Friday 29th September, 2017 1915
Annie never got taken to lodge her papers yesterday. Of all the absurd reasons, it was because the school car wasn’t available. The number 15 bus goes from this campus to the door of the PSB! Obviously Annie couldn’t do it alone but someone could have taken her.
I arranged to cook dinner for Annie last night along with Pat. However Pat also turned up with Ariel! Apparently they asked Annie to contact me to see if it was ok. She didn’t!
As it transpired, I awoke yesterday morning with a dreadful stomach ache. I was a spit off cancelling the dinner but ever the optimist, I thought later in the day I would feel better. I didn’t. Nonetheless I cooked two courses knowing nothing would pass my lips except some wine. The trio of diners though seemed to enjoy the wings and full roast pork - I even managed to turn the Godawful potatoes into half decent roasties AND produce apple sauce. Unfortunately as I felt so nauseous it never even crossed my mind to get my camera out.
So yesterday for me was a fasting day. At lunchtime today I ate half a pot noodle I bought from east campus shop, not what I class as food but I needed summat! Annie went to the PSB and now has my passport but for some reason there is a problem with her paperwork and she cannot travel outside of Lanzhou (until her passport comes back in a month using anything but a bus and of course would be unable to check into an hotel either.
Bang went my little trip. No way was I going alone to a place with no restaurants and nobody I know, on my own. I have cancelled the whole shooting match. Mercifully although I never got all my money back, I did get a fair bit. I am now resigned to remaining in this city for the holidays. On the bus home tonight I did notice a restaurant called Iron Cooking which advertised western food. I will check Google maps later and may ask Annie to dine with me to console ourselves. Lord knows there are few enough opportunities to eat western grub in this dusty place.
Yesterday when I came back from buying ingredients for the dinner I found myself unable to open my door. With metal cages over every window the door is the only access. That lock is not old either! After half an hour of trying and cursing I finally got the key to work. Same again tonight. I hope Brenda can find someone to come this weekend and replace it because as sure as anything if I end up having to stay in an hotel because of it, the school will be paying! What if I popped out and left the oven or hob on???
As always, my life continues to proceed tranquilly with no problems along the way…….
Friday, 29 September 2017
Thursday, 28 September 2017
Wednesday 27th September, 2017 2330
It had to happen. Even I knew it would deep down. Alison cried off the trip to the Rainbow Mountains. By now I am used to disappointment when it involves Chinese girls. The slightest ailment and you would think it was terminal. To be fair to her she did offer to pay for any money I lost as a result but I told her I didn’t want her money, all I ever wanted was her company.
However, last night Annie came to dinner. As promised I made her macaroni cheese which was good bar my slightly over-salting it but by God she packed a fair amount under her belt so she must have liked it! I also offered her the chance to take Alison’s place on the trip. She is champing at the bit so we are waiting until tomorrow to ascertain if she can travel.
Tomorrow Brenda is taking her to the PSB to turn over her passport to be sent to Beijing for a residence permit to be affixed. I am almost certain that she will still be able to fly using the receipt from the PSB but just in case I have emailed the travel people to ask.
It will also save me a trip. I was going tomorrow to collect my own passport which was ready today but Brenda can get it for me. That way I don’t have to pay the 400y and then go through the rigmarole of claiming the fee back from the school - I’m still waiting for that air fare to be reimbursed.
Hopefully though, the trip will still be on, Annie has threatened to introduce me to the local Peace Corps volunteers in Zhangye, they seem to be all over China like a dose of chickenpox!! I shall try not to get as pickled as I did last night.
Today was awful. My first day teaching English majors on Peili campus. The students were great but climbing seven floors was not - and I had to do it again after lunch! Worse, when I walked home at noon the gammy hip returned. I feel injections to be now inevitable.
Tomorrow I am free so I have invited Annie again for dinner along with the monitor of one of my new classes, Pat - a very comely lass who also won the school FLTRP competition and who will be my wife here in respect of Taobao shopping. Very handy. Another monitor (another Alice) is also keen to help in any way she can so there are plus sides to the latest developments.
So tomorrow I am making a mystery Chinese dish for my two guests (well a mystery to them!) of my famous chicken wings, followed by a roast pork and apple sauce dinner. I just pray the potatoes around the corner are half decent and that the little chicken stall actually sells wings - I have only ever bought a whole bird, breast or legs before. If not it means a trip to BHG.
There is an English corner again tomorrow night. If I go it will be for an hour or less. With an 0500 alarm call I won’t want to be standing around until 2100 but as some attendees are now my students the guilt factor will kick in.
One weeks work followed by a week holiday!
It had to happen. Even I knew it would deep down. Alison cried off the trip to the Rainbow Mountains. By now I am used to disappointment when it involves Chinese girls. The slightest ailment and you would think it was terminal. To be fair to her she did offer to pay for any money I lost as a result but I told her I didn’t want her money, all I ever wanted was her company.
However, last night Annie came to dinner. As promised I made her macaroni cheese which was good bar my slightly over-salting it but by God she packed a fair amount under her belt so she must have liked it! I also offered her the chance to take Alison’s place on the trip. She is champing at the bit so we are waiting until tomorrow to ascertain if she can travel.
Tomorrow Brenda is taking her to the PSB to turn over her passport to be sent to Beijing for a residence permit to be affixed. I am almost certain that she will still be able to fly using the receipt from the PSB but just in case I have emailed the travel people to ask.
It will also save me a trip. I was going tomorrow to collect my own passport which was ready today but Brenda can get it for me. That way I don’t have to pay the 400y and then go through the rigmarole of claiming the fee back from the school - I’m still waiting for that air fare to be reimbursed.
Hopefully though, the trip will still be on, Annie has threatened to introduce me to the local Peace Corps volunteers in Zhangye, they seem to be all over China like a dose of chickenpox!! I shall try not to get as pickled as I did last night.
Today was awful. My first day teaching English majors on Peili campus. The students were great but climbing seven floors was not - and I had to do it again after lunch! Worse, when I walked home at noon the gammy hip returned. I feel injections to be now inevitable.
Tomorrow I am free so I have invited Annie again for dinner along with the monitor of one of my new classes, Pat - a very comely lass who also won the school FLTRP competition and who will be my wife here in respect of Taobao shopping. Very handy. Another monitor (another Alice) is also keen to help in any way she can so there are plus sides to the latest developments.
So tomorrow I am making a mystery Chinese dish for my two guests (well a mystery to them!) of my famous chicken wings, followed by a roast pork and apple sauce dinner. I just pray the potatoes around the corner are half decent and that the little chicken stall actually sells wings - I have only ever bought a whole bird, breast or legs before. If not it means a trip to BHG.
There is an English corner again tomorrow night. If I go it will be for an hour or less. With an 0500 alarm call I won’t want to be standing around until 2100 but as some attendees are now my students the guilt factor will kick in.
One weeks work followed by a week holiday!
Monday, 25 September 2017
Monday 25th September, 2017 2145
Oh boy. First day back at work for a while.
Wrench? Actually no, not really. The brain clock woke me at about 0300 and only let me doze until the alarm went and then told me I should sleep more! We have all been there. Of course, with a huge break between classes I could sleep in an armchair. Right? Anyone else, yes. Me, no.
First day back and traffic was so awful it took 75 minutes so I was late before we even arrived. There was a time when I would have bounded (in my language that means actually walking upstairs to the 4th floor without stopping) up and gone into the classroom immediately.
No more. Not my fault. Nor indeed the driver’s fault. Crappy roadworks. And anyway they have this term increased class length from 45 to 50 minutes. Idiotic in my opinion, you have lost the students after 20 minutes anyway.
Nope, into the office, couple of minutes having a puff while I gathered my thoughts and my material, THEN into class. Bugger it, I was on time waiting for the school bus, why should I suffer for being late?
On first showing I must say that class isn’t too bad re English, could be good. Break time. 4.5 interminable hours. Still, I can read BBC news, Telegraph and stuff online? No. no internet and nobody to fix it. I was hardly walking on air and I only discovered at the end of the day I need to log into the system with my passport! Nothing to do with the State wanting to monitor what sites I visit of course! Talk about overkill - it’s a school network so I can only access “allowed” sites! I will get my passport back on Thursday.
I had to read a Cussler book the entire time - in between my futile attempts to actually take a nap. You would think by now I should know it simply does not happen.
Janet asked me if I would come to her class after mine had finished and introduce myself as someone they can come to for help with English. I don’t particularly want scores of people I don’t teach herding in my office on my breaks but I agreed.
I wasn’t pleased when she burst into my classroom with five minutes to go and declared “class over!”
No, it’s 50 minutes a period now. We still had five left. She argued the toss and I huckled her outside. I couldn’t care less if I was an hour over time, it’s MY class, not hers! Bloody hell, my watch had stopped! An hour before. No idea why but 6 hours later it is still keeping perfect time. Joan got me the best battery two years ago. It still does not excuse her trying to dictate when my class finishes, my classroom is MY territory unless I am fired. If there is a next time there will be fireworks.
But yes, my watch was 68 minutes slow.
I spoke to her class of freshmen for her and left for the school bus.
When I got home I had an email from Alison. She is sick. Maybe not good for our trip next Monday. How many times have I lost money because suddenly students who agree to come with me suddenly are sick and can’t??? I really never thought that of Alison or I wouldn’t have paid everything up front.
Various emails have flown back and forth tonight. If she got cold feet at least I could cancel and get a percentage refunded or change the name on the tickets for extra cost. Just tell me the truth?
What is wrong?
This elicited photos of oxygen bottles and her with an earpiece delivering same up her hooter plus an MRI scan taken today. Diagnosis? Altitude sickness! She has been teaching in Gannan. I confess to being sceptical at first until I looked it up. Average height above sea level 10,000 feet. Yep. It’s Tibet!
I called the bluff that I do not now think is one and asked if it was because she changed her mind just tell me but she said if she can’t go she will pay what I lose. Sometimes you have to retain faith in human nature and your own belief so I said as long as she wanted to come (if able) then I will keep all bookings open, I will not cancel and get a pittance back and I will stand any loss. It is a shame so many other Chinese students took the piss and cost me money by crying off at the last minute because now I label them all the same -notable exceptions being those who are members here and who have earnt my undying trust.
Anyway, she DOES look nice even on a hospital bed with an earphone up her snout!
Oh boy. First day back at work for a while.
Wrench? Actually no, not really. The brain clock woke me at about 0300 and only let me doze until the alarm went and then told me I should sleep more! We have all been there. Of course, with a huge break between classes I could sleep in an armchair. Right? Anyone else, yes. Me, no.
First day back and traffic was so awful it took 75 minutes so I was late before we even arrived. There was a time when I would have bounded (in my language that means actually walking upstairs to the 4th floor without stopping) up and gone into the classroom immediately.
No more. Not my fault. Nor indeed the driver’s fault. Crappy roadworks. And anyway they have this term increased class length from 45 to 50 minutes. Idiotic in my opinion, you have lost the students after 20 minutes anyway.
Nope, into the office, couple of minutes having a puff while I gathered my thoughts and my material, THEN into class. Bugger it, I was on time waiting for the school bus, why should I suffer for being late?
On first showing I must say that class isn’t too bad re English, could be good. Break time. 4.5 interminable hours. Still, I can read BBC news, Telegraph and stuff online? No. no internet and nobody to fix it. I was hardly walking on air and I only discovered at the end of the day I need to log into the system with my passport! Nothing to do with the State wanting to monitor what sites I visit of course! Talk about overkill - it’s a school network so I can only access “allowed” sites! I will get my passport back on Thursday.
I had to read a Cussler book the entire time - in between my futile attempts to actually take a nap. You would think by now I should know it simply does not happen.
Janet asked me if I would come to her class after mine had finished and introduce myself as someone they can come to for help with English. I don’t particularly want scores of people I don’t teach herding in my office on my breaks but I agreed.
I wasn’t pleased when she burst into my classroom with five minutes to go and declared “class over!”
No, it’s 50 minutes a period now. We still had five left. She argued the toss and I huckled her outside. I couldn’t care less if I was an hour over time, it’s MY class, not hers! Bloody hell, my watch had stopped! An hour before. No idea why but 6 hours later it is still keeping perfect time. Joan got me the best battery two years ago. It still does not excuse her trying to dictate when my class finishes, my classroom is MY territory unless I am fired. If there is a next time there will be fireworks.
But yes, my watch was 68 minutes slow.
I spoke to her class of freshmen for her and left for the school bus.
When I got home I had an email from Alison. She is sick. Maybe not good for our trip next Monday. How many times have I lost money because suddenly students who agree to come with me suddenly are sick and can’t??? I really never thought that of Alison or I wouldn’t have paid everything up front.
Various emails have flown back and forth tonight. If she got cold feet at least I could cancel and get a percentage refunded or change the name on the tickets for extra cost. Just tell me the truth?
What is wrong?
This elicited photos of oxygen bottles and her with an earpiece delivering same up her hooter plus an MRI scan taken today. Diagnosis? Altitude sickness! She has been teaching in Gannan. I confess to being sceptical at first until I looked it up. Average height above sea level 10,000 feet. Yep. It’s Tibet!
I called the bluff that I do not now think is one and asked if it was because she changed her mind just tell me but she said if she can’t go she will pay what I lose. Sometimes you have to retain faith in human nature and your own belief so I said as long as she wanted to come (if able) then I will keep all bookings open, I will not cancel and get a pittance back and I will stand any loss. It is a shame so many other Chinese students took the piss and cost me money by crying off at the last minute because now I label them all the same -notable exceptions being those who are members here and who have earnt my undying trust.
Anyway, she DOES look nice even on a hospital bed with an earphone up her snout!
