New years eve 2015 1800
And so, as what looking back has turned out to be a rather eventful year for me comes to a close, another year which one way or another is going to be cataclysmic for me will shortly begin.
I suppose I could do that media thing and have a brief look at the year in review but I won’t - the busted foot and pelvis still send shivers up my spine when I stand on the slippery bathroom floor after smacking the non-slip mat on the wall when I have finished. Losing Kevin and Ollivier was also a bigger blow than I could ever have realised and as nice as the replacements are, there is no escaping the fact they are far closer to the students’ age than they are to mine. Nobody could blame them for viewing me as an ancient artifact. Life simply isn’t the same here any more.
Today I completed all the examining of my students. Well, except one. Number 24 in the class, Judy. I asked several of her classmates where she was, thinking perhaps she was on long term absence for sickness or a bereavement but nobody seemed to know. Then of course doubt set in - had she taken her test last week and I had erred in not entering her score? It was possible but I didn’t think so, especially as this particular class took the Mickey and three more than I had stipulated turned up last week. Not a problem, it just meant I had an earlier finish today.
Eventually I got to the last student and asked her about Judy. She didn’t know but said she would try to contact her. She couldn’t, however she spoke to a roommate. Shortly thereafter I received an apologetic text from Judy. She had forgotten she had a test! How the hell do you forget you have an exam? It beggars belief and probably many in my position would simply enter a score of zero for the girl but I have told her to contact me on Saturday and I will test her then at my convenience.
Of course, her oral topic will be - how on earth can you forget you have an exam!
Finishing early meant I never had to cheat on the bus to town for my shopping. When I went on Tuesday I had my suspicions but today they were confirmed. Kevin has gone, Ollivier has gone, in seven months I will leave and now after less than two years McDonald’s has gone!
It should have come as a surprise but it didn’t. KFC bagged the best sites and I would never have opened a McD where it was, there was no passing trade and people were hardly likely to trek from RT Mart given that the Chinese much prefer KFC anyway and there is one of those inside the mall. The Big Macs I can do without but I will miss the occasional McBreakfast. Now if I had the money and trained staff I could open a proper hamburger joint serving real beef burgers and real English breakfast and make a killing here. Hmmmm……
As my training shoes were nearing the legal limit for tread depth I decided it was time to invest in a new pair and so bought some fur lined ones for the winter. However I can never seem to find a pair that have decent “bounce” to make walking that much more comfortable. They will suffice. I was also scratching around for something to have for my dinner tonight.
Last night Anna came and I made the tuna pasta with mayonnaise and Linghams chilli sauce, bloody lovely. Except Anna didn’t like the tuna! I have never encountered anyone who disliked tinned tuna in my life before! I felt guilty because she said she was really hungry prior to that and I never even had a doughnut to give her as a replacement. Such is life.
I had wracked my brain on the bus in as to what to make, desperately trying to remember ingredients for dishes I could concoct that would also be available in the supermarket. Spare ribs? No, can’t get stuff off the shelf. Glamorgan sausages? Nope, never tried making them and would need the help of Taobao online to get the gear. A nice hearty soup? Maybe. Maybe even minestrone.
In the end I did something I haven’t in all the time I have been here - I bought a pre-cooked spatchcocked chicken. A simple meal of chicken and French bread it will be, I can only pray I chose one that is barbecued rather than one which will blow my skull off. The lady who served me observed my body language antics with great amusement and I think assured me I wouldn’t need the fire brigade for my tongue. I will find out later whether she was to be trusted.
And so in just over five hours it will be 2016 here.
It will be a year I know in advance will see my life undergoing tumultuous change but at least I am forewarned. Where I will wash up I know not but it would be rather fitting were I able to spend the rest of my working life in the place I wanted ideally to start teaching in China. Perhaps positions in Nanning are hotly contested and I stand no chance but I shall try. I am not going to do demonstration classes on Skype video for any school but I may well copy the DVD the students made of my life here and send it on request - that would tell them more about me than any interview ever could.
So as we all go into the unknown (and spend the next month typing in the wrong year on correspondence!) I would like to wish all my readers around the globe a very happy new year and express the wish that everyone finds happiness and enjoys good health. Prosperous is nice but the previous two far outweigh prosperity.
Tuesday, 29 December 2015
Tuesday 29th December, 2015 0130
Sunday was quite rightly a lazy day. I had done my bit on both Christmas and Boxing days so I thought sod it, slob around even more than I normally do.
You know, when I was a young child, maybe seven or eight years old, my infants’ school class had an organised coach trip to London to visit London zoo for the day. You have all had it, especially when young - that keen anticipation of a trip or an event. Well when I was that age I loved nothing better to receive on Christmas morning those hard-backed nature books about the fish in the oceans, African wildlife etc - it fascinated me.
Imagine it, two days before I got to see elephants and monkeys and lions I contracted measles or chickenpox (can’t recall precisely which). I felt fine, just looked a little different and was still looking forward to going on the trip with my schoolmates.
I wasn’t allowed to go. The only one not to make it.
To this day I don’t understand why not - it wasn’t as if I felt awful, I didn’t - and in those days if someone caught those things your friends’ parents sent them to see you so THEY could catch it. None of that MMR stuff back then and the sooner caught and dealt with the better.
My mother confined me to bed and whilst my friends all had a wonderful day I had to content myself with looking at my wildlife books or gazing wistfully out of the window wondering what my classmates were doing. I was devastated.
Of course as you grow older you learn to deal with such disappointments, in most cases with a sense of sang froid or simple resignation. As I am sure many reading this will have had, I have of course suffered huge disappointments over the years, the latest of course being my impending dismissal for growing old(ish) - or middle aged as those in their early 60s are now being referred to as - and the cancellation of my intended trip to the ice festival and other places.
Disappointing enough some may agree but regarding the Harbin/Shenyang/Nanjing trip I could still have justified taking it seeing as the flights were paid for, a way could and would have been found to afford the rest of the money needed. However as you know, due to you know who, the tickets have been cancelled and I have lost over half what I paid - not to mention that to rebook at this stage would cost double what I paid in the first instance which would effectively mean another 150% cost on flights alone.
Yesterday I found out that you know who has suddenly decided her student employees are free to go after their own exams on the 12th.
We were booked to leave the day after, so we could have gone after all on a trip somewhere I have wanted to go for five years now. I feel very much like that little boy half a century ago sitting in his bed and looking out of the window dreaming of elephants and tigers. A few days in Nanjing will be scant consolation at a time when I really need to drag myself up out of the doldrums.
That is life, and this is China.
1430
I have now completed testing of 80% of my students and it is quite upsetting hearing them express the fact they will always remember me (quite what for I shudder to think!) and that they will miss me. I always miss my students, even the bad ones but it pains me to see my kids not wanting to change to Richard’s classes next term, doubtless as much as his students feel right now.
I made a load of cottage pies last night, ate one and froze the rest (although Anna is coming tonight so I had to take one out of the freezer just now) and today went shopping. My life these days seems to revolve around shopping trips and on the bus journeys my mind is full of thoughts of getting another job somewhere I will be happy, whether I will preserve enough money to last between my last here and first payday there and very importantly, how the hell do I get all my accumulated possessions to the next harbour?
I really don’t want to have to start all over again, I have almost everything needed for a comfortable life here (especially in the culinary department) and to replace everything would probably cost me four months salary (not savings, the entire wage). These people make arbitrary “rules” with nary a thought to those they affect and whilst that may be small beer to the backpacker one year teaching types who were never going to stay, to the like of Kevin and myself who want to put down at least semi-permanent roots, it is decidedly unwelcome.
Anyway, the cats finally destroyed the fan heater they have had since year two so I need to throw that out. In the meantime they have Kevin’s old small one that he left. It does on occasion squeal so it is unsuitable for a human bedroom and what with global warming being a hoax and the temperatures here at night becoming icy, I decided I needed something to take the chill off the spare bedroom.
So I splashed out today on a new one for 128y - one that hopefully I can take with me wherever I go. It is small and at first knockings seems to throw out a decent amount of heat. I have a small bar heater that has also gone the distance although only one bar works now. It used to serve me very well in the old and cold flat when I kept it in the bathroom and turned it on each morning to warm it before I took a shower. It has been a faithful servant during my tenure and is now resident on the balcony, where it is used to ensure laundry done in the evening is dried by morning.
Too many things have I accumulated to simply walk away from them yet again. As I age, so I like to make my life easier - don’t we all? My comfort blanket these days is having the gear to cook. As a kid it was a blue old fashioned kite, the tail of which I used to suck because it tasted of salt. God know what I was sucking on and it probably caused brain damage but I would hide in the meter cupboard under the stairs and suck away contentedly!
Ah well, I still have a break in Nanjing to look forward to in a fortnight.
Sunday was quite rightly a lazy day. I had done my bit on both Christmas and Boxing days so I thought sod it, slob around even more than I normally do.
You know, when I was a young child, maybe seven or eight years old, my infants’ school class had an organised coach trip to London to visit London zoo for the day. You have all had it, especially when young - that keen anticipation of a trip or an event. Well when I was that age I loved nothing better to receive on Christmas morning those hard-backed nature books about the fish in the oceans, African wildlife etc - it fascinated me.
Imagine it, two days before I got to see elephants and monkeys and lions I contracted measles or chickenpox (can’t recall precisely which). I felt fine, just looked a little different and was still looking forward to going on the trip with my schoolmates.
I wasn’t allowed to go. The only one not to make it.
To this day I don’t understand why not - it wasn’t as if I felt awful, I didn’t - and in those days if someone caught those things your friends’ parents sent them to see you so THEY could catch it. None of that MMR stuff back then and the sooner caught and dealt with the better.
My mother confined me to bed and whilst my friends all had a wonderful day I had to content myself with looking at my wildlife books or gazing wistfully out of the window wondering what my classmates were doing. I was devastated.
Of course as you grow older you learn to deal with such disappointments, in most cases with a sense of sang froid or simple resignation. As I am sure many reading this will have had, I have of course suffered huge disappointments over the years, the latest of course being my impending dismissal for growing old(ish) - or middle aged as those in their early 60s are now being referred to as - and the cancellation of my intended trip to the ice festival and other places.
Disappointing enough some may agree but regarding the Harbin/Shenyang/Nanjing trip I could still have justified taking it seeing as the flights were paid for, a way could and would have been found to afford the rest of the money needed. However as you know, due to you know who, the tickets have been cancelled and I have lost over half what I paid - not to mention that to rebook at this stage would cost double what I paid in the first instance which would effectively mean another 150% cost on flights alone.
Yesterday I found out that you know who has suddenly decided her student employees are free to go after their own exams on the 12th.
We were booked to leave the day after, so we could have gone after all on a trip somewhere I have wanted to go for five years now. I feel very much like that little boy half a century ago sitting in his bed and looking out of the window dreaming of elephants and tigers. A few days in Nanjing will be scant consolation at a time when I really need to drag myself up out of the doldrums.
That is life, and this is China.
1430
I have now completed testing of 80% of my students and it is quite upsetting hearing them express the fact they will always remember me (quite what for I shudder to think!) and that they will miss me. I always miss my students, even the bad ones but it pains me to see my kids not wanting to change to Richard’s classes next term, doubtless as much as his students feel right now.
I made a load of cottage pies last night, ate one and froze the rest (although Anna is coming tonight so I had to take one out of the freezer just now) and today went shopping. My life these days seems to revolve around shopping trips and on the bus journeys my mind is full of thoughts of getting another job somewhere I will be happy, whether I will preserve enough money to last between my last here and first payday there and very importantly, how the hell do I get all my accumulated possessions to the next harbour?
I really don’t want to have to start all over again, I have almost everything needed for a comfortable life here (especially in the culinary department) and to replace everything would probably cost me four months salary (not savings, the entire wage). These people make arbitrary “rules” with nary a thought to those they affect and whilst that may be small beer to the backpacker one year teaching types who were never going to stay, to the like of Kevin and myself who want to put down at least semi-permanent roots, it is decidedly unwelcome.
Anyway, the cats finally destroyed the fan heater they have had since year two so I need to throw that out. In the meantime they have Kevin’s old small one that he left. It does on occasion squeal so it is unsuitable for a human bedroom and what with global warming being a hoax and the temperatures here at night becoming icy, I decided I needed something to take the chill off the spare bedroom.
So I splashed out today on a new one for 128y - one that hopefully I can take with me wherever I go. It is small and at first knockings seems to throw out a decent amount of heat. I have a small bar heater that has also gone the distance although only one bar works now. It used to serve me very well in the old and cold flat when I kept it in the bathroom and turned it on each morning to warm it before I took a shower. It has been a faithful servant during my tenure and is now resident on the balcony, where it is used to ensure laundry done in the evening is dried by morning.
Too many things have I accumulated to simply walk away from them yet again. As I age, so I like to make my life easier - don’t we all? My comfort blanket these days is having the gear to cook. As a kid it was a blue old fashioned kite, the tail of which I used to suck because it tasted of salt. God know what I was sucking on and it probably caused brain damage but I would hide in the meter cupboard under the stairs and suck away contentedly!
Ah well, I still have a break in Nanjing to look forward to in a fortnight.
Saturday, 26 December 2015
Boxing day 2015 2045
I forgot to mention that at the dumpling party the class had bought me a bottle of wine, albeit they forgot to bring anything to uncork it with. Notwithstanding, I knew exactly where they had bought it because it’s the one I buy gallons of. Cheap and cheerful but perfectly quaffable at 12.5y a pop (£1.25 a bottle) and so I asked why they bought that one from RT Mart.
Blindingly simple but surprising - they asked the assistants in the wine department which wine the fat laowei buys! It’s coming to something when supermarket staff clock your every purchase!
There’s one thing I have been meaning to post for a while now but kept forgetting. I see it every time I take the bus and it is a neon sign above a building by the coach station. It reads CHIZHOU COLLECTING AND DISTRIBUNG CENTER. I wonder…….
I was going to be picked up tonight at 1830 and taken to the little school Christmas party but with great prescience I decided instead to leave early on the bus and have something to eat in town in case I never had chance later. It turned out to be a good move. I went to McDonald’s, not because I particularly like anything on the daytime menu but I had spotted a sign outside for the 1955 premium burger. Last time I went they didn’t have any so I chanced my arm again. Mayo. Why the bloody hell advertise it of you never have it? Ok, I will have a BLT instead. Mayo. Flipping Big Mac was what I had to settle for, may as well have gone to Ke Bi Wang, at least I could have seen Jin Jun in a silly Santa hat.
Then I went to the little school, where the Christmas party was in full swing. I sought refuge in the teachers’ room and the owner and a teacher came in and offered me a supermarket Father Christmas outfit. I didn’t even need to try it on to know that the jacket would have fallen short by two feet against my girth and the cheap plastic belt, whilst probably being able to encircle my vast circumference, would have snapped within seconds. Oh no - here’s one I prepared earlier! Cue gasps as I unzipped my bag to reveal a quality outfit Vivian sent me from Yiwu. In total I spent nearly an hour in solitary confinement before appearing for just five minutes to give out gifts (all of which consisted of an apple in a presentation box). Then I nearly regretted inviting the kids to come and have their photo taken with me.
Hitherto I would never in my wildest dreams have imagined a group of primary school children could have overpowered me but they came perilously close to putting me on my arse in the crush! Never ever underestimate the power of numbers!
I was richly rewarded by the owner even though my intention was to do it entirely gratis, even being given two tins of cigars into the bargain and he very kindly chauffeured me home as well. Hence it was as well I had eaten before going or today’s sustenance would have been cheese on toast.
Tomorrow I can rest. If the mood takes me I might go shopping but if not I have plenty of plonk in stock and the makings of cottage pie. I even bought some foil containers to make individual ones again nut one thing that struck me when I bought them was that although they sell the containers they don’t sell the lids for them! Bloody ridiculous because if you are not careful when you freeze them they stick together and some of them get potato frozen to the bottom.
