Piles of Poo in Changsha

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(written a while ago)

I've been meaning to write a Travelblog from Changsha for the past 4 months, but haven't gotten around to it. however, I've decided to finally pull my finger out and brighten up everyone's Xmas.

As you may or may not know, I'm currently living in Changsha in Central China. Changsha is one of those 'small' Chinese cities, which contains over 6 million people. It is one of the four 'furnaces' of China which, whilst aptly describing the summer situation, doesn't accurately reflect the current temperature. It's not that it's that cold (think UK Winter), it's just that the Chinese Government decided that cities south of Shanghai don't need central heating. I would love to invite one of those Cadres to enjoy winter teaching at the school. 'Furnace' could also be used to describe the food here. I've haven't deciphered the local Changsha dialect yet, but I'm sure the waiters are asking 'hot or bloody hot'. My attempts at asking for 'not spicy' have not been successful.

I'm currently teaching Maths at a school here. It's a school for Chinese students who have finished high school and will go to a British University next year. The teaching, again, is great. I was a bit worried about teaching teenagers, and whilst it can be difficult to motivate them at times, generally they're well-mannered and enthusiastic. Teaching Maths to chinese kids can be a challenging since they can do things with numbers and equations that I never imagined possible. Luckily, we've been studying mainly Calculus these past months, which in my opinion has the perfect combination of being conceptually difficult but algebraically not too difficult, so I feel I can add value. From the outset, I didn't expect 18 hours a week to be so challenging, but the lesson preparation (I have to learn most of the material again) is fairly heavy. I still have the option of doing a PGCE next September, but given the number of teaching hours required at Secondary schools, it's becomming less and less appealing.

It quite unbelieveable that it's Christmas already. It certainly doesn't feel like it. The students have a Christmas party tonight, which will invariably involve endless singing and dancing performances. We've also been told by the Chinese staff that 'drinking beer will set a bad example to the students'. It doesn't get much worse than that! We're toying with the idea of setting up a 'Yes Minister style Communications room' to satisfy out Christmas Eve need (human right?) to get sloshed. However, I can't see 'Sir, there's a Mr Qingdao to see you' working as well as 'Sir, a Mr Smirnoff from the Russian Embassy would like a word.'

Some other 'highlights':-

- Having my first apartment infested with mice. I came home one night to discover they had pooed on my face towel and bed. Coming into my flat and eating my garbage is one thing, but my my face towel? There's a line that shouldn't be crossed, and they pooed right over it.

- I finally moved at the weekend to a new flat. The first night I used the washing machine only to find out that its drainage function involved pumping 35 litres of dirty water all over my lounge floor.

- The building opposite my new flat catching fire. Luckily it didn't reach the 3 large piles of poo that are lying outside my building. I did speculate for a moment that the mice had followed me, but from the picture you'll see the flaw in the logic.

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Photos

Halloween
What happens when your students find out where you go out.

A Pile of Crap
You don't often see this (unless you're an AFC Bournemouth supporter)

Fishing
How to pull a silly face whilst baiting your hook

Sunset
I can't resist a sunset, especially a smog-covered one

The Fuyue Olympics
Activity at the school

Comments

[Paul Darlow]

Loks like you're having a ball
Tell me Mr Johnson, with whom did you learn to play Mahjong?

[Claire]

Hi
What special experiences about mice! Hot food! Hot pot! Spicy :-) Changsha is different from Chengdu. If possible,you can travel there to look around.

[annette&barry]

Lovely to hear from you Tim - hope you have a super 2009 - all well here but very cold!

[bear]

H Miracle Review
With excellent description in you articles, I want to thanks for your blog providing a large amount of knowledge and enlightenment..H Miracle Review

[Consulting China]

www.daxueconsulting.com
Changsha is the capital city of Hunan Province in south-central China. According to the 2010 Census, Changsha’ s population is of 7,044,118. Changsha’ s population nearly tripled between the start of its rebuilding in 1949 and the early 1980s. Actually I love Changsha, especially the foods there. Hope you have a good time there.