Sunday, 24 September 2017
Sunday 24th September, 2017 1945
In twelve hours my life gets an awful lot busier.
Today I had little option but to go shopping. No wine, little food and the prospect of a “dinner date” which I have promised Annie rather forced my hand. No cigar problem though, behind me sit 600 of Hefei’s finest cheap cheroots!
I hate shopping at the weekend. I hated it in the UK but some may find it surprising the supermarkets are busy here given that there is no such thing as a weekend in China. But they are - banks are open every day, nothing closes except government departments.
Today was one of those occasions where I felt the need to buy two boxes of vin. I couldn’t leave it until next week as my free days are now taken. My bloody taxi driver on the way would never have even passed The Knowledge in Marlow, let alone Lanzhou. Completely flummoxed when I said Beijing Hualia, he started to input it in his mobile phone satnav. Don’t bother, I will show you, it’s two miles away! Christ, it’s even a straight line from where I hail the cab! He even tried to turn off somewhere beforehand because his all-knowing phone told him to.
The wine section has now been moved in toto to the middle of the store which is bloody annoying, previously it was the last section, which meant I could do my shop and leave it to the end so my wine girl could drag my trolley to the checkout.
No wine girl today but one who knows my requirements well stepped up to the metaphorical plate. My trolley, complete with vegetables, was taken away as she sailed off out the back leaving me trailing in her wake. When she returned I had to brandish my shopping list to indicate I still had things to buy and I would return so she could bring the BOGOF barcode with me.
As the nights are getting a little colder now and I have been for the past few days waking and noticing that perhaps just a duvet cover is not enough for a restful night, earlier I decided to actually break out the summer quilt. I have no idea why but anything that stays in the bottom of my wardrobes for longer than a fortnight stinks to high heaven of I know not what! Never happened last year.
Into the washing machine it went but being a top-loader and not being that big, the machine moved but the quilt didn’t! It is now drying for tomorrow but I suspect there will be more expense and I will have to buy a new one.
I saw on the BBC website earlier that when Kim Jong Fatty described Trump as a dotard, Merriam Webster saw a huge increase in searches for the meaning. I suspect an online translation service provided the word to Fatty but surely to God it is not too much of a leap to get from dotage to dotard? Mind you, I assume Americans are the main users of Merriam, no self-respecting British person would consult it!
Today I have felt under the weather the entire time so shortly it is time for bed, hopefully a few hours of airing will have done the trick with the linen. In the morning it is back into the fray for a week because a week Monday it is a short break to the rainbow mountains.
In twelve hours my life gets an awful lot busier.
Today I had little option but to go shopping. No wine, little food and the prospect of a “dinner date” which I have promised Annie rather forced my hand. No cigar problem though, behind me sit 600 of Hefei’s finest cheap cheroots!
I hate shopping at the weekend. I hated it in the UK but some may find it surprising the supermarkets are busy here given that there is no such thing as a weekend in China. But they are - banks are open every day, nothing closes except government departments.
Today was one of those occasions where I felt the need to buy two boxes of vin. I couldn’t leave it until next week as my free days are now taken. My bloody taxi driver on the way would never have even passed The Knowledge in Marlow, let alone Lanzhou. Completely flummoxed when I said Beijing Hualia, he started to input it in his mobile phone satnav. Don’t bother, I will show you, it’s two miles away! Christ, it’s even a straight line from where I hail the cab! He even tried to turn off somewhere beforehand because his all-knowing phone told him to.
The wine section has now been moved in toto to the middle of the store which is bloody annoying, previously it was the last section, which meant I could do my shop and leave it to the end so my wine girl could drag my trolley to the checkout.
No wine girl today but one who knows my requirements well stepped up to the metaphorical plate. My trolley, complete with vegetables, was taken away as she sailed off out the back leaving me trailing in her wake. When she returned I had to brandish my shopping list to indicate I still had things to buy and I would return so she could bring the BOGOF barcode with me.
As the nights are getting a little colder now and I have been for the past few days waking and noticing that perhaps just a duvet cover is not enough for a restful night, earlier I decided to actually break out the summer quilt. I have no idea why but anything that stays in the bottom of my wardrobes for longer than a fortnight stinks to high heaven of I know not what! Never happened last year.
Into the washing machine it went but being a top-loader and not being that big, the machine moved but the quilt didn’t! It is now drying for tomorrow but I suspect there will be more expense and I will have to buy a new one.
I saw on the BBC website earlier that when Kim Jong Fatty described Trump as a dotard, Merriam Webster saw a huge increase in searches for the meaning. I suspect an online translation service provided the word to Fatty but surely to God it is not too much of a leap to get from dotage to dotard? Mind you, I assume Americans are the main users of Merriam, no self-respecting British person would consult it!
Today I have felt under the weather the entire time so shortly it is time for bed, hopefully a few hours of airing will have done the trick with the linen. In the morning it is back into the fray for a week because a week Monday it is a short break to the rainbow mountains.
Saturday, 23 September 2017
Saturday 23rd September, 2017 0300
I should have known better.
When I went to bed after English Corner I could feel an attack on the way but despite previous experience I stupidly thought time in bed would see it off. Had I been teaching yesterday I would have taken preventative measures so as not to jeopardise actually getting to work because as sure as eggs are eggs it would have.
I awoke in the morning with an immobile and excruciatingly painful left ankle, brought on by standing in one spot for two hours, trapped by a steel ring of students eager to listen to the new kid on their block.
The crutches I abandoned in Chizhou would have been most welcome but instead I made my way to the study to grab a pill, swallow it and return to bed for a while. Shopping was out of the question and I had very real concerns regarding the speaking contest - well at least regarding getting there. I lay there envisaging having to ask them to send someone with a car and a walking stick!
It’s not a common occurrence, maybe once every couple of months and although it does take a few hours for the remedy to work its magic, this time seemed worse. When I did get up it was no better and I had to only make half a mug of coffee so I didn’t spill any whilst staggering to the study.
For the next four hours I sat here occasionally trying to move the joint to loosen it. Thankfully when the time came, medicine and stretching had got me to a manageable limping stage and I went to the library. When I asked students I had seen at the Corner where exactly it was being held, I nearly collapsed when they told me it was on the 6th floor! There IS a God! There was a lift!
The contest was the school final for the FLTRP cup. I had asked on Thursday but nobody could tell me. They also conducted it differently to Chizhou in that Annie (the other Peace Corps American teacher from Los Angeles) and I as usual had to ask the contestants questions after their speeches but this was a first, we also got to score as judges. Unlike Chizhou though, I don’t think we will be paid for our time!
Pat, one of my soon to be new students (and I suspect a new “wife“) deservedly came first, another departure from the norm because girls never got picked to win in Chizhou, they preferred to select a second-rate male. I also thought another girl equally good but in a nod to the male preference the final contestant, male, was second. He delivered his speech by videophone from Beijing where he is teaching on an internship. He was admittedly good but not that good in my view.
I am now wondering if I will be asked to go to the provincial finals as a foreign mentor. Annie is seemingly disqualified for several reasons: A) She looks Chinese B) If the school wants to take a Peace Corps member to another city they have to seek permission from the Corps and most importantly, C) She doesn’t want to go! Kevin always did that because my idea of fun is not sitting for an entire weekend listening to hundreds of speeches on the same topic!
Anyway after the contest I suggested Annie and I went for dinner together. One of her students (she has freshmen, I have sophomores) had invited her so she asked if I would join them instead. Fine, I mentioned the place with the sweet pork so we ended up going there anyway. The student was a lad and later his female student friend joined us.
I was then invited to go to the cinema with them. Long term readers will already know I instantly refused because Chinese cinemagoers never shut up, been once, never again. Considering my age is probably not far off the combined total for the other three and the film they went to see was Planet Of The Apes, well!!!!
BUT.
I like Annie. We live close to each other and now I think we will be friends. Someone to have a drink with. For her, well, she can’t cook so when she learnt I can and that I make macaroni cheese she was in raptures. I have invited her here on Tuesday evening for same and what the hell, bread and butter pudding again too!
I have also offered her the use of my washing machine. She has been using Jacobs. She refuses to use the one in her flat because it is covered in mould. Even better it is a twin tub! The last example of this I saw was half a century ago and it belonged to my grandmother! I am sure if I go to her place I will find it even has a mangle!
I will suggest when I see her next that with Jacob gone, she should ask if the school will swap machines. I may be wrong but perhaps because the Peace Corps volunteers are young it is thought they will put up with more. Age and experience in China definitely are advantages, every shortcoming I have reported here has been rectified.
I now have a bird of a feather, albeit American.
I should have known better.
When I went to bed after English Corner I could feel an attack on the way but despite previous experience I stupidly thought time in bed would see it off. Had I been teaching yesterday I would have taken preventative measures so as not to jeopardise actually getting to work because as sure as eggs are eggs it would have.
I awoke in the morning with an immobile and excruciatingly painful left ankle, brought on by standing in one spot for two hours, trapped by a steel ring of students eager to listen to the new kid on their block.
The crutches I abandoned in Chizhou would have been most welcome but instead I made my way to the study to grab a pill, swallow it and return to bed for a while. Shopping was out of the question and I had very real concerns regarding the speaking contest - well at least regarding getting there. I lay there envisaging having to ask them to send someone with a car and a walking stick!
It’s not a common occurrence, maybe once every couple of months and although it does take a few hours for the remedy to work its magic, this time seemed worse. When I did get up it was no better and I had to only make half a mug of coffee so I didn’t spill any whilst staggering to the study.
For the next four hours I sat here occasionally trying to move the joint to loosen it. Thankfully when the time came, medicine and stretching had got me to a manageable limping stage and I went to the library. When I asked students I had seen at the Corner where exactly it was being held, I nearly collapsed when they told me it was on the 6th floor! There IS a God! There was a lift!
The contest was the school final for the FLTRP cup. I had asked on Thursday but nobody could tell me. They also conducted it differently to Chizhou in that Annie (the other Peace Corps American teacher from Los Angeles) and I as usual had to ask the contestants questions after their speeches but this was a first, we also got to score as judges. Unlike Chizhou though, I don’t think we will be paid for our time!
Pat, one of my soon to be new students (and I suspect a new “wife“) deservedly came first, another departure from the norm because girls never got picked to win in Chizhou, they preferred to select a second-rate male. I also thought another girl equally good but in a nod to the male preference the final contestant, male, was second. He delivered his speech by videophone from Beijing where he is teaching on an internship. He was admittedly good but not that good in my view.
I am now wondering if I will be asked to go to the provincial finals as a foreign mentor. Annie is seemingly disqualified for several reasons: A) She looks Chinese B) If the school wants to take a Peace Corps member to another city they have to seek permission from the Corps and most importantly, C) She doesn’t want to go! Kevin always did that because my idea of fun is not sitting for an entire weekend listening to hundreds of speeches on the same topic!
Anyway after the contest I suggested Annie and I went for dinner together. One of her students (she has freshmen, I have sophomores) had invited her so she asked if I would join them instead. Fine, I mentioned the place with the sweet pork so we ended up going there anyway. The student was a lad and later his female student friend joined us.
I was then invited to go to the cinema with them. Long term readers will already know I instantly refused because Chinese cinemagoers never shut up, been once, never again. Considering my age is probably not far off the combined total for the other three and the film they went to see was Planet Of The Apes, well!!!!
BUT.
I like Annie. We live close to each other and now I think we will be friends. Someone to have a drink with. For her, well, she can’t cook so when she learnt I can and that I make macaroni cheese she was in raptures. I have invited her here on Tuesday evening for same and what the hell, bread and butter pudding again too!
I have also offered her the use of my washing machine. She has been using Jacobs. She refuses to use the one in her flat because it is covered in mould. Even better it is a twin tub! The last example of this I saw was half a century ago and it belonged to my grandmother! I am sure if I go to her place I will find it even has a mangle!
I will suggest when I see her next that with Jacob gone, she should ask if the school will swap machines. I may be wrong but perhaps because the Peace Corps volunteers are young it is thought they will put up with more. Age and experience in China definitely are advantages, every shortcoming I have reported here has been rectified.
I now have a bird of a feather, albeit American.
Friday, 22 September 2017
Friday 22nd September, 2017 0115
Some stability would be good!
I arranged to meet Delia (she had never heard of THE Delia) to be shown where my teaching building was. I only knew where the library was and half the campus has been demolished since I last went, new science blocks will be erected in due course.
I knew I should just have gone to the supermarket!
First off I was told I would teach at Peili all day Wednesday. Whoa! Hold on! I have afternoon classes on the east campus! Phone call. No, you are here all day Wednesday, east campus will move your class to another day. Fingers crossed they would fill that gaping void on Monday but no, it was changed to Friday afternoon so I now have all day Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I am however thankful I still have Tuesdays and Thursdays off - I will need them.
While we were talking outside I was asked if I would go to English Corners. Immediately I recoiled and stated I hated them. Anyway, my main campus was elsewhere. By sheer coincidence, fifteen minutes later two students just happened to appear, Edie and Avery. Oddly enough, they organise English corner and they just so happened to have one that night, could I come?
God I hate those things! Faced with three females “really hoping” I could make it I told them in no uncertain terms. I am a man.
So at 1900 hours I went to English Corner.
I assume because I am a new face and a novelty - old and fat and very English as opposed to French or American - I was a magnet and was surrounded by students, some I will teach, others not. Two hours later, long after the other teachers had left, I got to go home. Not before I was roped into a speaking contest this afternoon as one of the question masters. An IT student and her boyfriend (she swears he’s not) came to my home for a while - she wants to sit in on my classes.
I told you I should have just gone shopping!
