It already feels like a very very long time since Christmas, which I and many others celebrated in a fine hotel, which laid on not just turkey but also lamb chops, prawns, duck, dumplings, tiramisu, salad, cheese, mashed potatoes, roast potatoes and some other food as well. Its taken me the better part of a week to stop feeling overly full, much to the concern of my ayi, who after the Boxing Day became very worried I was not eating properly.

Sadly, though, this is China, and life here barely even paused for Christmas - we were straight back into lectures on the Monday, and although we have a three day holiday for New Year, two of those three days are on the weekend, and then we have exams... Alas. However, the end is in sight, thankfully. Very thankfully - my patience with Chinese, and especially 8am lectures and my ayi spending half an hour attempting to convince me to have children is wearing very thin. She did get quite inventive with her reasons towards the end, but I remain firmly unconvinced. I have however almost finished reading Harry Potter in Chinese, an achievement which I am going to be quite proud of, and a whole new appreciation of Chinese onomatopoeia. My favourite so far is probably still 'pu' for the sound of a puff of smoke, but 'gulougulou' for the sound of a rumbling stomach, and 'kalakala' for things that go rattle or clunk is still pretty good.


Latest Chinese weirdness: the pavement trees. We had trees planted in our pavements, as you do in cities, in neat little holes in the pavement. One day, overnight, they vanished. They were not small trees, so they left behind them quite big craters in the pavements where the roots had been dug out. Nice, big, muddy craters for innocent people to slip into on the ice... Two weeks later, there have been different trees replanted in the holes. They are of the same size and variety as the previous trees, although they have not had the bases of their trunks painted white. In all other respects they seem to be similarly healthy however. As they are big trees planted into new holes, they also each have rudimentary scaffolding round the base to make sure they don't fall over again. If anyone can know any reason why all this might have been done, I would be interested to know. It baffled me somewhat.

Pantomimes and Promotions

In an attempt to foster community spirit, the students of Dalian Ligong Daxue have variously been cajoled, guilt tripped, blackmailed or plain forced into rehearsing and attending an end of term 'performance'. I will be dutifully attending tomorrow and anticipate spending much of Christmas Eve sitting in a chilly auditorium with a faint smell of rotting sunflower seed shells watching Russians mime along to Chinese hits. It'll be surreal, if nothing else. The hall appears not to have been used much in its 50 year history, and features moth eaten red velvet curtains, wooden chairs, an antique lighting rig now only capable of backlighting performers and a stage large enough to fit most of the audience on.

I'll be onstage as well, as the Queen of Hearts in a magnificent many tiered card hat in the Edinburgh students' rendition of Alice in Wonderland, and the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come in my class production of A Christmas Carol. A Christmas Carol is likely to bring new meanings to the word 'wooden', and has been a slightly fraught process. I'm mildly proud of having written the script, and assisted in the translation to Chinese, but co-ordinating a cast all of whom speak intermediate Chinese in a variety of accents has been tricky. I suspect the only piece of convincing acting will be Nigerian Scrooge attempting to actually pull the Korean playing his (ex) girlfriend on stage, and that might not really be acting... Also, in any sensible city of 6 million people it should be possible to find one shop selling facepaint. I fear the ghosts are likely to walk onstage tomorrow clad in sheets, eyeshadow, and potentially watercolour paint. My role as the Queen of Hearts however has been much more satisfactory - I am now very well acquainted with the Chinese for 'Off with their heads!', a phrase I feel sure I will find many uses for.

My host family have watched the preparations for all this with some bemusement - my host mother still tells guests the tale of the time when I painted a friend's face green, and covered myself in fake blood for Halloween. The card hat in particular has been the subject of some speculation. I did try and explain to them the story of Alice in Wonderland, but this just resulted in more confusion.

However, the main news is that my host father has just been promoted. He's delighted, as is my host mother. It appears that to get promoted he had to through some kind of self-assessment exercise which culminated in delivering a speech to the leaders along with the other 19 candidates, in what I imagine must be somewhat similar to a hellish Chinese bureaucratic version of The Apprentice. He was pleased enough that he read me the entire speech he had given to them, and was amazed when I understood any of it. I'm also delighted for him - he'd been so anxious about this promotion, and it's good to see him looking relaxed again.

Merry Christmas!

With love from the PRC...

Ice

It serves me right: I mocked Dalian for its lack of winter, balmy moderate temperatures, and questioned why exactly it had ski resorts just outside the city.

Hence, Sunday evening, it took revenge. Temperatures plummeted, it rained, froze, snowed then froze, and icy Siberian winds claimed the streets for their own. Monday's daily high was -7, and my ayi duly acted as though the apocalypse was nigh and we would all freeze.

More worrying was Dalian's approach to ice management. China not being a believer in grit, the streets around were transformed into an ice rink, made worse by the efforts of the shovel gangs to clear the snow (thereby revealing the ice beneath). Having slipped, stumbled and staggered my way home from school, I enquired why exactly China does not use grit - apparently it damages the roads. This is perhaps true, but the lack of grit on the roads probably damaged the local economy, as no vehicles dared the ice, and definitely damaged me. I have the bruises to prove it.

Thankfully, Dalian appears to be merely flexing its wintry muscles - temperatures are now back above 0, and it is all starting to melt. Now it is not quite so very cold, I am rueing the fact that I missed the opportunity to take pictures of snow covered Mao statues. He would have made such a good Christmas card.

Chinese Military Bases And How I Wish I Could Avoid Them

I've always been led to believe that Chinese military bases are things to be avoided. They tend to lead to getting arrested, deported, flung in jail, or merely vanishing entirely, all of which are not really things on my to do list right now.  My last year in China I survived quite happily without finding a single one (well, I used to laugh at the barracks next to my school who seemed to practise crawling all the time they weren't playing bugles). However, this time, no matter where I go, they seem to appear...

