The one after winter- Spring(ish) in China

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February

Apart from September (when we didn’t have a clue where we were and what we were doing), February has been one of the bleakest months in our Chinese travels so far. Why? I hear you ask. Well, let me explain. Firstly, we have the holiday blues after having a great time in Bali with great weather and great company (most of the time anyway lol). We only had 2 actual weeks holiday off compared to everyone else here who had a full month off, but that’s still long enough for us to get lazy and out of the habit of teaching.

Secondly, our kids came back after the holidays as enthusiastic as we are, and it seems every classroom rule and word of English we have taught them has completely vanished into thin air. So it’s been a week of trying to re-establish boundaries, gain their trust and confidence back, and get them back into the habit of speaking English, all while we are feeling as happy as a cow at an abattoir. Is this how it is for teachers after the holidays?

And lastly, an issue I have with February is that the weather has been completely dire; in fact it was lower than Glasgow on a few occasions! Thanks Greg for promising me that Southern China was ‘sub-tropical’ and ‘never gets any lower than 16 degrees’. I’ll think you’ll find that it does! So without proper heating and wooden floors everywhere in the house, we’ve been feeling the cold and having to sit inside with our jackets, jumpers and slippers on every day and night. The main saving grace about February is the fact it is only 28 days long. But looking on the positive side, we went for our first morning tea session this month and we also received several care packages from home including crème eggs- a well needed boost!

Morning tea is a very popular concept in China and basically consists of going to a restaurant before 1pm to drink lots of tea and eat lots of ‘dim sum’ (the Chinese equivalent of tapas). The choices vary from place to place, but there are lots to choose from. The most popular are probably the most widely recognised in Western culture - steamed dumplings filled with a sweet or savoury filling. Then you also have stuffed, rolled egg pancakes (again they can be sweet or savoury); boiled pork, fish and chicken dishes; flavoured rice wrapped in bamboo leaves and of course my favourite, chicken feet! Needless to say the sweet options were my favourite (the dumplings filled with sweet, creamy egg custard are amazing) and we ended up having to roll out of the restaurant because we ate so much.

Thankfully the weather is set to improve over the next few weeks, so we’ll hopefully get a chance to put the shorts on and get out and about once more. I can’t wait to wheel our little barbeque out and head down to the park with a few beers (jealous anyone?). One thing’s for sure - there won’t be any chicken feet in sight.



March

As March arrives, we’ve been continuing to get back into our usual routine and prepare for summer. Now we’ve managed to get a few weeks teaching under our belts again, we feel a bit more normal and we’ve managed to get the kids on side once more. Our moods are a lot better and we’ve continued to have loads of special interactions with the people of China that make us really enjoy living here. For example, on the 8^th March it was International Women’s Day and the security guard in our apartment complex was giving out red carnation flowers to all ladies as a present. He was beaming with pride as he rushed to give me one as I was leaving. A few days later, we were passing a shop where we saw an ornament that we’d like to buy so we went inside to buy it. 2 minutes later we were ushered to a table with their family and given endless cups of freshly brewed herbal tea until eventually we told him that we had to leave. And then there’s the story of our local bakery. Every time we go in to buy a freshly baked loaf of bread, we are given a free homemade pastry to go with it.

I also went for my first ‘facial’ (behave) this month with one of my Chinese friends, and it was very enjoyable to say the least. The treatment lasted for an hour and a half, and cost 10 quid- and that was with skin cream to take home with me too J

So we started off pretty badly but ended pretty well. And we only have one more full week of teaching and then we’re off on some more travels, this time to Guilin which is in the next province from us. We’ll keep you posted!

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