Food

I’m sitting here on my bed writing this, munching through a packet of chocolate biscuits and I am thinking in a vague fashion about food as you do when you’re tucking into biscuits. On a day to day basis, I have claimed breakfast for the West, gastronomically speaking – I tend to have oats, sultanas and a chopped up banana with yogurt and a cup of tea. I have to say, I don’t know what an authentic Chinese breakfast consists of, but from the look of the stalls I pass walking to work big pancake/omelette with tomato and spring onion crossovers and dumplings seem to be the way forward. The other morning our opposite neighbour knocked on the door and pressed a bowl of beans on me, so I’m thinking it’s the same kind of thing they/we eat for lunch and dinner. I’ll stick with fruit and my oats for the moment I think.

We’ve got a kitchen, but we’ve not got to grips with Chinese cooking yet so at the moment I tend to get my lunch and dinner from the aforementioned stalls. Charlie has used our kitchen to great effect - he cooked the most delicious meal for us and Andy; there was an egg and tomato dish, untranslatable green veg with garlic, shredded potato and aubergine with coriander, spring onions and chilli and a chicken dish with loads more vegetable in it. There was rice too, and he did it all with one pan on one burner (and the rice cooker). Chinese cooking is something else I must learn because there’s no way I can go back to English takeaways now – the real thing is just too good and everything I’ve tried to make so far has been practically inedible!! Rice and noodles two meals a day isn’t as monotonous (yet) as I was expecting, I suppose that’s because there’s loads of different dishes to try so it’s not like every meal is the same and anyway they’re easy enough to avoid if you don’t want them. I also made my peace with not being able to have a decent sandwich until I get back to England, so I’m not really craving Western food...

Having said that, McDonalds and KFC have become a treat and I am suitably ashamed of this. KFC has to go (screw you Colonel!) but McDonalds I might keep for emergencies because there’s only one in Handan and sometimes you just need some beef in your life. They’ve stopped doing curly fries now (I <3 curly fries) so there’s less of a draw, but it’s still novel because Ronald McDonald is still around. It’s like they rounded up all the old Ronald stuff when they went on a health kick and banished him East for tubbifying my generation. I wonder if there are more social rejects of the 1990’s hiding out in China? Oh yeah, MSG and tracksuits.

ANYWAY, I digress. My favourite place to eat in Handan is over the road from us in the lean-to diner behind the market where we get chow mein or egg fried rice, or the new dish I tried that was a kind of hot noodle soup. A local bloke was having it so I tried in my best Mandarin ‘我不要米饭，我要这个谢谢.’ “Wo bu yao mifan - wo yao zhege, xiexie” which is: ‘I don’t want rice, I want this one thanks’. Well. It actually was more like ‘bu mifan, jay-ger’ (not rice, this one) but the above is what I should have said; I panic a little bit when it comes to full sentences in Mandarin because even if I know what I should say, I never understand the response and it’s embarrassing to be constantly saying ‘wo bu mingbai’ (I don’t understand). I’m working on it though because I desperately want to understand and be understood. Andy and Charlie say I’ve got an ear for the tones and I can listen and repeat like a performing monkey...one of these days I’ll earn some myself some metaphorical peanuts by stringing something cohesive together! I’ve started trying to learn with online help and we’ve got a Mandarin teacher now so soon I’ll bust out my Mandarin skills on the couple who run the stall and they’ll be so relieved! They’re really sweet and patient with our fumbly attempts at ordering food. I prefer sitting out there and eating with the locals but because the food comes in bags in the bowls (to save on washing up I guess) more often than not when the three of us go, we bring food back up to the apartment.

The market and the foodstalls open and close at meal times, you can’t really go any old time and not everyone is there every day so it’s a delicious lottery. At different stalls you can get deep fried chicken strips or pork, dumplings – boiled, fried or steamed (for lunch today I had fried dumplings which were amazing – 好吃!) and omelettes, there are various prepared vegetable and tofu places, there’s a sweet potato and corn on the cob lady, a dude who sells crab and in behind all that is a market where you can get more vegetables, fish and meat (both live and/or prepared) than you could shake a stick at.

There are two different supermarkets which we go to: one is Walmart, but that’s not very interesting so I won’t bother telling you too much about that. The other one is under the lake in the park (!!!) You go down some escalators to get in there and the first time we went they were playing Kiss from a Rose by Seal and there was a stage with girls dancing on it to advertise a kettle (!!!) You can literally get anything inside and (sadly enough) it’s one of our leisure activities to go and push the trolley round and see what randomly flavoured things and bizarrely named products we can find today. I had the best intentions of trying weird things like chicken feet, but I’m afraid they just look too much like the severed feet of a chicken (surprisingly…) so I’m compromising and trying funny flavoured things instead. Dragon fruit or chocolate teeth grinding stick anyone? No? How about some cool refreshing lemon flavoured crisps?