There is a military university which I accidentally climbed into just over from where I live, but it really started with the trip to Daheishan, a stunning mountainous area just outside Dalian proper. Having ascended umpteen perilous steps of doom up into the mist, we found a base just sitting there, complete with basketball courts in the middle of nowhere. Dandong had military bases aplenty - from the guards on the bridge over to North Korea to mysterious green khaki buildings behind a public park to the warning sign on the border next to the Great Wall. More mysteriously, despite the warning sign, there was no base to be seen...

Then again, perhaps a trip to Lushun (formerly Port Arthur) was not the best way to avoid military bases. Until VERY recently, it and apparently even parts of the area where I am currently living were off limits to foreigners, due to the extreme tactical importance of Lushun's harbour. Its history as a principal battleground of almost every war to grace these parts over the past hundred years or so may also have contributed.

Lushun hence turned out to be a bizarre mix of standard Chinese flat blocks and ex-colonial buildings with plaques declaring them 'Mainly Preserve Architecture of Dalian', including a very fine ex-Russian palace, presumably rebuilt by the Japanese, now a (shut) museum. It also featured statues declaring the friendship of the Russian, Japanese and Chinese peoples, whilst simultaneously trumpeting the glorious Chinese victory over the forces of imperialism and elsewhere a snake museum. With seals. And fake dinosaurs. Oh, and a few warships sitting at harbour in the bay, which I carefully did NOT photograph, a military base which we carefully did NOT enter and yet more military stuff over on the other side of the bay.

We did climb a mountain to find a 'Glorious Victory' monument built by the Japanese (according to the captions by the use of Chinese slave labour in order honour war criminals and imperialism - ever with the unbiased signeage, then, China), and facing it what looked supiciously like yet another a military base. On closer inspection though, it turned out to be an old rocket launching base, now with a display of Chinese military equipment from presumably either the Second World War, or the Civil War. I went and stood on a rusty boat platform to survey the terrain until I felt the metal start to give way beneath my feet... As a day out, it was gratifyingly surreal, and I made it home in time for tea and jazz bars later as well.

However, China, I am getting tired of finding military bases. Please hide them better in future.

For anyone in need of amusement:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/09/confucius-prize-china-winner

Dear, dear CCP, I really did think you were just a little smarter than this, but oh, how you make me laugh...

My life has just taken a turn to the strange side: I am now more or less directing a class end of term performance of A Christmas Carol in Chinese, written by myself in English and translated by a teacher who I didn't realise could speak English into Chinese, with a very diverse cast - Russian ghosts, Korean girlfriends and clerks, Thai Tiny Tim and a Nigerian in the lead role. This is going to be interesting.

I am also down to play the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland (organised by the Edinburgh students here), and am contemplating the creation of playing card headdresses.

I always knew Christmas here was going to  be surreal. I think, however, it may yet have the potential to be more surreal than I had thought...

The Mystery of the Disappearing Host Father

I'd been wondering for a little while where exactly it is my host father occasionally vanishes to. There are times when he is clearly not in, and yet I have not heard him leave, and equally mysteriously returns a short while later. I'd previously put this down to my own absentmindedness, but I increasingly became convinced I actually wasn't imagining things, and he really did vanish occasionally...

After much careful investigation* it turns out that what he in fact does is climb out of the window and shuffle along the ledge to visit his neighbour, a fellow cyclist. I feel I can be forgiven for not realising that this was of course what was happening as we are SIX storeys up. And its not a big ledge. I know. I checked.


*Well, sort of. The careful investigation in fact consisted of hearing someone scream outside my ayi's bedroom window, which on investigation turned out to be the neighbour himself, who had shuffled over to visit us and found the window to be locked. Typically, the three of them spent 15 minutes discussing me, knowing I could understand every word they said, until I escaped with my ears burning and a newly enchanced reputation for untidiness to go and play badminton.

My Ayi and North Korea

Unusually for my ayi, she broke silence on politics long enough to tell me that the whole affair was America's fault, as America always wants to fight, and to poke its nose into the business of others. She described America as 'the world's policeman', and not in a polite sense... She followed this tirade up with telling me emphatically that Scottish is not a nationality. Apparently as Beijing folk should introduce themselves as Chinese first, and then as being from Beijing, so should the Scots introduce themselves as British, then Scottish. My careful explanation that some Scots feel that the word 'British' has connotations they do not like fell on very deaf ears...

My host father meanwhile sat in the corner and muttered something about how the governments of North Korea and of China have quite a lot in common.

Throwing Snowballs at North Korea

This was a trip that started with a snow storm and thunder and lightning so loud I initially thought North Korea had made good on its threats to annihilate the South, and finished hurtling down a motorway back to Dalian as the snow continued to fall on the already covered road.

In other words, the trip to Dandong was pretty good.

Dandong is a small town of perhaps 700,000 people which also just happens to be the closest you can get to North Korea without actually being in it. It faces North Korea across the Yalun river, with a narrow road bridge connecting the two countries, next to the remains of the former road bridge which was bombed accidentally by the Americans during the Korean war. As one of the few links between the two countries, a substantial proportion of trade to North Korea passes through Dandong, lending it quite a bustling feel, and a fine selection of Korean restaurants. There is also a substantial tourist industry more or less devoted to spying on North Korea, as well as a few military bases to do the spying a little more professionally...

The two bridges, lit up at night.

Hence, myself and Ellen spent a happy snowy day more or less staring at North Korea. We made tracks in the fresh snow off the Broken Bridge and threw snowballs off the end North Korea-wards, spied through the convenient telescope placed in the window of the coffee shop we breakfasted in, took a boat on the river to see closer still, and listened for the sound of artillery fire from the top of the mountain we climbed up.

The Broken Bridge

 North Korea appears in fact to be a little bleak. I'm aware that the snowy landscape, blue grey skies and frozen water may have helped leach the colour from the landscape, but in contrast to the high rises of the Chinese side stood just a few solitary buildings, a folorn ferris wheel looming behind them. The few people we saw mostly looked cold, and were busily unloading packages from rusty boats. Having seen it, it definitely doesn't look like a country ready to live up to belligerent fighting talk.