When I did get home, having been dropped off at the south gate so I could retrieve my bike, Mum chased up to say hello after I parked outside our building. She was closely followed by one of her latest batch of puppies, a cute little brown thing. He or she also followed me into the building with wagging tail and oh, how I wanted to pick it up and take it inside!
Of course, given my shelf life here it wouldn’t be fair on the dog, or me for that matter.
I forgot to mention that at the dumpling party the class had bought me a bottle of wine, albeit they forgot to bring anything to uncork it with. Notwithstanding, I knew exactly where they had bought it because it’s the one I buy gallons of. Cheap and cheerful but perfectly quaffable at 12.5y a pop (£1.25 a bottle) and so I asked why they bought that one from RT Mart.
Blindingly simple but surprising - they asked the assistants in the wine department which wine the fat laowei buys! It’s coming to something when supermarket staff clock your every purchase!
There’s one thing I have been meaning to post for a while now but kept forgetting. I see it every time I take the bus and it is a neon sign above a building by the coach station. It reads CHIZHOU COLLECTING AND DISTRIBUNG CENTER. I wonder…….
I was going to be picked up tonight at 1830 and taken to the little school Christmas party but with great prescience I decided instead to leave early on the bus and have something to eat in town in case I never had chance later. It turned out to be a good move. I went to McDonald’s, not because I particularly like anything on the daytime menu but I had spotted a sign outside for the 1955 premium burger. Last time I went they didn’t have any so I chanced my arm again. Mayo. Why the bloody hell advertise it of you never have it? Ok, I will have a BLT instead. Mayo. Flipping Big Mac was what I had to settle for, may as well have gone to Ke Bi Wang, at least I could have seen Jin Jun in a silly Santa hat.
Then I went to the little school, where the Christmas party was in full swing. I sought refuge in the teachers’ room and the owner and a teacher came in and offered me a supermarket Father Christmas outfit. I didn’t even need to try it on to know that the jacket would have fallen short by two feet against my girth and the cheap plastic belt, whilst probably being able to encircle my vast circumference, would have snapped within seconds. Oh no - here’s one I prepared earlier! Cue gasps as I unzipped my bag to reveal a quality outfit Vivian sent me from Yiwu. In total I spent nearly an hour in solitary confinement before appearing for just five minutes to give out gifts (all of which consisted of an apple in a presentation box). Then I nearly regretted inviting the kids to come and have their photo taken with me.
Hitherto I would never in my wildest dreams have imagined a group of primary school children could have overpowered me but they came perilously close to putting me on my arse in the crush! Never ever underestimate the power of numbers!
I was richly rewarded by the owner even though my intention was to do it entirely gratis, even being given two tins of cigars into the bargain and he very kindly chauffeured me home as well. Hence it was as well I had eaten before going or today’s sustenance would have been cheese on toast.
Tomorrow I can rest. If the mood takes me I might go shopping but if not I have plenty of plonk in stock and the makings of cottage pie. I even bought some foil containers to make individual ones again nut one thing that struck me when I bought them was that although they sell the containers they don’t sell the lids for them! Bloody ridiculous because if you are not careful when you freeze them they stick together and some of them get potato frozen to the bottom.
When I did get home, having been dropped off at the south gate so I could retrieve my bike, Mum chased up to say hello after I parked outside our building. She was closely followed by one of her latest batch of puppies, a cute little brown thing. He or she also followed me into the building with wagging tail and oh, how I wanted to pick it up and take it inside!
Of course, given my shelf life here it wouldn’t be fair on the dog, or me for that matter.
Boxing Day 2015 0030
So Christmas eve wasn’t celebrated in western style. So what?
Dumpling had invited me to a dumpling event in a classroom (yes I know, Dumpling and dumplings!) and I stupidly thought it would be a few students and that was it. No matter how old you are and how experienced in your environment you can always be surprised or look a complete idiot.
I prefer to think I fell into the first category when I found the entire class manufacturing dumplings ready for boiling on my equipment and I think a Chinese teachers as well. Hmmm, this was bigger than I was informed - the giveaway was the balloons taped outside the classroom door!
Not realising it was a full-blown do I never took the camera but suffice to say everyone ate dumplings. I will not be so unkind as to say they were shit because they weren’t, they were quite simply bland but none of them had made dumplings in their lives before and probably never cooked anything either. If only they had consulted me, I am no expert and Michelin will never even offer me a half a star but I do have the stuff that could have made all the difference to the taste.
A good evening nonetheless. Even though at the end I think one of the games was engineered so that I lost and had to sing a song!
Christmas morning as you well know it was sick kids in hospital duty.
Flipping heck, we were given a room on the fifth floor and had to climb the stairs to the seventh floor to the children’s ward. Why? So the TV crew could film on the way up!
Fine, Santa actually didn’t even get out of breath and then I, my six elves (requested green and red elf outfits somehow having been transformed into mini Santas!!!) entered the children’s wing.
Ho ho ho and all that and great to see the look on parents and grandparents faces as we entered, let alone the children. With TV crew preceding us and a journalist from the local paper present, after previous media exposure I must say it was easy to forget they were there so I have no idea what footage will be shown and if the Grinch doesn’t like then great.
Somehow I think yesterday we only got to see kids with very minor ailments, we were barred from one room with really ill children (and rightly so although I did make sure gifts were left with the nurses for them if and hen they felt better) but although it was hard work it was worth it. All I can ask is that I hope some little Chinese children will remember being ill and Santa visiting and giving them a balloon and a gift box.
All credit must go to Sally at the foreign affairs bureau of the city because without her it could never have happened. And of course to my six helpers. I never had a Christmas morning before where I felt I was doing so much good apart from the time I took a war veteran to see his wife in a hospice.
Afterwards of course the TV station wanted an interview but I needed a few minutes to cool off. The air-conditioning was on so as luck would have it the temperature was mild (it’s been frigging freezing of late) Plus I wanted a few puffs. Once the costume was off I started to cool down and so then came the dilemma - who did I grant interview tine to first? TV or paper?
I threw it open - I know enough about China now to never make a decision when others can do it for you. TV won and as it happens it was the right result because the guy from the paper came to the lunch afterwards. Everyone (I hope) happy.
I am happy. I think everyone today was a star and I think we did some good instead of the Me Me ME! culture that has derived over the years. Stuff that, I’m an agnostic but sometimes it just seems right to do something for those less fortunate.
I managed to get precisely one hour of sleep later ( reminding me why I hate taking naps because it is better to feel shit once a day rather than twice) and then it was off to the number 7 bus to at least get close to our restaurant for Christmas dinner.
Well the number 7 NEVER has any more than half a dozen people waiting at the west gate and remember - Christmas is NOT celebrated in China. I have never seen so many students waiting. And of course when the bus stopped, I am not so fleet of foot as once perhaps I was, I ended up being one the last in the queue to board. My comment to Joan. Andrei and Juliette was that if I didn’t get a seat I would drag a student out of one. I didn’t need to because a girl very kindly offered me her seat. They were going Lord only knows where but it was standing room only already at the first stop.
Next stop was the outside the supermarket.
You know that scene in Poseidon Adventure when Capt Leslie Nielsen looks through his binoculars, says Oh my God, hard RIGHT!??
Well on a smaller scale that was pretty much it. Never in five years have I seen the number seven crammed to overcapacity on the outbound journey but Jesus the driver couldn’t stop to pick up anyone thereafter. Apparently they were all going to Baihe park for something.
Our Christmas dinner? One of the most expensive I have had in China!
For four the equivalent of £80.
But.
Andrei and Juliette did get a bottle of Johnnie Walker black label (and tit for tat I had Jacobs Creek) so the food itself would have been reasonably priced.
Suckling pig as advertised previously, baby squid with veg, something the others ordered with cabbage and sturgeon Juliette selected for execution from the live tank. I hope she can sleep tonight knowing that had she not, tomorrow it would die anyway!
Oh, and they had fresh oysters.
I bloody love oysters and could have eaten a dozen and called that my Christmas dinner, I didn’t. We ordered one apiece. Joan had never had one. We had to prevent the restaurant from cooking them (which would have been a travesty in my eyes) and simply asked them to shuck them and give us some lemon.
Bloody hell, I wish I HAD ordered a dozen! Really nice oyster but then Joan sat toying with it with chopsticks. Oysters with chopstsicks? No.
She was encouraged to just “drink” it from the shell and then I would tell her what it was.
Ok, she took half and chewed it and to her credit finished the rest. Then I told her it was still alive. I’m not quite sure from her reaction to that as to what she thought! To be honest, I could still have ordered a dozen more for myself.
So a damned busy day for myself considering it was Christmas day and one I will not forget.
More importantly I hope some sick children in Chizhou Number One Peoples’ Hospital never forget the day Santa visited.
So Christmas eve wasn’t celebrated in western style. So what?
Dumpling had invited me to a dumpling event in a classroom (yes I know, Dumpling and dumplings!) and I stupidly thought it would be a few students and that was it. No matter how old you are and how experienced in your environment you can always be surprised or look a complete idiot.
I prefer to think I fell into the first category when I found the entire class manufacturing dumplings ready for boiling on my equipment and I think a Chinese teachers as well. Hmmm, this was bigger than I was informed - the giveaway was the balloons taped outside the classroom door!
Not realising it was a full-blown do I never took the camera but suffice to say everyone ate dumplings. I will not be so unkind as to say they were shit because they weren’t, they were quite simply bland but none of them had made dumplings in their lives before and probably never cooked anything either. If only they had consulted me, I am no expert and Michelin will never even offer me a half a star but I do have the stuff that could have made all the difference to the taste.
A good evening nonetheless. Even though at the end I think one of the games was engineered so that I lost and had to sing a song!
Christmas morning as you well know it was sick kids in hospital duty.
Flipping heck, we were given a room on the fifth floor and had to climb the stairs to the seventh floor to the children’s ward. Why? So the TV crew could film on the way up!
Fine, Santa actually didn’t even get out of breath and then I, my six elves (requested green and red elf outfits somehow having been transformed into mini Santas!!!) entered the children’s wing.
Ho ho ho and all that and great to see the look on parents and grandparents faces as we entered, let alone the children. With TV crew preceding us and a journalist from the local paper present, after previous media exposure I must say it was easy to forget they were there so I have no idea what footage will be shown and if the Grinch doesn’t like then great.
Somehow I think yesterday we only got to see kids with very minor ailments, we were barred from one room with really ill children (and rightly so although I did make sure gifts were left with the nurses for them if and hen they felt better) but although it was hard work it was worth it. All I can ask is that I hope some little Chinese children will remember being ill and Santa visiting and giving them a balloon and a gift box.
All credit must go to Sally at the foreign affairs bureau of the city because without her it could never have happened. And of course to my six helpers. I never had a Christmas morning before where I felt I was doing so much good apart from the time I took a war veteran to see his wife in a hospice.
Afterwards of course the TV station wanted an interview but I needed a few minutes to cool off. The air-conditioning was on so as luck would have it the temperature was mild (it’s been frigging freezing of late) Plus I wanted a few puffs. Once the costume was off I started to cool down and so then came the dilemma - who did I grant interview tine to first? TV or paper?
I threw it open - I know enough about China now to never make a decision when others can do it for you. TV won and as it happens it was the right result because the guy from the paper came to the lunch afterwards. Everyone (I hope) happy.
I am happy. I think everyone today was a star and I think we did some good instead of the Me Me ME! culture that has derived over the years. Stuff that, I’m an agnostic but sometimes it just seems right to do something for those less fortunate.
I managed to get precisely one hour of sleep later ( reminding me why I hate taking naps because it is better to feel shit once a day rather than twice) and then it was off to the number 7 bus to at least get close to our restaurant for Christmas dinner.
Well the number 7 NEVER has any more than half a dozen people waiting at the west gate and remember - Christmas is NOT celebrated in China. I have never seen so many students waiting. And of course when the bus stopped, I am not so fleet of foot as once perhaps I was, I ended up being one the last in the queue to board. My comment to Joan. Andrei and Juliette was that if I didn’t get a seat I would drag a student out of one. I didn’t need to because a girl very kindly offered me her seat. They were going Lord only knows where but it was standing room only already at the first stop.
Next stop was the outside the supermarket.
You know that scene in Poseidon Adventure when Capt Leslie Nielsen looks through his binoculars, says Oh my God, hard RIGHT!??
Well on a smaller scale that was pretty much it. Never in five years have I seen the number seven crammed to overcapacity on the outbound journey but Jesus the driver couldn’t stop to pick up anyone thereafter. Apparently they were all going to Baihe park for something.
Our Christmas dinner? One of the most expensive I have had in China!
For four the equivalent of £80.
But.
Andrei and Juliette did get a bottle of Johnnie Walker black label (and tit for tat I had Jacobs Creek) so the food itself would have been reasonably priced.
Suckling pig as advertised previously, baby squid with veg, something the others ordered with cabbage and sturgeon Juliette selected for execution from the live tank. I hope she can sleep tonight knowing that had she not, tomorrow it would die anyway!
Oh, and they had fresh oysters.
I bloody love oysters and could have eaten a dozen and called that my Christmas dinner, I didn’t. We ordered one apiece. Joan had never had one. We had to prevent the restaurant from cooking them (which would have been a travesty in my eyes) and simply asked them to shuck them and give us some lemon.
Bloody hell, I wish I HAD ordered a dozen! Really nice oyster but then Joan sat toying with it with chopsticks. Oysters with chopstsicks? No.
She was encouraged to just “drink” it from the shell and then I would tell her what it was.
Ok, she took half and chewed it and to her credit finished the rest. Then I told her it was still alive. I’m not quite sure from her reaction to that as to what she thought! To be honest, I could still have ordered a dozen more for myself.
So a damned busy day for myself considering it was Christmas day and one I will not forget.
More importantly I hope some sick children in Chizhou Number One Peoples’ Hospital never forget the day Santa visited.
Wednesday, 23 December 2015
Tuesday 22nd December, 2015 0145
Well the competition went ahead at the Baihe hotel as planned, in front of about five hundred very noisy (and especially in the case of the children), excitable families. Muggins was given a lift to the venue and a meal John had ordered in for the helpers. Same as last time, polystyrene containers of rice accompanied by another with awful fatty, gristly pork, tofu and a few vegetables. Bloody awful and thank God I was expecting it and had a pizza waiting at home. Last year I ended up going to McDonald’s afterwards.
I sat for about an hour near the entrance while all and sundry came to have their picture taken with me and at a guess I would say I featured in well in excess of a thousand, hopefully treasured, memories for the future.
Then there was the contest/show, a mixture of speaking competitors, dancers and some awful thing they called “tv show host”. The latter only had four entries and the aim was to achieve as many spoken sentences in a minute as possible. I was unaware of this at the start and I had to ask the Chinese judge next to me what language it was in. English, she said. I never understood a single word the first boy “said” - he may as well have been speaking Martian. Sorry chap but if it’s unintelligible then nul points. For the following three the best I could do was award marks for the number of words I could actually make out. Idiotic contest.
Despite the deafening noise throughout the room we achieved a first for me in China. The winner of the speaking contest was a girl I had given the highest marks and clearly so had the other two judges. Normally the winner isn’t even my second choice, so well done to my fellow judges.
John the owner is upbeat but since starting dialysis his hue has altered perceptibly. Still a cheapskate though, for although I donated my time for free he had inveigled three of our students to come and be helpers for maybe four hours on the night and paid them the princely sum of 30y (£3) each! I’m not sure he would have paid for their taxi back had he not decided to despatch me with them rather than drive me back. Mind you, his driving terrifies me anyway.