I’ve been experimenting with different kinds of tea too. I’ve mentioned before that we inherited a box of Earl Grey but we also got some bags of tea that are only labelled in Chinese, so I’ve been working my way through them. Here are my findings:

Mystery Tea #1 –

Dry Smell – citrusy but a bit musty

Wet Smell – warm and vaguely citrusy

Taste – quite lemony but sort of perfumed… maybe it’s a bit old? I should probably get a new bag of this.

Rating – 3/5

Mystery Tea #2

Dry Smell – odd… nutty maybe?

Wet Smell – feet?

Taste – vaguely nutty still but I’m not convinced by this as it looks like rehydrated walnuts or a weird mushroom or mould. God I hope I’m not accidently drinking mushroom water.

Rating - -1/5

Mystery Tea #3

Dry Smell – familiar but unplaceable

Wet Smell – green and herby and lemony

Taste – ah! It’s green tea. No idea which specific kind, but it’s nice. Woo!

Rating – 4/5

  

Mystery Tea #4

Dry Smell – potent!

Wet Smell – flowery and fresh – jasmine?

Taste – yep, jasmine. It’s fragrant and actually I really like it, which is a surprise because I’ve never liked jasmine tea before.

Rating 5/5

More exciting tea trying another day J

Kindergarten

Teaching

It’s funny how life throws you curve balls and gives you what you need, not necessarily what you want, right? Well, I did not want Kindergarten. I wanted anything but Kindergarten. ANYTHING. My general attitude to children goes along the lines of they’re as fine as soon as they’re old enough to ask funny questions and have opinions, toddlers are fun to chase for about ten minutes and babies are mostly boring but they can’t help that. I think this mostly because I don’t know many kids, so I haven’t really gotten to know any properly as people rather than entities I have to entertain for however long. As a preference I would always opt for people who I can have a conversation with, so coming to China teaching I was hoping for anyone 8+. What did I get? Kindergarten. My worst teaching nightmare! And on top of everything else, it means that I’ve carried a heavy flipping grammar book half way around the world unnecessarily. Balls.

I felt quite honestly sick when I first walked into Lilac’s Number 2 Kindergarten on that first morning, and I did quite literally get through it on novelty, adrenaline and baa-baa black sheep. They say necessity is the mother of invention, and as far as I’m concerned They are quite right – that’s how I got through the second morning, but what I did, with which class and how well it went I couldn’t tell you. Not a clue. I did sit down and draw all the animals in the Chinese astrological calendar when I got home so that I would have something to fall back on the next time I was back in. I’m about a month in and I’ve only just discovered that Number 2 does in fact have books for students to work from- the next step is getting a book for me so I can plan things. At the moment my telepathy is about as good as my Mandarin and it’s a tough call which I’d actually find more useful here! Fortunately, in Kindergarten Number 1 (my Monday and Tuesday school) things are a bit easier. From the first day there were books and flashcards and a lovely assistant called Amanda to help me, and I’ve borrowed the ‘Hello Melody!’ CD’s from them so I can get familiar with the songs. They’re rubbish by the way, here’s a sample: “Hula hoop! Hula hoop!/ Round and round./ Don’t let the hula hoop/ drop to the ground!”

Each morning (Monday to Thursday at the moment) I have four classes of about half an hour each, the range of ages goes from about 18 months up to about 6 years and class sizes are between 48 and 14 or so. It’s surprisingly manageable with a good assistant, which both of mine are, and a sense of humour. If I am dying on my arse there’s usually only ever about fifteen minutes to kill and stickers raise morale like nobody’s business. I gave three stickers to one tiny little girl in one class because she was the only one saying anything, and she came and gave me one back with a huge smile – presumably because I’m good at speaking English too! As soon as I manage to convey to the older ones that shouting things as loudly as possible doesn’t count as more understandable and get used to being winked at by a dozen tiny willies when teaching the tiny ones (the little boys’ trousers are not sewn up front to back below the waistband and they don’t wear pants) I’ll be on a roll. I haven’t really learnt any of the kids’ names yet, but Laura has a girl called Andrew, a boy called Brains and one whose name is either Cool or Star depending on his mood. She also got to give a class their English names – little Barry burst into tears at his name, can’t think why...

I should be getting more classes soon, which I am actually quite looking forward to - I didn’t come to China to sit around, I was doing enough of that in England. This could very easily be a case of be careful what you wish for, but I am learning very quickly that all the sayings are true and whatever doesn’t kill you... I’m still getting to grips with being a teacher, but I seem to be doing reasonably well at it and I’m actually enjoying myself! Covering some classes today the assistants didn’t believe I’ve only been at this for four odd weeks. Once again, my mother has proved that she is ALWAYS right because I’m finding my ability to draw a huge help – it’s good to see an expensive degree (in art) isn’t being wasted, though I didn’t expect drawing tomatoes and monkeys would be my primary artistic outlet after graduation!

It’s hard to describe the atmosphere inside the schools, especially since I can’t really compare them with any kindergartens or primary schools back home. Stereotypically you expect Chinese children to be all silent and dedicated – fortunately (or otherwise...) so far pretty much all my kids are bouncy little monkeys and the teachers and assistants seem to be a combination of dictator and warden and mother to them. They shout and they drag but they cuddle and they comfort when the sight of gigantic speckled foreigner gets too much. Because as a foreign teacher I am a hot commodity in the school’s show pony stakes (Look parents! We’ve got Foreign Teachers, so clearly we are an Excellent School and you should spend lots of money sending your precious child here...) it’s hard to tell if the Chinese teachers resent us being there or not, despite or because of how polite they are, and that is a little unsettling. We get carted between classrooms and when I land in I seem to be interrupting whatever the class is doing, like the English lesson that I’m about to deliver is the most important thing and everything else should move aside when the Foreign Teacher is around. However, I can’t say I’ve seen or experienced anything that could be described as unwelcoming, so I am going to take the way the kids are prompted to say ‘Good Morning Teacher!’ and ‘Thank you Teacher!’ simply as good manners and carry on doing my best not to screw up these children’s education.

Here are some things I have found popular and useful so far:

Stickers and pennies as bribes/rewards for good behaviour go down a storm – sometimes too well...

Peekaboo makes toddlers giggle universally – even ones who were bawling their eyes out at the sight of you a minute before

Kids <3 jumping

You lose your inhibitions about your singing voice surprisingly quickly

Putting things in bags can spin out teaching vocabulary for ages

If you’ve got any tips, please share!

Welcome to Handan

We’ve been in our new apartment for just over a week and in Handan for nearly a fortnight, so it’s time and past to update my first impressions of Handan. The first few days were hard, there’s no doubt about it. What surprised me is that the thing I’ve found the hardest is being back around people all the time again. I’ve become much more solitary than I realised and I’m going to have to get over that. Everything else - the food, the constant stares, the jingle bells tune playing when the shower tank has heated up the water, even the Kindergarten(!) are exciting novelties that I’m relishing because they’re new and different and that’s what I wanted, even if I’m not enjoying some aspects of them. That’s life though, and lucky for me I’m a cup-half-full person.

Anyway, now we’ve moved we are in a sky-high palace on the 6^th floor. It’s Tom’s old apartment and a world and a half better than our old digs! Let us not dwell on the past – the old place is history and it’s onwards and, quite literally, upwards. I’ve shotgunned having a room to myself for the first month – it’s only a 2 bedroom place, so Laura and Steph are sharing the double bed in the big room. Swallow’s sorted out a folding screen and mattresses in the annex of the living room so there are technically three beds and we’ll all move around so that it’s fair. It’s not ideal, and not exactly to the letter of our contracts, but the decision was reached that we’d rather stick together than get a 2bed and a 1bed apartment, or each live on our own, which we were offered. Tom has left us all kinds of useful things, including a full box of Twining’s Earl Grey teabags for which I could have kissed him - I’ve run through all the ones I brought for the train!

I had a very domestic day last Friday (the 3^rd) putting the place to rights watching the cleaners clean, pulling enough gunk out of the drains to make Steph and Laura gag, receiving various deliveries, attempting lesson plans and doing all our laundry in the old fashioned washing machine. I have to say, China takes the idea of ‘wet rooms’ to a whole new level. Ours has the jinglebells shower which to use you have to fill up the tank, plug it in, set the temperature then wait for the music to play which means the water is heated, then unplug it, hide the plug so that you don’t die then wash quickly so that there’s enough water left for someone else to use. The washing machine is in there too and it’s so old fashioned! You put the clothes and powder in one drum, fill it up from the cold tap and a few boiled kettles, turn on to slosh everything around then empty through a hose onto the floor (see, wet room!), refill and empty again for the rinses and then finally transfer a couple of pieces at a time to the spinner. Seriously laborious. I will never take proper washing machines for granted ever again.