Having said that, if their Corners are always like that then I may enjoy them - the students actually spoke instead of just me. Whether I go to more I am unsure but purely because they are on Thursday nights and my rota stipulates an 0500 alarm on Fridays. I will not want to get home at 2100.
It was interesting though. It appears Jacob’s mother is ill, hence the dash home. Equally interesting was that many students found his classes boring and also that apparently he became angry when students made mistakes.
Naturally I voiced no opinion as to his teaching, after all he is young and has only been doing it a year and I never met a teacher yet, including me, who appealed to every student. However, the boring bit I understand - my classes are never such but I can understand a young greenhorn sticking to the menu. That IS boring. Grief for giving a wrong answer is a different matter. My view is that when students make mistakes either the teacher hasn’t done their job properly or the pupil doesn’t want to learn. If they steadfastly refuse to take part in class then I stop asking them questions, the active ones can make any amount of errors and I will simply correct them without loss of face.
I have a feeling my three classes will have at least some animated students if tonight was anything to judge by and yes, now the antipathy towards having my life altered yet again has subsided, I am actually looking forward to teaching English majors again, albeit the flitting between campuses will present me with certain problems.
Joan emailed me. She and her sister want to go to the ice city sculptures in Harbin in January, would I like to come? Two years ago I lost a lot of money by having to unnecessarily cancel flights and hotels because Joan worked for Dean Witch and never had the courage to say “I am going”. She wants to make it up to me. I still have two sets of ice overshoes!
I have had to decline.
From here flying is 5.5 hours and the train 46 hours. Yes, nearly two full days! It is also expensive. It is cheap for her and her sister to fly from Hefei to Harbin so I have suggested they go and do it, return home and then Joan comes here later. Harbin Ice City was indeed something I was mulling over for 2019 but my mind now is on taking Joan for a holiday she will never forget in summer. I have someone to repay and a stash to save to make that a reality. Harbin would cost too much (even though it is something I really want to do).
Joan of course has no conception of how much what I have planned if we can pull it off costs. I couldn’t even countenance it without my naval pension. And if Joan can’t get a visa for England (been there before) if she is free then I will take her somewhere else that is not as draconian regarding tourists and where she can get a visa on arrival or online beforehand.
Some stability would be good!
I arranged to meet Delia (she had never heard of THE Delia) to be shown where my teaching building was. I only knew where the library was and half the campus has been demolished since I last went, new science blocks will be erected in due course.
I knew I should just have gone to the supermarket!
First off I was told I would teach at Peili all day Wednesday. Whoa! Hold on! I have afternoon classes on the east campus! Phone call. No, you are here all day Wednesday, east campus will move your class to another day. Fingers crossed they would fill that gaping void on Monday but no, it was changed to Friday afternoon so I now have all day Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I am however thankful I still have Tuesdays and Thursdays off - I will need them.
While we were talking outside I was asked if I would go to English Corners. Immediately I recoiled and stated I hated them. Anyway, my main campus was elsewhere. By sheer coincidence, fifteen minutes later two students just happened to appear, Edie and Avery. Oddly enough, they organise English corner and they just so happened to have one that night, could I come?
God I hate those things! Faced with three females “really hoping” I could make it I told them in no uncertain terms. I am a man.
So at 1900 hours I went to English Corner.
I assume because I am a new face and a novelty - old and fat and very English as opposed to French or American - I was a magnet and was surrounded by students, some I will teach, others not. Two hours later, long after the other teachers had left, I got to go home. Not before I was roped into a speaking contest this afternoon as one of the question masters. An IT student and her boyfriend (she swears he’s not) came to my home for a while - she wants to sit in on my classes.
I told you I should have just gone shopping!
Having said that, if their Corners are always like that then I may enjoy them - the students actually spoke instead of just me. Whether I go to more I am unsure but purely because they are on Thursday nights and my rota stipulates an 0500 alarm on Fridays. I will not want to get home at 2100.
It was interesting though. It appears Jacob’s mother is ill, hence the dash home. Equally interesting was that many students found his classes boring and also that apparently he became angry when students made mistakes.
Naturally I voiced no opinion as to his teaching, after all he is young and has only been doing it a year and I never met a teacher yet, including me, who appealed to every student. However, the boring bit I understand - my classes are never such but I can understand a young greenhorn sticking to the menu. That IS boring. Grief for giving a wrong answer is a different matter. My view is that when students make mistakes either the teacher hasn’t done their job properly or the pupil doesn’t want to learn. If they steadfastly refuse to take part in class then I stop asking them questions, the active ones can make any amount of errors and I will simply correct them without loss of face.
I have a feeling my three classes will have at least some animated students if tonight was anything to judge by and yes, now the antipathy towards having my life altered yet again has subsided, I am actually looking forward to teaching English majors again, albeit the flitting between campuses will present me with certain problems.
I have had to decline.
From here flying is 5.5 hours and the train 46 hours. Yes, nearly two full days! It is also expensive. It is cheap for her and her sister to fly from Hefei to Harbin so I have suggested they go and do it, return home and then Joan comes here later. Harbin Ice City was indeed something I was mulling over for 2019 but my mind now is on taking Joan for a holiday she will never forget in summer. I have someone to repay and a stash to save to make that a reality. Harbin would cost too much (even though it is something I really want to do).
Joan of course has no conception of how much what I have planned if we can pull it off costs. I couldn’t even countenance it without my naval pension. And if Joan can’t get a visa for England (been there before) if she is free then I will take her somewhere else that is not as draconian regarding tourists and where she can get a visa on arrival or online beforehand.
Wednesday, 20 September 2017
Wednesday 20th September, 2017 2000
As so often happens, when adverse circumstances manifest themselves in my life, a damned good rant online and a night’s sleep invariably make the world a rosier place in the morning.
Oh yes, I am still teaching on a strange campus. Jacob would only text me that he was returning due to a family emergency, presumably serious enough in his eyes to warrant going home but somehow I feel it falls short of bereavement. I cannot envisage circumstances wherein someone would fail to reveal that little nugget.
Of course now he has the problem of retrieving his passport! It is currently with mine, shuffling around the implacable machine that is China’s visa system. Next Wednesday was given as the date from which we can retrieve our documents and of course remember, he has lost his receipt! Ever the optimist, I am confident all it will cost is time.
So anyway, I had a call. His classes were 3 oral and one reading and writing. The latter I am excused, which, whilst being something I would love to do, would entail a lot of work off-campus in setting and marking. Great if I had but four classes and eight periods per week but no. Miss Li indicated they are trying to schedule all six periods for the one day. I did it last term but the difference now is that I can go home during lunch.
Within half an hour (phone calls presumably having been made) Hey Presto! Suddenly my little campus schedule was in my email inbox!
Ok it’s not great when you factor in 6 periods here on top of 10 there but I will not complain. All day Monday - really awful because it is two periods first thing then 4.5 hours until afternoon class - Wednesday afternoon and all Friday morning. If Peili campus do what they say I shall lose either Tuesday or Thursday off. If not, possibly both.
To hell with it, I have always been willing to assist in the hour of need and at least now I am still affiliated to “my” campus. Busy I shall certainly be but I can hardly complain after three extra weeks off. And instead of having to make excuses not to attend English corners, I can use the “part time” get-out clause!
Apparently Jacob told his students about me today (he just sent a text) and they are excited. Deluded souls.
He also said he is going for his passport tomorrow. I have sent directions as to how to find it. For me it is simple because it is the same stop as the cheese shop (well it was a cheese shop until they ran out!) and offered to go with him. I await an answer.
I think having to actually work soon is going to hit me. I had plenty of washing up still to do from Monday and managed to clean everything bar the plates, bowls and baking trays. I shunned the rest and decided instead to go out for sweet pork. I was so lazy in the end that I decided to cook an omelette. No chips, too much work! Thankfully I have amassed a load of plates thanks to the previous occupant, Ollivier and Kevin after Chizhou so even after a dinner party I have spares.
Ollivier by the way is about to embark on a new chapter. From his email this morning I am either sworn to silence or implored to broadcast it, impossible to tell due to the omission of ONE word. I shall accordingly err on the side of caution. And no, he was too wrinkly to be accepted as a gendarme. Nutter he may be but his strength reminded me of myself thirty years ago. I feel the gendarmerie lost out there through whatever their selection process entails.
No idea what tomorrow entails. Maybe I will be shown where I will teach on Peili, maybe I will go shopping, maybe I will go with Jacob. I will however face it with a considerably happier demeanour than I had 24 hours ago!
As so often happens, when adverse circumstances manifest themselves in my life, a damned good rant online and a night’s sleep invariably make the world a rosier place in the morning.
Oh yes, I am still teaching on a strange campus. Jacob would only text me that he was returning due to a family emergency, presumably serious enough in his eyes to warrant going home but somehow I feel it falls short of bereavement. I cannot envisage circumstances wherein someone would fail to reveal that little nugget.
Of course now he has the problem of retrieving his passport! It is currently with mine, shuffling around the implacable machine that is China’s visa system. Next Wednesday was given as the date from which we can retrieve our documents and of course remember, he has lost his receipt! Ever the optimist, I am confident all it will cost is time.
So anyway, I had a call. His classes were 3 oral and one reading and writing. The latter I am excused, which, whilst being something I would love to do, would entail a lot of work off-campus in setting and marking. Great if I had but four classes and eight periods per week but no. Miss Li indicated they are trying to schedule all six periods for the one day. I did it last term but the difference now is that I can go home during lunch.
Within half an hour (phone calls presumably having been made) Hey Presto! Suddenly my little campus schedule was in my email inbox!
Ok it’s not great when you factor in 6 periods here on top of 10 there but I will not complain. All day Monday - really awful because it is two periods first thing then 4.5 hours until afternoon class - Wednesday afternoon and all Friday morning. If Peili campus do what they say I shall lose either Tuesday or Thursday off. If not, possibly both.
To hell with it, I have always been willing to assist in the hour of need and at least now I am still affiliated to “my” campus. Busy I shall certainly be but I can hardly complain after three extra weeks off. And instead of having to make excuses not to attend English corners, I can use the “part time” get-out clause!
Apparently Jacob told his students about me today (he just sent a text) and they are excited. Deluded souls.
He also said he is going for his passport tomorrow. I have sent directions as to how to find it. For me it is simple because it is the same stop as the cheese shop (well it was a cheese shop until they ran out!) and offered to go with him. I await an answer.
I think having to actually work soon is going to hit me. I had plenty of washing up still to do from Monday and managed to clean everything bar the plates, bowls and baking trays. I shunned the rest and decided instead to go out for sweet pork. I was so lazy in the end that I decided to cook an omelette. No chips, too much work! Thankfully I have amassed a load of plates thanks to the previous occupant, Ollivier and Kevin after Chizhou so even after a dinner party I have spares.
Ollivier by the way is about to embark on a new chapter. From his email this morning I am either sworn to silence or implored to broadcast it, impossible to tell due to the omission of ONE word. I shall accordingly err on the side of caution. And no, he was too wrinkly to be accepted as a gendarme. Nutter he may be but his strength reminded me of myself thirty years ago. I feel the gendarmerie lost out there through whatever their selection process entails.
No idea what tomorrow entails. Maybe I will be shown where I will teach on Peili, maybe I will go shopping, maybe I will go with Jacob. I will however face it with a considerably happier demeanour than I had 24 hours ago!
Tuesday, 19 September 2017
Tuesday 19th September, 2017 2210
Days such as these I would rather not have.
In response to an email asking how I would be reimbursed for my flight from Beijing to Lanzhou I received the reply that the school had paid the travel agent.
I paid for the ticket the night before the flight.
How can any self-respecting accounts department actually pay a receipt? Ok so it’s an e-receipt but it states in bold lettering that it is such and nowhere is the word “invoice” on it. And anyway, how could I have taken a flight and simply told them to put it on the school’s account?? Leanne has since said she will get the cash.
Much later I had a call from Brenda in foreign affairs. How many classes was I teaching this term? None. Oh yes, Mr Zhang had heard “something about this”. Translated, it meant the question was completely unnecessary for they knew full well I was sitting twiddling my thumbs. Maybe it was to see if I was honest.
Jacob (the Peace Corps chap) has to return urgently to the States due to a family emergency and they want me to take over his classes on this campus. Marvellous. One of my stipulations, in fact the stipulation for my staying was that I would continue on my little campus.
I am not happy. It is akin to moving schools but without actually moving. Oh yes, 5 minutes walk to work and I can go home at lunch. Not the point, I was comfortable where I was. Yes, they are English majors. Great. But no office and people who don’t know me. I may as well have tried to find another job paying more. Give me a month and maybe I will be saying I like it but that’s not the point.
Nobody has given me any information other than I will start next week. Nothing about whether Jacob is off for good, nothing. Not even what book they use. So now I need to trek all the way to east campus to get my materials back and I don’t even know if I will also teach there!
Don’t read me wrong, I will always step into the breach in times of need but there are ways of getting people to do it willingly and a bland phone call is not one of them!
As always though I shall embrace the experience!
Actually, I think the worst aspect is that they have English corners and I detest them with a vengeance!
Looks as if life is about to get interesting. Maybe less exclamation marks will be needed next entry……..
Days such as these I would rather not have.
In response to an email asking how I would be reimbursed for my flight from Beijing to Lanzhou I received the reply that the school had paid the travel agent.
I paid for the ticket the night before the flight.
How can any self-respecting accounts department actually pay a receipt? Ok so it’s an e-receipt but it states in bold lettering that it is such and nowhere is the word “invoice” on it. And anyway, how could I have taken a flight and simply told them to put it on the school’s account?? Leanne has since said she will get the cash.
