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Published: April 17th 2006
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I thought it was about time to let you all know about how I am actually living, rather than specific outings and days. There are now eight of us living in one apartment (four bed rooms, three bathrooms, which is great! Especially now the girls have one bathroom between us, so we don’t have to put up with the smelly boy bathroom) in a block in the northwest corner of Xi’an, about a kilometre from the Bell Tower, indicating the city centre. There is another apartment on the floor below that has the big dining table, the office, and various computers and laptops all plugged into the wall. It’s pretty dodgy walking around the table, as there are wires and things everywhere, a veritable deathtrap if you aren’t paying attention. We have a cook, two women to pick up after the boys, the best driver in the world (who is definitely a member of the Chinese Mafia, and could have you killed, I think several taxi drivers who have cut him up have already paid for their errors), and the three ‘people in charge’ - Jocelyn, Ann and Jerome - who pretend to organise things for us whilst playing solitaire on
Food
First in line - as always. I get it from my mother. their computers.
Upstairs we also have a TV and DVD player, which gets a ridiculous amount of use, due to cheap DVD prices and a lot of free time as people only work either in the mornings or the afternoons. There are only three couches, which made us all get to know each other very quickly, as it’s weird snuggling against complete strangers as you watch endless kung fu movies with bad English subtitles. Most evenings find the hardcore group down at the Youth Hostel in town, especially since my med students have discovered it and ‘circle of death’ cards, they think it’s hilarious that as fabulous a person and fantastic a teacher as I am, I still drink beer. Sometimes (every couple of days), if the mood takes us, we head out to a club, find a nice mob boss for me to dance with and for Joe to ‘gambei’ with, which usually gives the whole group a direct entrance to a table with many, many bottles of spirits on it. They’re loaded, they can afford it. And we give back to the community! Besides, they love having nutcase waiguoren at their table; it gives them no end
of stories to tell their hitmen the next day.
Other evenings are spent profitably at the pool hall, or just randomly messing around, making dumplings, doing Kung Fu, playing Chinese poker and Mahjong whilst drinking never-ending pots of Frongromt Colouds Tea (read Fragrant Cloud) watching the boys play computer games and laughing viciously at their certain defeat.
Lily, one of the girls from the museum who is far too nice and feminine to come to Hua Shan with us, invited Alex, Joe and myself to her house for dinner. It started a bit Chinese, she called us at 5.30, asking why we hadn’t met at 5, though the arrangement was that she was to call us the day before. When we turned up about fifteen minutes later, her first question was: “Where are you going?”, which confused us slightly. When we had established that we were still going to her house for dinner, and not shopping or Beijing, things settled down, and we headed to the South Wall. Her parents’ apartment is enormous, three bedrooms for three people, compared to the one bed flats of the teachers that at least five people attempt to live in. It’s really
POOL!
Am going to make SO much money...I hope traditional, beautiful furniture, calligraphy everywhere, and we were inundated with presents. We had managed to pick up a bottle of Great Wall wine, for about one pound fifty, on the way, but felt so guilty as they gave me a silk top, and the boys got a traditional Chinese teacup ensemble. Then we admired the calligraphy scrolls, the dad leapt out his seat, grabbed one off the wall, and pressed it into Joe’s hands, as he is the first one leaving, and it is a present for his parents meaning good fortune. Beer was brought, then we were asked ‘how about Chinese wine?’ We had only drunk the very cheap stuff that costs 40p a bottle, so he moved some plates and things off a sideboard, and brought out the most amazing bottle, that had a root of ginseng and a knotted snake in it. It tasted pretty good, but got us all a bit giggly. The mum also made us some fantastic dumplings, the best I’ve had so far. I was also offered a room in their house should I return to teach in a university, and asked to treat them as a second family. There’s not so many
Kung Fu Lessons
Well, we had one, then Joe got bored teaching us, I think. Maybe we weren't dedicated enough?? differences between Chinese families and Irish ones!
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