I've been on dozens of these government-sponsored jollies celebrating "profound and everlasting international friendship" and feared the worst. But it was efficiently run, sunny weather, free coffee, short speeches and good food. So I can't complain too much. We even got given a free yellow cap and thermos flask. Result!
I spent yesterday "tree-planting". This is a traditional Chinese activity which purports to battle environmental problems in a visible way. I was one of 40 foreigners who had been invited to a sanatorium - a hotel, medical facility and training centre for stressed-out government workers - next to a big (and ironically very polluted) lake. The "Yunnan Trade Unions Foreign Affairs Department" had organised it as part of their "May 1st, International Labour Day" celebrations. I was representing our school as Robert, my boss, is on holiday in Sri Lanka. There were "foreign experts" from ten different countries and many professional backgrounds - education, development, agriculture, environmenal protection, industry, etc. I managed to plant three trees (the holes had been pre-dug) and chose one to hang my label on [see below]. My own tree! Then it was various speeches and a buffet banquet which included "dog meat sausage". That threw us for a while until the penny dropped - a HOT dog sausage!
I've been on dozens of these government-sponsored jollies celebrating "profound and everlasting international friendship" and feared the worst. But it was efficiently run, sunny weather, free coffee, short speeches and good food. So I can't complain too much. We even got given a free yellow cap and thermos flask. Result!
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I spotted this little mystery in the supermarket the other day. Bottles of same-brand shampoo were lined up next to each other, in different colours, but the blue ones claimed to be 700ml compared to the others' 750ml. Check out the photo - are the blues ever-so-slightly smaller than the greens? I don't think so, but "Rejoice" is a huge brand here, so how could they have made such a crazy mistake? And should I buy the green shampoo in the belief I'm getting more for my money (even if the blue shampoo has a nicer smell). Oh, shopping quandaries galore! The first printed book of my blog covered 2004 to 2009. The second volume has just been printed, covering 2009 to 2012. It's about the same size as the first, reflecting the increased frequency of entries, from one every 3-4 days to one every other day, on average. It's not cheap to get them printed to photo-quality, but it makes a great record of my challenges and adventures here.
The death toll continues to rise from the other day's earthquake in Lushan, a village in Sichuan Province - just "up the road". Over 200 dead and 11,500 injured (1000 of those seriously). Some people felt the 6.6 quake here in Kunming, though I didn't myself. We had to quickly ring the half dozen Lattitude volunteers who live a lot nearer to the epicentre. They certainly felt it, though all were safe and none suffered any damage to their flats. Bear in mind this is the same Province where 70,000 died in 2008 from a quake 50 times bigger. Fear levels there must be sky high.
I've been watching "Dragon's Den" recently, kindly sent out to me on recorded DVDs by my UK friend "Paul (the other one)". Thus inspired to find solutions to daily problems, I invented this device [see photo]. It just took just 5 minutes to make and works perfectly. I wonder if you can guess what it's for before clicking "Read More" below to find out. JD is three weeks old now and seems to be doing very well. He's been something of an "eating~sleeping~pooing" machine up to now, but is starting to show signs of being aware of his surroundings. Pleasingly, he whimpers for milk when hungry rather than screaming the house down. He's more relaxed about his daily bath now, has a strong grip and is starting to look outside his bedroom window with increasing interest (or so it seems - I sometimes wonder whether parents read too much into their baby's random movements and noises!). Ava and I are starting to look into registering his birth in China and/or Britain, and thinking about nationalities and passports. Not as easy as it sounds. China only recognises one nationality (Britain is OK with dual passports). China insists that every child born in the country is automatically Chinese unless, or until, they renounce their Chinese citizenship, at which point they have no right to stay in the country without a visa. Babies can't leave the country without a passport and exit visa. And so it goes on. Something of a red tape minefield. [Click here for more photos of JD's early days]
When Chinese companies blindly use computer translating programs, they tend to believe whatever English is displayed. Hence this terrific sign (sent to me by Gemma) which assumes that the computer error message displayed is the correct translation of the Chinese. Love it!
Feelings are still running high here about the various islands in the South China Sea whose ownership is disputed by China, Japan, Philippines, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, ....Luxemburg, for all I know! China sent a fleet of navy ships to patrol "its" waters this week as Taiwan said it was arranging tourist trips to view "their" islands. And Japan is firing water cannons at anyone who gets too close to "its" territory. Scary! I saw this license plate the other day which cleverly manages to combine racism, random CAPITALS and Chinglish! Nice.
My original online blog started in August 2005. I had to start again with Weebly in April 2009 when the Yahoo platform died, which means that the earlier entries only now exist on paper. So I thought I'd post an occasional "Flashback" entry, recalling an amusing or significant event from a time before this incarnation of the blog started. I had one of those very random conversations today which are quintessentially (yes, I looked it up!) Chinese. A mystery woman (MW) stopped me in the street...
MW: Hello. How are you? Me: Er … fine thanks. How are you? MW: I’m 23 years old. Where are you? Me: Well, I’m right here. But, I’m from England. MW: Are you friendly? Me: Yes, I think so…. MW: Can I play with you? Me: Er … not now. I’m ... er ... busy. MW: My father a teacher. Me: Oh really? MW: You like my father? Me: Yes, I’m a teacher like your father. Or do you mean “Do you like my father?” MW: Yes, I very like. Me: Do I know your father? MW: Yes, I know. Me: Is your father an English teacher? MW: I like dog and cat. Me: Er, OK ... how about your father? MW: I like. You teacher my father. Me: I do teach him? Or can I teach him? MW: Yes. Me: What’s his name? MW: Yes. Thank you. I have something. Me: Er … me too … nice to meet you. MW: Meet you too. Bye. I've been having some problems using Weebly recently. It seems to have been fixed now, at last. Apparently "using IE10 in a compatability mode". Oh, foolish me! Thank you for your patience. I was sent this photo the other day. Sometimes I miss my days as a maths teacher in the UK. My primary students were more advanced than I recall. I wonder if you can you spot the deliberate mistake on the board? Yes, well done, you got the "i" in taxi - twice, no less. You definitely nailed the "i" in station. Good job! And "wait"! You even found that "i". ...so why not go the whole way and use a final "i" for the "ing". Can't you see it's wrong? Use your "i"s! One of the few jobs I've been allowed to do so far is to take the photos and shoot the video. This has meant I haven't been in a lot of pictures myself. But by way of proof that I have really been around, here's a shot of me with sleepy JD. I'm determined not to let the blog dissolve into never-ending baby shots, but you'll forgive the occasional lapse. Bonus points for anyone who can guess what the yellow dot is for... [Click here for more photos of JD's early days]
Buses hit lamp posts all over the word, but only in China could a lamp post actually hit a bus. Full story here.
We learned today that next month we'll have to hand over JD for a full week of "Government propaganda". They'll give him a full medical, then read extracts aloud from Mao's "Little Red Book" to introduce him to the full communist ideology before issuing him an ID card. We are checking to see if having a foreign parent means we can avoid this full stay... |
AuthorPaul Hider lives and works in Kunming (SW China) and regularly updates this blog about his life there. Past blog entries
February 2024
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