Nihao/Zaijian

The leaves have fallen, the heating’s on, and it’s getting dark. It’s been a week for change. Our Canadian big brother Andy has properly moved away from Handan to the south of China to be closer to his fiancée Nancy. Great for him, I’m sure they’re going to be really happy, but sad for us. At least we’ve got our other big brothers, Charlie and Kan, and our disreputable uncle Dan. As a Lilac Education veteran, Chinese speaker and thoroughly nice guy, Andy made our first couple of months in Handan welcoming, reasonably easy and fun. It’s the end of an era, but there’s plenty of new stuff on the horizon fortunately and the weeks are slipping by…

Family has been a bit of a theme for me this week! I’ve had plenty of chat and support from Team Wilson back home, and I’ve been extending my network in China too. I was watching a movie on Friday night – pj’s and duvet on the sofa, lovely, when our granny-neighbour who lives across the hall knocked on the door and invited herself in for a chat. Apparently she was calling round to tell me that we needed to pay for the heating to come on, but once Swallow had dealt with that down the phone Grannylady stuck around for a good twenty minutes and we had a very stilted ‘conversation’ which was mostly (I think) her exclaiming incredulously that I wasn’t freezing in my pyjamas when she was wearing two pairs of thermal leggings and trousers.

On Saturday I met Swallow’s family. We’d arranged to go shopping for a winter coat while Steph and Laura are away for the weekend. Steph’s in Beijing on a very romantic sojourn and Laura’s in Shangqui visiting our friends; I could’ve gone to Shangqui too but I just want to be rid of this frickin’ cold and I didn’t think a weekend of boozing, fun as it’d’ve been, would help… Anyway. Stupidly early for a Saturday I got up and headed out to meet Swallow in, what is for me, a new bit of Handan. I tried on more coats than you could shake a stick at in various shops – some that looked like I’d strayed into the kids section the arms were so short, some hideous puffer jackets (very warm apparently… but I’d rather freeze than look like the Michelin man) until I eventually found a nice black one. I also had a look at thermal leggings in the style of Grannylady, but I’m going to wait until desperation kicks in before resorting to that! I also got some Chinese medicine for my cold, then we went to Swallow’s house for lunch.

Swallow lives with her husband (who wasn’t in) and son and mother-in-law. Her mother-in-law’s dad (I think) comes for lunch and dinner so I met him too. I’d met her brother and uncle earlier in the day. Swallow’s son is 3 and a complete little monkey! He decided that he likes me, so he didn’t want any of his food – he wanted mine! Luckily for him he’s a cutie and I have mellowed around rugrats. Shame that it’s very expensive for Chinese people to have more than one child (I believe you can pay to avoid the one child thing, but don’t quote me on that…) because that kid could seriously use a sibling. We had duck, dumplings, smoked tofu with cabbage and egg/cabbage soup if you’re interested.

I got a bit of an interrogation along the lines of are my parents at home? Are they happy for me to be in China? why aren’t I married? When do I want to get married? When do I want a baby? (the answers to which are: yes, yes very, the only man who has ever asked me to marry him is a middle aged fisherman from Cape Town – self explanatory I think… and not yet, I’m only 24). The cultural norm for women here is still live at home until you’re married then have children, so I suppose I’m a double oddity both by being a foreigner and being young/female and having no housewifely aspirations.

Today I went out to lunch with a family who want me to teach their daughter. They invited Swallow and me to a restaurant where I had the most delicious dish I’ve had in China so far, the weirdest one and the first one to make my flesh creep. The delicious dish was beef with peppers in a sesame/black bean sauce. The weird dish was a watermelon, jam and mashed potato ‘cake’. Yeah. Seriously. The flesh-creeper was live shellfish. The poor things were in a bowl of ice and red wine so they were dormant and drunk, but I still had to rip their head and guts out… I feel funny just thinking about it again. I had to have two out of politeness. Bleurgh. I need a gin and tonic, stat.

I’m going to teach their daughter twice a week starting at the beginning of December, and I’m going to be seriously busy until then! This week I’m going teach Kindergarten in the mornings, Steph’s classes in the afternoon then going straight from Primary school to the evening classes. I need to plan something fun for next weekend as a reward, but in the mean time I’m off to the drinks shelf – there’s got to be something to make myself a stiff drink with…