From the end of the Broken Bridge, looking towards North Korea's ferris wheel

On the left, China and on the right, North Korea

The other attraction of Dandong was the easternmost section of Great Wall, which was deserted and beautiful amid snow covered mountains, save for the  in true Dandong style, turned out to be closer still to North Korea than Dandong proper. Having thrown snowballs off the Great Wall (as you do), we discovered that the North Korean border was just a few metres away, the Yalu river being somewhat more narrow here than at the city. The border was marked with signs declaring 'Just One Step!' and rather more ominous ones telling you not to converse with people on the other side, and beware the barbed wire. Slightly less ominously, much of the barbed wire on the Korean side had fallen down, and it was so tempting just to wade over...

The Great Wall leading down the hill

Public Speaking Doom: Part Two

Dear Mercat Tours,

Well, as it turns out, I probably do owe you a debt of thanks. Although you rendered me incapable of NOT attending the speech competition, you are probably also responsible for ensuring I turned in a respectable-ish performance when placed in front of my entire year group and told to speak. People laughed and even did so when I intended them to, and all appeared to understand what I was saying.

I do have a slight bone to pick however: as it turns out, a year working for you also means when faced with a group of people staring at me awkwardly, I start to improvise. This works very well in English, where grammar comes naturally, but produced a few awkward moments in Chinese, as my teacher pointed out that entertaining as watching me attempt to improvise in Chinese was, grammatical it was not. Turns out learning a speech word for word is actually quite a lot of work, and the adrenaline rush off public speaking in a language which is not your native one is quite something.

It was all in all a very Chinese affair. From 8am - midday, we sat in a lecture theatre, listening to students deliver three minute speeches on subjects ranging from 'My Chinese Experience' to 'How to Study Chinese', with varying degrees of success. The only variety was provided by the beginners, who were not trusted to lecture in Chinese, and therefore either sang songs or dressed up as chickens and did a little dance instead, and the occasional performance of particular note (one guy delivered much of his through the medium of song). I didn't really pay a huge amount of attention - prior to my speech I was entirely focused on delivering it, and after delivering it, I almost instantly relaxed into reading Harry Potter in Chinese again...

However, it was definitely an interesting experience, and I now have a red velvety furry certificate thing which states that I attended the 21st Speechmaking Competition of DUT International School, and was placed into the third group within my category.

Yours sincerely,

Hannah Theaker

Soundtracks

Most shops in China appear to believe that blasting out the lastest hits via loudspeaker onto the street is an infallible way of attracting custom. Sadly, the definition of 'latest hits' is sometimes a little off. In China, Blue, Aqua and Westlife still reign supreme, whilst the young and hip kids are often just discovering Greenday. The Chinese charts are full of anaemic pretty boys, who could give the likes of James Blunt, or Will Young a run for their money, but who do provide employment for several armies of backing dancers. The alternative often tends to be dodgy hiphop, or worse still ethnic pop, which tends to feature either Tibetans or Mongolians singing pop songs faintly based on traditional tunes and/or the praises of the motherland. The youth are given martial brass bands to march to, whilst the tigers of Dalian zoo were regaled with a saccharine arrangement of My Heart Will Go O, all day long - surely a fitting accompaniment to the practice of selling tourists live chickens to toss down to them.

Solace has been found however. Say what you will, but my local Starbucks plays Jan Gabarek. I may have to go there more often, simply to relax surrounded by spaced out saxophone for a change.

On an entirely more sinister note, in Sichuan I did walk into a deserted underground supermarket with flickering lights to find that their piped music of choice was none other than Nick Cave... I fled that place, very fast.



PS I would like to state that I have faith there is a more interesting Chinese music scene out there, and the little knowledge I do possess is entirely superficial. Its just that I have not yet encountered it. There has got to be one. Recommendations greatly appreciated.

Autumn in Dalian

The church of KFC

Giant random saxophone

The black building is part of my university, the others I believe are student dorms. In standard Chinese original naming protocol, the big back building is called 'Big Black Building'

North Mountain, to the north of DUT

Near the military university that I climbed into (as the guard watched), having gone a little off the path up North Mountain.

What Chinese Students Do For Fun

In Britain, it is probably a rule of thumb that the greater the density of coffee shops and pubs, the closer you are likely to be to a university. Certainly, the streets surrounding Edinburgh University are crammed full of coffee shops, pubs, bars, vintage and charity shops and would probably scream student even without the actual students who populate them.

Conversely, Dalian University of Technology is probably located by the number of cheap food outlets which cluster the nearby streets (so like almost anywhere else in China, then), and ultimately by the sign on the entrance to campus saying 'Dalian University of Technology'. There are admittedly two coffee shops, but these exist more or less solely for the amusement of the foreign student population, but there is not a bar for miles. The student supermarket says it all really - it contains one solitary shelf of wine thickly covered in dust, which proved on closer testing to be not so much wine as an unsual kind of vinegar.

As a result, I've been wondering for a while what exactly Chinese students do to amuse themselves. The answer appears to be 'not much'. They live in dorms, which from my experience of Chinese student dorms are likely to hold 4-6 students to a room, and come minus facilities such as hot water. Unlike Edinburgh where a mulitude of student societies vie for your attention, the only ones here are either solidly career enhancing, government endorsed, or purely for the glorification of our fine university (ie sports societies to compete in intra-university matches - but only those who will actually compete at that level may join). Our campus at night is filled with a selection of very shy hand holding young Chinese couples, escaping their dorms for something approaching privacy, but otherwise Chinese university life appears to continue where school left off -  an endless round of classes, exams and studying, alleviated only by the occasional game of ping pong.

There are of course exceptions - students who do party and do go out, but the majority are a little like my friend Koko, who reacted with shock when I suggested I liked going to bars, and for who the concept of going out was a little alien. Hence why turning up to the inaugural meeting of the Graduate Student English Society proved a little interesting...

