Bomb!

Although it does look like a bomb has just blasted outside The Wenzhou International Hotel -- it isn't. It was still a certain type of explosion, but in this case, just (deafening) fireworks. What was the reason for this? A wedding. Not only does the hotel accommodate shops and an English training centre, but also function rooms for weddings to take place. Just before the bride and groom exit their large black car --with flowers glued onto the sides -- the fireworks are set off to let the world know somebody is getting married.

Unfortunately there is little "tradition" left in the wedding procedure here. The bride usually wears a white wedding dress instead of the much more culturally significant Qi Pao. Sometimes the bride and groom will sign the legal documents in private before arriving for the ceremony, but other than that, everything else takes place in a hotel function room. The room is often decorated with things like hearts, pink ribbons, and large photographs of the couple posing in various locales.

When the event kicks off, there will usually be a host who introduces the couple and tells jokes about the family by shouting very loudly down a microphone. The couple will then say a few words, maybe sing a song, play a game, and ganbei (bottoms up) drinks with all of the guests sitting around each table. Food and drink is continually served throughout the procedure with military precision. All of the dishes are standard expensive Chinese offerings, usually a lot of seafood, like Crab, Lobster, Oyster and Turtle.

Unlike a western wedding, nobody brings gifts, instead they will give a red envelope with money inside. Just like the red envelope I mentioned here (but with a little more money than I got inside mine).

It's Halloween tonight, which means I will be working. I have been asked to host the event with a tutor, Candy. Even though it is my day off I still need to go into work to "practise" my lines with her. I get the feeling that the management are taking this holiday far too seriously, as if it is a big occassion like Christmas Day.

I have finally completed my costume -- which took a great deal more effort than I had hoped for. All I needed to find was two simple items: a green waistcoat and white face paint. Only the kindness of others has made it possible for me to find everything. Kimi went to various shops trying to find the clothing without success, and yesterday Michelle, a student, helped me to find a purple jacket and lend me a tie. Finally, the minute after Kimi found a shop that sells white face paint, Johan calls me up to tell me his girlfriend has a ton of the stuff at her school (she is a middle school teacher). If you haven't guessed, I am going as The Joker from the film, Dark Knight. Not an origianl idea if I was in England, but considering I am in a country where the film hasn't even been released, it should be quite surprising I hope.

Another student said something interesting at the end of my final class last night too. She told me the class was "delicious". I didn't feel like I should correct her on that.

Halloween, Health, and Huh?

I am writing this entry in my office at work because I've just been handed the rare gift of a cancelled class. For the past twenty minutes I've been scouring the internet on Tao Bao --an eBay style website -- trying to find the clothing for my Halloween costume, all to no avail. I can't write Chinese which is obviously a huge hindrance with this kind of thing.

My manager has asked me to host the party on Friday, which will consist of telling a group of people in a bar where Halloween came from and why we celebrate it. Then, with a tutor, Candy, we will introduce each game that will be played. Games include: mummy wrapping (who can wrap a person with toilet roll the quickest), magic box (students will put their hands in a box and guess what they are touching), and the only traditional game of the lot, bobbing for apples. It should be fun I hope. Just need to find my costume now.

Yesterday I began trying to do some exercise again. Since I came to China it has been difficult to join a gym due to the money I never seem to have spare. For quite a few months I have been using my Nintendo Wii as a convenient way of exercising -- and it really works. I don't have Wii Fit yet (although I would love to get hold of it) because the console is region locked, so buying a copy in China would be a waste of time. Instead I have been playing the only game that came bundled with the machine: Wii Sport. For anybody who doesn't know, you have to physically move the controller in real-life to make a change in the game. For the Wii Sport game you have the option of playing Tennis, Bowling, Baseball, Golf, and Boxing. By far the most physically challenging is the boxing. Each morning I have been playing the boxing for twenty minutes or so, and by the end I am quite exhausted. The game has become so hard I now spend each round dodging punches, which is much harder than you would expect.

However, since I bought the guitar a few weeks ago, the time spent on exercising has been spent on practising instead. Yesterday I decided to switch the Wii back on and try to get into a better routine (I think getting to sleep and waking up earlier would be a good start). Now, as I am writing this, my arms are aching like I've never even considered doing exercise before. It always amazes me how quickly the body can revert once you stop using it.

My "Mii" on the left in the blue, I ingeniously called him Chriis.

On a different topic, in my previous class at Web, we were asking questions which somehow got around to the t-shirt I was wearing. I told them it was bought in England, and they thought it was probably made in China, possibly even Wenzhou. I looked on the tag but there was no sign of the country of origin. Then, to my amazement, one of the women in the room said, "Why don't you take it off and you can have a really close look then?". I sat there stunned as she smiled back at me.

