A good day of classes today, made better by the middle class presenting me with a hand-made wrist band to wear for dragon boat festival. The colour is “diamond something” and is supposed to bring me good luck in the festival. I shall wear it each time I leave home during the holiday. The last class presented me with a packet of Hall’s Original Mentholyptus lozenges! Unbelievable!
I use them a lot to prevent my smokers cough and yet they ordered one pack (2y) online. So thoughtful. If they had ordered a box for 40y I would have happily paid them.
On the way home we were only nearly killed once by an SUV owner who decided to pull out from a parked position right in front of us, infuriating me to the extent that I muttered “eff*** di**head” when I wanted our driver to stop completely after the near miss so I could drag the driver out by the ears and before knocking him senseless shout “Malagabee” at him. The more I stay here the more I am convinced I will either blog someday from a hospital bed or the grave and I will have not been involved in the accident.
Learning another language can be hard. Learning one that is related to your own such as German or French not so much but one which is far removed from your mother tongue definitely is. It is easier for females to learn, for some reason chaps struggle more. To truly have mastered a language (and I don’t think I did too badly by learning French, German and Japanese in my youth) you need to be able to think in the target language, rather than take it in, translate to English and then figure out your reply.
Well I can’t do that any more. The girl who plaited my wristband told me the name of it only hours ago and I can’t remember what it is called now. When the bus dropped me off tonight I bought my beers and jing jo and then, because I had eaten a chicken for lunch I decided to make myself a plate of chips tonight, I went to buy potatoes. The chap on the stall told me they were “chi yuan”. I know perfectly well chi means seven and proceeded to count out six yuan. One yuan being these days about 11p I was horrified when he complained I had short-changed him by one yuan. Liu is six, chi is seven. I know that perfectly well and yet my brain told me it was six. Seeing as this stall was the one that made 150y at spring festival when I liberated three pigeons, hopefully they won’t think I was trying to skin them for such a trivial amount.
Two of today’s classes had the topic of financial concerns. We all have them regardless of how much money we have, the concerns simply change focus and range between having enough to buy food, pay the rent or buy that new car we fancy. It got me thinking. I am waking in the night these days worrying about having enough money for all I want to do in the summer holidays! Oh, how many people in the world would love to have that as a concern??
My immediate concern of course is tomorrow morning. A new influx of foreigners
To Lanzhou and I am supposed to know everything about the city when the reality is I know bugger all except my usual haunts and runs. My students did give me the correct times for the trains and I now know which website to check in preference to the one that talks crap on occasion.
If the plane I am meeting at lunchtime is a little early then the Yellow River may have to wait because we can take the rail and then a taxi, if not we revert to my original plan. Either way I shall be busy now (and probably drunk) until Monday.
Happy Dragon Boat everybody!
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