Merv Jefferies

Fall is here finally. Today, Saturday, is in the low 20's C (just started to rain! Yippee!), which is still shorts and tees, but last night I found myself surreptitiously eyeing my sweatpants; managed to stave off the temptation, though. As soon as you slip those bad boys on, it's a slippery slope to admitting that you are snivelling weenie that can't handle a bit of a nip in the air. Still, it does make for a much more conducive environment for "teaching", if that's what we're calling it these days. The students are a little more perky, but only marginally so. They just had the Fall National Holiday break, so theoretically they should be all energized and zippy. I'm still waiting for the zippy bit. The students are still scampering around in cut-off denims and ... read more

Some time later...I've been back at school for a week already and as usual time slips by in a weird warpy continuum. As we used to say in Korea "The seconds go by like hours, the weeks go by like minutes". Jinhua is simultaneously alien yet so familiar, everything is in the same place and there are no surprises, yet I still feel out of step with the rhythms of life in China. Meal times are earlier and quicker--if you aren't in one of the many school cafeterias by 1:00 pm you are pretty much out of luck as the kitchen staff are clearing stacks of (thousands!) dishes, chopsticks (millions!) and mopping tables and floors getting ready for the next flood of staff and students. Gary and I are in the newest cafeteria and a huge ... read more

Well…home again… It seems like a no time at all that four months has flown by…as I mentioned in a previous post, time is very elastic… My flights and transit to Nanaimo were more or less flawless, including a trip on the third generation high-speed train from Jinhua to Shanghai: around 320kms at a top speed of 320km/h in first-class for $42—amazing! I stayed at the Oriental Riverside Bund View Hotel in Pudong, Shanghai overnight, which was a welcome break before I headed home—very nice hotel in the ultra-modern Pudong area. Shanghai is high-speed hustle and bustle and money is clearly evident. On the way to the hotel from the train station the taxi went by the Shanghai Four Seasons Hotel, which has Maserati and Ferrari dealerships on the main floor… My worries about getting my ... read more

Man-cheese Runner-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 ... read more

Fuck-Off No, not you, dear reader…that’s what it announced on the tee-shirt of one of my more demure, butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth students, (Maggie, I think). Uh-oh…do I have a closet rebel in the class making a ‘statement’ or…? Better nip ‘it’ in the bud, whatever ‘it’ might be. I wandered over to Belinda, my lovely and indispensable translator, and quietly pointed out the naughty word, indicating that we should really have a chat with Maggie. Belinda flushed with embarrassment: apparently walking around with naughty words is not the done thing in China…not at all the done thing... “Hi, Maggie” (me being all semi-stern, but not really…) “Hello, Mr. Jefferies?” looking quizzical, with that ‘what have I done?’ look. “Maggie, er…do you know what ... read more