on good terms. 1 month ago I met a very beautiful and bubbly girl called Yuan Xiao Qian （袁晓倩）but she too has recently moved away, to Shanghai.
I shared a flat with a local couple who were both singers, but moved out as my bedroom had no door. Actually it had no wall either and to get to the kitchen you had to walk through my room/landing. Still cost me 20pounds to stay there for 2 months (There's no pound symbol on this keyboard). So I moved myself into a 2 bedroom flat sharing with a local that doesnt actually live here which is quite a sweet deal. He's moving in soon but I have concocted plans to move to a new flat again soon. My place is in a really local area, no foreigners, local community, lots of poor and old people living here as it really basic housing. I will take some pictures before I
leave. The weather is around 40C alot of the time here now. If the temperature reaches 40C, the government has to let the workers have the day off as it is too hot. Unfortunatly for the workers, on the weather reports the temperature only ever gets as high as 39C. Hmmm. My point is that my flat is on the top floor (my legs are getting muscles on their muscles) and only one room has air con. My kitchen is a portable stove with a massive gas canister attached and a sink. If i stay there long I would have to buy a fridge and bed and things. So a new flat is in order I believe.
I suppose my main news is that yesterday I signed a contract that is the final paperwork needed for my work visa application. I have signed a contract for 14 months but with two months off around christmas to travel abit and pay a visit back home.
Anyway thats the summary of whats new for myself. So now I will continue with where my last blog left off. This is a travel blog after all....
So after arriving
An ancient tower
Plenty of these overwatching the streets back in Xi'an after Spring festival I was quite sure I wanted to stay and try and find a job here.
So I spent a few days with some Dannish guys who were great fun, and visiting Xi'ans biggest club (soon to be demolished/reburbished) the club has 6 dance floors with different moods/music on each. With overpriced drinks which I have actually come to realise are not so overpriced after building my knowlege of the Chinese nightlife...
Before I really had time to form a plan of what to start doing with myself, Tom invited me to go to Pingyao, a small town to the north east, and that I could stay for free as his guest at a hostel there ran by the same boss as the Han Tang Inn (my home from home here in Xi'an) So I got a few hours kip before it was time to gather my belongings and go in hunt of a bus. Now the rush for Spring festival was still keeping all the transport in a consistent state of mayhem so I was glad to have Tom by my side working his local knowledge. So we waited for a few
hours for a bus that would accept us as illegal extra passengers sitting in the aisle of the bus. I was quite pleased not to be going back to the Han Tang with my tail between my legs.
So after a few hours wait,I parked myself at the back of bus with Tom sat in front followed by 4 or 5 other extra passengers. However after perhaps an hour or so into the bus ride, one of drivers crew stood up beckoning me and all the other extra passengers to the front. The bus slowed down and the doors opened, the man hopped off followed one by one by the other passengers. I followed suit and the bus doors closed behind me and it speed back up. Me and Tom started laughing at this point as we were lead jogging off the highway and through a field. Things started to make sense at this point.
Because of the rush that Spring Festival causes, the police set up checkpoints on the roads to make sure no transports are overloading. So we were jogging to the otherside of the checkpoint to rejoin the bus. This was repeated 4 or 5
times over the 8 hour bus ride, and I found myself looking forward to the man standing up again and the other passengers chuckling as we again jump off the bus. It was a chance to stretch my legs, have a cigarette and have a giggle at the various espionage tactics of the bus crew. We were led under bridges, into waiting taxis or under barbed wire fences and along straights of road, farmland or dirt paths. I wish more of the long journeys I have taken had such interesting intervals. I also chatted to a girl sat in the seat next to me who was taking the full 10 hour ride to her home Taiyuan, the capital of the Shanxi province we were all headed to. (A bus from Shaanxi to Shanxi, thank you China for putting 2 provinces next to each other that are pronounced the same just with different tones)
Anyway she said she would show me around Taiyuan if I ever went, which are just the kind of offers you keep your ears open for when travelling. When we arrived at Pingyao, or at least the highway exit where we were all deposited. I was
NOT MORE SNOW
the temperature is around -15 pleased to find it fit the image Tom had painted in my mind of a small historic town that has protected it's history and maintained itself as it was originally built, at least within the town walls. Outside the town walls it had expanded in the same generic fashion that all places do.
