Thursday 16th September, 2021 2120

You know you are viewed as decrepit when you are supposed to start work and they are telling you to take it easy.

Work for me starts next Thursday. They want me to stay in hospital for tests. For what? A Zimmer frame?

If for one moment I thought it was anything but a money-making exercise I might acquiesce. They simply want to milk it. Anyway, it turned out they didn't have any spare beds anyway! I declined regardless.

They have given me a medicine (well several) which is taken after mixing in a glass with water. Fungi-based and as much as I enjoy mushrooms, drinking that concoction I do not enjoy the hallucinogenic effects that come with it.

I am making light of what may or may not be a serious situation for me. As for what transpired both whilst the school posse was here and subsequently, I have eschewed the magic mushroom stuff I'm supposed to take so we shall see.

Sunday 12 September, 2021 2045

I know it's been a while but with a sore arm and a recurrence of my gastric problems from a couple of years ago I haven't felt up to much. Mind you, having been confined to quarters for fourteen days' self-isolation didn't give me much to write about either.

To be honest I haven't wanted to venture out, I still feel a bit shaky on the pins. However, school starts tomorrow. I'm not for once looking forward to it. Purely because I feel ropey although all credit to the school, all my classes are now on the ground floor. And not so many - 7 classes (two of them alternating weekly so 7 over time but actually taking 5 a week) and Wednesdays/Fridays off. Great if I was striding around carefree and not using an adjustable aluminium walking stick but not right now.

I set out with good intentions of posting this today but it won't happen. Stay tuned.

Monday 13th 2300

No I haven't stayed up late, I went for a nap at 1830 and corpsed until 2230. My sustenance today has consisted of Hall's mentholyptus, beer, jing jiu and a salt'n'peppered mug of Bovril.

I was absolutely convinced I started back today - I had read it somewhere I am sure - and indeed some classes had. Not mine. A waste of 30¥ and my time. It wasn't a complete waste of time however, I confirmed I now have serious problems getting about. My kids start next week but nobody saw fit to tell me until five minutes ago.

Depending on when I get back to sleep/wake up, I want to go to the big military hospital, I need help. Good enough for the PLA - good enough for me.

 

Tuesday 31st August, 2021 1500

On Sunday afternoon Brenda decided she would come and collect my passports, preparatory to lodging my application. No opening the door, put them in a bag and hang them on the door handle.

She collected them and whilst walking back to her car, called me. One thing she said was that prior to the restart all teachers needed to be tested for Covid on the first and second of September and that I should go to the main campus main gate either day. Hmmmm.

Hold on Brenda - I'm either in prison or I'm not? My being confined to quarters doesn't end until Sunday night. Oh. Quite what the point of getting tested before I flew back, double-jab and having a green code was for if I was to be banged up anyway I do not know. Now they are going to try and get a doctor/nurse from the Covid Crack Team to do a home visit on Thursday. It's enough to make me want to put a skull and crossbones on the outside of my door.

On a happier note, I have cured my throwing-up problem and am now eating normally. Well, insofar as calling toast with various things is normal anyway.

Brenda was also speaking of having a word with departments I teach for about lightening my workload. I say departments but as they have merged maybe there is now only one. I told her if there are seven freshmen classes then leave well alone, I will teach them as usual. That's not heroics, I will still draw the same salary!

0000 Thursday 3rd - Merchant Navy Day

We've had a few frosty days here at Chez Fatty. No idea what happened between Jody and Mrs Jing Jo but it clearly upset her. Certainly the woman can come across as brusque and offhand but I have always managed to keep her in check. Well, me or what I spend each week in there! Apparently it was all my fault and it took until yesterday for the atmosphere to thaw. Come Sunday I can get my own booze, thanks to Brenda today I have enough in stock to last until then.