Much later I had a call from Brenda in foreign affairs. How many classes was I teaching this term? None. Oh yes, Mr Zhang had heard “something about this”. Translated, it meant the question was completely unnecessary for they knew full well I was sitting twiddling my thumbs. Maybe it was to see if I was honest.
Jacob (the Peace Corps chap) has to return urgently to the States due to a family emergency and they want me to take over his classes on this campus. Marvellous. One of my stipulations, in fact the stipulation for my staying was that I would continue on my little campus.
I am not happy. It is akin to moving schools but without actually moving. Oh yes, 5 minutes walk to work and I can go home at lunch. Not the point, I was comfortable where I was. Yes, they are English majors. Great. But no office and people who don’t know me. I may as well have tried to find another job paying more. Give me a month and maybe I will be saying I like it but that’s not the point.
Nobody has given me any information other than I will start next week. Nothing about whether Jacob is off for good, nothing. Not even what book they use. So now I need to trek all the way to east campus to get my materials back and I don’t even know if I will also teach there!
Don’t read me wrong, I will always step into the breach in times of need but there are ways of getting people to do it willingly and a bland phone call is not one of them!
As always though I shall embrace the experience!
Actually, I think the worst aspect is that they have English corners and I detest them with a vengeance!
Looks as if life is about to get interesting. Maybe less exclamation marks will be needed next entry……..
Monday 18th September, 2017 2330
Don’t ask me why but I kept waking up this morning panicking about time.
Ok, I know why.
Because Max and Karen were coming to clean. The worry was that I needed to cook! Irrational in the extreme, for what I had planned took longer to wash up the preparation pots and pans than prep and cooking combined even at my speed!
I did though lounge in bed until I was rudely awoken by air raid sirens at ten. Luckily I had seen on the Chizhou website there was to be a drill. I still checked online to make sure Kim Jong Fatty hadn’t set off another firecracker though. We had the wailing on and off all day, which was most annoying.
My cleaners/guests arrived half an hour early but proceeded to actually get here ten minutes late because they couldn’t comprehend the instructions I had sent. I got exasperated and used my phone credit in my efforts to find out precisely where outside the Shijia hotel they were.
But hell, they did a great job, especially in the kitchen where it needed both to be on their haunches with brillo type pads - I have never known tiles to be as stubborn, ever.
I could only start the business of food once they had finished in the kitchen (and they insisted on doing the windowsills which get manky due to the dreadful condensation)- it is a really bad kitchen and the cupboards get damp in winter too, hence I now keep foodstuffs out in the open unless they are sealed or canned.
Lovely. I don’t mind anyone visiting now. Time to cook.
I think they enjoyed the macaroni au gratin and the bread and butter pudding. They said they did but of course you can rarely be sure they are not merely being polite. The best gauge is how much they eat and judging by that, they did!
And now I am left alone to contemplate perhaps yet another week off.
Still no news. Thank God I am still being paid. But I must say this is the first time in my life extra holiday is most unwelcome. I really do want to be at the front of a classroom again. It feels a lot like the time I had 6 months on the beach after my shipping accident but that was different - I was in no fit state then and my job was not possibly at risk.
I am seriously considering (now my home is clean!) inviting Janet and the Dean for homemade pizzas if only to endear myself to the boss! There’s a thought - I could offer western cookery classes to the campus!
One good thing tonight was that all bar one item of my shopping was brought to me. The one missing because it may take a fortnight to come from the UK? Mixed spice for my bread puddings! Is the UK the only place which uses it????
As far as spices and herbs go here, normally the available ones in supermarkets are Chinese so you have no idea what they are or McCormick’s which are American. Pot luck on that. Some good, others not. Their paprika I think is from Zog.
But I now have a year’s supply of that heavenly nectar that is Linghams!
Don’t ask me why but I kept waking up this morning panicking about time.
Ok, I know why.
Because Max and Karen were coming to clean. The worry was that I needed to cook! Irrational in the extreme, for what I had planned took longer to wash up the preparation pots and pans than prep and cooking combined even at my speed!
I did though lounge in bed until I was rudely awoken by air raid sirens at ten. Luckily I had seen on the Chizhou website there was to be a drill. I still checked online to make sure Kim Jong Fatty hadn’t set off another firecracker though. We had the wailing on and off all day, which was most annoying.
My cleaners/guests arrived half an hour early but proceeded to actually get here ten minutes late because they couldn’t comprehend the instructions I had sent. I got exasperated and used my phone credit in my efforts to find out precisely where outside the Shijia hotel they were.
But hell, they did a great job, especially in the kitchen where it needed both to be on their haunches with brillo type pads - I have never known tiles to be as stubborn, ever.
I could only start the business of food once they had finished in the kitchen (and they insisted on doing the windowsills which get manky due to the dreadful condensation)- it is a really bad kitchen and the cupboards get damp in winter too, hence I now keep foodstuffs out in the open unless they are sealed or canned.
Lovely. I don’t mind anyone visiting now. Time to cook.
I think they enjoyed the macaroni au gratin and the bread and butter pudding. They said they did but of course you can rarely be sure they are not merely being polite. The best gauge is how much they eat and judging by that, they did!
And now I am left alone to contemplate perhaps yet another week off.
Still no news. Thank God I am still being paid. But I must say this is the first time in my life extra holiday is most unwelcome. I really do want to be at the front of a classroom again. It feels a lot like the time I had 6 months on the beach after my shipping accident but that was different - I was in no fit state then and my job was not possibly at risk.
I am seriously considering (now my home is clean!) inviting Janet and the Dean for homemade pizzas if only to endear myself to the boss! There’s a thought - I could offer western cookery classes to the campus!
One good thing tonight was that all bar one item of my shopping was brought to me. The one missing because it may take a fortnight to come from the UK? Mixed spice for my bread puddings! Is the UK the only place which uses it????
As far as spices and herbs go here, normally the available ones in supermarkets are Chinese so you have no idea what they are or McCormick’s which are American. Pot luck on that. Some good, others not. Their paprika I think is from Zog.
But I now have a year’s supply of that heavenly nectar that is Linghams!
Sunday, 17 September 2017
Sunday 17th September, 2017 2115
With no classes again tomorrow I arranged for Max and friend to come and scrub the place in the afternoon. I had promised dinner thrown in afterwards so had to move myself to go shopping. That longish walk to see if the drugs had worked.
Most assuredly there was pain. Muscular I would say, not surprising given my aversion to walking ever since the school trip! But the hip joint? Hardly any at all. No limp either. Whilst not constituting a miracle, the drugs have performed wonders, they simply took time to have an effect. I reckon long hikes may be off the menu now but then ever did I avoid those!
For now at least, injections are also off the list - start on those and that’s it for life and I am on enough “permanent resident” chemicals as it is without adding to them unless absolutely necessary!
No, the half an hour of perambulation I managed tonight is fine and probably the most I will do under normal circumstances anyway. The summer was a case of serving me right for mixing it with younger souls! I am very happy with what has been achieved.
Just before I got to the supermarket a pack of wild dogs ran on the pavement towards me. At the head of the pack was a male, medium to small and quite handsome. Unfortunately he was either involved in an accident at some point or was born deformed for his front left leg was emaciated and useless. He could still lope at a fair lick nonetheless.
On my way back I spotted him lying on his back, still on the pavement at the junction where you can turn down to buy fruit and vegetables. A child walking past made as though to launch a kick at the prone animal but a stern “no!“ halted him in his tracks. He (the dog, not the boy) was motionless except for a twitching of the affected limb. Concerned, I stopped and asked if he was ok. No, I know I don’t speak fluent dog but I have a working knowledge! He looked up at me, I saw no sign of injury (my concern was he had been hit crossing the little side road). I decided he was just resting and as his tortured leg had been flapping about as he ran previously, he needed to give it respite. I walked on.
After I crossed I glanced back and saw a group of students, three girls and a boy, had stopped to investigate. Thinking perhaps I had been wrong I returned, after all, we laowei have a reputation for being animal lovers! The mutt rolled over onto his front as I reassured the group using body language that the only problem was a gammy leg.
But in China it always gladdens me to see young people who care about animals. It gives me hope that eventually cruelty and the eating of dogs will be eradicated, you would not believe the increase I have witnessed in 7 years in the numbers of pet dogs. It is a pity the preference is for “Teddy” dogs, or fashion accessories. If only they would adopt feral puppies, have them neutered and in so doing drastically reduce the numbers of strays. Small steps.
I keep having to check BBC news this evening. The air raid sirens sporadically give off short blasts. Not only has nothing been said to me (how unusual) but tests are normally in daylight. I keep thinking Trump and Fatty have kicked off.
With no classes again tomorrow I arranged for Max and friend to come and scrub the place in the afternoon. I had promised dinner thrown in afterwards so had to move myself to go shopping. That longish walk to see if the drugs had worked.
Most assuredly there was pain. Muscular I would say, not surprising given my aversion to walking ever since the school trip! But the hip joint? Hardly any at all. No limp either. Whilst not constituting a miracle, the drugs have performed wonders, they simply took time to have an effect. I reckon long hikes may be off the menu now but then ever did I avoid those!
For now at least, injections are also off the list - start on those and that’s it for life and I am on enough “permanent resident” chemicals as it is without adding to them unless absolutely necessary!
No, the half an hour of perambulation I managed tonight is fine and probably the most I will do under normal circumstances anyway. The summer was a case of serving me right for mixing it with younger souls! I am very happy with what has been achieved.
Just before I got to the supermarket a pack of wild dogs ran on the pavement towards me. At the head of the pack was a male, medium to small and quite handsome. Unfortunately he was either involved in an accident at some point or was born deformed for his front left leg was emaciated and useless. He could still lope at a fair lick nonetheless.
On my way back I spotted him lying on his back, still on the pavement at the junction where you can turn down to buy fruit and vegetables. A child walking past made as though to launch a kick at the prone animal but a stern “no!“ halted him in his tracks. He (the dog, not the boy) was motionless except for a twitching of the affected limb. Concerned, I stopped and asked if he was ok. No, I know I don’t speak fluent dog but I have a working knowledge! He looked up at me, I saw no sign of injury (my concern was he had been hit crossing the little side road). I decided he was just resting and as his tortured leg had been flapping about as he ran previously, he needed to give it respite. I walked on.
After I crossed I glanced back and saw a group of students, three girls and a boy, had stopped to investigate. Thinking perhaps I had been wrong I returned, after all, we laowei have a reputation for being animal lovers! The mutt rolled over onto his front as I reassured the group using body language that the only problem was a gammy leg.
But in China it always gladdens me to see young people who care about animals. It gives me hope that eventually cruelty and the eating of dogs will be eradicated, you would not believe the increase I have witnessed in 7 years in the numbers of pet dogs. It is a pity the preference is for “Teddy” dogs, or fashion accessories. If only they would adopt feral puppies, have them neutered and in so doing drastically reduce the numbers of strays. Small steps.
I keep having to check BBC news this evening. The air raid sirens sporadically give off short blasts. Not only has nothing been said to me (how unusual) but tests are normally in daylight. I keep thinking Trump and Fatty have kicked off.
Saturday, 16 September 2017
Saturday 16th September, 2017 1730
The slight pause was of course due to little happening. Still no classes. I have been told to “rest up and don’t worry”. I am certain they have no idea the cause of my worry is not the extended holiday (we would all like one) but the implications it could have come April/May next year when contract renewals crop up. Steve? Oh yes, didn’t really need him much, did we?
I hope not.
When I did my shop on Thursday I thought I had gone in the wrong supermarket. Don’t you just love it when they do their periodic “change everything so the customers have to look for what they want instead of going straight to it” thing?
Good job I wasn’t in a hurry. The worst part was that my wine girl was nowhere to be seen. She would have been handy, seeing as the wine display has not only moved but been split asunder. Two smaller displays miles apart, I couldn’t find my wine or any signs for special offers. I almost left in disgust but managed to find 4 bottles of 13.5y stuff, the plonk I was buying before Winegirl came on the scene.
On Friday Max sent me a message to let me know one of my parcels had arrived. Of the five items ordered only one was perishable. You know which one arrived first - the cheese! Cue a 4 bus round trip. Ok, I used the occasion to take some more gear in for whenever I actually start teaching again so it wasn’t a wasted trip.
Even better, I had asked her to order 2 x 200g packs and because the vendor didn’t want to ship (still hot in Shanghai) she went elsewhere, never checked the description and ordered 2 x 500g packs! No matter, it will be used.
In fact if (as indeed looks to be the case) I don’t have classes on Monday, I will use a fair bit. I have asked Max if she has a friend who likes cleaning because if they come then I will cook dinner for them. I thought macaroni cheese and bread and butter pudding would be good.
She is also very honest. I had paid her 400y yet when I got on the bus I noticed I was 100y short on what I thought I should have had left. Sure enough, two brand new notes from the ATM must have stuck together as she sent a text to let me know. Well that will be part-payment for the cleaning.
I was going to take a walk to test the undercarriage a little more this evening but after spending two hours trying to get this laptop to work, I tossed that notion out. The wifi switch wouldn’t turn on and even plugging a cable in had no effect. It has happened before and eventually I got online, only to find that Auntie is now being more aggressive than Beijing at preventing access to their programmes. It took a lot of perseverance and trying countless protocols and UK sites before I finally found one that opened the door about an hour ago.
Oh yes! I had a call from Jacob yesterday asking what would happen if someone lost the receipt for their passport! It’s the one you get when you hand it over to be sent away for new permits. As there is a microchip in the new ID card which includes passport number, in theory when we go to collect in 11 days time there should be no problem.
This being China…………… well……….
The slight pause was of course due to little happening. Still no classes. I have been told to “rest up and don’t worry”. I am certain they have no idea the cause of my worry is not the extended holiday (we would all like one) but the implications it could have come April/May next year when contract renewals crop up. Steve? Oh yes, didn’t really need him much, did we?
