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Published: January 30th 2015
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…..sometimes her driver takes her in the Cadillac but on this particular day Zhu Ping was driving it herself. She stopped at the lights & was surprised when a woman on an e-bike hit her car, not hard enough to do any real damage, even more surprised when the woman then flung herself onto the front of the car, as though in a head-on smash & refused to get off until Zhu Ping coughed up ¥500, or about Au$90. Calls to the police revealed a distinct lack of interest &, according to our teacher Mike, her boyfriend, she reluctantly paid up. Stories like this make it more credible, & maybe understandable, those stories about people walking straight past apparently sick or injured people on the road only for fear of being caught in a scam.....
…..I've written before about those “hate China days” we, (foreigners!), all get at times, when the country, its ways, its methods, its products, all conspire to make your life temporarily unbearable. Perhaps goaded by my broken ankle which, to be fair, is purely a result of my own carelessness, I have been more ready to react to “bu wen ming” (uncivilised), behaviour, (mainly among groups
of people, individuals are often courteous to a fault), shoddy goods like curtains that fall off rails, occurring in inverse proportion to my ability to fix them, the air “quality”, a bad choice of term, not so bad recently but it still requires surfaces to be cleaned frequently & it's not easy on crutches, & the woeful, random blocking, restricting access to or dropping of features, notably on POS-Net, this country's answer to what is the Internet anywhere else.....
…..OK, while I'm on a rant, why not give examples! After Steve & I have finished our gig at a new shopping centre in West Yangzhou, playing about 4 or 5 songs spread over an hour & a half, for a satisfyingly lucrative amount, we find it's difficult to get a taxi, it being New Year's Eve. We decide to cross the road, more in keeping with the direction we need to go. I am leaning on my crutches next to Steve & a percussion player, Dario. Two groups of 3 or 4 Chinese people follow & do the “Chinese trick” that probably pre-dates Schroedinger's cat by hundreds of years, ie; If you don't look at things, (or people), maybe
Construction project across the road
Reflected in the school creek, Yangzhou they are not actually there, so you can stand a few steps closer to approaching taxis & hail them first. At their first, unsuccessful, attempt to do just that I say to Steve, very loudly, “YIXIE Zhongguo ren bu zhidao paidui shi shenme yisi. Tamen zheme bu wenming”, which, should you ever need to use it, means, “SOME Chinese people don't know what queuing means. They are so uncivilised”. It works! Both groups return, (still without looking up at us!), back to the far side of the road.....
…..suddenly I can't send an SMS. Maybe my mobile is out of credit. It's late evening, I don't have a credit card & I'm on crutches. Luckily I have a Chinese friend who I can message via Skype, get my credit topped up & pay them next time I meet. But that's not the point! Previously there was an English service on their freecall number. Originally “press one for English”, then “for balance press seven”, it has been, over the last 5 years, changed, discontinued & reinstated, numerous times. I should know enough Chinese now to follow the basic instructions in Chinese. But the recorded voice is talking pretty quickly. I
World_Population to Scale
An interesting map I found recently, countries scaled according to population. can follow some of it, including “chong zhi”, (top up credit), but I just want to CHECK my credit. Finally I find the English service. “For balance press PENG key...” Hold on, what, again … the PENG key”... I know “Peng” is not a number, so I try the * & the # keys. Ah! Peng is the # key. Good, try again. At the next attempt I get, “For balance press peng key”, then “for English press 1”. I end up with 1 #, 1 #, 1 #, 1 #, 1 #, 1 #, 1 #, across my phone & finally, in exasperation, send an SMS on Skype to a Chinese friend to use their phone to top up my credit & I'll pay you next time I see you.....
…..I know my students' eyesight can be a problem in class. Text that I, with my much depleted visual acuity, can read from the back of the room has many of them squinting, borrowing other people's glasses, sometimes holding them away from their eyes & turning them backwards to get a clear focus... I redo the text on pictures I'm using for the end of term English test,
in huge block capitals. Still, in some classes I have have a quarter of the class squinting & a further quarter lined up IN FRONT OF the teacher's desk, now able to see large print clearly about 1 metre away from a screen 2 metres wide!.....
…..I can't travel during the forthcoming one month Spring Festival holiday so I need refunds for flights Andy & I booked for our planned trip to Vietnam, Cambodia & Thailand. One company returns the amount, less fees of course, to Andy's account within days. Another company, ticket agency Bravofly, has told me they can give me a voucher within days, a credit card refund … wait for it … UP TO 12 MONTHS!!!!! I tell them that I don't want the voucher thanks & that I'm sure they made an honest error in their email & that a cash refund in 12 DAYS will be fine. About a week later I'm told that a voucher is on it's way! Two & a half weeks later & still no resolution. All correspondence now is with CAPS LOCK ON. DO NOT BOOK A FLIGHT WITH BRAVOFLY.....
…..In an attempt to be positive, with the
Approximate route of Katie's planned Epic Trip
In Aussie terms, approximately Brisbane to Melbourne, a roundabout trip to Ceduna in SA, then most of the way to Townsville, then back to Brisbane. prospect of a month in our school, which in winter amounts to a cold, grey, miserable little ghost town, I have a bright idea. How about I pay someone to come & help me out with things like shopping, which is a real pain on crutches, especially when I have to get to the bus stop or chance getting a taxi, plus, maybe more importantly, help me with my Chinese, which is nowhere near as fluent as it should be by now. An exploratory message returned 3 immediate offers to provide or look for help. Su Yin Hui, (Suzy), a teacher I worked with previously & whose wedding I played at, knows a teacher whose home is in Xinjiang, several days by train in the far west of China, who will be staying here for the duration, is a maths teacher with a degree in Chinese culture, is a qualified tour guide &, most important, is really keen to help out. Let's see how that all works out.....
…..sorry if you've read this far under false pretences. A travel blog … written by someone who can't actually travel much right now. Spare a thought for Katie Chlumska, one of our new English teachers this year. Her sister is visiting from England & she has planned an epic trip which, especially during the Spring Festival, the world's largest annual human migration, even I would baulk at. Having taken some time to figure out where they wanted to go left just enough time to buy train tickets. However, not early enough to secure sleepers or seats in each case. 14 hour standing only train journeys during the Spring Festival rush is DEFINITELY not for the faint hearted. By my rough calculation it's a total of over 5,000km. The maps show, first the relative sizes of China & Australia, then their approximate route, mostly by train. They will either bond like never before or only one will return!.....
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