An eventful day in many respects.
After I posted my entry yesterday I had some great and (I hate to admit it) exciting news. I had sent Alice from Wuhu a text grandly informing her that she wouldn’t visit me this holiday. I was absolutely certain because I had checked the trains and there were no tickets available to here after next week and flights from Hefei had shot up from 350y to over 1,000y. Of course she wasn’t coming!
I never figured that she could come sooner, in fact she has booked a ticket for Monday and arrives Tuesday night at 2118hrs - she even managed to get a sleeper - I was concerned she was crazy enough to book a hard seat for the 28 hour trip. I wouldn’t even consider the journey in a soft sleeper let alone a seat, maybe an individual or double cabin but not with strangers. So terrific, I will have some decent English speaking company for nearly two weeks as her return ticket is on the 14th.
Of course that also presents problems. The worst is that I need to scrub and clean the floors after the party. Suzy and Sheila don’t seem too keen. The second is sleeping arrangements. I don’t have that much bedding but a sleeping bag was placed on order from Taobao which I pray will arrive by Tuesday. Then of course she will want to see Lanzhou. Well, I don’t KNOW Lanzhou yet! Thankfully I believe Suzy and Sheila will assist by taking her off my hands from time to time to show her the sights. But I will have friendly company for eleven days so this holiday will in part be one hell of a lot better than envisaged. And I have to cook lasagne for her. She said she loves my lasagne.
It’s funny how different girls love different dishes you make. With Joanna it was chilli, Joan it was Bolognese (or as she termed it, Italy Noodles), another couple it was my chilli frittatas etc. A least I will have a purpose to cook other than to fill my own belly. I’m even scratching in my brain as to what to feed her when she gets here seeing as it will not be before 2230 but I can probably make homemade hamburgers or something simple.
So I went to class happy today and became even happier to discover Monday is a holiday for new year. Bit cheeky of the Chinese to celebrate two new years considering I never got Christmas or Boxing Day as a holiday but I will take a free day regardless. I’m just glad I found out before getting up at five on Monday, waiting for the bus and finding out then.
I also suggested to the class that if they didn’t want to go Japanese next Thursday, I would be ok with them going to the all you can eat pizza/buffet place. ANYTHING but a bloody hotpot will do! I also checked if it would be ok for me to take Alice on the school bus as a guest visitor to my class and of course attendee at the party. It’s all set.
I came home and tried to grab an hour’s nap but it was one of those you get when you are tired yet know you mustn’t oversleep and you have things whizzing around in your brain. I mean, what would they have thought if I never turned up?
You don’t sleep, you only think you do.
Then I had a brainstorm. The shower. Maybe if I increased the water flow the temperature problem might be cured? Turned the shower on and watched the temperature in the kitchen on the display climb from the preset 42C to 55C and then cut out with an overheat error. Ok, disconnected the shower head and took a pin to the outlet holes, increasing them in size. Suddenly the problem was solved - in fact now I will need to increase the temperature setting!
At 1700 “our leader” (well that’s what Janet said, although in Chinese universities there are more Chiefs than Indians because everyone seems to be a leader of something except me) came to collect me. It took an hour, traffic being bad again. And the 1y bus fare seems not to be the reason, I never knew that when pollution was bad Lanzhou is like Beijing and restricts car number plate use to odd numbers one day and even the next. That explains why it was bliss before and hell now.
Instead of being taken to the show I was taken to dinner with people I had never met although some were faculty. There were two very elderly people (parents of the leader) and a chap I was told to call “Egg” because his head looked like one. Ok I can go along with that of course but I then had to nickname myself watermelon to put him at ease.
A nice, if rather hurried in view of the travelling time, meal it was. They even gave me white wine (French variety) and although few things were to my taste I had never seen most of them before. My favourite was a dish that looked as though it could be thinly sliced pork but wasn’t. It could equally have been abalone and if it were I would have been ecstatic but it wasn’t. It was a form of mushroom which I have to say was bloody lovely. Too soon it was time for “the leader” to take me to the show, leaving the others behind to continue scoffing and chatting, although not before giving me a full glass of wine and then after saying “you must go” telling me I must finish it quickly! I complied. If anyone thereafter complained I stank of booze I could blame “the leader” - and did!
The show this time was great. I have no grounds for complaining that it was all in Chinese because unlike Chizhou, I am not teaching English students. But there were a variety of acts, not just dancing. A really good piano concerto, comedy I never understood and a girl who I pray never becomes a teacher. She sang four songs on the trot and I was spellbound. Aside from professionals I have never heard such a voice and I am no expert but she could make fame and fortune because she also has stage presence.
And of course somewhere in the middle of all this was Santa.
When you go on stage you need to do this, this and that. Sorry, excuse me, I am a professional, I know what to do. Oh ok. We will bring gifts for you to give the students. Fine, do I throw them from the stage? No, leave the stage and distribute them.
Are you SURE?
Why do you ask? Well we tried that once in Chizhou and the freshmen nearly crushed me to death just to get a 2y stuffed toy. Oh no, our students - even the boy students - are very polite. Ok, if you’re sure.
One minute into the leaving the stage experiment, Presidential Bodyguards rescued me and took me back up to the stage. I couldn’t resist saying “I told you so”.
Then I was given my gift. Remember all I asked for from the kindergarten was an omelette pan but was given a heavy casserole dish? The former is probably 100y but my gift more likely 200y. What did the school give me? The news that they want me to teach on east campus again next term (which meant more than any gift really) and also……wait for it….no omelette pan. But 300y worth.
See the photo of my new bread machine.
The school car brought me back home. Traffic was still bad even at 2130 and I had time to reflect. I seem to have been accepted with some gusto at east campus and I am looking forward to new students, they obviously like me or my gift would have been a plastic flower, yet I found my mind wandering back to Chizhou, to Joan, Yvonne, Joanna and the many hundreds who have touched my life. It was bittersweet and I couldn’t balance the happy with the melancholic as we edged our way through the interminable queues.
The city was lit up, as were all the bridges with coloured lights, some flashing, some not.
Then as we crossed the Yellow River I spotted in the distance something atop a mountain I have never noticed before. A Buddhist temple illuminated that could have been the one so close to Chizhou university that on countless occasions I took students on my bike at night to see and photograph.
Your imagination will do the rest.
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