I have kindergarten classes this semester at two different schools, Monday and Tuesday at Kindergarten Number 1, Wednesday and Thursday at Kindergarten Number 2. Number 1 is my favourite – I’ve got books to work with, classes are smaller, the kids are keen and I like my teaching assistant Amanda already. Number 2 is more difficult – no books, larger classes and my assistant, is nice but not very good at English which makes finding out what the kids know, what they want me to do and getting the kids to understand what I’m asking of them much harder. I’ll write more on the Kindergartens another time when I’ve had more classes and more to tell – at the moment the smallest ones cry at the sight of me, and that’s not exactly heartwarming! Funny, but not heartwarming.

Handan is a smallish city (pop. 8million or so) with maybe 40 non-Chinese residents, so suffice it to say we are a novelty and non-Chinese residents stick together quite a bit! Our friends in Handan, so far, are Andy, Tom, Dan and Kan (our fellow Lilac Education teachers) and their Chinese friend Charlie – and pool is our new favourite pastime! It takes some getting used to being in smoky atmospheres again as smoking is practically a recreational sport here in China, but despite this and my utter lack of pool skills it’s really good fun and my very occasional strokes of brilliance are hugely satisfying since they’re always so very unexpected! I’m getting better at it too, which is excellent.

We’ve also been out to dine with the guys a few times too as there’s a much bigger dining out than drinking culture, especially when ladies are present as apparently Chinese ladies don’t really drink that much. Two English girls and one Irish one are therefore in the best of both worlds – we’re novel enough as Westerners and guests to be able to drink with the men and recipient of enough chivalry that we don’t have to drink when we don’t want to anymore. I mentioned before about the Baijou guys on the first night (Baijou is the local spirit of choice, paint stripper comes to mind) – that was fun but thank god for the chivalry thing! We also met a local TV celebrity while we were eating out to celebrate the end of our first day of teaching. He insisted on buying us a beer each then once we’d eaten invited us into his party’s private dining room for gambei-ing (toasting eachother and downing your glass of beer) and talking English down the phone to anyone they could think of who spoke the language!

In Chinese culture, before you start gambei-ing anyone individually, everyone drinks together three times. After that, it’s a sign of respect if the rim of your glass is lower than the person you’re toasting when you clink and your glass is always kept full. The first time we did this properly was with the Baijou men, but for Tom’s last night on Wednesday, we had a proper meal with full on gambei-ing – everyone was meant to do a round of individual toasts, but there were twelve of us and we ran out of both baijou and beer so we only got so far. Then we went clubbing! Bizarre! Expensive! Fun! It was really sad to say goodbye to Tom though.

Food wise, like I say, we’ve eaten out a few times with the other English teachers but we’ve also ventured into the food stalls over the road from us for the most delicious (henhao chi – hun how chur) chow mein and egg fried rice in the history of chow mein and egg fried rice. Mr Chan back home, you have been surpassed. Since we’ve now got a fridge without mosquitos and a kitchen that doesn’t make you gag (as long as you don’t look under the cupboards...) we’ve also attempted some cooking but only to the tune of boiling some potatoes and broccoli. So far I’m happy on the Chinese cuisine but Steph and Laura are both missing plain vegetables so we’re inventing some fusion cuisine and will be going to Walmart to find bread that isn’t ridiculously sweet. As well as offering to teach us some Mandarin, Charlie is hopefully going to teach us how to cook Chinese food properly, so that’ll help too. As an aside – things are so sweet here that the teeth of some of the kids who we teach are black and rotting in their little mouths; that could be to do with something I read on the back of the sugar packet in our kitchen which said “it is sweet and delicious and absolutely necessary for to use in cooking.” (!)

I should also mention my two new favourite places in the world – the first of which was a massage place where five of us had the most amazing hour and a half full body massages (clothed and on couches next to each other so it was sociable) for 50yuan a head, which is about £5. The second place is called the Royal Electronic Brain Mansion – HOW COOL IS THAT NAME?! – which is an electronics department store where Tom and Andy took me to stock up on DVDs at 9yuan each (90p). It’s the most amazing shop, but I was definitely glad to be going in with fluent speakers or I’d’ve been hopelessly confused and probably ripped off. There’s a nice park round the corner too with a lake, so once I’ve recovered from my cold I might start running down there as well as using the outdoor gym. I’m starting to make plans to see some more of the surrounding areas of Handan – neither google nor the Lonely Planet are being particularly helpful so it’s a work in progress, but once I’ve got stories be assured I’ll tell them!