They were trying so hard. However, we were a little surprised to be the only foreigners in the room, and a little surprised when they all spontaneously applauded our entrance. Then followed the introductions of the committee (including a 'Minister for Propaganda', who declared his hobbies to be making friends and speaking English), and the President sang us all a song. We then each had to introduce ourselves, by the end of which I wished to track down and murder whichever English teacher had rendered these students incapable of speaking anything but the purest cliche. Given there were probably 40 people or so in the room, this took some time.  I did quite take to the guy who stood up and declared his favourite film to be The Big Lebowski, but couldn't quite restrain myself when a different guy claimed he understood British teenagers from his detailed watching of Skins.

Things did improve, as we moved on to free conversation, which more or less meant I was interrogated for an hour over anything they could find the English to formulate. However, I was left unable to believe I was sitting in a room of 23 yr olds. The whole thing had the atmosphere of a slightly unfortunate children's birthday party, where everyone wants to have fun, but nobody has ever met before. The adults are desperately trying to encourage the children to go on, and make friends, but they haven't quite worked out how to start going about it....

On the plus side, having escaped, I think I may finally have found some Chinese people willing to play ping pong against me.

Public Speaking Doom

Dear Mercat Tours,

Thankyou so very very much for what you have done to my life. Believe me I enjoyed almost every minute of my time guiding tourists through the dark narrow and winding streets of Edinburgh, and being effectively paid for raising my eyebrows at people - well, I still don't quite know how to thank you. There are times when the ability to tell stories comes in very useful (elephant houses in India), and a good ghost story never goes amiss, and I was genuinely sorry to miss another Mercat Halloween.

However, at the same time, do you realise what exactly you did to me?

It is no longer possible for me NOT to public speak. Present me with an audience of willing victims, a degree of silence, and lo and behold, my mouth opens, and words start to come out. Sometimes, they don't make much sense, but they will be accompanied by the occasional smile, inflection, eyebrow raises and the odd sinister roll of the eyes (old habits die hard). Even, as it turns out, when speaking Chinese.

As a result, I am now signed up to compete in some ' university speech competition', and am required to memorize much Chinese, to deliver to my entire school, and some Chinese people, who can actually speak Chinese, and therefore will understand how poor my Chinese pronounciation is, whilst wearing formal dress at 8 am on a Friday morning. This is despite the presence of people in my class who speak MUCH better Chinese, with MUCH better grammar and pronounciation, but without looking anyone in the eye.

So thankyou, Mercat. Thankyou. But for once, it would have been really nice to mumble incoherently, and have been allowed to retreat gracefully. Alas, it was not to be.

Yours sincerely

Hannah

PS I merely take comfort in knowing I am not the only one who will go through this ordeal. Two students from each class have been selected, including several other Edinburgh ones...

The Year of the Cabbage

Cabbages have arrived in Dalian, and they have done so in style.

As it turns out, it is not just my ayi who is currently hoarding cabbages. The entirety of Dalian appears to be doing so. There are cabbages in our hallway, cabbages on the stairs, cabbages that line the pavements outside, and cabbages that are stuffed into the grilles covering the windows of all the first floor flats. I feel sorry for the people living in those flats. It must be like looking out on a triffid invasion, cabbage style... All you would see is that green pressed up against the window and looking desperately for a way in, the sunlight now barely penetrating through the massed leaves...

There were people yesterday outside with a huge cauldron, making cabbage pickle, and rumours persist of people who come in the night and bury cabbages in trenches for some arcane purpose (heard from the ayi of a friend). And yet still, every day there are more cabbages.

In other news, I met my host father's elder sister. In true ayi style, her first words in my presence were 'She's pretty, but too thin. Are you feeding her enough?', and was somewhat taken aback when I answered 'Yes, I am definitely fed enough, I'm getting fat', and then asked my ayi (instead of me) 'Does she speak Chinese?'. They proceeded to discuss me, in front of me, despite my ayi going on to say 'Yes, she understands almost every word we say'.

A Brief Guide to Dealing with a Chinese Ayi

As myself and classmates are finding out to our cost, Chinese ayis can be fearsome, fearsome beasts. In my limited experience, Chinese families appear to be matriarchal in the extreme. Somehow, once sweet, youthful Chinese girls are transformed into tyrants intent on managing every aspect of life they possibly can...

However, as they are not without their weaknesses, they can be managed fairly easily with appropriate care. Hence follows my brief guide to survival of being mothered, Chinese style:

1. Accept that no matter how old you are, in her eyes, you shall always be a rebellious 14 year old.

2. As such, enjoy comments along the lines of 'You must wear slippers in the house! If you don't wear shoes, you will get cold feet, which cause diarrhoea.' or 'Westerners don't know how to cook.' Do not try to argue, merely accept, and chuckle.

3. Pander to their authority. Most ayis, if you accept the lecture, but then in fact do not do as told, will not comment overmuch. They appear to prefer the illusion of complete authority...

4. Similarly, do not question their actions. Should your ayi decide that now is the time to stock up on cabbages for the winter, and subsequently fill the entire hallway with cabbages and the smell of cabbages, do not ask such questions as 'How are three people going to eat enough cabbages for a small army of rabbits, even if the winter should be cold enough that they don't rot?'

5. Tiresome as it is, they are merely concerned about you.

6. Pick battles wisely. Wearing slippers in the house is a small price to pay for being able to return at 3am and NOT be greeted by the face of a disapproving ayi, muttering dire threats about 'people who have fun'.  However, the idea that food can be made 'Western' by the addition of sweet mayonnaise is  to be contested no matter what.

7. Start claiming you are full as soon as chopsticks touch rice. If you delay even a moment, you will find yourself consuming as much food as can physically be forced down your gullet, and then some.

8. Ayis like to hear of their charges doing well. Report good exam results, or claim to have put on weight, and watch the grin spread over her face... This will shortly be followed by an exhortation to do even better next time, or an exclamation that you are still far too thin, but she will be so pleased you are trying that she might briefly forget to manage your life.

9. Ayis are deep down - albeit very deep down - sensitive creatures.There is as yet little hard evidence for this, but research is ongoing.