Pounds Now on Sale in China

There were many reasons for me to come to China, but there were also a few reasons for me to stay at home. One of these reasons was money.

After finishing university I came out with some debt that needed paying off ASAP. I had previously taken out a couple of credit cards which mainly went on buying music equipment to help with my coursework. My plan was to finish university, find a job, any job, and pay them off. Things didn't run so smoothly as my trip to China came just seven months after finding work (which I was happy to get out of anyway). Then, once again, I used my credit card to fund the plane trip from the UK to China and back. I never expected I would want to come back to China after my holiday, but it felt so much like the right thing to do. I guessed I would be able to pay off my credit cards while working in China -- surely no problem.

In fact, there were many problems, and I found out that it is impossible to transfer money from one bank account to another without being completely ripped off. The final blow came when I travelled back to Hangzhou, went to the HSBC -- who I have an account with -- and failed to put any money into my account. Why? Because HSBC in China only deals with domestic transactions. The world's local bank indeed.

Now, with Kimi's help I have saved up some money and exchanged the Chinese Yuan (RMB) into British Pounds. The first time I did this was here, and the second time was just a couple of days ago. I now have a worrying amount of cash to bring back home with me when I come back at Christmas (all £50 notes too).

It is an especially good time for me to exchange money because of the terrible economic disaster going on in England. I remember four years ago when I came to China, the exchange rate was GPB 1 = CNY 15.4. When Kimi exchanged my money the other day, it was an incredible GBP 1 = CNY 11.8. But today I was shocked again. Things have changed dramatically in just two days. On Windows Vista, my exchange rate gadget is now telling me this:

That is a fair amount of extra money I could have got with my RMB if I had waited just two days. I can only assume it will get worse now that Gordon Brown has revealed recession is happening. I think it is time for everybody to leave England and come to China.

Finally, my seven-day working week is now over!

Chatting Myself to Death

It has been a strange day today. On the one hand it has been quite stressful and hectic, and on the other, it has been very pleasant.

I say it has been fairly hectic as I have gone through six classes -- not something I am used to. What made things worse was that it was partially my fault I had six in the first place.

Johan and I devised an idea to get students chatting more in English -- something which many of them have said they want to do. We both arranged to try out our idea: to have six students sign up for a class, bring a conversation topic to get the ball rolling, and then have a relaxing "chat" with each other. Johan had his turn on Sunday, and mine was today. I really wanted to have a go at this because many students mentioned how much they liked the idea, but I really wanted to wait until our schedules were lighter. When I checked my timetable on Wednesday (we always get them the day before), I noticed only four classes and the extra chatting class for me -- perfect. Actually it wasn't perfect, because I didn't see that one of my lessons wasn't highlighted on the piece of paper (I don't even look at the other non-highlighted lessons). So at 6:10 this evening, when I was out with Kimi and Ryan, I received a call from Tina at reception:

"Chris, you have a class now, where are you?"
I replied, "No, I don't have a class now"
"Yes you do"
"No, I don't"
"Yes you do, at six o'clock"
"No I don't"
"Yes you do"
"Really?"

At that point I rapidly made my way back to the hotel, almost fifteen minutes late for the class. Luckily I was let off considering it wasn't highlighted on my sheet, and the two students that attended didn't mind at all (or if they did the certainly didn't show it).

To add insult to injury, one of the teachers, Paul, asked if he could exchange a day off with me because his girlfriend was coming down from Hangzhou. He really didn't want to leave her in his apartment all day. I sympathised with him and said I'd do it. But this also means that I am working again tomorrow, taking my working week for this week from six days to seven -- without a day off. What am I doing to myself??

Apart from that, the rest of my day has actually been very pleasurable. In my first class a student, Purple (yes, I know), kept saying very nice things to me. One thing that I really felt meant something was when she said how comfortable and confident she feels when speaking English in my class. When I started this job I was worried I couldn't match the kind of personalities of the other teachers at Web, some were so lively and funny, I couldn't be like that. But comments like Purple's today remind me that being myself is important. I am me, and that is OK.

Also, later in the day, my chat with the six students that signed up was very enjoyable. All of them were in my list of favourite students, a huge bonus for sure. We talked about a variety of topics from religion to movies, and crime to ghosts. It really felt worthwhile, and before any of us knew it, one hour had past. Brilliant.

Yesterday, I mentioned that Web will be hosting a Halloween party (58 RMB per person). I saw that posters had been put up all around the centre to advertise the event. I am fairly embarrassed to be associated with this "most authentic American Halloween". Why oh why oh why didn't they run the English past one of the teachers first, or even ask one of us to write it? Again, I am baffled.

Numerous copies of this poster are pinned up all around the "English Training Centre"

The English text from the poster (click to enlarge)

Indian Summer in China

Thankfully the pollution I talked about in this post has completely disappeared, replaced with sunshine, fluffy clouds, and a temperature that can only be a result of global warming (see right). It has been about 30 degrees centigrade for two days and it is nearly November! It certainly felt like Autumn last week here, but now we have gone back in time to summer again. I don't know what clothes I should be wearing from day to day.

I have vivid memories of November 5th --Bonfire Night -- in England. At night we would be stuck outside shivering around a fire and watching the fireworks exploding in the sky. Usually it is a requirement to wear thick clothes, a coat, woolly hat, and gloves as it is always so cold at that time of year. To think that now I am sitting here exactly two weeks before Bonfire Night with my fan on and wearing a t-shirt because it is still too hot at 10pm, is completely baffling to me. I'm sure it wasn't anything like this when I was in Hangzhou one year ago.

Next week is also Halloween, and of course we have to celebrate it at Web. I was asked by Grace, my manager, to accompany her and the boss to check out a bar yesterday night to see if it would be a suitable location to hold the party. I didn't really do anything when we arrived, I just said it was great and walked around. It is the teachers job to think of some games to play on the night, apart from bobbing for apples I have no other ideas. They have also asked me to find some suitable music for the night. Apart from Michael Jackson's "Thriller" I'm out of ideas -- again.

On a side note, I was also quite shocked to note that many people (including a couple of the teachers) seem to think that Halloween derives from America. When I mentioned to somebody that the holiday is an ancient Pagan festival from the Celts in Ireland, I got the retort "No, it was the Pagans who came to America who started it then." I must have missed that History class when the Celts came to America one thousand years before Christopher Columbus even discovered it.

When I returned back from looking at the bar, one of the students had brought their dog with them, it was half the size of one of my cats (see below). I have found that little dogs have become all the craze in Wenzhou now. Everybody is required by law to have two things to be a real citizen of the city: a huge Porsche (one of these), and a dog small enough to fit in your wallet.

One of my colleagues, Mabel, with the tiny tiny dog -- which peed all over the carpet less than a minute after taking this

A Red Envelope Day

In China it is customary to give a red envelope with money inside as a gift on special occasions. Whether it is a birthday, Chinese New Year, or a random act of kindness, if you are giving money to somebody you are required to use one of these.

At Web, a policy came into place three months ago where each teacher would be assessed at the end of every month. Whoever received the highest marks would win a small cash bonus of 500 yuan presented in the traditional red envelope (see top left), and be known as the "Super Teacher". I didn't like the idea, the thought of competing with workmates did not motivate me in the slightest. They seemed to think this would be a great incentive for us, it wasn't. However, I was actually lucky enough to win the prize a couple of a times (I wrote about it here), which boosted confidence in my abilities greatly.

Yesterday Johann was announced as the winner for the month, and well deserved too. Then Grace -- our manager -- had some news for us. Our boss had decided that the rules of this scheme would change to make things fairer. Now, the assessment period would still be at the end of each month, but the prize will only be given each season -- once every three months. OK, no problem, I can understand that they will get a clearer picture of each teacher's performance from this. But here comes the completely ridiculous part: the cash prize will still be 500 yuan each time, not three times more which would be expected. Once again, it all comes down to money and the fact that they don't want to spend an extra penny if they don't have to. We were given a lame excuse about other branches of Web adopting this method, so it was up to them to follow suit. But I know for a fact they do not comply with many of the other branches' policies. In fact, as they are all franchises they can all do what they like up to a point. It is certainly reassuring to know that my employers have no problem clicking their fingers and changing contracted policies just like that.

An already dismal idea for staff moral has been turned into a scheme that is completely irrelevant. The only perk of the prize was the money, and 500 yuan over a period of three months is ridiculous, almost insulting.

In other news, my guitar practise is going quite well. My left hand finger tips have stopped hurting and I can string together seven or eight chords. I wish I'd taken up this instrument sooner. I hope my neighbours don't mind me practising, and if they do I can call it payback for the all the hammering that occurs at 6-7am on certain mornings.

Cough!

The picture below was the first thing I saw of the outside world today. Was it rain? Fog? Or pollution? Maybe it was a bit of all three, but I would certainly put most of my money on it being the latter.

I don't want to completely berate Wenzhou -- I have mentioned how clear the skies can be in an earlier post. Quite often the air quality is OK, but today was a worryingly new level of smogness.

On the left, Wenzhou's "World Trade Centre" one morning a few weeks ago. On the right, the same scene today.

Today is my only day off this week because I had a three day weekend last week. Matters have been made worse because I have another "English Corner" to do tomorrow -- the third this week. I hope Web can hire some new teachers soon, it's becoming very draining maintaining the same workload that we had over the summer holidays. Let the six day week begin!

And finally, thank you to everybody who has left nice comments on my blog (you too Kimi!), it is nice to know someone is reading this instead of just me.