More fun days out with the teachers at the school!

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Another week has gone by! Time seems to be going by very quickly. Both of us are starting to feel tired - even though we aren't working particularly hard I guess just living here is starting to catch up with us. Day to day living is certainly much harder than in Australia. This week has bought the usual weekly dramas - clogged toilet, computer problems and no water for hours a day! This weeks lesson was totally on the computer and despite trying to take my computer into the classroom prior to classes to check all was ok the teachers told me that 'you just take your computer to the classroom, plug it in and it will work - don't worry!' - mine of course didn't! We have a different brand of computer to the other teachers (I think it came from the administration area) and it had never been set up to connect to the screens in the classrooms. Talk about being thrown into the deep end..... I had to do 4 lessons off the top of my head! They went well thankfully but I'm ready to give up lessons on the computer - Jerry has decided not to even start them! When I took my computer to the computer block to be adjusted they wiped everything off it - all my photos, music, and info off the internet that I had been collecting for future lessons. I've managed to find some of it but have given up on the rest.
The water (or lack of it) continues to be a problem. We've managed to adjust to the shortages over breakfast by showering early and filling plastic bowls. We don't even attempt to wash clothes in the morning now - just throw it all in the machine before we go to bed. But for the last week or so there has been no water from midday to at least 3pm every day. It's probably still a pressure problem as the lower floors seem to have water. As the weather has suddenly become much hotter we're presuming people are coming back to their apartments and having showers at lunch time. However we're going to have to talk to the school about it. Unfortunately we left a tap on the other day when the water was turned off and of course it came back on and flooded the apartment below us! Or so we we're told - there was no plug in the sink or water on our floor but I think it must have run out of the drain pipe as it went down through the other apartment. Chinese plumbing, like their electrical work and general finishing of the houses is very shoddy. Our apartment has electrical wires hanging from the ceiling and the plumbing pipes under the sink aren't much thicker then plastic bags.
The other drama this week was a clogged toilet - the second time this has happened. For two days we tried everything to unclog it. We have two western toilets - one off our bedroom which is pretty grotty and we haven't been using it (though it got a really good scrub out last week as we had to use it!) and the one in our bathroom which was once a squat toilet so the plumbing has a lot of bends in it which are the problem. Eventually we cleared it with an old mop!
Enough grumbles! We've actually had a very interesting week. Last Saturday champion organised a day out with the Vice Chancellor and some of the school teachers for us. We thought Mel and Renae would be coming but at the last minute they had to work - because of the Ching Ming festival holiday on Monday and Tuesday their school wanted them to work over the weekend to make up their classes. We met Champion at the school gate at 10am (having no idea of where we were going and what was planned) and told him the girls wouldn't be coming. The mini bus arrived, we all piled in and 10 minutes later drove into Mel and Renaes school - on the way our headmaster had rung up the girls headmaster and they were coming! They were both in classes so had no prior warning at all and were very surprised. Thankfully they didn't even have to make up the classes that they missed.
We had a really wonderful day! We drove north of Guangshui towards the mountains on the border with the next province. The road was dirt and very rough, the countryside very pretty and dotted with tiny villages which were very, very poor. We stopped at the village where our Vice Chancellor grew up and visited the house of his brother. It was the old style Chinese house set around a courtyard with no running water except from a well with a hand pump. The village was tiny with dirt streets, a couple of small front room shops and a very rundown primary school (see photograph). The school was much more 'modern' than the one our head teacher went to when he was living there but it gave us a good insight into the schools that the students we teach studied at prior to their thirteenth birthdays. After that age you don't have to attend school in China - if you do most of the students would go to live at a school in the 'city' and attend a Junior Middle School and then Senior Middle School. The old school we teach at in Guangshui is not much better then the village school - the classrooms are very similar. You can imagine how grim the dormitories and toilets are!
The school had arranged for the wife of a farmer in the village to cook lunch for us all. It was a beautiful meal with many vegetarian dishes - most Chinese people accept that Westerners have a problem eating a lot of their food - though there were the usual chick feet and pig trotters poking out of the soup dishes. Jerry usually tries most dishes and he really enjoyed the pigeon. He went back for more a few times but even he baulked at eating the head, complete with beak and eyes and the tiny leg with claws that came out in one spoonful! The school had stopped at the supermarket in Guangshui and bought red wine and a very powerful clear spirit for us all to drink. The Chinese won't drink alcohol without toasting so every time they want a sip they call out 'cheers' (gunbay) or when they want to empty their glass they say 'bottoms up'. You have to follow the their example so if they empty their glass you have to empty yours.
