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Nimen Hao!
Sorry about not updating in so long (there will soon be a retrospective blog entry about Beijing and the Chinese National Museum, Tiananmen square, the Forbidden City and the great wall as well as our last few days in Shunyi).
Jon and I have made it in one piece to Pingxiang, Jiangxi after a reasonably comfortable 23hr train journey to Zhuzhou (pronounces Jujou) and a hair-raising 1.5 hr car journey. At the moment our internet connection is only via a desktop computer that we have in our room, which we only got yesterday and only started working properly today. For some reason my email account is blocked when it wasn't in Beijing, so for anyone who has been expecting an email from me to tell them that we are safe- I'm sorry but it was beyond our control, hope you didn't worry too much x
Jiangxi- for anyone who doesn't know- is one of the poorest provinces in China and Pingxiang seems to reflect this in that a lot of the places look a little run down. However there also seems to be a lot of redevelopment happening, I can see at least 5 high rise buildings currently been constructed from my window and the college itself seems to be having a makeover, they're building an ornamental garden right outside our window so things may be starting to look up for this city.
The food in Pingxiang, unlike in the rest of Jiangxi- who like quite mild and mellow flavours according to Jane, our teaching assistant in Beijing- is spicy hot, so hot in some cases that you'd think we were in Sichuan Province (reknown world wide for the Sichuan pepper and its spicy food)!
When Jon, Scott and I arrived we were treated to an informal Banquet with Bob- the Dean of English, Andy- our Waiban, our driver who never gave his name and Sandy- a Pingxiang local we were sitting with on the train who helped us with our bags and with some Chinese to pass the time on the train. There were many different dished put on a Lazy Susan and you could essentially help yourself to what you wanted. I've taken a particular fancy to a dish that consists of Tomato and egg with celery- its very juicy and a lot more delicious than it sounds- called "xi hong shi ji dan" in chinese.
We have also learnt that the people of Pingxiang have a particular dialect which is completely different from the standard Chinese in that they use completely different words- so much so that to some Beijinger's they sound like they are speaking Japanese. Fortunately a lot of Pingxianger's can understand standard chinese, although a lot of the older generations, those over 50, can't even understand standard chinese. This leads us to wonder how practical this year is going to be for learning Chinese- if we decide to stay another year we may ask to be placed further north, closer to Beijing.
Not a lot else has really happened, we were invited to the reception of a Chinese wedding yesterday- we would have loved to have gone but that day the water to the block was turned off and we hadn't managed to have a decent shower the day before (no hot water) and we stank to high heaven so didn't want to inflict ourselves on the general public. Scott went though (having managed to get clean) and described it later as a relaxed chinese X factor- make of that what you will...
Tomorrow we are going to Changsha by bus to have a medical examination for our residency permits- we'd had to forked out to have these done in England and now we have to have them re-done here- Typical! But on the bright side we don't have to pay for it this time :)
Huitou Jian! (see you later)
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