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Published: December 25th 2012
New photos on:
http://s251.photobucket.com/albums/gg311/draftwrite/ …..Christmas is approaching but not with the same avaricious fanfare as in Western countries but the Chinese are catching on to the commercial aspects of the Season of Goodwill & there are tonnes of tinsel to be seen, fake Christmas trees, gigantic in some cities, but the big-arse, (literally), illuminated white reindeer under which you used to walk to the escalators at the Living Mall have thankfully been removed in favour of some very large, but more tasteful, coloured chandeliers. The Chinese versions of Christmas songs endemic at this time of year, are still, even now, bizarre, irritating or both.....
….I haven't been a prolific blogger recently, anyway I think a few people are catching up on the backlog & I have been busy trying to help Steve, (as have others), as he has progressed from bedridden in hospital through his first trip in a wheelchair to the school cafeteria to a night out at Gloria Jean's on crutches. He has gone to England to recuperate until after the Chinese new Year break, also to get some proper physiotherapy which I don't think would have been available here.....
.....I am enjoying my new e-bike,
Steve at Subei hospital
A kindly visiting parent, (R) and friend(scooter). The batteries have a shorter range in cold weather, even so it will easily get to West Yangzhou & back still leaving enough charge for a trip to the supermarket or town centre & back, though, when the battery is getting low the top speed drops noticeably. At around 40kph it's faster than almost every other e-bike on the street & much quicker off the mark. Chinese streets are like the scene of a zombie apocalypse & unfortunately it's still up to the rider to take personal responsibility for taking evasive action as the undead approach from all directions, often concentrating on mobile calls, shop windows, mp3 players or just taking a nap.....
…..for my students detention may or may not be working. If it is the progress is incremental & the same faces seem very keen to come to visit me in the office in their spare time. So now it's detention for everyone in certain classes where so many are muttering in the background that it's impossible to pick on anyone in particular. The theory is that they will in future police themselves to avoid spending their & my free time in the afternoons or evenings
doing the English lesson again. To be proven all theories must be verifiable under repeatable conditions.....
…..last week's lesson: “What time do you...?”. The first part is based on the school timetable, the second part a little more open ended, “What time do you ….. on Saturday?” I list a selection of options with feedback from students. Get up, eat breakfast, go shopping, watch TV, play computer games, etc. I also give them the option to say, “I don't …. (watch TV, go shopping, etc.”). When it comes to filling in a table with Saturday's activities one kid is trying hard to be smart. He's filled in “don't” for every activity listed. I tell him that, if it's true, that's fine. Smug grin. I also tell him, (in Chinese too, for good measure), that I'll ask his head teacher to phone his mum, just to check that he really does sleep for 24 hours on Saturdays. Smug grin disappears. I notice he's filled the sheet in when I next look.....
…..& how about the kid, (see the photo), who proudly shows me the selection of knives he has brought to class. I'm sure it would lead to more
Teacher, look at my knives
Put them under the desk, please elaborate repercussions in schools where most of you live but I just told him to put them under the desk & make sure I didn't see them during the lesson.....
…..the Internet, since the ridiculous level of blocking during the Party's big party to choose a new leader from among the selection of anonymous looking individuals on offer, did not really improve as expected after the party was over. Proxies don't work & I'm not going to the school office at midnight in winter, to use the computer that has had a VPN installed for the use of foreign teachers. Also my hard drive has started to play up, not dead yet but certainly not well. I'm hoping to nurse it through Christmas & will probably need to enlist a Chinese friend to help me negotiate what's required to get it changed with minimum fuss. I DO NOT want to reinstall everything again. I found the link below on the ABC news radio website, which might explain why the internet in China is currently such a piece of.....
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-12-21/great-firewall-27upgrade27-hits-china27s-internet-users/4440874 …..we foreigners, at least those from sunnier places, like Florida, Texas & South Australia, have been commiserating about
Pencil case
Strange sentiment for an 11 year old's the cold, miserable winter weather but my friend Wenyi, after a long stay studying then working in Nantong, has just moved back home, to Qiqihaer, in the far north of China, close to Siberia. It's just getting into winter & sometimes -25C in the daytime to -35C at night, though apparently the wind-chill factor can make it feel like -45C.....
