Western food!! Shanghai and Christmas in Yancheng

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all! Yes, I
know it is a bit late, but my internet connection went
down on Christmas day and has only been up and running
again for a few days. This is the way of it in China.
Up until a month ago, I had internet access through
the college network. Despite occassional network
failures, the reliability was not too bad. However,
apparently, someone decided that the foreign teachers
would no longer have access to the college network and
would put us on an ADSL link with China Telecom, for
which we would have to pay. Now, that is ok with me, I
don't mind paying for internet access (especially when
it only costs $5 for 50 hours), but the school just
neglected to tell us this and kicked us off the
network without any warning. So for several weeks I
was asking them about the internet access and kept
getting some cock and bull story about the cables
being changed. Eventually someone told me that I had
to buy a card and start paying for the internet
useage. Ok. But I still had to wait for the cables to
be changed - apparently. As it turns out, the cables
had been changed over a month ago and all it required
was downloading the ADSL link from a disk. This disk
had been left outside my door about a month ago, but
of course, it was in Chinese and I had no idea what it
was and nobody bothered to tell me! Anyway, I finally
got it sorted a few days ago and now I am back on
line.

So, where do I start? I guess the first thing is my
trip to Shanghai with Max and Betty. I was very
excited about this trip as, although I had been to
Shanghai 3 times, it was just to arrive at or depart
from the airport, and I had not actually seen anything
of Shanghai. By this time, I was hanging out for some
western food. As much as I like Chinese food, it is
sometimes quite frustrating when the question is
asked, "So, what do you want for dinner tonight?" And
the only response can be, "How about Chinese?"

So Max & I caught the bus on Thursday afternoon after
my classes finished. The trip takes about 4.5 hours.
We had booked into a budget hotel (separate rooms!),
which actually turned out to be quite clean and
comfortable. (Beds like a rock of course; they all
are!) We didn't get to the hotel until about 9:30pm,
but then wandered down to Nanjing Road, where all the
designer stores and foreign companies are located, and
dropped into a bar for a Guiness or two and a snack.
It was very refreshing to be spoken to in English.

Next day, we went to a cafe called "Element Fresh" on
Nanjing Road for breakfast. Ahh, poached eggs, decaf
coffee ... mmmm.

After breakfast, we walked all the way down Nanjing
Road (it is a bloody long road) to the Bund. In
Chinese, this is called "outer beach". But it is not a
beach. In fact, it is a very big, brown river. The
bund is a long, paved footpath along the river. It is
a very famous tourist spot, but I don't know why.
There are many colonial architectural style buildings
lining the bund, and I think this is why it is famous.
However, the Shanghai air around the bund area is very
polluted, so everything just looked grey and dismal. I
thought there would be lots of cafes and restaurants
along the bund, but there isn't. From here, you can go
through a tunnel under the river to the Pudong area
and the big, ugly Pearl TV tower on the other side,
but we chose not to.

From the bund, we walked to Old Shanghai. Now, this is
a good spot. In the times of British colonialism, Old
Shanghai was separated from Colonial Shanghai by a
ring wall and all the Chinese were shoved into this
area. The wall is no longer there, but a lot of the
old architecture still lines the narrow, winding alley
ways and it is a fascinating area to wander through.
In the middle of old Shanghai, there is a beautiful,
but touristy area called Yu Yuan, which is home to a
famous tea house (in which Lizzie has drunk tea) and
beautiful gardens dating back to the Ming dynasty.

Max & I sat in the tea house for about an hour,
sipping Yulong and Jasmine tea which had been prepared
according to an acient tea ceremony. It was very
tranquil.

By this time, We had to head out to the bus station to
pick up Betty.

That night, we went to an Italian restaurant called
"DeMarcos" and ate antipasto, pasta and drank red
wine. Afterwards, we went to a bar called 'Good
Fellas", which was serving free draught beer until
11:00pm as a Christmas gift. The bar was small and
dingy, but full of foreingers and at least playing
some recognisable English music.