After lunch we found we were heading to a reservoir - 'to see the beautiful scenery'. It is very hard to explain how things are done here without experiencing it yourself. They are really hospitable people but never tell you what is happening or ask whether you are happy about it happening! If you spend a day with them you find your whole day totally planned and you don't know what is going to happen until it happens. We were to have a major problem with this a couple of days later. Thankfully we were dressed as usual in jeans and walking shoes as the visit to the reservoir turned into a 4 hour hike through the mountains. We knew nothing about it until we arrived at the reservoir and the driver stared handing out bottles of water to everybody. We started the hike from a Buddhist temple where one solitary monk lived and climbed up a very steep hill to a shrine on the top. It was very hot and we were all relieved to arrive at the top. One of the lady teachers with us was wearing high heels!
We thought that was the hike but we still had 3 hours to go. It was a really enjoyable walk though, right along the ridge of mountains and then gradually down hill. There were hundreds of steps, thankfully we were walking down them - not up them. The Chinese teachers were all really well dressed in suits etc and became so hot. None of them took off their coats but they all rolled up their trousers legs and showed off a colourful array of long underwear. They must have been really hot as we were wearing hardly any clothes in comparison and really noticed the heat. I asked one of the lady teachers why they were still wearing such heavy clothes and she told me that they won't really take off too many layers until June - they think it is healthy to wear a lot of warm clothes for as long as possible. No wander they have been so concerned for us since we arrived as we've been walking around in our thin (though super warm) fleeces and very fine Gore-Tex (wind/rain proof) jackets - which to them appear like summer clothes.
We loved the hike - the trees here are all in flower so the mountain was covered in the whites, pinks and reds of peach and pear blossom. Our school will be spectacular in the next few weeks as the gardens have literally turned green overnight and there are hundreds of azalea bushes coming into flower, as well as many peach trees covered in blossom. The azalea and rhododendron trees are native to China. We finished the hike at a resort area which in summer is full of Chinese tourists and headed back to the village where we had lunch for the evening meal. We had a wander around the village, visiting the school and trying to talk to some of the locals. The little boy in the photo was adorable and every time we saw him during the day his mouth was absolutely stuffed with rice. I took a photograph of him after dark and the flash didn't go off. However you can make out the outlines and three spots of white - two were his sneakers with glow in the dark stripes and the other was a big round white spot which was his open mouth full of rice!
After we finished eating we left to drive back to Guangshui. Once a meal is eaten the Chinese get up immediately and leave. Rice is always the last thing served as they eat it to fill in the empty gaps in their stomachs and to help digest the other food they have eaten. When you see the rice appear you know you'll be gone from the table within a few minutes. They never sit over the remains of a meal, even for a few minutes, and the table is not cleared until you leave. They cover the table top with fine plastic sheeting and everybody spits their bones etc onto the table top so by the time you get up to leave it looks pretty dirty. We had a fabulous day, certainly the best we've had in China so far. By the time we reached Guangshui we were all very tired. We drove back through absolute pitch blackness - even the villages only had very dim lights showing from their homes.
Jerry and I did lessons on Monday morning, but at midday the school emptied quickly as the students had 2 and half days off to go home for the Quing Ming Festival. One of the students had invited me to his home for the afternoon a couple of days before but when we waited for him he never showed up. I haven't caught up with him again but hope he forgot and that I didn't get the date wrong. Jerry thought he would wait at the gate in case he turned up and while he was there one of the male teachers asked if he would like to visit a reservoir (another one) and go boating. Meanwhile I had rung Mel and arranged to go for a walk with her that evening so I told Jerry that I couldn't go. Jerry went off with the teacher and was due to come back at around 7pm that evening. Mel and I had a great walk through the fields for a couple of hours and walked back into Guangshui via the Air Force officers quarters barracks! Guangshui has a large group of soldiers in the Air Force based here, they are mainly in parachute regiments and we keep stumbling over their barracks when we explore the city. We don't mean to but we can't read the language and therefore the signs!! So far the soldiers have been very nice to us though Mel and I got turned back from part of the area when we tried to find our way to the main road the other day. A couple of days earlier Jerry and I ended up walking through another barracks area - it was funny to see the soldiers in their army greens but wearing red slippers on their feet.
Jerry had gone off with Jargon (the teacher) to a reservoir about 40 minutes away by bus. Jargon was meeting a group of friends which included principals of other schools and other Government officials. They went out on the reservoir in a boat and then went to a hotel restaurant on the shore of the lake to have dinner. However all the guests at the dinner got drunk and Jerry was stranded there for the night as he had no idea how to get back to our apartment. Some of them had rented apartments there for the evening so Jerry found a bed and had a very restless sleep as everybody else played Mah-jong till 4am. Champion told us that Mah-jong is an addiction in China - you don't play it unless you play for money and people gamble much more then they can afford to lose. Everyday you see groups of people playing it - on the footpaths, in shops and in the front rooms of peoples homes as you walk past.