So anyway, today (sorry, yesterday now) saw the start of final exams for my classes. Joan had given me the great news over the weekend that her exams would in fact be over just in time for us to take the winter trip to Harbin, Shenyang and Nanjing.
Except suddenly a lump of pigiron was thrown in the works - her part time job needed her on the 16th and 17th. Ok I said, tell them someone surprised you with a trip - what would they do if you were ill? She went away less than happy.
So today I asked her what the problem was. I am seriously not inventing this. Her boss knew that on the 15th she was free to go home, as were the other students she employs at her little weekend school. What did she do? Demand that they set all their students exams on 16th and 17th January. Luckily Joan hadn’t bought her train ticket home at that stage as she would have been up the creek otherwise because there are no tickets available for weeks from here to her hometown and it takes 9 hours by train so I shudder to think how long the bus takes.
But get this. Who’s her boss? Someone who already has a job, pays students a pittance and then screws their holidays. Someone who has stirred up so much shit for me this past week or so. No prizes for guessing. So it’s fine for her to hold a senior uni position AND run her own private school, yet not for me to utilise an empty classroom for an hour for a good cause or to do a charitable Santa gig for kids! I could attempt to describe my feelings for her in decent language (execrable, despicable etc) but I simply know it would descend to below-decks language ere long.
So as a result the entire winter trip has been cancelled because I can’t take the risk of going even on my own, I would be leaving two days before the official end of term and even though my work will be done by next Friday I can’t risk giving any further ammunition. I need to at least have until July to try and find another position and save enough to get me through, yes, Kevin has offered assistance financially which was very much appreciated but I will do this on my own.
So thanks to my cherished gold membership status of a Chinese travel firm they only charged just over 50% of the flight tickets as penalty (only!!!) and I have lost about 1200y.
I am not sitting in Chizhou the entire spring festival licking my wounds though, we will go to Nanjing for four nights (must remember to change the litter tray and leave enough food for the cats and if they knock the heater over again - as they are fond of doing - then they will be chilly). I have booked an hotel near to Confucius Temple area and have already picked our eateries for the dinners. I really hope the hotel is what it says on the tin because I think Joan will love it and I couldn’t justify the prices at the western chain hotels. There’s no breakfast bar a reportedly appalling buffet for 10y apiece but close by she will be able to get morning nosh.
And three days for her to explore, I might even actually get to enter the war memorial museum this time.
We have a newly opened bullet train to Nanjing which cuts the time from 4.5 to 1.5 hours. No smoking but I can leap out at stops and grab some hasty puffs and I asked her to book first class seats for both of us there and for me back. At present the tickets are for separate carriages but when she collects them from the station hopefully she will be able to have them altered. If not we will have to hope a singleton is willing to change seats, She will leave from there to her hometown and being Chinese and parsimonious she booked herself the four hour train rather than the one hour fast train. For about 50y extra she could have taken the bullet but I have no say in it.
So thanks to her boss for her best efforts at destroying everything. She may have succeeded in ruining the best laid plans of mice, men and an OC and even dampened my spirits for a week but I am just that - an OC. I was bullied by the best years ago!
Wednesday 23rd 1700
This week I have been doing final (and in this case FINAL) exams for my students. There have been some emotions expressed but today they peaked. A couple of students informed me that they all looked forward to my class because it was so interesting and fun and all the other classes are boring. That warmed the cockles, if nothing else they will remember their fat foreign teacher as long as they live. Nancy however was overcome and dissolved into floods of tears. She even got me at it a little.
It’s freezing here today, the global warming and unseasonably warm winter weather has certainly bypassed us.
Tomorrow Dumpling’s class has invited me to go to their classroom at 1710. They are going to make dumplings for me but of course I am having to lend them my hotplate and a saucepan to cook them with! Christmas day of course there is the hospital thing, a liquidish lunch after, hopefully a chance of a siesta afterwards and then Andrei (who was granted his visa extension), Juliette, Joan and I will go for a Christmas dinner at Dong Rong.
On Saturday I have decided to hell with the Grinch, I WILL be Santa at the little school and I have also said I will go to the kindergarten after new years day. If the Grinch can run a business while in employment then I sure as hell can volunteer my time to make children happy.
This therefore will be my last entry before Christmas day because my life is about to become a trifle hectic for a few days. Ergo, I would like to wish all those who read this tripe a very merry Christmas and hope that wherever you are in the world and whoever you are with, it is a joyous time which will provide you with many happy memories to cherish.
Well the competition went ahead at the Baihe hotel as planned, in front of about five hundred very noisy (and especially in the case of the children), excitable families. Muggins was given a lift to the venue and a meal John had ordered in for the helpers. Same as last time, polystyrene containers of rice accompanied by another with awful fatty, gristly pork, tofu and a few vegetables. Bloody awful and thank God I was expecting it and had a pizza waiting at home. Last year I ended up going to McDonald’s afterwards.
I sat for about an hour near the entrance while all and sundry came to have their picture taken with me and at a guess I would say I featured in well in excess of a thousand, hopefully treasured, memories for the future.
Then there was the contest/show, a mixture of speaking competitors, dancers and some awful thing they called “tv show host”. The latter only had four entries and the aim was to achieve as many spoken sentences in a minute as possible. I was unaware of this at the start and I had to ask the Chinese judge next to me what language it was in. English, she said. I never understood a single word the first boy “said” - he may as well have been speaking Martian. Sorry chap but if it’s unintelligible then nul points. For the following three the best I could do was award marks for the number of words I could actually make out. Idiotic contest.
Despite the deafening noise throughout the room we achieved a first for me in China. The winner of the speaking contest was a girl I had given the highest marks and clearly so had the other two judges. Normally the winner isn’t even my second choice, so well done to my fellow judges.
John the owner is upbeat but since starting dialysis his hue has altered perceptibly. Still a cheapskate though, for although I donated my time for free he had inveigled three of our students to come and be helpers for maybe four hours on the night and paid them the princely sum of 30y (£3) each! I’m not sure he would have paid for their taxi back had he not decided to despatch me with them rather than drive me back. Mind you, his driving terrifies me anyway.
So anyway, today (sorry, yesterday now) saw the start of final exams for my classes. Joan had given me the great news over the weekend that her exams would in fact be over just in time for us to take the winter trip to Harbin, Shenyang and Nanjing.
Except suddenly a lump of pigiron was thrown in the works - her part time job needed her on the 16th and 17th. Ok I said, tell them someone surprised you with a trip - what would they do if you were ill? She went away less than happy.
So today I asked her what the problem was. I am seriously not inventing this. Her boss knew that on the 15th she was free to go home, as were the other students she employs at her little weekend school. What did she do? Demand that they set all their students exams on 16th and 17th January. Luckily Joan hadn’t bought her train ticket home at that stage as she would have been up the creek otherwise because there are no tickets available for weeks from here to her hometown and it takes 9 hours by train so I shudder to think how long the bus takes.
But get this. Who’s her boss? Someone who already has a job, pays students a pittance and then screws their holidays. Someone who has stirred up so much shit for me this past week or so. No prizes for guessing. So it’s fine for her to hold a senior uni position AND run her own private school, yet not for me to utilise an empty classroom for an hour for a good cause or to do a charitable Santa gig for kids! I could attempt to describe my feelings for her in decent language (execrable, despicable etc) but I simply know it would descend to below-decks language ere long.
So as a result the entire winter trip has been cancelled because I can’t take the risk of going even on my own, I would be leaving two days before the official end of term and even though my work will be done by next Friday I can’t risk giving any further ammunition. I need to at least have until July to try and find another position and save enough to get me through, yes, Kevin has offered assistance financially which was very much appreciated but I will do this on my own.
So thanks to my cherished gold membership status of a Chinese travel firm they only charged just over 50% of the flight tickets as penalty (only!!!) and I have lost about 1200y.
I am not sitting in Chizhou the entire spring festival licking my wounds though, we will go to Nanjing for four nights (must remember to change the litter tray and leave enough food for the cats and if they knock the heater over again - as they are fond of doing - then they will be chilly). I have booked an hotel near to Confucius Temple area and have already picked our eateries for the dinners. I really hope the hotel is what it says on the tin because I think Joan will love it and I couldn’t justify the prices at the western chain hotels. There’s no breakfast bar a reportedly appalling buffet for 10y apiece but close by she will be able to get morning nosh.
And three days for her to explore, I might even actually get to enter the war memorial museum this time.
We have a newly opened bullet train to Nanjing which cuts the time from 4.5 to 1.5 hours. No smoking but I can leap out at stops and grab some hasty puffs and I asked her to book first class seats for both of us there and for me back. At present the tickets are for separate carriages but when she collects them from the station hopefully she will be able to have them altered. If not we will have to hope a singleton is willing to change seats, She will leave from there to her hometown and being Chinese and parsimonious she booked herself the four hour train rather than the one hour fast train. For about 50y extra she could have taken the bullet but I have no say in it.
So thanks to her boss for her best efforts at destroying everything. She may have succeeded in ruining the best laid plans of mice, men and an OC and even dampened my spirits for a week but I am just that - an OC. I was bullied by the best years ago!
Wednesday 23rd 1700
This week I have been doing final (and in this case FINAL) exams for my students. There have been some emotions expressed but today they peaked. A couple of students informed me that they all looked forward to my class because it was so interesting and fun and all the other classes are boring. That warmed the cockles, if nothing else they will remember their fat foreign teacher as long as they live. Nancy however was overcome and dissolved into floods of tears. She even got me at it a little.
It’s freezing here today, the global warming and unseasonably warm winter weather has certainly bypassed us.
Tomorrow Dumpling’s class has invited me to go to their classroom at 1710. They are going to make dumplings for me but of course I am having to lend them my hotplate and a saucepan to cook them with! Christmas day of course there is the hospital thing, a liquidish lunch after, hopefully a chance of a siesta afterwards and then Andrei (who was granted his visa extension), Juliette, Joan and I will go for a Christmas dinner at Dong Rong.
On Saturday I have decided to hell with the Grinch, I WILL be Santa at the little school and I have also said I will go to the kindergarten after new years day. If the Grinch can run a business while in employment then I sure as hell can volunteer my time to make children happy.
This therefore will be my last entry before Christmas day because my life is about to become a trifle hectic for a few days. Ergo, I would like to wish all those who read this tripe a very merry Christmas and hope that wherever you are in the world and whoever you are with, it is a joyous time which will provide you with many happy memories to cherish.
Friday, 18 December 2015
Friday 18th December, 2015 1530
Hats off to John, I have no idea what he did but I am his Santa on Sunday. Prof Fang gave the ok and this time also informed Prof Wang so there should be comeback at all. She did make one stipulation though - John has to collect me and bring me back which suits me fine. His drinking days are over what with the dialysis so all it will cost him is a bit of time and some petrol and he is happy.
Final clearance has also been given for the filming at the hospital. A local bakery which also donated some of the gifts for the children wanted me to go to their shop and pose with customers in my costume, however the school wasn’t asked and ultimately it was decided to tell them we didn’t have permission (true), instead their logo will be displayed when the footage is screened and it will also appear in the local papers. They do deserve at least some credit for making the donations, after all.
That leaves me in a quandary over the other school’s boxing day party and the possible kindergarten appearance.
I went shopping at lunchtime but I left getting the bus until after the first rush of students when they finish class at midday. I thought I may simply be able to get a bus from the actual university for once but I thought wrong. On the way to town I noticed the buses going in the opposite direction were also packed.
I did a quick shop, new black gloves for Santa seeing as the old ones are split and a bag of frozen prawns. It sounds ridiculous but I haven’t eaten anything of note for four days and I decided I needed something appetising tonight. It’s the middle of winter and I am having a prawn salad! Well at least the potatoes and boiled egg will be warm!
So then I did my little cheat with the bus, except this time in view of the large numbers of people out and about, I decided to go two stops past the commercial centre instead of one. When we got there the stop on the other side of the road was obscured by huge panels - they are doing roadworks! Bloody marvellous. Ok, try the next stop, which turned out to be the one where Andrei, Juliette and I were turfed off when we went for a meal. I got off, wondering why people still remained on the bus. The damned thing is once again going to the old terminus so I could have stayed on myself. Now I was faced with hoardings and more roadworks on the other side and no bus stop. I suspected I may have a long hike with two bags of shopping and stood there, uncertain as to what to do.
A minute later a woman of my age appeared and stood near me. I couldn’t imagine she was going to the terminus so I waited. After a while a school-bound bus hove into view over the bridge and she crossed the road to wait by the boards. I took that as my cue and thankfully it stopped for us. It was standing room only before we even got to the commercial centre, let alone Lotte and RT Marts. Plus, a very large percentage of people were elderly.
When I got back, the reason the outbound buses from school are so busy all the time became apparent. As I rode towards south gate it seemed there wasn’t anyone waiting for the bus, until that is I got closer. Even better than the other day, students were queuing in the special set of railings erected for (but hitherto never used) that purpose. Either the nurses college is breaking up early for spring festival (very early!) or loads of them have graduated.
I think tomorrow will be a day spent doing nothing other than coming up with exam questions seeing as I lost the ones I prepared two years ago when my hard drive blew up. I do hope no spanners are thrown in the works, I have really had enough grief of late.
Hats off to John, I have no idea what he did but I am his Santa on Sunday. Prof Fang gave the ok and this time also informed Prof Wang so there should be comeback at all. She did make one stipulation though - John has to collect me and bring me back which suits me fine. His drinking days are over what with the dialysis so all it will cost him is a bit of time and some petrol and he is happy.
Final clearance has also been given for the filming at the hospital. A local bakery which also donated some of the gifts for the children wanted me to go to their shop and pose with customers in my costume, however the school wasn’t asked and ultimately it was decided to tell them we didn’t have permission (true), instead their logo will be displayed when the footage is screened and it will also appear in the local papers. They do deserve at least some credit for making the donations, after all.
That leaves me in a quandary over the other school’s boxing day party and the possible kindergarten appearance.
I went shopping at lunchtime but I left getting the bus until after the first rush of students when they finish class at midday. I thought I may simply be able to get a bus from the actual university for once but I thought wrong. On the way to town I noticed the buses going in the opposite direction were also packed.
I did a quick shop, new black gloves for Santa seeing as the old ones are split and a bag of frozen prawns. It sounds ridiculous but I haven’t eaten anything of note for four days and I decided I needed something appetising tonight. It’s the middle of winter and I am having a prawn salad! Well at least the potatoes and boiled egg will be warm!
So then I did my little cheat with the bus, except this time in view of the large numbers of people out and about, I decided to go two stops past the commercial centre instead of one. When we got there the stop on the other side of the road was obscured by huge panels - they are doing roadworks! Bloody marvellous. Ok, try the next stop, which turned out to be the one where Andrei, Juliette and I were turfed off when we went for a meal. I got off, wondering why people still remained on the bus. The damned thing is once again going to the old terminus so I could have stayed on myself. Now I was faced with hoardings and more roadworks on the other side and no bus stop. I suspected I may have a long hike with two bags of shopping and stood there, uncertain as to what to do.
A minute later a woman of my age appeared and stood near me. I couldn’t imagine she was going to the terminus so I waited. After a while a school-bound bus hove into view over the bridge and she crossed the road to wait by the boards. I took that as my cue and thankfully it stopped for us. It was standing room only before we even got to the commercial centre, let alone Lotte and RT Marts. Plus, a very large percentage of people were elderly.
When I got back, the reason the outbound buses from school are so busy all the time became apparent. As I rode towards south gate it seemed there wasn’t anyone waiting for the bus, until that is I got closer. Even better than the other day, students were queuing in the special set of railings erected for (but hitherto never used) that purpose. Either the nurses college is breaking up early for spring festival (very early!) or loads of them have graduated.
