And the first of the Senior Junk Mail series.
Chaos on campus again today with returnees, mattresses and teddy bears hung out to air and cars parked - sorry, abandoned - willy nilly. However Kevin and I took Cinny and Wu her fiance to the western style restaurant as planned.
Unfortunately not only did I forget to take the fluffy cygnet and coaster I bought for her but more importantly my bloody camera. I still don’t have a photo of her.
I had rather built up my expectations for the meal and, as so often happens, my hopes were misplaced. Personally, my first problem was being told they had sold out of pea and ham soup which was the one thing I had set my heart on. Eschewing the leek and potato I opted for Vietnamese spring rolls which to be fair were quite tasty. For a main course I ordered a hamburger - you don’t get them here and you still don’t! Most of it is the real thing but the actual burger bit was a slice of unidentified cold meat. Very disappointing indeed and at Cinny’s prompting I pointed out when we were asked our opinion of the food that it should never be listed as hamburger. I did though offer to bring a recipe for making proper patties for the owner to try (I made them a little while ago) which was well received but whether from courtesy or genuine interest I have no idea. We all had tiramisu for pudding which, whilst not having been soaked in any alcohol previously, was very nice. My next visit will hopefully see the pea & ham soup available and a different main course being ordered. And there will be another time - one of the waitresses was utterly adorable, a pocket Venus who stood about 4’9” and probably weighed six stones. She was so captivating that her smile is enough to draw me back!
2045
First class of the year over, both periods were given over to everyone relating their holiday activities. It was the usual mix of the odd one or two who actually did something by way of travelling elsewhere in China (three went to Beijing, Shanghai and Nanjing), many to their credit took part time jobs in fields as varied as waitressing, supermarkets, clothes shops and even one who tried and hated doing telesales for an insurance company. What really disappointed me were the ones who simply stayed home watching films etc and never got off their backsides to do something interesting. For Pete’s sake they are twenty years old with plenty of energy and they are wasting their lives - they are the ones who will look back in half a century and wonder where their lives went. The sort that worked in the same factory all their time and were proud of the gold watch on retirement. Inertia is a terrible affliction.
It is apparent there are curriculum changes afoot. Today we learnt that 4 year students will now not receive five terms of oral English as before but now only three, the others being given over to speech classes, whatever they are. I have no idea whether we will take them or the Chinese teachers. Additionally Tutu informed me this evening (she has returned for two more years to improve her qualification) that although she took Japanese as her third language option and signed up on that basis two months ago, she now finds there will be no Japanese at all and that she finds herself compelled to take French. Understandably she is annoyed and I sympathise, she was also really looking forward to having oral lessons with me or Kevin but will receive none.
I am unsure what the overall plan of the school is but hopefully it will be revealed over time.
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