I think I’m going to be happy here. Well, actually, I know I’ll be happy here – I’m generally a happy person but how could I not be when everyone we’ve met has been amazing and its only nerves and teething problems that we’ve encountered so far? So, in the best Chinese spirit: Welcome to Handan.

Oh God!

Sunday 30^th August

OH GOD. Oh my actual god.

No really, oh god.

*deep breaths*

*some more deep breaths*

OK. Laura, Steph and I have arrived in Handan, Heibei. We are decidedly not in Kansas anymore, Toto!

Let’s start with the train journey. West Beijing Train station is mental! It’s HUGE! We had a lady to take us to the platform and put us on the train, and thank goodness for it. The train was absolutely packed, so our tiny, tiny lady led the way and we plunged into a sea of people – sardines was no word for it! She threw some people out of seats, helped us shove our mountains of baggage under the seats and up on the luggage rack. Then she scrambled off the train and we were left to it. It was a four and a half hour journey (easy!) we were sat opposite a really nice lady and her husband who was bossing everyone around and who offered us food (boiled eggs, buns with chocolate in the middle and a sort of a milk drink in a bag which tasted of malted milk biscuits) and a woman with a baby. Babies in China don’t wear nappies, no no. They have trousers with open backs and their mothers let them wee on the floors of trains (where people’s bags are...) and catch their poo in bags like dogs. Mostly.

We met a couple of guys who were getting off at Handan too (who carried our bags off the train in fact) and were met by Ms Wang (Swallow) on the platform. Swallow is lovely, Handan seems cool from what we saw driving through, our apartment is...basic. Very basic. It’s also filthy, full of mossies, and one of the beds (the one with the horsehair “mattress”) is broken so Laura and I are sharing the double bed for the moment. It’s in sort of a back street alley too, which is very intimidating for three nervous newcomers, but very safe according to Swallow. Apparently it’s a really convenient neighbourhood too, but even such upsides as the toilet being Western or the knowledge that so many people in the world would call this luxury aren’t enough to overcome the negatives at this time of night. I can do this though. I can. I’m brave as a lion me, and everything’s worse in the dark.

Monday 30^th August

Today was a much better day. After a good cry first thing in the morning, Swallow came over to take us out to lunch with the other English teachers who are with Handan Lilac Education Authority. She took one look at our woeful faces and promised us a new apartment on the spot. Tom, one of the other teachers, is moving out so the three of us are going to share his place. Places that rent for three on less than a year’s contract are hard to come by apparently, which is why we’re in this dive for the time being.

We went for lunch at a hotpot fish restaurant and met the principal, Tammy, her friend Sunny and Andy, Tom, Dan and Kan the other English teachers. The food was cooked in front of us in a big hot dish sunk into the table, and was mostly really tasty but something of a shock to see live fish dumped into the boiling hot pan. After the meal Tom, Dan and Kan went off to teach and Andy and Swallow took us to buy Chinese sim cards and explain a bit more of Handan life to us. After that we went to the supermarket to stock up on loo roll and the wherewithal for breakfast then sat in the park desperately avoiding going ‘home’. The guys had invited us out in the evening to play pool, so after the shortest possible turnaround time in our hovel, we met Andy (who lives nearby and, fortunately, is pretty fluent in Mandarin) and got a taxi to the pool bar. After a few rounds, we were all invited to eat out with a group of locals who the others had met the night before, so we piled off into some taxis and had our first introduction to Chinese drinking culture. We ordered some food using the helpful pictures and out came the Baijio; the local spirit of choice. Before any individual toasting could happen, we all had to drink together three times. Chivalry meant that we didn’t have to down ours, fortunately, so I pretty much got away with just smelling mine. Then came the beer, and then the dice drinking games. I won quite a few rounds of those, but only because I had Tom telling me what to say and when to bluff. And there was the single most disgusting toilet I have ever, EVER had to use, apparently though it’s not as bad as some the guys have seen in restaurants.

All in all, it was a really fun evening which is just as well. This place is going to be hard. The three of us stick out a mile here (and not just because of the good looks!!) there are about 8million people in Handan, and less than 100 Westerners most of whom are male, so we get stares wherever we go and even children taking photos. I’m going to be teaching Kindergarten, which is actually pretty much my worst nightmare. What doesn’t kill me eh... one day at a time, this is only day two after all. Hopefully once we move into a decent place and manage to wash some clothes and it gets less oppressively muggy I’ll be able to enjoy myself a bit more. At the moment I’ve been thrown back on my mental ropes and remembering I’m British is becoming my mainstay; thanks for the surprisingly good advice, Dad!

