Can you hear me Jebus?

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As most of us, in times of heightened and frazzled emotions, we look for guidence from the most revered and most holy source; the Simpsons.

The passage of scripture that rings true in my troubled mind is "Mrs Pommohurst?......I'd like to get down now."

I cant believe I have only been in Wuzhou for three weeks. It feels like forever. I have one more week left. Can I make it?

Life isnt actually all that bad. I Think maybe the heat is affecting my brain. From torrential rain and flooding the weather has taken a hop, skip and a jump to severe heat wave. Lucky me, I get to experience both. It is nearly 40C today in the land that airconditioning forgot.

The good news is that classes have finished. I didnt find out until this morning when I dragged myself out of bed at 7am that school had finished for the term. No one told me. So the students have exams today and tomorrow and then bugger off home to their villages or whatever. At first I thought "woo-hoo!" but then the principal told me that I was going to a middle school to do some "promotional" work. By the way he said it I think, maybe, I was better with the devil I knew (hated, but knew).

Last weekend was really quite nice too. I learnt how fake diamonds are made. Turns out Wuzhou is famous for something after all, 60% of the worlds fake diamonds and what not come from here. I asked if they had the worlds larges cubic zurconia, they didnt get it.

One of the teachers has a friend who is in the business so I got to see a gem factory. What a life, sitting in a stinking hot, noisy room in front of a tiny little circular saw, cutting small pieces off crystal into smaller pieces of crystal. It made me think that I probably have cheap jewellry at home that was lovingly sculpted by these people.

Then we went to the "Gem City" which is a mall full of jewellry shops selling local fare to tourists, ie me. I bought a couple of bracelets, more out of courtisy than anything, because
I dont really like them. My friends haggled over the price and they cost me 40juan each ($7). It was really cute, they wrapped them up in gorgeous little boxes with glitter and ribbons which made me feel very extravagant, and when I got back to school all the students wanted to touch them.

I also discovered that Wuzhou is famous for soy milk. For lunch we went to the famous restaurant at the soy milk factory. Chinese people do soy milk a little differently than we do. They drink it very hot and very sweet out of a bowl with a spoon, like sweet soup. It was delicious!

The best thing I discovered was the weekend market. They have all kinds of (fake) antiques and jewellry and interesting things to look at and touch. Its kind of like our trash and treasure. People empty the contents of thier garages on a blanket on the road and thousands of people wander through looking for a bargin. But its all a bargin. I bought lucky Ching dynasty coins for 3 cents a pop. I dont care if theyre not really 400 years old, they look cool.

I have a confession to make. On Sunday night I ran away from school and booked myself into a hotel so I could watch the Australia v Brazil soccer game. I bought coke and pringles and cadbury chocolate from the supermarket, for what is a soccer game without nibbles. The bounty cost me the equivelent to a persons wage for a week. I could have bought the cheap chinese equivelent but if there is on thing I have learnt it is Chinese people cannot do chips, chocolate or fizzy drink. It is a skill they simply have no concept of, like a mountain goat trying to learn to scuba dive. Oh it was sooooo good. But I am slightly disappointed with Cadbury for selling an inferior product to an unsuspecting population. And a little sad we lost too, but it was still a brillian game. I got a rather angry phone call from the head master at 7.30 in the morning "reminding" me that I have class at 9 and that he is just looking out for my safety. Bastard.

The big game is tonight but there is no way I will get to watch it 😞 I console myself with knowing that I will be in Vietnam for the final and will be able to watch it in a bar with other english speaking people. Oh how I long to talk to other english speaking people.

So the decision has been made that I will head to Vietnam as soon as I leave here, then to Thailand and Laos, and then back up to China for the last two weeks.

I am boring myself by talking about the drugery of life in Wuzhou, so I will stop. You will here from me again when I am in some place interesting.

Chow

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