Missing Miss Piggy

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Photos:


…..the days are still hot & as sticky as, (in Australian English there is no need to specify, “as sticky as what?”). A few evenings have been perceptibly cooler, only by a small amount but it's a relief. I have taken to hand washing the morning's shirt & underpants while having a shower at lunchtime, to prevent an unmanageable buildup of washing.....

…..the kid who spat on the floor during class didn't appear overjoyed to be told to get the mop & wipe the floor. Had he caught me in a less amenable mood he might have been upended & his hair employed to do the same job.....

…..I have one or two students this year who are, I believe the correct current term is, “remedial”. One is virtually uncommunicative at any level & spends most of the class filling his fountain pen from an ink bottle. Most of the ink ends up outside the pen, on his desk, books, the floor, his hands, the wall when he finally goes to the sink at the back of the room. His head teacher knows about it. At least he's quiet when he's doing that.....

…..Zhong Qiu Jie, the Mid-autumn Festival, second only to the Spring Festival, or Chinese New Year, gives us four days off this week. It's paid for, you may remember, by working on the weekends before & after. I'm invited to have dinner with my private student, Tianyi, & his family. As a gift I buy a magnificently packaged box of moon cakes from a selection of dozens at the Da Run Fa as a gift (see photo).....

…..a group of foreign teachers are planning to go to Beijing during the next holiday, the Guo Qi Jie, or National Day holiday. So soon after the Mid Autumn Festival (only a week between them) & a time when all China is on the move. As much as I'd like to explore more of the national capital there are many places closer to hand that I haven't been to yet so I may avoid the one hundred kilometre long traffic jams for which Beijing has recently become notorious, train & bus stations bursting at the seams & explore Jiangsu province.....

…..to counteract a short attention span I teach ShenYue's son by extracting vocabulary from a computer game, which I find is about the only thing that totally engages him. We end up with a range of expressions to translate, “Mission successful” (or “failed”), “gun”, “grenade”, etc. It's a learning experience for me too. I didn't know that "Fire in the hole" is a warning used in the USA to indicate an imminent explosion in a confined space. I mention to ShenYue, as gently as possible, that too much time spent on unsavoury games is not the best occupation for a ten year old. In the meantime I'll finds out what other games he might have from which to glean words.....

…..the very day of the Mid-autumn Festival, Wednesday 22nd arrives with autumn weather. Noticeably cooler & steady rain, which lasts most of the day. This could mean returning to one shower & a shirt that lasts a whole day. Wenyi (Enya) is due to arrive at the east bus station this morning. She'll be staying with her self-appointed “big sister”, ShenYue. First I have to teach my private student Tianyi. I'll catch up later.....

…..Tianyi & I do some reading from Gulliver's Travels. He (& his parents) ensure that any words he doesn't know are noted in the book, with pronunciation & a Chinese translation. They are very thorough & it shows. He's also very taken by the word game, Hangman, & his spelling is good enough too. I have lunch with them as usual, even though I have been invited for a Mid Autumn Festival family dinner in the evening. His mum speaks the most English, his father a little & even grandma is very proud of being able to say, “Good morning” & “You are welcome”. I even find my Chinese is a little more fluent though I'm still short of vocabulary & STILL only understand a fraction of what is said to me.....

…..onto the 26 bus & I meet up with Wenyi. ShenYue leads us to a nearby teahouse for fruit tea. The two girls at the door produce a plastic bag & wrap each umbrella, to prevent dripping water through the building. The weather leaves the nearby Yangzhou museum as the best option for a visiting tourist. For a city with such a rich, long history the brand new museum, impressive though the building is, looks quite empty compared with museums in Australia. There is a special exhibition of German porcelain painting, ranging from twee & cheesy (fairytale castles & cute kittens) to some beautifully executed animal paintings & mandalas.....

…..a quick trip to the Living Mall before catching the bus back to Tianyi's for dinner. A woman in a Living Mall uniform in the foyer is standing in front of a tall, wooden box with an open lid. She sharply call us back as we walk past. The box is a specially made dispenser for plastic bags. No one is allowed in with a dripping umbrella.....

…..I'm not sure whether dinner at Tianyi's will be a big party or a small family gathering. In the end it's the latter. You have to be prepared for anything here, especially when so much is lost in translation. One of the many dishes is Peking duck. They are surprised when I tell them that Beijing used to be known as Peking in English. “Why?”. I don't have an answer......

…..I try some jelly made from powdered tortoiseshell. The shell is ground to a powder, mixed with rice flour then boiled to the required consistency. Without a sweetener it's quite bitter but with condensed milk it's quite palatable & apparently has good medicinal qualities.....

…..the dinner ends with a rendition by Tianyi on the saxophone. He has a really good feel for the instrument & sounds remarkably good for someone who has only been playing for a few months.....

