JD's class went on an outing to the zoo yesterday. JD's been a dozen times before though and declared the day's highlight to be the picnic I prepared for him!
 Green Lake is a nice park in the centre of Kunming. It's biggest claim to fame is when, every Winter, hundreds of gulls fly there from Siberia to take advantage of our city's warmer weather. Flocks of them arrive within a few days of each other. Last weekend - nothing. This Sunday - swarming with the winged Russians! And to meet them, hundreds of locals throwing pellets into the lake or holding up bread rolls for the gulls to pluck from their hands while flying past. Great fun.
 Not the best nutritional advice, I would think...
This has been a very stressful week as JD is doing mid-term exams and the teachers have been putting a lot of pressure on the students and parents to prepare their child to pass the tests. JD has been doing 3-4 hours of review at home every evening (even over the weekend) and getting very sleepy (and grumpy) as a result. This was how we found him between homework and shower the other evening...!  I'd like to say it has all gone smoothly, but we've had our share of tears, tantrums and toy-throwing (...and that's just the wife!). The Primary School concentrate on three subjects: JD's English is great, his Maths is OK but his Chinese is weak. Many other students in his class started doing after-school Chinese language classes over a year ago in Kindergarten and, of course, JD only has one Chinese parent. So we were pleased and relieved to hear JD got 97% in his Chinese exam yesterday. He was still only mid-class, but it was a lot better than the 77% he got two weeks ago. English last week was 100%. The Maths exam is today. Fingers crossed...
 JD goes to a two hour "basketball" club at his school every Sunday morning (not that they've ever touched a basketball in two months - it's all been running races and jumping up stairs!?). While he does that, I usually walk a couple of laps around Green Lake listening to podcasts, before treating myself to a coffee. Today, I saw arrows had suddenly appeared on the pavement surrounding the lake, showing in which direction people were supposed to walk. This "control the population" is something i really dislike about China, so I deliberately walked in the opposite direction. Actually, it turned out about half the pedestrians were ignoring the instructions - something I really like about the Chinese!
 JD's latest "den" involves blocking off the whole balcony with cut-up cardboard boxes, apart from a tiny entrance and various peepholes for weapons to stick out of! How do I get dragged into these projects?
 We celebrated our Halloween a little late this year due to exams. We invited our American family friends over and played a variety of scary and silly games such as "Get the chocolate out of the flour" game [JD lost - see above], "Crisps on a string" [see below], Pass-the-Parcel, "Treasure Hunt", "Guess the crisp flavour" and a "Feely Box". JD dressed as a fish(?!), while I was Spiderman. Our guests were a witch and a Ninja! All good, but not clean, fun!
  JD had a blast this weekend at the wedding of He Laoshi, his old Kindergarten teacher. Many of his old nursery friends were there too and JD was a page boy for the bride. An outdoor ceremony in perfect weather followed by the usual banquet made for a lovely day.
 Another in my occasional series of "Flashbacks" looking back at blog entries made before this Weebly version started. I was asked to stay around Robert's School throughout the weekend to lend a hand with any areas that were short-staffed. That proved easier said than done, as my “sword through the torso” fancy dress had students screaming, running and even crying, wherever I went! After a while Robert just suggested I wander around causing panic and mayhem (or words to that effect). No sooner said than done!  For my own classes I’d put together a few little games. One was a snake which had swallowed the class. the only escape was for the students to move back through the snake’s body with the aid of a large dice and Halloween questions if they landed on certain spots. The other game was a version of “pin the tail on the donkey”, but with Dracula’s facial features. Hilarity ensued! But boy, a weekend like this does leave one exhausted. By the end, my limping and groaning was no longer just being put on for frightening effect!
 It was a very pleasant surprise to get a phone call the other day from "Whiskey", a colleague I last worked with some 13 years ago when I was a VSO volunteer. He was visiting Kunming and suggested we meet up for lunch. Unfortunately the reason for him being here was to have a brain blood vessel checked out, with possible surgery to come. Hopefully he'll be fine - it was lovely to see him again. P.S. Kunming doctors said no operation needed - misdiagnosis!
 This is our new car - an Audi A6L. Well, it's not brand new, but it is new to us. It actually has a higher mileage than the car we've had for the last 15 years but it's ten years younger which means it can pass the emissions test each year and, hopefully, has less rusty bodywork! Plus it has a bunch of features such as sat nav, reversing sensors, powered steering and a working stereo system! It should last us for our remaining time in China.  I was asked to be one of the judges for the first-round of a National Speaking Competition last week. I was told there would be about 30-40 videos to watch and mark but, on arrival, we heard it would be nearer 60. Then, halfway through, an addition 45 "turned up"!? We eventually agreed to take 40 videos home on USBs to watch and grade at home in the afternoon! About 30% of the videos were completely inaudible due to students choosing to record their speeches in echoing classrooms or beside roads or amidst birdsong. And nearly half were displayed sideways or upside-down! You'd think they would check these things?  The second round was equally chaotic, although it was my colleague Jamie's who had to cope. Starting at 6pm, the live speeches from the 50+ qualifiers took over five hours to complete! He didn't get home until midnight! The Finals are this Friday, which we both have to attend. Fingers are crossed, but I'm expecting more poor planning!
I can go for weeks without meeting other foreigners and hearing "full-speed" spoken English. So podcasts keep me sane! Whenever I have 5-10 minutes spare I can plug my earphones into my phone and listen to part of a podcast - sometimes funny, sometimes informative, sometimes something catering to my odd tastes, be it "Thunderbirds", "Cults" or "Beef and Dairy Farming"!  Last week, for example, I found out all there is to know about the "Georgia Guidestones" a mysterious Stonehenge-like construction in America covered in advice (in eight languages) for how mankind should survive in the future. Fascinating stuff.
 Hospitals are often full of Chinglish signs and last week's visit was no exception. These two were explaining where the elevators went!?   Sadly, our long-lived Siamese fighting fish died yesterday. We'd had him for nearly two years (about 22 months longer than most of our goldfish last!). Being a fighting fish, he had to be in the tank by himself, but he seemed to enjoy roaming around the various underwater ornaments. JD named him "Demo" as a nod to the film "Nemo". We now have a replacement "normal" goldfish called, unsurprisingly, "Goldie". RIP Demo! P.S. Goldie lasted just three weeks! RIP Goldie.
This little fellow has been causing me a lot of grief over the last month or so. I've never quite known what it is in China that gives me allergic reactions at this time of year but, after a tip-off, it seems "ragweed" is probably the culprit. It's common in Kunming (tick), its sprays pollen out every Sep/Oct (tick) and it causes tears, repeated sneezing and sore throats in those affected (tick).  So if you see tears running down my face as I say goodbye to JD at school each morning, it's not sadness. If you hear me shrieking as I wake up it doesn't mean I've had a bad dream. And if you spot me swallowing hard before talking to my class, it's not a sign of nerves! It's blummin' ragweed!
  There was some great Chinglish on offer during our recent trip to ShiLin.
The "Tee shop" was a particular favourite - not only stringing seemingly random words together, but misspelling the very thing it was selling. And a bizarre logo too!  Before heading back to Kunming we spent a leisurely morning looking around ShiLin's Old Town (razed by bulldozers) and looking out for interesting places, such as the shop above selling hand-made funerary wares - a rare sight in a country where everything seems factory-produced these days. Then in the wet market, we saw these two diminutive "Hani minority" women selling various foods form their village. We bought some free range eggs (only to be told moments later by another nearby vendor that the eggs are the same "battery hen eggs" as everyone else's! Seems you pay a premium for the photo!  ON the way back to Kunming, we visited PanSiWan cemetery where Jiajia's Gran is buried. It was JD's first visit to a cemetery - cue a whole raft of deep questions on the remaining journey home!
 Jiajia, JD and I are currently taking a little break for a few days (this week is a national holiday to celebrate China's 70th year as a nation). We decided to use our annual tickets at ShiLin's "Ocean and Snow Park" but, unfortunately, after the 2-hour drive to get there we found out that our passes are not valid on holidays - that small print gets you every time! So we had to fork out for fresh one-day tickets. After bumper cars, the carousel and a terrific circus we headed into the huge sub-zero warehouse for tobogganing, skating and tyre-sliding. Then it was on to the ski run for JD's second "lesson". Last time he didn't quite manage to get all the way down the slope without falling over. But this time, after a couple of early tumbles, he was able to get all the way down a dozen times. And very proud of himself he was too! Mind you, pride comes before a fall and there were a couple of spectacular wipe-outs later as he tried to master "turning"!  |
 About the blogger
Paul Hider lives and works in Kunming (SW China) and updates this blog about his life there every other day. Past blog entries
October 2019
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