Diary of a Laowai in England

Xin Nian Kuai Le/Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T19:42:00.000Z

It's a new year, so time for a fresh look at all aspects of life. One thing I have been quite frankly absolutely rubbish at is maintaining and updating this blog. It is something that breaks my heart really as I loved writing this blog and used to greatly enjoy writing about my time in China. I still blame the Blogger ban in China for halting the momentum with the blog, but really it is down to sheer laziness. Alas, the routine of what is now married life with 2 jobs on the go leaves me with little time left to pursue on writing.

Since my last post (way back in March last year) Kimi and I got married in the UK, Kimi successfully got her residence permit, we moved into our first house together, visited Wenzhou to have a kind of unofficial 2nd wedding (very tempting to stay), and Kimi's mother even visited us for a month in the UK. All in all 2011 was a very fortunate year for both of us, somehow everything worked out perfectly in the end. Now 2012 has begun I am looking at pushing on with my Hypnotherapy business and possibly starting the degree in Counselling. Kimi is looking for work in Manchester hoping to utilise her skills as a bilingual speaker.

A 2011 Collage

Another resolution I have is to write more, so hopefully another blog will be coming soon -- and by that I don't mean another year!

This Blog is a Study Abroad Ambassador Award Winner!

2011-03-15T09:30:00.002Z

Somehow my blog has been selected by the lovely people at eCollegeFiner as a travel website that provides "priceless information to students as they prepare to leave" to study in another country. I suppose although this blog documented my life as a teacher in China rather than a student, the same principles of travelling and living in a foreign country apply. I am extremely flattered to have been chosen out of the many hundreds of blogs about living in China to appear on their site. I genuinely hope some of the ramblings on these pages give a hint of the ups and downs of modern life in China (and what to do if you fall in love and decide to move back home after 3 years!).

You can see the list of all 75 sites chosen here, including short passages of travel advice written by the winners -- including one from yours truly.

Although my life in China is officially history, it will always be a part of me (thanks to Kimi).

Kimi Got Her Visa

2011-03-14T18:49:00.000Z

I have been hugely delayed writing this post, but a few weeks ago Kimi and I received the good news that the British embassy had decided to grant her a visa to come to the UK to marry me. We had waited months for an answer to our weighty application, going through Halloween, Christmas, New Year and Chinese New Year with no hint of an answer. Finally in mid February, Kimi received a package containing just her sole passport, but with the new visa stuck inside. That was that!

The application for the marriage visa was no small feat, the amount of paperwork needed for such a visa is quite astonishing. It was something we had to study to get right (the first problem was which one to go for!), and we even paid an agency to help us on the way too. Over the coming weeks I will be posting a step by step guide to applying for the marriage visa with the aim of helping others who may be planning on taking the same steps as we have.

What's next for us? In one month Kimi will be arriving in the UK, and then within 6 months we will be getting married. Once we have tied the knot, the time will have come to apply for the next visa....

MINDSCAPE Hypnotherapy

2011-01-16T21:29:00.000Z

As I mentioned previously, I have trained and am now qualified as a hypnotherapist. For the past 5 months I have been slaving away on a website for my company, which has finally been completed (apart from the odd mistake I keep stumbling across, if you find one please let me know. Web designing is not easy when you have to compete with so many different browsers, operating systems and screen sizes). It is funny how things work out really, today was the day that not only did I finally get my website uploaded without any major disasters occurring, but I also moved into my new office. I am renting a room in The Holistic Therapy Clinic in Manchester where I actually studied and learnt about hypnotherapy. At the moment I will be balancing hypnotherapy work one day a week while I still work at my other job full-time -- for now anyway.

My new office, the chair is very comfortable

I am very excited, and really can't wait to get started. If you have a second, take a look at my website here: http://www.mindscapehypnotherapy.com

On another note, I have also started another blog here which will be linked to the website. I will be concentrating my efforts on that blog for the foreseeable future, but I will of course occasionally still post here. Once I am an expert, I will certainly be posting tips and advice for visa applications and the progress of Kimi's move to the UK.

Kimi's visa status: Still processing (almost 2 months of waiting now).

Neglect, Visas and Hypnotherapy

2010-12-17T12:44:00.000Z

A few of the things Kimi and I have got up to during her recent trips to the UK

I certainly feel very guilty for neglecting my poor blog of late. The reason is not due to having a lack of things to write about with regards to China and life in the UK, but rather that I have been concentrating all of my energies into other things.

Since my last blog post a lot has certainly happened. Kimi visited me in the UK on two occasions, the last time being in October. We have also very recently submitted a rain forest's worth of paper-work to the British Embassy for Kimi's fiancée visa. Once the application is successful she will once again be returning to the UK where we will get married (we're hoping for early next year). We are planning on holding a ceremony in Wenzhou towards the end of next year too -- it saves spending a few thousand pounds transporting Kimi's huge family over to the UK, and it means I have a great excuse to take a holiday to my second home! The visa process is an extremely difficult process, one which we could not have done alone. Information on the internet is very sparse, with so many different versions of events that we had no choice but to hire an agency to do some of the leg work for us. I think a possible new direction for the blog may lie within this visa process and how to be successful in applying for one.

In other news, I am now qualified as a Hypnotherapist. I am just waiting for approval from the Hypnotherapy Association and my malpractice and indemnity insurance certificates to come through. I have also managed to secure a room to do it from with my teacher and mentor. It has been this that most of my time has been spent on over the past few months. I have finally finished writing and designing a website for myself. I had no idea it would end up being the most time consuming thing I have ever done! As soon as everything is legal I will be uploading the complete website. With this I will also be writing a new blogger blog which is linked to hypnotherapy and life as a hypnotherapist. For now there is not much to look at, but here is my site: MINDSCAPE Hypnotherapy. I really fell in love with hypnotherapy throughout the course I took, and have never felt so attached to a subject before. It really is amazing, and the changes that can happen are remarkable. Stress, anxiety, lack of confidence, self-esteem issues, and addictions can all be resolved so quickly. I know this because it has not only worked with others who I have helped, but it has also worked on myself. I genuinely hope I can share this incredibly simple method of therapy with others.

I am still continuing studies part-time in Counselling and hope to be taking the next module early next year. It will take approximately 3-4 years to finish the degree at the moment. The impatient side of me would rather get things over and done with much quicker, but due to financial restraints (e.g. all of the money I saved up in China ran out) I have had to find a full-time job. Not only will this pay for starting my hypnotherapy business and ongoing studies, but it also means I will be able to support Kimi when she comes here. The job I have isn't my idea of a dream career, but the money is coming into my bank account rather than going out, so it is ideal for now.

And that's me all up to date! I'll be back when my new site and blog are online, and as soon as we hear any visa news.

Kimi Coming to England

2010-06-30T12:59:00.005+01:00

As I am writing this Kimi (my girlfriend) is on her way to the UK having just departed from Dubai Airport. This is the second time she has come to England -- the first being last September when we came together for a short holiday. Although too short, we had a fantastic time introducing her to my family and doing a bit of travelling around Edinburgh, London, The Lake District and of course my home-town Manchester.

This time is only for a short holiday too, but until we are married Kimi cannot leave her job and come and live with me. The main reason for this is the one and only gripe for her and fellow Chinese citizens travelling outside of China: the visa. For Kimi to come on holiday to the UK she has to apply for a visitor's visa (sometimes known as a tourist or travel visa). Now when I, as a British citizen, go to China on holiday I also need a visa. This consists of travelling to the nearest Chinese Embassy or consulate, paying about £30, answering a double-sided A4 form with questions such as "Do you have a criminal record?" and "Do you have any fatal diseases?" (I've never really seen the point of questions like this, I'm pretty sure they check out all such information regardless of whether you say "Yes" or "No"), oh, and a couple of passport photos. But for poor Kimi, as a Chinese citizen, she has to compile a portfolio of information just to get a visitor's visa for a short holiday. Take a deep breath as I list the requirements of her visa application (just remember this is for a holiday, not for emigration):

One completed and signed 10 page visa application form
A current and previous passport and photocopy of recent passport
One recent passport photo
Household register
An invitation letter from my father allowing her to stay in his house and be responsible for her
My father's utility bill, birth certificate, photocopy of driving licence, bank statements, home insurance, and council tax bill.
Evidence of current employment status including the organization code of the company and business license.
Permission of leave from her boss
Certificate of employment and income
Evidence of her financial status which meant freezing 50,000RMB (approximately £5,000) in her bank account
Bank statements for the last 6 months
Evidence of her relationship with me including boarding passes of recent holidays, emails sent between us dating back to 2007, and photographs of us together at various locations and times
A photocopy of my passport and Chinese working visa
Payment of 715RMB (approximately £70)

Shocking isn't it? And all of this does not even guarantee a successful application. Luckily Kimi has received hers on both occasions which should stand us in good stead for the future. It could be a myth, but I have heard that applications can be rejected on a random basis, they just have to reject some for no apparent reason. For the lucky ones who are successful in their visa applications, they receive a lovely sticker in their passport saying they can stay in the UK for 6 months -- Kimi only needs three weeks.

After all of this hard work, I hope Kimi is enjoying her 20+ hours of sleepless aeroplane travel from Wenzhou to Manchester....

The joys of travel

Flavors.me

2010-06-23T20:45:00.000+01:00

Flavors.me (or should I say Flavours.me for those of us from the British Isles), is a very simple, well designed website which enables you and me to create a sleek looking homepage with relative ease. The whole premise is simplicity, but it's simple with a spark. And if like me you have various online accounts such as Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, LinkedIn etc, then Flavors.me can become the core of your online presence. Also, for those with their own websites, it could be designed to be a striking front page for visitors to launch onto other pages. It's almost perfect -- with the only flaw being picture uploading. This is because once your picture is uploaded to the site it will either be too big causing it to automatically zoom in far too much into one spot (which can only be adjusted very slightly); or it will be too small and the picture won't cover all of the page. With a limited knowledge of picture resizing and a lot of experimenting, I managed to find a width of 1450 pixels to be just about right.

In this day and age of complicated technology, it is refreshing to see simplicity as a key feature here. If you would like to see the end result of a Flavors.me homepage, here is the one I designed yesterday: http://flavors.me/laowaichris

My Sister's Fundraising Blog

2010-06-22T15:42:00.002+01:00

My twin sister, Sally, has recently been successful in gaining a place at one of the most prestigious music and drama schools in the UK: The Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. This has given her the opportunity to study a master's degree in Musical Theatre, which will hopefully lead onto a professional career in this field.

She is, however, facing a problem with this application. As with so many things in life it comes down to one thing: money. The cost of studying at these drama schools doesn't come cheap, in this case one year of tuition fees is going to cost £9,750. And this doesn't even include living expenses.

Sally has recently begun fundraising, and is writing a blog to keep track of her progress. Already she has received some money, but it's not yet enough. I hope you will take a peek at her site here: http://dramaschooldream.blogspot.com/

Good luck Sally!

Sally's appearances in various plays and shows

Illustrating Twitter

2010-06-16T11:12:00.004+01:00

Since returning home to the UK in late March, I began using the 'micro-blogging' site Twitter. More than one year earlier I had jumped on the band wagon to see what all the fuss was about. I was just about getting to grips with it, when after a couple of weeks, I was cut-off. That's right, Twitter is another of the many websites to be blocked off by the Great Firewall of China.

So it wasn't until coming back to England that I had the chance to use the site again. After much experimenting, I have found that Twitter can be a great source of real-time news. Following friends, news agencies, people of influence, and even celebrities, allows you to have a constant stream of up-to-the-second news at your fingertips. And with added extras such as paper.li you can have a custom-made daily newspaper created for you just from the people you follow and the subjects they link to. That is not to say there is a fair share of pointless babble on the site, but alas, I am addicted.

There is also a powerful search function where you can search for any topic imaginable and see what people are saying about it. It also means anybody can stumble across your Twitter feed. It just so happened a couple of creative people came across my feed a few weeks ago when I was writing, what I thought was a throw away tweet, about the Large Hadron Collider being turned up to 11 for the first time (here is the news story if you can't remember). They transformed this Tweet into an illustration:

I was incredibly amused and taken aback by this. To take one sentence and transform it into a hilarious illustration like this is the kind of creativity I am hugely enviable of. The people behind this picture are Irkafirka, and every day they will choose one tweet out of the seemingly endless supply of 140 character messages to illustrate. It is a lovely idea, and one which I hope will continue for a long time to come.

If you are on Twitter, or even if you aren't, then feel free to follow me for real-time drivel from yours truly: http://twitter.com/laowaichris And if you would like to see more tweets transformed into illustrations, then you can follow Irkafirka: http://twitter.com/irkafirka

You Are Reading a "Terrific Teaching Abroad Blog"!

2010-06-15T10:58:00.002+01:00

I found out today my blog has been featured in a list of 50 Terrific Teaching Abroad Blogs on AccreditedOnlineColleges.com. I am very flattered, surprised and thankful of this. Since returning home I have neglected the blog a little due to concentrating on studying (which also includes concentrating on EVERY distraction possible instead of studying), but this has spurred me on to continue writing. I have so much more to write about my time in China and Kimi's journey to the UK, it would be wasteful to stop now.

Thanks again AccreditedOnlineColleges.com!

Driving Lessons

2010-05-20T20:41:00.003+01:00

Sorry about the lack of blog posts of late, I've got so much to Blog about but less time do it. On top of the studies I mentioned in an earlier post, a couple of weeks ago I decided to add to the pile with a hefty wad of driving lessons. A lot of my time has been taken up with all of this -- more so now as my first Counselling essay is due in by the 1st of June (insert panic here).

I received my provisional licence more than 7 years ago, and also my 17th birthday present from my parents was payment for some driving lessons. Due to having little desire to drive at the time, and then not needing it while at university, and later being too scared to do it in China; it's only now that I feel driving is something that is needed in my life -- especially considering the ridiculously high cost of public transport in the UK.

I've been having quite an intensive course of lessons so far, and in many ways I am quite enjoying the driving experience, but I have noticed I have some kind of in built hesitation about other road users -- I wonder if my time in Wenzhou played a part in that?

There is certainly a rather large difference between driving in the UK and in China. In Wenzhou the traffic is usually so consistently busy that the speed is generally quite low. In the UK, with there being considerably less people, the speed is generally faster, which could also lead to more fatal accidents. But, there is a big but here, the following of law and order on the roads is almost completely ignored in China (really I'm only commenting on Wenzhou and Hangzhou here as I have much less experience with other cities). I saw all sorts of collisions in my time in Wenzhou, from the very minor to the very severe. For that, I certainly admire my girlfriend, Kimi's success of driving on the roads. I think I'd be too scared to ever drive there (as you can see below).


One reason you won't catch me driving in Wenzhou (taken from my bedroom window)

Grateful for Home

2010-05-03T13:23:00.002+01:00

Recently I've been quite stuck for topics to blog about. In China, so many things would happen in such a short time that I didn't have enough time to write about it all. Now, in England, my life is much more organised and...."normal"! I suppose the biggest factor here is that I saw China through the eyes of an outsider, even the smallest most mundane things to most would have been quite entertaining to me. Whereas back in the UK, the place where I have lived almost all of my life, there's nothing much of the unusual going on here -- to me anyway.

This brings me onto thinking about what this blog is actually for. As I have said previously I am mainly using this to keep a record of my studying, Kimi (my girlfriend who is eventually coming to live with me in the UK), and my memories of almost 1 year in China which I had no opportunity to blog about. But, I shouldn't stop writing about the place I live in, I have named this blog "Laowai in England" after all. I used to write a majority of blog posts about Wenzhou, so it is only natural to continue writing about the new -- but also old -- place I'm living in now.

First of all, this is my home:


I live in the suburbs of South Manchester

The back garden faces a primary school

I have lived in this house all of my life, with my parents, twin sister, and cats, before heading off to the PRC in 2007 -- and I took so much for granted. Don't get me wrong, I loved living in my 16th floor apartment in Wenzhou, but now I am back, I truly am thankful for the most simple of things:

Central heating. The "Wen" in Wenzhou actually means warm, and it's true. Wenzhou is warm, and sometimes very very hot, and this is for most of the year. But not all of the year. From around November to March (ish), the temperature can drop. Nothing too dramatic, but when none of the apartments in the city have central heating, be prepared to wear your coat indoors (I never got used to that). Alas, I wasted plenty of money on using a tiny fan heater just to heat my feet in bed at night.
Quietness. Something which really began to grate living in the centre of a busy city, was the noise. I was genuinely at the end of my tether when it came to being woken up for the millionth time by fireworks, car horns, shouting, alarms etc. I truly believe that silence is golden, especially at night time. I am certainly thankful for this.
A soft mattress. I have yet to find a bed in a Chinese home that doesn't have a mattress as hard as wood. I know that a firm mattress is supposed to be much better for our bodies, but the comfort factor is 0. I want a bed to feel like it's one long hug!
Drinkable Tap Water. Not such a big deal this one, as it's quite easy to boil up some water and drink it, and using the water when brushing teeth is not a problem really. But occasionally, I got very sick for very short periods of time, and I could only think it was one of two things: Food or Water. As I used the running water daily, and many times in a day, there was quite a chance that it was making me do horrible things to my toilet. How often have you accidentally gulped some water when washing your hair?

This was not meant as a rant, and I am not complaining about China, but these are just some things which I took for granted my whole life, but now am hugely grateful for. Of course there are things I took for granted in China which now I miss very much too -- I'll save that for another post.

Molly

2010-04-25T21:56:00.000+01:00

One of many things I missed while away in China was my cats. Unfortunately our number of 3 is now down to 1. But here's a short video I made of Molly -- who is now almost 17 years old -- enjoying some Catnip on my bed.

Back to School

2010-04-18T15:02:00.003+01:00

My Hypnotherapy and Counselling books

One of the main reasons I decided to come home was because I felt a strong urge to study again. I really did enjoy teaching a lot, but felt it wasn't fulfilling my purpose in life. After months and months of procrastinating, I finally came to the conclusion of something that may fill that gap: Hypnotherapy and Counselling. Although I originally studied a music degree at university, and I do still have a great passion for music, I feel that I don't want it as the core of my working life (part-time would be nice!).

There are many reasons I have chosen these subjects, but primarily I feel that having a job where you can actually make some sort of a difference to somebody's life is incredibly meaningful. Also, from my experience of teaching at Web, I have found that I am most comfortable working with either one person or with small groups of people. This, along with a list of other reasons, has brought me to studying Hypnotherapy and Counselling. I have now started both courses and am finding them greatly interesting, and even exciting -- especially the Hypnotherapy course. A huge variety of problems can be successfully treated with this therapy, from anxiety and addictions, to phobias and obsessive compulsive disorder. The feeling of having it done -- and doing it -- is by itself a worthwhile experience. Many people believe that you are actually asleep while under hypnosis, but this is a myth. The best way I can describe it is that of the short period of time when you are just about to drift off to sleep; still consciously aware, but relaxing into the first stage of sleep. Once the session is over you feel so very relaxed, but also refreshed and ready to do anything.

At the moment I couldn't be enjoying these classes more, I can't wait for the next ones (I wish school could have been more like this). I have even finished all of my homework assignments long before I needed to.