Yes, she came today with a doctor who kept out of sight (I am guessing she was treating therm to lunch) and a nurse in a spacesuit. Christ knows what any neighbours who observed their arrival thought. Test done, Brenda went and bought me alcohol and ice cream to last until I am free. As I am tired of toast with everything, later today Jody is going to bring back some chicken chow mien, which she said wasn't too good - until I suggested we try it with Linghams and then things changed! Amazing how Linghams can transform food. And Chinese people.

A week Monday and still I only know of four of my classes - no sign yet of the English majors despite my reminders. The bloody Chinese teachers had their timetables before they even went on summer holidays! But oh no, some people think it's fine just slotting me in as and where. Well, they've come a cropper if they did because Dean Delia is officer I/C the lot now and she has laid down the law re no long lunch breaks or classes above the ground floor for me. Whoops! Best of all, my latest accident proves my fears were justified so I can refuse with impunity.

As for the recovery, slowly slowly but taking place. Saturday is I think four weeks on. At least I can sleep now.

 

Sunday 29th August, 2021 0330

No, not a late drinking session, (although I am drinking a beer because the swines have turned the water off, so no tea or coffee) I just can't sleep. What little shut-eye I did get was plagued with a bizarre dream wherein they had placed my bed next to an Airbus A380 and were expecting me to climb the stairs!

Apropos the errant Uzbekistani students, I suppose it pays testament to both the skill of the school negotiators and the fact that the police here (so often vilified as being Stasist by people who have never been here) are being incredibly lenient in that the transgressors escaped with a fine and a strict injunction to return home and renew their papers within one month. I have no idea of the size of the fine.

Continuing in the vein of Uzbekistani students, Jody has been asked to go to school today to help a different bunch. They need transfer documents in order to repatriate to university in Tashkent, leaving for good. Not her job but never accuse the Chinese of being reluctant to flog a willing - or even unwilling - horse!

As for me, I now have a 20¥ stool on which to sit in the shower. In small degrees I am regaining the use of my right arm and still-swollen hand, albeit not enough yet that I am still typing this left-handed. The legs remain a worry, although as Jody suggested yesterday that could be because for the past three weeks I haven't eaten enough to sustain a guinea pig. Yesterday I did manage to eat two slices of home made toast and marmalade without incident. The horizon just might be appearing.

With an awful lot of time on my hands, when bored with watching films, my thoughts often turn to retirement. Whilst after eleven years - after coming here for one! - I am reasonably au fait with, and very comfortable with in the main, China and the culture, maybe a move would be in order.

I have never said I would see out my golden - that's a laugh - years necessarily in China so once again I researched neighbouring nations. Since I last looked it seems that Cambodia now has an R retirement visa valid 12 months a pop. Handier than Vietnam where you have to leave and return every quarter, and warm.

I was looking at Phnom Penh hotels. I think it makes sense for me personally to be like Major Gowen in Fawlty Towers. No bills, no cleaning. No cooking either, sadly, and possibly still as yet minor internet interference. But only having to worry about laundry, medicines, getting fed and watered rather appeals to me.

I found a place for £270 a month. The Pickled Parrot hotel, bar and restaurant. Well, the name grabbed me!

 

Tuesday 24th August, 2021 1600

So remember I was admonished/lectured/ordered to return early and I refused? No sooner am I back than they put the school start date back a week! Also after all the flapping about me applying for my permit ie deadline yesterday - suddenly it can wait a bit. It does hack me off that everyone mithers me and it's their job to know the regs backwards yet I know more.

Last night thanks to Ibuprofen I got over three hours sleep before pain returned.

Jody has just left for the PSB. where a couple of foreign affairs girls from the school are doing paperwork. She has been asked as a teacher and as she has good English.

Why?

A load of the Uzbekistani students were rounded up in their dorms this morning and taken into custody.

Their student visas expired months ago and they should have gone home to renew before returning but they said flights were too expensive. They were granted no less than three extensions but are now taking the piss. The police have had enough.

I suggested she rip into the students - who by all accounts think it's a joke - for embarrassing the school and also putting their permission to run an international programme at risk of being revoked. They cocked a snook at China's laws - they don't apply to us - and now face consequences.

