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Published: June 10th 2008
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Harvesting canola
The last of the rape (canola) crop is being brought to the street to remove the seeds from the bushes. Daily life goes on. It is fascinating to watch the workers go about their business. Ever day the same thing - sweep this section of road with a stall-type broom, collect rubbish along this section of road, beat the heck out of the rape (canola) bushes to collect the seed, burn the stubble in the paddocks - life goes on, 7 days a week, and generally 14 hours a day. If the workers (that is what they call the casual day-labourers) don’t work, they don’t get paid. Simple.
Oh how we long to see some blue sky, smell the clean air, and walk in the bush. Where we are, all of these are definitely lacking. The bush we expected, as we knew we were going to a farming area, and the air pollution we also expected from our previous travels, but the continual burning and thick acrid smoke is really bad. For the last several days, visibility has been down to no more than 150 metres.
We bought ourselves one of the electric scooters. The freedom of zipping around town wherever you like is great. The bus service is handy, but the routes are limited and the places we
Drying bushes
Rape bushes laid out along the road to dry. Once dried, the thrashing starts to collect the seed. have visited would mean changing buses frequently and waiting at bus stops. The scooter was the obvious answer. We hope we can recover some of our outlay by selling the scooter when we leave. One hazard of the scooter, once you get used to the chaotic disorder of how they use and interpret the road rules, is sucking in the smoke at 50 kph. Being an Aussie is definitely and advantage, as we can talk with our mouth barely open, which eliminates eating extra protein from the myriad of bugs that hit you in your face whilst scooting along.
Fireworks are very popular over here, as you would imagine. Everything is an excuse to light a box of crakers of skyrockets. Construction workers and shop keepers use them during the day, restaurant owners and residents use them at night. We are regularly treated to a fireworks display which we can see from our apartment window, balcony or a hallway window. Shops sell boxes and boxes of various fireworks, and they are fairly cheap. We think there is a lot of superstition in using fireworks, mainly for scaring off the bad spirits, but no-one admits this - they say it
Hard work
Thrashing canola bushes along all of the local streets and roadways is for luck.
One of the most frustrating parts of our job here is lack of planning and no communication. Up until 1630 on Friday, we had one more teaching week left and then two weeks to examine our students. As we teach conversational English, we needed to have each student conversed with individually, which takes time. Our classes range from 52 - 60 students, so with a few minutes per student, we would only get half of the class done each week. However, at 1630, we were told that the Dean’s office had decided were to finish off by the following Friday - one week only to do the exams. Luckily we had already decided to not go away for the weekend with some other foreign teachers, as we then had to spend the weekend rearranging our Lesson Plan and Exam criterion. No big deal really, just frustrating.
The bonus to this is we now have two weeks extra leave, so next week we are off to Xuzhou, an historic city in the far northwest of Jiangsu Province. This town was the base of the Han Dynsaty (from 250 BC). They have their own Terracotta Warriors, which
Canola seed
Millions of little black oil seeds all over the road. Soon to be turned into oil. are the earlier version of the Warriors from Xian. Xuzhou isn’t as well known outside of China, but there are over 200 burial tombs to visit and crawl through, with many artifacts left inside. after that, Nantong, then Nanjing, Wuxi, Suzhou and then Hefei. Holdiays, here we come. Photos next time.
Betty-Anne’s addendum: You do know it is the little things that make or break your day. Last week I could no longer push/squeeze any more toothpaste out of the tube we had brought with us. So it was time to use the tube supplied to us (as part of our comfortable life mentioned in our contract). Ah, well the tube was white with red and orange writing. It looked alright. Put a little on the toothbrush, and brush away. The taste was orange bubble gum, but this wasn’t the worst part. Two passes with the brush and froth was bubbling everywhere. I swear it was trying to climb into my nose. Graeme was laughing. He had used the last minute scrap from our tube. A bull camel around cow camels in season has less froth. Female frogs laying eggs have less froth. Race horses after the Melbourne Cup
A sunny afternoon
Mid afternoon sun - sometimes the smoke and smog is thicker than this. have less froth. It took three rinses to get rid of the stuff, all the while tasting of orange bubblegum.
The next day Graeme was going out with another male teacher to go Ten Pin Bowling, I pleaded with him to buy a colgate toothpaste on his way home. He remembered, and bought a bright red Colgate toothpaste box with a little picture of green leaves. I threw the other away. The next morning I used the new tube. Expecting something close to what I’m used to, with a nice mint flavour. I set about cleaning my teeth in the usual way. Horror of horrors! The froth! It’s back.! And worse, it tasted like seaweed! That day, I went with Graeme to the supermarket to buy a colgate toothpaste that comes close to what we are used to. When we explored that red box more closely, it was supposed to taste of tea.
The other disaster I had to negotiate, was bottled fruit. They looked so inviting. I succumbed and bought two bottles. I opened one to have some for dessert last night. I thought about going down stairs to our on-campus shop to buy some ice-cream but
Local buys
The bottles of fruit look better than they taste, so does the famous brand of toothpaste. the thought of six flights of stairs was a negative. It took all Graeme’s strength and ingenuity to open the fruit salad bottle. I eagerly stirred the fruit (it was packed in layers of different fruit) Choosing the best bits and the only cherry. I sat down to savour the sweet morsels - and nearly gagged. Apparently, at least some of the fruit is preserved with salt and or MSG. What a disappointment. Now I have to find someone who likes the stuff or they will go the way of the toothpaste.
The next problem today is the atmosphere. The air is so bad even opening my door to walk 5 metres to the laundry door was a hold your breath affair. It is burning, and acrid. I have to do examinations today. This week-end (Saturday, Sunday, and Monday) in China is tertiary entrance examinations. I feel sorry for the High School students sitting hours of exams with overanxious parents all the while standing outside the school grounds, and yet being unable to breathe properly. Last week when the air was bad (but not as bad as today) the other English teacher complained to our Foreign Affairs Liaison officer
Fireworks shop
This is a 'hole in the wall' shop which sells boxes of skyrockets and crackers. about the thick smoke and she was told it was just fog.
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