Now, I just need to find a job to continue funding the courses....

When the Bombs Fell

2010-04-14T11:17:00.004+01:00

This year February 14th to many people was Valentine's Day, but to even more people it was also Chinese New Year. Unlike the previous year, I was prepared for what was to come this time, the noise! I certainly wasn't disappointed, if anything it was even louder, and more unrepentant than the year before. A couple of sleepless nights came to me and Kimi, but it didn't really matter as the daytime was mainly spent eating and drinking, and eating more, and drinking more, and eating a little bit more (and then being sick).

If I had to describe Chinese New Year in as few words as possible before I came to live in China, I would have said something like: "Dancing dragons, celebrations in the street, fireworks". But after living in China, I would now say: "Fireworks, money, fireworks, family, fireworks, food, fireworks, more food, fireworks drink, fireworks, TV".

On new year's eve, I decided to take a short walk outside as midnight beckoned. There was an annual television show playing, which is quite a large draw in China. It is a variety show of sorts, with many singers, comedians, dancers, and a magician (doing tricks from the 80's) all having their own segment where they can wow the largest audience in the world. It is mostly performed live, but some of the bigger stars usually decide to mime their way through a performance or pre-record their part (e.g. Faye Wong). Anyway, the show was going through an incredibly tiresome comedy sketch, and for some reason the English subtitles on CCTV9 only stretched so far as to explain the premise of the sketch instead of just translating what was happening -- lazy! So, as I said, I decided to take a stroll outside, with my camera. What I experienced was nothing short of terrifying. It was as close as I could imagine to being in a war zone. The culmination of all the fireworks simultaneously going off around the centre of the city made it sound and feel like bombs dropping from the sky. And by the way, these fireworks were not an organised display, this was a free-for-all. I even saw somebody firing them out of their apartment window.

The following day -- New Year's Day -- Kimi and I went to have a very enjoyable family meal at her uncle and aunt's home. They very kindly cooked an assortment of vegetarian dishes for me, and at one point I didn't think it was going to end. New dish after new dish was coming, but as they were all so delicious, I just stuffed myself. And of course, I had to do my fair share of drinking. On more than one occasion I have sat down at a dinner table and a bottle of red wine has been presented to me which I am expected to drink all of. This time was no exception.

The table of devoured food, notice my whisky glass and wine bottle in the bottom right

Alas, the fireworks didn't stop, but we were shown a new year's ceremony where food was given to Buddha, drums were drummed, and a paper boat was paraded around. For me, it was refreshing to see some real traditional elements playing a part in between the eating and drinking -- even if I didn't understand why some of it was happening.

A slightly different table of food. Not too sure if Buddha is into Pig's head though, but I'm sure he won't complain....

Other days in the week were spent very much along the same lines. More eating, more drinking, and more listening to the cracks and bangs of fireworks outside. We also met Kimi's uncle's new dog, a beautiful Golden Retriever:

I didn't intend to write all of this, what I was really getting around to in this blog post was telling you about the short video I edited together in response to the aforementioned fireworks. It shouldn't come as a surprise that I called it: "China Bombings":

For Sale: China Photo

2010-04-09T20:40:00.001+01:00

Edit: Sold!

My father is a picture framer and photographer who frequently sells his own pictures in his shop. His website (which hasn't been updated for a while) is here. After looking at some of my pictures from China, he surprised me today by framing one of them. Tomorrow it will be available to buy in the shop for the considerable price of £67. I am very flattered to think that any picture of mine could actually be bought by someone. The shot is a close-up of some colourful hair-pins I found in Shanghai when my sister visited me last May (an event which I will blog about very soon).

Get it while you can

Running with Nike+

2010-04-08T14:40:00.001+01:00

Today I did my first run using the quite remarkable Nike+. For those who don't know, Nike+ is a system of planning, tracking, and measuring runs while listening to your favourite -- or most motivational -- music. To do this you need to buy a few things first:

An iPod Nano and Nike+ Sports Kit (which consists of an oval-shaped sensor and a rectangular receiver that connects to the iPod)


Alternatively, if you have an iPhone or iPod touch you only need to buy the sensor -- which is half the price on its own

Also, to make full use of Nike+ you can sign up to the Nike running website where you have the option to choose training programs, make a calorie/distance/speed goal, or compete with friends on the site. I am currently trying a program that will train me to run a 5 km marathon within 3 months.

So far so good, but Nike still wants you to purchase more of its gear before you can actually hit the concrete: a pair of Nike+ shoes please. The only reason you need a special pair of trainers is because Nike (or someone in a sweatshop in China) have carved out a small oval-shaped hole in the left shoe under the innersole where the sensor sits (see below).

Of course, a quick look on Amazon will show you that if you already have a favourite pair of running shoes there are numerous pouches and holders that will adapt your shoes for the sensor.

Now you've got the gear, got the shoes, and signed up to the site. Ready to go? Not quite. I personally find that the earphones supplied with iPods can fall out quite easily (as tested when running for buses, trains, planes, etc). A good pair of speciality running earphones are probably in order. I went for a pair of Sennheiser PMX 80 Sport headphones. They loop around your ears and behind your head so they don't move at all when running. After my first run today I can tell you they work perfectly, completely solid, no jittering, and crisp clear audio.

....and they're nice and yellow

Surely there's nothing else to buy? Well, maybe one more thing. You need somewhere to put the iPod as you're bounding around the streets. Placing it in a pocket could be OK, but the iPod is so small it could easily fall out if you don't have a zip. The solution is either to hold it or buy an arm strap:


Can be bought for just a few £'s from eBay or Amazon

And that's it -- well, apart from the actual running! As I mentioned earlier, today was my very first session using all of this newly bought technology. I certainly felt like a runner, and I kind of looked like a runner, but after a few minutes on the road I literally thought I was going to die. I just about managed to finish my target of 1.7 km, but I have no idea how I'm going to do the 3.2 km that's waiting for me on Saturday. I did find the option of a "power song" (where you press the centre button on the iPod and it plays your most motivational song) helped for a short time when I started to lose power, and the inner-geek in me finds some motivation in uploading runs and keeping track of my progress. Overall I am very impressed with how it works, and once it's all running, how easy it is to use.

Here's hoping I'll still be alive to do 5 km in 3 months....

P.S. Although it may look like it, I am not an employee of Nike or Amazon!!

I'm Alive....

2010-04-05T21:52:00.004+01:00

Just to prove I am indeed living

....because you may have thought I was dead considering it's been almost 11 months since my last blog post!

I'm sure you can guess the reason for my absence by just reading said previous blog post. Just one thing stopped me from writing pages and pages of more drivel: The Great Firewall of China. I did try to use a proxy server (a computer network that will connect to websites on your behalf making it look like you are in another country), but found that the terribly slow speed and lack of security was too much of an issue to ignore. After a few failed attempts at logging onto Blogger I very quickly learnt to live without blogging in my life. I could have tried an alternate website, but the fear I had of other blog sites being blocked put me off. You see, Blogger was just the beginning of a new internet crackdown in China. Twitter and Facebook soon faced the axe, and even IMDB was blocked at one point. It seemed no site on the planet was safe from the over-sensitive internet police of China.

"How can you be writing this blog post now?" I hear you ask (oh no, that's just the voice inside my head). Well, two weeks ago I managed to climb over the wall and escape to the safe island state of the United Kingdom -- which really means I've come back home. It was not an easy decision to make by any means, but I felt the right time had come. Almost 3 years in China had flown by so incredibly quickly, I could very easily see myself staying in the same position in another 3 years, and then 6 years, and then 12 ye....you get the idea. Another factor that was calling me to leave was because I had finally decided on something I genuinely would like to study and do as a career. I was just torn as to whether to stay in China for longer or not. The itch to make a change became too much and I took the plunge of leaving the life, love, and friends I had made. Now, back home with my family in Manchester, England, I am starting on a brand new path by studying two subjects that will lead to the career I really want: Counselling and Hypnotherapy.

The most difficult part of leaving was having to part from Kimi, my girlfriend. She had known for a very long time that I hadn't intended to live in China forever, and she was a big deciding factor as to whether I should come home now or not. Luckily for me she was very supportive and understanding about my decision. Now we are working on the long arduous visa process so that she can finally come and live with me here. For the next 12 months we have planned to make sure we see each other via holidays. She will come on holiday in summer and I will go on holiday back to China at the end of the year. It is by no means a perfect solution, but it's the best we can do considering the circumstances.

That's pretty much my life updated. Next blog post will be sometime in 2011 then....

Not really! In fact I have a host of subjects I would like to write about over the coming months. As mentioned above, I will certainly be updating progress on Kimi's move to the UK over the next year; I will continue to write about China as I still have almost one year's worth of stories to look back on (which was also the reason I decided not to start a completely new blog); Also, I would like to document my progress with regards to studying, job hunting, and living in the UK -- something which is quite removed from life in China. But the main reason I have decided to start writing on my blog again is the same reason I started blogging in the first place: to keep a diary.

In all honesty I have sorely missed doing this, just writing about anything seems to rattle the dust from my mind. I look forward to more blogs to come.

P.S. If anybody is reading, then I hope you like the new design -- it took me bloody ages!!

Blogked

2009-05-22T04:15:00.016+01:00

For seven days our beloved Blogger Website has been blocked all over China. Thus, I haven't posted anything for a while. Whenever I try to connect to this site I always end up with this kind of message:

Rather than outright tell you that the site you want to access has been blocked by the government big wigs, they make it so it just looks like a usual connection difficulty. But when that message pops up for the 100th time you begin to realise that it is not the case.

The same goes for YouTube, Amnesty International, Wikipedia (partially), and about a million more websties. Try Googling something"sensitive" like: "Tibet Protests", and after clicking on a link you will soon find that the site is blocked once again. This can also cause a domino effect and within a matter of seconds every single page you try and open will also be blocked (but only for a few minutes).

I do not know the real reason why The Great Firewall of China has chosen Blogger as its next target, but I have a good idea: The 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests. It is possible that many bloggers around this time will be writing all sorts of posts about this historical even that China would prefer is forgotten about. In fact, a lot of young people I have spoken to have no idea what actually happened during the protests.

I'm accessing Blogger now using a proxy tool for Firefox called Gladder, the only problem is that it's painfully slow and very often tells me that some pages don't exist. It's been so frustrating to use that when I tried to post this article a few days ago I got so fed up that I just quit.

We'll see if things get better soon....

Silence IS Golden

2009-05-15T03:29:00.006+01:00

Me, before Chinese New Year and the construction work

When I returned from the UK at the end of January it was Chinese New Year, and the fireworks were exploding every other minute. This was fine -- until I had to start work. The celebrations didn't end after the one week holiday, they continued for more than half a month more. Bed time would come and all I could hear would be people playing Ma Jiang or cards while shouting to each other, and the fireworks of course. The talking (shouting) would sometimes last all night, and because the walls are practically made from paper they might as well have been in my apartment doing it. As for the fireworks, they would be set off at random intervals throughout the night, maybe a dozen at 1am, a few at 3:30am, and then a whole bunch of them at 7am. I would be sleeping in the quiet spots only to be woken up time after time. It got to the point where I just couldn't get to sleep sometimes because of the noise. It was driving me crazy.

After 15 days the noise did start to die down which was a huge relief, the talking stopped and the fireworks were stowed away for another year (or wedding or funeral). However, I still found it difficult to sleep just because of my previous experiences, I was continually waiting for something to wake me up, and it left me feeling restless (after talking about this with others I have found that all but two of the foreign teachers at Web have also experienced very similar things). After a couple of weeks more of so-so sleeps, I started to worry I wouldn't sleep properly again. Then my mum told me of a supplement called Valerian which isn't a sleeping pill, but a natural sedative. It has no side effects unlike the sleeping drugs, and is actually beneficial in many other ways. Surprisingly I found a bottle of the stuff in my local pharmacy. I started taking it and found that it really did work, I was feeling much more relaxed and started to sleep better.

This was a couple of months ago, and now I'm sleeping just like normal again thanks to the lack of noise and the Valerian. I've even recommended it to other teachers at Web and now three of them are all using it and have found beneficial results. The fact is, Wenzhou -- like so many other cities in China -- is developing so quickly that it is permanently noisy. For people like me who have been brought up in relative silence at night time, it can be difficult sometimes.

Another reason Wenzhou can be incredibly noisy at night is something I spoke about before (here): construction work. I had been living in my apartment for almost a year without any interfering work -- until March this year. Two construction sites suddenly began working throughout the day, it was loud but not a problem. Then one night I noticed the work didn't finish, it just kept going, all night. I was really quite angry about this and asked Kimi to complain. She called up the local government office only for them to tell her that they had given the site permission to work all night. Up until now it has happened on nine or ten occasions, two nights ago was the worst. It was so bad I had to sleep on the sofa in my living room with tissue stuck in my ears. It is completely unbelievable how common people have absolutely no rights whatsoever. If the government wants to do something they will, regardless of whether it causes hundreds of people to have a sleepless night. Can we do anything about it? Not a chance. Unfortunately this is cost of living in a country and city which is developing at the speed of light. In the mean time I hope I find an apartment which is sound proofed from head to toe.

Happy Birthday Mum

2009-05-13T04:29:00.003+01:00

Happy Birthday, I hope you had a treat like this (and I'm glad you liked my gift):

This is actually something that Kimi bought a few weeks ago from Haagen Dazs. Unlike in the UK the ice cream chain has cafes in China. They don't just serve only scoops of ice cream as you can see, but something rather more posh. It also doesn't come cheap, this item off the menu cost a staggering 230 RMB (£23). Kimi was given a bonus at work and felt like flaunting the money, I had no objections whatsoever.

Long Time No Blog

2009-05-12T16:06:00.000+01:00

I've been having withdrawal symptoms from my blog recently as I've just not written anything for more than a week. The reason is very simple, the time I used to spend writing on my blog has been spent doing exercise or going out. There's only one thing I can think of to remedy the problem: get up earlier -- which for me, is easier said than done.

As of today the weather in Wenzhou has soared. It is literally boiling outside and inside the Web office the air conditioner is on full power. Although the heat is climbing above 30 degrees centigrade the weather is consistently beautiful. A couple of days ago Johann and I went to a local park just walking distance from my home. I couldn't believe I had never been before.

I have always thought that Wenzhou is a terrible place for two groups of people: the old, and the disabled. This is because quite frankly, the outside world is incredibly dangerous. The park was the first time I had seen a place that is suitable for all groups of people. It was almost like the whole area was dedicated to senior citizens, it was perfect. There were areas for badminton, massages (not the bad kind), Chinese opera, debates, Tai Chi, and of course sitting (something which is lacking everywhere else in the city). The children also weren't left out of the equation, there was also a small train running through the park, and a small play area.

I'm also quite intrigued at how every single temple I have visited recently seems to be almost brand new. There are barely any genuinely old building remaining in the city. I can only imaging these buildings were torn down previously and then in recent years it was decided to put them back again.

Here are a few pictures from the park:

Spot the toupee of the year on the man at the back (it's not a hat)

Grass is a rare treat in Wenzhou

The dog didn't like me very much

If only people took notice of this

Now I just hope the weather doesn't climb too much more before my sister arrives here in a few weeks.

Labour Day -- A Trip to the Zoo

2009-05-04T03:24:00.033+01:00

The first of May -- like so many other countries -- is labour day in China. The national holidays are perfect times to travel and see new parts of China, the only problem is that everybody else has the same idea too. When you have a country with more than a billion people occupying it, this can be a problem.

When I came to China on holiday in 2007 I landed in Shanghai on the 1st of May (when the holiday was still 7 days). It was a shock to the senses seeing so many people in one place. I can remember walking along The Bund with my friend, Richard only to get mobbed by a group of people wanting to take our picture:

We were stuck against a wall at this point

Last year I was in Hong Kong for the May holiday, waiting nervously to apply for my working visa. There had been rumours circulating that Hong Kong wasn't giving the visas due to restrictions for the Olympics. Luckily for me I did receive my visa in the end, but it was slightly nerve-racking waiting in the office for 3 hours to find out if I'd been successful or not. My short trip in Hong Kong was much more civilized than the year before, and I even managed to meet up with two good friends, Mona and Mabel.

This year I stayed in Wenzhou. Kimi and I, with Johann and his girlfriend decided to take a walk up Wenzhou's Snow Mountain (which I'm quite sure never has any snow). We took a pleasant walk around a garden area, a large and very new Buddhist temple, and then the zoo. I was a bit wary about visiting the zoo because I imagined the conditions might not be up to much. I was proven wrong in most cases, it was very well maintained and most of the animals had good environments to live in. I was only disappointed at the amount of rubbish people had thrown into their habitats to try and get the animals to do something.

As predicted there were tonnes of people crammed into every crevasse and corner, most of them from Wenzhou, but I guessed that a lot of them had come from the outskirts of the city. I say this because throughout the day at every minute I was hearing the word "foreigner" spoken, many people were stunned to see us. I heard the word in the only three variations I know: "Laowai" (informal Chinese), "Waiguoren" (Chinese), and "Vaiganen" (Wenzhou Dialect, I have no idea how to spell it in Pinyin). I've always found it funny why strangers in the street will just shout out the word "foreigner"if they see one, what compels them to say it out loud rather than in their mind?

The day was long, tiring, but hugely enjoyable. It was also good to see another side of Wenzhou than the usual cars, drilling, and general chaos that is prevalent in the city centre. Surprisingly, a lot of what we saw was actually very beautiful. Here is the day in pictures:

Happy Labour Day!

I've Joined a Gym!

2009-04-30T08:29:00.008+01:00

There really aren't any gymnastics involved

I shocked myself at the weekend and became a member of a local gym. The reason for my lack of blog posts is actually due to this. I seem to have replaced my blog-time with sport-time. I will try and modify my schedule for this as I do not want to let my blog slip through my fingers.

For a few weeks I had been considering starting some exercise again. I'd begun to feel quite unhealthy, and certainly not fit by any means. It has been quite a while since I last did regular exercise, about two years in fact. On Friday, with Kimi's help, we found a gym called BySun that is walking distance from my home. We took a short tour of the centre and even met one of my students who jumped out from behind one of the machines and scared me to death. The centre was identical to a western gym, even the machines had been imported from America. Kimi used her powers of bargaining and managed to get the fee down to a very reasonable price: 1,250RMB for 6 months.

The following day I went on my own to do my first work-out. I was even given my own personal trainer who made a plan for me and showed me how to use the machines properly. I understood very little of the Chinese, but mostly body language was used to great effect. I had no idea how wrongly I had previously been using the machines when I last attended a gym at university. The plan means I have to work on my chest, stomach and back. After doing this I am free to use any of the aerobic machines like the treadmills or bicycles. I spent just over an hour of lifting and running, surprisingly it felt great. That was until the following day when I couldn't move at all.

The staff all seem very smiley and friendly, and when I go in the morning there is barely anybody there. Yesterday there was me, two beef-cake men, two receptionists, and the cleaners -- perfect. Now I just need to make a playlist of upbeat songs for my iPod to drown out the constant dance music and ballads that blast out of the speakers (even after three days I've noticed the same handful of songs are just played on rotation).