I think tomorrow will be a day spent doing nothing other than coming up with exam questions seeing as I lost the ones I prepared two years ago when my hard drive blew up. I do hope no spanners are thrown in the works, I have really had enough grief of late.
Friday 18th December, 2015 0300
Certainly I have not been sleeping well of late, more to do with having to uproot again and find other gainful employment.
As with everything, as time passes you get used to the reality and now I feel as Kevin did last term. Had enough of their shenanigans and maybe time for a fresh start. Of course I will miss my students terribly, in the vast majority of cases a hell of a sight more than they will me! The latest contretemps with the new dean have rather killed any desire to fight the 60 limit, this place has turned into a most unwelcoming environment since she took the helm and she will probably be the dean for some years to come and I have no desire to work under someone so vindictive until I see out my working days. Were I in the UK I could and would be a thorn in her side with impunity if I played it right but this is here, where I have no protection and previous good deeds and staunch behaviour can often be cast aside.
The die is cast.
As of today my key to the classroom was requested to be returned. Petty in extremis because after the latest events and needing to at least stay employed until my previously notified date for the boot rather than before, is she that thick that she thought I would repeat the mortal sin?
I also cancelled every Santa appearance I was scheduled to make (a lot of kids) for free so it would be no breach of my contract but New Boss is breast beating and I am damned if I will get fired early because she can trump up an excuse.
However, John from the little school and with whom I have been friends all the time I have been here, is desperate for me to be his Santa and judge at his speaking competition on Sunday. He’s on dialysis three times a week now but who I feel sorry for are the estimated 500 parents and children who are going to attend expecting to see Father Christmas. It’s been broadcast.
I have to hand it to him. Later today he is coming to campus to meet my assistant Anthony and they will both go to Prof Fang to try and get permission for me to do it after all. It is utterly ridiculous that I can be threatened over volunteering in my free time when a fat bloke in a red costume with a beard is craved by so many places. Does anyone think I actually want to turn out in the freezing cold to any of them besides my own brainchild, the hospital? Of course not but I don’t want to disappoint the children.
I have insisted though that if Prof Fang is all for me doing John’s gig then the Grinch also has to be in agreement. I ain’t getting fired before I have time to job hunt.
You know, if a Chinese teacher had borrowed a classroom absolutely nothing would have happened. Because I am a foreigner she must have been watching the internet like a hawk for photos of me and ultimately found them. A few years ago the police on their routine visit asked about my teaching at a school in town where my images were plastered all over their reception. I don’t even know where the school is exactly, far less have I been there. They find my images online and use them - I can’t control people grabbing my images from the internet.
But what happened when I had death threats on my phone? Yes, Anthony stopped them for a few weeks and recently they started up again. What happened then? Stuff all, yet I use a classroom and suddenly I am Harold Shipman. After more than five years loyal service I expected better. Time to look elsewhere but if I am successful this time I will simply consider it a year at a time, I will do my best not to get too attached to a place - difficult though when your students are in large part so endearing.
So depending on what happens later today I may be going to John’s gig and if that happens I would at least like to do the Boxing Day party as well I was asked to do and without fear of parents posting pictures of Santa with their little darlings online.
Certainly I have not been sleeping well of late, more to do with having to uproot again and find other gainful employment.
As with everything, as time passes you get used to the reality and now I feel as Kevin did last term. Had enough of their shenanigans and maybe time for a fresh start. Of course I will miss my students terribly, in the vast majority of cases a hell of a sight more than they will me! The latest contretemps with the new dean have rather killed any desire to fight the 60 limit, this place has turned into a most unwelcoming environment since she took the helm and she will probably be the dean for some years to come and I have no desire to work under someone so vindictive until I see out my working days. Were I in the UK I could and would be a thorn in her side with impunity if I played it right but this is here, where I have no protection and previous good deeds and staunch behaviour can often be cast aside.
The die is cast.
As of today my key to the classroom was requested to be returned. Petty in extremis because after the latest events and needing to at least stay employed until my previously notified date for the boot rather than before, is she that thick that she thought I would repeat the mortal sin?
I also cancelled every Santa appearance I was scheduled to make (a lot of kids) for free so it would be no breach of my contract but New Boss is breast beating and I am damned if I will get fired early because she can trump up an excuse.
However, John from the little school and with whom I have been friends all the time I have been here, is desperate for me to be his Santa and judge at his speaking competition on Sunday. He’s on dialysis three times a week now but who I feel sorry for are the estimated 500 parents and children who are going to attend expecting to see Father Christmas. It’s been broadcast.
I have to hand it to him. Later today he is coming to campus to meet my assistant Anthony and they will both go to Prof Fang to try and get permission for me to do it after all. It is utterly ridiculous that I can be threatened over volunteering in my free time when a fat bloke in a red costume with a beard is craved by so many places. Does anyone think I actually want to turn out in the freezing cold to any of them besides my own brainchild, the hospital? Of course not but I don’t want to disappoint the children.
I have insisted though that if Prof Fang is all for me doing John’s gig then the Grinch also has to be in agreement. I ain’t getting fired before I have time to job hunt.
You know, if a Chinese teacher had borrowed a classroom absolutely nothing would have happened. Because I am a foreigner she must have been watching the internet like a hawk for photos of me and ultimately found them. A few years ago the police on their routine visit asked about my teaching at a school in town where my images were plastered all over their reception. I don’t even know where the school is exactly, far less have I been there. They find my images online and use them - I can’t control people grabbing my images from the internet.
But what happened when I had death threats on my phone? Yes, Anthony stopped them for a few weeks and recently they started up again. What happened then? Stuff all, yet I use a classroom and suddenly I am Harold Shipman. After more than five years loyal service I expected better. Time to look elsewhere but if I am successful this time I will simply consider it a year at a time, I will do my best not to get too attached to a place - difficult though when your students are in large part so endearing.
So depending on what happens later today I may be going to John’s gig and if that happens I would at least like to do the Boxing Day party as well I was asked to do and without fear of parents posting pictures of Santa with their little darlings online.
Thursday, 17 December 2015
Thursday 17th December, 2015 0100
I can’t say my mood has been particularly bright today and Anthony has not relayed anything to me so I now wonder if he has quit as my assistant. I will find out later today no doubt.
The events of late may be partially of my own making due purely to ignorance but surely do not merit such fallout. As I am always telling my students, everybody makes mistakes. This is a shitstorm and to be honest I am now starting to think that perhaps I really don’t want to fight to stay here anyway. It this is the way five and a half years of giving my all to the school is rewarded then perhaps I do need to move on. I am way past the age where employers can treat me like a green apprentice and I have six more years before I reach the stage where I won’t need an employer any more.
It saddens me that this place, which I have loved working at for all this time, is so short-sighted as to not value age and life experience. It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if they find themselves looking to fill every single foreign teacher position next term.
Tomorrow I am going to cancel my other Santa appearances (I am not reneging on the hospital one though - somehow I think the school would have a heart attack if the city TV station reported I pulled out - but the Chizhou Grinch has now stuffed it for loads of kids. I cannot take the risk of the Dean finding photos online (yes I would be in fancy dress but who the hell else here has a belly my size?).
It is unbelievable that while the Chinese teachers have weekly Wednesday meetings the hospital thing was never brought up, leave alone with the ex dean and her deputy. I asked Anthony to express my apologies for the heinous crime of borrowing a classroom at a weekend and that naturally I thought she was fully aware of what was happening, given that the City Foreign Affairs Bureau was involved. Even the lady from the latter is speechless at the new dean’s reaction so if a Chinese official can’t understand it what chance do I have?
I have to accept my time here is more limited than I hoped and start to look for somewhere less ageist. Firstly I need to update and revamp my CV but Nanning is the target. Not cold in the winter. If not there, then anywhere that accepts that turning sixty doesn’t mean you are going to drop dead the following day (I might of course!) and you are not immediately senile. They have people on campus in their sixties, seventies and eighties collecting the rubbish and I don’t see them being told to piss off.
Harbin and Shenyang are almost confirmed to be cancelled which is a shame but I will need every yuan I have if I am to decamp.
I can’t say my mood has been particularly bright today and Anthony has not relayed anything to me so I now wonder if he has quit as my assistant. I will find out later today no doubt.
The events of late may be partially of my own making due purely to ignorance but surely do not merit such fallout. As I am always telling my students, everybody makes mistakes. This is a shitstorm and to be honest I am now starting to think that perhaps I really don’t want to fight to stay here anyway. It this is the way five and a half years of giving my all to the school is rewarded then perhaps I do need to move on. I am way past the age where employers can treat me like a green apprentice and I have six more years before I reach the stage where I won’t need an employer any more.
It saddens me that this place, which I have loved working at for all this time, is so short-sighted as to not value age and life experience. It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if they find themselves looking to fill every single foreign teacher position next term.
Tomorrow I am going to cancel my other Santa appearances (I am not reneging on the hospital one though - somehow I think the school would have a heart attack if the city TV station reported I pulled out - but the Chizhou Grinch has now stuffed it for loads of kids. I cannot take the risk of the Dean finding photos online (yes I would be in fancy dress but who the hell else here has a belly my size?).
It is unbelievable that while the Chinese teachers have weekly Wednesday meetings the hospital thing was never brought up, leave alone with the ex dean and her deputy. I asked Anthony to express my apologies for the heinous crime of borrowing a classroom at a weekend and that naturally I thought she was fully aware of what was happening, given that the City Foreign Affairs Bureau was involved. Even the lady from the latter is speechless at the new dean’s reaction so if a Chinese official can’t understand it what chance do I have?
I have to accept my time here is more limited than I hoped and start to look for somewhere less ageist. Firstly I need to update and revamp my CV but Nanning is the target. Not cold in the winter. If not there, then anywhere that accepts that turning sixty doesn’t mean you are going to drop dead the following day (I might of course!) and you are not immediately senile. They have people on campus in their sixties, seventies and eighties collecting the rubbish and I don’t see them being told to piss off.
Harbin and Shenyang are almost confirmed to be cancelled which is a shame but I will need every yuan I have if I am to decamp.
Tuesday, 15 December 2015
Tuesday 15th December, 2015 2330
It just gets better.
For five years I have had a great life here and suddenly in the space of a month it has turned to shit.
Anthony came this evening.
How did I get into the classroom? With my key of course. How did you get the key? From the Auntie of course. So now I am dropping her in the mire. How something goes from a meeting to discuss the filming of a Santa from the university visiting ill children (God forbid any of them are in a really bad way because certainly Santa will need to leave the room to cry) to a disciplinary offence I can’t comprehend.
Stuff it. They want me to go anyway so the only worse thing that can happen is they sack me now. I am British. I have principles. A district court judge once said to me during a case that principles could be expensive and I said “I know”. I then won both the case and damages.
I am buggered if I am going to sit here at 59 years of age and have someone dictate what I am to do in my own free time when it doesn’t affect the university. The hilarity of it all is that this was all precipitated by something I suggested and got clearance from the highest authorities to proceed with and for the benefit of the university‘s reputation.
I’m in the clear, right?
Oh no.
The new dean (with egg on face over the photos) is not satisfied. I should not have used a classroom without authorisation. For God’s sake it was empty. I should have kept it secret. Right, I can stop people taking photos with their phones and posting them online?
Right. It ain’t going to happen.
To hell with her and whatever her beef is, I am already under notice to quit next semester and she didn’t even have the guts to confront me herself over the photos yesterday. Instead I ended up having almost a physical argument with Anthony tonight because he doesn’t realise that although I do understand a good deal of Chinese thinking, I refuse to accept some of the idiocy of it. Such as schools being held responsible for foreign teachers’ safety when they travel - what????
He is going to see the dean tomorrow. I don’t care what he tells them but I won’t drop him in it.
What other country would take offence at a PR exercise designed to get an organisation some great TV footage simply because some harridan decided she should have been told first - a witch I was never even told was my boss until recently?
I have had it with this.
Probably the Harbin/Shenyang thing is off because Joan made an innocent mistake. If that is the case then at the moment it is still feasible to go to Nanning and I hope to be able to contact the girls I knew five years ago. If nothing else, I can show Joan Yangmei.
It just gets better.
For five years I have had a great life here and suddenly in the space of a month it has turned to shit.
Anthony came this evening.
How did I get into the classroom? With my key of course. How did you get the key? From the Auntie of course. So now I am dropping her in the mire. How something goes from a meeting to discuss the filming of a Santa from the university visiting ill children (God forbid any of them are in a really bad way because certainly Santa will need to leave the room to cry) to a disciplinary offence I can’t comprehend.
Stuff it. They want me to go anyway so the only worse thing that can happen is they sack me now. I am British. I have principles. A district court judge once said to me during a case that principles could be expensive and I said “I know”. I then won both the case and damages.
I am buggered if I am going to sit here at 59 years of age and have someone dictate what I am to do in my own free time when it doesn’t affect the university. The hilarity of it all is that this was all precipitated by something I suggested and got clearance from the highest authorities to proceed with and for the benefit of the university‘s reputation.
I’m in the clear, right?
Oh no.
The new dean (with egg on face over the photos) is not satisfied. I should not have used a classroom without authorisation. For God’s sake it was empty. I should have kept it secret. Right, I can stop people taking photos with their phones and posting them online?
Right. It ain’t going to happen.
To hell with her and whatever her beef is, I am already under notice to quit next semester and she didn’t even have the guts to confront me herself over the photos yesterday. Instead I ended up having almost a physical argument with Anthony tonight because he doesn’t realise that although I do understand a good deal of Chinese thinking, I refuse to accept some of the idiocy of it. Such as schools being held responsible for foreign teachers’ safety when they travel - what????
He is going to see the dean tomorrow. I don’t care what he tells them but I won’t drop him in it.
What other country would take offence at a PR exercise designed to get an organisation some great TV footage simply because some harridan decided she should have been told first - a witch I was never even told was my boss until recently?
I have had it with this.
Probably the Harbin/Shenyang thing is off because Joan made an innocent mistake. If that is the case then at the moment it is still feasible to go to Nanning and I hope to be able to contact the girls I knew five years ago. If nothing else, I can show Joan Yangmei.
Tuesday 15th December, 2015 1830
Another day, another dollar as they would have said in SSM when I had the best job imaginable.
That’s the beauty or the drawback of blogging in real time, you show your true feelings and that is why I don’t delete my entries even if I think maybe I should later.
It seems almost certain that the ice festival trip is off. The exam dates are still in abeyance. Joan screwed up with the dates but notwithstanding, the latest bollo*** would have scuppered my plans anyway money-wise probably.
The moment Joan finds out about the exam schedules will be the defining moment as they say. If she is free then I will do my best to protect my finances and still take that holiday. If not then I have to cancel everything and recoup what I can.
But I am damned if I will let all these setbacks prevent me from having at least a short break elsewhere. Plan B is now to take Joan to Nanning if it all goes wrong. There are still flights, provided we find out the exam schedule soon. I mean, they start in three weeks so of course they will be published soon, won’t they??? Don’t hold your breath.
If I don’t get to see the ice festival and my very generous Hilton friend then of course on the disappointment richter scale it measures a full ten. But. I have envisaged this coming ever since Joan confessed, sadly only after the flights were paid for and which will now cost me dearly to cancel.
There are still flights to Nanning at reasonable prices, I may be able to contact old friends from the Jinhua hotel and of course if we do go then I have to show Joan Yangmei - of cow taxi fame.
You know when life pisses you off and you want to stick two fingers up to it? Well right now that is me. I will fight and probably lose as I am not on home turf but at least I will fight (QYLMBS for the OCs reading!) and by God I will enjoy the scrap and the journey to oblivion or a new life even though there will be much sadness on the way.