10. Yes, she will insist on showing your messy room off to all her guests, just so she can find support in the ongoing battle to get  you to tidy it to her standards.

11. Flattery works.

12. Failing flattery, as with most tyrannical regimes, passive resistance can be effective.

All this stated, I am reluctantly quite fond of my ayi. She brings much amusement to my life, and I have never met anyone so enthusiastic to do other people's washing, despite my best attempts to tell her I can and will do it myself. Myself and my host father collude in agreeing with her whilst she is in, and discussing politics whilst she is not - we have now covered more or less every taboo topic in Chinese politics, and I have done my best to explain the state of British politics, the Reformation, cricket and Guy Fawkes to him, with varying degrees of success.

Technically, as a foreigner here on a student visa, I am forbidden on pain of expulsion from the glorious PRC to undertake any form of paid work whatsoever. It seems to Communist minds this would dangerously confuse categories of foreigner, and threaten stability or something equally drastic.

However, this does not stop more or less everyone I meet trying to offer me work. I remember as a callow 18 year old I was a little shocked to be offered a job on entrance into a bar in Xian (teaching English, not anything else), merely as it was assumed that as I was a Westerner, of course I could speak English. On our somewhat abortive visit to Dalian's theme park, we encountered what seemed to be much of the expat population, employed as exotic dancers and stunt riders as to the Chinese mind there is nothing more incredible than Marilyn Monroe lookalikes on motorbikes... Other friends have been headhunted as models, acted in commercials, paid to attend events (as if Westerners are going, clearly it is a popular event), as well as the ever increasing demand for English teachers of all descriptions.

Having turned down most offers thus far, last week I was persuaded into accepting a one off teaching/conversational job along with a few friends, on the condition that it would  not really be teaching, more just casually answering a few questions to help learners with their conversational English. I was not entirely reassured, as in my experience, 'casual' would normally turn out to mean 'flung in front of a class of 80 overly enthusiastic students baying for blood, English or both'. However, it turned out, 'casual' this time really did mean casual. We were ushered inside, had tea forced upon us, and given sacrifical bright red waistcoats and then ushered out into a playground where we saw assembled a mob of grandparents and children.

The mob descended with eager cries of 'You come from what country?' and 'Your name is what?' and I quickly found myself encircled by a gang of possessive grandparents who glared and edged out the competition. As a result, I spent the next half a hour first answering questions in English, and then repeating myself in Chinese (as they did not really speak English), listening to answers in Chinese and then translating them back to English, which made for a slow conversation where I did three quarters of the work, but an interesting one all the same. I was regaled with tales of ex-air traffic controllers, Korean war veterans and a man who insisted on showing me every single one of his pictures of his recent trip to Europe, and explaining how he wrote an essay in honour of the previous Englishwoman (I think this may have been Ellen, who he met the previous week) he had met.

Definitely the easiest way I have earnt 10 pounds in some time. I shall volunteer for this again.

PS To any Communists or policemen of the PRC who happen to be reading this: the 10 pounds was of course a gift, and I am really not worth the time to chase down, honest...

Of Breadmakers, Central Heating and Exams

Right now, I am basking in the warmth of a heated flat which smells of fresh bread and jiaozi. The Communists have relented on the central heating, despite the current lack of Siberian winds and ensuing high temperatures, and my mid term examinations are finally over. Basically, life is pretty good all of a sudden. My host mother is quite welcome to compare the untidiness of my room to the Guomindang abandoning the mainland for Taiwan (and leaving the mainland all in a mess and not bothering to clean it up again) if this makes her happy, as she also just fed me fresh, warm and above all non sweet bread.

Pictures of Warmer Times

 The touristy bit. Shortly after this bit, it was kind of slum like. But in a pleasant way.

 Chongqing doing it's best not to fall into the Yangtze.

 Picturesque and highly touristy old village in Chongqing. However, as soon as you escaped the main thoroughfare, it all fell silent save for the clicking of mah jong tiles, and got very old and very twisty, and very villagey for a place in the centre of a city of many million people.

 Token picture of me, Zhao Ying and another student, taken in Chengdu.

 Sichuanese countryside. I want a motorbike...

 

Chongqing by night

Cold

The current defining feeling of my experience of China is cold. Just to state, it is not really cold yet. Although the winds sweeping in from Siberia are not precisely warm, it is still around 10 degrees at midday and the temperature has some way to fall yet, although given it was 20 degrees last Friday, that means it should be about minus 5 this time next week at the current rate of progress....

No, the problem is the Chinese government who control the heating of all buildings they own (ie more or less all of them. Most Chinese people to my knowledge lease their houses off the government, on 70 yr leases. No-one knows what happens when the 70 year lease expires - the PRC isn't old enough for that to have happened to anyone yet). As a result, winter is officially declared in mid-November. And until then, come snow, hail, or Siberian winds, we freeze.

I am cold. So, so cold.

PS My ayi has already declared that it is going to be the harshest winter in many years, and is threatening to buy me an electric blanket and thermals. I'm nearly cold enough to accept.

Liu Xiaobo and my host father

The main result of the PRC getting themselves all worked up about Liu Xiaobo's Nobel peace prize is that prior to the award and the PRC attempting to block all news of it, no-one knew who Liu Xiaobo was. Now, they all know... Ah, the wonders of attempted censorship.

As a response, it was quite impressively paranoid. Briefly, all news websites were blocked, CNN went down, and reportedly, even text messages with his name in were being censored. I was sitting in a net bar shortly afterwards, and all the power abruptly went in a shower of sparks. Of course, this could just have been dodgy electrics, but I would not put it past them...

I had in fact just before leaving for Sichuan had a conversation with my host father about Nobel prizes, and he had explained/mimed that China really wanted one, and ironically, the only one they'd ever got was awarded to the Dalai Lama. I explained that Liu Xiaobo had just been nominated, and he shrugged and said he'd never heard of the guy.

