Thursday 26th January, 2017                               0240

Well yesterday was the Chinese equivalent of the 22nd December in the UK. Just a normal Wednesday afternoon to go shopping to avoid the rush, yes?

God. I had already decided that I could get vegetables from the stalls around the corner seeing as they are still open for eggs, meat, fruit and veg but of course I needed supplies of grape juice and decent potatoes.

They had three weighing stations open just for veg (there was another for fruit) but they were still busy and it was time for me to turn green and expand to rip my shirt. After nearly 7 years here I am sorry but I still cannot abide people simply deciding they are next in the queue for service when there is a line of people waiting patiently. Even worse, all I had was one bag of spuds. Jesus did I send a load of people to the back of the queue! I may have made some friends in the customers behind me but probably more enemies in the people I shamed into waiting their turn. I am really past caring now about “face” because that, as far as I am concerned, is a myth, or to use the vernacular, bullshit. If they were so worried about face then they wouldn’t put themselves in the position of losing it but they do it all the time. Of course, the only reason I get away with it is because I am foreign, look enormous (albeit old) and more importantly I actually TELL them because the Chinese for some unfathomable reason simply accept it. I have never understood that and never will their acceptance that the bold come first. I reckon I had to pluck some virtual daggers from my back once I had queued for 5 minutes just to get my one item weighed and priced. God I wish they sold bags ready-priced.

Some meat, wine and a fruitless search for bicarbonate of soda (I still have that cleaning powder they say you can use for cooking). Then it was time to escape. I know not to go at lunchtimes but I really thought I had sussed out the right time, a few days before the big celebration when they all buy enough food for a month. If I am here next year then I shall be sure to batch cook weeks in advance because I merely lose my temper at queue jumpers.

Anyway, aside from the stalls locally I no longer have the need to go further afield unless I have an urge. I will probably go places though because the sense of isolation is oh so much greater than it ever was in Chizhou. There it was a month but a month when at least Chinese friends would invite me to dinners. Here my students have effectively left, Suzy goes to Beijing with her family on the 1st and the entire class leaves for Cyprus after that. My assistant has not contacted me apart from confirming receipt  of the exam results. I have to say I don’t think I have ever felt so alone in my life. However I will shrug it off, after all, when retirement comes that’s precisely what I will be.

Entirely unrelated to this blog, last night I watched an ITV programme hosted by Alastair Stewart  in which they show amazing footage from iPhones and the like. It was the very last segment that got me. There is a viral video on you tube which they showed along with some background information.

There was a chap, 79 at the time, who has Alzheimers. His entire life had been spent singing at working mens clubs, Butlins etc. Since his diagnosis his family had noticed he had become withdrawn and he had stopped singing at home. It took them a while to twig that it was because he couldn’t remember how to work the record player.

Anyway, the son took him to a supermarket to go shopping but put a camera on in the car and got him singing so he could show his mum. The old boy knew the camera was on and hammed it up but what a voice! I have watched it loads of times tonight and will sleep with kwondo, kwondo ringing in my mind. At the age of 80 he was asked to record a song and apparently got to number 3 in the Reddit chart (whatever that is).

Sadly of you aren’t in the UK you can’t watch the programme and if you are in China probably you can’t watch the YouTube footage but if you can, please do, it’s three minutes if you only watch it once!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IM9HExtnhY