I never got to see the new witch - sorry, Dean - today. I needed to shop in town (zero wine stocks) and the electrician was late coming to replace the starters in two of my fluorescent strips. I could have done it myself but they aren’t like the ones I know, the entire assembly has to come down and the starters are as nothing I have seen previously. One would have thought with such hassle involved (he needed to use a table because my chair wasn’t high enough) they would provide more robust stuff but no, maybe starters have to retire at 60 too!
Anyway I did go to town to get my shopping and that’s the last time I take the number ten bus the wrong way. It turns right at the commercial centre so to carry out my dastardly act I have to get off there. The number 29 on the other hand goes straight over. The 29 is it from now on because even at the commercial centre I still had to let three buses pass before I was sure of a seat. Public transport here may be cheap but when you are fat, old and have two heavy bags of groceries, standing is not particularly enticing.
For now, spring festival is up in the air
Another day, another dollar as they would have said in SSM when I had the best job imaginable.
That’s the beauty or the drawback of blogging in real time, you show your true feelings and that is why I don’t delete my entries even if I think maybe I should later.
It seems almost certain that the ice festival trip is off. The exam dates are still in abeyance. Joan screwed up with the dates but notwithstanding, the latest bollo*** would have scuppered my plans anyway money-wise probably.
The moment Joan finds out about the exam schedules will be the defining moment as they say. If she is free then I will do my best to protect my finances and still take that holiday. If not then I have to cancel everything and recoup what I can.
But I am damned if I will let all these setbacks prevent me from having at least a short break elsewhere. Plan B is now to take Joan to Nanning if it all goes wrong. There are still flights, provided we find out the exam schedule soon. I mean, they start in three weeks so of course they will be published soon, won’t they??? Don’t hold your breath.
If I don’t get to see the ice festival and my very generous Hilton friend then of course on the disappointment richter scale it measures a full ten. But. I have envisaged this coming ever since Joan confessed, sadly only after the flights were paid for and which will now cost me dearly to cancel.
There are still flights to Nanning at reasonable prices, I may be able to contact old friends from the Jinhua hotel and of course if we do go then I have to show Joan Yangmei - of cow taxi fame.
You know when life pisses you off and you want to stick two fingers up to it? Well right now that is me. I will fight and probably lose as I am not on home turf but at least I will fight (QYLMBS for the OCs reading!) and by God I will enjoy the scrap and the journey to oblivion or a new life even though there will be much sadness on the way.
I never got to see the new witch - sorry, Dean - today. I needed to shop in town (zero wine stocks) and the electrician was late coming to replace the starters in two of my fluorescent strips. I could have done it myself but they aren’t like the ones I know, the entire assembly has to come down and the starters are as nothing I have seen previously. One would have thought with such hassle involved (he needed to use a table because my chair wasn’t high enough) they would provide more robust stuff but no, maybe starters have to retire at 60 too!
Anyway I did go to town to get my shopping and that’s the last time I take the number ten bus the wrong way. It turns right at the commercial centre so to carry out my dastardly act I have to get off there. The number 29 on the other hand goes straight over. The 29 is it from now on because even at the commercial centre I still had to let three buses pass before I was sure of a seat. Public transport here may be cheap but when you are fat, old and have two heavy bags of groceries, standing is not particularly enticing.
For now, spring festival is up in the air
Monday, 14 December 2015
Monday 14th December. 2015 2120
I am not feeling sorry for myself but the reality is that absolutely everything seems to be going to hell in a handbasket of late.
They are divesting me of my students to replace them with a new intake, I have lost my cleaner (although I have found another), I have an anonymous arsehole sending me death threats and the best the school’s attache to me can suggest is leave it to him.
And then I went to see the new Dean this afternoon to ask why my classes were being swapped but the first thing she asked was if I had seen the photos? What photos? No.
The reason for the swapping of my classes? Because I hit 60 next term. Why they had to take my classes away is beyond me but you could say that I am not very happy about being given the boot after six years just because I will be a year older.
Of course I will do my best to fight it but this being China ultimately I feel I will lose the battle. I contacted Anthony regarding the above plus the fact the electrician never came to fix one of the lights in my home. He wanted to come for a chat.
That took place at seven this evening. First on his agenda were some photos - the ones the Dean had obviously enquired about - and he asked me where they were taken. I looked and looked again and asked him to enlarge them, these photos were lifted from the internet and there I am, large as life. The more photos he showed me the more I recognised where they were taken.
My classroom here.
Score one for me on this occasion against bosses who don’t even know their own school.
Small consolation when the threat of having to relocate and throw five cats out to fend for themselves will loom large for the next seven months.
Yes I will do my best to stay but I also have to face the prospect of a very inconvenient move. I have contacts who may be able to help but I can’t say I am confident of success. Now I must also seriously reconsider the Harbin trip. If I have to leave I must pay for shipping all my worldly goods and the prospect of staying in an hotel during the summer with the added problem of not being paid for two months. I’m not sure I can take the risk of spending a bomb on a holiday and leaving myself penniless once I am out on my ear, not to mention having to buy new gear wherever I fetch up.
They say it never rains but it pours but never in my life have I had such a deluge all at the same time.
I am not feeling sorry for myself but the reality is that absolutely everything seems to be going to hell in a handbasket of late.
They are divesting me of my students to replace them with a new intake, I have lost my cleaner (although I have found another), I have an anonymous arsehole sending me death threats and the best the school’s attache to me can suggest is leave it to him.
And then I went to see the new Dean this afternoon to ask why my classes were being swapped but the first thing she asked was if I had seen the photos? What photos? No.
The reason for the swapping of my classes? Because I hit 60 next term. Why they had to take my classes away is beyond me but you could say that I am not very happy about being given the boot after six years just because I will be a year older.
Of course I will do my best to fight it but this being China ultimately I feel I will lose the battle. I contacted Anthony regarding the above plus the fact the electrician never came to fix one of the lights in my home. He wanted to come for a chat.
That took place at seven this evening. First on his agenda were some photos - the ones the Dean had obviously enquired about - and he asked me where they were taken. I looked and looked again and asked him to enlarge them, these photos were lifted from the internet and there I am, large as life. The more photos he showed me the more I recognised where they were taken.
My classroom here.
Score one for me on this occasion against bosses who don’t even know their own school.
Small consolation when the threat of having to relocate and throw five cats out to fend for themselves will loom large for the next seven months.
Yes I will do my best to stay but I also have to face the prospect of a very inconvenient move. I have contacts who may be able to help but I can’t say I am confident of success. Now I must also seriously reconsider the Harbin trip. If I have to leave I must pay for shipping all my worldly goods and the prospect of staying in an hotel during the summer with the added problem of not being paid for two months. I’m not sure I can take the risk of spending a bomb on a holiday and leaving myself penniless once I am out on my ear, not to mention having to buy new gear wherever I fetch up.
They say it never rains but it pours but never in my life have I had such a deluge all at the same time.
Sunday, 13 December 2015
Sunday 13th December, 2015 1930
Even on days when I don’t have to wake up early I still do regardless of what time I turn in. I would happily pay to get one night a week where I could wake up in the morning feeling refreshed.
Of course by now my cold has reached the stage where the cough arrives so naturally today I have felt like a bag of rusty spanners. With payday being late again though I had to go and play games with small children, thankfully none of whom cried on this occasion - or if they did I was nowhere near.
Christmas? Talk to me about Christmas and the well deserved rest? Don’t give me apoplexy!
Next Sunday I am the Santa judge at a speaking competition, a week Friday the hospital thing and the rest of Christmas day is in flux. Richard is decamping to Changsha as I think I said and Andrei is sweating on getting his tourist visa extension, failing which he will probably be in the air when we are supposed to be eating, on his way to France to get another visa. Quite why the school can’t “employ” him as a supernumary with no salary so he can get the same residence permit as us, I know not. They certainly have sufficient guanxi in this city to push it through.
The foreign affairs bureau want to treat me to lunch after the hospital but there is no way I can eat both lunch and dinner so I have placed it in abeyance for now, instead saying perhaps I would have some nibbles and gallons of pijou, explaining why of course. If there is to be no foreign dinner then to hell with it, I will make full use of the lunch! I also won’t have to pay……
On boxing day I have been asked to go to Uncle Sam’s party for the kids as Santa. It’s in the evening and I can now make it because the Lingdian society has cried off due to many students having exams that day - phew. The only time I really get to do absolutely nothing is the spring festival and the weather is so bloody cold all I want to do is stay indoors anyway.
This morning I had the bright idea of cutting off the top of the exam marks sheet ready for photocopying in order to remove the old heading. Idiot that I am, I never realised that by so doing I would eradicate students 29 and 30 from the reverse of the page! Thankfully the copier people under the library saved the day and still managed to remove “Summer 2013” from the front page. I have extra copies now so in the summer I can get more made - who needs to be able to put something on a memory stick?!!
When I finished this evening I went shopping for sweet treats from Yumeic, God was it heaving, and they say the Chinese don’t eat sweet things, got a few bits and hit RT Mart but not for a lot.
The buses were more reminiscent of Indian trains so of course I cheated. The drivers are all getting to know me now but the one I caught tonight going the wrong way clearly didn’t understand my thinking and strategy. He obviously knew I wanted to go the other way and I am sure was trying to point out it was costing me twice the money. Whether I conveyed the message that I would rather sit than stand is debatable but I did my best.
So tomorrow sees what is probably my last week of classes with my chicks. I still want to know the truth behind it but whether I will get it is anyone’s guess. It has completely thrown all my plans and I really think it unfair on both sets of students but my contract simply states that the school will give me teaching work so I can’t rock the boat because “morally” never applies here, let alone attachment.
Such is life in the Middle Kingdom.
Even on days when I don’t have to wake up early I still do regardless of what time I turn in. I would happily pay to get one night a week where I could wake up in the morning feeling refreshed.
Of course by now my cold has reached the stage where the cough arrives so naturally today I have felt like a bag of rusty spanners. With payday being late again though I had to go and play games with small children, thankfully none of whom cried on this occasion - or if they did I was nowhere near.
Christmas? Talk to me about Christmas and the well deserved rest? Don’t give me apoplexy!
Next Sunday I am the Santa judge at a speaking competition, a week Friday the hospital thing and the rest of Christmas day is in flux. Richard is decamping to Changsha as I think I said and Andrei is sweating on getting his tourist visa extension, failing which he will probably be in the air when we are supposed to be eating, on his way to France to get another visa. Quite why the school can’t “employ” him as a supernumary with no salary so he can get the same residence permit as us, I know not. They certainly have sufficient guanxi in this city to push it through.
The foreign affairs bureau want to treat me to lunch after the hospital but there is no way I can eat both lunch and dinner so I have placed it in abeyance for now, instead saying perhaps I would have some nibbles and gallons of pijou, explaining why of course. If there is to be no foreign dinner then to hell with it, I will make full use of the lunch! I also won’t have to pay……
On boxing day I have been asked to go to Uncle Sam’s party for the kids as Santa. It’s in the evening and I can now make it because the Lingdian society has cried off due to many students having exams that day - phew. The only time I really get to do absolutely nothing is the spring festival and the weather is so bloody cold all I want to do is stay indoors anyway.
This morning I had the bright idea of cutting off the top of the exam marks sheet ready for photocopying in order to remove the old heading. Idiot that I am, I never realised that by so doing I would eradicate students 29 and 30 from the reverse of the page! Thankfully the copier people under the library saved the day and still managed to remove “Summer 2013” from the front page. I have extra copies now so in the summer I can get more made - who needs to be able to put something on a memory stick?!!
When I finished this evening I went shopping for sweet treats from Yumeic, God was it heaving, and they say the Chinese don’t eat sweet things, got a few bits and hit RT Mart but not for a lot.
The buses were more reminiscent of Indian trains so of course I cheated. The drivers are all getting to know me now but the one I caught tonight going the wrong way clearly didn’t understand my thinking and strategy. He obviously knew I wanted to go the other way and I am sure was trying to point out it was costing me twice the money. Whether I conveyed the message that I would rather sit than stand is debatable but I did my best.
So tomorrow sees what is probably my last week of classes with my chicks. I still want to know the truth behind it but whether I will get it is anyone’s guess. It has completely thrown all my plans and I really think it unfair on both sets of students but my contract simply states that the school will give me teaching work so I can’t rock the boat because “morally” never applies here, let alone attachment.
Such is life in the Middle Kingdom.
Saturday, 12 December 2015
Saturday 12th December. 2015 1300
That was a rude awakening.
As I blogged immediately prior to this, today was anticipated to be a day of simply doing nothing. Accordingly, I had a late one. As Joan wasn’t coming for my breakfast dinner I invited Anna, who also wanted to watch a film. After she left I stayed up - until 0400 in fact. What the hell, I didn’t have to get up, did I?
At eleven this morning I was dragged from sleep by persistent knocking on my door. I threw on some clothes and answered it. There stood Nancy, phone in hand and looking very “urgent” indeed.
Blearily I asked her what the problem was. “You are supposed to be meeting some leaders and your phone is powered off!” Well yes, it is always off when I go to sleep. Through the numbness of just having been hauled from a deep sleep I wracked my brain. I hadn’t arranged anything for today, I was certain! My memory isn’t THAT terrible these days.
So I asked who it was I was supposed to be meeting (all the time wondering whether I was already late and that if so, I would be later still because I don’t leave home without taking a shower first) and was shown a phone number which was alien to me. It turned out to belong to Kid, one of Kevin’s old students who graduated two years ago. He had been president of the student union and now works in the local government, someone with high ambitions who I suspect will thrive in the CPC.
I haven’t seen him in months, let alone made any arrangements with him. I asked Nancy to call him and find out. As she did so, two texts arrived on my phone (I had just switched it on) and they were from Molly. Was I up? Yes, I replied. There is a meeting about the Christmas day hospital visit, will I be free at 1430? Relief! Plenty of time to wake up and shower. It transpired Kid was also calling regarding the same thing. This being China, naturally it had been left to the last minute to approach ME about the meeting to discuss the matter and I will take the opportunity to apprise them of the fact that although I am in China, I am still a westerner and we do things differently! Anyway, I have no idea where they are taking me but it could be the TV station or to meet the businessmen who are hopefully stumping up the gifts or there again it could be McDonald’s. Either way, the hospital thing is a definite goer. I hope this cold disappears before a week Friday…..
No sooner had Nancy left than I got a call from John at the little school inviting me to dinner at a new restaurant near his school. It would just be with him and his wife. The odds are that he has caught wind of my other Sunday activity and his nose is out of joint. I couldn’t give him a yes or a no because I have no idea what is happening after 1430 but if I am not bought dinner then I will join them, I owe him an explanation, that’s for sure and I would have told him in time anyway but by Christ the grapevine here is pretty damned rapid!
That’ll do for now, shower time and try to be chirpy in an hour when the car arrives.
1445
So far they are fifteen minutes late. Mind you, I was only ready five minutes early and the Chinese are notorious for always being early. Another thing I have to tell them about English people is that we like to be punctual. At least I have had the chance to pop my laundry in the washing machine.
I made my form for the upcoming exams, no easy feat for me what with being computer illiterate but I failed spectacularly in endeavouring to put it on a memory stick to take and have printed off.
2100
So much for a lazy day eh?
Eight people turned up for the conflab about Christmas day. It’s definitely on and no they never took me anywhere so I had to take them to my classroom for the meeting. We now have six elves and their costumes will be ordered tomorrow. The “business angel” is a female manager of a local advertising and marketing company who are generously paying for the clothes and also the presents for the children and I doff my hat to her. Sally from the foreign affairs bureau is co-ordinating everything. All I have to do is look fat and have a red face. Hang on, I do that every day!
Halfway through our meeting I received two texts. The death threats have started again.