I hope not.
When I did my shop on Thursday I thought I had gone in the wrong supermarket. Don’t you just love it when they do their periodic “change everything so the customers have to look for what they want instead of going straight to it” thing?
Good job I wasn’t in a hurry. The worst part was that my wine girl was nowhere to be seen. She would have been handy, seeing as the wine display has not only moved but been split asunder. Two smaller displays miles apart, I couldn’t find my wine or any signs for special offers. I almost left in disgust but managed to find 4 bottles of 13.5y stuff, the plonk I was buying before Winegirl came on the scene.
On Friday Max sent me a message to let me know one of my parcels had arrived. Of the five items ordered only one was perishable. You know which one arrived first - the cheese! Cue a 4 bus round trip. Ok, I used the occasion to take some more gear in for whenever I actually start teaching again so it wasn’t a wasted trip.
Even better, I had asked her to order 2 x 200g packs and because the vendor didn’t want to ship (still hot in Shanghai) she went elsewhere, never checked the description and ordered 2 x 500g packs! No matter, it will be used.
In fact if (as indeed looks to be the case) I don’t have classes on Monday, I will use a fair bit. I have asked Max if she has a friend who likes cleaning because if they come then I will cook dinner for them. I thought macaroni cheese and bread and butter pudding would be good.
She is also very honest. I had paid her 400y yet when I got on the bus I noticed I was 100y short on what I thought I should have had left. Sure enough, two brand new notes from the ATM must have stuck together as she sent a text to let me know. Well that will be part-payment for the cleaning.
I was going to take a walk to test the undercarriage a little more this evening but after spending two hours trying to get this laptop to work, I tossed that notion out. The wifi switch wouldn’t turn on and even plugging a cable in had no effect. It has happened before and eventually I got online, only to find that Auntie is now being more aggressive than Beijing at preventing access to their programmes. It took a lot of perseverance and trying countless protocols and UK sites before I finally found one that opened the door about an hour ago.
Oh yes! I had a call from Jacob yesterday asking what would happen if someone lost the receipt for their passport! It’s the one you get when you hand it over to be sent away for new permits. As there is a microchip in the new ID card which includes passport number, in theory when we go to collect in 11 days time there should be no problem.
This being China…………… well……….
Wednesday, 13 September 2017
Tuesday 12th September, 2017 0045
Well, I did a “bad” thing.
Whilst I am normally happy with my own company, Joanna’s cancellation of her visit had left me all dressed up with nowhere to go during the national holiday. Had I waited until today I may not have done it, but I did.
Unless she cancels and costs me a fortune (all indications are that she will not), Alison is coming with me to Zhangye and Danxia to see the rainbow mountains.
Of course, having been there already it is nothing new to me and no, I will still not be climbing the mountains to take photos. I have booked a different hotel this time though, mainly because it advertises a western restaurant (I doubt breakfast will be remotely such though) and so I can post another review on TripAdvisor.
I like Alison.
I shouldn’t have, I know. Debts to repay and the “biggie” hopefully in summer but the plain truth of the matter is that for once I am actually craving some company. A rare dog for me but having had such an active summer, life seems rather dull around here at present!
And do you know, I have been to so many places recently I can’t remember where I ate when Alice and I went! My brain is mixing everywhere and the internet is telling me I am mistaken. I can’t find a single western restaurant online in Zhangye. In fact I can’t even find where we DID go in January! Maybe Alice can tell me. I have a feeling it was just hotpot.
Wednesday 1700
Still no news on when I will work again. I am praying it will be next week.
I noticed on the Chizhou school website they are “concerned over the safety” of so many e-vehicles being charged on campus. What it really is, is that people use a few pennies of electricity each time and the school isn’t turning a profit. I’m not sure whether it would have affected my set-up seeing as it was hardly dangerous, the correct connections and cables were used and protected by my contact breakers but my guess is that all outdoor sockets will be disconnected. Instead, they are contracting out for a firm to come and instal pay stations such as you see in town. In turn, the company will reward the school financially. Why can’t they just tell the truth???
I went out a little while ago to buy my monthly “regular” medicines and had to run the gauntlet through about eight number 15 buses. They have taken to using the approach road to the two universities here as their terminus. I did notice some days ago that the usual place was over-crowded to the extent incoming ones were impeding traffic on the main road because it was full of 131s. Now instead they are causing mayhem where the street stalls ply and students utilise all the time.
Opposite the jing jo shop the hotel restaurant has recently been refurbished and has reopened as a hotpot place by the look of it. But every afternoon around 1630 the staff congregate outside in their uniforms and chefs hats (toques) in a line facing the boss lady. She delivers an inspirational pep-talk and this is followed by much chanting in unison with the accompanying synchronised clapping. Never seen that at a Hilton!
However, it’s too early to hail any definite success but no aching bones were felt. When I go for potatoes next will be proof.
Well, I did a “bad” thing.
Whilst I am normally happy with my own company, Joanna’s cancellation of her visit had left me all dressed up with nowhere to go during the national holiday. Had I waited until today I may not have done it, but I did.
Unless she cancels and costs me a fortune (all indications are that she will not), Alison is coming with me to Zhangye and Danxia to see the rainbow mountains.
Of course, having been there already it is nothing new to me and no, I will still not be climbing the mountains to take photos. I have booked a different hotel this time though, mainly because it advertises a western restaurant (I doubt breakfast will be remotely such though) and so I can post another review on TripAdvisor.
I like Alison.
I shouldn’t have, I know. Debts to repay and the “biggie” hopefully in summer but the plain truth of the matter is that for once I am actually craving some company. A rare dog for me but having had such an active summer, life seems rather dull around here at present!
And do you know, I have been to so many places recently I can’t remember where I ate when Alice and I went! My brain is mixing everywhere and the internet is telling me I am mistaken. I can’t find a single western restaurant online in Zhangye. In fact I can’t even find where we DID go in January! Maybe Alice can tell me. I have a feeling it was just hotpot.
Wednesday 1700
Still no news on when I will work again. I am praying it will be next week.
I noticed on the Chizhou school website they are “concerned over the safety” of so many e-vehicles being charged on campus. What it really is, is that people use a few pennies of electricity each time and the school isn’t turning a profit. I’m not sure whether it would have affected my set-up seeing as it was hardly dangerous, the correct connections and cables were used and protected by my contact breakers but my guess is that all outdoor sockets will be disconnected. Instead, they are contracting out for a firm to come and instal pay stations such as you see in town. In turn, the company will reward the school financially. Why can’t they just tell the truth???
I went out a little while ago to buy my monthly “regular” medicines and had to run the gauntlet through about eight number 15 buses. They have taken to using the approach road to the two universities here as their terminus. I did notice some days ago that the usual place was over-crowded to the extent incoming ones were impeding traffic on the main road because it was full of 131s. Now instead they are causing mayhem where the street stalls ply and students utilise all the time.
Opposite the jing jo shop the hotel restaurant has recently been refurbished and has reopened as a hotpot place by the look of it. But every afternoon around 1630 the staff congregate outside in their uniforms and chefs hats (toques) in a line facing the boss lady. She delivers an inspirational pep-talk and this is followed by much chanting in unison with the accompanying synchronised clapping. Never seen that at a Hilton!
However, it’s too early to hail any definite success but no aching bones were felt. When I go for potatoes next will be proof.
Monday, 11 September 2017
Monday 11th September, 2017 1730
So far I have still yet to be given my timetable. Janet is a trifle forgetful but I did email her about it this morning. I was fully expecting to have to get up before dawn tomorrow and accordingly have got my bits and bobs gathered in preparation. I just sent a text to ask and am waiting patiently for a reply.
I finally moved myself to go shopping just after lunch. For the last couple of months the arcade leading to BHG has been undergoing a transformation, in fact the first time I went when I returned from my travels, I thought BHG had gone.
Where there used to be a large open plan area before the supermarket they have now made enclosed shop spaces. Some of the old ones are still there in their nice shiny new premises (although I think the dry cleaners have moved elsewhere, not that I used them at all but nice to know for when I may wish to) and a couple of new shops have appeared.
One in particular caught my eye - a bakery. The in-store bakery in BHG is dire, so I investigated. And they do baguettes! Cheaper and crustier than the other place I found and hopefully they taste better too. I bought one with a view to tonight’s dinner and also on the basis I will be working tomorrow, to take lunch with me.
I need not have bothered. Janet just sent a message to say that I am not working tomorrow, my rota is still not finalised. Extra holidays are all well and good but after 11 weeks I would actually rather like to get back to work!
I was disappointed earlier to receive an email from Joanna, I had been asking her to hurry up and give me dates because even the Hampton was filling up fast. Her works are sending a group of them on a tour of China to drum up business during the holidays (no idea how that works!) so it will need to be arranged for another time. The next opportunity would be spring festival but she and her boyfriend will doubtless be carrying out their filial duty and be visiting their folks. Besides that, flight prices will be astronomical at that time and also it’s freezing cold here then.
I have however found someone willing to clean, albeit temporarily, for me. Max (a girl) from last term is still in Lanzhou and has offered to do my online shopping and also clean for free. Well if someone was to clean for nothing for me they would need to be getting free lodgings by way of recompense so she will at least clean once before she goes on work experience and I shall pay what I think is a good rate. The first time was always going to be a rather large task. Remember the kitchen floor??
I only found out then that many of my old students are still in the city and won’t start at kindergartens until after golden week, so I texted Alison and asked why she hadn’t told me. Within seconds she sent back that she wasn’t in Lanzhou but Gannan - Tibet!! What she is doing there I have no idea but I don’t think she is learning to teach!
So far I have still yet to be given my timetable. Janet is a trifle forgetful but I did email her about it this morning. I was fully expecting to have to get up before dawn tomorrow and accordingly have got my bits and bobs gathered in preparation. I just sent a text to ask and am waiting patiently for a reply.
I finally moved myself to go shopping just after lunch. For the last couple of months the arcade leading to BHG has been undergoing a transformation, in fact the first time I went when I returned from my travels, I thought BHG had gone.
Where there used to be a large open plan area before the supermarket they have now made enclosed shop spaces. Some of the old ones are still there in their nice shiny new premises (although I think the dry cleaners have moved elsewhere, not that I used them at all but nice to know for when I may wish to) and a couple of new shops have appeared.
One in particular caught my eye - a bakery. The in-store bakery in BHG is dire, so I investigated. And they do baguettes! Cheaper and crustier than the other place I found and hopefully they taste better too. I bought one with a view to tonight’s dinner and also on the basis I will be working tomorrow, to take lunch with me.
I need not have bothered. Janet just sent a message to say that I am not working tomorrow, my rota is still not finalised. Extra holidays are all well and good but after 11 weeks I would actually rather like to get back to work!
I was disappointed earlier to receive an email from Joanna, I had been asking her to hurry up and give me dates because even the Hampton was filling up fast. Her works are sending a group of them on a tour of China to drum up business during the holidays (no idea how that works!) so it will need to be arranged for another time. The next opportunity would be spring festival but she and her boyfriend will doubtless be carrying out their filial duty and be visiting their folks. Besides that, flight prices will be astronomical at that time and also it’s freezing cold here then.
I have however found someone willing to clean, albeit temporarily, for me. Max (a girl) from last term is still in Lanzhou and has offered to do my online shopping and also clean for free. Well if someone was to clean for nothing for me they would need to be getting free lodgings by way of recompense so she will at least clean once before she goes on work experience and I shall pay what I think is a good rate. The first time was always going to be a rather large task. Remember the kitchen floor??
I only found out then that many of my old students are still in the city and won’t start at kindergartens until after golden week, so I texted Alison and asked why she hadn’t told me. Within seconds she sent back that she wasn’t in Lanzhou but Gannan - Tibet!! What she is doing there I have no idea but I don’t think she is learning to teach!
Sunday, 10 September 2017
Sunday 10th September, 2017 Teachers Day 1130
I am sad to report that my offer to tutor FOC in my spare time notwithstanding, the school leadership are steadfast in refusing to countenance sending pupils to Cyprus this year. I fail to understand.
I was feeling cheated as teachers day fell on a Sunday this year and also because I don’t actually have any students yet anyway! I never expect gifts from my charges but often in class on the day I am given the odd titbit or sweet. This year is doubly disappointing as mid-autumn also falls during golden week.
However, I received a new wallet from Joanna which has now replaced the careworn one I have been using - incidentally also a present from her some years ago. I also got half a dozen salutary texts from last term’s students, including a very touching message from Alison, one of the joint top from last term. So I am happy.
Lately, and being an inveterate dreamer, I have been watching YouTube videos of first class international flights. Perhaps I am odd, in that all that interests me are the food in the airport lounge, the beds on board and the in-flight meals! The videos and other entertainments do not! Considering it costs slightly under £1 a mile and a London Hackney cab around four times that with no catering, suddenly it doesn’t seem that exorbitant. Maybe one day, after all it IS on my list.
For the past few days I have had notions of going to BHG but as I get to mid-afternoon I have abandoned the idea! Same again today. Instead I am going to walk to the baguette place and then explore the stalls to see if I can find any decent potatoes. The ones on offer now elsewhere are both uncookable and inedible. I made a huge chicken and sage stew recently and the spuds completely disappeared!
I will go to the supermarket tomorrow but this evening is I think time to test my perambulatory ability seeing as I will complete my course of drugs on Tuesday. Fingers crossed.
1800
Ha. Bad news and bad news!
