Sunday 15th September, 2013                       1945

On Friday, the day the weird machine I had observed for over a week was leaving, finally an English speaking student chanced by. The mystery was solved - they were inserting conduits for electric cabling. Not very exciting admittedly but it would have intrigued me forever had I not found out.

Yesterday when I went to the sweet pork place other workmen were digging trenches but what I couldn’t fail but notice was the fact the restaurant now had baskets of fruit for sale outside the door, they are branching out. It so happens that they seem to be shifting a fair bit, they even asked me if I wanted to buy any but I think I got the message across that I would prefer if they could start selling shee-jars (cigars) and then I would be a buyer. Won’t hold my breath though.

Today has been lazy, from cold not so long ago we are once again back up to the low thirties. Lucy came as agreed to start work as my Mrs Mop and as the floor really did need a good going over I told her that the deck plus the surfaces was it for today. It took her two hours which for 100y I am sure she didn’t mind and I have to say my floor is the cleanest it’s been since I got here. Roll on next week when she tackles the bathroom!

The pay problem continues to roll on. Thursday was payday but when I went to the ATM nothing was there, nor was there on Friday. I sent a text to Cinny and also to Kevin to let him know I had alerted the school. He replied that he had been paid. Great. It appears out of more than 500 teachers I am the only one - and this after the meeting where our problems in this respect were brought to their attention. Yes of course I will be paid sometime this week but the Chinese honestly haven’t a clue that just perhaps some people budget on the basis that they can count on their wages being paid on time. I have the luxury of not being skint so it is more annoying than anything, just as well I never made a major purchase.

Monday 16th           2115

And I had better post this as it has been a while!

First class with a new activity this afternoon. I am struggling for ideas now and the students - who of course want them - never come up with any bright ideas, just expect me to be the games master. This week I thought I would try a version of Just A Minute and split the class into groups, telling them to come up with 5 topics and they would get to nominate one person from another group to speak on a topic, the longer they did the more points for their team. When the topics were ready and all four teams had made them as difficult as possible I had them switch papers so they got their own topics asked of them - they were horrified but I suspect a little admiring of my Machiavellianism!

My last shopping package has yet to arrive which is particularly irksome as tonight I have to eat campus food (tonight is battered chicken and some bread cakes of some sort) when I would have enjoyed a beef slice with mash and veg, a scotch egg or gammon steak.