Coming back from Sichuan, after helping me with my  rucksack up the stairs, almost the first thing he said was 'Liu Xiaobo got the prize then', to which I replied 'I know, but how the hell do you know?', to which he just grinned, and chuckled at me. He just finds it hilarious that China's two Nobels now belong to the Dalai Lama, and Liu Xiaobo.

He's definitely not a normal Chinese guy. However, at this point, my ayi returned, and all discussion of politics was briefly suspended.


PS I did later find out he knew: I think it is as his daughter is currently living in Taiwan, though there was a longer, more complicated explanation to do with leaders, outside-country-people and the internet, which I did not entirely understand.

Ankh-Morpork

I think I may just have spent a week in Ankh-Morpork. Given that in common with Ankh-Morpork, Chongqing is perched precipitously above a sludge-filled river (the Yangtze, currently yellower than the Yellow River), on a set of mountains it appears to be in constant danger of falling off, is built largely on top of itself, stinks, is full of picturesque oddities, and is ruled by a selection of criminal gangs and the Communist Party, I think the comparison stands.

It is also full of motorbikes, the smell of chilli and Chinese people, which is perhaps less Pratchett, but no less endearing. In short, I really took to Chongqing. It had all the rough edges and friendliness I associate with the west of China, and miss in the more developed east.

It did take me a few days to recover from arrival... Post three days on a train, including a mere 8 hours standing (which I spent most of watching an Indian soap subtitled in Chinese whilst attempting to talk to a Korean girl, which proved a few too many languages), I arrived in Chongqing at about 7pm. I promptly found myself more or less kidnapped by motorbike and dropped in Chongqing's highly atmospheric stilt house slums, to discover the hostel I wanted to stay in no longer existed, and the motorbike man had vanished... Sadly, every other hostel in town proved to be full, which meant in desperation I was forced to call Liquorice, the student I was supposed to be visiting. I wasn't really that confident of success, as Liquorice is a Chinese university student, who lives in a dorm of 6 other guys, with guards on the dormitory block gates, just to make sure they can't sneak girls in, and especially not dubious foreign girls...

Thankfully Liquorice turned out to be a hosting a mini Class 16 reunion. Class 16 were the kind of class every teacher dreams of - intelligent, obediently cheeky and enthusiastic (although they did insist on bowing every time I walked into class which freaked me out a little). As a result, for the mere price of having to sing karaoke to my ex-students, as they refused to believe my claim that when I sing, somewhere a small bird dies, I was able to crash with one of the girls, and was saved from sleeping rough on the streets of Chongqing. They did also insist on introducing me to San Guo, a kind of Chinese version of the card game Magic, which left me feeling outgeeked and insufficiently Chinese very very fast....

After this somewhat dramatic beginning, Chongqing passed in a whirl of hotpot, neon lights, beer, ferries and occasional duck intestines. I did briefly escape to the relative serenity, sanity and cleanliness of nearby Chengdu to visit Zhao Ying, who braved the wrath of her own dormitory guards to put me up for two nights, and singlehandedly attempted to remedy my lack of knowledge of ancient Chinese. She is just so very determined, and so very intelligent, and makes me all optimistic.

I am now back in Dalian - further updates to follow, and hopefully pictures, once I have finished attempting to reassure my ayi that I am not likely to be thrown out of Dalian University for insufficiently revising for this morning's dictation.

In other news, having started term, and had 5 days off last week for Mid-Autumn Festival which I spent exploring Dalian and cycling, next week I have 10 days off for National Day. Hence, I will be off to Sichuan to see a couple of ex-students and catch up on my spicy food intake. It should only take 3 days or so by train... I believe all these holidays may be Dalian attempting to break us in slowly to a schedule of 8 am lectures and 6 hours of Chinese grammar a day. Sadly, after this holiday, I have probably one day off for Christmas, and one for New Year until January. As a result, however, I'll be more or less uncontactable save by email for the next week or so.

Other than this, my teachers appear to believe I am good at talking and keep asking me questions as a result and my ayi is still on course for reducing me to 16 year old child status as best she can. I have a slight feeling she may have deliberately washed a tissue in with my clothes, which is probably ayi code for 'this is unsuitably thin clothing for this season, kindly do not ignore my pronouncements in future'. She looked so happy this morning when I appeared wearing jeans and a jumper, and then so very disappointed when I proceeded to wear sandals anyway instead of winter shoes. To clarify, it is still 20 degrees here on average... My host father and I have more or less reached a situation where we agree with her when she is in, and discuss politics as soon as she goes out.

PS The Chinese military student exercises continue - they are now having kungfu competitions, and martial brass band music piped in to help them as they goose step.

Tent Lady and Stalkers

This is Tent Lady, whose name I do know, but have forgotten how to pronouce. True to her calling, she runs the tea and gossip tent opposite Dingxi No 1 People's Hospital, and is a matriarch in true Chinese fashion. She brews hot sweet overboiled green tea all day long and keeps the various bemused farmers who visit her tent well in line, and occasionally packs them off to play chess, buy her food, or visit their sick relatives in hospital. She also wishes to adopt me...

I first met her when living in Dingxi when I started buying breakfast off a stall near by, and she'd sort of smile and tut at me in a faintly disapproving fashion everyday. After about 6 months of this, I plucked up the courage to actually go and try talking to her, and quickly found myself drinking very large quantities of her tea, and having wonderful conversations where we both completely failed to understand the other. I am still fairly sure she tried to tell me one day all about how her family left Dongbei (basically where I'm living now) when the Japanese invaded it.

However, I never expected her to remember me when I went back. But as soon as she saw me, I was ushered back into her tent, grilled about my family and marital status once again (please be warned, innocent people who might visit me in China: she will want to meet and interrogate you), chastised for being thin, and had my hands clutched at length.

Sadly, Tent Lady has a son, and is determined we should meet. He now has my phone number, and whilst I am highly fond of Tent Lady, her progeny are another matter. Her son lives in Shanghai, and despite the distance, and the fact that we do not have a language in common calls me almost every day. I'm not sure if he is simply convinced that he will learn English simply by occasionally misunderstanding me down the phone, or if Tent Lady is in fact also harbouring designs on my marital status...

