Saturday 24th September, 2016               1430

This place is really odd. By Chizhou standards there are a great many westerners (there would be, given the number of universities and colleges here) yet none of them seem to speak to other foreigners they don’t already know. I thought maybe it was just me, as a result of being in Chizhou with so few others, but it isn’t.

A couple of days ago I passed a girl in the supermarket. I never said anything to her as I couldn’t decided whether she was western or Chinese but after shopping for a minute or two I decided she wasn’t Chinese and so introduced myself. I forget her name but she was from Turkmenistan and taught I know not what. I am guessing she is here with a husband or boyfriend, for when I let her carry on shopping she returned quite quickly to ask me how long I had been in China. This is her first month or so. When I told her she asked me for help.

Oh no! Here is where my appalling Chinese is exposed! But no, she wanted to buy dumplings. Shouldn’t be too hard, should it? Not when there are frozen packets of them everywhere. Not that simple, she had noticed the meat ones all had pork in them and “we” are Muslim so I want beef meat. for the life of me I can only ever recall the meat being pork so I had to disappoint her and suggest perhaps she gets some minced beef and makes her own - not that I’ve seen any beef in that supermarket either.

On my way out shopping today I encountered two western girls walking in the direction of the campus. One was black and I guessed (wrongly) that she was Moriah, whose blog I stumbled across not an hour before. No, she is Denver from Florida. I did ask what her parents were thinking and why didn’t they move to Colorado when she was on the way? Probably not the first time anyone has said that. I forget the other girl’s name and she certainly didn’t sound American. They were by coincidence on their way to see Moriah and Jacob, they too being Peace Corps volunteers. It is apparent that these volunteers are a tight-knit bunch who keep in touch, although Denver is teaching on the far side of town the other girl is seven hours away by train and she only came for a weekend visit. Rather her than me. I did mention my observation on the fact westerners here didn’t seem very gregarious and they agreed, saying yes, they ARE really strange here.

At least I’m not imagining it!

So much for Janet’s exhortation for me to stay at home this morning to await my oven. It’s now 1500 and still no sign of it. I had entertained the notion of making a Sunday roast chicken dinner but have had to settle for hotdogs instead. At least they are quick and easy and I like them. Which reminds me, has anyone seen that thing an Australian has invented - the hamdog? It sounds (and looks) utterly revolting. Even the bun is shaped like an oversized watch and it begs the question as to how the hell do you hold it? Having said that, here I am in a country that markets pizzas with such toppings as durian fruit, strawberry and myriad others which have no business going anywhere near a pizza base.

A little earlier I delved into a website to try and find out what marks my students has achieved in the placement tests. Talk about making it almost impossible! There were 120 students from various countries (mysteriously all of them somehow being classified as being from Bogota!) and even when I narrowed the search to the European University of Cyprus I still had a load. Without their names (and rather unhelpfully some had entered their names in Chinese instead of Pinyin) it was futile. On Monday I will have to see if they can tell me their online enrolment numbers (haha! - I live in hope) but not one of the Chinese looking ones passed (surprise) and some of them were registered as low as 25%. I won’t allow it to drag me down though!