The weather was cold and the hostel was completely empty of guests so the heating was off. But the hostel itself was very nice, there were courtyards full of statues and big ornate plant pots with walls overlapping creating seperate areas without using doors. These ran the length of the complex with rooms to the sides of them. Talking of doors, old Chinese doors are a real pain to get used to, they often leave the bottom foot of the door attached to the frame so you have to step over it. Now when it's dark and you have had a few beers the last architechture you want to be around is planks of wood at your feet that don't become obvious until you have kicked it or fallen flat on your face.
So the big boss for the hostel, same man who runs the
A peaceful night walk
if you can handle the ice Han Tang Inn came in with some business partners and invited me to eat with them. I told him to let me know if he wanted a westerner to work at the Han Tang Inn and he offered me a position but the pay and working hours compared to what I was aspiring to with teaching made it a bad choice so I thanked him and told him if I had no luck with teaching I would contact him to see if the position was still avaliable. Always good to have a plan B after all. By this point a small group of Chinese tourists having a weekend away had sat down nearby to have some drinks. Before I knew it I was sat with them being told all sorts of Chinese drinking games. Times like that are the real motivation for learning Chinese as only one of the group could speak English fluently. However I still had a good laugh with them all and we exchanged emails before heading off for a cold nights sleep.
There's good proof of humans empathy to one another when you are in a group you cannot talk to. You can have no idea what a group you are amoungst are talking about, but when they all start laughing you find yourself laughing too even though you don't know why.
Anyway the next few days were spent wondering between the old buildings and peoples intense stares. If someone picked you up in your sleep and dropped you off somewhere random, I think if nothing else you could guess the size of the place by the intensity of peoples stares. Or the number of goats...
I rathered enjoyed my much needed alone time. I managed to find the most horrible food I've had in China but also got some nice knick knacks. I bought two sew on patches to put on my russack which had cool pictures and a little Chinese writing. I later asked Tom for a translation and he told me one was 'I'm so handsome, even Chairman Mao says so' and the other 'Warning, I am the wolf'. Wolf in Chinese means someone who trys to sleep with all the girls. I think it's actually quite impressive in modest China I managed to pick two sleazy patches which have remained firmly unattached to said russack.
The thing about being a foreigner in a small town is one minute you are alone and the next you are the centre of attention. I was writing in my journal on the edge of a square. I looked up and some people were looking at me but most were just going about their business. The next time I looked up I had a spectator curiously watching me write in my alien language. I nodded and smiled and went back to my writing. When i next looked up there I was met by perhaps 20 set of eyes all crowded around me. A little unnerving but I decided to give them what they want and carried on writing. I felt like i should of being doing something far more spectacular though.
After a last day which was bitterly cold and filled with heavy snow. I decided to retreat from my retreat and head to Taiyuan for a few days to take advantage of the local girls offer of a free tour. So loaded up with my full gear I set off to find the bus station. Then 10 minute walk I was promised transpired into a 40 minute plod. I found the bus okay and rested my legs for a few hours. I met a medicine student who spoke a little English and he told me he would tell me when the bus arrived at the South gate of the university (in exchange for testing his English for the whole journey, he didn't mention).
So I arrived and he told me to get of the bus and the gate was just up the road.
Once again, I walked for 30 minutes untill this seemingly non-existanst gate decided to make itself visible. At that point I paid to use someones phone to cazll her and then collapsed on my bag while I waited for her....
(to be continued)
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smurf
non-member comment
dont put to be continued!!! I WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS