Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Ni hao true believers! This is the first of the 'what exciting happend this week' blogs. From here on out only our heroes most exciting highlights will be mentioned as day to day bloging is incerdiabley hard to do with so much going on. This week our hero explores the local area, banquets and visits the big city.....
After the last week of following Stephanus then taking the mantles as he watched on from the back ever looming in case I, for lack of a better phrase, ballsed it all up it was time for me to take a lesson completley by myself standing at the front. As I stood infront of class 3, tention was high. There was sixty eyes on me and I had to pretend I knew exactly what I was doing. That week I was less of a teacher and more of an ac-tor. I pranced around the room like Matt Smith in Doctor Who as he tries to think up a new plan, scribbled furiousley on the board, imitating the great sceintific minds like Einstein and bellowed orders out like Brian Blessed after a second round with puberty. All in all it went down pretty well. The topic was Greetings, conversation and goodbyes and by the end atleast one quarter of the children were having full on conversations and, half could mumble "Hello, how are you?", the rest could say "cat" and "dog". It was fairley succesful as far as teaching goes in China. Understand, dear reader, there is only so much an eighteen year old can do when faced with sixity rabid, fairley low level english, children and I tried my darn best that week. As the week went on my teaching style improved, my acting sadly lagging behind it, and by the end I had a real feel for each class, what they wanted from me, who the good students were and who the bad ones were, who was naughty and who was nice all surmonting to me being better at teaching by the end of the week than I was at the beggining. Great success!
The 'most chinese thing of the week' occured on the Monday night. After a tiresome day of teaching, having spent a lot of time in the office and having had four lessons, I lay down onto the sweet, rocksolid comfort of my bed and closed my eyes for a minute. I was in pure bliss as the duvet engulfed me, stopping em from bruising as I tossed and turned. And then my phone rang. "Hello boys. This is Mr Tian. You come to Banquet now, meet me at school in 5 minutes". Panick ensued. I rushed about to get ready when a second phone call arrived exactly four minutes later "Where are you?". We ran out the door to the school and were bustled into a taxi with Mr Tian. This is a regular occourance in China. They do not belive in silly ideals that the modern western man requires like 'timing' and 'notice in advance'. No, such ideas are trivial matters to the Chinese .They phone you whenever they fancy at any un-godly hour and bustle you off somewhere without any notice.
After a five minute drive which would have taken twenty minutes to walk but that would be tiring (apparentley) we arrived at a street that can best be decribed as a sterotypical 'Chinatown' like the ones knocked up for westeners back home. We went into a rather posh looking restuarant. Out of an A (Eat of the floor), B (try not to touch the tables) and C (they wee in the soup) health rating it managed to scrape by on a B. I was most impressed, we had only eaten in C's thus far. We were met upstairs by Mr Tians office staff and were informed that as we wouldn't be getting an offical banquet this could be our welcoming banquet. It all seemed very nic. And then the beer arrived, luckily sereved into 250ml glasses. Dear lord, this is where the real story begins. Chinese custom is if someone toasts you it is a sign of dis-respect not to down your drink. Same rules apply if they shout 'Gam Bay!(finish it). We were eight toasts in and the booze was starting to get to my head and the food arrived. The very spicey food. Toastings continued and I (rather unsuccesfully) tried to gather some food on to my plate but ended up spilling most of it on the table. It was all very nice, then the geography teacher started to show his true colours. He was very drunk so decided to toast me and Stephen. Very nice of him, we thought. Then he toasted again. And again. And again. Not wanting to disrespect him we kept going. After four hours we were sufficentley slaughterd. It is a sign of weakness if you appear drunk so we got Mr Tian to bundle us into a taxi before we could embaress ourselves. We headed to Sharon and Stephanus' absolutley legless, ate some cake, skyped, then headed home. Cracking night, cheers Mr Tian.
Tuesday was Teachers day. This is a day in China where all teachers are rewarded for there work by the students, other staff and all the people in China. Work was nice as I recieved choclate, Avril Lavagine ice tea which is gorgeous (the drink I mean....) and alot of windmills made out of 0.5 quai notes. But it also landed on Sharon and Stephanus anniversary. They had arraneged a banquet at a very fancy restaurant, it even, my god, had an A rating!!! I was stunned. We headed to a banquet room upstairs with Sam, Sharon and Stephanus and wiated on Mr Tian, who was also coming. He arrived with not one, not two but four friends. It was a little awkward as one of them kept lifting his shirt to 'air' his stomach, smoke, spit and cough but otherwise they seemed nice. Same as the night before tosting began and we got sufficentley drunk. The Le Rouxs were drinking wine so it was incerdiabley hard for them to down there drinks. The food was amazing, we had a sour fish soup with a full fish in it which was lovley, ducks feet, liver and more. We were also given a free drink and a rose each courtsey of the resaturant as thanks for all our hard work on teachers day, that was very touching. After a drunken Mr Tian told us Johnny had brought him a bottle of whiskey for christmas but, in China, two is a lucky number so we must give two bottles (cheeky get) he headed home and so did we. The next day I was very, very ill. It seems beer, sour fish soup and liver do not mix. A health rating my arse.
The rest of the week was bog standard but on the Saturday we headed into Urumuqi with Mike. We decided to take the bus, which takes an hour, and was a very bumpy ride. We got stopped for a 'security check' which was absolutley hilarious. They glanced our passports, checked no bags then herded us on to the bus again. Take that terrorism! It is just a show of muscle and nothing more. Urumuqi is very much like any other big city in China; Western. Everyone is incrediabley fashionable and beautiful, there's western food absolutley everywhere and the most ethinical diverse mix of people ever. We went to a department store full of western goods (Marmite, scottish shortbread and pasta... I missed you so) and western booze but all at extremley high AKA western prices before heading to a Pizza Hut. Here we qued for one and a half hours amongs't other, cheese hungry patrons. Mike argued with the 'pizza hut security man' to no avail to get us in and when we eventually got in it was exactly like back home. This is a compliment. I had missed pizza. After this we headed to the Bazar, a Ughyur area. It was very amazing to see all the Ughyur people and (message me if you want details as it cannot be posted) the repurcussions of the recent riots in Xinjiang. After this we had great trouble finding the bus stop back to Fukang as it turns out theres two words for northern bus stop and both of them are diffrent places in urumuqi , which we didn't know. After hours searching we headed back to Fukang from the right bus stop and to bed.
Thats the highlights of the week. 'But what else do you do with your time?'. Well dear reader to stop myself becoming morbidly obese due to all the boozing and banquets i've been taking full advantage of the free gym the school provides and also following Bronson's solitary fitness, which is good fun. I've also been practicising guitar like mad (more on this in a few blogs time) and i've been trying to find a sport to participate in. Stephanus is trying to get hold of rugby ball so we can start a sevens rugby club in the school which would be amazing.
Keep commenting on these blogs as I really love hearing from everyone back home, if your feeling kind facebook and twitter this so my other friends can see it. Let me know if the writing is good and keep on reading! Next time, which will be in a while as I'm away on holiday (how exciting)m another week of fun followed by our first holiday as we travel to the distant, desert land of Turfan! (loads of pictures will be included),
Excelsior!
- comments
Norma Kidd yet another great instalment! you're a very good raconteur. You must be pretty fit to survive those parties,Alex. Hope you enjoy your holiday this week. Luv. From Gran. X
Sue Santos Sounds like you are having an amazing time - even managing to fit in a bit of teaching every now and again!! Love your style of writing - it makes me laugh. Chris has now got Internet so will be adding to his blog again soon. Xx
Andy Keep it up son --- You could try Blackadders incredibly strong ale!! trick.
Val kidd Brilliant al,amusing ,entertaining and informative. Keep them coming. Mum xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx