Life is getting a bit ordinary in Yancheng

Well, it has been quite some time since my last
update. Sadly, my grandmother passed away at
the end of October, and I headed home for just over a
week for the funeral.

Nothing much has happened in Yancheng since my return,
hence the lack of further emails. However, I know you
are all hanging out to hear about Max (the
international sex symbol "ISS"). Unfortunately,
nothing much to tell there either. He is still getting
a lot of attention for his youth and blond locks, but
not as much as when he first arrived. The
hyperventilating, salivating "Norman" seems to have
backed off since Max told her he had a girlfriend in
Beijing.

Speaking of which, Max went to Beijing last week for
Thanksgiving with his EX girlfriend and her new beau.
I would have liked to have gone to Beijing, but it is
quite expensive to fly, and I could not afford the
airfare after my trip back to Australia. How things
change! Who would have thought this time last year
that I would be crying poor!

Last weekend I did a whirlwind trip to Yangzhou
(pronounced Young Jo), which is another city in
Jiangsu province. Yangzhou is an ancient city, which
used to be the capital of China during one of the
ancient Dynasty's (perhaps Ming). Anyway, although it
is quite a modern city now, it still retains some of
its ancient buildings and ruins. The city itself is
quite pretty, especially in relation to plain old
Yancheng. There is a beautiful lake (well, they call
it a lake, but it looks more like a series of canals
or small rivers to me) and Buddhist temple in the
heart of the city.

I went to Yangzhou with Gay & John, who are a couple
from Melbourne teaching at the nurses' college here in
Yancheng. We met Cheryl and Lorraine in Yangzhou.
Cheryl is a NZ'er who teaches in Shanghai, but was in
Yancheng last year. It was a good weekend, but a very
quick trip. The bus there took 5 hours and we could
not leave until lunch time on Saturday, as Gay has
classes on Saturday morning.

Tomorrow, I am having most of the Australian expats
and some other foreigners over to my apartment to
watch the AFL grand final, which Nana taped and Mum
sent over for me. Although everyone knows the result,
we are strangely very excited about watching it! Gay
is bringing some Aussie sausages which she picked up
in Shanghai. It is not quite the same as a meat pie,
but will have to do!

So, as there is not much to tell you about the last
month or so, I will revert back to before my trip
home.

One of the Chinese teachers here asked me to teach a
group of Doctor's children for an hour on Sunday
evenings. I was a bit hesitant to do so, but in
typical me fashion, had a hard time refusing. So, now
I am teaching 8 Grade 1 Middle School Students. (This
is the equivalent to about Grade 7 or 8). The kids are
12 & 13, remembering though that they are 1 when they
are born.

Anyway, I was a bit worried about their level of
English, but they aren't too bad. I can't have a
meaningful conversation with them, but they can
understand my basic instruction and seem to have a
reasonable vocab. There are 2 girls and 6 boys. The
girls are lovely, but most of the boys are not really
interested and 2 of them are just plain little shits!

Thankfully, they all have English names and, even more
thankfully, their english names appear to be normal -
Judy, Anne, Steven, Robin, Tom, Bob and Bill.
Actually, I had to name one - Zac.

Anyway, the "mothers" hang out in the room next door
while I teach their little brats. At the end of the
lesson, the mothers come out and try to talk to me
through thier kids, usually the 2 girls try to do the
translation. They have invited me to dinner after the
class on the 19th and told me to bring along a friend
- to interpret, I think! I also managed to work out
that, if I am having a christmas party, they want to
be invited!

One of my students has a friend who is a teacher at
one of the middle schools. He graduated from this
college in June, so has only been teaching for a few
months. Anyway, he asked me to visit his school and
"teach" his classes. When I arrived, I had to walk up
some stairs to the office and all the kids were
hanging out over the railings of the stairs and the
balconies to get a look at me. I had the teacher and 2
of my students flanking me for protection. When I
walked into the classroom, the kids all applauded. I
felt like a movie star!

I spoke to his advanced class for about 30-40 minutes,
and then spent about 10 minutes with his other class,
and 2 classes run by another teacher. After each of
the first 2 classes, all of his students came up and
gave me presents! By the end, it felt a bit like
Christmas. It is difficult to describe the presents
the kids gave to me. Needless to say, they were mostly
very childlike gifts, but they are now adorning the
shelf on my dining room window!

Well, I have been typing this email for about an hour
now, so I must go. I have been asked to give a lecture
on Australia to the students of one of the Chinese
teachers. He has 6 classes, so that means 250 odd
students. However, apparently he has put a notice up
on campus advertising the lecture and is expecting
over 1000 students to attend! Shit!

By the way, it is my birthday in a few weeks. Yancheng
is such a wild and crazy city. I will be celebrating
my birthday with a few friends and students at KTV -
Karaoke TV!!!

Cheers