Blog

Luck of the gods?

4/8/2021

A really mixed day today. Jiajia, JD and I visited the Bamboo Temple with a friend of ours - Du Laoshi - a 40 minute drive up a mountain on the outskirts of Kunming. We had a good look around, including the famous 500 detailed statues of monks in various poses there. Then we joined the monks and worshippers for a vegetarian lunch.

Afterwards, we decided to walk on to a park. But after 5 minutes, JD suddenly decided to run across the road, getting hit by an SUV.

Thankfully, JD only suffered scratches and bruises and was keen to keep on. The rest of us, including the driver, were a lot more shocked, and we decided to head back to the temple and the car. JD said the gods kept him safe because he'd donated a few yuan to them in the temple. I'm wondering whether they arranged the crash because of the meagre cash amount

But after a rest and a thorough check-up we did drive on to the park and JD enjoyed a few hours of fishing (including catching a 20cm long shrimp and nearly catching a yellow garter snake).

After returning to Kunming, we found a car wash for which Jiajia had a free ticket, and enjoyed a large dumping meal while the car was cleaned inside and out. A day of ups, downs, acrosses, insides and outs.

Try lobites

2/8/2021

Good friends of ours showed us an area on the outskirts of Kunming today where you can, if you are lucky, discover some 500 million year old fossils! We had great fun hammering, tapping and brushing for 3 hours and found about a dozen small fossils. The trilobite below (found by Jiajia) was the pick of the bunch.

TENple photograph

30/7/2021

Ten years married to this lovely woman! Who'd have thought?

Injurey cable unable

28/7/2021

Good 'hood

26/7/2021

With the frequent summer rainstorms and sunshine, our neighbourhood is looking particularly green and full of shade.

Art to believe

24/7/2021

JD entered another competition yesterday. This one was a little more low-key than the Lego extravaganza earlier this week, but still fun. The task was to make a collage featuring the cat logo of the sponsors plus something on the theme of the "UN International Biodiversity Conference" being held in Kunming later this year. This contest was a nationwide one, so we won't know the result for a week or two, but it was a fun event regardless.

Cut and dried

22/7/2021

Well my cataract operation is all done. No pain exactly, but more uncomfortable than I'd been led to believe. I stayed overnight in the hospital afterwards but I was up and about this morning. The staff were really good - professional and caring - and they asked for a group photo before I left as I was the first foreigner they had treated. My wife as a star too, braving heavy rains to translate for me and bring me food! Two weeks of "20 eye drops a day" now, plus I'll need new glasses!

Eye eye

20/7/2021

I spent 9 hours doing various tests today in preparation for a cataract operation tomorrow. 8 eye tests, blood test, blood pressure test, ECG, chest X-ray, you name it! Jiajia was really helpful and patient as usual but it was a tiring process. The operation is tomorrow morning.

Lego Master!

18/7/2021

JD took part on a huge Lego Competition this morning along with 43 other kids of a similar age. He got first place in the initial round ("Make your name out of Lego"), then made the tallest tower (though not the most stable, so 4th place there) and then came first again in the final solo round ("Make an amazing building"). Overall - an amazing first place! His prize was a Harry Potter Lego set worth 700RMB (£70), a certificate and a handshake with the head of the bank who sponsored the event. JD was gob-smacked, and we were pretty chuffed too!

Fire the translator

16/7/2021

Fire advice in China is often a
bewildering mish-mash of Chinglish!

It's all mine

14/7/2021

We had a fun day out with out new friends - a family we originally met at our Secret Forest den 6 months ago - visiting a mountain area they enjoy going to and sharing lunch and dinner with them. Our combined four e-bike convoy made the 50km round trip without recharging and the rain held off, despite dark skies. JD loved digging a slate mine, we diverted a small stream, made walled "gardens", played frisbee and caught a frog. What more could you ask for on a day out?

"...scarf heart to party"??

12/7/2021

JD's school teachers send multiple daily messages to all their students' parents, even in holiday time. My phone does its best to translate the Chinese into English, but there are frequent messages which leave me totally bewildered, for example....