…..I don't usually go to the bars in Yangzhou. When being shown around the city last year I poked my head into a few & found them overpriced, overamplified & smoky. The Tai Ji bar near the football stadium, is a more homely affair & there is a Chinese musician who sits in the corner & plays guitar & sings songs from 9.30pm. Our new American teacher, Mike, likes it & maybe I'll get a chance to play some music later.....

…..the day after the big climatic shift to autumn is a really beautiful, sunny day, with some high cloud in a clear, blue sky. The wind yesterday shifted the humid air out to the East China Sea & the temperature is in the low twenties. I cycle into town for a guided tour of the Han Dynasty tomb. With Wenyi & I making use of Shen Yue's extensive knowledge of local history & culture we find that it is around two thousand years old, excavated from a range of low hills near Yangzhou & reconstructed in a specially made building on Pingshanting road. The jade burial suit, sewn together with gold thread, is pretty impressive. The wooden walls of the burial chamber are made from blocks of cypress laid with the end grain showing. After two millenia they are just decaying blocks of grey timber but cypress is a bright golden colour at the centre of the tree & darker toward the outside. When new it must have looked stunning. There is also a roughly constructed ladder from the same period. We are told it was used by some of the workers to escape after the construction as, because they knew the location of the buried treasure, it was expedient to do away with them after the tomb was completed.....

…..I have been told so many times, mostly by foreigners, that I should go for a foot massage. With two Chinese guides to assist today it seems like a good time to try it out. ShenYue, of course, knows the manager of a place opposite the Yangzhou University on Siwanting Lu. Wenyi is ready to have a rest. We are led through a wood panelled foyer to a room upstairs about four metres long & two wide with four recliner chairs, with fresh, thin white covers for the new customers. First shoes & socks are removed then feet plunged into a plastic lined tub full of hot water. Almost, but not quite, too hot. To balance the yin & yang (I'm just reporting what I have been told here), the girls are attended to by men & vice versa. The staff wear a uniform of jeans, sneakers & light blue t-shirts. Two slightly built young guys attend to Wenyi & ShenYue. The young woman assigned to me is a real Amazon by Chinese standards. With feet still immersed in hot water the treatment starts.....

…..first sit on the stool, back to masseur. The back massage begins. She is really strong. None of the staff are talkative & they don't look all that interested in their work but do a great job kneading, drumming, punching, pressing, kneeing before it's time to return to the recliner & have arms, legs & finally feet dealt with. Despite it being almost painful at times we all finally relax &, although I am trying to observe what is going on I drift off into a really deep sleep. More than an hour for ¥58 (under Au$10) is a fantastic way to relax totally. I should have tried this before.....

…..after a short visit to the Tai Ji Bar after dinner with our friends Kevin Zhang & Sunny Zhang (no relation, just a shortage of surnames in a very populous country) I offer Sunny a lift on the back of my bike to his apartment near the Da Run Fa. He's not very big but at sixty five kilos big enough. Now I know what it would be like to pedal the bike should I become obese (our combined weight is a hundred & forty five kilos).....

…..regular readers may remember my friend, Miss Piggy, who appeared out of nowhere in Nanjing on New Year's Day 2010. Having negotiated my padded winter jacket at almost half price I kept in touch & stayed with her family for the Chinese New Year. I haven't heard from her for a long while, except the very occasional, short QQ message. She has been hoping to study at Nanjing University this year. This week I get a text message which, in a typically Chinese shift of nuance ends with, “I miss you very much”. This typically means, “I haven't seen you in a while”. It also mentions that, “...my baba (dad) also miss you very much”. It must be that bottle of Baileys I gave him as a New Year gift. What she really wants to tell me is that she now has a boyfriend in Guizhou, so she is going to study there. She sounds very happy & I'm sure he is too. She is a real sweetie. Guizhou is a province in south-central China. I now have an open invitation to stay with his family. That would be a good excursion for the spring, (make that winter), break for the Chinese New Year. Next year it's from mid-January to Mid February.....

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Photos

A lift home, Yangzhou
One of many ways to ride a bike in China

Tianyi
My private student with some of his artwork

German Porcelain
Yangzhou Museum

Jackey's Cafe, 1912 District, Yangzhou
Wot, no wings!!

Bridge over the Erdao Creek
near Shou Xi Hu, Yangzhou

Jade burial suit, Han Dynasty
Excavated from a site near Yangzhou

Print Block_Museum_Yangzhou
If you think Chinese characters are complex imagine carving them in a mirror image for printing...!

Home from school, Yangzhou
More ways to ride a bike

Miss Piggy with a neighbour
Miss Piggy, in Pink of course

Comments

[Hayden]

Like a headless chicken?
So do you eat the head? and powdered tortoise shell eh... Would Lenka approve?? C & D enjoyed your radio interview.

[Laotou]

Re: Like a headless chicken?
I don't eat the head personally but others like the heads of various creatures. I'm sure anyone who has eaten a Macca's burger has eaten far worse than tortoiseshell!