…..I now have 3 violin students, Betty, who is doing really well, Peter, a grade 8 student who is keen but can only come once every 2 weeks as middle & high school students are at school Saturday & Sunday every other week. Then there's Martha's daughter Tammy, whose 5
th birthday party I recently attended. She's very shy but keen & my job now, as I told her parents, is to just get her to enjoy learning & not press too hard. She's got plenty of time to learn. I may exchange her lessons for formal Chinese lessons from her mother, as we work in the same office.....
…..Christmas eve & I am the proud owner of a lavish, bound notebook, a glass replica of the Eiffel Tower filled with lavender, a plastic caricature of a basketball player,
Danny and Beth at the Red Lion, Wuxi
Preparing for a night of Christmas songs a military style khaki cap with a red star on the front, a huge, red Chinese good luck door decoration, a small box of assorted confectionery, another Eiffel Tower in a snow dome & a chocolate biscuit. Most of my classes have presented me with a huge card, (the same one from each class), on which each student has written their name & with a message which belies the inattention they often show during lessons. ....
…..the mother of my Sunday student, George, has a friend who has opened a restaurant in the Jin Hua Cheng, or Living Mall shopping centre. She gets a number of foreign customers & would like more & so wants her menu to be intelligible. George & I now have the task of translating the Thai restaurant's menu from Chinglish to English. Currently on offer, among may other
unintelligible dishes, are the following:
Characterising a fine spring day tea
Spicy hot mix ear wire
Green Wallace curry
Thai curry 3-point banker
Southern Thailand spat fried egg
King Bhumibol very bone
Burn juice Jane bacteria pig neck meat
It's not an easy task.....
….I accept an invitation from Danny in Wuxi to
join his informal band for an evening of Christmas songs on Doomsday evening, 2012-12-21, (remember the hype & fuss about the Mayan calendar? No, I didn't think anyone would after a week). It's only a 2 hour bus trip, about halfway to Shanghai, I'm offered dinner plus a couple of beers at the Red Lion & accommodation on Danny's couch. It turns out to be a great evening, not a highly polished show but much more together than I am expecting. I finish my beef vindaloo, (they have a great Bangladeshi chef), have probably more than a few pints of Guinness on the house, plus a rather tasty drink called Amaretto, (I think that's what it was!), introduced to me by a Canadian teacher there. At the end of it all Danny hands me ¥300 from Les, the happy proprietor. Les has finished his rendition of “Enter Santa”, a rewrite of Metallica's “Enter Sandman”, playing the drums in a Santa suit, beard akimbo so that Santa's mouth is twisted into a disturbing expression, as though about to sing a slaying song. I also HAVE to play REM's, “The End of the world as we know it” just before we make
it safely to 2012-12-22.....
…..it's Christmas day in Yangzhou, foreign teachers' special concessional day off. Most sleep in. I am up for breakfast then deliver cards to the teachers in my office. Takes a long time to write them out as, understandably, just writing their names & Sheng Dan Kuai Le, (Happy Christmas), in Chinese characters takes longer than it would in English. They do appear to appreciate the effort.....
…..during the last Spring, (Chinese New Year), holiday some of our teachers went to an island off the coast of Thailand & had a great time on a tropical beach, diving, relaxing, swimming, etc. while I was struggling to get around China amid the world's largest annual human migration. Alex & Krista are going back & a few of us will be tagging along. It's geographically sort of on the way to Australia so, after a few days in Thailand I'll head for South Australia for the rest of the one month break we get for, in China at least, the biggest holiday of the year. The appeal of battling to get train or bus tickets, (which are not always available), in crowds which make the Haj in
Mecca look like a poor attendance at a school fête, is waning. I must be getting old. No, I'm still in my fifties...that's not old these days...is it?.....
…..In the words of John Lennon:
“And so this is Christmas, I hope you have fun
The near and the dear ones, The
old and the
young”.....
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