Kimi's Got a New Car

2009-04-25T04:30:00.000+01:00

Welcome to the mean -- and quite frankly terrifying -- streets of Wenzhou

Kimi is now in possession of a brand new car, a Skoda Fabia. Skoda used to be an embarrassing brand to own and I remember many jokes being told about them when I was at school. Since Volkswagen bought the company a few years ago things seemed to have improved immensely. Kimi's car is no exception, some even say VW built a better Polo with the Fabia.

Kimi's mother has recently retired from her job, and with some of the money she was given she decided to buy this car for her daughter. This seemed outrageous to me, but I have been continually told, "this is how things are done in China". I can't comment on all of China, but in Wenzhou it's quite true. The parents buy a home for their child and then their child will buy a home for their child etc. Very few people get mortgages here because they simply don't need to, but they still need to save for 20-30 years so that they can give their child the home they so obviously deserve. In some ways this way of living is great, you don't owe any money to a bank and you don't pay any interest. On the other hand, this tradition is part of a long list of other traditions which completely control the lives of the sons and daughters of Wenzhou (especially daughters). In a very generalised nutshell the trend is this:

School - as normal as ever. But if your parents want to you to go to a good kindergarten/primary school/middle school/high school, then they will probably have to pay money for it (under the table). That is unless they're best buddies with the headmaster.
University - it's quite possible your parents have told you what course to take. Usually it's business-related. In one year of working at Web I've only met two students who are studying Music. Most creative subjects are red areas. Maths, business, foreign trade = good.
Job - again your parents have probably lined up this career path for you. They might have even paid a substantial amount of money to get you the job, or they may have taken advantage of a family relationship inside the company. With the right kind of relationship (Guanxi) you will get the job regardless of your qualifications and skills.
Marriage - if you haven't already found the love of your life then you'd better get a move on, especially for the girls. Most people leave university at the age of 24 and parents expect their daughter to be married by the age of about 25-27. For the boys it's much more flexible, you can be a bachelor in your 30's without too much stress from mama and baba. If you're single after university then your parents will arrange "suitable" blind dates for you (whether you want it or not). One of Kimi's female cousins went on a some of these blind dates a few months ago. She was engaged to a man within a month and married within four. The other criteria for marriage is that the spouse should be local, no Hangzhounese here please.
Home - once you're married your parents will have bought the house you will start a family in and a car that you will drive to the job they gave you.
Baby - as soon as your married you must have a baby, and it must be before you're 30 if you're a woman (I won't even go into the "tradition" that takes place once you've had the baby, I'll leave that for another blog).
Now it's your turn - yes, now you can control every millisecond of your babies life.

As I said earlier, this is a very generalised description, but it is what I have heard from countless numbers of people. Tradition plays an incredibly important role to so many people's lives, and it's a continual cycle that never stops. In this respect freedom of choice is severely limited, and that's why I know so much about this, because so many young people have complained to me about how their parents pressurise them into following the cycle.

It's strange how Kimi's mother has not followed the norm. I was trying to think why, maybe it is because if Kimi was with a Wenzhounese boyfriend she would probably be married by now. Or maybe she has just given up all hope because of me (I'm not Wenzhounese).

Results

2009-04-22T03:07:00.009+01:00

"For International Traveller", I wonder who he is?

Yesterday I received the results from my medical test. I think I'm in the clear after reading that I have "no quarrantinable disease, infectious disease under surveillance or any other disease which is highly dangerous to the public". This means I can renew my work permit and stay in China for another year. I have also been given two souvenirs from the trip: a certificate of health (see above), and the X-Ray of my chest.

As I thought would be the case, my blood pressure was a little high -- but not too bad -- and my pulse was also over 100BPM. You can see how ingrained the fear of hospitals is wedged into my subconscious mind. I blame it on a visit to a hospital when I was 10 years old. While at my grandma's house I fell onto one of those metal draught excluders that are placed underneath doors which lead to the outside. I had cut my leg wide open. Thankfully my grandma used to be a nurse and she knew exactly what to do. We rushed to the nearest hospital and saw a doctor (whose name I still remember: Jim Smalley). He had to stitch me up, but this meant applying anaesthetic -- which had to go directly into the wound, with injections, six times. I can still recall the pain to this day, it was horrendous. Fourteen stitches later and I was out of the hospital with a kind of relief I have never experienced since.

Although I am no psychologist or psychiatrist, I am sure this has played a huge part in my completely uncontrollable fear of hospitals to this day. Anyway, I am officially disease-free, so I should be happy.

I promise to have no more hospital-related blog posts for -- hopefully -- a long time. It makes me feel a little queasy.

Medical Check

2009-04-17T09:01:00.004+01:00

I have been working at Web for one year, something which really leaves me in disbelief. I cannot comprehend how quickly the year has gone. To celebrate this, I have to take a medical test. This is because my working (Z) visa is about to expire. Web will renew it for me, but before they can I have to pass the test. This is the law unfortunately. These are the people who have to take it:

Foreigners staying in China for an extended period of time (strangely enough, if you want to stay for 6 months you don't need it, but if it is for one year or more, then you must have it).
Chinese people leaving the country for holiday or immigration.
Chinese people coming back to the country after living abroad.

This morning at 9pm, Nancy (who works in the human resources department at Web) took me to Wenzhou's medical centre, a bleak looking building with awful Chinglish written on every single sign. The sound of a child crying echoed through the corridor when we entered -- not a great start. We enter a lounge/waiting room and pick up an application form, I try to forget that China's health care system is graded lower than Iraq's. I filled out the short form saying who I am and why I am here, I applied one of my passport photographs (see below) to the form -- but had to get another one taken for another mysterious purpose -- and Nancy paid a whopping 350 RMB (£35) for the tests to begin.

The passport photo I had to have taken for the test (only added because I don't have any another other relevant photographs, and I pledged to add at least one picture per blog post)

In all honesty I hate, absolutely hate this kind of thing. The second I step foot in a hospital I can feel my heart racing and my blood pressure boiling. I think I have inherited it from my mum who is exactly the same. I know the logical reasons for not being worried, but somehow, somewhere in my mind, I allow all logic to be bypassed and worry anyway.

First was the blood test. It was like approaching a box office and buying a ticket for a show, but instead of getting a ticket I got a jab. I had to slide my arm in the space under the perspex glass, a grumpy middle-aged woman tied my arm (just like how heroin users do it in films) and extracted the blood -- and quite a lot of it too.

One thing I had been taught to look out for in China was the syringe. For anybody who has to take the test here, make sure you witness the nurse unwrapping the needle in front of your eyes. If you don't see that then refuse. The reusing of needles does take place in some places, luckily not in Wenzhou.

Second was the urine test. This one slipped my mind, and I had totally forgotten to drink copious amounts of water after getting up in the morning. I didn't need to go at all, so we asked to delay that test until the end.

Third, X-ray. I was taken up a short flight of stairs into a corridor, each room I knew I had to visit. We entered the X-ray room, this time a grumpy man told me to take off my shirt. I pushed myself against a metal slab and the picture was taken. Next....

Fourth, Eye and Lymph node test. The first time I did this test in Hangzhou I forgot to bring my glasses which was difficult to explain when I couldn't speak a word of Chinese. I remembered them this time. An elderly grumpy woman felt my face and throat and opened a page of a colour-blind test book. Then I was signalled to sit on a chair across from elderly grumpy woman and read the large-to-small up, down, left, right directions.

Fifth, ECG. I lied down, had a lot of scary-looking electrodes placed all over my body, and saw a print out of some complicated-looking results emerge from a printer. At this point I asked myself what the point of all this was. I can hardly spread a heart condition to the population of China can I? If anybody knows I would love to know.

Sixth, heart and lung test (I think). A man who looked to be in his mid to late seventies stuck a stethoscope on my heart and moved it around my lungs. Not a word spoken. I wondered if he thought I had a heart condition from the rate it was probably going. Even extended time in the hospital doesn't calm me down, only when I leave will it go back to normal.

Seventh, (will it ever end?) Ultrasound. Not only for expecting mothers, but also for foreigners coming to China. It was getting boring now, but yet another grumpy woman asked me to pull up my shirt as she applied the cold gooey substance to my abdomen. On the monitor I could see some of my organs, although the picture quality was terrible. The nurse threw a couple of pieces of tissue on my stomach and I cleaned off the liquid.

Eighth, blood pressure and height. Grumpy young woman (do they all hate their job or are they attempting to come across as professional?) sat me down on a chair and did the usual blood pressure thing. First time it was too high, she asked me to go out, take a rest and come back. I told her it would be a waste of time, unless you can ship Paul Mckenna over to relax me, then nothing will change. She did it again, and somehow it was better, but still a little higher than normal.

Ninth, urine test part two. I still didn't feel the need to do anything, so I drank a lot of water and had a nice chat with Nancy for a while. Nature called in the end, and I went to what was a very unsanitary toilet. I am glad I didn't need to go before doing the tests otherwise I might have backed out. The cup was filled and taken to another box office counter.

Finally I received a gift from the clinic: a free breakfast. The bag contained a carton of milk and six small bread buns.

Are such detailed tests really needed just for a laowai to live and work in China? From the posters pinned up on the walls it is obvious that Aids is the biggest concern of all for the Chinese government, but what about the rest? Is it relevant to have an ultrasound test? What could possibly be found from an X-ray to cause my visa application to be rejected?

On a positive note, if I do have any problems that need attention, doing these tests on a yearly basis should find them, possibly saving my life. Having a full-body test for this reason should almost be compulsory for everybody -- but something tells me this isn't why the government has put this policy into action. Very confusing, but very glad it's over.

I'm Published!

2009-04-15T14:55:00.002+01:00

Well, not quite, but my picture is in this entertainment newspaper:

When Kimi and I were in Hangzhou we spent one morning apart, she went shopping for clothes and I went to meet Reuben (as I mentioned in this post). Beforehand I decided to go for a walk around the city centre. I was making my way past one of the biggest department stores in Hangzhou (In Time), when a man and a woman approached me. I took the headphones out of my ears and heard the woman ask if I could speak Chinese (in Chinese). I said, "a little", and she spurted out a sentence that I couldn't grasp at all. I told her I didn't understand, so she started speaking English, and pretty good English too. By this point I was very wary, I only stayed around because they seemed amiable enough, but I was waiting to see how they wanted to get to my money. Usually this kind of thing is a con, they want to take you for tea, or to see some "art". It's all completely bogus and you end up paying for it. She told me that she and her friend worked for a local Hangzhou newspaper. "Okaaay", I thought. She asked if it would be OK for them to take my picture and for it to be printed in the next edition.

A few snaps were taken, and then a lot of questions asked. Firstly introductory questions like "What is your name?", "Where do you come from?", etc. Then the questions centred entirely on my clothes. They wanted to know where I got everything from and how much it all cost. I was a little disappointed as I was wearing really old clothes. I wondered if the section in the newspaper/magazine would be, "How Not To Dress". The questions were over, a few more pictures were taken, and that was that. We shook hands, exchanged business cards and said goodbye. They were both very friendly,I felt it was all genuine....

Alas, it was. On Friday Kimi's friend in Hangzhou very kindly bought a couple of the papers and posted them to us in Wenzhou. They arrived yesterday. Here's my claim to fame:

The written Chinese is mostly what I said, but some of it is completely made up. One part of it says something like, "I don't show the skull t-shirt when I am at school so I wear something to hide it." I never said anything of the sort.

I'm now available for after-dinner speeches, charity events, and supermarket openings. Contact my agent for more.

A Year of Progress

2009-04-13T03:27:00.008+01:00

It was my day off on Friday and the weather was lovely, probably the hottest day of the year with temperatures of about 30 degrees. I decided to have a walk around my local neighbourhood, go to the park, and take a few pictures. I am not a photographer by any means, and from the looks of it I also don't have many original ideas. I unwittingly took two pictures that are identical to two other pictures I took almost a year ago (when I had just moved into the area).

The first is of Wenzhou's World Trade Centre, which has yet to be completed. I usually think of Chinese construction work as being quicker than the speed of light, but this building has taken an extremely long time to be completed (relatively speaking) as you can see:

March 2008

April 2009

The second picture is of the street where I live, He Hua Road. Both pictures look as if nothing has changed in a year, but once you arrive at my apartment you can now see multiple construction sites. Where once there was peace and quiet, now there are the sounds of circular saws, hammering, huge cement mixers, and drilling. At times I literally feel like I am right in the centre of a developing country, and it's developing at my feet. I have been considering moving to a hammer-free environment, so I will be moving out of my apartment within the next two or three months I think.

March 2008

April 2009

Plans Plans Plans

2009-04-10T07:40:00.012+01:00

A month or two ago I was extremely concerned with my long-term future. For no apparent reason, when I returned from England at the end of January I started to feel like I should be doing something different, that I am possibly wasting my time continuing at Web, and that my time in China could be coming to an end. On the other hand, I wanted to stay in China. I was completely torn, and with no idea what to do I began to worry about things.

Instead of thinking too far ahead into the vast unknown, I started to plan for the -- much more realistic -- foreseeable future. This is what the next few months should hold for me:

My one year contract at Web is almost over, I do not want to stay there for another year working full-time (I'll save the reasons why for another blog post). I still enjoy the job sometimes, but it has lost its charm in recent months. Although I was wary to do such a thing, I have signed a new contract with them which was on the basis that I can take one month off at the end of May (see number 2), and that in September I will work on a part-time basis (or not at all if they go against their word).
My sister, Sally is coming to China at the end of May for a few weeks. Now that I have a month off we can easily go travelling together. So far I have planned to take her to Shanghai, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Wenzhou, and somewhere else (I haven't decided on that one yet any suggestions would be welcome).
This one isn't guaranteed yet, but in September this year Kimi and I will hopefully be travelling to England together. We have been together for a year and a half and she still hasn't met my parents. Now we are starting the process of applying for the visa, and Kimi is trying to book time off work (which is ludicrously difficult as they only give her one day of paid holiday a year to start with).
When we return to China in mid-October I will either be working part-time at Web and teaching privately; or I will be looking for new employment.

That's it, that's my plan for the next 6 months. I've got a few things to be happy about -- although it seems this poor dog I saw today isn't with me on that:

Turn that frown upside down

Holiday in Hangzhou: Part 2

2009-04-08T12:54:00.011+01:00

The West Lake

The West Lake is a much-hyped location in Hangzhou, and in China itself. True, it is very pleasant and well worth a visit, but it is by no means "heaven on Earth" as the television adverts will have you believe (on CCTV 9). Still, if you happen to be in the neighbourhood then there is no excuse to take a walk and see one of China's top tourist attractions. The lake itself is very large and a walk around the perimeter can take hours -- I tried it once. The local government have also done a good job at preserving the area in a very tasteful way. You will not see any huge buildings crowding the sky-line; you will not hear the sounds of continual development that plagues so much of this country; and you will not see any cheap touristy cash-ins. Occasionally there is a (free) water show where lake water is pumped in all sorts of directions to simulate a kind of dance with music, at night it is especially spectacular (see below).

The rather indistinguishable water show on the West Lake at night

The same show taking place in the day time (in the distance)

Kimi and I also met up with Reuben (an ex-Web teacher) and his girlfriend, Maggie. It was great to catch up and see how well Hangzhou life has been treating them. They took us to a couple of brilliant restaurants, one served Sichuan food and was certainly one of the best I have been to; the other was Korean, which was also the tastiest Korean food I have ever tried -- although I am by no means an expert on Korean cuisine (I think I've eaten it 5 times in my life).

I haven't been to Hangzhou for a while, but being there this time made me realise how much I have missed the place. I spent over half a year living and working in the city, then -- as I mentioned in my very first post -- I moved to Wenzhou, which has now taken up one year of my life. Hangzhou is certainly a more welcoming choice for anybody visiting China, and it manages to balance business and commerce with sightseeing and relaxation. The latter part is missing in Wenzhou, it is all business business business here.

We stayed with Reuben and Maggie for almost a whole day. We ate, drank, went to an arcade (which was an all-new experience for me in China), and finally ended up at a hotel. Reuben had been doing freelance work teaching some of the hotel staff English. All of us were introduced to the managers and finally the boss of the establishment. Lo and behold, the owner of this rather huge hotel block was Wenzhounese -- typical.

The following day Kimi and I didn't have much time to go sightseeing. Kimi had already done her fair share of shopping having bought a load of clothes from a factory outlet store the previous day. We took a short walk, struggled to find a taxi (which is common practice in Hangzhou), and eventually made our way to Subway for a sandwich -- a rare treat indeed. Finally we arrived back at the bus station, the taxi fare being much more expensive than any Wenzhou taxi I've ever taken. As always we were on the very last minute but just managed to hop on our 1 o'clock bus back to Wenzhou.

The holiday was criminally short, I didn't want to leave really, but as usual reality called and I once again realised that I need to make money to do things like have holidays in the first place. I should mention the national holiday itself was Qing Ming festival, or Tomb Sweeping day. A time to clean, restore, and put flowers on the graves of loved ones -- or go to Hangzhou for 3 days.

Holiday to Hangzhou: Part 1

2009-04-08T02:52:00.009+01:00

I apologise for the quietness on my blog recently. The main reason is that Kimi and I have just been away for a few days. Originally we were going to Shanghai to see a concert, but after the government put a stop to that -- as I talked about here -- we decided to pay a visit to Hangzhou with the possibility of visiting Shanghai afterwards (we didn't make it to Shanghai).

After a four and a half hour bus ride, we arrived at Hangzhou. Everything seemed very familiar, nothing had changed since I lived there just over a year ago. We walked to the nearest bus stop and caught a bus to our hotel located in the city centre. The hotel itself was very modern, basic, and most importantly, clean. By this time it was already approaching 4 o'clock, and because we didn't have any lunch on the bus, we were hungry. Our plan was to go to one of Hangzhou's most popular restaurants, Grandma's Kitchen. We thought if we went early we would certainly get a table. This is what happened:

You can't even book a table here, the only option is to queue

So we waited -- for an hour and a half. It is quite astonishing how one restaurant can be so popular. Every time it is the same story, huge queues and slow service. There isn't only one Grandma's Kitchen, there are many of them scattered across the city, each of them probably as equally crowded. Once our number was called we entered the restaurant and took our table -- which we had to share with another couple. When reading the menu one thing is quite apparent: everything is cheap. I got the feeling that one of the reasons the restaurant is so popular could be due to a con of sorts. The restaurant looks expensive, the food looks fancy, but it's all a bargain. Also, the menu is extremely diverse, there's a lot crammed into the pages. You can get anything from Chinese basics like Mapo Tofu, to other slightly less desireable offerings such as Pig's brain (they didn't really need to have a picture of that one, I could have guessed what it might look like).

Our food was delivered extremely quickly even though it was almost impossible to find a waiter who would take our order in the first place. The food was delicious, not the standard Chinese food I am used to. Each dish had something different to offer, it was almost worth the wait.

Somehow we managed to eat almost all of this

There'll be more Hangzhou tomorrow, time to get ready for work now.

