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Published: December 1st 2014
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Smog over new apartments_East Yangzhou
Smog made worse by burning the stubble after the harvest …..a man is kneeling & kowtowing in the middle of a bike lane at a busy intersection near the Da Run Fa supermarket. On closer inspection he has an old woman, possibly his mother, wrapped in blankets, not looking particularly well, lying next to him, as the bikes dodge around them. When I ask if she is sick he just nods in affirmation so I give him the benefit of the doubt & put some money in his container. I also wonder, if the current Australian government starts winding back Medicare & people are reduced to similar methods, how long you'd be allowed to do this before being moved on.....
…..progress isn't always what it's cracked up to be. As China lurches into the 21
st century, sometimes way ahead of supposedly more advanced countries, sometimes hopelessly behind, the man in street is left to make sense of it. The average young man in the street has already been through an education system which has hammered knowledge into him over long hours for many years, supervised closely by teachers, parents & probably 2 sets of grandparents. To get married & start a family it's not enough to find a partner. They
Lunch Dongguan Jie Yangzhou
With Martha, (R), mother of my violin student Tammy, (L), & some friends are obliged these days, to prove their worth as a prospective husband to not only have a house, or rather an apartment, at least 2 bedrooms, preferably new, but also a car, new of course. He can then drive his new car in second gear around the increasingly congested cities that are not equipped to deal with the vast influx of brand new cars driven by some of the world's most incompetent & inconsiderate drivers.....
…..a Dutch friend of mine married a Chinese colleague from the company he works for. She's a lovely girl but her family insisted on the apartment & car. His firm provides a rented apartment but, to keep the parents happy he has rented a bigger one &, against his better judgement, bought a new car, the status symbol that he doesn't want or need. If I ever felt the need to drive here it would be in a much older vehicle which I wouldn't mind being dented & probably modelled on something from the Mad Max movies.....
…..talking of which, what's been happening on the roads recently? Katie, one of our new teachers this year, bought an e-scooter which lasted a few days
Sunset, East Yangzhou
New complex being built next door before someone going the wrong way knocked her off & damaged the shiny new panels. The other day I heard what I thought was a package fall from a scooter but when I looked back a woman had parked her bike & ran back to pick up the kid that had fallen off. I clip the handlebars of a “Xiang fan dao ren”, (Going wrong way person), aimlessly riding into oncoming traffic at a busy intersection, looking any way but straight ahead. She was still stopped in the middle of the intersection as I glanced in the mirror, obviously in shock that there was someone else on the road. She must have got over it though as, when I went back 2 hours later she wasn't there.....
…..in addition: a rider on a scooter, in dark clothing & no lights, knocked flying by a car at the big roundabout at the town centre around 11pm as he tries to negotiate it going the wrong way. He gets up quickly & goes to investigate the car's smashed radiator with the driver. On the way back from the west of the city one morning a section of the bike lane is
Chen Yun's Concert
Chen Yun, top left, guzhen player & a great musician, in concert. blocked & I see in the half light what looks like roadworks. On going past I see a stationary truck in the adjacent road, the side down, having apparently disgorged a whole load of large rocks over the fence & right across the bike lane. I'm glad I wasn't going past when that happened.....
…...Windsong is a new teacher from the USA to replace the teacher who arrived during the summer but got cold feet & left a few days before school started! She's a lady of native American background & has an interesting history including living in New York & New Mexico, being involved with alternative communities & permaculture, plus building her own adobe house. She expected, as we all did from erroneous information perpetuated by ESL, (English as a Second Language) teacher training organisations, that Asian students venerate teachers as demi-gods & are always impeccably behaved. That's as big a lie as any Australia's PM, Tony Abbott, has managed to come up with, no mean feat! She has the most difficult students, in Grade 8, the ones I decided not to teach again this year! She has had a miserable first week but is slowly working on
Windsong, Excelina & Halim
Thanksgiving dinner at school a range of solutions.....
…..I am generally having a fun time teaching my 12 & 13 year old grade 7 kids. They're just out of primary school, so haven't generally acquired “attitude” yet, but many are old enough to understand at least some of my sense of humour. So far so good. During a recent lesson discussing sports & fitness I am impressed with the kids who, while demonstrating their understanding of “yoga” could get a foot behind their neck, & one who could manage both feet, simultaneously. ....
….I can't make it to Taizhou to visit Miss Piggy on her son's, (Ling Zi En's), first birthday on a Tuesday. It's a very important celebration in China. I visit briefly the following Saturday taking the traditional, red envelope with some money, plus a framed copy of the photo from the last blog. She & Ling Yu, her husband comes to pick me up in from Taizhou coach station in the car & I'm able to stop for lunch. As I arrive back in Yangzhou I am chastised roundly in a text message, “It's not necessary... you shouldn't have...etc, as you are good friend”. Maybe I should just give
Thanksgiving
Dennis, our chef at the school, with Thanksgiving turkeys red envelopes with money to casual acquaintances & strangers.....
…..I finally take a leap & try out the loop pedal, (which I've had for over a year) to my Secrecy restaurant / bar gig. The first time is not a polished show by any means but still promising. For the following gig I spend a day & a half using the built in drum patterns & recording some bass lines for about 8 songs using the bottom 3 strings of the electric guitar. That's MUCH better! I'm on the right track at last. The young Chinese guy who does the sound engineering & also plays after I finish, is amazed at the bass. Maybe I missed my vocation! Zhu Laoshi, the music director from the TV station, also contacts me, talking about a Christmas Gig. What … Oh! It's December already! I should be able to tell from the weather, which has, right on cue, turned suddenly very cold.....
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Peter Bower
non-member comment
Reading up
Hi Dave, Long time no see. Good to read on with your blog again. Writing very good.