Ocean of Morality

When one of Ava's (rich) customers invites her out for dinner (and I'm allowed to tag along), you can be sure of a classy restaurant, great service and delicious food. Having a couple of dozen well-to-do customers vying for your latest Dior, Givenchy and Chanel garments means that only the best "bribers" get the chance to buy the best clothes first! Last night we went to a lovely old restaurant, serenaded with live harp music [see photo (L to R): harp player, customer texting, tea ceremony]. The restaurant's owner is also one of Ava's customer and, on seeing Ava's new jacket, wouldn't take no for an answer in buying it off her, there and then! It was, as always, nice to meet more of Ava's friends. A lovely bunch, full of fun. There was very little English being spoken which forced me to practise my limited Chinese and spurred me on to learn more during this coming year.

Still, at least my invites are a little more friendly than this one received by Robert the other day, with the Mayor of Kunming requesting the HOROR of his company!! What a difference a letter makes!

I had invited myself to Rob  and Rachel's house (my bosses) this evening to watch Everton (my team - the Blues) play Liverpool (Rob's team - the Reds) live on his satellite-connected TV. It was the usual tough and frenetic derby match, spiced up by an early red card for one of the Liverpool players, and a late one for an Everton player.

My celebrations at the first sending-off [see photo] were short-lived however, as Liverpool quickly scored a scrappy, but winning, goal. Still, as Ava said later, "You lost the match, but you kept your job!".

I had been to a (dull) wedding before arriving for the big event. Rob and Rachel had been to a Foreign Expert's banquet earlier in the evening where, quite amusingly the "Robert Norfolk" namecard had been written as "Bobert Nofork"! Gotta love that!

I saw this link on the BBC website today and clicked it to see what solutions people had suggested to heal the current Chinese/US rift. It was amusing, but not completely surprising, to find the page it leads to has been blocked! "Someone" clearly doesn't want ordinary people thinking about the issues or contributing their ideas. Better to clamp down on free speech and follow the party line!

I found this stretch limo blocking the gate to my flat the other day. All decked out for a wedding, as you can see. I've been invited to a wedding myself this weekend. Never much fun, but I said I'd go as it's an old friend. More exciting is the prospect of watching Liverpool v Everton live on satellite afterwards at Rob's (my boss) flat. He's a Liverpool fan, I'm an Everton fan - I may lose my job, but.... come on you Blues!

I had the great pleasure yesterday of meeting up with an old student of mine today. Ruth [centre] was one of the English teachers I used to train when I lived in JiangCheng three years ago. I almost didn't recognise her, as she has changed her glasses and was missing her two front teeth from a recent fall, poor girl! To Ruth's right is "Ian", one of her ex-students and her nephew, who was in Kunming to enter an English speaking competition (he came 18th out of over 100 entrants). To her left is her elder sister - one of seven sisters in her family (no brothers!). We had a nice meal together and reminisced about JiangCheng.

Today I was invited to lunch by Li Guo Zhi, my old boss from VSO, who is down from Beijing for a meeting. There were also some new and leaving VSO volunteers there, and I enjoyed chatting to them and sharing some local knowledge about Kunming and Yunnan. It's really nice how VSO have kept in touch, despite it being over 2 years since I left the organisation.

It's only been due to recent rides in Ava's car that I've started to realise just how busy Kunming's roads have become, especially at rush hours. Buses often have their own lane, so you don't notice it so much.

With 1.1 million cars registered in a city of 6 million people, the proportion of people with a car is one of the highest in China. And a further 900 cars are registered in Kunming every day. Yes, every day! Add to that the nearly 2000 fatalities from traffic accidents in Yunnan every year and you start to see the problem. Kunming's government are trying to tackle the increasing pollution problem by requiring cars to pass an exhaust test, and are asking motorists not to use their phone while driving, to stop driving through red lights  and not to change lanes at random. Somehow I doubt the driving will improve that quickly.

Six months ago Ava and I had our first proper "date", so today marks our half-year anniversary of being an "item". Mind you, we have spent the majority of that time on seperate continents, so it doesn't feel quite that long! Ava is actually 1000km away in Shenzhen this week, hunting down the latest fashions to ship back to her store.

As a little challenge, I decided to try and get to Ava's flat by bus this morning (she's always driven us there before). I found it eventually, and then walked back home (40 minutes). It's left me a bit shaky (I'm still getting the shakes on some days, presumably from the glandular fever) but it was good to get out into the sun and discover some new routes around town.

I was wandering around Green Lake yesterday after a gossip-catch-up lunch with Mark, one of the other foreign teachers at my school. It's a lovely place for a stroll in the sunshine, and some of the Chinglish is truly world class [see photo].

Best not to look too closely at the murky lake itself during the day, but at night it makes for a pretty setting [see photo]. Unfortunately, on this trip I found my favourite Thai restaurant all boarded up. And then I took the usual bus home to find they have changed the route and it now no longer goes to the stop outside my flat. Have I really been away that long?

Kang Wan Nian, a villager from an area south of Kunming, has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for shooting and eating possibly the last wild Indochinese tiger in China. A previous sighting back in 2007 is believed to have been the same creature. 

Kang claimed he was simply digging for freshwater mussels when he was forced to shoot the tiger in self-defence. He then took it home and ate it with his friends! But the court questioned why he had taken a shotgun to collect mussels(!) and how threatened he could have felt when the tiger was shot 35m (115ft) away. The case seems cat and dried to me.

Ava and I fancied a hotpot yesterday evening and headed for a unique and locally famous restaurant near Green Lake. It was a "one-price, all-you-can-eat" affair, but with the novelty factor of dishes of raw food sailing past your table, floating on a "stream" that runs throughout the restaurant [see photo]. These are fished out and chucked into the hotpot to cook.

We chose the least spicy option for the steaming hotpot [see photo], but it still managed  to blow our heads off when we tried it! Thankfully, unlimited soda drinks were part of the all-in deal, and the waiters happily diluted our potful, with a barely disguised smirk. We ate our way through a multitude of dishes, scooped from the river, with eyes watering and frequent trips to the free (and non-spicy) fruit stall! Not unsurprisingly, we both reported significant WC activity this morning!