Wedding Season

2009-03-30T03:39:00.007+01:00

The happy couple (Kimi's cousin is on the left)

I don't know if there actually is an official wedding season in China, but if there is one it should be right now. Over the past week I have been to three such events, two of which were with Kimi's family, and the other a colleague from Web. Apparently the real reason is that there have been some lucky wedding days according to the Chinese Lunar Calendar.

Weddings are an interesting phenomenon in modern Chinese culture. Before I had actually experienced a wedding here, I had a kind of exotic image of the bride wearing a traditional qipao, her face covered by a veil; there would be intricate head dresses; everything would be red, from the decorations to the clothing; and Chinese folk music would be banging and piping away throughout the proceedings. My hopes and expectations were greatly dashed when I witnessed the modern style of wedding.

To put it bluntly, a wedding today is more like a westernised-TV game show-all-you-can-eat-and-drink-money-making-event. Usually proceedings are held in a large hotel function room. Guests sit around large round tables facing a small stage at the front of the room. Glossy magazine style photoshopped pictures of the bride and groom are scattered all over the room. Loud music bursts out of the speakers making it difficult to talk, and -- if the family has the spare cash -- a host stands on the stage shouting down a microphone. At what point the bride and groom actually get married, I don't really know. Some people have told me that before the "wedding", they go to a registry office and sign the documents there.

While the host talks, or we are listening to music, food is usually delivered to our tables. Every wedding I have been to has almost exactly the same food on offer. It's not very good for me as vegetarian food is the cheapest to buy, so in a lot of people's eyes, it's not respectable to serve it. Instead we get plate after plate of seafood: crab, lobster, shrimp, oysters, mussels, and even a couple of times, turtle.

Eventually the bride and groom enter the room, the bride wearing a western wedding dress and the groom, a suit. Somebody playing the role of a vicar will greet them, say some words and walk them to the stage. At the last wedding I attended they played an electronic version of the Wedding March at this point. Vows are exchanged on-stage, sometimes a keyboard player will be playing incidental background music and adding sound effects to any funny remarks being said. After the words are over, the rest of the event is in any one's hands. Games are played, songs are sung, and drinks are drunk. Part of the couples responsibility is to go around each table -- and there are always a lot -- and ganbei (bottoms up) a drink with everybody. The fun can continue for hours, but when the food is over many people rapidly exit, with only the loyal few remaining.

The couple on-stage with the host

The newlyweds (now wearing new clothes) must visit each table and ganbei a drink

A wedding is not only a day to seal a relationship, it is also a day for the couples to cash-in on an investment they have made many times before. For each wedding you attend, you must hand over a red envelope (I talked about the significance of the red envelope here) containing some money (absolutely no gifts are involved). The closer your relationship with the bride or groom, the more money you should give. A bridesmaid may put 2,000 RMB in an envelope, whereas a colleague at work can give just a couple of hundred. If you wanted to you could put as little or as much in the envelope as you wish, but whatever you put in, it will be remembered. Sometimes when you enter the function room, somebody will be sitting at a table taking envelopes, counting the money inside, and writing your name and the total down in a book. So, if you gave 500 RMB to your best friend, when your best friend comes to your wedding he or she will also give you 500 RMB. I think part of the pressure to get married so early here is so that all of the money people have paid out over the years can be returned.

The wedding really is an eye-opening event, there is so much more to talk about, and I've not even mentioned what an engagement is like (there's another very similar party for that too).

A Seedier Side of Wenzhou

2009-03-27T04:22:00.002Z

A few days ago I went on a night out with one of the other foreign teachers at Web, Kristian. Usually I don't choose to go to the bars or nightclubs here, they really aren't my cup of tea. Most of them are incredibly over-priced and the music is horrendous. I much prefer going to the places that are referred to as cafes, although from a western point of view they would be classed as a bar. These places have a much more relaxing environment, quiet music, and cheaper drinks.

Kristian and I decided to go for a couple of beers at Ming Ou cafe and then have dinner elsewhere. One thing lead to another, and after a few too many Double Deer beers, we decided to hit the bars. A short taxi ride later we arrived at Jiang Bing road where a lot of the bars and clubs are located. As soon as we stepped out of the car, semi-fresh air was instantly noticeable. The road is directly next to the sea, and it makes a huge difference. Taking a gasp of truly clean air is something I terribly miss from home.

We entered a large illuminated night club, the first building we saw. Once inside we approached the bar wanting to order a drink. Although there was a barman waiting to serve, it was a waiter who asked that we order with him. We asked for two bottles of Tsing Tao beer -- the kind you can buy from the shops for 3RMB each. The waiter wondered off, and returned minutes later with two bottles and a receipt of 100 RMB (about £10). We declined.

A few minutes passed, and I began looking at the crowd of people who were attending this night. One thing was glaringly obvious. A proportion of these people were -- how can I put it -- ladies of the night. It is an unfortunate fact, in much of China prostitution is illegal, but mostly ignored by the police -- for a price.

We didn't stay in the club for very long and decided to look elsewhere. We took a short walk outside and found a small road which looked like it accommodated some smaller pubs or bars. The tiny road was packed with people, mainly men which seemed very odd. We walked for a minute or two and realised there was actually not one bar one the street. People were exchanging money at counters for something, but I couldn't see what. There was a mountain of beer bottles (see below) just piled up on the ground. I glanced at the place where I originally thought the pubs must be located, they weren't pubs at all, it was a small apartment block. Both Krisitan and I felt very uneasy at this point. Something was going on here, whatever it was, we didn't want to know. We rapidly turned around and exited back to the main road.

The mountain of beer bottles

It seemed our night was an eye-opener into a much seedier, stranger side of Wenzhou that only exists in the early hours of the morning. I don't think I will be going back there again.

No More Youtube (for how long this time?)

2009-03-26T02:25:00.005Z

I have been very lazy with my blog recently, I have no idea why. Sometimes I feel I want to add something to my page every day, other days I tell myself I will write on it later, but when later comes I'm too tired and can't seem to write anything coherent. Anyway, I have a few things I would like to talk about which I will hopefully publish over the next few days. Back on topic....

For those who don't know -- but you probably do -- China likes having control over its people, one part of this control comes from the censorship of information. There are very strict policies in place, anything that does not show a kind of loyalty to China doesn't belong here. I have heard of foreign newspapers simply having pages taken out of them before they are put on the shelves, books have paragraphs blacked out, and some websites are completely blocked.

When I arrived in China over a year and a half ago, I recall some of my favourite sites being blocked by "The Great Firewall of China": BBC News, Wikipedia, and Youtube. The reason for the censoring was simple: each of the websites are some of the most popular methods of information sharing, and somebody didn't want that information to find its way to China's internet users.

I don't recall the exact time when things changed, but it coincided with the upcoming Olympic games last year, let's say it was six months before. Stories were emerging of Journalists who were complaining that their sources of information would be blocked when they visit Beijing in the Summer. All of a sudden, somebody waved a magic wand, and overnight all of these websites suddenly became available. Even after the games the sites were still accessible, it looked like China had finally decided to open up a little more -- good.

Two days ago things changed again. Youtube was blocked. "There must be a reason for this" I thought. After a quick look at the -- still accessible (but for how long?) -- BBC page, the answer was this. Once again it comes down to Tibet. Just like my cancelled trip to Shanghai to see Oasis, it's Tibet that really hits China's nerve. Again, it's petty, just like a child who used to let you play with this toys, but now you can't use any because you briefly mentioned how he borrowed one of your toys a few weeks ago and didn't return it. He says it was always his toy, gets in a mood, and leaves you with the boring toys. It can only be a matter of time until people start to realise that this continual blocking of information is for a reason, and not a good reason at that.

Sports Day

2009-03-20T06:15:00.009Z

A few days ago Kimi asked me if I would like to escort her to a work's day out. Apparently it was a belated celebratory gift for Woman's day (which was more than a week ago). The theme of the day would be a sports day dedicated to team-building. I didn't know where I would fit into all of this, but I decided to tag-a-long anyway.

The destination for the event was in a smaller town called Yue Qing, just outside of Wenzhou city, but still belonging to Wenzhou. An hour bus journey later, and we arrived at the town's sports stadium. It was the first sunny and warm day of the year, which was lucky as I recall torrential rain the previous day. The sun was so strong I even burnt my nose (it's always the first thing to go).

I felt a little out of place after arriving on the field as there were almost no men in sight, it seemed Kimi was the only person who brought their partner along. Some of her colleagues had seen me before, and no doubt most of them knew that Kimi had a lao wai boyfriend, but still, there were a few stares and glares heading in my direction.

The ladies

The proceedings began with a host shouting down a microphone with the volume cranked up to 11 -- nothing changes. She called out staff names and introduce each event. When I saw the props hiding behind the big red rubber arch, I realised this was not to be a standard sports day. The games consisted of such things as: wrapping up people in toilet roll, bouncing on a space hopper, riding a bicycle as slowly as possible, and a sack race.

Kimi preparing for the space hopper race

To my surprise everybody seemed to be having a whale of a time. I wouldn't have been so happy to have done all of this on my day off (although I was watching it all on my day off). I am taking a stab in the dark saying this, but I get the firm impression that a person's free time from work is a much more prized possession in western culture. I can't imagine half the turn-out for the same day going on in the UK. Yet it seemed almost all of the female workforce had chosen to attend this extra-curricular activity.

I was dealt another surprise that afternoon when I saw Kimi win, not only one game, but every game she took part in. Each member of staff was only supposed to take part in one event each, but her "team mates" talked Kimi into doing three out of five. She rejected the final round because of the hurdle and can of Coke involved -- and it was probably beneath her by then anyway. She received a prize for being the star of her team: a bottle of shampoo and shower gel.

The crowd formed to see Kimi triumphant in the cycle-as-slow-as-you-can race

Kimi slightly worn out, and my nose slightly burnt, we left the sports stadium and took a suspension-less bus back home.

Street Food

2009-03-18T14:19:00.005Z

Street food in action

For a foreigner living in China it is more than possible to continue having a western-style breakfast each day -- if you have the spare cash that is. When I say western-style, I mean the basics of one bowl of cereal and a piece of toast with butter (and jam if you like). It is very easy to buy milk and bread everywhere here, although 99.9% of all the bread I have eaten in China is rather sweet. Problems arise with butter and cereal. In Wenzhou these goods just aren't available in the supermarkets, the only place to buy such things is at D&L square (which I briefly mentioned here). Almost everything in the "European Supermarket" is imported, and it comes at a price. So, if money is no option you can quite easily live in China with a daily dose of home.

On the other hand, I find that a Chinese breakfast can be equally, or sometimes more satisfying than anything my toaster can prepare -- and it comes at a fraction of the price (literally). I don't particularly like going to a Chinese restaurant for breakfast, I simply cannot adapt to eating similar dishes I would normally have at night in the morning. I find the best way to eat in the early hours is on the street. Some of the most enjoyable food I have eaten has come from street vendors, the food is quick, simple, and breakfasty enough to suit me just fine. At the top of the list is Baozi, a kind of bun with pork or vegetables inside (I go for the veggie one). How much for two? 2 RMB. Next on the list is something called luo bo si bing (see above), which is kind of like a fried pitta bread with white carrot inside. How much for one? 1.5 RMB. If you are not still full yet, there are numerous other options available on the mean streets of Wenzhou, from balls of rice to sticks of deep-fried dough. To wash it down, for 1 RMB a nice bag of warm soya milk can be yours -- that's right a bag (see below). The grand total for this street-food-breakfast: 4.5 RMB (that's around 45 British pence at the current exchange rate). Or you could just have a Macdonald's breakfast for 35 RMB....

Nothing like a nice bag of soya milk to perk you up in the morning

The Amazing Disappearing Skyscraper

2009-03-13T03:38:00.004Z

After I finish writing this I have promised myself to keep pollution-related posts down to a bare minimum. I do not want to keep bashing the air quality, as sometimes it is perfectly OK (such as in this instance). A week or two ago I wrote this post which showcased some terrible pollution/fog. However, today has brought new lows to visibility in Wenzhou.

After working for eight days in a row at Web, I was very excited to finally have my two days of holiday. Things were starting to look up, the rain had finally stopped after more than twenty days, and even the sun made an appearance, it was warm, actually it was hot. Spring had been bypassed and summer was here, fantastic, I would surely have two sun-filled days off. As of this minute, it is almost lunch time and I am sitting in my bedroom (where my laptop is) in darkness. The sky has turned a depressing shade of grey, the rain has returned with force, and to my amazement Wenzhou's World Trade Centre -- the tallest skyscraper in the province -- has completely vanished.

The view from my balcony promises a breath-taking view of The Wenzhou World Trade Centre

Looks like today is the perfect opportunity for me to read my new, "How to Speak Chinese" book, and pick up the guitar again (it's been a while).

Bad Parking 1: The Lamp Post

2009-03-10T05:39:00.003Z

Since I came to Wenzhou almost a year ago I have come across cars parking in all sorts of places, in all sorts of directions, and breaking all sorts of traffic laws (although the police aren't very interested in that, they've got better things to do with their time).

I am starting off this collection with what is probably the best -- or worst -- of the lot. I will never be able to beat this one, but it just had to be documented.

So, number one in the series of bad parking is this:

This unfortunate display of parking was found near to Kimi's apartment. We tried to guess how such a thing could have happened. Finally we agreed the car must have been parked further away from the lamp post, but the driver made a huge blunder and forgot to put the hand brake down. The rest, as they say, is history. I hope they were insured.

Women's Day

2009-03-09T14:48:00.004Z

Sunday was Women's Day here in China -- a holiday not supported in the UK. It is a day to celebrate women and all of their achievements, so most of the department stores have a big sale for a day or two. Web also contributed to the holiday by taking us all out for dinner. But it wasn't just dinner, it was KTV too.

After finishing work we walked across the road to the same karaoke establishment Kimi and I had previously visited, the "Jolly 100". This time a mini-room would not be enough, what I think must be the largest of rooms was booked for us instead. Inside it was certainly spacious, with a cinema-type screen hung onto the wall -- it made reading the lyrics easy even without wearing my glasses.

The party in full swing

It was supposed to be a social gathering with a bit of singing, drinking, and eating, but it seemed although the idea was there, somehow it got lost along the way. The primary reason for this was the volume of the music, it was so high it was almost impossible to talk to each other. With a bit of shouting and speaking into each others ears, we made some effort to communicate with each other. A few Double Deer beers later and we, "the foreign teachers", even came to the stage to sing, "Hey Jude".

Like so many events and dinners I have attended in China, they don't slowly end with some people leaving early and some people staying until the bitter end. I find that a function will just stop, and within a few minutes almost everybody leaves within a split second. There's never an announcement or talk of leaving soon, just a kind of silent alarm that repels all people in a room. So at 9:15 we rapidly left the establishment, all with Tinnitus ringing in our ears.

Things to do on a Rainy Day in Wenzhou

2009-03-05T14:32:00.001Z

My days off at Web had been changed since I returned from the UK in February. Previously I had managed to get Friday and Saturday which was incredibly cheeky considering Saturday and Sunday are two of the busiest days in the training centre. As they say, "If you don't ask you don't get".

Since I came back after my holiday the H.R. department had changed my days to Tuesday and Wednesday. I wasn't very happy about this, but I was promised I would have them changed back again after a month. Thankfully they have kept their word which has put a smile back on my face. It means I can go back to teaching children on Saturday and I will also be able to start having piano lessons. The downside of this is that I am now having to work seven days in a row until I make it to next Friday.

This week I had the pleasure of Kimi joining me on my days off. We planned to get out of the apartment and do something. This plan was immediately thrown in the rubbish when we looked out of the window: rain. The rain here has been ferocious and has no intention of stopping. As I write this we are on day 19 of uninterrupted rain. Apparently this is not completely natural either. There have been droughts in some parts of the Zhejiang province so the government have been using a chemical called silver iodide which forces rain clouds to dispense their lot rather prematurely. The first time I heard of such a thing being used here was for the opening ceremony of the Olympic games. Rain was scheduled to coincide with the event, so again, rockets were fired into the sky and a city outside of Beijing was flooded -- probably.

What is there to do on a rainy, dismal, and dull day in Wenzhou? There's only one answer: KTV. Kimi has been eager to go to karaoke for some time, Wednesday just seemed like the perfect day to be stuck inside. The KTV buildings are almost like hotels, you have to book a room, choose the size, and pay for how long you would like to use it for. We purchased the smallest room for a couple of hours, it was cheap at only 28 RMB. Inside, the rooms are neatly decorated with two microphones, a touch screen computer to select the songs, and a large wide-screen TV. I am by no means a qualified singer, but it is strangely enjoyable singing along to music videos in the privacy of a sound-proof room. It isn't easy finding English songs as the search function is useless. Instead you have to trawl through page after page trying to find an artist or song that is recognisable. There was a large choice of Abba, The Beatles, Westlife, and The Backstreet Boys; also some more obscure stuff like Richard Ashcroft, Cat Stevens, and The Animals were available too.

Kimi selecting a song in the "mini-room"

Somehow we managed to spend almost three hours in our room. By the time we checked out it was almost time for dinner. We had decided earlier in the day that we would go for a hotel buffet. They are more expensive than a usual dinner here, but now and again it is worth the treat -- especially as they have things like bread and butter on offer.

We arrived at The Dynasty Hotel opposite from Kimi's home just as the Buffet was starting. As we were about to enter the restaurant we noticed that the price had been raised, instead of the previous 98 RMB it was now 135 RMB. We took a look in the two other hotels close by the Dynasty to compare prices. One of the others was only 68 RMB but was full, and the second was 158 RMB, too much. Back we went to the Dynasty, only this time much wetter.

Both of us were extra-determined to get our money's worth from the meal. I immediately went for the bread and butter, salad, fruit, chips, and desserts. Kimi on the other hand went for the seafood, meat, and desserts.

Making the most out of the buffet

I felt quite sick at the end of it all which could only mean one thing: it was worth it. At least it won't be for another month or two until we do such a thing again.

Oasi Concert Cancelled

2009-03-03T06:25:00.002Z

A few days ago I mentioned I would be attending an Oasis concert in Shanghai next month. Kimi and I received our tickets and I had already booked two days off from work. A couple of days later, Alex -- who you may have seen on the blog -- sent me this link confirming that the gig would be delayed "indefinitely" without reason. I was annoyed and disappointed, Kimi too. I imagined it was probably another disagreement between the Gallagher brothers, or maybe one of them just couldn't be bothered. These are the kinds of stories that have appeared in the news about the band previously, it wouldn't be a surprise if it turned out to be one or the other.

As I checked my emails this morning I noticed one from my father. He explained that on the BBC news last night there happened to be a story about Oasis's China concerts. In a nutshell the real reason behind the cancellation is this (the full BBC article is here):

The Chinese authorities have banned both concerts from taking place in Beijing and Shanghai because Noel Gallagher played in a Free Tibet concert twelve years ago.

Petty is not even the correct word to use here, in fact I would go so far to say that it is infant behaviour, like a spoilt child who won't share his toys. To think that it is people like this who run the country is quite frankly terrifying.