Instead of 5 it took 7 minutes for the limp to afflict me. I wouldn’t say that was an improvement. I did find spuds that looked as if they were normal and then went to the bakery for my baguette. Sold out, they will have more tomorrow. Fat lot of good that is when I’m in this state! Cheese and onion buttie firmly off the dinner menu, I went to Dicos. Didn’t fancy a curry so asked for an 8+. It’s like a chicken Big Mac. Mayo. Ok, so I ordered a burger with what looked like a slice of pineapple but turned out to be a hideous processed egg thing. The only decent thing was the portion of fries, which were hot.
Afterwards I took another tour of the markets, looking for salted peanuts. Every nut you can imagine on offer bar those! I did spot potatoes that will certainly do me so all was not lost.
Walking back was a travail. 1kg of Murphy’s is hardly a lot to carry but I was overtaken by geriatrics using walking sticks! Some of my problems may in fact be due to inactivity, it must be said, but not all of them. Thoughts of e-bikes and mopeds are now crossing my mind.
Whilst in Dicos I watched a woman leave with her strapping son of about 12. Mum hefted four bags and left one for the lad to carry - the smallest. Well you would have thought it weighed a cwt by the fakery the kid pulled! I did castigate him (much to Mum’s delight) but I would have preferred to clip him around the ear!!!
I am sad to report that my offer to tutor FOC in my spare time notwithstanding, the school leadership are steadfast in refusing to countenance sending pupils to Cyprus this year. I fail to understand.
I was feeling cheated as teachers day fell on a Sunday this year and also because I don’t actually have any students yet anyway! I never expect gifts from my charges but often in class on the day I am given the odd titbit or sweet. This year is doubly disappointing as mid-autumn also falls during golden week.
However, I received a new wallet from Joanna which has now replaced the careworn one I have been using - incidentally also a present from her some years ago. I also got half a dozen salutary texts from last term’s students, including a very touching message from Alison, one of the joint top from last term. So I am happy.
Lately, and being an inveterate dreamer, I have been watching YouTube videos of first class international flights. Perhaps I am odd, in that all that interests me are the food in the airport lounge, the beds on board and the in-flight meals! The videos and other entertainments do not! Considering it costs slightly under £1 a mile and a London Hackney cab around four times that with no catering, suddenly it doesn’t seem that exorbitant. Maybe one day, after all it IS on my list.
For the past few days I have had notions of going to BHG but as I get to mid-afternoon I have abandoned the idea! Same again today. Instead I am going to walk to the baguette place and then explore the stalls to see if I can find any decent potatoes. The ones on offer now elsewhere are both uncookable and inedible. I made a huge chicken and sage stew recently and the spuds completely disappeared!
I will go to the supermarket tomorrow but this evening is I think time to test my perambulatory ability seeing as I will complete my course of drugs on Tuesday. Fingers crossed.
1800
Ha. Bad news and bad news!
Instead of 5 it took 7 minutes for the limp to afflict me. I wouldn’t say that was an improvement. I did find spuds that looked as if they were normal and then went to the bakery for my baguette. Sold out, they will have more tomorrow. Fat lot of good that is when I’m in this state! Cheese and onion buttie firmly off the dinner menu, I went to Dicos. Didn’t fancy a curry so asked for an 8+. It’s like a chicken Big Mac. Mayo. Ok, so I ordered a burger with what looked like a slice of pineapple but turned out to be a hideous processed egg thing. The only decent thing was the portion of fries, which were hot.
Afterwards I took another tour of the markets, looking for salted peanuts. Every nut you can imagine on offer bar those! I did spot potatoes that will certainly do me so all was not lost.
Walking back was a travail. 1kg of Murphy’s is hardly a lot to carry but I was overtaken by geriatrics using walking sticks! Some of my problems may in fact be due to inactivity, it must be said, but not all of them. Thoughts of e-bikes and mopeds are now crossing my mind.
Whilst in Dicos I watched a woman leave with her strapping son of about 12. Mum hefted four bags and left one for the lad to carry - the smallest. Well you would have thought it weighed a cwt by the fakery the kid pulled! I did castigate him (much to Mum’s delight) but I would have preferred to clip him around the ear!!!
Thursday, 7 September 2017
Thursday 7th September, 2017 1500
I used to disbelieve people who told me they automatically woke up when they had something important to do. I may have been wrong - yet again I did so this morning, not two minutes before the alarm.
There were some exclamations of surprise on the bus when I appeared, they all know I have no classes yet. Thankfully I wasn’t quizzed as to my reasons for going to campus, possibly they thought I was simply bringing in my stuff in preparation - which to be fair, I was in part.
When Leanne (not Siobhan, as I erroneously stated previously) arrived, we walked to the hospital. The TCM hospital next door. The one she told me it wasn’t. Challenged on the point, she was swift to reassure me that they dispensed both western and Chinese medicine and treatments and her doctor was the lead orthopaedic doctor in the place. Ok, so my curiosity was piqued and anyway, she had already primed her “best friend” Doctor John of my impending celebrity arrival.
Chinese hospitals, it must be said, are ten times faster than UK NHS hospitals. You pay for the privilege though and they are not without their faults and frustrations.
Firstly I had to register as a first time patient. I forked out 14y and Leanne was given a book for notes to be written in and a card which needs to be swiped to bring up my details on computer.
Up we went to the 3rd floor where we waited a few minutes until Dr John arrived. He’s actually quite a jovial chap who speaks a smattering of English, rather a lot of French and of course Chinese. Leanne told me he spends a month or two each year volunteering at the request of the Chinese government in impoverished African countries, the last being Madagascar.
Of course there was soon a crowd of spectators gawping at the foreigner from the doorway, so when I was asked to simulate the problem I closed it with an apologetic glare, if there can be such a thing.
By that time I didn’t need to fake it as I am limping like that within a very short space of time but I acted out the ultimate outcome (as happened on the school trip a few times and once in Shanghai playing pool for God’s sake). On the bed please. Leg swivelled and prodded and squeezed. Various questions to ascertain if there was pain anywhere else but there isn’t, just the front of the hip.
X-Ray time. Back to the 1st floor to pay for it (73y), over to another building to have it, up to the 2nd floor there to collect it and then back to the main building 3rd floor to show the doctor. For some reason there were problems getting a good shot so I was on the slab for ages but eventually they were satisfied.
Back with Dr John, he looked at the photo and uttered one word. “Accident?”. Yes I said but that’s the other side and I have no pain there now. I asked if I could see it because I never saw the one taken at the time.
Can anyone explain how on earth qualified medics in Chizhou actually failed to see what to my untrained eye is as plain as a pikestaff?? Unfortunately the photo I have taken isn’t as clear as in the flesh but bottom right you can discern the white jagged line running through my left ischium. It looks to have healed in a displaced position so in truth I probably dodged a bullet there - I have no doubt they would have instantly wanted to slit my arse open and sling a load of tungsten in to put it back in place. But to think I scaled 4 floors every day to teach like that - no wonder it bloody hurt!
My current problem? Age and arthritis as suspected but “nothing to worry about”. He prescribed one western drug and one Chinese one, presumably hedging his bets. So, back to the first floor again to pay for the prescription (77y), up to the 2nd to collect the meds and then back to the 3rd floor for the Dr to tell me how to take them!
I have 3 days of western pills and 5 of Chinese. At 77y for that, I was highly relieved to learn I wouldn’t have to take them forever! However, if they don’t do the trick, he spoke of injections, presumably hydrocortisone. From memory that would be a quarterly affair. I can put up with that, especially as the hospital is next door.
And then it was over.
Back in the office, Janet came to see me - even she was astounded at the incompetence of the A&E quacks in Chizhou when she took a look. Of course, my prime concern was finding out when the hell I am starting teaching again and what my roster is.
Despite enough students initially indicating their interest, only two have come forward as definites. The school deems the minimum necessary as being 5 students, ergo unless by close of business today three more stick their hands up, the class will be cancelled and I will be given sophomores to teach.
I don’t know about you but I think that will be a tragedy for those two. They will probably never get another chance to study abroad. Accordingly I have informed Janet that the school can give me my normal workload and I will happily tutor the Cyprus aspirants in my free time. I await a response. Equally, I await my timetable which I am told I should have next Tuesday. Apparently it will not be as last term, so it sounds as if I will be teaching mornings and afternoons on different days. So be it.
But I think those kids should not be denied the opportunity to go to Cyprus. They will go if I can convince the powers that be.
I used to disbelieve people who told me they automatically woke up when they had something important to do. I may have been wrong - yet again I did so this morning, not two minutes before the alarm.
There were some exclamations of surprise on the bus when I appeared, they all know I have no classes yet. Thankfully I wasn’t quizzed as to my reasons for going to campus, possibly they thought I was simply bringing in my stuff in preparation - which to be fair, I was in part.
When Leanne (not Siobhan, as I erroneously stated previously) arrived, we walked to the hospital. The TCM hospital next door. The one she told me it wasn’t. Challenged on the point, she was swift to reassure me that they dispensed both western and Chinese medicine and treatments and her doctor was the lead orthopaedic doctor in the place. Ok, so my curiosity was piqued and anyway, she had already primed her “best friend” Doctor John of my impending celebrity arrival.
Chinese hospitals, it must be said, are ten times faster than UK NHS hospitals. You pay for the privilege though and they are not without their faults and frustrations.
Firstly I had to register as a first time patient. I forked out 14y and Leanne was given a book for notes to be written in and a card which needs to be swiped to bring up my details on computer.
Up we went to the 3rd floor where we waited a few minutes until Dr John arrived. He’s actually quite a jovial chap who speaks a smattering of English, rather a lot of French and of course Chinese. Leanne told me he spends a month or two each year volunteering at the request of the Chinese government in impoverished African countries, the last being Madagascar.
Of course there was soon a crowd of spectators gawping at the foreigner from the doorway, so when I was asked to simulate the problem I closed it with an apologetic glare, if there can be such a thing.
By that time I didn’t need to fake it as I am limping like that within a very short space of time but I acted out the ultimate outcome (as happened on the school trip a few times and once in Shanghai playing pool for God’s sake). On the bed please. Leg swivelled and prodded and squeezed. Various questions to ascertain if there was pain anywhere else but there isn’t, just the front of the hip.
X-Ray time. Back to the 1st floor to pay for it (73y), over to another building to have it, up to the 2nd floor there to collect it and then back to the main building 3rd floor to show the doctor. For some reason there were problems getting a good shot so I was on the slab for ages but eventually they were satisfied.
Back with Dr John, he looked at the photo and uttered one word. “Accident?”. Yes I said but that’s the other side and I have no pain there now. I asked if I could see it because I never saw the one taken at the time.
Can anyone explain how on earth qualified medics in Chizhou actually failed to see what to my untrained eye is as plain as a pikestaff?? Unfortunately the photo I have taken isn’t as clear as in the flesh but bottom right you can discern the white jagged line running through my left ischium. It looks to have healed in a displaced position so in truth I probably dodged a bullet there - I have no doubt they would have instantly wanted to slit my arse open and sling a load of tungsten in to put it back in place. But to think I scaled 4 floors every day to teach like that - no wonder it bloody hurt!
My current problem? Age and arthritis as suspected but “nothing to worry about”. He prescribed one western drug and one Chinese one, presumably hedging his bets. So, back to the first floor again to pay for the prescription (77y), up to the 2nd to collect the meds and then back to the 3rd floor for the Dr to tell me how to take them!
I have 3 days of western pills and 5 of Chinese. At 77y for that, I was highly relieved to learn I wouldn’t have to take them forever! However, if they don’t do the trick, he spoke of injections, presumably hydrocortisone. From memory that would be a quarterly affair. I can put up with that, especially as the hospital is next door.
And then it was over.
Back in the office, Janet came to see me - even she was astounded at the incompetence of the A&E quacks in Chizhou when she took a look. Of course, my prime concern was finding out when the hell I am starting teaching again and what my roster is.
Despite enough students initially indicating their interest, only two have come forward as definites. The school deems the minimum necessary as being 5 students, ergo unless by close of business today three more stick their hands up, the class will be cancelled and I will be given sophomores to teach.
I don’t know about you but I think that will be a tragedy for those two. They will probably never get another chance to study abroad. Accordingly I have informed Janet that the school can give me my normal workload and I will happily tutor the Cyprus aspirants in my free time. I await a response. Equally, I await my timetable which I am told I should have next Tuesday. Apparently it will not be as last term, so it sounds as if I will be teaching mornings and afternoons on different days. So be it.
But I think those kids should not be denied the opportunity to go to Cyprus. They will go if I can convince the powers that be.
Wednesday, 6 September 2017
Wednesday 6th September, 2017 1900
Getting up early this morning wasn’t as difficult as expected. Clearly my brain did its party trick of waking me up well before alarm time so I was showered, dressed, watered and ready by the allotted time of 0850. Jacob arrived dead on time but of course our car was late. Still, it gave me time for a smoke while we waited and chatted.
This is his second and final year as a Peace Corps volunteer and it appears certainly the end of his volunteering days, indeed of ever teaching in China again. I think he is enjoying the experience but at his age he really should start a career with prospects. For the young, teaching in China is great for a year or two to get experience but it’s not something I would recommend as a lifetime pursuit. Plus, being a volunteer, the school gets his services free and he is paid the princely sum of 1900y a month. Nineteen hundred! My bar bill is more than that!
A tortuous trip across the river to downtown ensued, the traffic being no lighter than during rush hour, and Brenda had to be dropped off to collect our new, super-duper ID cards cum work permits. And hey! I am a category B foreigner! Whoopee! I was convinced that my lack of a degree and my age would confine me to a C (points decrease as you get older, not the reverse as it would be anywhere else - experience counts for nothing here!). They look similar to the one the Chinese have but the proof of the pudding will be when we try to check in to 5 star hotels, get a train ticket or board a domestic flight. As with most things here, anything new is interpreted by different officials in markedly different ways because basically they haven’t a clue what to do! Not that I take trains that often but if they work so I can buy my ticket using one of the automatic ticket dispensers then I will be deliriously happy.
