Blogs from Xiangfan, Hubei, China, Asia - page 2

Without wishing to stray below the belt, although after seventeen of these some would say it's about time, this is going to start with a quick word on toilets. This is because I've been ill for most of thelast week and so a good portion of my experiences over the past few days have been exclusively bathroom based. Don't worry if you don't like the sound of this though, there's a nice bit about Ping Pong coming up later on. I was told before I got here that my flat would have a Western toilet installed as part of the contract. Naively I asked why this was necessary and then (because nothing gets past me) questioned what a Chinese toilet actually was. I was told to imagine a toilet without the toilet - which, as you ... read more

"....why they changed it, I can't say. People just liked it better that way." When I took the job I am now doing here, this city was called Xiangfan, within a week it had decided to change it's name to Xiangyang. Now, I'm not saying these two things are related, they're almost certainly not, but (they're not) it would be quite a good way (they're not) to drum up some publicity (they're not) before a big event, wouldn't it? Like I say, though, it's probably just a coincidence, I'm sure these things happen all the time. Unnecessary and humourless dick-swinging* aside, the weird thing about it is that the reason it was changed, according to everyone I've spoken to, is that Xiangyang is a better known name in China (because there is a another city called ... read more

Why is Leeza in Hubei province tonight, you ask? I do not want to be here. But I had literally no say in the matter. As I went into school yesterday evening for my nightly Chinese lesson, I received a phonecall from my boss. "Hello, how are you," I said, and we spent 90 or so seconds exchanging our inane pleasantries. "Yes, well we've got your various residential issues sorted out. You need to go to a city in Hubei province to get this processed. It's in the south of China and it's very nice. By the way, you're going tonight; the train leaves at 11. Management has your tickets. Goodbye." Self: "Qui-i-i-i-id???" This is roughly equivalent to telling someone in Cincinnati they are expected to be in Huston, Texas by next morning and will be ... read more

Its Saturday. I got up at 6:30 am. Those words and numbers should never go together... Regardless, I woke up and got ready to leave by 7. Jessi, Kyle and I went outside to get in the taxi that was supposed to be waiting for us outside of our apartment building. It wasn there, so we walked towards the gate. Jessi got a call from Nicole in foreign affairs, and we finally found the cab.. it was in the wrong place. We got on the road and drove to Xiangfan. The plan was to meet Melody and two of her friends at McDonalds for breakfast. We got there at like 9:30, and as soon as we got up to the registers, they took the breakfast signs down. Jessi and I still ordered pancakes (yeah, I don ... read more