The Wonders of Working at Web

2009-03-02T14:29:00.003Z

The halls of Web, where genius is cultivated

The marketing department at Web had devised a set of 3 demonstration classes centred around applying for a new job. I should mention what the demo class really is: a sales pitch to lure in new students. The first of these classes, "How to write a CV", was handed to Johann and I. We had covered this topic a few months ago in one of the extra curricular activities Web occasionally holds (I mentioned it here), so this would be no problem for us. We still had to do some preparation, and spent a good couple of hours finalizing the power point presentation and running through what we would say. All of this was to absolutely no avail. We were expecting 30 students or so we had been told -- 3 showed up. This sums up how Web usually operates:

Somebody (probably the boss) has an idea that he thinks will make money for the school.
The idea is not run passed anybody first.
The people who have to actually work to make the idea a reality are told at the very last minute.
If multiple departments have to work together there will be no communication whatsoever.
Because there was nobody to manage the situation the event is an utter shambles.

I read a fantastic quote on another blog a couple of years ago that defines what it can be like working in the Chinese education system:

"In China information is on a need to know basis, and you don't need to know"

I wish I could remember the website I read this on to credit the statement. It has rung true on uncountable occasions.

Web has also introduced another brilliant idea with LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability). It involves the foreign teachers talking to a select set of students about how to live a healthy alternative lifestyle. Once again, we were all clueless, we didn't even know anything about the concept. The first of these LOHAS classes came from Kristian who had to introduce the topic and talk about tea drinking. The idea could have been worse I thought. That was until they revealed the venue where the class would be taking place: Pizza Hut. Yes, Pizza Hut. Of all the places to discuss healthy lifestyles. Again, bewilderment is the word.

I had my LOHAS class on Saturday, my topic: clay sculpting. Where it fits into the definition of the term is beyond me, but at least it wasn't in Pizza Hut this time. A group of six students, a couple of marketing personnel, and me would be going to a clay shop and apparently have a go at sculpting something (I wasn't told any details, I just wait for the surprises). The shop in question wasn't exactly close to the school, it would take a taxi ride for sure. Of course money is no object at Web, but they insisted that walking there would be part of a healthy lifestyle, so a twenty minute walk in the rain was scheduled for us. When we arrived we were shown around the tiny shop and introduced to many small figures and crockery. All explanations were in Chinese which again made me question the relevance of doing any of this, as the activity should primarily be an English learning exercise more than anything else. We were then taken into the back of the shop, handed a few slabs of clay, and began copying one of the already finished sculptures. I worked with Cucu who is one of the marketing brains behind the idea. We sculpted this:

It was surprisingly enjoyable moulding this lady out of a slab of clay, I was proud of the result even though she seems to have minor back problems

Birthday

2009-02-27T06:32:00.007Z

Today being the 27th of February means three things to me: it's my birthday, it's my sister's birthday, and it's my grandma's birthday. I am sure you can guess from this that I am a twin, with my sister being a whole five minutes older than me. I have never really managed to get my head around the bizarre fact that my mother's mother also shares the same birthday as Sally and I. The odds of such a thing must be an incredible number, something like, I don't know, 365-1?

Today was unfortunately also a working day for me -- and a working day with English Corner. I have explained my dissatisfaction with the "EC" plenty of times in this blog, today was no different. I thought, "Of all days to get away with murder, today would be it." I could use -- pardon the pun -- the birthday card. So I did. I announced at the beginning of both classes (one in the afternoon, one in the evening) that it was my birthday, talked a bit about my sister, and put on an episode of one of my favourite TV shows. I was happy to see that the afternoon class particularly enjoyed the episode I had chosen -- I knew then that I had got away with it. All in all I have had a pretty good day at Web. I had a delicious meal with Johann and Kimi at a Hong Kong restaurant, and also received a gift off one of my students and friends, Michelle. Kimi even gave me some gifts even though I had told her not to (the camera she bought me for Christmas was my Christmas and birthday present). One of the items was a red bracelet with gold Pisces fish on it. It is customary in China to wear something red when it is your birth year's animal. Mine is the Ox, and this year is the year of the Ox.

The two Pisces fish

I am not having a party tonight as with Web's terrible hours we don't finish until 9pm, so I will be having a gathering on Sunday night instead. I chose Sunday as it's the only day in the week we finish early at 7pm and don't have to work until 1pm the following day.

Happy Birthday Sally, and Happy Birthday Grandma. Have a slice of cake:

I'm 24 now unfortunately, I'll replace the photo with this year's cake when I get it

New Look....Again

2009-02-26T13:41:00.005Z

I hope you all like the new look to my blog. I have had the previous white background and header collage for a a few months now, so I thought it was time for a minor revamp. Once again I used the fabulously free Picasa to make the title, it was a piece of cake. Here is the new collage I made using more recent photographs of my time here in China:

My second China collage

Also, congratulations are in order for Kimi who passed the final part of her driving test today. She is now in possession of a Chinese driver's license -- a deadly weapon that should be used wisely.

Pollutiony (adjective: thick or having much pollution)

2009-02-25T02:43:00.016Z

The weather in Wenzhou has been dull and pollutiony (I know that's not a word, but I'm not giving in to saying it's foggy, because it's not, it's pollutiony). There are clear days in Wenzhou and then there are days like these, it's all in the roll of a dice. I guess it might be to do with wind direction, sometimes we're lucky and the pollution is sent to Taiwan, other times it veils across the city like a pillow suffocating us all to death -- albeit very slowly. It is this point alone that makes Wenzhou not a place to live for a long duration of time. It's fine for now, but I am still not comfortable with the fact that I am unintentionally smoking the equivalent of a couple of packets of cigarettes every day.

I have used this example once before I think: above, The Wenzhou World Trade Centre on a clear day. Below, the same building today, ugh.

I had a class a few days ago which was centred around the environment. I asked my student if he knew which cities were the top pollutants in the world. This young man was clever, talkative, and inquisitive, so I thought he would know for sure. Actually, he didn't. He told me an answer which I have heard all too many times since I started working at Web: "To be honest, I think London is the most polluted city". He explained to me his reasons why, which were all correct -- if we were still in Victorian times. I told him it is not like that now at all, but he insisted that it is because of the 2012 Olympics, so the government are moving away all of the factories from the city. This highlighted to me how, once again, many people have been misinformed on basic facts.

An Oasis in China

2009-02-23T13:54:00.005Z

400 RMB for each ticket

A few days ago Kimi noticed that the band Oasis will be playing in Shanghai in April. Fortunately for me, Kimi actually quite likes some of their music (and I like The Beatles -- something which Oasis have always tried very hard to be), so after a brief discussion we booked a pair of tickets. I have never seen them live in Manchester before, which would have made more sense considering that is where they are from and I am from. It will be a strange experience seeing them in a city and country that is thousands of miles away from our own. I didn't think they had a huge Chinese fan-base, but it can't all be laowais filling out the stadium.

The Changing Faces of Web

2009-02-18T12:35:00.008Z

The wall of Web's teachers and tutors

It seems that the already rapid turnover of staff at Web is about to drastically accelerate. On Friday all but one of the tutors -- the Chinese teachers -- will officially be resigning from the training centre. It was all a bit of a coup, and it seems that not one of them has altered their position. If anything they are all resilient to leave and start afresh elsewhere -- which is a good thing right?

The drama all kicked-off just before I was about to return to work at the beginning of this month. To cut a long story short, it began with the new year bonus money being an absolute joke (we got 500 RMB, better than nothing, but a few thousand short than most companies in the city would have paid to their employees), then on top of that our grand dictator, er....I mean, boss, decided that the global economic crisis is coming for Web so some wages may have to move south for a while. The final blow came when he announced that tutors were ten-a-penny to get hold of, and that they would have no chance of finding a better alternative. United they stood, and united they decided to show him who was boss, and quit. Of course he attempted to bribe them back (never with money though), all to no avail.

So now, here we are, with half of our office changing hands. It will be sad to see them go, I hope we keep in touch with each other. For some of them I feel it really is the excuse they needed to do what they want to do. Five new tutors have been hired -- a slight kick in the teeth -- but we shall see how smoothly things operate once the changeover begins. Somebody's going to be busy changing the staff portraits, although I will wager it doesn't get changed for at least a month.

West Invades East on Valentine's Day

2009-02-15T06:24:00.010Z

Yesterday I spent my first Valentine's Day in China. It was quite remarkable to see, yet again, how the West is influencing China. I wasn't expecting it to be any different from any other day really, I knew Web would make a big deal out of the occasion but I thought that would be it -- I was completely wrong, again. The streets were crammed with couples, flowers were being sold at extortionate prices, and it was near impossible to book a restaurant for dinner. I know for sure that China's own version of Valentine's day -- on 7th July in the lunar calendar -- is not celebrated anything like its Western counterpart.

Kimi and I, with Johann and his girlfriend, had planned to eat together in an Italian restaurant called Naples. Kimi called to book a table but she was told that we would have to pre-pay to guarantee our arrival. We didn't do that as we had no time to get there in the day, so instead we took a chance and went to the restaurant anyway. As luck would have it, as we entered, a couple were leaving.

The food was a welcome change, we ordered bruschetta, Cesar salad, pizzas, and steaks (I had a pineapple pizza). With a few drinks added onto that, the bill came to a very westernized price too: 530 RMB (about £54), as our jaws hit the table, Johann and I quiveringly took out our wallets. The restaurant had even hired a violinist who was playing a rather unique repertoire, with tunes ranging from "Edelweiss" to the theme from "The Godfather".

Imagining Cars

2009-02-12T13:56:00.010Z

Before I start writing my entry for today, I just want to reiterate my thanks to the people who left me advice in my previous post. Each comment has genuinely been of help, and I will obviously keep you all posted on the events that unfold....eventually.

I was back at work today, five classes again. It seems the credit crunch has only hit the shoe factories, as there are new students forking out thousands of RMB for English classes every day. Since I was away for over a month I don't seem to recognise a large proportion of the faces now. It is another disadvantage of working in the "training centre" business: the incredibly rapid turnover of students and teachers. In less than one year I have seen eight or nine colleagues leave; the job just isn't designed for long-term employment. I have made some good friends at Web, but most of the people I teach are temporary passengers in the mechanics of factory-farmed English lessons.

Today I had three salon classes (which are aimed at group-work activities). Each of them were frustrating, very frustrating. The first was a beginner class. It was a simple topic: fairy tales. The start of the lesson was OK, I explained "Little Red Riding Hood". Easy enough I thought. Next, I asked them to tell me about a very famous Chinese fairy tale: "Niu Lang and Zhi Nu". Of the seven students present, none of them could explain to me the story. In fact, I knew it better than all of them. Can you imagine not being able to summarise "Jack and the Beanstalk", or "Goldilocks and the Three Bears"?

I wanted them to tell a story in simple English. I wrote the first sentence and the last sentence of the story, and one-by-one we would go round the classroom adding new sentences until we got to the end. It was simple enough, very easy I thought. But I was wrong. Apart from one young man in the class, they couldn't do it. I was beginning to get a little annoyed as I waited in silence for the next student to reply. I wasn't backing down this time, and after a short while he piped up, "It's too hard to think in English". I knew this wasn't true, I wasn't asking for Shakespeare, so I asked him to just tell me in Chinese, we could easily translate it -- nothing. Not even in Chinese could he think of a simple continuation to the story. They were completely bereft of any kind of creativity, it was astonishing to see.

I have often doubted my own abilities with regards to explaining things, but now I have been given proof that even if I was speaking Chinese I would not get answers to many of my requests. It seems that using one's imagination is an incredibly difficult task for my Web students (a lot of them anyway). Is it the education system's fault? Have they relied on their logical left-side of the brain for all the mathematics and business related activities for too long? Has their creative right-side of the brain completely given up and gone on a permanent holiday to the Maldives? I do not know. But it's bloody hard getting anything other than "nothing" if I ask a "What do you think...?" question.

I won't go into detail with my following salons, but suffice to say, then next higher level class was equally as disappointing. I was asking for advice for simple problems like, "I can't sleep at night" etc. Again, I got the bare minimum. It was another painful hour. My final salon was different, it was better, but it was just too difficult for them. If they cannot understand the English on the handouts then I don't know what to do.

In other news, Kimi is on the verge of buying a car after passing most of her driving test (the final part of three is next week). She is in the lucky position of having her mother pay 100,000 RMB (about £10,000) for a brand new motor. We have been looking at small cars, which have all noticeably copied the design of the new Mini:

The Suzuki Cooper....er, I mean Swift

One thing that isn't cheaper in China is the automobile. An example of this is the Mini Cooper itself. To buy a second-hand new model -- barely driven -- can cost 340,000 RMB (£34,000). To buy the same Mini brand new from the UK costs just £13,000 (130,000 RMB). Why the price difference is so extreme I have no idea. It makes me really wonder at the amount of money so many Wenzhounese are making when they can afford these huge Porsche 4x4 cars -- all brand new of course, they wouldn't be seen dead with a second hand model I'm sure.

Worries....

2009-02-10T12:42:00.007Z

I don't know exactly why it is happening now, but I have been constantly preoccupied with thinking about the unknown. It may have begun while I was back in England where I finally decided on a possible career that I am certain I would be happy spending a portion of my life pursuing. But I can't get on with my "plan" just yet because I want to spend more time in China. However, since I have returned back to my job, I can immediately tell that I am not where I should be. At the moment I am passing time by working at Web, and I am not sure for how long I can do it for. I have mentioned previously how I could not possibly leave Kimi, that is not an option, but what can I do in China instead of being a "laowai" entertainer?

Also, since I returned I have been speaking to Kimi about the possibilities of the future, and me returning back to England one day. Doing this to her is very difficult as she is completely happy in Wenzhou and has never had any intentions of moving away -- until I brought it up. The last thing I want to do is drag her from her home and job, but on the other hand I don't feel doing what I do is a suitable position to be in for the rest of my life.

All of this has been whizzing around my mind a lot, it has caused me to have a few sleepless nights which I am thankfully getting over now. But still, things are very uncertain. I am stuck with these facts:

I want to be with Kimi
I want to go home (although I am happy to stay-put for now)

Any advice on this matter would be hugely appreciated.

Oh, to have a dog's life....

Home or Prison?

2009-02-04T12:44:00.008Z

This is a view from my balcony of an apartment block next door. The metal railings are a common addition to many homes here. Sure, it makes it a much harder jobs for thieves to break in, but it also makes the place look like a prison. You may ask why they do not use a burglar alarm instead. Well, I am fairly confident it is because the sound of an alarm wouldn't begin to pierce through the blare of horns, fireworks, construction work, and neglected car and bike alarms.

Fireworks

2009-02-03T13:48:00.008Z

The Chinese New Year has started -- not in the best way possible -- but it's started nonetheless. I was meant to begin work at Web on Sunday, a day I wasn't particularly looking forward to. I managed to get in bed and go to sleep at midnight, only to be woken 40 minutes later by fireworks. If one thing has represented Chinese New Year for me it must be fireworks. Since I returned they have been exploding all day and everyday. Even now, more than one week later, they are still going off.

Anyway, I was woken up by the explosions the night before starting work. Maybe it was a bit of jet lag combined with a few worries, but I ended up having no sleep whatsoever that night. It was extremely annoying and continually frustrating. I watched the night turn into day and decided the time had come to take my first sick day -- the kind of thing I really hate doing, I always think I won't be believed. After telling Web that I wouldn't be coming to work I finally managed to have a sleep for a few hours in the morning. Watching a boring film helped surprisingly well.

If it wasn't for one of these going off in the middle of the night I may have had a better sleep

My body clock seems to have adapted now, thankfully. I feel a new sense of sympathy for people with insomnia.

Sadie

2009-01-31T13:42:00.001Z

Yesterday my father told me that Sadie died. She had stopped eating much food at all when I was at home, but she was still her normal -- non-stop talking -- self. My parents took her to the vets on Friday where it was found that her auto-immune system had shut down. They stopped any suffering in its tracks and put her to sleep. She was 15 years and five months old.

I will always love you Sadie, goodbye for now.

"Xin Nian Kuai Le!"....

2009-01-27T15:50:00.011Z

....or "Happy New Year!"

2009 is the year of the Ox -- my year!

If you have guessed, this means that I am back in China now. I arrived a couple of days ago after a tiring flight where I sat next to a mother and baby. When the baby wasn't laughing he was crying -- very loud. It was a sleepless 11 hour journey from Zurich (I flew with Swiss Air this time), but at least the food was surprisingly tasty. The most unfortunate part of the trip was the fact that I had to wait for six hours in Shanghai airport while I waited for yet another plane to take me to Wenzhou. If it wasn't for that I probably would arrived here feeling quite refreshed. Instead I was completely exhausted and barely managed to keep my eyes open for the events of the evening -- the beginning of the Chinese New Year celebrations with Kimi's family.

Today is my third day back, and I think I have finally slipped back into my Chinese body-clock. Another five days of holiday left to go, and then it's back to Web -- something which I am not completely looking forward to for two reasons:

English Corner
Working until 9pm

Maybe it is time to start looking for new work when my contract runs out in April....

While I was at home I started to think more about my future. I do know that it will be very difficult for me to stay in China, I simply cannot be an English teacher forever. I would like to return to England again in the future to pursue a "career", and I have come to a conclusion of what I would like to do (which has noting to do with teaching or music). Unfortunately, if I go back home, then I cannot let Kimi stay here in Wenzhou. But by requesting this I am turning her life upside down, moving her away from her family, friends, job, familiar environment etc. We have had some difficult discussions about this, but right now we have come to very few conclusions. First thing's first, Kimi will come on holiday to England this year. Then she can see first-hand if it could be the place for her or not. It is just what I unintentionally did when I came on holiday to China one year and a half ago. I know I wouldn't be here right now if I had not gone to see China on a holiday first.

I feel quite lost at the moment, but I know I can't leave China without Kimi being with me....

Meeting the Reason I Came to China

2009-01-13T14:01:00.002Z

I met up with my old friend John (Chinese name: Yang Yi) today. I originally met him while studying at Hull university. I had forgotten to pay my deposit to live in the halls of residence, and he was a latecomer to the university. This resulted in us both living together in the same house. I have mentioned this in an earlier post before, but if it wasn't for him I very much doubt I would be living and working in China now. I never would have met Kimi too. It was he who invited me to Beijing on holiday in 2004, in turn I invited my friend Richard -- who I knew would be interested in travelling there too. Richard fell in love with the place so much that he returned one year later for another holiday (I couldn't afford to go then), and after we graduated from university he went there to work. I worked in England for half a year (I talked about that here) and saved up to visit him in Hangzhou for two months. I enjoyed my holiday so much that I decided to return to live there too. In short, that is pretty much how I ended up living and working in China.

So today I met up with John for the first time since I left university, more than two and a half years ago. He is still studying at Hull where he is currently finishing a masters degree. At the moment he has so much free time that he decided to come to Manchester to see me. We didn't do much really as the weather wasn't up to much. Our first stop was China town. I was hungry so we went for something to eat there. We found the first adequate-looking Chinese restaurant and went in. I was surprised to find a couple of dishes that I recognised from China. With interest I ordered Mapo Tofu (I have mentioned this dish here), fried rice, and Sichuan style green beans. The beans at least looked the same as in China, but the taste was completely different, especially the tofu. Quite disappointing really, especially taking into account the price difference.

