Blog

Keep yer Aar'on

10/4/2022

I had a very unexpected meet up today. I was just finishing a restaurant meal with an old friend when the guy on the next table suddenly exclaimed, "PJ??". Now that's a moniker I used at work for a year or two, ages ago - there was already another teacher named "Paul" in the Kunming training school when I started to work there. The guy explained that I had been his teacher at Robert's School some 14 years before and, once he mentioned his English name, "Aaron", I did indeed recognise him and remembered him as a rather cheeky 10-year old. In the intervening years he has got four A-levels, a Physics degree and a Masters in the UK, and is soon to start a PhD in quantum mechanics at York University. Amazing!

Paul & Shark

8/4/2022

Can I trust my business partner?

COVID free

6/4/2022

China continues to try and maintain a COVID-free country. Any small outbreaks are clamped down on immediately with lockdowns (sometimes of whole cities like Shanghai, pop 26m) and mass testing. Here in Kunming, we are far from the current cases in the East, but last week a single infected air passenger arrived from Shanghai. It caused a panic and everywhere suddenly started insisting on QR health code checking and mark-wearing all over again. My own University organises regular tests of all its students and faculty. It's free, unless you want to avoid the queues and get the test done privately. And so far our city still has just the one case, but....

It's bin fixed

4/4/2022

One thing I like about the Chinese people is the default position of fixing things, rather than just chucking them away. Usually, anyway.

Le'sgo!

2/4/2022

I woke JD up an hour early yesterday and got him dressed and ready for school before pointing out it was April Fool's Day! Still, he quite enjoyed the unexpected hour, playing with his Lego.

This is JD's latest Lego build: a Star Wars Rebel Bomber spaceship.

Green machines

30/3/2022

Electric cars are becoming a more and more common sight on Kunming's roads. You can easily tell them by their green registration plates. Just this morning, JD spotted 6 Teslas on our trip to school, plus there are a lot of Chinese-brand e-cars too. I would say 10% of Kunming's cars are electric these days, and 90% of the bikes, too. Hopefully this will help reduce the pollution, both fuel and noise.

A type of party

28/3/2022

JD celebrated his birthday this weekend. His favourite present was a second-hand typewriter - something he's been wanting for months.

For his party we met up with five of his friends and their families for a vegetarian buffet in a quaint restaurant overlooking LianHua Lake. This was followed by two birthday cakes, the opening of presents and an hour sailing (and ramming!) a small flotilla of electric boats on the lake. It was a really fun time for all.

JD's first typed "poem"!?

Dodging a bullet

26/3/2022

MU5735 is a flight all too familiar to my wife, as she takes it regularly to get to Guangzhou's wholesale clothes where she buys stock for her Kunming fashion store. So it was a real shock to hear that this flight crashed last week, seemingly without explanation.

The graph (above) shows just how suddenly and catastrophically the plane went from normal cruising altitude to a nose-dive into the mountains of GuangXi. The experts are surmising that either the tail just fell off or the pilot went rogue. Either way it's a mystery for now.

Easy and cheap?

24/3/2022

I spotted this advert outside our local supermarket last week.
I'm not convinced it's the two words they were really looking for...!

COVID-free?

22/3/2022

It's good to see Kindergartens in Kunming
taking COVID prevention so seriously!

Landing

20/3/2022

During odd five minute-breaks at home, in between his daily 3-4 hours of homework, JD has been gradually building an airport in his bedroom using Dupo Lego, toy cars/planes/tanks/etc and furniture legs!

Although it looks fairly random, he has a long back-story and can spend ages explaining to you how each part of the airport works and why everything is in its rightful place. Untidy, but imaginative!

Fawnmum

18/3/2022

...it certainly is...!?

On line

16/3/2022

I'm amid a second week of online University lessons. Not ideal at all. There are significant COVID outbreaks in various places in China, but mostly in the East - far from us. I think the latest figure for Kunming is 10 cases (in a city of 7 million).

But the authorities here continue to pursue a "no-COVID" policy, trusting that lockdowns and mass testing will eventually prove more effective than Chinese vaccines and abandoning all preventative measures. That remains to be seen.

Qenter? Well, well...!

14/3/2022

JD shop

12/3/2022

Bad food

12/3/2022

One of my dumplings looked a bit evil today!

Showing some character(s)

10/3/2022

JD can read/write over 2000 Chinese characters these days.

March 08th, 2022

8/3/2022

I was just about to leave for work at the University yesterday when a text message came through saying, "Do NOT come to YUFE. All lessons this week are to be conducted online".

There was no immediate explanation, but later I heard that a student in another University in Kunming had tested positive for COVID and so all Kunming Universities had to close for 3-4 days.
This presented me with some problems:

(1) My afternoon lessons were meant to be students doing "debating",
(2) I don't have the software used by the students for online work,
(3) The first lesson was in one hour's time.

So I switched the content to a different - less interactive - lesson, tried to access the relevant software but, after an hour of technical issues, gave up on that and finally sent materials and work tasks to the classes directly to complete by themselves. Not sure how things will play out for the rest of the week....

Guest who?

6/3/2022

I updated the "non-blog" areas of this website today.
Do have a look sometime if you're bored (tabs above).

And the last Guestbook entry was in 2020. So, if you read the blog and have never made yourself known, do please leave a comment here.

But...

4/3/2022

Getting my bearings

2/3/2022

I've recently been struggling a bit to make it to work and back so, last weekend, it was time to change the batteries on my e-bike. They start to degrade after a year or so but, at just £50 a set, it's still pretty cheap travel.
My front wheel also felt a little wobbly of late, so I got that checked next door at the repair shop. That turned out to be the ball bearings (£3 including labour!). And now I'm good to go!

Flight of fancy

28/2/2022

JD's current dream career is to be a civil pilot. So it was with great enthusiasm that he attended a half-day "training course" in avionics, courtesy of one of Jiajia's VIP bank accounts. He had safety lectures (including trying on a life jacket and an inflatable slide), made a wooden fighter jet, won a toy glider and - his favourite - helped fly a passenger jet in a professional simulator! He was so excited!

Come on! It's your country!

26/2/2022

There 's no snow?

24/2/2022

Kunming is known as the "Spring City" with temperate weather all year. round. As such, snowfall is a once-in-a-decade surprise.

But yesterday, as I battled to work on my e-bike, Jiajia and JD were out enjoying the white stuff - snowball fights and a snowman.

JD hasn't really seen snow in Kunming before and I haven't seen this much in all my 15 years here. It's due to start disappearing today, although the unusually cold temperatures (-2ºC) will be here for a few more days yet.

Crash crushed crisps

22/2/2022

This e-bike just couldn't handle the stack of crisp boxes!