Now I am getting seriously hacked off with this prat. My assistant Anthony as always counselled caution, personally I want to find the guy and beat him senseless but I have given him one last chance to sort things out. After that the police will be notified. I couldn’t care less if the school finds out, unless giving someone the opportunity to earn 200y a month for at most 4 hours work is wrong then I have absolutely nothing to hide. He on the other hand is in theory committing a crime by potentially putting me in fear of my life. Sadly for him I am not in the least scared, simply angry and frustrated that I can’t get at him. I will have the last laugh, that’s for sure, one way or another.
On a lighter note, a rough plan for Christmas day has been decided, everyone knows what they have to do and I was sure to reinforce that Chizhou TV must call Prof Fang beforehand - if they don’t I won’t carry the can.
And so it was that I was able to make the dinner invitation from John. A brand new restaurant which opened a couple of days ago and to which I may take some students. A Chinese hotpot with a very Japanese gimmick. Instead of going and helping yourself to the food to cook at the table there is one very, very long table going the entire length of the restaurant, around which people sit with their own individual hotplates and pans. The food comes by on a conveyor belt a la Japanese sushi bars. Different and really cheap, 104y for three of us and the price is calculated by the number of empty skewers and bottles of drink you leave. I may well take some students there sometime.
All the while I was waiting for John to bring up the $64,000 question but he didn’t. In fact he never knew about it, the dinner was simply in advance of my playing his Santa next Sunday at his speaking competition. He knows now. We have been friends too long for me to be deceitful but at least he knows the full story from the horse’s mouth now.
He has other, more important things on his mind now, such as dialysis three times a week. He started this week (I did think he had a reprieve until next year) and now alcohol - he liked the odd beer but not to excess - and red meat are now off the menu forever. It is sad to see someone almost reduced to being a teetotal vegetarian. Were I in his shoes I think (no I KNOW!) I would rebel and suffer the consequences but then I don’t have a wife and very young child depending on me.
Joan was here a few minutes ago and I showed her the death texts. She implored me to make sure I locked my door. Cowards don’t frighten me.
That was a rude awakening.
As I blogged immediately prior to this, today was anticipated to be a day of simply doing nothing. Accordingly, I had a late one. As Joan wasn’t coming for my breakfast dinner I invited Anna, who also wanted to watch a film. After she left I stayed up - until 0400 in fact. What the hell, I didn’t have to get up, did I?
At eleven this morning I was dragged from sleep by persistent knocking on my door. I threw on some clothes and answered it. There stood Nancy, phone in hand and looking very “urgent” indeed.
Blearily I asked her what the problem was. “You are supposed to be meeting some leaders and your phone is powered off!” Well yes, it is always off when I go to sleep. Through the numbness of just having been hauled from a deep sleep I wracked my brain. I hadn’t arranged anything for today, I was certain! My memory isn’t THAT terrible these days.
So I asked who it was I was supposed to be meeting (all the time wondering whether I was already late and that if so, I would be later still because I don’t leave home without taking a shower first) and was shown a phone number which was alien to me. It turned out to belong to Kid, one of Kevin’s old students who graduated two years ago. He had been president of the student union and now works in the local government, someone with high ambitions who I suspect will thrive in the CPC.
I haven’t seen him in months, let alone made any arrangements with him. I asked Nancy to call him and find out. As she did so, two texts arrived on my phone (I had just switched it on) and they were from Molly. Was I up? Yes, I replied. There is a meeting about the Christmas day hospital visit, will I be free at 1430? Relief! Plenty of time to wake up and shower. It transpired Kid was also calling regarding the same thing. This being China, naturally it had been left to the last minute to approach ME about the meeting to discuss the matter and I will take the opportunity to apprise them of the fact that although I am in China, I am still a westerner and we do things differently! Anyway, I have no idea where they are taking me but it could be the TV station or to meet the businessmen who are hopefully stumping up the gifts or there again it could be McDonald’s. Either way, the hospital thing is a definite goer. I hope this cold disappears before a week Friday…..
No sooner had Nancy left than I got a call from John at the little school inviting me to dinner at a new restaurant near his school. It would just be with him and his wife. The odds are that he has caught wind of my other Sunday activity and his nose is out of joint. I couldn’t give him a yes or a no because I have no idea what is happening after 1430 but if I am not bought dinner then I will join them, I owe him an explanation, that’s for sure and I would have told him in time anyway but by Christ the grapevine here is pretty damned rapid!
That’ll do for now, shower time and try to be chirpy in an hour when the car arrives.
1445
So far they are fifteen minutes late. Mind you, I was only ready five minutes early and the Chinese are notorious for always being early. Another thing I have to tell them about English people is that we like to be punctual. At least I have had the chance to pop my laundry in the washing machine.
I made my form for the upcoming exams, no easy feat for me what with being computer illiterate but I failed spectacularly in endeavouring to put it on a memory stick to take and have printed off.
2100
So much for a lazy day eh?
Eight people turned up for the conflab about Christmas day. It’s definitely on and no they never took me anywhere so I had to take them to my classroom for the meeting. We now have six elves and their costumes will be ordered tomorrow. The “business angel” is a female manager of a local advertising and marketing company who are generously paying for the clothes and also the presents for the children and I doff my hat to her. Sally from the foreign affairs bureau is co-ordinating everything. All I have to do is look fat and have a red face. Hang on, I do that every day!
Halfway through our meeting I received two texts. The death threats have started again.
Now I am getting seriously hacked off with this prat. My assistant Anthony as always counselled caution, personally I want to find the guy and beat him senseless but I have given him one last chance to sort things out. After that the police will be notified. I couldn’t care less if the school finds out, unless giving someone the opportunity to earn 200y a month for at most 4 hours work is wrong then I have absolutely nothing to hide. He on the other hand is in theory committing a crime by potentially putting me in fear of my life. Sadly for him I am not in the least scared, simply angry and frustrated that I can’t get at him. I will have the last laugh, that’s for sure, one way or another.
On a lighter note, a rough plan for Christmas day has been decided, everyone knows what they have to do and I was sure to reinforce that Chizhou TV must call Prof Fang beforehand - if they don’t I won’t carry the can.
And so it was that I was able to make the dinner invitation from John. A brand new restaurant which opened a couple of days ago and to which I may take some students. A Chinese hotpot with a very Japanese gimmick. Instead of going and helping yourself to the food to cook at the table there is one very, very long table going the entire length of the restaurant, around which people sit with their own individual hotplates and pans. The food comes by on a conveyor belt a la Japanese sushi bars. Different and really cheap, 104y for three of us and the price is calculated by the number of empty skewers and bottles of drink you leave. I may well take some students there sometime.
All the while I was waiting for John to bring up the $64,000 question but he didn’t. In fact he never knew about it, the dinner was simply in advance of my playing his Santa next Sunday at his speaking competition. He knows now. We have been friends too long for me to be deceitful but at least he knows the full story from the horse’s mouth now.
He has other, more important things on his mind now, such as dialysis three times a week. He started this week (I did think he had a reprieve until next year) and now alcohol - he liked the odd beer but not to excess - and red meat are now off the menu forever. It is sad to see someone almost reduced to being a teetotal vegetarian. Were I in his shoes I think (no I KNOW!) I would rebel and suffer the consequences but then I don’t have a wife and very young child depending on me.
Joan was here a few minutes ago and I showed her the death texts. She implored me to make sure I locked my door. Cowards don’t frighten me.
Friday 11th December, 2015 1430
If you want to find something out, do it yourself.
On my return from a very frugal (no, the wages will be late instead of being paid early as I mentioned, payday falls on a weekend) shopping trip to town, I decided to go and visit the Dean’s assistant Jane. She texted me to say she wasn’t in the office this afternoon, so I decided to see the Dean instead.
She wasn’t there either. The lack of information/clarity/figures not adding up had been eating away at me and so on the off chance I opened the door to the large office Jane works in and although she wasn’t there, the department secretary was. Contrary to what I believed, she does speak a little English so as she is in charge of rotas and room allocation I asked her what on earth was going on next term.
The new Dean has decided to give all Richard’s classes to me and all mine to him! The reasoning behind it I can’t imagine (well I can….) but my own jealousy over my students aside, I am not sure how many of them will be overjoyed at the thought of a change of horses mid-stream. A visit to the Dean is definitely on the cards next week and although I have no power to demand anything I really want to know why this is being done. Once again thoughts are running around my head - there may be perfectly good reasons for all I know but my cogitations on the possibilities cannot be revealed here. It could well put me in a bad light!
It’s flipping cold here today, about the same as England at 9C and although I have food frozen (here’s one I prepared earlier) I froze enough for two in each batch, not knowing Joan was going to abandon me to swot. Tonight will be an English breakfast for one, being the cheapest option because all I needed to buy were bread and bacon. Bacon (Canadian style rubbish) can only be bought in town and the bread in the business street is quite simply, cake. They put things like red beans in it and turn it outlandish colours such as blue or green. Very appetising for a cheese and onion sandwich! It reminds me of that hideous special Big Mac they did in China for Hallowe’en - the bun was black!
Tomorrow will be a quiet day indeed for me if all goes to my lack of a plan. I need to try and knock up a form for writing exam results on (Kevin used to do that for us) and get it printed off under the library. I will go to the business street but that’s it. I have a nose that is leaking more than Edward Snowden (I have used a full family pack of tissues since yesterday lunchtime) but thankfully as yet no cough or sore throat have manifested. A snotty nose and occasional sneeze I can handle.
I read somewhere a while ago and it answered my hitherto unasked questions, namely why when you turn over in bed when you have a cold does the blocked nostril unblock and the other block and why when you sleep your nose normally doesn’t run? Not the nicest of topics but fascinating nonetheless, at least to me. I have definitely had more colds in the past fine and a half years here than I had in the past three decades, they must have different strains in China.
Saturday 12th 0230
I am still not going to say what I feel about the sudden volte-face with the teaching programme but when I told Kevin of it, unprompted, he confirmed what I was thinking. If we are both correct then both I and my students become - as the Americans love to say - collateral damage.
If our thinking is right then I am between a boulder and an iceberg. Where does my loyalty lie? With my students? With the school? That’s not a good quandary to be in and whilst I am loyal to the university to a fault, I will always back my students to the hilt. If they are my students then that’s it, like swans they are my students for life. I hope Kevin and I are both wrong and somehow I have a feeling that visiting the Dean won’t elicit the truth but you never know. If I do get the truth that we believe (and I doubt I will get the truth) then there is no way I will be able to divulge it anyway but really, it seems as if students are being put in the firing line here and that is not necessary.
Pure conjecture on mine and Kevin’s part of course and I hope we are both wrong and I can reverse the decision but I still have black thoughts about this situation.
You would think that someone who used to sail ships, leaving home at the drop of a hat to sail all over the world would not be bothered by routine changes. You would think someone who packed up shop and left an entire life behind over five years ago to go to another country would be unfazed by routine changes.
Well now I f******g am.
Sorry but this blog is warts and all and always has been.
It’s bad enough having the last lesson with each class when you are expecting it, let alone for it to happen prematurely. These children (aged 18+) come here and I do my very best to destroy what the Chinese education system has done to them, which is banish all curiosity and willingness to put their hand up to ask or answer a question. All their schooldays their teachers have told them to shut up, listen, read and take notes and the teacher should never be questioned - Confucius.
Well that’s why China has invented nothing (only copied) of note since paper money and dynamite.
Suddenly students are sent to me and they are terrified to speak. It takes a year to get a class to open up, some are easier than others and next term I was looking forward to some really good warm up sessions - I rarely stop them to start the lesson proper if they are in full flow. Now all my work (and theirs) appears to be for nothing.
Yes, the CPPC is probably reading this but to be honest I don’t care any more. They have a system which knocks the “mummy mummy what’s that?” out of the kids so that if they saw a three headed dog in the street they wouldn’t ask what it was. I came here to try to make a difference and I think in some small way I have done and am still doing, so did Kevin.
I would rather teach all ten classes than lose my own.
If you want to find something out, do it yourself.
On my return from a very frugal (no, the wages will be late instead of being paid early as I mentioned, payday falls on a weekend) shopping trip to town, I decided to go and visit the Dean’s assistant Jane. She texted me to say she wasn’t in the office this afternoon, so I decided to see the Dean instead.
She wasn’t there either. The lack of information/clarity/figures not adding up had been eating away at me and so on the off chance I opened the door to the large office Jane works in and although she wasn’t there, the department secretary was. Contrary to what I believed, she does speak a little English so as she is in charge of rotas and room allocation I asked her what on earth was going on next term.
The new Dean has decided to give all Richard’s classes to me and all mine to him! The reasoning behind it I can’t imagine (well I can….) but my own jealousy over my students aside, I am not sure how many of them will be overjoyed at the thought of a change of horses mid-stream. A visit to the Dean is definitely on the cards next week and although I have no power to demand anything I really want to know why this is being done. Once again thoughts are running around my head - there may be perfectly good reasons for all I know but my cogitations on the possibilities cannot be revealed here. It could well put me in a bad light!
It’s flipping cold here today, about the same as England at 9C and although I have food frozen (here’s one I prepared earlier) I froze enough for two in each batch, not knowing Joan was going to abandon me to swot. Tonight will be an English breakfast for one, being the cheapest option because all I needed to buy were bread and bacon. Bacon (Canadian style rubbish) can only be bought in town and the bread in the business street is quite simply, cake. They put things like red beans in it and turn it outlandish colours such as blue or green. Very appetising for a cheese and onion sandwich! It reminds me of that hideous special Big Mac they did in China for Hallowe’en - the bun was black!
Tomorrow will be a quiet day indeed for me if all goes to my lack of a plan. I need to try and knock up a form for writing exam results on (Kevin used to do that for us) and get it printed off under the library. I will go to the business street but that’s it. I have a nose that is leaking more than Edward Snowden (I have used a full family pack of tissues since yesterday lunchtime) but thankfully as yet no cough or sore throat have manifested. A snotty nose and occasional sneeze I can handle.
I read somewhere a while ago and it answered my hitherto unasked questions, namely why when you turn over in bed when you have a cold does the blocked nostril unblock and the other block and why when you sleep your nose normally doesn’t run? Not the nicest of topics but fascinating nonetheless, at least to me. I have definitely had more colds in the past fine and a half years here than I had in the past three decades, they must have different strains in China.
Saturday 12th 0230
I am still not going to say what I feel about the sudden volte-face with the teaching programme but when I told Kevin of it, unprompted, he confirmed what I was thinking. If we are both correct then both I and my students become - as the Americans love to say - collateral damage.
If our thinking is right then I am between a boulder and an iceberg. Where does my loyalty lie? With my students? With the school? That’s not a good quandary to be in and whilst I am loyal to the university to a fault, I will always back my students to the hilt. If they are my students then that’s it, like swans they are my students for life. I hope Kevin and I are both wrong and somehow I have a feeling that visiting the Dean won’t elicit the truth but you never know. If I do get the truth that we believe (and I doubt I will get the truth) then there is no way I will be able to divulge it anyway but really, it seems as if students are being put in the firing line here and that is not necessary.
Pure conjecture on mine and Kevin’s part of course and I hope we are both wrong and I can reverse the decision but I still have black thoughts about this situation.
You would think that someone who used to sail ships, leaving home at the drop of a hat to sail all over the world would not be bothered by routine changes. You would think someone who packed up shop and left an entire life behind over five years ago to go to another country would be unfazed by routine changes.
Well now I f******g am.
Sorry but this blog is warts and all and always has been.
It’s bad enough having the last lesson with each class when you are expecting it, let alone for it to happen prematurely. These children (aged 18+) come here and I do my very best to destroy what the Chinese education system has done to them, which is banish all curiosity and willingness to put their hand up to ask or answer a question. All their schooldays their teachers have told them to shut up, listen, read and take notes and the teacher should never be questioned - Confucius.
