This Chinese sci-fi film is actually called, "The Wandering Earth", but with the power cable hanging over the poster and the odd "H", I think it looks like, "The Wandering Fart II".
  I first met "Daizzy" when she was a trainee on a teacher-training course I ran in her County, some 17 years ago [ringed in above photo]. We've kept in touch since then and finally met up again yesterday when she visited Kunming on school business. Since that week way back in 2006 we have both got married (different spouses!) and had a total of three children! But we are both still teaching, and it was great to meet her over a cup of coffee and share all our news.
JD's Primary School sent out a text the other day which, when translated by my phone, read...  "In order to thoroughly study and implement General Secretary Xi Jinping's important statement on education, and cultivate the self-esteem, self-confidence, rationale, peaceful and positive attitude of primary and secondary school students, in accordance with the Guiding Opinions on Strengthening Mental Health Services of 22 Departments such as the National Health and Family Planning Commission (National Health and Disease Control [2016], the Ministry of Education on Printing and Distributing the Guiding Outline of Mental Health Education in Primary and Secondary Schools (Revised in 2012), the Education Leading Group of the Provincial Party Committee, Notice on Printing and Distributing the Work Plan for Preventing and Containing Personal Extreme Events of Students in Yunnan Province and the Notice of the Yunnan Provincial Department of Education, Yunnan Provincial Health Commission and Yunnan Women's Federation on the Evaluation of the Mental Health Status of Primary and Secondary School Students, after research, it was decided to carry out the evaluation of students' mental health status."
Saturdays is no longer a day off for me! I take JD on my e-bike to his homework club for 9am and then drive on to an adult class for a 1½ hour English lesson. At the end I have to whizz away quickly to get to 1½ hour kids' class [see photos below] which finishes at 1pm. I then pick JD up and head home for a quick snack before a 2.00pm one-to-one lesson at home. After 1½ hours with that ten-year old I say my goodbyes and welcome a 7-yearold for a final hour!
Thankfully I have so far been able to keep Sundays free to recover!
 JD's school has been driving Jiajia and I up the wall recently.
During the Winter holidays, we were told that his exams, postponed from last term, would take place in the first week back, so JD spent the last half of his "holidays" reviewing and preparing for the exams. But, when he returned to school last week, we were told they would take place in the second week after all. Now we have been told it will be the third week. This lack of planning and these constant last-minute decisions makes us despair of trying to get things ready. The Chinese education system seems to be so ad hoc and inefficient - my University is the same. This last week, JD has been finishing his daily homework sometime after 11pm. We've heard other kids in his class are not finishing until 1am. His patient after-school tutor [Wang LaoShi - see photo above] keeps him going until everything is completed. And yet the other day, JiaJia got a phone call from JD's teacher saying that he was "not focusing in class" and was "working too slowly". JiaJia replied, "...yes, his writing can be slow, which is why he rarely gets to bed before midnight these days, which in turn might explain his lack of focus in class..." Sometimes his teacher just needs telling!
Another bus and a final short walk got me home. A six hour round trip. Good fun.
 Jiajia bought some multi-use cleaning fluid recently. But the examples of what it could clean got progressively weirder!
JD and I played a couple of games of Risk the other day. But HOW ON EARTH does my computer know that?? The online adverts for Risk starting just 24 hours after we first played! Scary!  JD was greeted by a couple of random rabbits on his return to school yesterday! What with COVID and Winter holiday, it's his first day in class for about five months.  Apparently the Government have told his Primary School that they have too many students for Health and Safety reasons, so the current 2500 students will be gradually reduced to 1000 or so over coming years!   JD's holiday homework and review papers have been ramping up this week as he's back to school next week and looking at taking his end-of-term exams, which were postponed from last semester due to the COVID school closure.
He goes to a private homework class most days and Jiajia gives him extra help where she can. JD only has about a year of Chinese education to go, so it's important to take this opportunity to make his reading and writing as solid as possible before our move to the UK next year. I spotted this Passat the other day. Italian version, perhaps?   Yesterday, we met up with friends to show them where we do our fossil hunting. After a nice lunch together at a countryside home/restaurant we headed up the hill with our hammers and brushes! We all managed to find some fossils, but the newcomers got the best of the bunch...
 JD saw a crowd looking up in the sky the other day, and followed their line of sight to spot these rather amazing clouds! Apparently they are called "Mother-of-pearl" formations and are a very rare sight.
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 AuthorPaul Hider lives and works in Kunming (SW China) and regularly updates this blog about his life there. Past blog entries
March 2023
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