School trip

Kunming has been looking lovely the past few weeks with the blossom out everywhere [and hordes of people taking photos, but I can't blame them and I have indulged a little myself as well...]

The weekend before last, several of the foreign teachers, plus a load of people from the Foreign Affairs Office departed for a trip to Xingping (to the south of Kunming). Though we did spend quite a lot of time on the bus (and a very nice bus it was too), we visited some really spectacular mountainous areas, ate some nice food and stayed in a couple of reasonable hotels (shame about the karaoke place on the floor below us in one of them!) It's probably a place I wouldn't have gone to had I not been taken there, so that's an added bonus. We also had a police car with us the whole time as the Head of Security for the university decided to come with us on a jolly. His flashing lights came in handy one evening when we were following him to find a performance place and he pulled off down a side road...

Still hot and dry here - especially in my apartment. I like the way I get the extremes of temperature up here. It's not enough that I have to climb four flights of stairs several times a day, but I also freeze or fry depending on the weather... Hey ho.

'Frustrating' or a variation thereof is definitely the word of the last few weeks. I like teaching. A lot. But I find it difficult and frustrating trying to teach students who blatantly would rather be anywhere other than in an English class.

However, I have my first visitor from Britain here, so thank you, Sally, for making the effort to come and see me and for bringing Cadburys chocolate with you!!!

Communication

Never easy, though it is getting better and some days I feel like I am really getting somewhere.

Still trying to get over a Chinese friend who wanted to do a language exchange with me, telling last week my speaking in Chinese was not very clear! (This is despite hardly ever having a problem being understood as long as I know the words for what I want to say...) This was followed by her daughter completely not understanding my trying to ask her 'Is the food nice?' (in Chinese). Now this is something I have said about a million times and up until now never had a problem being understood. Though it is of course possible her daughter thought that I was speaking to her in English!

But yesterday was good. I had a really good chat with a taxi driver who works on ships and has been to Britain and Ireland amongst other places. He also knew a few words of English, which helped matters enormously. I managed to answer quite a few of his questions in Chinese, understand what he said to me and even asked him a couple of questions of my own.

Then I had a brief chat with the woman who puts credit on my mobile phone for me. I can say much more to her than I could back in September, though that's not really saying much! It generally ends up being about the weather or something equally scintillating. Conversations tend to run their course fairly quickly when I have exhausted my limited vocabulary and selection of phrases. Oh well, it's still not bad. It's all progress, I guess.

A litany of mini-disasters and / or near-misses

Well, it's been an interesting day. The morning was quiet enough - doing preparation for the rest of the week. I should maybe have seen it coming when a [I presume] student kindly (!) told me when I could cross the road in front of the university. (Don't know how I've managed to cross roads by myself all these years). He then asked me where I was going and if I needed any help. Of course it was very nice of him, but completely unnecessary!!!

And so a list of what followed:

1. Lost a piece of paper on which I had written the information needed to buy a plane ticket for a friend who is coming to visit me.
2. Said piece of paper also had on it the names of recommended running shoes (I was planning to buy some later).
3. Handcream top came off and the handcream splodged out all over the inside of my bag.
4. Nearly got my arm stuck in a bus door as the driver tried to close it just as I tried to go through it.
5. Someone tried to rob me and actually had their hand in my bag - gave him what for when I realised!!

OK, so it's maybe not quite a litany and on the plus side I survived yet another day crossing the roads here, managed to buy both the plane ticket and also my trainers. Yippee! But I did end up walking home cos the buses were just too full.

Felt like more people than usual were staring at me today, though it might just have been that I was noticing it more. Seems worse when I have my hair down. When people staret I still often wonder if I have something on my face like a dirty mark, but I never do. Ah well...

Thinking about how my day has gone, it might be a good idea to move my mouthwash off the shelf on which I keep all my cleaning products.

What is it they say about life and a tapestry and something about rich or something...?!?

Working again...

I survived my first week back after a long holiday (it's ok, I'm not looking for sympathy!!) Classes went really well actually, though by 9.30am on Friday morning I was ready to drop. Luckily I have a long weekend - no classes now till Tuesday morning.

Thursday was the most crazy day: I started at 8am and taught till 11.20am, then again from 2.30-4pm. After that I went to collect my 'new' bike from a Chinese friend. It's fine - pink and the saddle is far too low, the handlebars far too high and it has no gears. However it was also free, so I'm not complaining. Came back here for dinner at a Korean restaurant, then a concert performed by a symphony orchestra from Hanoi (which of course we were only told about earlier the same day!) It was very good and made me realise how much I miss listening to live music.

Oh, and I found someone to go running with, which is cool cos Kunming is a great place to run - lots of sunshine and the high altitude makes it good training. The only difficulty I've had is finding somewhere to run. My new running partner runs by the massive lake here, Dianchi (where he also lives). It's flat, the roads are wide and relatively traffic-free and there are plenty of stalls selling water. What more could you want?

I think leaving this place may be harder than I thought...

'Humor is reason gone mad. ' Groucho Marx