Well that’s why China has invented nothing (only copied) of note since paper money and dynamite.
Suddenly students are sent to me and they are terrified to speak. It takes a year to get a class to open up, some are easier than others and next term I was looking forward to some really good warm up sessions - I rarely stop them to start the lesson proper if they are in full flow. Now all my work (and theirs) appears to be for nothing.
Yes, the CPPC is probably reading this but to be honest I don’t care any more. They have a system which knocks the “mummy mummy what’s that?” out of the kids so that if they saw a three headed dog in the street they wouldn’t ask what it was. I came here to try to make a difference and I think in some small way I have done and am still doing, so did Kevin.
I would rather teach all ten classes than lose my own.
Friday, 11 December 2015
Friday 11th December, 2015 0130
No, not posting this just yet as there is little to tell.
No response to my offer of taking on extra work so far but that could be down to any reason. However I can’t just sit and wonder, it’s not in the nature of the beast so later today I hope to be able to catch Jane (the Dean’s assistant - who was also Prof Fang’s before she moved sideways) to ask what the hell is going on. Nothing makes sense and I seem to be the only person who has been told anything, even if it is extremely sketchy on the details - even my students are aghast when I tell them.
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark and I think if I am able, I need to find out.
The past couple of days have blessed me with weather to match my mood; cold, grey and drizzling constantly.
Still no sign of the exam schedules so the spring festival trip is now looking as endangered as a white rhinoceros. Online all the decent train tickets look to be sold out already meaning even if I go it alone I have to pray buses are available although a few days ago the new high speed bullet trains opened from here to Hefei, Nanjing and Anqing. They don’t show on the sites I use but maybe someone who books on Chinese sites could find me tickets on those.
I am fully aware of the old adage that life is a shit sandwich, the more bread you have the less shit you eat but………….
It really does hack me off when one week you can be really looking forward to something, the next worrying that the best laid plans are going awry and the next your employer changes everything without even giving any details.
I try to be the eternal optimist but bloody hell, sometimes it’s hard when so much crap is flung your way. I can’t blame Joan too much, what she said was in good faith but for God’s sake, their other exams start in three weeks and STILL nobody knows what the dates are!
So yes, I am right back to the mood when I was laid up with a broken pelvis, feeling rather sorry for myself and the situation again not being of my own making. Had I been impetuous and done a Cilla “Surprise Surprise!” then I would take it on the chin but no, and this year the adversity seems to be unrelenting. Couple that with the age thing rearing its ugly head soon and just turn the thumbscrew that little bit tighter.
On a lighter note, Molly the middle school teacher who has appeared in photos here, sent me a text during my morning class to ask if the “activity” (her word, not mine) was on December 25th or 26th because she wanted to be a fairy.
Suffice to say she now knows Santa has reindeer and elves rather than fairies so she went off to Google further. I am hoping Sally from the Foreign Affairs Bureau has persuaded enough companies to donate sufficient presents so all the kids get one and also that the local TV company (if they film) call Prof Fang first - she is very particular about that. Not that the school can have any complaints, in previous appearances (and in the papers) I have never placed them in an embarrassing situation. I think I have been on TV four times so far but only seen one myself by chance in a restaurant and the other afterwards by link.
Payday is supposed to be Saturday but of course admin won’t be working so I’m not counting on getting it the western way tomorrow, instead I will lay odds it will be Monday. I am short, having forked out for flights that may never be taken but with care I can last until Monday, my coin jars may have to come to the rescue but I hate raiding them for anything other than bus fares. I nearly made it to 1,000y once so that’s my target.
Ok I know, I wasn’t posting but I have drivelled on enough to make it long enough!
No, not posting this just yet as there is little to tell.
No response to my offer of taking on extra work so far but that could be down to any reason. However I can’t just sit and wonder, it’s not in the nature of the beast so later today I hope to be able to catch Jane (the Dean’s assistant - who was also Prof Fang’s before she moved sideways) to ask what the hell is going on. Nothing makes sense and I seem to be the only person who has been told anything, even if it is extremely sketchy on the details - even my students are aghast when I tell them.
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark and I think if I am able, I need to find out.
The past couple of days have blessed me with weather to match my mood; cold, grey and drizzling constantly.
Still no sign of the exam schedules so the spring festival trip is now looking as endangered as a white rhinoceros. Online all the decent train tickets look to be sold out already meaning even if I go it alone I have to pray buses are available although a few days ago the new high speed bullet trains opened from here to Hefei, Nanjing and Anqing. They don’t show on the sites I use but maybe someone who books on Chinese sites could find me tickets on those.
I am fully aware of the old adage that life is a shit sandwich, the more bread you have the less shit you eat but………….
It really does hack me off when one week you can be really looking forward to something, the next worrying that the best laid plans are going awry and the next your employer changes everything without even giving any details.
I try to be the eternal optimist but bloody hell, sometimes it’s hard when so much crap is flung your way. I can’t blame Joan too much, what she said was in good faith but for God’s sake, their other exams start in three weeks and STILL nobody knows what the dates are!
So yes, I am right back to the mood when I was laid up with a broken pelvis, feeling rather sorry for myself and the situation again not being of my own making. Had I been impetuous and done a Cilla “Surprise Surprise!” then I would take it on the chin but no, and this year the adversity seems to be unrelenting. Couple that with the age thing rearing its ugly head soon and just turn the thumbscrew that little bit tighter.
On a lighter note, Molly the middle school teacher who has appeared in photos here, sent me a text during my morning class to ask if the “activity” (her word, not mine) was on December 25th or 26th because she wanted to be a fairy.
Suffice to say she now knows Santa has reindeer and elves rather than fairies so she went off to Google further. I am hoping Sally from the Foreign Affairs Bureau has persuaded enough companies to donate sufficient presents so all the kids get one and also that the local TV company (if they film) call Prof Fang first - she is very particular about that. Not that the school can have any complaints, in previous appearances (and in the papers) I have never placed them in an embarrassing situation. I think I have been on TV four times so far but only seen one myself by chance in a restaurant and the other afterwards by link.
Payday is supposed to be Saturday but of course admin won’t be working so I’m not counting on getting it the western way tomorrow, instead I will lay odds it will be Monday. I am short, having forked out for flights that may never be taken but with care I can last until Monday, my coin jars may have to come to the rescue but I hate raiding them for anything other than bus fares. I nearly made it to 1,000y once so that’s my target.
Ok I know, I wasn’t posting but I have drivelled on enough to make it long enough!
Thursday, 10 December 2015
Wednesday 9th December, 2015 1215
I am always apprehensive when a teaching assistant phones me, you never know whether it will be good, bad or indifferent.
It was bad.
I’m not even sure I was given all the correct information but what I was given was not music to my ears. Apparently the school has changed the curriculum so that instead of two years of oral English classes the students will now drop down to eighteen months. When I first started they had two years, a break of one term and then a final bout. Then it dropped to two years and now?
Which means my last lessons with my five classes are next week.
I was also told next term I would probably have four classes and when I asked where were the students coming from I was told I would take Richard’s classes. So I asked if Richard was leaving? No, he will have other classes. Where the hell they are coming from I can’t imagine but I just checked his schedule and in fact he also has five classes this semester so something doesn’t add up. I will need to clarify that with Anthony.
It has however made me downcast. Finally I have turned all my classes into reasonably active and enjoyable ones and I am to lose them. I feel miserable.
2330
Anthony could shed no light on what’s happening other than to reiterate I will have just the four classes after spring festival. After class this afternoon I had a rare sighting of the lesser spotted Richard (for someone who lives next door I never see him from one week to the next) and he has heard nothing so I am no wiser.
Joan however came for a shower tonight and imparted the information that next term they have public speaking classes. Maybe that’s it and a Chinese teacher will take them but that doesn’t explain where the extra students are going to come from half way through an academic year.
Now if foreign teachers had any form of job security beyond an annual contract my mind might disengage overdrive but given that in five months I hit the deadly (here) six-oh perhaps you may understand. Life has taught me to be suspicious anyway and this is amplified in a country such as China.
I will find out because I need to know. In the meantime I have texted Anthony to say that if it helps then I am willing to continue teaching my current students and take on another 80% workload. It would be gruelling considering for the past 18 months I have had it easy but 9 classes a week is still less than the eleven I did a couple of years ago. I have had no answer to my offer and if none is forthcoming then I shall start being proactive in finding out just what is what.
The Chinese teachers understandably haven’t a clue how at least this foreigner feels when there is a sudden and unexplained change, they have something we don’t, a sinecure that makes them extremely difficult to sack - they have to almost commit murder for that to happen. We on the other hand can be dispensed of at will and on a trumped up reason. Kevin and I were (and for now I still am!) the great survivors here. Others didn’t fare so well.
So what else?
I haven’t heard anything more about the kindergarten Santa gig but I am sure I will get a call from Helen nearer the time, I just hope it doesn’t clash with anything else. John’s school wants a Santa speaking judge on the Sunday before Christmas so for that I will ensure I am free. The Lingdian society want to throw a party for the foreigners on Christmas day but I told them I was busy so it may be Boxing day.
Christmas day itself is now, in the absence of having spoken to Andrei or Juliette, up in the air. I have heard nothing of late from the Foreign Affairs Bureau regarding the hospital visit since Sally told me they agreed to it so in typical fashion I will probably be left in the dark until the eleventh hour. As for Christmas dinner, I have no idea if there will be one. If there is there will be but four of us because Richard told me this afternoon he will go to Changsha, which leaves Andrei and Juliette but I know not if they have other plans now.
Having no children and ergo no grandchildren, I am not particularly bothered, any other term and I would probably be teaching anyway but this year I am off.
We shall see what transpires. For now I am more concerned about what happens afterwards.
I am always apprehensive when a teaching assistant phones me, you never know whether it will be good, bad or indifferent.
It was bad.
I’m not even sure I was given all the correct information but what I was given was not music to my ears. Apparently the school has changed the curriculum so that instead of two years of oral English classes the students will now drop down to eighteen months. When I first started they had two years, a break of one term and then a final bout. Then it dropped to two years and now?
Which means my last lessons with my five classes are next week.
I was also told next term I would probably have four classes and when I asked where were the students coming from I was told I would take Richard’s classes. So I asked if Richard was leaving? No, he will have other classes. Where the hell they are coming from I can’t imagine but I just checked his schedule and in fact he also has five classes this semester so something doesn’t add up. I will need to clarify that with Anthony.
It has however made me downcast. Finally I have turned all my classes into reasonably active and enjoyable ones and I am to lose them. I feel miserable.
2330
Anthony could shed no light on what’s happening other than to reiterate I will have just the four classes after spring festival. After class this afternoon I had a rare sighting of the lesser spotted Richard (for someone who lives next door I never see him from one week to the next) and he has heard nothing so I am no wiser.
Joan however came for a shower tonight and imparted the information that next term they have public speaking classes. Maybe that’s it and a Chinese teacher will take them but that doesn’t explain where the extra students are going to come from half way through an academic year.
Now if foreign teachers had any form of job security beyond an annual contract my mind might disengage overdrive but given that in five months I hit the deadly (here) six-oh perhaps you may understand. Life has taught me to be suspicious anyway and this is amplified in a country such as China.
I will find out because I need to know. In the meantime I have texted Anthony to say that if it helps then I am willing to continue teaching my current students and take on another 80% workload. It would be gruelling considering for the past 18 months I have had it easy but 9 classes a week is still less than the eleven I did a couple of years ago. I have had no answer to my offer and if none is forthcoming then I shall start being proactive in finding out just what is what.
The Chinese teachers understandably haven’t a clue how at least this foreigner feels when there is a sudden and unexplained change, they have something we don’t, a sinecure that makes them extremely difficult to sack - they have to almost commit murder for that to happen. We on the other hand can be dispensed of at will and on a trumped up reason. Kevin and I were (and for now I still am!) the great survivors here. Others didn’t fare so well.
So what else?
I haven’t heard anything more about the kindergarten Santa gig but I am sure I will get a call from Helen nearer the time, I just hope it doesn’t clash with anything else. John’s school wants a Santa speaking judge on the Sunday before Christmas so for that I will ensure I am free. The Lingdian society want to throw a party for the foreigners on Christmas day but I told them I was busy so it may be Boxing day.
Christmas day itself is now, in the absence of having spoken to Andrei or Juliette, up in the air. I have heard nothing of late from the Foreign Affairs Bureau regarding the hospital visit since Sally told me they agreed to it so in typical fashion I will probably be left in the dark until the eleventh hour. As for Christmas dinner, I have no idea if there will be one. If there is there will be but four of us because Richard told me this afternoon he will go to Changsha, which leaves Andrei and Juliette but I know not if they have other plans now.
Having no children and ergo no grandchildren, I am not particularly bothered, any other term and I would probably be teaching anyway but this year I am off.
We shall see what transpires. For now I am more concerned about what happens afterwards.
Tuesday, 8 December 2015
Tuesday 8th December, 2015 1300
Yesterday was not a good day. On Sunday night I baked bread pudding in preparation for Vivi’s customary Monday visit. I taught in the morning and when I came home at lunchtime I bagged up a couple of kilos for her and took it with me to afternoon class. I sent her a text telling her not to be late again as I had dinner to cook.
On finishing my class I went as usual to my bike, hopped on, pushed back and turned on the ignition. I narrowly avoided colliding head-on with a pillar for, the second I turned the key the bike shot off without any input from me. I turned it off after the scare, checked the twist throttle and it felt “different”.
I then lined it up so that I had clear space ahead of me and switched on again. Once more the bike leapt forward and so all the way to the business street it was flat out and I had to check my progress using the brakes. I resigned myself to an icy ride to the repair shop sometime later this week.
I grabbed my shopping and then made to go to the office to meet Vivi. Switched on and…………nothing. Dead as a dodo. Marvellous. I had a carrier bag with about 15kg of shopping and was 2km from home. I don’t walk, let alone lug heavy bags! In five and a half years I have never had an e-bike that refused to go (flat tyres don’t count) and now twice in a month, although I can’t blame the bike for the cable cutting episode.
I pushed the bike to the office (about thirty metres) and dug out the paperwork to find the phone number to summon help. No point in my making the call, even if they spoke English (which they don’t) I couldn’t tell them where I was. I could though use body language to get one of the waiters to call them for me, so I did.
In the meantime Vivi had texted me to say that despite my admonishment on this occasion to be punctual, yet again she was running late. Now, of course it didn’t matter in the slightest. I was going nowhere in a hurry.
The mechanic must have been hiding around the corner and he almost certainly never came from the repair shop, for he arrived in just ten minutes. Ok, he had to disappear twice to go and fetch things but fair play to the lad, he took the fairing off, snipped some wires and replaced both handle grips, restoring my mobility. The bike is a fortnight out of warranty now so of course I had to pay but I was highly pleased to only be asked to hand over 35y (£3.50)!!!!
The episode didn’t hinder the bangers, chips and beans though because we actually had that on Sunday when Joan changed her mind. Women. Instead we had the last of the ham with mash, peas and Branston pickle, a lovely filling meal and now the weather is colder, after payday I will buy a new bucket and plenty of pork because I can now cure it on the enclosed balcony instead of in the fridge - something I can’t when the weather is warm.
I was absolutely knackered this morning. Tigger rocketed into my bedroom last night as I paid a final visit to the little boys room and I was too tired to bother trying to evict him. I suspect he pestered me during the night as I shouldn’t have been that tired. At least I can take a nap soon.
During the class break this morning I was called upon to be an agony uncle again. This time concerning the angst of a girl who likes a boy who has a girlfriend but is too scared to tell him and she also has an admirer who was a high school classmate who she has spurned. She wanted to know what to do.
Of course, I am an expert in such matters, after all I must have fallen in love dozens of times yet never married and had my heart broken nearly every time to boot. But I will guarantee the girl will never ask a Chinese teacher the same question.