Whenever I have travelled with one of my girls they could always buy one online beforehand and collect it from a dispenser whilst I have had to wait forever in the queues to see a human being. Fine when it’s not busy but purgatory such as it was when getting a ticket from Shanghai to Wuhu last month. We shall see!
Then we went to the Public Security Bureau, somewhere I recognised from a year ago, to hand over passports to be sent to Beijing and have new permits affixed. You know, considering they dispensed with the old foreign expert book and simplified it to the card, which has a microchip and one of those things you can scan with a smartphone, it surely can’t be too much of a leap to also include your entitlement to actually reside here? But then, perhaps even after 7 years, I still expect logic to be applied to anything! This of course - and I may be over thinking again - begs the question, will I in fact be able to use the card as previously described if it doesn’t show my entitlement to reside here?
No I never wore the medal today but I did wear my blue Shenyang shirt. It’s the nicest of all the colours I bought and I did ask Brenda if I passed muster, tongue in cheek. However when they took our photos I was called in again for retakes! I was made to put on a smelly old brown jacket to COVER the shirt! Jacob was as amazed as me - he was wearing a different, darker shade of blue but had no such problem.
In total including travelling the whole affair took two hours and we asked to be dropped off outside the sweet pork place to get some lunch. I had told Jake about it and surprisingly he never knew of it, surprising because he walks a lot whereas I certainly do not. I think he will be a frequent visitor, he enjoyed the food, loved the sweet pork and was highly interested in the dry noodle dishes that were ordered in large quantities when the locals started pouring in for lunch.
I clicked on a BBC news link earlier and was greeted with the following
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-41165813
I don’t know why but it seemed strange reading about somewhere and seeing where I was just a few weeks ago.
So a dawn alarm for me tomorrow, school bus alerted to come and get me and then off to see the famous, brilliant orthopaedic doctor to see if he can do anything for me. Janet will be around and will almost certainly sniff out why I have arrived on campus when I have no classes. That doesn’t concern me because she will not divulge my reasons to the school, after all, I am the only one keeping her darkest secret!
Getting up early this morning wasn’t as difficult as expected. Clearly my brain did its party trick of waking me up well before alarm time so I was showered, dressed, watered and ready by the allotted time of 0850. Jacob arrived dead on time but of course our car was late. Still, it gave me time for a smoke while we waited and chatted.
This is his second and final year as a Peace Corps volunteer and it appears certainly the end of his volunteering days, indeed of ever teaching in China again. I think he is enjoying the experience but at his age he really should start a career with prospects. For the young, teaching in China is great for a year or two to get experience but it’s not something I would recommend as a lifetime pursuit. Plus, being a volunteer, the school gets his services free and he is paid the princely sum of 1900y a month. Nineteen hundred! My bar bill is more than that!
A tortuous trip across the river to downtown ensued, the traffic being no lighter than during rush hour, and Brenda had to be dropped off to collect our new, super-duper ID cards cum work permits. And hey! I am a category B foreigner! Whoopee! I was convinced that my lack of a degree and my age would confine me to a C (points decrease as you get older, not the reverse as it would be anywhere else - experience counts for nothing here!). They look similar to the one the Chinese have but the proof of the pudding will be when we try to check in to 5 star hotels, get a train ticket or board a domestic flight. As with most things here, anything new is interpreted by different officials in markedly different ways because basically they haven’t a clue what to do! Not that I take trains that often but if they work so I can buy my ticket using one of the automatic ticket dispensers then I will be deliriously happy.
Whenever I have travelled with one of my girls they could always buy one online beforehand and collect it from a dispenser whilst I have had to wait forever in the queues to see a human being. Fine when it’s not busy but purgatory such as it was when getting a ticket from Shanghai to Wuhu last month. We shall see!
Then we went to the Public Security Bureau, somewhere I recognised from a year ago, to hand over passports to be sent to Beijing and have new permits affixed. You know, considering they dispensed with the old foreign expert book and simplified it to the card, which has a microchip and one of those things you can scan with a smartphone, it surely can’t be too much of a leap to also include your entitlement to actually reside here? But then, perhaps even after 7 years, I still expect logic to be applied to anything! This of course - and I may be over thinking again - begs the question, will I in fact be able to use the card as previously described if it doesn’t show my entitlement to reside here?
No I never wore the medal today but I did wear my blue Shenyang shirt. It’s the nicest of all the colours I bought and I did ask Brenda if I passed muster, tongue in cheek. However when they took our photos I was called in again for retakes! I was made to put on a smelly old brown jacket to COVER the shirt! Jacob was as amazed as me - he was wearing a different, darker shade of blue but had no such problem.
In total including travelling the whole affair took two hours and we asked to be dropped off outside the sweet pork place to get some lunch. I had told Jake about it and surprisingly he never knew of it, surprising because he walks a lot whereas I certainly do not. I think he will be a frequent visitor, he enjoyed the food, loved the sweet pork and was highly interested in the dry noodle dishes that were ordered in large quantities when the locals started pouring in for lunch.
I clicked on a BBC news link earlier and was greeted with the following
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-41165813
I don’t know why but it seemed strange reading about somewhere and seeing where I was just a few weeks ago.
So a dawn alarm for me tomorrow, school bus alerted to come and get me and then off to see the famous, brilliant orthopaedic doctor to see if he can do anything for me. Janet will be around and will almost certainly sniff out why I have arrived on campus when I have no classes. That doesn’t concern me because she will not divulge my reasons to the school, after all, I am the only one keeping her darkest secret!
Tuesday, 5 September 2017
Tuesday 5th September, 2017 2210
I must confess to succumbing to over-thinking yet again today.
Last night Brenda told me she would call me today with arrangements as to when she would collect Jacob and I to go to the police station. I responded with an email requesting she didn’t try to phone too early, as after listening to Mum’s phone calls , what should have happened 7 months ago finally started to manifest. As a result, bedtime was now daybreak and getting up was lunchtime.
She wouldn’t have woken me, the phone goes off when I hit the sack but I didn’t want her to think I was avoiding her. “Not too early” in my book constitutes a call anywhere from noon onwards. By 1600 and still with no contact the imagination was running unfettered into all kinds of fields. Most of them had the ending that in three days I had to decamp from China with hardly any money and no clue as to what to do.
I sent several texts and received no reply. The big story running amok in my grey matter was that my work permit had been refused and Brenda simply couldn’t bring herself to tell me.
Eventually I had to call. No answer on her personal mobile. She answered her works one. My fears were unfounded, she had simply been run off her feet all day. No, everything is fine, she has the ID and everything required, just needed to call me back later to let me know the time. Phew.
So I am being collected at 0850. God, I haven’t been up that early for weeks!
I just had an email from her saying that as my photograph will be taken by the police (as it has been every year for the past seven), please would I wear a shirt with a collar! I am stunned. The only time I have gone sans collar in China is in private at home or once in public and that was because on the recent school trip they made us all wear a “group” t-shirt. I hate t-shirts. Images of me wearing a see-through string vest to the police station are now flashing through my mind.
I have of course emailed back, the opening two words to the email were “Bloody cheek!”
I have now asked if she would like me to wear my Merchant Naval medal, which I may well do seeing as I never wore it two days ago when I was supposed to. I forgot.
On Thursday Siobhan (who only 10 days after I requested help finally responded) has told me to get to my campus on the school bus (even worse as that will mean an 0530 wake up) as she has arranged for me to meet a “very famous” orthopaedic doctor regarding my hip problem. Very famous to me translates as very expensive but she swears not as apparently he is a very good friend of hers. Mate’s rates? The only problem is, she told me to take my passport. Well, I won’t have it, the police will take it away to send it off to Beijing tomorrow to get the new permit affixed. I rather hope it doesn’t mean having to delay the consultation.
I was thinking earlier about the breast-beating and biggest penis competition taking place between Jim Jong Fatty III and Donald Fart.
Given that only a month ago I was mere feet away from a country that, given no choice, I would choose to visit second to Iraq and Afghanistan, it got me thinking. What if the madman did actually nuke Seoul? Quite apart from any retaliation, there would be fallout. How would it affect me? Should I start digging my lead-lined bunker immediately?
Maybe not just yet. Where Fatty currently tests the extension to his genitals is in fact about the same distance from me as I was way back when Chernobyl had a bit of bother. I never glowed in the dark then so hopefully my chances of turning into pork crackling are still long enough away to wait until I am ready for the crematorium.
I must confess to succumbing to over-thinking yet again today.
Last night Brenda told me she would call me today with arrangements as to when she would collect Jacob and I to go to the police station. I responded with an email requesting she didn’t try to phone too early, as after listening to Mum’s phone calls , what should have happened 7 months ago finally started to manifest. As a result, bedtime was now daybreak and getting up was lunchtime.
She wouldn’t have woken me, the phone goes off when I hit the sack but I didn’t want her to think I was avoiding her. “Not too early” in my book constitutes a call anywhere from noon onwards. By 1600 and still with no contact the imagination was running unfettered into all kinds of fields. Most of them had the ending that in three days I had to decamp from China with hardly any money and no clue as to what to do.
I sent several texts and received no reply. The big story running amok in my grey matter was that my work permit had been refused and Brenda simply couldn’t bring herself to tell me.
Eventually I had to call. No answer on her personal mobile. She answered her works one. My fears were unfounded, she had simply been run off her feet all day. No, everything is fine, she has the ID and everything required, just needed to call me back later to let me know the time. Phew.
So I am being collected at 0850. God, I haven’t been up that early for weeks!
I just had an email from her saying that as my photograph will be taken by the police (as it has been every year for the past seven), please would I wear a shirt with a collar! I am stunned. The only time I have gone sans collar in China is in private at home or once in public and that was because on the recent school trip they made us all wear a “group” t-shirt. I hate t-shirts. Images of me wearing a see-through string vest to the police station are now flashing through my mind.
I have of course emailed back, the opening two words to the email were “Bloody cheek!”
I have now asked if she would like me to wear my Merchant Naval medal, which I may well do seeing as I never wore it two days ago when I was supposed to. I forgot.
On Thursday Siobhan (who only 10 days after I requested help finally responded) has told me to get to my campus on the school bus (even worse as that will mean an 0530 wake up) as she has arranged for me to meet a “very famous” orthopaedic doctor regarding my hip problem. Very famous to me translates as very expensive but she swears not as apparently he is a very good friend of hers. Mate’s rates? The only problem is, she told me to take my passport. Well, I won’t have it, the police will take it away to send it off to Beijing tomorrow to get the new permit affixed. I rather hope it doesn’t mean having to delay the consultation.
I was thinking earlier about the breast-beating and biggest penis competition taking place between Jim Jong Fatty III and Donald Fart.
Given that only a month ago I was mere feet away from a country that, given no choice, I would choose to visit second to Iraq and Afghanistan, it got me thinking. What if the madman did actually nuke Seoul? Quite apart from any retaliation, there would be fallout. How would it affect me? Should I start digging my lead-lined bunker immediately?
Maybe not just yet. Where Fatty currently tests the extension to his genitals is in fact about the same distance from me as I was way back when Chernobyl had a bit of bother. I never glowed in the dark then so hopefully my chances of turning into pork crackling are still long enough away to wait until I am ready for the crematorium.
Monday, 4 September 2017
Monday 4th September, 2017 1950
Oh dear. I really did sleep late today! I awoke well after noon to note three missed calls from Foreign Affairs. She wants to take me to the police station on Wednesday to apply for another years residence permit. Slightly worryingly, she said she had to pick up my new Chinese ID tomorrow. Mind you, I assume had there been a problem with it we would have known long ago.
Deciding to leave the ham to cure longer, I planned to go out in the early evening and see if Wu Mart had any bread flour. Last term, what with teaching full days, I got into the habit of taking a sandwich with me and want to be prepared. The idea was that I would find somewhere to grab dinner afterwards.
The supermarket is but one bus stop from here but instead of taking the B1 I heeded advice given ie to exercise my gammy hip. With some trepidation I set off, taking more of an amble than a hike. Certainly by the time I arrived my gait had a noticeable limp but I made it. Pity there was no bread flour! What flour they did have was in 15kg sacks! Sod that. I did buy some Hobnob type biscuits though.
I was in no hurry, days on end doing nothing mean when I go out I often make it last and so as I went to exit (the supermarket is in the basement of a shopping complex) I espied a small bakery. Being a sucker for a doughnut, I went in for a look. No doughnuts (plenty of delicious looking pastries but 7 years of disappointing experience tells me they will taste appallingly) but on the way out I spotted two of what I have never seen in Lanzhou - baguettes!
Ok, a bit expensive at 12y but crusty outside and soft inside. I had to have one. That of course cancelled eating out! My first thought was cheese and onion but I had no onion and didn’t want to go back downstairs. I thought I might be lucky and come across a vegetable stall on the way back.
Out I came, happy as Larry and immediately became aware of a line of fruit stalls in the road running along the side of the complex. Bound to get an onion down there! Christ, there is a whole new world of stalls in the labyrinth! I got a really nice onion (sounds an odd thing to say but often produce here is soft and rotting) and then decided to investigate further.
Things on offer ranged from every type of nut and fruit to street food such as crispy scorpions, roast pig snouts, filled pancakes etc. I was almost tempted to buy myself a snack but the siren call of the baguette was too overpowering.
Eventually I exited the area and limped back to the jing jo shop and home. It sounds daft to be excited about something as mundane as a baguette but remember, during WW2 the sight of an orange would affect people greatly because there weren’t any - baguettes are my oranges. All the way home I mentally debated what to have. Stick with the original idea? Buy some luncheon meat and a tomato? By the time I got home the die was cast.