Tuesday 31^st August

It took a while to sleep off the excesses of Monday night, but once we’d roused ourselves into action and successfully had a non-fried breakfast (yoghurt and dried fruit – it’s the way forward I think) we decided staying inside was not an option and seeing some more of Handan was a good plan. So off we wandered. We got nowhere fast, but at least discovered a road with nothing useful on it so we won’t go that way again! Swallow rang needing to meet us to get photos to give the police, so she came and found us and took us for some street food. It was big bowls of noodles with bamboo sprouts, veg and duck bones as stock. I really enjoyed it, but Steph found a pubic hair in hers and after that it was much less appetising! It’s definitely something to re-create, minus hairs, when we’ve got a decent kitchen.

Once we’d had our pictures taken, we found a KFC so that Steph could have a coffee and got the bus (oh how brave we felt!) to Tom’s apartment, which we’re going to move into. OH! It is palatial! (Especially compared to our dive) Skirting boards! Walls without holes! A fridge without mosquitoes! Tai Chi outside in the morning! Only two beds again, but right now I’d share with a gorilla if it meant getting out of here. Fortunately I’ve got Laura and Steph who are both more appealing than any number of gorillas. From Tom’s we went out for a meal with Andy, Tom, their Chinese friend Charlie and his friend whose name I have forgotten but was also very nice. They were all great and really helpful since we were so very nervous about classes starting on Wednesday. Kindergarten, seriously. I am not good with children, and oh my god, Kindergarten! They’re not even old enough to talk to properly in Chinese, let alone English! I’m going to have to download as much Sesame Street as I can find and try, think of games fit for rugrats and to remember that they can smell fear.

Wednesday 1^st September

K-day.

At first I was afraid, I was petrified...

I got a taxi to the school, which is about half an hour’s drive from the Pit, and got Swallow on the phone to explain to someone to walk me to the building because the taxi just dropped me in the middle of some blocks of tenements. I was directed to sit in an office for about ten minutes and given a cup of hot water to drink. One of the classroom assistants who had (minimal) English took me up the stairs to my first class. I counted the steps, one to twenty three – numbered in English on each step, to keep my head as I tried to suppress the nervous nausea that the bright colours, pictures of ‘kitty cat’s and the too small chairs was bringing on.

I know that a lot of people, and a lot of interns in the group, would be skipping with glee at the thought of just having to play with a bunch of kids. Not me though. I don’t mind children – they can’t help being small and young and not very interesting yet and I don’t hold it against them, but I’m really not good with kids that small (2 – 5yrs) and I definitely don’t know how to teach them. Hence the fear. I’ll adapt though, they are cute after all and this morning wasn’t an utter disaster. I had four half hour classes back to back, and since I had no idea what ages, class sizes, level of English etc they had (I’m still hazy about it) I hadn’t been able to prepare very well. Basically, it was a lot of ‘hello!’ at different volumes, different groups etc, ‘my name is Clare’ (turns out my name doesn’t travel very well!) and I am happy, I am sad. I sort of taught the littlest ones ‘twinkle twinkle little star’ too. Whirlwind. I think the first lot were the oldest and best at English and it gradually went down in age and ability, but I couldn’t say for sure. I’m back there tomorrow, and hopefully I’ll be better prepared. God only knows what I’ll do as they haven’t got a book to refer to at that age so I am completely at sea, but at least the classroom assistants were reasonably helpful and I only have 8hrs teaching at the moment!

This afternoon I found the ‘Characteristic’ supermarket which stocks some western food. I’m alright with the rice and noodles etc so far, but Steph and Laura are struggling a bit more, so maybe that’ll be a comfort to them. I didn’t get anything there, ‘characteristic’ it may have been; expensive it definitely was. On the way back I walked through our local park, past the open air gym equipment! No offence to David Lloyds, but how much more fun being on an outdoor cross-trainer?! I might have to fight off the pensioners though. There’s always jogging too and since I get funny looks wherever I go, I might as well get some for exercising rather than just existing. One of these days I will have to get up early enough to experience Chinese park culture – so far I have Friday off, maybe then. We should be in the new place then too and I can be unpacked, shower properly and start to make this place feel like home, exercise included.