Gan bian si ji dou: looks the same as in China, tastes completely different

After lunch we walked around the city centre for a while. I love Manchester, it is a brilliant city. It is just a shame that a few of the people living there have to ruin it for everybody else. There seems to be a big population of uncivilized youths in the downtown areas. Because of this, Manchester and other similar cities have a bad reputation for street crime. Compared to Wenzhou, where I feel incredibly safe walking around at night on my own, I do not feel safe walking in Manchester. It is a problem that should be addressed, but how I do not know.

After having a coffee with John in Starbucks it was dark, raining, and time for him to go back home. I walked him to the station and said goodbye. I just hope it isn't another 2 and half years until I see him again.

Outside Selfridges: the big wheel in Manchester

Home Studio Feng Shui

2009-01-12T13:53:00.003Z

One of my hobbies (I guess I can call it a hobby now) is making use of, and adding to my home studio. I studied a music degree at university, and started piecing together a DIY studio in my second year there. I decided that I wanted to compose, record, and produce some music in the comfort of my home. At university everything was time restricted and of course there were many students in the building. I sometimes felt inspiration was hard to come by this way. After much researching I realised that I could put together some of my work at home with the right gear. This is where the credit cards came involved (I'm still paying them back now). After a few months I managed to rig together a fairly impressive studio that I could use for many musical purposes.

After finishing the course I decided to take a break from music altogether. My aim was that this would be a temporary thing. I would work for a while, have a holiday in China, come home, and start it all up again. Things obviously didn't turn out that way. Once I had decided to come back to China I knew that leaving my keyboard (a Roland Fantom X8) at home would be a mistake. Not only would it be neglected for a year or two, but it would also be devaluing by the day. So I logged onto eBay and sold it immediately. Actually, the money of the sale paid for my plane flight and financed my first two months in China.

I returned home 5 months later, and felt that more of the equipment should go. Just like the keyboard, some of the other items would just get old. New technology is released all of the time, it is wasteful to keep them in my bedroom collecting dust. So I sold some more. By this point my studio was down to more than half the size.

Today I posted off the remaining pieces of gear that I own: my Mackie 1402 VLZ Pro mixer, and my M-Audio BX8 speakers. The reason I had kept these for so long was that I didn't want to see them go. Unfortunately I don't know how long I will stay in China, and after reading an article about Feng Shui the other day, I realised that getting rid of them was the right thing to do. When I do return from China for good, I can slowly rebuild my studio again -- I hope.

Mackie Mixer, I will miss you the most

My studio speakers (confusingly, in music we actually call them monitors, not speakers)

Practise Makes Perfect

2009-01-11T15:27:00.001Z

I am sorry to myself that I have not posted much on my blog since I returned to England. I don't know why really, maybe it is because currently I have less time at home by myself (Kimi doesn't live with me in my Wenzhou apartment). I keep thinking about posting something on here, it has been at the back of my mind for a few days, but then another night has gone and I have forgotten all about it. I nearly ended up not writing anything today, but I have forced myself onto the computer before I go to sleep.

Just like when I played the piano and the trumpet on a regular basis, I found that sometimes I had to make myself practise just to keep the momentum going. If I didn't do that then I could easily imagine weeks -- if not months -- going by without touching an instrument. This was not at all because I didn't enjoy playing the instruments, but once you commit to doing something in life that is long-term, sometimes you need a little push to keep on doing it. In reality, it has not been weeks or months since I played the piano and trumpet, but actually years. The last time I was really playing must have been May 2006, just as I finished my course at university. I never would have expected my life to turn in such a strange direction. I really must do something about that soon, I do miss playing music a lot now.

My old and broken trumpet (my newer one is in China)

Anyway, I am saying all this because although I love writing my blog, I feel almost guilty for not adding to it much since I returned to the UK. I know there are many genuine reasons for this, but I am only scared that this blog may end up like my music if I don't do something about it now.

I have spent a few days in my holiday working with my dad at his shop covering for my mum who has been ill with the flu. She is almost back to normal now, but I will be going to work again tomorrow and earning a few fairly worthless £'s.

The shop window at night

If it's Cold, Wear your Woolies

2009-01-05T14:36:00.002Z

Today was cold -- very cold. The plus side of this meant that everything looked beautifully white:

My garden -- with a primary school behind (if you were wondering)

I am working with my dad at his shop at the moment. Usually mum works with him, but she is still suffering with the remaining effects of the flu, so I have stepped in to take her place. The shop is primarily a picture framing business which also sells greetings cards and gifts. My father is also a photographer and sells his work in the shop too. It can be a very pleasurable experience working there, especially when the majority of the customers are so friendly. It is the polar opposite of my previous job in retail: working for Woolworths, a British chain store which sold a variety of products from toys and sweets, to televisions and lawn mowers.

When I graduated from university in 2006 I had to find a job -- any job -- to fund my trip to go travelling to China (my initial plan was only to holiday there for two months, come home, and get a "real" job). After a month or two of unemployment, I decided that Woolworths could be an appropriate means to my end. It was probably my favourite shop when I was younger, I used to love running right to the back of the shop to look at the toys.

I was successful with my job application, and started working immediately. The staff I worked closely with on the entertainment department were all brilliant, and I had a very enjoyable time with them. On the other hand, everything else about the job and the company was a shambles to say the least. The management was a disorganised mess, and it was obvious that the store was very dated; it could not even compare to the likes of the Apple Store which fits right into a 21st century high street. After my seven months of saving came to an end, I genuinely couldn't wait to get out of there. It was certainly a change going from Woolworths to Hangzhou.

My "Woolies" name tag

I am only recounting my memories of this because today is the day that the remaining Woolworths stores close for the last time. For those who don't know, about two months ago the company went into administration as it was millions of pounds in debt. There were no buyers for the company so it was announced a few weeks ago that all of the 800 stores across the UK would close. Of course, the global economic crisis has had something to do with this, but in my mind it has only quickened what was a certain inevitability anyway.

The End of 2008

2008-12-31T13:18:00.002Z

Time has certainly been slipping away from me since I returned home. Already one week has passed, Christmas is over, and New Year's Day is rapidly approaching. It was only this time last week that I was stepping off the plane at Manchester airport.

My return home was an incredibly long one, part of it being my own doing for wanting to save a few £'s -- the price between direct flights and connecting flights is outrageous. All in all, the travelling from Wenzhou to Manchester cost me over 33 hours; three plane journeys; and five hours in a hotel.

My flight from Wenzhou was a breeze apart from having to say goodbye to Kimi which I hated. It was very quick too, we barely ascended as the captain announced that we were about to descend. In one piece we arrived at Shanghai Pudong airport. Everything was going just as planned, which also meant that I had a wait of nine hours until my 6:30am flight to Dubai (because I flew with Emirates). While walking around the unusually quiet airport I bumped into a man -- I presumed he worked for the airport -- who was asking if I wanted to stay in a cheap hotel until my flight left in the morning. I didn't really want to, but his broken English and my broken Chinese was so bad that all I could do was tell him that I wanted to check the time of departure for my flight. Unperturbed, he escorted me to another terminal and helped me to check the time. I saw there was a bus heading to the hotel with other people inside. Before I could properly make a decision he had put my suitcase in the back and I was on my way to the hotel. It was only when the door slammed shut that I realised there was a small chance that this bus was going to park in the middle of nowhere at which point the £2100 that was stashed in my wallet would forcibly be removed from me. Fortunately the bus did indeed stop at a hotel where I paid a reasonable amount for a few hours sleep. Apart from a call from Kimi which brought all my fears of robbery back to the surface, I managed to have a few hours of sleep. The front desk woke me at 3:30 and I was taken to the airport for check in at 4 am. Worth every penny of the £18 I paid for it.

As I waited in the hotel foyer for my lift back to Shanghai Airport at 3:50am

The rest of the journey home was pleasant enough, although I was very disappointed with the Airbus plane that took off from Shanghai. I have become accustomed to Emirates' usual in-flight entertainment system, but this one was quite archaic in comparison. I actually had to change channels to choose what to watch, just like a television. Thankfully the flight from Dubai to the UK was back to excellence on a Boeing 777 plane -- even the food was nicer. Every time I have taken these flights to China I always have the pleasure of getting my meals before everybody else. It's great, there is always someone around my vicinity who I can hear impatiently muttering under their breath about the location of their meal, or why I've been given mine first. If you would like to have this luxury without having to pay any extra money, all you need to do is tell the travel agent you have a dietary requirement. There is a huge list to choose from, I go for the "Lacto-ovo vegetarian" option (that means I am a vegetarian who eats milk and eggs).

During my trip home I had the pleasure of staying in four airports. They are generally horrible and depressing places which could act as a kind of open-plan prison if one were to ever be decommissioned as an airport. I apply this rule to every airport I have been to apart from one: Dubai. If I have to be locked up anywhere for a day or two in between flights, I would choose there.

The gates at Wenzhou (top left), Shanghai (top right), and Dubai (middle) airports

Why I am rambling on about my trip home last week I have no idea. A whole week has gone by since then. Maybe another reason for the lack of posts here is because nothing too eventful has happened. Christmas was not ideal this year, mainly due to my mum being sick in bed with a flu-type illness. It seems to be slowly clearing up now, just a few days too late. On Sunday I also visited Dave (one of my friends from school). In February he and his girlfriend had a baby boy which they called Joel. I held him when he was just under one week old, he didn't even open his eyes then. Now he is completely changed, he laughs, climbs, crawls incredibly fast, and puts everything in his mouth. I am quite amazed by it all really.

It is brilliant to be home with my family and friends, although I feel like a huge gap is missing without Kimi being here with me. At least we have the incredibly bad quality of Skype to keep our lack of contact to a minimum. I forgot to mention that she bought me a fantastic camera for Christmas (this one), so there will hopefully be much higher quality pictures on here from now on. I had a go at using the macro mode and took this picture of a flower on some ivy in the garden (all of the colourful flowers are dead at this time of year). I am very impressed with it as no skill was involved and it managed to look like this:

So far the camera lives up to all of the reviews I read about it

Anyway, I have no idea where this post is heading so I should stop now. Happy last day of 2008 in the western world, and happy new year in China.

Merry Christmas

2008-12-26T13:37:00.004Z

....or should I say Boxing Day? This post is a little later than I had hoped, but yesterday just slipped away. I hope everybody had a fantastic day. I was lucky enough to arrive home in time, although after more than 30 hours of travelling I felt a little phased out. I think I will write more about my trip home and Christmas Day tomorrow as I am currently extremely full and my eyelids are uncontrollably closing.

Here is a picture of our Vodka-soaked Christmas Pudding from yesterday:

A traditional Christmas ball of flame -- delicious

Going Home

2008-12-22T15:22:00.003Z

For over one week I have completely negleted my blog. This is mainly due to having a seven day working week -- and nothing else of interest happening. I ended up with this workload due to Chuck leaving Web for a new job. We decided to exchange days off which meant I had a very enjoyable four day weekend last week, but had to endure seven days of non-stop work this week. As the week progressed, it seemed the nearer I got to my final lessons, the slower the minutes were ticking. I also slipped into "holiday mode" far too early, which meant that instead of having the motivation to teach five classes on Sunday, all I really wanted to do was lie in bed and watch a terrible Christmas film.

Today I came to the end of my seven day run. It was also my final day at Web for over one month. Tomorrow I will begin my long journey back home to England. It is going to be tiring. At 6 o'clock tomorrow I leave Wenzhou for Shanghai Pudong Airport. I will then be whisked to Dubai where I will leave one plane and board another. Finally, I should arrive in Manchester by 7pm on Christmas Eve. Altogether it will be around 30 hours of travelling -- brilliant.

I received my first Christmas present of the year this week. It was given to me by a student at Web -- Paul. I was very touched at this, and also realised that I really have made a few good friends at work, not just in the teaching staff. I will open it on Christmas day.

My first present -- at the base of my incredibly tiny Christmas tree

I also had a Christmas class with the children I usually teach on Saturday. Because I was working all day we had to arrange it for the evening. I thought I wouldn't be able to handle it because I was so tired, but I actually had a very enjoyable time. Crystal -- the lady who I work with -- also gave me a Christmas bonus which was extremely kind. At the end of the lesson we had a few pictures taken. I took a couple with Crystal's baby, and realised I have no idea how to hold one properly.

Me (looking sleepy) with my Saturday class

With the oldest student in the class (I've uploaded this one because my eyes are open)

The boys

Me and Crystal

I am very excited about going home, the only negative is that Kimi couldn't come with me. I will miss her very much, but at least we have Skype to make things easier.

Next time I write, I will be in England. Here's hoping for a smooth journey.

Cinema, Decorations....and a Feet Warmer?

2008-12-15T15:47:00.006Z

On Saturday night Kimi and I went to the cinema -- the first time for me in China. The nearest I have got to doing such a thing before was in Hong Kong. My friends and I saw a collection of three short films which were both disgusting and horrifying, but all with English subtitles. This time I wasn't so lucky, there was no English, although I was surprised to see Chinese. I am quite sure they are not doing this just for the hard of hearing audience, and I doubt many natives who cannot understand Mandarin would even think about visiting a cinema. Television is the same, every show has subtitles. I must find out the reason why.

The film we saw was called "Mei Lanfang", a biographical story of a famous Beijing opera actor. Watching the film was difficult as my Chinese is not quite up to the standard I would have hoped it would be by now. I found I could understand very little, although the general meaning of the story was quite easy to grasp. I felt a little better afterwards when Kimi told me that some of the words they used are not even generally spoken today. It was an interesting experience, I hope we can go back to the cinema again soon.

Last night we went shopping to one of the big supermarkets, Trust-Mart. They had an array of Christmas decorations and English Christmas songs were playing on the speaker system -- it is quite clear that the chain is owned my Wal-Mart. I bought a small decorated Christmas tree, some tinsel, and a set of Christmas lights. Even with the economic downturn, all of this still cost less than £9. My bedroom is suitably fit for the Christmas season now.

My 40 RMB Christmas tree

While browsing for decorations we also spotted a "Feet Warmer". I couldn't stop laughing at them, all designed as animals such as dogs, pandas, and monkeys. Kimi picked one up and thought it felt so comfortable she kept hold of it. I thought it was hilarious, it just had to be bought. True to its name, it really does warm the feet very well. I just can't help but think it looks like a giant's slipper.

I don't need to worry about Christmas gift ideas now

Time is Money

2008-12-13T14:53:00.004Z

On Friday night I was invited to talk with two children -- a brother and sister -- who will be moving to England next year to study. You may be confused that I am in the country of the one child policy and was visiting a brother and sister, but apparently a lot of money can literally buy you another child. Most cannot afford it as the fee can reach the millions for a second child. Anyway, back on topic. I didn't want to go to their home on my own, so asked Kimi to accompany me -- I never would have found their apartment on my own anyway. We took a taxi to the building, made our way to the twenty fourth floor, and knocked on the door. A large teenage boy opened the door and didn't say a word. We were guided into what I thought would be an expensively decorated apartment. In reality it was considerably worse than my own apartment, but with much more space.

We sat on the white sofa, Kimi and I looking at each other with a sense of bewilderment -- nothing was happening. A second later, a young girl ran into the living room and dashed into her bedroom. Their ai yi (housekeeper/nanny) brought us a cup of green tea each, at which point Kimi asked where the mother was. Apparently she had just left the apartment to find me a suitable drink: coffee. Why tea wasn't good enough for me, I don't know.

Minutes later the mother returned with a box of instant Nescafe in hand. Immediately the ai yi was summoned to make it for me, although she wasn't quite sure exactly what to do with it. We were guided to the dining table and the teenager and the girl sat down. A pile of English text books were thrown on the table and the mother brought a stack of paper and some pens. "Was this a lesson now?" I was very confused about this whole meeting. I decided it would be best to talk to them and see exactly how good their English was. After a few minutes I found the boy to be very pleasant with a good grasp of spoken English. His sister on the other hand was a complete nightmare. I have witnessed spoilt children before, and she fitted the category perfectly. It was painful trying to talk to her, she wasn't willing to even attempt to speak English. As I sat there trying to get her to ask questions, I could only think of my private class of similar aged children that I teach on Saturday morning. Those children are the polar opposite of that girl, sometimes I can't get a word in because they are so keen to talk.

After ninety minutes I wrapped up our talk and made sure if there was a next time, I would speak to the brother and sister separately. I was putting my shoes on when I saw the mother talking to Kimi and handing over some money. It seems that Kimi has worked out my going rate for English classes, and it's not cheap by the look of the 300 RMB we came out with.

We went to D & L square today to eat at the newly opened Papa John's. It felt very much like Christmas inside with the decorations and music playing. I can't quite believe I will be home in such a short time, all I have to do is get through this upcoming 7 day working week.....help!

Papa John's: the newest American franchise to make it to Wenzhou. Subway is comming next

Christmas in Wenzhou

2008-12-11T15:29:00.000Z

Although it doesn't really feel like it, Christmas has actually arrived in Wenzhou. The hotel -- in which Web is located -- is now filled with an array of tasteful, and not so tasteful Christmas decorations. Of course, the Web centre itself has been fitted out for Christmas also, but beneath all of the decorations, I can't feel that Christmas is happening at all.. It is just business as usual here, no party spirit, and no anticipation that a major holiday is approaching. Still, I have an excuse to start being excited: I will be going back to the UK in less than two weeks, home in time for Christmas day. I have started shopping for gifts, and don't think anything will be left until the last minute this year -- which makes a pleasant change. The only problem I face when shopping for gifts in China is that I can't buy anything that is too heavy due to the luggage allowance of 20kg that is imposed by the airline I am flying with.

Christmas tree in the foyer of the International Hotel

At Web we are also holding a party for Christmas which was planned to be held on the 21st so that Chuck (who is leaving before the 25th) and I could attend. This afternoon I came into work and found that the day of the party has changed to Christmas day itself. As usual there was no prior communication about this, someone had stuck a new poster to the wall, and it was actually one of the students who told me about it. Obviously neither me or Chuck will be able to go. Jane and Nancy in human resources decided to bypass all forms of common sense by asking me to delay my flight so that I could stay for the party. I couldn't comprehend what they were saying to me, why on Earth would I want to stay for a party at Web instead of going home (which I have been away from for nine months) to have Christmas with my family?

In all truth I am quite relieved I don't have to go to the party. All of the teaching staff had been asked to do a performance, something like a song, dance, or any kind of talent. Kristian and I were planning on singing and playing a kind of folk-esque version of Jingle Bells on the guitar. I am still completely unprepared for it and we haven't practised together yet. I feel guilty that Kristian is going to have to do it on his own, but after talking to him yesterday he told me that he knows a student who plays the guitar who he can ask to join him on stage.

I have four days off starting from today because Chuck -- who I mentioned earlier -- would like my days off next week to prepare for his new job before he officially leaves Web. It is certainly a bonus for me now, but it means that next week I will work for seven days without a break. It won't be as bad as it could be, because when that week is over I will take one day off and then head to Shanghai Pudong Airport to go home. The excitement should keep me going I hope.