I'm really not very sure what to do. I don't wish to offend Tent Lady as I really do quite like her (and also the thought of her vetting my various relatives as she seems determined to do amuses me highly), but The Son really does not interest me very much...

The Dangers of Mistranslation

My host father is a man I am quickly growing to be highly fond of. He has a face like an amiable pumpkin with added cheekbones, appears to be a disillusioned rebellious intellectual and is a cyclist and winter swimmer to boot. I possibly should have remembered that he really is quite a keen cyclist when he invited me to go cycling with him... He regularly cycles 150k in a day, and owns an Italian roadbike that even I can tell is serious.

Unfortunately for me, he also appears to believe that I am a serious sports sort of person as well. The badminton bureaucrats saga, tales of rock climbing and kayaking appear to have convinced him thus, as does the reflected glory of having an uncle who recently cycled 900 miles in about 9 days or something equally ridiculous. Even my tales of struggling up and down Arisaig by bike appeared to convince him I am actually a fit, keen and capable human being.

He first suggested we go a little while back, and assured me we wouldn't go too far... Possibly I should have listened to my ayi who reacted with horror to hte suggestion that I might go cycling with him and his friends, describing dislocated shoulders, how safety was the most important and that we were just saying it to annoy her. The reaction I got when trying to reassure her and told her I like adventure (and am used to it...) was truly wonderful. She erupted in a chorus of 'bu xing' that must have lasted half an hour, whilst my host father grinned like a naughty schoolboy.

Sure enough though, the next day when my ayi had vanished off to visit her father he came knocking, and out came the helmets, bikes and the gloves to protect your hands when you fall off, and the spandex-clad friend with intimidating leg muscles (again maybe a slight clue). He also asked how far I felt I could go, asking if I felt up to 3,4 or 5 kilometres. I of course said 5 would be no problem at all....

Having set off at a fair pace and having watched the spandex clad friend disappear into the distance, about an hour later my host father said we'd already done 15 kilometres, and I realised he hadn't meant 3,4 or 5 kilometres. He meant 30, 40 or 50 kilometres.

Fortunately for me, cycling around Dalian proved easy, once we'd escaped the city outskirts and the lorrys that seemed to be aiming for us. The scenery was glorious - trees, mountains, reservoirs and the occasional temple, all green and feeling very much like the last fine day of autumn before the cold starts to set in.

There was just a little of me that died inside when he said we'd reached 26k, and were about to start turning back, and I realised I had another 26 to go.... By the last couple of hills, the agony in my legs was just starting to be unbearable, but just at the point where I thought I was going to crack, give in and apologise for ever saying I knew how to ride a bike, we turned a corner and I realised the last 10k was going to be downhill. I finished with mud all over my face, and ache in every leg muscle I own.

We made our way back inside to find my ayi waiting for us with dinner on the table and a scowl on her face. She made it quite clear I was to make sure my mother knew she had definitely not agreed to any of this, and that we really shouldn't do it again.

I'm really not sure I'm going to make a satisfactory surrogate daughter, at least as far as she is concerned. I also have made a mental note to listen properly to my host father slurring numbers at me in future. I survived 50k, and would probably do it again, but right now, it hurts...

Pictures

It would appear that pictures are now in fact a possibility... However, due to various factors, I can't actually see them, so if there are issues and they don't display I won't know - please tell me! I also can't reply to comments very easily. I appreciate them greatly, however.

The picture below is of Dalian, specifically the view looking towards where I live from the top of the mountain in the middle of the zoo. I live about 20 minutes further away from the bay you might just be able to make out. I still can't quite believe I live in a Chinese city that has this kind of scenery so close to the centre... The city itself is kinda bigger though - it curves round the mountainous area I took the picture from. The section you can see in that picture might be where I live, but its still a good thirty minutes or so from there till the actual city centre...

Dalian

Update: Chinese Military Madness

It still hasn't stopped. They are still there in their units, every day, standing and shouting.

Although the elite units have now moved on to some kind of kungfu. Whilst walking through a group the other day, they are abruptly shouted 'hai!' and punched the air in unison, before returning to standing still and staring into space. Odder still however, was the slow motion marching. This unit took four goose steps, and then paused with one leg in the air, toes pointed, a little like they were training to be in one of those Chinese military ballet performances (like The Detachment of Red Women style). They held this pose for a few minutes wobbling gently, and then took another four goose steps and then stood on one leg again. I really have no idea why.

Except today, they were gone. It started to rain, and the Chinese military student detachments all vanished. Though if all it takes is a little rain to vanquish them, I don't think much of their training...

PS I may be in some trouble. I demonstrated quite how silly goose stepping looks to a friend, and turned round to find most of what was probably a women's tank regiment glaring at me.

Only Child

I am now an only child. My host sister departed for Taiwan this morning, and that leaves me. I'm a little worried, I don't think I'm going to make a good surrogate daughter (I don't write papers in international journals, especially not ones to do with chemistry). I came in at three the other night to find my host mother still up, although she swears she wasn't really waiting for me at all, honest.

Oh dear.

Chinese Military Madness

I have now finally started class, which is long and full of Chinese and starts at 8am every morning, and occasionally goes on for 6 hours before it stops. On the whole, however, I do quite like it, although the amount of new words I am supposed to be learning is faintly obscene. I think it is something like 30 a day. True to form, I have also just bought myself Harry Potter in Chinese, and suspect I might end up reading that a lot, rather than the textbooks I am supposed to be reading...

However, whilst I have started class, the Chinese haven't. Instead they have started their compulsory military training, which means on emerging from class, dazed and dizzied and no longer sure which language I speak, I am quite often greeted by the site of our campus full of teenagers in khaki goosestepping in formation. They are quite literally forced to use every available piece of ground in the campus to find space for all the classes/regiments, and most of their training appears to consist of how to march in formation, shout 'yi,er, yi', and how to stand very still for hours on head, which are of course important skills for any university student. Occasionally we do hear distant war cries drifting through our open classroom windows, so I am not entirely sure that they aren't doing something more exciting when we can't see them.

