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Published: October 20th 2014
The oranges are turning orange...
...a sure sign autumn is around the cornerRunner-up for the best tee-shirt slogan spotted this week…the winner can be found at the end of this post…
Almost two-months in wacky Jinhua (New Tourism Brand:
“Jinhua—it’ll be great when it’s finished…”) and thankfully the weather has moderated to ‘just about comfortable’. Observant readers will recall that the big department stores had puffy jackets and down vests on sale during 40C+ heat—well, they’re all gone (pretty much) and the Spring 2015 fashions are all on-sale…
The construction noise (or ‘the dragon’ as Mary calls it—because that what it sounded like to her when she Skyped in) has also moderated to an intermittent concrete drill and jackhammer cacophony, with a smattering of sledgehammer…
As I was enduring the sixth (or was it the tenth—all a jangly blur…) straight day of jackhammers as they ripped up the granite and concrete floor, it occurred to me that Canadian construction noise is so much
nicer—maybe some soothing table-saw, followed by a chorus of nail gun and the dulcet tones of a compressor building pressure, perhaps some light hammering, and if you are on the West Coast, Rock 101 gently playing AC/DC as an accompaniment…yes, more
Canadian….
In
Just like Paris...
France tourism promo at the posh mall... China, it’s jackhammers and sledgehammers, bulldozers and earthmovers all crashing about from 7:00am to 6 (or 7:00pm), seven days a week. It seems that there is
always construction happening somewhere in the neighbourhood. There was a new sound today—maybe a piledriver or the sidewalks being torn up…not sure what it was, but it sounded a lot like a heavy-machine gun. Maybe the new brand for China Tourism should be
“China: we’re always building stuff…” We are in a pleasant Autumn phase now, which is really very livable—I don’t need the A/C at night and—dare I say it—there is a very subtle, but distinct chill in the air, a portent of the harsh November to come, and pretty soon I will be moaning about the cold and shuffling about the apartment in a pair of seriously ugly Chinese-style fuzzy slippers, which are actually quite neat as they have hard soles if you need to take the garbage out in the rain.
I went for a long walk along the riverbank on Sunday and the trees are losing their leaves, so it won’t be long…
My destination point for this particular walk is, gulp, Walmart for the simple reason
Having a quiet smoke...
...in the school cafeteria...really... that it’s a different supermarket than my usual store, Centurymart—exactly the same products but somewhere else. Not quite the same as a Canadian Wal-Mart, however…live frogs were on sale (
yippee!) and they were almost out of eels, but they seemed to have a good stock of sea-slugs. I also go for my (occasional) guilty pleasure: the Shrimp Burger ‘Set’ at KFC…I have a theory that the further you are away from home, the more likely you are to eat food you would
never eat at home…perhaps there’s a thesis in there…but currently untested…
Along the way to Wal-Mart, I sucked up my courage and got a haircut at a brand-new, quite upmarket shop just around the corner from the apartment…the last frontier of foreigner challenges in China—of course, it was a great experience, complete with one guy cutting and then another chap doing the shampooing and all that extra luxo-stuff they do here—a big $10—no tips accepted and no tax charged.
Food is always a major focus in China and I am constantly amazed at how much food 90-pound petite Chinese girls can pack away at lunch in the school cafeterias—there are three floors in a central facility
Noodle stand
Noodle and dumpling stand in the school cafeteria...very delicious... that also house a slew of independent operators, so not shortage of choice and silly cheap. There are around 25,000 students plus support staff and faculty and it seems that they ALL eat on campus—quite the catering feat. I had a bowl of really good dumpling soup for the equivalent of 70-cents a few days ago. My lunch today was 54-cents, give or take. If you are still hungry, you just go up to the counter and get more rice. Free. If one is so inclined, one can even secure a frosty Snow beer in the school cafeteria. Of course, I am far too professional to do that…not at lunch anyway.
Jin and I went to a new Thai restaurant recently that was quite cool in its incongruity because we are some distance from the ocean and it was decorated in a weird surf motif, complete with actual surf boards and Australian surf movies on the TVs. I can’t recall what it was called, but something appropriately groovy, I’m sure…I must admit it was neat watching surf movies and sipping German ‘black lager’.
Jin did the ordering as always: a roast Thai chicken complete with head and eyeballs
Chips...
Sounds strange--tastes OK... and a crab in curry sauce dish, and the usual vegetables, rice and tea.
The crab was challenging to eat as there were no tools to get into the shell.
“Grunt, snarf, dagnabit” or words to that effect as I try to access the tasty looking, but apparently inaccessible, crab meat.
“Can I help you, Merv?” “Erm…do they have anything to get into the crab?”
Puzzled looks…
“Yes… use teeth” Crunch. Crack, Slurp…
I had the chicken.
Josh, one of the other RRU’s teachers is here now and Catherine will be here in a few days, so that will be the full complement of RRU’s faculty for this semester. It is reassuring to have other foreigners to hang out with and share (similar) stories of frustration and those glimmers of joy that make it all worthwhile. We try to temper our expectations and demands of Chinese students that are trying hard (for the most part) to work in a different language, albeit conveyed by a translator. It is sobering, however, to realize how hard they work, period.
I asked one of my students (Wyeth) if he had another class after mine,
which finishes at 3:00pm and he said “Yes, and then we have a food and beverage exam tonight.” The naughty boys like Sixgod (!),Enricon and Tomato are still naughty, and they more or less confirm my belief that the wackier English names they give themselves, the less likely they are to actually do any work…although I do have a Ken, who does absolutely
nothing…
I was at one of my regular eating spots a few days ago, minding my own business (as I do).
A small boy wandered over to my table with an armful of books.
Dinosaurs.
So I said, being all cool and wise, as he shyly showed me a picture of one:
“Wow! A Dinosaur! Cool!”
“No. Stegosaurus” “Oh. Right. Stegosaurus”
This week’s Official Best Tee-Shirt (as worn by a very sweet looking, middle-aged Chinese lady):
“Who the fuck is Mick Jagger?” Archive Video (has audio): This is from 2012…Catherine and I went to
Gudong Eco-Village , an hour or so away from Jinhua…enjoy!
Also from 2012: Gives an idea of my
Jinhua apartment —hasn’t changed too much—the first few seconds are blurry, but it does sharpen up…also
Now that's...
...how you sell cars... has audio.
Double-click on any image for a larger picture and slide show!
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Lizzie Katz
non-member comment
Hi from Fiji
Hello, Merv Great to hear from you again. I love to hear and laugh. Rick and I are toughing it out in Fiji right now, it has it's own interesting quirks. We will catch up when you come home. Anne