To hell with carbohydrates and cholesterol. Nope, I am going to have a bacon and fried egg filled delight! In fact the bacon is defrosting while I type this.
For sure I shall be doing a lot more walking if Janet rosters me for complete days again, and I know what my lunchboxes will be!
Oh dear. I really did sleep late today! I awoke well after noon to note three missed calls from Foreign Affairs. She wants to take me to the police station on Wednesday to apply for another years residence permit. Slightly worryingly, she said she had to pick up my new Chinese ID tomorrow. Mind you, I assume had there been a problem with it we would have known long ago.
Deciding to leave the ham to cure longer, I planned to go out in the early evening and see if Wu Mart had any bread flour. Last term, what with teaching full days, I got into the habit of taking a sandwich with me and want to be prepared. The idea was that I would find somewhere to grab dinner afterwards.
The supermarket is but one bus stop from here but instead of taking the B1 I heeded advice given ie to exercise my gammy hip. With some trepidation I set off, taking more of an amble than a hike. Certainly by the time I arrived my gait had a noticeable limp but I made it. Pity there was no bread flour! What flour they did have was in 15kg sacks! Sod that. I did buy some Hobnob type biscuits though.
I was in no hurry, days on end doing nothing mean when I go out I often make it last and so as I went to exit (the supermarket is in the basement of a shopping complex) I espied a small bakery. Being a sucker for a doughnut, I went in for a look. No doughnuts (plenty of delicious looking pastries but 7 years of disappointing experience tells me they will taste appallingly) but on the way out I spotted two of what I have never seen in Lanzhou - baguettes!
Ok, a bit expensive at 12y but crusty outside and soft inside. I had to have one. That of course cancelled eating out! My first thought was cheese and onion but I had no onion and didn’t want to go back downstairs. I thought I might be lucky and come across a vegetable stall on the way back.
Out I came, happy as Larry and immediately became aware of a line of fruit stalls in the road running along the side of the complex. Bound to get an onion down there! Christ, there is a whole new world of stalls in the labyrinth! I got a really nice onion (sounds an odd thing to say but often produce here is soft and rotting) and then decided to investigate further.
Things on offer ranged from every type of nut and fruit to street food such as crispy scorpions, roast pig snouts, filled pancakes etc. I was almost tempted to buy myself a snack but the siren call of the baguette was too overpowering.
Eventually I exited the area and limped back to the jing jo shop and home. It sounds daft to be excited about something as mundane as a baguette but remember, during WW2 the sight of an orange would affect people greatly because there weren’t any - baguettes are my oranges. All the way home I mentally debated what to have. Stick with the original idea? Buy some luncheon meat and a tomato? By the time I got home the die was cast.
To hell with carbohydrates and cholesterol. Nope, I am going to have a bacon and fried egg filled delight! In fact the bacon is defrosting while I type this.
For sure I shall be doing a lot more walking if Janet rosters me for complete days again, and I know what my lunchboxes will be!
Monday 4th September, 2017 0300
Yes ok, but I do have another week off!
Never set foot outside once today, not even for liquids. Never woke up until 1230 either unless you count 0900 and going to bed after a pee. Hey! It was gone four when I went to bed!
I made egg, cheese, bacon and pasta for dinner. I had little else I fancied so thought I’d try that. Don’t try it at home! Talk about boring! Filled a hole but nothing more.
I spent my Sunday evening listening firstly to a psychic reading my sister had with her friend who “contacted” my mother. An excruciating hour that failed to convert me I have to say. My Dad and Grandmother both shouted in my ear when they died but mum didn’t and she never even mentioned me in the “reading”!!!
Next up was to listen to a couple of phone calls. UK readers avoid POP Telecom at all costs. Two years ago mum was flogged cheaper phone calls - free UK calls and 10 hours a month international calls over the telephone.
No concrete details yet but she was charged nearly £600 termination fee after what I can only assume was a month of service when the bills were more than with BT .
I won’t go into minute details but suffice to say I want to recover that money.
From what I have heard I have a good case and by God , POP won’t know what hit them, it may take money taking them through the courts but tonight I got the bit between my teeth - pity I am not as familiar with Chinese law!
Lawyers gave up on my baby sister as did my brother in law’s family some years back and I recovered thousands for them . Doubtless bro in laws family now hate me.
This is even closer to home. Forget the fact I had to sit listening to Mums voice (oddly I must say I had tears), it was the patronising manner in which an old woman was told it was going to cost her huge amounts to cancel that really got my dander up.
I am now at war.
It may take months but I will win. And do you know what? When, not if, I win, I will not take a penny. Nope. I will ask my sister to commission a headstone for Mum and Dad and my siblings can make up the difference.
Having listened to Jamie the salesman, I take my hat off to him. Having been a salesman myself he was good, except his checklist never included everything. Mum was gullible inasmuch as she always won Readers Digest until the family put her right and then RD went out of business in the UK anyway.
She was cold-called at 82, suffering from heart failure (communicated to the POP chap) and in the call clearly not quite with it. Do I blame the salesman? No. The company? Bugger me, YES!
Vengeance shall be mine, sayeth the Chinese Teacher!
So for anyone reading who has an elderly relative , please, please, please, tell them time and time again NEVER to agree to anything over the phone. Sounded good to me too but I would have asked for it in writing first. Old people sometimes are less than savvy.
Arrghh!! Sorry this is more about the UK but my blog is about my life, not necessarily where I happen to be.
Yes ok, but I do have another week off!
Never set foot outside once today, not even for liquids. Never woke up until 1230 either unless you count 0900 and going to bed after a pee. Hey! It was gone four when I went to bed!
I made egg, cheese, bacon and pasta for dinner. I had little else I fancied so thought I’d try that. Don’t try it at home! Talk about boring! Filled a hole but nothing more.
I spent my Sunday evening listening firstly to a psychic reading my sister had with her friend who “contacted” my mother. An excruciating hour that failed to convert me I have to say. My Dad and Grandmother both shouted in my ear when they died but mum didn’t and she never even mentioned me in the “reading”!!!
Next up was to listen to a couple of phone calls. UK readers avoid POP Telecom at all costs. Two years ago mum was flogged cheaper phone calls - free UK calls and 10 hours a month international calls over the telephone.
No concrete details yet but she was charged nearly £600 termination fee after what I can only assume was a month of service when the bills were more than with BT .
I won’t go into minute details but suffice to say I want to recover that money.
From what I have heard I have a good case and by God , POP won’t know what hit them, it may take money taking them through the courts but tonight I got the bit between my teeth - pity I am not as familiar with Chinese law!
Lawyers gave up on my baby sister as did my brother in law’s family some years back and I recovered thousands for them . Doubtless bro in laws family now hate me.
This is even closer to home. Forget the fact I had to sit listening to Mums voice (oddly I must say I had tears), it was the patronising manner in which an old woman was told it was going to cost her huge amounts to cancel that really got my dander up.
I am now at war.
It may take months but I will win. And do you know what? When, not if, I win, I will not take a penny. Nope. I will ask my sister to commission a headstone for Mum and Dad and my siblings can make up the difference.
Having listened to Jamie the salesman, I take my hat off to him. Having been a salesman myself he was good, except his checklist never included everything. Mum was gullible inasmuch as she always won Readers Digest until the family put her right and then RD went out of business in the UK anyway.
She was cold-called at 82, suffering from heart failure (communicated to the POP chap) and in the call clearly not quite with it. Do I blame the salesman? No. The company? Bugger me, YES!
Vengeance shall be mine, sayeth the Chinese Teacher!
So for anyone reading who has an elderly relative , please, please, please, tell them time and time again NEVER to agree to anything over the phone. Sounded good to me too but I would have asked for it in writing first. Old people sometimes are less than savvy.
Arrghh!! Sorry this is more about the UK but my blog is about my life, not necessarily where I happen to be.
Saturday, 2 September 2017
Saturday 2nd September, 2017 2300
It has recently started raining inside my home.
There has always been some in the fridge/freezer corner and on the bathroom windowsill as previously mentioned, but now great patches of the dining room ceiling have started to detach, fall to the deck and create mini-rubble.
In the UK I would immediately suspect upstairs had a leak but there is no evidence of damp (and anyway upstairs would have squealed long before now if that was the case). Instead, my amateur opinion is that poor quality materials were used in finishing off, that, combined with not fixing properly and applying such a thin veneer, has resulted in this.
Considering I never look up at the ceiling except when in bed (and if THAT starts crashing down on me when I am asleep there will be hell to pay!) the only inconvenience thus far is having to sweep up the debris.
I couldn’t face cooking tonight. I couldn’t face taking a bus somewhere to eat either. But of course now I’ve discovered a place for sweet pork….well!!!
So I moseyed on down at just before 1900 and was surprised to find the little café absolutely full. With time on my hands I was happy to wait outside having a smoke until a table became free, the only drawback being they don’t keep beer in the fridge and it’s not cold enough yet to have room temperature pijou and enjoy it.
However, within seconds a party left and I think the owner’s wife approached me and broadly gestured towards the pictures atop the wall. I simply nodded, asked for a beer and sat down. I’ve only been there once and yet she remembered what I had before! Possibly it’s because I am foreign and she knows I can’t read the menu.
Whilst waiting, I did something I had promised myself I would not do. I sent a text to Janet. She has a memory like a sieve and to be fair I don’t want to drop her in it, especially when she organises my teaching timetable. She had said my schedule would be decided by the end of the week and seeing as school finishes on Fridays I reckoned my rota should be ready.
Everybody else, including foreigners, started back at work on Monday but not yours truly. I do have a tendency to over-think at times and of course being well past Chinese retirement age, my thoughts became dark with possible problems renewing my work permit/residence permit and the school not alerting me to it. Unlikely, but not outwith the bounds of possibility.
What I didn’t want was a phone call at 0800 Monday morning (in all probability my mobile would still be turned off though) asking where I was, all the students were waiting.
My rota is still not decided. My summer holidays so far have been 9 weeks and now apparently I have a further week off, totalling 10 weeks. Well that’s both good and bad. Good because I am on pay but bad if it means next year they decide I am an unnecessary expense.
The reason?
To date no postgraduates have come forward for the Cyprus foreign study programme, the dean wants to give it another week. If there are still no takers they will give me undergraduates. Hence you may understand my concerns over being dispensed with next year as needless expense. I would like to think that in that scenario they would offer me a position on one of the other campuses but there is more oversight there and I am now very happy with my little corner of China, commuting notwithstanding. Leave me on east campus.
So another week off. Were I flush with money and had desires to jet off somewhere for a few days I would be annoyed because I have no passport and without that I cannot board a train or plane. It is with the Public Security Bureau being processed for my new documents to keep me legal here. Luckily I have neither resources nor desire.
It has recently started raining inside my home.
There has always been some in the fridge/freezer corner and on the bathroom windowsill as previously mentioned, but now great patches of the dining room ceiling have started to detach, fall to the deck and create mini-rubble.
In the UK I would immediately suspect upstairs had a leak but there is no evidence of damp (and anyway upstairs would have squealed long before now if that was the case). Instead, my amateur opinion is that poor quality materials were used in finishing off, that, combined with not fixing properly and applying such a thin veneer, has resulted in this.
Considering I never look up at the ceiling except when in bed (and if THAT starts crashing down on me when I am asleep there will be hell to pay!) the only inconvenience thus far is having to sweep up the debris.
I couldn’t face cooking tonight. I couldn’t face taking a bus somewhere to eat either. But of course now I’ve discovered a place for sweet pork….well!!!
So I moseyed on down at just before 1900 and was surprised to find the little café absolutely full. With time on my hands I was happy to wait outside having a smoke until a table became free, the only drawback being they don’t keep beer in the fridge and it’s not cold enough yet to have room temperature pijou and enjoy it.
However, within seconds a party left and I think the owner’s wife approached me and broadly gestured towards the pictures atop the wall. I simply nodded, asked for a beer and sat down. I’ve only been there once and yet she remembered what I had before! Possibly it’s because I am foreign and she knows I can’t read the menu.
Whilst waiting, I did something I had promised myself I would not do. I sent a text to Janet. She has a memory like a sieve and to be fair I don’t want to drop her in it, especially when she organises my teaching timetable. She had said my schedule would be decided by the end of the week and seeing as school finishes on Fridays I reckoned my rota should be ready.
Everybody else, including foreigners, started back at work on Monday but not yours truly. I do have a tendency to over-think at times and of course being well past Chinese retirement age, my thoughts became dark with possible problems renewing my work permit/residence permit and the school not alerting me to it. Unlikely, but not outwith the bounds of possibility.
What I didn’t want was a phone call at 0800 Monday morning (in all probability my mobile would still be turned off though) asking where I was, all the students were waiting.
My rota is still not decided. My summer holidays so far have been 9 weeks and now apparently I have a further week off, totalling 10 weeks. Well that’s both good and bad. Good because I am on pay but bad if it means next year they decide I am an unnecessary expense.
The reason?
To date no postgraduates have come forward for the Cyprus foreign study programme, the dean wants to give it another week. If there are still no takers they will give me undergraduates. Hence you may understand my concerns over being dispensed with next year as needless expense. I would like to think that in that scenario they would offer me a position on one of the other campuses but there is more oversight there and I am now very happy with my little corner of China, commuting notwithstanding. Leave me on east campus.
So another week off. Were I flush with money and had desires to jet off somewhere for a few days I would be annoyed because I have no passport and without that I cannot board a train or plane. It is with the Public Security Bureau being processed for my new documents to keep me legal here. Luckily I have neither resources nor desire.
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