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You lucky lucky things, a second catchup in as many days!!
So, as I was saying, John is doing TEFL at a "middle" (high) school in Fenghua, near Ningbo, a little further than halfway down China's east coast. We were all getting along nicely (I swear, I've never had such stomach pains from laughing) so we decided to follow him a little bit longer and try and tech his students the difference between HIS accent and OUR (correct :-P) accent. I am having to reread my journal to remember stuff, and I find there's so much I've basically just paraphrased.... Ah well.
This segment of the adventure started at Shanghai South Railway station, where we crashed out on some grass, despite the notice "The tiny grass is sleeping, please do not bother it". We did bother it, we are big grass-botherers. That's how we roll, ain't no flipping the script. Then we hopped on a train to Hangzhou - a minor city in China (a mere 6.5 million people), but it's setting is beautiful, right by a big lake ("It looks like China in your mind"). Sadly I have no pics of the lake (YET!), but things started to go a little wrong. We were told there were no rooms at the hotel we were planning on staying at (I have my suspicions that we were just too scummy!) and then the hostel was also full....... EEEK! But luckily our habit of being jammy gits didn't fail us, and we met a girl (from Nanjing?) called Crossing, who'd been wandering round for HOURS looking for somewhere to stay, and so we joined forces with her (well, the boys sat down and she and I went wandered round the badly-lit alleyways) to find this RANDOM backstreet hostel that was more of a local gaffe than one for tourists (squat toilets without proper stalls, beds without identifiable mattresses) but was actually still really nice, with a little courtyard and we had the room (with 8 beds) between the 5 of us. As if that wasn't enough, she then took us to FOOD STREET where you could buy tonnes and tonnes of different, random, SCRUMMY food (even for the token veggie!!) so we all stuffed ourselves for 2 squid apiece (no actual squid this time but there were crabs devoured)
Then we wandered round the town, to scope the place out before commencing drinking games (I brought along the playing cards this time, thanks though, for checking I had them however many hundreds of times lads). All the drinking games were rubbish until we found mini-barrels of Tiger Beer, YAAAAAAAAAAAY!!
Lover's Lane
High Fivin Mao (?)
Sampling the local thumpin electro-house (bounkbounkbounk!) and bouncy dancefloor.
Once we'd had enough (3 min-barrels) we repaired to our accommodation, and Len & Rob went to bed and I tried to teach John the difference between breakfast tea and Earl Grey - a task made all the more pointless by the fact that all my Earl Grey had lost the bergamot flavour. NOOOOOOoo!
Then we got up and got on two buses to Fenghua, whereupon we trashed John's flat and crashed out. Lucky fella! Especially as he was suddenly getting a bit worried aboutt he fact he'd brought 3 random backpackers back and was just expecting to walk them into the school without any problems. Totally unfounded worries as it turned out....
When we got up the next morning, I swear, walking round that school, is the closest to being a celebrity I will ever get. Gasps echoed in our wake, shouts of suprise and stares as standard. It was nice for me - I've been stared at a lot cos of me freckles, but now it was nice stares and I wasn't singled out :-)
As we walked into the first class, a sporadic enthusiastic round of applause broke out. This was to be repeated (not all classes, but the majority). Basically we just chatted to them and they asked us questions. It took a few classes for us to get our cadence right, several times we''d be chatting away and turn around to see a sea of totally blank faces staring back at us.... And a photographer in the second class too.... beware London ppl, I will be expecting an entourage when I get home. We had to sing a few times, and demonstrate our aptitude with chopsticks, and talk about Tibet a little bit :-/. "I don't know enough about it" was a pretty standard rejoiner!
We then wandered down to what I presume was the English departmental office, and Richard (what role does he hold? I'm still not sure) took us out to a local village, which has been listed in the UNESCO Top 10 pretty villages list, where we were treated to an impromptu magic/kung fu display, feedings doves, a dodgy alligator show, an explanation of ancient paper making, and and introduction to ancient water pumping techniques. And a free lunch, with much beer, of which we were FORCED to down (small) glass after glass every time someone shouted "GANBEI!". We went into the adjoining room (private rooms for lunch, ya know) and attempted to Ganbei the whole table, which ended in much hilarity and slight drunkenness. We had a brief break but that got back on it something chronic, drinking games and speaking in ham West Indian accents, freestyling and dancing like goons and waving at the students going past on their way home (at 9 pm - youch) then KTV.
If you have never heard of KTV, then I cannot really explain it to you - but if you ever get to China, do it. It's like, completely over the top karaoke, in private rooms (with no ladies loos) and free fruit and veg, a crate of beer, mostly Chinese songs and a lorra high-pitched feedback.
Pretty much that was repeated for the next few days, until Wednesday when all the fun was over, and Leonard and Rob left for Xiamen, and I headed to Singapore via Hong Kong for a night.
The school was just amazing though, the kids were (generally) so enthusiastic, and ALWAYS really polite (I got called beautiful so many times, i lost count!). I did 2 classes without the boys and I got myself a Chinese name (Zi Yuan - it means purple mandarin duck, I've since found out) and taught them some German, but I think the most bizarre moment had to be when I found myself explaining rudimentary black hole physics. And showing off that you'd met Stephen Hawking, Jam! Or perhaps when John & I had to dance some salsa for them?
My favourite question:
"Are you and Len going to get married?"
Hahahahaaaa
Anyway this has been a wordy one so here are some pictures because I know that's what you want really....
Work boys, work!
My downfall
Okay not too many pics, sorry. I've a fair few coming up. But I'm about to get on a train from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur, so final round up is going to have to wait.
My number's working again!! Text me yeh?
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David Ettridge
non-member comment
aloha
shotgun in your entourage 'pon your return. and which number works? english or australian?