How to Add an E-mail Address to Your Blog

2008-12-10T14:42:00.019Z

Recently I added a picture and a link to my e-mail address onto the blog (see right, underneath "About Me"). I am very happy with the end result, especially as I had managed to do it using free software and barely any knowledge of how to make such a thing.

Initially I searched on Google for information on how to create an "e-mail me" link, but found very little help. Therefore, I felt it was appropriate to publish my own guide so that other bloggers may find a solution to this problem. I should point out that the final stage of this guide is for use with the blogger/blogspot website. I have no idea if the same functions are available on other blog sites.

Why go to all this trouble just to add an e-mail address to a blog?
It would be easy to simply type an address and publish it, but writing an address on a blog -- or any website for that matter -- can cause a much higher chance of receiving junk mail in your inbox. Adding an e-mail address in the form of an image -- like mine -- makes it much more difficult for it to be taken by the "spambots".

Below is my basic 10-step guide for making and adding an e-mail link to your blog:

1. Download Picasa from here. Picasa is a Google-owned image manager and editor. It is completely free to download and use.

2. I thought it would look smart to use my e-mail's logo within my address. Simply do an image search for your e-mail provider's logo. I typed in "Gmail logo". Click on the image, then click "see full size", and save the image to your desktop.

3. Open the image in Picasa, and click "Edit in Picasa", or if you are on the main screen, double click on the image.

As you can see, I need some space before and after the logo so I can add the rest of the e-mail address. Picasa is not designed to be a full-on image editor like Photoshop, so I had to improvise....

4. Find "Create" on the top tool bar, and click "Picture Collage..." (on a side-note, the collage function is a fun tool to use for its original purpose, I created my blogger header with it from this original collage).

5. As long as there were no other images saved on the desktop, the logo should appear on its own on top of a white background (if there are other images with the logo you will need to move the image into a folder where it is the only picture file, and repeat step 4 again).

6. Untick the box on the left which says "Draw Shadows". Move the image into the centre of the page by clicking and dragging. It is also possible that the logo is on an angle. If so, straighten it out by clicking once on the image and turning the wheel around until it says, "Angle 0". It is a good idea to make the image smaller. Again, click once on the logo, but this time move your mouse to the left to change the size -- I re-sized mine down to 50% scale. Make sure the angle remains at 0 before you take your finger off the mouse. Next, click "Create Collage".

Click on the image for a full-size version

7. Now you should have an image file which you can edit using Picasa. First we will add the text. Click on "Text". Write out your e-mail address in the text box, leaving out your e-mail provider's name. Using the same method for resizing images, click and drag the text box to bring the font size level with the image's text. Point the cursor to the centre of the box to move the text box. Play around with this for a minute, find a nice font, and make sure the text fits in with the logo.

8. I decided to change the colours of the font to match the Gmail logo. If you want to use more than one colour for the text, you need to use separate text boxes for each colour -- a bit of a chore I know. I chose the colours directly from the logo by using the pipette tool.

9. Next, crop the image to a suitable size and apply changes. Voila, your e-mail logo is finished.

10. Finally, to add the image to your blog, click "Layout", "Add Gadget", and choose "Picture". The "Configure Image" window should now pop-up. In the "Link" box, write this:

mailto:(enter your e-mail address here with no spaces and no brackets)

Upload the image and tick the box that says, "Shrink to fit". Using "Layout" in Blogger, move the picture to your desired location, and save changes. If everything has gone to plan, your e-mail logo should now appear on your blog. When the image is clicked it will open an e-mail form where visitors can conveniently write to you.

If you have any problems or questions with this guide, feel free to e-mail me.

....normal service will resume tomorrow.

Sweet Potato and an English Contest

2008-12-07T14:24:00.009Z

Today has been a tough day at Web, six classes has not been an ideal start to my working week. Apparently one student was determined to have a class, and who was the only teacher free at her desired time? Me. It wasn't so bad in the end, but I find I am completely drained from having that extra lesson. At this time of year I was really hoping that the schedule would be much lighter than it is, but we are working almost the same workload as in summer. I am becoming increasingly tired of it too, I think I need this upcoming holiday.

After Web today, I was treated to a pleasant evening with Kimi, Johann, Michelle, and Elwin (two students from Web). We went to a Korean restaurant, and even met a Korean man with a big beard who advertised that he owns factories in Wenzhou (we can thank him for days like this). We ate a sweet potato dish which brought memories of Hangzhou flooding right back to me. Richard (my friend from the UK who lived in Hangzhou) and I would regularly visit a restaurant each week that served this special type of sweet potato. It is sticky, red-hot inside, but very delicious.

The dongbei (north eastern) Chinese restaurant in Hangzhou, in some ways very similar to the Korean restaurant we visited tonight, especially with its sweet potato dish

Before today I had just had a very relaxing three days off -- one more than usual -- due to me doing another favour for Web last week. I was asked to judge for the English competition that some Wenzhou university students took part in. I think they asked me because I had already spoken to a few of the students who took part a week earlier (I wrote about that here).

It was an interesting few hours indeed. The contestants had previously passed the first round that had taken place at the university, and would this time be coming to the Web centre itself. The winners of the second round will be entering the final which is taking place on December 11th. I guess if I am going to be asked to do this one too, I will be asked an hour before the event takes place.

The group of 40 or so students were split up into two groups: professional, meaning they were majoring in English; and non-professional, meaning they majored in something else. I judged the professional group with one of Web's tutors, Chrissy, and a university lecturer. We made our way to the "Web cafe", an odd place to hold the contest, but they had moved all of the tables and chairs out making it semi-acceptable. We sat behind our desks, and were handed the criteria for marking. All we had to do was give each contestant points, we didn't even have to say anything. There were two rounds for this process: the first was a performance, or talent show, and the second: improvised hosting.

I was surprised by two things in the competition: the lack of male contestants, and the fact that most of the students who chose singing as their talent couldn't actually sing at all. Hats off to them, they have the kind of confidence I am lacking in.

At the end of the judging, our papers were collected and the students returned to their campus. It seemed to be the university's job to count the scores and tell the winners, they did it a day or two later, so I have no idea who got through. If Web has nothing to do with the final, I wouldn't be surprised if nothing more is said of the matter.

Thanks For Coming

2008-12-02T14:20:00.009Z

Just over a month ago I added a counter onto my blog -- completely out of curiosity -- to see if anybody apart from me and Kimi were actually visiting the site. It came as a pleasant surprise to see that within this time there have been nearly 1,200 page visits and 3,095 page views. Obviously a fair share of those numbers are from me, but it is very interesting to know that there are others reading my blog. The counter can also show me the area of people who have visited (although no invasion of privacy can become of this). Here are the locations of some recent visitors (the red dot being me):

I can't imagine how some of these visitors stumbled across my blog

I have mentioned this before, but my intention for writing a blog was simply to keep a written and pictorial account of my time in China. I spent one year here with so many events and occasions being a long lost memory to me now. Keeping a record of these times will hopefully be something to look back on in the future. It has just taken me by complete surprise that other people are actually reading this instead of my girlfriend and I. Through my blog I have even come into contact with some genuinely brilliant people, that otherwise I never would have met in a lifetime.

Thank you for reading!

Ganbei

2008-12-01T14:15:00.005Z

Last night Johann, Kristian -- a new teacher from Canada -- and I were invited out for dinner by a few students. I had expected that we would visit a small cheap restaurant, the kind of which I have become accustomed to. The end result however, wasn't quite what I had in mind.

The students took us to a new restaurant a short taxi ride away from Web. We walked up the stairs, past all of the food laid out on tables for customers to pick (no menus in these places), and entered a private room. This was not going to be cheap. The food was ordered and in no time we were eating. Everything was going smoothly -- until the boss came in.

The man walked in with cigarettes in hand and sat himself down at our table. The students translated what he was saying to us. Apparently, because the restaurant is new, he wanted to celebrate this fact with us. Immediately, our three bottles of Tsingtao beer were replaced with Heineken. From this point onwards the eating stopped and the "ganbei" began (in Chinese "ganbei" means bottoms up, or down in one). The beer was flowing like water, the second I finished a bottle, the waitress immediately replaced it and refilled my glass.

The boss seemed very happy with the proceedings, and invited his friend's son into the room. He sat between Johann and Kristian, and spoke to us in English for a while, of course he had to down some drinks with us too. Next, a couple of the managers came in, and they drank a few more glasses of beer with us. After this, the boss decided to order something a little stronger than beer: cognac -- and two bottles of it. My glass was filled three quarters of the way up with the stuff, and once again we had to down it in one. More managers flocked in and also drank with us individually. Business cards were flying all over the room, each member of staff giving us their card (not that I could understand a word of Chinese on them). I have no idea how much we drank, but it was enough to send the room spinning.

A bottle of Remy Martin that Kimi's mother gave to me, similar to the stuff we were drinking last night

As soon as I arrived home I passed out on my bed. I was even too drunk to speak to my mum and dad who call me on Sunday night. Instead I wrote a message to them saying I couldn't talk due to the cognac. When I awoke at 7am this morning my head was killing me. I took three painkillers, but they didn't seem to work for at least thirty minutes when on the front of the packaging it quite clearly said "instant relief".

My day at Web was a very slow one, I was grateful that my final class of the day was with some of my favourite students. I think I would have died if I had been stuck with a beginner salon (salons are the bigger classes with up to ten students).

Also, today was Ryan's final day at Web, and in Wenzhou. He comes from Australia, is only one year younger than me, and has been in China since January. He joined the training centre about seven months ago, but recently things hadn't been working out. Unfortunately he will be leaving for Hangzhou tomorrow, and then to Shanghai. I just hope he can find happiness wherever it is he decides to stay.

Finally, Kimi gave me her old phone today. She took it to one of the mobile phone stores and managed to get the software changed from Chinese into English. I am now in possession of a considerably better phone than the one that was stolen from me. I just have to keep this one safe.

Stolen Phone

2008-11-29T13:40:00.005Z

Today my mobile phone (see right) was stolen without my knowledge, a pickpocket for sure. They are apparently everywhere in this city, students tell me on an almost daily basis how they witness or have been victim of a petty crime. It seems that today was my turn.

I am not that bothered about it really, it is only a phone (not an iPhone at least), and it has lasted me almost one year, which in the world of mobiles is not too bad. My phone was a Sony K810i, its selling point being the 3.2 megapixel camera -- most of my blog photographs have been taken using it. A sturdy little phone, its only drawback being the odd little joystick used to navigate the menu. Recently the joystick had begun to stop functioning properly too, so again, it's not a big deal that I lost it. I am only annoyed that somebody managed to steal it from me.

Precious memories of my phone and I

I have only ever had one thing stolen before in my life: my very first mobile phone, a Philips C12 if I remember correctly. I was about 14 or 15, and was playing the trumpet with an orchestra at a fair outside. I placed the phone in a plastic bag under my chair, looked at it 15 minutes later, and saw a great big hole in the bag and no phone inside.

Today, I spent a great deal of time with Kimi outside. I was carrying two bags, and had my phone in my coat pocket. First, we had lunch at Papa John's, I received a text while I was there; next I had my hair cut, I also recall reading a text message there too; afterwards we went to an extremely busy Watsons -- known as Superdrug in the UK -- walked outside for a few minutes, and came home. At this point my phone was no where to be seen. I rang my number to see if I could hear it ring, a message came on telling me that the phone was either switched off or busy. This is surely enough proof that indeed, the phone has been stolen.

It is Saturday night tonight, meaning that down town Wenzhou is at full capacity. People were brushing past me everywhere, and the unfortunate truth is, because I am a "foreigner" I am a visible target. Also, I have been reading a fair amount of information about the health implications of keeping a device that it emits radiation near to the southern provinces, so I have recently been trying to keep my phone away from my -- thief-proof -- trouser pockets. Unfortunately, while taking care of my health, I have not taken care of my personal security.

On the bright side, Kimi has kindly called up my service provider, China Mobile, and has frozen the SIM card. Luckily the thief had no time to drain the 50 RMB remaining on it, so I will get to keep this credit. Tomorrow I can retrieve a new card and my number will not change. Also, Kimi has offered to give me her old mobile phone (this one). It is ironic that she bought this phone after her previous one was stolen while we were in Hangzhou together one year ago, and now I will receive it after my phone being stolen too.

I think I will have to try keeping the mobile phone in my bag from now on....

Supermarket Shopping

2008-11-27T12:47:00.004Z

Last night I decided to visit my local supermarket to buy some essentials I had run out of (shower gel, hand soap, jam etc). When visiting the Wal-Mart-owned, Trust-Mart (see above), it is quite clear that there is barely any Chinese influence remaining in the building. Walking around the isles I can sometimes forget I am almost 6,000 miles away from home. Occasionally I am brought back to reality, especially when I hear the same advertisement repeat and repeat and repeat on the speaker system (a common trait in shopping centres here, a form of audio torture I'm sure). I am also reminded that I am slap-bang in China when -- browsing for my favourite coconut soap -- I see a sign like this:

I am on a roll for bad English translations at the moment

The mundanity of the westernised supermarket has not completely taken over Wenzhou just yet. There are still many small fruit and vegetable shops all over the city, sometimes there are even trucks parked on the side of the road which have mountains of water melons or tangerines for the cheapest price imaginable. A few days ago I was waiting for Kimi on a small bridge overlooking one of the many canals in Wenzhou, when I saw a boat selling an assortment of fruit, vegetables, and eggs. It felt like I was watching a genuine part of a Chinese way of life which is all but forgotten in 2008.

This is the kind of China National Geographic told me about

Wenzhou University

2008-11-24T14:36:00.020Z

This evening I was taken to Wenzhou University where I had to give a class about "How to improve English in a short time". The reason: to advertise my workplace, Web.

In the morning I still had relatively no idea what I was going to say to the students, some of whom were taking part in an English competition at the end of the week. I was also told that a lot of them would be English majors. I had no time to prepare anything yesterday due to having 6 classes, and today I noticed that my schedule had me down for three in the afternoon, preparation time would be strictly limited.

I completed my first two classes as usual, and my manager, Grace, came to have a few words with me. It was after 3 o'clock -- just over two hours until we would be leaving -- that she told me there would be about 150 students attending the class. Last week I was told it would be considerably less, this was news indeed. My heart skipped a beat and I began panicking, I had never spoken in front of so many people before.

I had no time for dinner, or to see Kimi, because I still had preparation to do. Charles, my boss, bought me a couple of pies from McDonald's to fill the gap. At 5:30 me and one of the course consultants, Cucu (pronounced Cuckoo) climbed into Charles' Audi, and we started the fairly long trip to the university.

Unlike in the UK it seems most universities in China are well outside of the city centre. They are also huge in size, almost like a small town. After a 30 minute drive, we entered the campus area. It seemed that every student owned a bike. Walking must be out of the question due to the sheer size of place. We went past a KFC, and finally entered the car park to one of the buildings.

Together, we all walked inside the complex and found the classroom where I would be giving my class. I stepped into the room, took a quick glance, "Yes, there are about 150 people here," I thought in my mind. I was suddenly jolted into confusion when everybody started to give me a round of applause. I hadn't done anything, all I did was walk through the door. It was a very odd experience, I kept asking "What did I do?" The clapping seemed to continue for quite a long time, when it stopped I felt like all eyes were on me. The nerves were certainly kicking in, which was made even worse when I saw a lot of the students taking pictures of me.

I had to play a short DVD to introduce Web to the students, it was very corny and of course made the training centre look like a brilliant environment to study English. After the video ended it was my turn to speak. I told the students I was a little nervous as I had never spoken to so many people at one time before, they responded by laughing as if I had just told the best joke ever written. They were very inviting and seemed extremely happy that I was there talking to them.

Before I began the class I was actually quite worried that the students would be very shy and wouldn't speak back to me. This is a common problem at Web, so I didn't expect it to be different at the university. I was wrong. Although there were a few shy people in the audience who didn't want to speak, most of them were extremely talkative and responded to me incredibly well. When I asked them a question I got a resounding response from a large majority of them, in unison too. I had also completely underestimated their level of English. Some of the items I had prepared would have been too easy, so I managed to change my plan and go off one of the many English corners I have done before.

In many ways I felt like a minor celebrity visiting the school for charity purposes -- or something along those lines. As I stood at the front of the classroom talking, I could see camera flashes and mobile phones pointing at me for the duration of the class. It was surreal, why was I getting all of this attention? I know the reality, the reason was just because I am a 'laowai'. One girl even told me that I was the first foreign person she had ever met, so she was quite excited. I felt flattered that someone could be excited to meet just me. I was in for another surprise at the end of the class when mayhem broke out. There were immediately dozens of people surrounding me, taking pictures of and with me, asking for my mobile number, email address, and QQ number. I was quite embarrassed really, I felt like it was all completely undeserved. My head shouldn't have been able to fit through the door on the way out.

As my boss drove us back home, I sat in the Audi feeling exhausted, relieved, and rather bemused, "What had just happened in that place?"

When we arrived back at the four star International Hotel, we entered the foyer and walked to the lifts which take us to the training centre. Near to them are some toilets. A few days ago I noticed this sign on the door of the disabled toilet:

Buffet Blowout

2008-11-23T14:40:00.004Z

I have just come home from a birthday party of an ex-Web employee's daughter. She was one today, or should I say two today, seeing as I am in China. For those who aren't aware, as soon as a baby is born in China (in many parts anyway) they are immediately one year of age, there is no counting of days and months, they are just one for the whole year. It is just like how we count the years: we say it is 2008 now, but if we use the Western way of counting age, we are only in our 2007th year and 11th month.

We arrived at the party more than one hour late because of work finishing at 7pm today. This meant that the buffet dinner was almost eaten by the time we stepped into the function room at the hotel. It was free, so I can't complain. I wasn't very hungry anyway, Kimi had bought me Papa John's as she was so excited that it had opened in Wenzhou today (although it was paid for with my money). I hope the baby likes the gift we bought -- it is a big telephone that can speak English and Chinese.

We had a much more pleasant night tonight than last night. We had planned to go on a night out for our new teacher, Kristian from Canada. Unfortunately the planning had been left to the wrong person and nobody had a clue what we were doing. Most of the others were working so Kimi and I waited until 7pm for them to finish -- I was still only semi-conscious after the trauma of shoe shopping in the afternoon. Eventually we decided to go The Victoria Hotel for the buffet. When we got there -- just like tonight -- it was too late, and most of the food had been obliterated. I couldn't be bothered going anywhere else and would have been satisfied to sit down and start eating, but Kimi wasn't having any of it (she was right, it was not worth the expense). After some talking, we decided to go elsewhere, left the hotel and caught a cycle-rickshaw.

It was Saturday night, so things were extremely busy in Wenzhou. The rickshaw driver decided the pavement was a better option than the road for driving on. As we rushed past a crowd of people, I felt us hit something on the right hand side. I looked and saw that we had collided with a man's leg. The driver stopped, got off the bike and began apologising. The man was furious, shouting and pointing at his leg all of the time. I didn't know what I was supposed to do in the middle of this, people were crowding around and starring right at us. Eventually the driver said "sorry" for the 100th time and we drove off.