As Joan isn’t coming tonight because she wants to do intensive revising for the upcoming exams (I start mine in a fortnight) I decided I would forego what has become my habitual trip to town on Tuesday this term. I don’t need anything as I will make a breakfast for myself tonight and if I went I would only go to Yumeic for buns and I always spend a packet when I walk in there.
So I came straight home to find Richard outside the building with his new purchase. A second hand motor scooter he bought from a student for 1,000y. He was just leaving for the garage because it needs a damned good service. Students and adults alike in China never have their bikes serviced, instead work is only ever done when the things actually won’t run any more. Then they wonder why they flatten their batteries every morning trying to coax the engine into life and all probably for the want of a new spark plug. However, even if he has to spend 500y at the garage it’s not a bad buy.
Yesterday was not a good day. On Sunday night I baked bread pudding in preparation for Vivi’s customary Monday visit. I taught in the morning and when I came home at lunchtime I bagged up a couple of kilos for her and took it with me to afternoon class. I sent her a text telling her not to be late again as I had dinner to cook.
On finishing my class I went as usual to my bike, hopped on, pushed back and turned on the ignition. I narrowly avoided colliding head-on with a pillar for, the second I turned the key the bike shot off without any input from me. I turned it off after the scare, checked the twist throttle and it felt “different”.
I then lined it up so that I had clear space ahead of me and switched on again. Once more the bike leapt forward and so all the way to the business street it was flat out and I had to check my progress using the brakes. I resigned myself to an icy ride to the repair shop sometime later this week.
I grabbed my shopping and then made to go to the office to meet Vivi. Switched on and…………nothing. Dead as a dodo. Marvellous. I had a carrier bag with about 15kg of shopping and was 2km from home. I don’t walk, let alone lug heavy bags! In five and a half years I have never had an e-bike that refused to go (flat tyres don’t count) and now twice in a month, although I can’t blame the bike for the cable cutting episode.
I pushed the bike to the office (about thirty metres) and dug out the paperwork to find the phone number to summon help. No point in my making the call, even if they spoke English (which they don’t) I couldn’t tell them where I was. I could though use body language to get one of the waiters to call them for me, so I did.
In the meantime Vivi had texted me to say that despite my admonishment on this occasion to be punctual, yet again she was running late. Now, of course it didn’t matter in the slightest. I was going nowhere in a hurry.
The mechanic must have been hiding around the corner and he almost certainly never came from the repair shop, for he arrived in just ten minutes. Ok, he had to disappear twice to go and fetch things but fair play to the lad, he took the fairing off, snipped some wires and replaced both handle grips, restoring my mobility. The bike is a fortnight out of warranty now so of course I had to pay but I was highly pleased to only be asked to hand over 35y (£3.50)!!!!
The episode didn’t hinder the bangers, chips and beans though because we actually had that on Sunday when Joan changed her mind. Women. Instead we had the last of the ham with mash, peas and Branston pickle, a lovely filling meal and now the weather is colder, after payday I will buy a new bucket and plenty of pork because I can now cure it on the enclosed balcony instead of in the fridge - something I can’t when the weather is warm.
I was absolutely knackered this morning. Tigger rocketed into my bedroom last night as I paid a final visit to the little boys room and I was too tired to bother trying to evict him. I suspect he pestered me during the night as I shouldn’t have been that tired. At least I can take a nap soon.
During the class break this morning I was called upon to be an agony uncle again. This time concerning the angst of a girl who likes a boy who has a girlfriend but is too scared to tell him and she also has an admirer who was a high school classmate who she has spurned. She wanted to know what to do.
Of course, I am an expert in such matters, after all I must have fallen in love dozens of times yet never married and had my heart broken nearly every time to boot. But I will guarantee the girl will never ask a Chinese teacher the same question.
As Joan isn’t coming tonight because she wants to do intensive revising for the upcoming exams (I start mine in a fortnight) I decided I would forego what has become my habitual trip to town on Tuesday this term. I don’t need anything as I will make a breakfast for myself tonight and if I went I would only go to Yumeic for buns and I always spend a packet when I walk in there.
So I came straight home to find Richard outside the building with his new purchase. A second hand motor scooter he bought from a student for 1,000y. He was just leaving for the garage because it needs a damned good service. Students and adults alike in China never have their bikes serviced, instead work is only ever done when the things actually won’t run any more. Then they wonder why they flatten their batteries every morning trying to coax the engine into life and all probably for the want of a new spark plug. However, even if he has to spend 500y at the garage it’s not a bad buy.
Sunday, 6 December 2015
Sunday 6th December, 2015 1400
As I finally succumbed to sleep in the wee hours this morning I couldn’t suppress an inward chuckle over my comments regarding Richard. It suddenly dawned on me that Kevin, Ollivier and now my new colleagues probably thought/think exactly the same of me! Perhaps this is payback…………
Afternoon nap yesterday notwithstanding, it was a damned struggle to rise this morning. It was exacerbated by the fact I don’t want to do it anyway but I hauled my carcase into the shower which made me feel marginally more invigorated - marginally, mind.
That early on a Sunday morning I never needed to cheat to get a seat on the bus. The first class comprised seven kids and a parent I cajoled into joining to make up the numbers for a team game, ensuring she and her daughter were on opposing sides. It went well although their lack of English frustrated me most of the time.
One down, one to go.
Three kids this time so how do you make two teams? Rope in another mum! My biggest problem though was they were kindergarten age with stuff all English to their credit in my opinion. I did the best I could and there was one boy who was as sharp as my pocket knife (in Chinese though) and kept guessing the answers correctly, miles ahead of his classmates and indeed the mum.
This school has a reward system where they get Uncle Sam tokens, save them and then claim gifts depending on how many they have. I don’t give any out, I leave that to Kevin’s ex students who are the teachers.
I am terrible with kids. Never had any and definitely can’t eat a whole one.
This aside, I was completely unprepared when, five minutes from the end of the lesson, the bright boy erupted in tears, my guess is because the other team came up with “elephant” a nanosecond before he did.
Were this of vital importance or a tied competition then I could well understand this display of pique but the fact was, because of the crybaby his team were 6-1 ahead immediately prior to that. With little time remaining there was no chance they could lose!
The teacher called time a few minutes early to comfort the winner (I know, I don’t understand either and I shudder to think what happens when he loses!) and I left, professing that it was nothing to do with me to his concerned mater as she rushed to the classroom.
Every now and again life delivers me a timely reminder as to why I never made any babies!
The good thing was, I was finished before noon and had time for a quick foray in RT Mart and Yumeic for scrumptious goodies before taking a bus the wrong way to catch one going the right way.
Dinner tonight will be the rest of my cottage pie because Joan wants to eat college canteen slop when instead she could have had an English breakfast or bangers, chips, eggs and beans. No matter, it simply means the pie will not have to be dumped. When I asked if she wanted dinner tomorrow and offered the alternatives aforementioned, I don’t think she paused at all before blurting out “chips”!
Siesta time…………..
As I finally succumbed to sleep in the wee hours this morning I couldn’t suppress an inward chuckle over my comments regarding Richard. It suddenly dawned on me that Kevin, Ollivier and now my new colleagues probably thought/think exactly the same of me! Perhaps this is payback…………
Afternoon nap yesterday notwithstanding, it was a damned struggle to rise this morning. It was exacerbated by the fact I don’t want to do it anyway but I hauled my carcase into the shower which made me feel marginally more invigorated - marginally, mind.
That early on a Sunday morning I never needed to cheat to get a seat on the bus. The first class comprised seven kids and a parent I cajoled into joining to make up the numbers for a team game, ensuring she and her daughter were on opposing sides. It went well although their lack of English frustrated me most of the time.
One down, one to go.
Three kids this time so how do you make two teams? Rope in another mum! My biggest problem though was they were kindergarten age with stuff all English to their credit in my opinion. I did the best I could and there was one boy who was as sharp as my pocket knife (in Chinese though) and kept guessing the answers correctly, miles ahead of his classmates and indeed the mum.
This school has a reward system where they get Uncle Sam tokens, save them and then claim gifts depending on how many they have. I don’t give any out, I leave that to Kevin’s ex students who are the teachers.
I am terrible with kids. Never had any and definitely can’t eat a whole one.
This aside, I was completely unprepared when, five minutes from the end of the lesson, the bright boy erupted in tears, my guess is because the other team came up with “elephant” a nanosecond before he did.
Were this of vital importance or a tied competition then I could well understand this display of pique but the fact was, because of the crybaby his team were 6-1 ahead immediately prior to that. With little time remaining there was no chance they could lose!
The teacher called time a few minutes early to comfort the winner (I know, I don’t understand either and I shudder to think what happens when he loses!) and I left, professing that it was nothing to do with me to his concerned mater as she rushed to the classroom.
Every now and again life delivers me a timely reminder as to why I never made any babies!
The good thing was, I was finished before noon and had time for a quick foray in RT Mart and Yumeic for scrumptious goodies before taking a bus the wrong way to catch one going the right way.
Dinner tonight will be the rest of my cottage pie because Joan wants to eat college canteen slop when instead she could have had an English breakfast or bangers, chips, eggs and beans. No matter, it simply means the pie will not have to be dumped. When I asked if she wanted dinner tomorrow and offered the alternatives aforementioned, I don’t think she paused at all before blurting out “chips”!
Siesta time…………..
Sunday 6th December, 2015 0130
Yes, late again but I had to stay up late to hang Joan’s laundry up to dry after she started the washing machine very late. Off to Uncle Sam’s early (for me) in the morning but at least I will be finished by noon,
I met Kevin in McDonald’s this morning at 1120. Disappointing, as I had told him the special was currently the double burger with German sausage and mustard. I didn’t want one (not that hungry) but on the bus yesterday I had seen the sign on the window going past on the bus.
They must have changed the menu overnight.
There were no marshals or queues for the buses from school today so there must have been VIPs prowling yesterday. Pity.
Of course the good thing about today was that although I had no intention of going to town I was forced to - Kevin had made the trip and I would have felt like a bag of manure had I not met up with him. Not only that, I could buy a decent quantity of wine because I was getting a lift back instead of bussing it.
No offence to my current foreign colleagues here, two of whom will read this, but we both complained that life was not the same for either of us. For him, he has been parked in old accommodation half a mile away from all the other foreign teachers in Huangshan (although I know there are some he would rather be further away from) and as for me, well I am getting very little interaction with my own “species”.
That sounds idiotic and probably is and of course none of the other foreigners here are cut from my cloth. Andrei and Juliette are great and of course being a couple they are hardly going to want to interact very much with an old corpulent Englishman. Richard is young and I have to say it, prickly, so much so that in his company I find myself keeping my guard up the entire time in his company because I never know when a chance remark will be pounced upon. I can hold my own but I like to relax - he’s like the sleeping cobra in the corner and you never know which comment will invite a strike.
With Kevin it was much more clear cut - nearly everything I said was challenged and vice versa so we had some magnificent (and to the students present, most unseemly and unholy) rows but I miss them! And you know, Ollivier had verbal diarrhoea 24 hours a day but he is sorely missed as well.
I miss my old colleagues and yes, they were and still are friends, life is not the same. It was never going to be and I must be thankful that my first job teaching abroad pitted me against that irascible, impossible, irritating, balding guy I call my friend, Kevin, and later Ollivier who drove me to distraction but both of whom would have done anything for me and it was one for all and all for one.
Andrei and Juliette (and Richard if they relay this, as they surely will) may take it as a slight but it is not intended as such. The nearest to my age is Andrei and he is still younger than Ollivier (just) while Juliette and Richard are mid-twenties. To them I am an old fart and I have never considered myself as such until this very moment.
So anyway, back to what I was working up to before I sidetracked myself and probably alienated myself from my fellow westerners forever!
The ice festival trip.
Changing everything by a week for both of us is, economically, not feasible. I have explored every option and short of waiting on a knife edge to see if we can bag bargains three days before travel - not my style - we are cattle trucked
However, I am nothing if not a thinker. My father often used to tell me I was “cack handed” and he was 100% right, my hands have only ever been useful for writing or taking sun sights at sea.
Rather than incur hideous additional expense I have a new plan. I can go as intended, sadly seeing the ice city alone but Joan can come a day or two later and catch me up in Shenyang. I reckon the damage for that will be 1,500y and sadly she will also see it solo but at least she will see it and still get to see Nanjing. It’s that or I cancel the entire thing and take a “haircut” but for five years I have wanted to do this.
But.
The exam schedule is still not set in stone, so who knows? The original plan may be on but if not I now have a plan B.
Yes, late again but I had to stay up late to hang Joan’s laundry up to dry after she started the washing machine very late. Off to Uncle Sam’s early (for me) in the morning but at least I will be finished by noon,
I met Kevin in McDonald’s this morning at 1120. Disappointing, as I had told him the special was currently the double burger with German sausage and mustard. I didn’t want one (not that hungry) but on the bus yesterday I had seen the sign on the window going past on the bus.
They must have changed the menu overnight.
There were no marshals or queues for the buses from school today so there must have been VIPs prowling yesterday. Pity.
Of course the good thing about today was that although I had no intention of going to town I was forced to - Kevin had made the trip and I would have felt like a bag of manure had I not met up with him. Not only that, I could buy a decent quantity of wine because I was getting a lift back instead of bussing it.
No offence to my current foreign colleagues here, two of whom will read this, but we both complained that life was not the same for either of us. For him, he has been parked in old accommodation half a mile away from all the other foreign teachers in Huangshan (although I know there are some he would rather be further away from) and as for me, well I am getting very little interaction with my own “species”.
That sounds idiotic and probably is and of course none of the other foreigners here are cut from my cloth. Andrei and Juliette are great and of course being a couple they are hardly going to want to interact very much with an old corpulent Englishman. Richard is young and I have to say it, prickly, so much so that in his company I find myself keeping my guard up the entire time in his company because I never know when a chance remark will be pounced upon. I can hold my own but I like to relax - he’s like the sleeping cobra in the corner and you never know which comment will invite a strike.
With Kevin it was much more clear cut - nearly everything I said was challenged and vice versa so we had some magnificent (and to the students present, most unseemly and unholy) rows but I miss them! And you know, Ollivier had verbal diarrhoea 24 hours a day but he is sorely missed as well.
I miss my old colleagues and yes, they were and still are friends, life is not the same. It was never going to be and I must be thankful that my first job teaching abroad pitted me against that irascible, impossible, irritating, balding guy I call my friend, Kevin, and later Ollivier who drove me to distraction but both of whom would have done anything for me and it was one for all and all for one.
Andrei and Juliette (and Richard if they relay this, as they surely will) may take it as a slight but it is not intended as such. The nearest to my age is Andrei and he is still younger than Ollivier (just) while Juliette and Richard are mid-twenties. To them I am an old fart and I have never considered myself as such until this very moment.
So anyway, back to what I was working up to before I sidetracked myself and probably alienated myself from my fellow westerners forever!
The ice festival trip.
Changing everything by a week for both of us is, economically, not feasible. I have explored every option and short of waiting on a knife edge to see if we can bag bargains three days before travel - not my style - we are cattle trucked
However, I am nothing if not a thinker. My father often used to tell me I was “cack handed” and he was 100% right, my hands have only ever been useful for writing or taking sun sights at sea.
Rather than incur hideous additional expense I have a new plan. I can go as intended, sadly seeing the ice city alone but Joan can come a day or two later and catch me up in Shenyang. I reckon the damage for that will be 1,500y and sadly she will also see it solo but at least she will see it and still get to see Nanjing. It’s that or I cancel the entire thing and take a “haircut” but for five years I have wanted to do this.
But.
The exam schedule is still not set in stone, so who knows? The original plan may be on but if not I now have a plan B.