Mind you, Jiajia says the originals are often total nonsense too!

Take a boazi

10/7/2021

JD had his end of term ceremony yesterday. Afterwards, as a treat for all his hard work, Jiajia and I offered him a McDonalds Happy Meal. But JD said he preferred baozi and jiaozi. These are a somewhat more traditional snack of steamed meat dumplings. Jiaozi [left, below] have a thin skin and are moon-shaped Baozi [right, below] are fluffier and circular. Dip one or the other in a sauce of your making (Me? Soy/vinegar with a pinch of chili. JD? Soy and sugar!} and eat whole. 8RMB (80p) for a tray of 10. Yum!

Lazy bug

8/7/2021

It's always a good laugh to see what contorted position JD is sleeping in when I go to wake him up in the morning!

I've always woken him in the same way:

Lights on, 10 min snooze.
Get dressed and another 10 min snooze.
Lights on, get out of bed to wash,
brush teeth and have breakfast.

But from next term, I've told him he needs to do it all by himself...

Lay in? No, inlay!

6/7/2021

I've had four dental visits over the last three weeks - two fillings, an x-ray, a clean and two "inlays" - a procedure in which a scanner builds a 3D model of your teeth [see below] in order to 3D print a small but precise resin shape that fits exactly into a gap between the teeth - a gap which apparently has been attracting decay! Not cheap or quick, but state-of-the-art. JD had a check-up too, but no problems for him!

Potty!

4/7/2021

Complete Poster Coverage

2/7/2021

Posters have been put up all around town over the last month or so, reminding people that the great Communist Party of China is celebrating 100 years (yesterday). Happy Anniversary, CPC! My phone translates the poster content as a heady mix of self-congratulatory and confusing messages. Most Chinese people I know just shrug. Politics and its associated propaganda are not a conversational priority here.

Tables

30/6/2021

This week and next sees JD's end of term exams - so even more stress and homework than usual. His after-school class takes on the brunt of the Chinese and Maths exercises with Jiajia and I giving him a little extra, personalised work at weekends.

JD, front right

Recent feedback from JD's teachers are that he is focusing better in class and is much-liked by staff and students alike. We are expecting top marks in English, hoping for a top ten placing in Maths and fearing he'll be bottom ten in Chinese... Fingers crossed!

Jion the gang!

28/6/2021

Every single sign in this hotel had "join" misspelled!

Very international meeting

26/6/2021

I was asked (well, told!) to attend a meeting the other day between my University (YUFE) leaders and the foreigners who work and study there. The attendees represented 16 countries in all - mostly Asian and African. I'm the second-longest serving foreigner there (6 years so far), but was still introduced as "Mr Paul"!?

The meeting lasted two hours and was mostly spent listening to self-congratulatory speeches commemorating 100 years of the Chinese Communist Party and 70 years since YUFE's founding. Gripping stuff.

This is the wrong way...

24/6/2021

A bemusing T-shirt I spotted the other day. I THINK it says:

This is hip-hop
I am the focus
Make war, right now
Amazing, how else
This is the right way
Dice please go away

Den der were two

22/6/2021

The secret forest opened again last week, so JD and I visited to see if our den had survived the Winter closure. One section of the ceiling was drooping don and needed a new prop, but otherwise it was all good. And the copy-cat den next to ours (built by someone else - we know not who) has grown and now links up with our complex! How fun!

Floored

20/6/2021

Whitey lost the fighty

18/6/2021

"Whitey", one of our two hamsters, died this morning. He'd been sick for a month or two - shaking, blind, no back legs working - and I've been giving him food and water by hand (JD lost interest in the hamsters a long time ago!). "Bitey" is in a separate cage and is still full of health and energy, so I continue to have a feeding and cleaning regime!

See what I mean?

16/6/2021

I've been spotting little hints that JD's sight might not be 20/20 over recent months (having been there myself 50 years ago) and so we took him to the hospital the other day to have a thorough check-up. Long story short, he now needs glasses. So today we picked up his first pair.