A few minutes later, we pulled up outside the restaurant of Kimi's choosing, but it looked different. My worst fear came to fruition: they had changed the restaurant into a hot pot restaurant. After eating the hot pot here, I have not had any appetite for it again. The waiters had set the table and were ready to take our order. With a little embarrassment we got up, apologised, and left. We had no clue where to go next.

After strolling around for a few minutes we ended up near a cheap noodle shop, a place we regularly frequent. They serve brilliant fried rice, so in defeat we went in. I felt terrible that we had ended up in this place and weren't with Kristian having fun. Fortunately I spoke to him and found out that he was so tired he didn't even want to come out and went home not long after arriving at the hotel. We have planned to do something after work this week which should be much less of a hassle I hope.

Kimi and I were on our way home when we decided to buy a dessert from a dessert shop inside the large Intime department store. These shops specialize in fruit desserts, especially ones containing a lot of mango and coconut. We made our order, but unbeknown to Kimi, she had made a mistake: Instead of ordering mango with coconut ice, she had ordered mango with coconut yoghurt. "Just as the night couldn't get any worse" she said with complete sincerity. I ate the yoghurt and she ordered the ice. I do hope we never have any real problems to deal with in the future.

Mango, black sticky rice, and the disaster: coconut yoghurt

Tomorrow I have been asked to go to Wenzhou university to talk to the students about how to improve their English in a short time. In all honesty, I haven't a clue what I am going to talk about. I don't even know the kind of level I should be aiming for. The only reason they are sending me is to advertise the training centre, unfortunately my sales pitch is not going to be up to scratch.

Here's My Card

2008-11-22T05:45:00.012Z

After just eight months of working for Web, I have finally been given my business cards. I also seem to have an e-mail address -- wzchris@webi.com.cn -- which I didn't even know about. Business cards seem to play a big part when meeting new people here in China. I guess I can join in with the tradition now. Other than that, the cards are quite useless, unless I use them for advertising private tutoring (which is completely against the rules of my contract).

Talking of private tutoring, I had my fourth class with the primary school students today -- I wrote about my first class here. Again, I had a very pleasurable time, and also learnt that they love competing with each other. For some reason they weren't really in the mood for concentrating, and the questions weren't flowing very well. Crystal -- their main teacher, and the person's home I go to for the class -- mentioned that we could turn the questions into a competition. It was amazing, as soon as I drew a table on the board with "boys" and "girls" on each side, they started going crazy trying to trying to score points by asking and answering questions as well as possible.

After the class was over I was invited for lunch by a couple of the parents. We all went together to the same Sichuan restaurant as last time. It was delicious, one of the best I have been too. One of the boys, Philip, requested an interesting item from the menu: Goose feet. Believe it or not, chicken, goose, and duck feet are all fairly popular with some people in China. I can't imagine why, where is the meat on such a thing?

Goose foot: not for the faint-hearted

Crystal and the children's parents were very kind for paying for the dinner and giving me a lift back to my apartment. The mother who drove me home even tried to have a conversation in Chinese with me. I was quite happy that I understood most of what she was saying, although my answers were full of mistakes. I had better back to reading the vocabulary in my green notebook.

I have been invited by an ex-employee of Web to his duaghter's one year birthday party tomorrow. Kimi is meeting me in a few minutes and we are going to visit the local toyshop to see what we can buy. It is tradition in China to give money in a red envelope for this kind of thing, but considering I am a foreigner and he is a foreigner, I think a gift for the baby is quite suitable. I have also promised Kimi that I will go shoe shopping with her after buying the gift....(snore).

My Aircon Plant

2008-11-19T12:19:00.002Z

A plant (or weed) has been growing on my balcony for three or four months now. I noticed it in the middle of summer when I was hanging clothes out to dry. I saw a big green leaf sprouting from the base of a pipe. It has received its water supply from one of the air conditioning tubes that releases small amounts of water when the machine is switched on.

I don't know if it is dying now that I am not using my air conditioner, but it has certainly grown in height since I last took note of it. It is amazing how life can flourish in such strange places and conditions.

Aircon plant

(unfortunately I can't take credit for this picture, Kimi took it on her iPhone)

Future Plans

2008-11-18T13:32:00.013Z

As I have mentioned before, I am going home for Christmas for one month, I can't wait, I am very excited about it. I know that this time spent at home will also be time spent planning on what I will do when I come back to China. Right now, I am quite sure I will not be continuing at Web once my contract has expired in April next year. Recently, things have been much better, and I have been enjoying many of my classes again. But I think English Corner and the terrible hours are two things that won't keep me staying at the company for too long. My big problem is: I don't know what else I can do.

I desperately want to go back to university or college to study something different from my music degree, but I am still unsure exactly what (although I know the field), and also how it can be done considering my position and finances. Also, I don't want to leave Wenzhou just yet, because of my main reason for being here in the first place: Kimi. I hope that in the not too distant future we will be able to leave Wenzhou together, maybe even leave China, but I don't want to put that on Kimi or her mother just yet. I feel that a little more time spent here is the right thing to do. Don't get me wrong, I have never been happier living here, it has been one of the most rewarding times of my life, I just feel like I cannot stay in Wenzhou forever. So, I just need to think about what I can do with my time next year. Do I stay at Web, or do I go?

I had a rare quiet minute in the office this evening. I started playing around with the panoramic function on my phone, and took this picture of my workstation (unfortunately it doesn't quite fit together):

My daily view at Web, with the slowest computer I have ever used

P.S. Wow, I have seven followers on my blog now! Thank you for reading everybody.

A Day in the Life of a Wenzhou Web Teacher

2008-11-16T12:13:00.016Z

Today -- being the first day of my working week -- began on a bad note. I was almost run over by a motorbike while I walked to work. The road was clear, so I crossed. Then, out of nowhere a bike came directly at me. There was probably a horn used, but considering so many drivers use their horns all of the time, it serves no function anymore. I have completely stopped listening to it. The bike braked right at my leg making a minor impact. It hurts a little as I sit down now, but it is almost nothing. The whole event was like hitting your leg against a cupboard as you walk out of a room. I was standing in the middle of the road with the bike directly to my left, the driver -- a man -- just starred at me with no emotion. I was waiting for him to say "dui bu qi" (sorry), but nothing came. A lack of common decency is one of the few things that can really get to me. I spoke a couple of expletives (in English), and walked onwards to the hotel.

The road in question, with a similar looking bike making its way towards me again

When I arrieved at Web I was shown my timetable for the day. It displayed six classes, with one of those being the "demo class" for students of Wenzhou University. Again, I wasn't happy. I could not believe they were giving me the responsibility of this demo, and then giving me five classes on top of it. How could they expect me to do a good job when they don't give me any time to prepare anything?

I started to think that the day could not get anyworse, when somehow my luck began to change. My first two classes were really enjoyable and we had a good chat, my mood was totally reversed. When I finished my second class I was told that the time of the demo was wrong on my timeteble, so another teacher would have to take my class. Even better (not for poor Johann though). Afterwards, I had a nice lunch with Kimi, and returned to the hotel to prepare my demo class. They had given me a topic that I had to talk about: "How to improve English". I found some websites and made a simple power point presentation. Just as I finished the lot, it was time to go into the English Corner room to start.

I expected the level of the students in this class to be generally better than what I am used to. Also, because they were all university students I hoped that they would be much more talkative as a group. I stood on the small stage in the English Corner room, introduced myself, and after ten minutes found out that they were just the same kind of audience I have become accustomed to. It was me talking a lot while I tried to retrieve a conversation from them, the words 'blood' and 'stone' came to mind. Thankfully three students in the room were asking questions and joining in. The rest just didn't understand a thing I was saying or were too embarrassed to say anything. It was tough, but after forty minutes we got something going and they started to relax with me a bit. I wrapped up the class, said goodbye, and continued to my next one, an "Ice Breaker", the lowest level at Web.

An example of what it is like teaching in the English Corner room -- with me and Johann

Somehow a class about "Time" became quite enjoyable, well I had fun anyway. We practised saying the "th" sound as in "three" for about ten minutes. One woman just couldn't get it and kept pronouncing it as an "s" sound, so "thank you" turns into "sank you" -- a common mispronunciation in China. Also, in my final class we had a nice conversation about travelling too.

I walked home feeling that I had actually had an enjoyable working day at Web. Recently I have become to tire of the routine of each class, the topics coming around again and again and again (if I get the planets one more time I am going to go insane). The working day starting at 1pm and finishing at 9pm is starting to grate, and the fact that so many students have no desire whatsoever to learn English is wasting my time. Thankfully, today was a good one, I hope tomorrow is too.

Quality Control

2008-11-15T10:25:00.020Z

The pictures below are of the lights found, directly above the keypads, on two Construction Bank of China ATM's:

They couldn't look more suspicious to me, especially because of how poorly they have been fitted into the lights. But according to the bank, they are all completly legitimate. Kimi and I went inside one of the branches to ask what was going on (well, Kimi did all of the asking). The answer we were given was that the cameras are there to see money coming out of the machine -- I am still trying to think of a reason for such a need. The fact is, the cameras must be able to see the keypad too. Only a couple of weeks ago did the Wenzhou newspaper warn its readers about the dangers of using hijacked ATM's in the city. Now, how are we supposed to distinguish the difference between official bank changes and the work of thieves?

Talking about amateur work, I wrote an entry about the construction going on next to my apartment, here. Last night, Kimi found out from the local authorities that the workers have been given the right to work throughout the nights to get an apartment block built. There is a law that prohibits noisy construction continuing past 8 or 9pm. In this case, the local authorities gave them permission so the building can be knocked up as quickly as possible. They obviously didn't feel the need to ask anybody who has to live with the noise if it would be OK. I have said this before, but this is one of the negatives of living in China: The government does what it wants and the civilians just have to put up with it.

To change the subject (but probably still keeping with amatuer work), I am supposed to be doing a big "demo class" at Web tomorrow. The demo classes are a kind of sales pitch to get new students to join. Tomorrow there will be a whole lot of Wenzhou University students, I have no clue at all what I am going to talk about for an hour with/to them. I can only hope they will talk back to me, it would make a pleasent change.

Sorry to moan, I should be happy, my cold has completely gone thanks to Kimi --who took care of me -- and Chinese medicine -- who took care of it.

Cold

2008-11-12T14:23:00.011Z

The temperature dropped quite dramatically in Wenzhou a few days ago (at last). Not long after, I began to see a few students sneezing and moping around the training centre. As soon as I saw this I thought, "Oh great, it's going to be me next". Lo and behold, yesterday I caught a cold. I took my first class with no problems, then the second came. As I was talking to a student I began to feel dizzy and quite spaced out. This feeling lasted all day until I sank in bed and slept for ten hours. When I woke up this morning I still felt pretty hazy. Working from 1pm - 9pm today hasn't improved matters either.

My saviour in this time of high temperature, blocked nose, and general drowsiness is Chinese medicine. The one I am taking is a herbal powder that you mix with hot water and drink like a tea. It smells quite aromatic and tastes sweet, not at all unpleasant. In fact, I enjoy drinking it very much. I have almost finished a whole box of sachets now, and find that the symptoms of a cold haven't even properly come to surface yet. I feel like they are waiting in the wings, ready to come out soon. I just hope my Chinese medicine is keeping them locked up until I am recovered. The only thing I am really suffering from is a complete lack of energy.

The medicine I am currently taking

I am so happy I have a day off tomorrow, I will try and make the most of it by spending as much time as I can in bed.

Food Cravings

2008-11-10T13:55:00.016Z

A few days ago Kimi and I visited D&L square (see left, not to be confused with Paris). The area houses new and expensive shops and a variety of non-Chinese restaurants. Sometimes the square is also referred to as "European City". We have been there many times before, the food is certainly its forte -- unlike the time we tried a Macau restaurant there a couple of months ago.

Our primary aim for going to D&L was to see how the construction of the first Papa Johns restaurant in Wenzhou was going. Now, I love Chinese food, and I don't think I could live without Mapo Toufu. But occasionally I do have a craving for food that contains a lot of bread, cheese, and calories -- a food type that is almost non existent here. Pizza Hut does have a presence in the city, but it pales into significance compared to Papa Johns -- the king of American export Pizzas. All we need next is a Subway and I will be happy.

I feel like I should point out that at home in England I would feel quite guilty about frequenting such huge corporate establishments on a regular basis. But here, considering they are the only remnants of western food on offer, I gladly take complete advantage of them all.

After briefly looking at the construction of the new restaurant, we visited the small supermarket underground the D&L building that specializes in imported goods. Usually the products are overpriced and choice is limited. This time there was a big change. They actually had real cheese, not just the cheap stuff made from plastic. This was very exciting for me, I could probably over dose on cheese if I was given the opportunity. Luckily the cost is very high for a small block, so it will keep me away from addiction (and fatness). I ended up buying some Dutch smoked cheese and also a tub of spreadable butter (another first for me in China).

The next morning I made some toast and added my new purchases. It was possibly one of the nicest meals I have ever had. Unfortunately, after one week the cheese and butter are almost gone. I shouldn't be allowed near the stuff.

Butter and Cheese, I have missed you

The Sound of Progress (and Christmas)

2008-11-07T13:43:00.004Z

If I had to use a sound to embody my short stay here in China, it would probably be the sound of building and construction work. As I am writing this I can hear a sledgehammer striking something that must be very hard, because they keep going at it again and again and again -- and again. Yesterday I was woken up by the sound of a wall being demolished next door (at 6am), and this morning by the sound of many metal pipes being dropped onto the ground. Unfortunately for me, next door to my apartment building they are constructing a new block of flats. For six months I have certainly heard the sounds of progress, but I haven't seen anything yet.

For over 6 months this has been the noisy "construction" site next to my apartment -- not that much visible construction actually takes place

Noise pollution must be a common annoyance in a large part of China, mainly because everything is developing so fast that it has caused cities to be in a constant state of change. Everywhere you walk in Wenzhou there are large buildings being constructed while old ones are being demolished. It is a fact of life here -- for the moment anyway.

In other news, I found out I will be able to return home to England for Christmas. My dad managed to change my flight date, so now I will be leaving Shanghai Pudong airport at 6:15am on the 24th December (I can't change the flight date myself because I am unable to call the airline company from China, so my father has pretended to be me each time he called). I will arrive back home at 6:30pm on the same day. Although it may seem like a relatively short journey considering I will be flying half way around the world, if I take into account the time-zone changes, the time spent travelling will still take more than 20 hours. Still, I am very excited to be able to come home for Christmas, last year I vividly remember teaching over forty 3-6 year old children while their parents watched and took pictures -- not a pleasant time.

I wish Kimi could travel with me for the holiday, but just as with so many other things at the moment, money has got in the way. To get the visa, take time off from her work, and buy a plane ticket is just completely unfeasible now. We will be planning a trip to the UK together next year hopefully. I will miss her for the month I have planned to be away, and feel terrible that I won't be with her for the holiday, and also her birthday (sorry Kimi!!). Before you think I am a bad person, I did offer to stay for her birthday and then go home for a month, but because I would then miss Chinese New Year (a holiday that is just as important as Christmas for Chinese people), she allowed me to go home earlier.

New Look

2008-11-05T02:29:00.012Z

I have decided to try a new look for my blog. I was becoming tired of using the "dots" template, although I did find it much neater than all of the others on offer. I also felt something was missing from my blog -- a picture or logo placed at the top of the page to reflect what I am writing about. When I have read other people's blogs they usually have a nice professional-looking design as their header. I'm not a designer, nor do I know any designers, so how I could I get one of them?

Suddenly I remembered an interesting feature on Picasa -- a free program from Google which lets you organize and edit your pictures. You can select a folder of pictures and make various different collages of them. I copied and pasted a few of my "China" photos into a single folder and clicked the "create collage" button. Here is what I got:

After this, I made some space in the centre of the collage by manually moving the pictures around with my mouse. In this space I added my blog name and saved it as an image file. All of this could still be done using the Picasa software -- easy.

This was only the first try, when I have time after work I will play around with it a little more. Let me know what you think about the new look.

Teaching Children....Again

2008-11-03T14:42:00.005Z

On Saturday morning I started my first private tutoring job. A prospective student had visited one of my English Corners at Web, and recommended me to her friend, Crystal, an English teacher. She emailed me asking if I would be interested in helping a group of eight primary school children practise what she has been teaching them in class. It would be one hour a week on Saturdays at 10:15 am.

I thought about how much I really didn't want to work on my days off as we are sometimes worked to the bone at Web. I was considering turning down the offer when I thought about the experience, the possibility of getting my name out there for more work, and the fact it was only one hour. I sent a reply to her email telling her I'd give it a go.

On the day, I arrived at the meeting place -- outside a restaurant -- a little tired from the Halloween party the night before. I received a call from Crystal telling me that "she had sent two girls to get me". This sounded a bit ominous, I thought we might be going inside the restaurant. Seconds later two young girls came running up to me shouting hello. "This could be them" I thought.

We walked away from the restaurant, turned a corner, and entered an apartment building. After climbing a few floors we came to Crystals home. She welcomed us in with a big smile, and even said I could keep my shoes on -- usually they're off at the door in China. I was directed to a chair positioned in front of a whiteboard in her living room. As she had mentioned there were eight children (5 girls and 3 boys). Also, a few of the parents had decided to stay for the class. I was a little nervous by this point, everything was new and nobody knew me.

I sat down and she told me, "you can just pretend it is like an English corner". At that very moment I realised I had not planned a thing to say to these students. I panicked for about a second, but then somehow my autopilot kicked in. I introduced myself, and started talking and writing on the board. Then I had a shock, they started talking back to me too.

I have become so accustomed to students of a certain age who are not willing to speak English, that to be sitting in a room with 10-14 year olds who actually want to speak English was quite refreshing. All of them answered questions and understood the vocabulary and grammar I was using. I was impressed, these children were better than half of my fully grown students at Web. It was genuinely a joy to be with them for an hour, and in no time the class was over. I didn't look at the clock once.

Crystal invited me, with the children, to go to a Sichuan restaurant, this was a good sign, they didn't want to say goodbye and good riddance. As we were walking out she told me that I was just the teacher they had been looking for. I felt very flattered and relieved that they thought the class was a success. I could not have done a class like that a year ago with such comfort and ease. I feel that I really have learnt a set of important skills in my time here in China, none of it has been a waste.

The last time I taught children was in Hangzhou (from August 2007 to January 2008). They were a few years younger than the children I am teaching now -- and much more difficult to handle. When I worked in the kindergarten it was quite exhausting, and I could never agree with teaching 5 year old children up to 7 o'clock at night. The kids were mainly brilliant, but very often me and Bobby -- an American anaesthesiologist who came to China with his wife and three children -- had no idea what we should be doing for classes. There was no guidance or help from anybody, we were just thrown in at the deep end.

I remember going on an outing with my classes to pick oranges in a farm just outside of Hangzhou. I am in complete disbelief that this was almost one year ago to the day (I remember being incredibly ill a couple of days right after this).

Don't forget the peace signs