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I've now tried to write this twice and each time my landlady has returned. When I arrived home earlier I found that the water had been turned off. I phoned my go-to guy and he got in touch with the landlady. When I put the phone down she was at my door with a teapot of warm water and a bag of niu nai (cow's milk). We had a short exchange of pleasantries and she left. Then, just as I was tucking into my Chinese takeaway, she came back with a bag of buns that all had "I love you" on the top. We joked a little about her loving me and then she left again. No sooner had I put chopstick to mouth than she was at the door again asking to come in and warm the milk for me! It finally dawned on me that she's my Chinese Nana Pat, only a little more accepting of foreigners! (Happy Birthday, Nana!)
So now I'm sat here on my bed, yi bei pi jiu (a beer) in one hand, love bun in the other and typing what I can remember of the past 7 days.
As if meeting Super Dragon wasn't enough for one week, I had the dean singing my praises. (Yes, that did make living conditions in the staff room easier.) She came into my first lesson, sat at the back and took 3 sides of notes in 10 minutes. She stood up, interrupted with, 'This lesson is excellent,' and walked out. In my final lesson today I had another teacher come in to observe and tomorrow morning I have another in my first class!
Friday night was great. To celebrate Will and Wes's first week teaching we went out for a drink or two and an Indonesian cigar apiece. We made it across the spirit shelf to the Bacardi 151 and then we called it a night before having to carry Wes home.
Saturday morning was great but for other reasons. We headed down to a hot spa to meet Mr Propaganda Minister from the college. We went to this one place where there was a wedding going on so we sat down and waited. Then we realized we were in the wrong place and went next door. We bought swimming caps and went into the hot spa. What was sold to us as a "hot spa" was in fact an Olympic-sized fresh water swimming pool. We were being tested. We swam for a metre and then were knackered. We were then ushered along a cold corridor into a back room full of naked Chinamen smoking and playing cards. I was offered a massage by one such card-playing, smoking, naked Chinaman but, not wanting to disturb the game, I respectfully declined. Disillusioned, we left. (On the way home, by the way, Will walked into a lamppost! It actually happens in real life!)
Will speaks excellent Chinese having cheated and done a degree in it before coming over. Owing to this, he has been brought out of some of his lessons early in order to meet various government officials and other high-up sorts. On Saturday, he was invited out with a beautiful, doll-faced girl and her parents. He was wined, dined and pretty much interrogated. There are no casual relationships of any sort here and so if he even brushed past this girl he is likely to have to marry her.
Saturday night, while Will met the parents, me and Wes networked our computers and played Quake while drinking a crate of beer and eating a takeaway. Good times.
Sunday I went to another university to play football. I had tried to organise the students to play a match and ended up on the team playing against Liaoning Technical University in an empty, 4 000-capacity arena. Thankfully I was the only player over 5'5" and won the ball fairly easily for the most part. Next week: basketball!
Oh, also, on Sunday I went to get my hair cut! Having braved the clippers in Thailand and come out alive I was feeling optimistic. I learned the Mandarin for 'long', 'a little' and 'stop now, you're hurting me' and I marched in. Imagine the darkest, tiniest little barber shop you can, cram in 8 bald men and a whole lot of smoke. It was the scariest hour of my life but only came to 10 kwai (£1) so can't complain.
My students, as always, have been tremendous again this last week. We've been looking at refutations and I've had the class debating over the UK's non-compliance with the EU Directive on carbon tax. I've heard some fantastic arguments, including: 'If we don't impose the tax then our children will not be able to swim in local water.'; 'We should not ask anybody for money, we should instead invest in other technologies that don't use carbon;' and my favourite, 'The tax is important because we don't want the water recently found on Mars to become polluted.'
In other news: On the way back to the UK, me, Will and Wes are going to take the Trans-Siberian Railway from Beijing, through Mongolia and across Russia. (Don't tell Mum yet.) Also, next weekend we are going to Huludao on a night out with a tax official (thanks Will!) who has offered to pay for 'food, drink, KTV (karaoke) and nice girls'. Stay tuned for that update...!
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