Wednesday 2^nd May, 2018 1945

As usual, this morning was a trial to get up after four days without needing an alarm. Standing at the pick up point for the school bus I suddenly realised that it must be three weeks since the mob from the electric motor factory (the ones who I thought were teachers at first) had been there. Their bus had always arrived just before or just after mine and they recently had been given quite a plush new coach.

I can't imagine the pickup point has been changed for essentially a dozen people on foot, nor can I their firm having a shutdown when basically it is still rather cold – if indeed they ever did close for summer holidays, somehow I doubt that in China, the land where weekends do not exist. I am left wondering if they have gone bust but if they never return I will never find out.

Brenda called me in the middle of one of my classes this morning to remind me we are meeting in the morning for me to sign contracts and for me not to forget. I honestly believe she has no conception of what it is like being over retirement age in China, sweating on a twelve month contract and praying official government permits will still be issued. Of course I wasn't going to forget. To give her credit, I had told her I would be at her office between nine and nine-fifteen but she said make it nine-thirty. I pointed out that on Thursdays I already had to walk miles and travel up and down stairs to the top of buildings, tomorrow I also had to walk to hers and go up to the 4^th floor so I wanted to ensure I had time to rest between floors. It's not as if I get out of breath, it's the arthritis. You adjust and make allowances. She told me to call her when I arrived on campus and she would meet me with the contracts (probably half a dozen of them to sign in as many places again!) on the 1^st (ground) floor. I can handle that.

I must confess though that teaching the non-English majors on the little campus is getting me down. Quite apart from their innate resistance to answering any questions or actually livening up the class with some input I face another problem. Being irked by the wall of silence, I have now started, if nobody volunteers to speak, to select random students to ask relatively elementary questions of such as “Can you think of an example when an old person would need the help of a young person?”

I must have a built-in radar or they lie because all the ones I choose look blankly and turn to their neighbour for advice in Chinese. Considering they were taught English for several years before coming to uni their levels are pitiful for the most part. This having to pluck hens' teeth every class grinds and ultimately will far outweigh any other considerations regarding my continued tenure here – my age being the ultimate reason I did not look elsewhere last year. Who knows, maybe next term there will be another Cyprus MA class where they need to get their language up to scratch.

And when I came home tonight it was to find the first fifty yards of the market around the corner missing – they have put up screens while they tear it down. I have no idea what is happening, whether they will build proper little shops or whether the entire market is up for demolition is unknown but at present my walk to buy eggs, fruit and veg just got a little longer. I know they can't speak my lingo but I was there last night buying stuff to make pasties with and not a soul even attempted to warn me and everyone was their normal cheery self. Once again, time will tell.