My guess is deportation, a fine, no graduation and barred from returning to China for five years. Serves them right, I have no sympathy - and I did teach them all!

 

Monday 23rd August, 2021 1230

Home

So the final Friday and Saturday nights I sat out. I think the others enjoyed it more without Grumplestiltskin tagging along, certainly they stayed out longer. At the bottom are some photos of their evenings.

Finally it was Sunday morning and time to head home. Nothing was left to chance. I had emailed the travel firm berating them for the fiasco getting me on the plane in Kunming and again stressed wheelchair and no steps. Alice had called China Eastern also to warn them as well.

And off we set, dropping her off near a subway station to get her train home. We arrived at Hongqiao in good time and by then our negative covid results were in. Wheelchair to plane they said but Lanzhou would be a tarmac disembarkation. They were working on arranging a hoist.

Then it was up, up and away, headed toward the Gansu deserts. Confident that all was in place for my arrival, I was not concerned when they told me I would be last off. Everyone else departed and a load of blokes in hazmat suits got on, bringing with them a small wheelchair. I hadn't heard the hoist in action - or seen it for that matter. During the flight I had considered trying to go down either backwards or on my arse maybe.

I qot in the wheelchair, no seatbelt and flimsy arms, and they wheeled me to the front. I asked the hostess when the hoist was coming?

No hoist.
Well how am I getting off? She nodded towards the half a dozen - admittedly strapping - lads.

Well how are they going to do it? She just smiled. I looked behind me at the mobile boarding/disembarkation stairs and they looked 100ft tall.

They're not going to carry me down are they???? She nodded.

What???? Fuck! I weigh 82kg/180lbs!

I looked at her and said now I really am frightened.

They then turned me facing forward! Nothing whatsoever to keep me in the chair, picked me up and then commenced three minutes of the most terrifying, sphincter-loosening experiences you can imagine. Someone would drop me, another would shout STOP! and a couple of times I was almost pitched out and down onto the parking apron.

It was only when they set me down and started wheeling me to my transport to the terminal that I noticed the bus was full of passengers from our flight - who had all just witnessed the spectacle. For once I was glad of a mask.

The bus never went to the terminal but some other building where I was left outside for ages while my paperwork was done. Eventually an ambulance came to take me to Jody. An ambulance with no tail-lift. And a 3ft lift for the boys. I collapsed in our taxi, thankful to be alive and going home.

I had nightmares last night.

 

Friday 20th August, 2021 1200

Once again apologies for the lack of entries but not only is it time-consuming but damned painful to do.

On Sunday we went to an exclusive Italian restaurant called Goodfellas. Alice and I split a lasagne and I managed half of mine - photos below. Embarrassingly, in the brand new car on the way back home my stomach decided to expel it. With no bag or anything into which to retch it became a frantic hand to mouth to tissue affair in order not to soil the car, successfully I might add. The next morning though Alice was looking for surgical gloves to use when putting the laundry in the hotel bag.

Monday Alice didn't want to play - traumatised no doubt - so we stayed local and went to the Big Bamboo. Tuesday it was local again to Bollywood where everyone else had curry. I had half a bhajia.

Wednesday they chose Chinese, none of which I even contemplated trying. If I can manage it there will be photos below. Last night was bloody Chinese again - not that it matters on hunger strike - and the one dish I fancied trying - pineapple pork -was off! I did manage some very tasty lobster bisque though.

Tonight the others plus Rinka are going to a steakhouse. I am swerving it for a few reasons, two of which are that I feel dreadful and I am tired of sitting watching people eat.

In other news, I got my second shot on Tuesday and Wednesday Alice and I went for a foot massage. I only wanted my toenails - by then they were talons - trimmed. It was great and not a pair of nail clippers in sight. I have been told I should get another covid test. I have no idea whether it is for Lanzhou/the school/Brenda. Bit pricey but Alice excelled herself by finding a service which, for a fee, will come to your hotel room to do the test.