Catseyes, landslides and flattened lizards 03/10/2010
 I spent a fun morning with the LEAF family yesterday. Ali wanted to explore the older streets of Kunming, particularly in search of a famous old Herbal Medicine shop. With this excuse, we headed into the backstreets and had an informal competition to see who could take the most interesting photos. My first entry was this one: black and white cats in a pincer movement, eyeing up leftovers from two diners.  We found a street specialising in signs and badges. Ali was after a sign that people in the countryside hang over their front doors to show that they are a good and moral household, by collecting stars in each of 12 categories. The first two shops refused to sell one to him (possibly spotting the lack of morals?), but a third shop did the deal when nobody was looking! I spotted my favourite Chinglish of the day, warning of slippery floors [see photo].  We finally stumbled across the Herbal Medicine shop we were after. A fine example of a 150 year old building, all too rare in Kunming these days. It still sells traditional medicine - ginseng, dried twigs, flattened lizards, etc. And then it was off past the KFC, Pizza Hut and MacDonalds for a well-earned bowl of noodles. Headaches 03/09/2010
 I had a reoccurance of my headaches and dizziness throughout today. Maybe it was a reaction from the end of the Lattitude course? Maybe the result of a sudden drop in temperature from the last few weeks of warm, to today's chilly? Maybe some sort of drill boring into my head [see photo]? Or maybe because of Freda and Edie's draining of my silly joke resources for an hour over dinner! Yes, the LEAF family are back from a snowy retreat in Scotland and heading toward Simao, where they have been working with VSO for the last 4 years. They are only staying there for a last few months, while they tie up loose ends and hand over to a new volunteer. After that, their plans become more vague, but seem to include travelling and finding a new challenge in another country. I've seen more of the LEAF family than my own family over the last 4 years, so I will miss having them "down the road" (albeit 7 hours bus ride away!). Their blog is well worth following too - much more informative than mine, and written by various members of their family. Latt's your lot 03/08/2010
 The latest Lattitude training course has come to an end. Yesterday was focused on the volunteers observing lessons at the school and then teaching a 50-minute lesson themselves. For many of them it will have been their first experience in front of a class, instead of being a student in one. They did well overall, although some nerves showed and quite a few ran out of activities well before the bell rang!  Today's final sessions ended with a ten minute walk to a rather posh restaurant for a Farewell Banquet, serenaded by a Chinese harp player. The venue would normally have been out of our price range but the owner is a customer of Ava's and dropping her name when we rang got us a hefty discount! The volunteers fly off to their projects around China tomorrow, while I'll be tidying up their classrooms and getting ready for my first adult evening class for over a year. Worth seeing 03/07/2010
 I found this website and blog the other day, by a Canadian guy in his 60s, - Bill Moore - who is exploring what it's like to be a blind foreigner living in a developing country, by recording his feelings and experiences. He hopes to make contact with visually impaired people, and set up some community projects in Yunnan (the Province where I live). Knowing myself how tough it is sometimes to live in a different culture, I can't begin to imagine also being blind and managing to cope. It's well worth a read if you have the time. Pretty party kids' pics 03/05/2010
 Last weekend was my nephew Louise's 4th birthday party. Apparently he was a bit overawed and shy with his 13 party friends at first. But I guess he perked up in order for this delightful photo to have been taken.  Louie's sister, my niece, Daisy seems to have been too busy scoffing the chocolate cake to be in any way shy, by the look of this cute photo! Both of my brothers have such photogenic kids - I can only assume it's down to their mothers' genes! Better Latt than never 03/04/2010
 The Lattitude course is progressing well, despite both trainers being unusually low on energy levels (Rob is still struggling with food poisoning and, although my headaches have thankfully stopped, I'm "straight-to-bed" tired by the end of each 6-7 hour teaching day!). We've had the usual incidents - a stolen wallet, a case with the keys locked inside and a volunteer trapped in a lift for 20 minutes! But this intake are a great bunch and easy to teach. This afternoon they are all off on a half-day outing to the Golden Temple which will give them a well-earned break from the intensive training sessions. The beauty and the beastly balconies 03/03/2010
 The latest brainwave of the Kunming local goverment is to remove all balconies and burglar cages overlooking streets. This is happening at a bewildering rate - we heard rumours about it just over a month ago, posters went up a couple of weeks later and teams of workmen are now ripping balconies down all around town. In the photo you can see the bottom floor has been done, with the floors above to come. My flat is due to be "sorted" next week, one of hundreds, possibly thousands, in Kunming. I thought at first that it might be a safety measure but no, this is China - I'm reliably informed it's part of a scheme to help Kunming compete in the "most beautiful city in China" competition! I'm not convinced it looks lot better. The local government has also banned outside dining at restaurants, increased the number of road-sweepers and planted 800,000 trees! All very well, but I lose my balcony!! Will i am 03/01/2010
 Nineteen weary teenagers arrived in Kunming today - the latest batch of Lattitude volunteers attending my school's In-country Teaching Skills Course. We had been told to expect 10 Australians and 9 Brits, so we had a bit of a scare when only 9 Ozzies turned up. "William" was not there. Thankfully, 10 Brits turned up a few moments later, including "William" who had been wrongly designated as arriving from Sydney!  A bit worryingly, Rob (my boss and fellow trainer) has been ill in bed for the last two days with food poisoning. He says he should back for when the lessons start tomorrow. I hope so, as I'm not feeling 100% either. Still, we did manage to ferry all the volunteers to their hotel, have an introductory meeting and then took them all to a banquet. But the real work starts tomorrow! Pain in the neck 02/27/2010
 I returned to teaching this weekend after 6 months off. Sadly, some of my old classes have been returned to me with very few students left and, unless more join up, a couple of them may be cancelled. Student numbers often fluctuate, but I've yet to "lose" a class for lack of students. My 5D "special talent" class [see picture] gave me a warm welcome back yesterday by spraying me with crazy string on arrival! To be fair, they had also decorated the class with Welcome signs and bought me some of my favourite dumplings and a big cream cake. Plus each had a brought me a gift from a recent holiday (Laos, Beijing, Dali, Canada, etc). Nice to be appreciated! I've managed to get through my three classes so far on adrenalin and bloody-mindedness. But I've left each feeling totally wiped out, with neck pains, dizziness, chest tightness and headaches. I'll be amazed and relieved to get through next week's 7-day training course in one piece!  Well it only took 3 soaking sessions before my bowl exploded, clearly not designed for a body my size! I was back at the hospital again today, however, this time primarily about the headaches and dizziness I've been getting over the last 5-6 days. The doctor agreed it was a neck problem and tugged my head this way and that to "realign the bones"! It was a bit nerve-wracking and painful, and left me with a worse headache than I came with.  He also prescribed a Chinese herbal medicine for "straightening the neck". The packaging also claims that it will nourish my kidneys, strengthen my brain, calm me AND energise me, cure sores in my waist and knee, help me remember things and sort out blurred vision! Sounds great, right? And made by "Jolly Pharmaceuticals"! The doctor also laughed out loud when I showed him the cream I'd been given for my skin infection by another Chinese doctor a few days ago. "That's for scalds and burns" he explained. So we headed off to another hospital for some other medicine he was sure would help. We had a very noticeable tremor this afternoon - a 5.0 magnitude quake some 100km (60 miles) away. Klaxons wailed as our car park security guard shouted "Earthquake, earthquake!". Nobody bothered to evacuate though. |  AuthorPaul Hider lives and works in China and regularly blogs about his strange life there
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