Most of the students though look reassuringly like they don't really care. They run amusingly out of formation, you can spot the couple who are refusing to sacrifice their hairstyles to khaki baseball caps, and half of them are so short they look about 14 and are a little swallowed by their fatigues. Most of them give the impression they'll just be really happy to finally get into lectures.

More worrying was wandering through campus one night, I was a little startled to hear the familiar 'yi, er, yi', but shouted with enthusiasm, and turned round to find an entire regiment of older men running in formation bearing down on me, and not about to stop. They were a little scarily professional, moving in time, all the same height, all slightly muscled, and all appearing to belong to our university. I'm starting to wonder what exactly kind of university it is...

Last night, we were also treated to half an hour of air raid sirens to mark the anniversary of the Manchurian Incident. It mostly resulted in a lot of dogs barking, although I was woken this morning by what sounded suspiciously like gunfire, and I'm really hoping they haven't decided to reenact the rest of the Manchurian Incident as well.

Accidental Near Marriage

I was wandering one of Dalian's many parks with a few friends the other day, when we came across a number of notices pinned to trees, with a gaggle of Chinese grandmothers, matrons and termagents clustered round them... Being somewhat intrigued, we ventured over, only to discover they were lonely hearts ads, of a kind, posted by Chinese mothers determined to find respectable partners for their children (said children normally being mid-twenties).

Sadly, in the process of working out what was on teh posters, and scribbling down characters we didn't recognised, we attracted the attention of the mob. They closed in slowly, but inexorably, until we found our backs against the trees, and were stammering answers to questions such as 'How old are you?', 'What are your job prospects?', 'Are you sure you aren't Russians?', and finding that our various pleas that we w all already had boyfriends fell on deaf ears.

Believe me, there is something truly intimidating in watching a Chinese matron gaze at you fixedly, slowly remove her sunglasses and still staring, mutter 'I've found a good one'.

We beat a hasty retreat, at this point.

Postscript: It could have been much worse. The one guy in our group was told he had 'eyes like Bill Gates' rendering him irresistable to Chinese women... I'm still not sure that the guy who annouced this to him wasn't himself interested...

Dalian

Issues of computing notwithstanding
(lack of pictures), I better get on and introduce the place I'm
actually living.

The city of Dalian has turned out to be
a pleasant coastal monolith of a mere 6 million people, dotted with
mountains, beaches, mosquitoes Communist tower blocks and the
occasional incongruous ex-colonial building. Sadly the majority of
the real colonial buildings are now what passes for Dalian's slums
and in common with most of China being ripped down and replaced with
a fake as fast as possible.

It is true to its billing, quite
pleasant for a Chinese city, save for the mosquitoes, the recent oil
spill and an odd obsession with sea cucumbers (they come packaged
like cigars in very fancy shops in downtown Dalian, rubbing shoulders
with the likes of Armani, Anmani, and Gucci). I'm still a little in
shock – this is a side of China I've never quite seen before. Its
no longer a miracle to find peanut butter or tampons, I keep being
mistaken for Russian, and living standards are somewhat higher than
Dingxi. I simply miss the food – Dongbei cuisine appears to believe
in ample, bland portions, not quite the fiery Sichuanese scorch I'm
used to.

The family I'm living with are lovely,
although stressed due to their daughter shortly sitting a major exam.
As a result I'm bound to silence much of the day, in case I should
disturb her studies. However, my host father and I have managed
whispered/mimed conversations about all sorts of things, from the
merits of Mao's poetry to jury service (that one took a lot of
miming).

My host mother fusses wonderfully, and
disapproves of young people having fun. She is currently celebrating
a moral victory – I went out one night and came home a little late,
and two days later am down with a cold. This she appears to be taking
as comeuppance for the error of my ways and is rejoicing accordingly.
They're going to be fun, I think.

However after a week long grace period
we start classes tomorrow - 8am start, and an average of 4 hours of
Chinese a day. I'm looking forward to it, in a thoroughly
apprehensive/I am not designed for such sleeping rhythms kind of way

Return to Gansu

I freely admit, even two years into this degree that one of the main reasons for doing it was simply as it would allow me to go back to Dingxi, as part of my third year abroad. Arriving jetlagged and disorientated into Beijing, more or less the first thing I did was to head straight back out again, catching the slow train to Gansu.

Sadly, they only had hard seats, and according to the guy who sold me the ticket the train would take three days... 12 hours in, as my backbone started to  creak and the novelty of the scenery (Inner Mongolia, mostly) and playing cheat in Chinese started to wear off, I began to wonder whether it was all actually such a good idea. Thankfully, at this point, I was beckoned by a Chinese guard, who gestured frantically until I gave him 100 yuan, at which point he led me to a hard sleeper berth, and I spent the next 16 hours asleep. By the time I woke up again, we were trundling through Gansu, and pulling into Lanzhou, a day earlier than expected.

In a very Chinese way, all the problems I'd anticipated (floods, lack of emails/numbers etc) more or less vanished as soon as I actually arrived. Dingxi turned out to be as dustridden and dry as ever, Deanna called as I got off the train, and I spent 15 minutes arguing with a taxi driver who tried telling me he'd be honoured to drive me all the way to Dingxi, despite having almost crashed en route to the bus stop.

Returning to Dingxi was a strange mix - both so reassuringly familiar and subtly strange. The mice taxis I knew have vanished, tower blocks sprung up on every corner, but students still drill at 6am outside my window, and the tent lady who I used to have wonderful conversations with where neither of us understood the other at all recognised me instantly. I spent a week more or less being fed, catching up with friends I'd thought I'd never see again (mostly wonderful, save a few disillusioned former students) and  generally behaving as though I'd never left.

Stranger incidents included walking into the Dingxi All-Comers Spacehopper Competition, auctioning off my stock of British currency to a shouting mob of farmers, and truly off the wall trip to Lanzhou...