Next day we had planned to meet the girls and catch a local bus to another city Suizhou, about an hour away. It appears that the reservoir was halfway to Suizhou and Jargon had arranged for a minibus to collect us and take us to meet Jerry and himself and then to take us all to Suizhou together. We weren't happy about the arrangement at all, particularly as we had half an hours notice and hadn't been planning to leave till later anyway. Also we all knew that our day as we originally planned it wasn't going to happen! Anyway we drove down to the reservoir through very pretty countryside. The roads were very busy with men and boys walking to their family tombs to clean them as it was the public holiday for Qing Ming (tomb sweeping day). The men hoe and sweep their ancestors graves before burning paper money and cardboard objects (cars, houses, TVs etc) and incense. Then the tombs are decorated with what we would call Christmas decorations and fire crackers are let off.
We headed off to Suizhou after collecting the men and once we got there Jargon said we would meet in 2 hours for lunch and then we would go home! We had been planning a day there so thanked him and said that we would find our own way home. We walked off down the street and he looked so dejected (sulky!) we felt awful and went back and said that we would meet him for lunch. He then said that we could visit an ancient burial sit nearby. Jerry decided to go which gave the females in the group time to look at the shops. In hindsight we should have gone to the tombs as we decided very quickly we didn't like Suizhou at all it was just another dirty, noisy Chinese city! We were collected at midday and taken to a very expensive restaurant for lunch - we would have been happy with a snack from a street stall. The food was delicious though and Jargon had organised a lot of vegetarian dishes for us. The Chinese are quite understanding of the fact that we find their food, particularly their meat dishes hard to eat.
After lunch we were taken back to the reservoir where the plan was for us to leave Jargon with his friends and we would catch a local bus back to Guangshui. Jargon said he wanted to walk with us when we went off to look at the reservoir and as we were walking past a restaurant he told us that was where we would be having dinner! We knew that the evening would be a repeat of the previous night and none of us would get home if we didn't leave before nightfall. Then he told us that he had arranged for Jerry to give a lecture in Suizhou the next day. I refused to do it as there was no way I was giving any lectures without some preparation. The idea definitely had been for us to stay the night and go to lecture the next day from there. Jerry would have felt great - 2 sleepless nights, dirty clothes and no shower or shave for 2 days. We all refused to stay the evening or for another meal and told him we wished to go back to Guangshui. No doubt he lost face with his friends but we were never consulted about any of the arrangements at all. Mel and Renae had to work next day as well so had to be back.
The rest of the week was relatively uneventful and we met Mel and Renae at one of the tent restaurants for a meal after work on Friday. Every evening big tents are set up at the end of the shopping street and all the locals come out to eat in them - at the end of the evening they are all pulled down until the next night. There is so much work involved in that. We had a great meal of stir fried fresh pasta, green vegetables and egg. The total bill for the four of us was 14 Yuan, just over $2. We have decided to do it most Friday nights in future. As we were going home a wild electrical storm hit, with very heavy rain. By the time we reached the school there had been a power blackout and everything was pitch black. The students sounded like they were all having a great time in the classrooms - you could hear all the shouting and whistling coming through the blackness. At least they had a couple of hours off from their studies and a bit of unexpected fun.
On Saturday the weather was still miserable but we decided to go down to Guangshui Town and chase up some yummy chocolate cake we had eaten there a few weeks before. The shop had no cake but we did find blueberry jam! We also explored some very interesting old streets with rows of the original mud brick houses. It was very wet underfoot so we will go back with our cameras on a sunny day to explore further. Last night Jerry and I went with Champion to the coffee shop! We had heard that there was one here and were pleasantly surprised. The coffee was freshly ground - Champion went downstairs to watch the beans being ground (he was quite excited!). We drank our coffee in a private room (and paid 30 Yuan for the privilege) which was furnished with a red vinyl lounge, coffee table, television and vid player, an artificial mandarin tree with glowing mandarins and a very charming framed picture of two teddy bears kissing!
We enjoy Champion's company - we can talk to him about anything and he has a great sense of humour. Last night he told us about a gang war between students at the school in Guangshui Town. One of the gangs hired some 'bad men' to attack the other group of students. Three were seriously injured - one had his arm chopped off, another lost some fingers and a third had the tendons at the back of his heels cut. This all happened a couple of days ago and I hope they keep their little battle at the school 20 minutes drive from us!
We found out today that our school has a web page - it is a very large site and has many photos of the school. The web page is www.guangshuiyz.com. If you are interested in looking at the photos download the page and you will see a menu under the page heading. Click on the sixth group of Chinese symbols from the left and it will open 6 pages of photos! I wish somebody had told us about it before we came to China.
Not much else to report - we are both well and happy. We have nearly a week off at the end of the month - the labour day holiday period and an exam period at the school. We are planning a ferry trip through the Three Gorges with the girls over that break. Also in early June we have another few days break while the big university entrance exams are held at the school and then we have 2 months break over July and August. We have booked a trip through Devin for 3 weeks of that time and then we’ll go to Yunnan province for about a fortnight after that before returning to Guangshui.

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