Around 11pm, we caught a taxi to the bund as we had
been told it was better at night with all the neon
lights. When we got there, you could barely see the
tower or the lights through the mist and fog, so there
really wasn't much to see - again!

The next day, we went back to Element Fresh for
breakfast - mmm, bagels with cream cheese! We then
went to the foreign supermarket to pick up some
supplies. I bought some corn flakes and K-time
breakfast bars, and then stocked up on supplies to
make rum balls for Christmas!

Next, we walked to the international markets, but it
was so crowded and we were being harrassed so badly by
hawkers that we did not stay long.

So, we went back to Old Shanghai and sat through
another tea ceremony and sipped more tea, before going
into the Yu Yuan gardens, which were really beautiful.

Shanghai is a very big city, so there was a lot of
walking involved.

That night, we went to a Thai restaurant for dinner,
and after a short rest at the hotel, we then hit the
Pegasus night club. This was a bit of a dive; not many
people and only playing hip hop music; but we made the
most of it as it was Betty's first time to go to a
night club.

We left to return to Yancheng the next morning and
arrived back around lunch time. I then had to rush
around preparing my lesson for the hospital kid's that
night and also making rum balls as the kids and their
mothers were taking me out for Christmas dinner after
the class. They had invited me to bring a friend
(Betty) and Max (I don't know how they knew about Max,
but they specifically invited him).

So, the class that night was about Christmas, and I
tried to teach them a few Christmas Carols, which was
a bit of a fizzer, so I bribed them with rum balls
instead. After class, we went out to a hot pot
restaurant for dinner. The girls were well behaved, as
usual, but the boys were running amok and dangerously
throwing things into the boiling hot pot and climbing
in and out of windows in the private room we were in.
The kids and the mothers did lots of toasting to
teachers Meagan, Max & Wang Jian (Betty - although she
is my student, but has been promoted to teacher status
apparently) and through Betty they told me how
wonderful I am, that they want me to teach the kids
again after the winter holiday and that they would
raise my pay to 150 Yuan/hour.

The Shanghai trip and the christmas hot pot with the
hospital kids all happened on the weekend before
Christmas.

As you know, it is winter over here and the weather
had been steadily getting colder, so the winter coat,
thermals, gloves, beanie and scarf had been
progressively coming out of the suitcase. In the week
leading up to Christmas and between Christmas and New
Year, the temperature plummeted! Snow had been
forecast so I was hoping for a white Chritmas. Alas, I
did not get it. I did get a lot of ice though!

On Wednesday 22nd, my friend Diane (who had done the
TESOL course with me in June/July) arrived in Yancheng
to teach at a private language school for a month. I
had helped her to get the job. That night, the
teacher's college held a Christmas banquet for us. At
the banquet, we were taught how to hand make dumplings
and spring rolls, which were later cooked and served
to us to eat. There was a camera crew from the local
tv station at the banquet and they interviewed me
while I was making dumplings. (They had interviewed
Max earlier that day when he was giving me my Chinese
lesson!) So now Max & I are even more infamous in
Yancheng as we have appeared on the local tv station!
Unfortunately, neither of us have seen our star
performances.

After the banquet, we went back to the school for a
"party". This invovled singing karaoke - of course!
The Chinese love their karaoke. So the foreigners got
together to sing a few Christmas carols. The leaders
of the school really wanted us to sing karaoke, but
there were not many songs with English subtitles to
choose from. So, Max & I eventually got up to sing
"Always on my Mind" by Elvis Presley but the English
lyrics were really bad and we did not know the words.
We were concentrating on trying to sing along with the
lyrics when I decided to look at the screen and I
noticed that the video footage was a scene from the
movie "The English Patient". But as I watched, it
suddenly dawned on me that it was the sex scene from
the movie! And it was quite a raunchy one at that! Oh
my God - cover the screen!

The school gave the foreign teachers the Thursday and
Friday off for Christmas. (I don't have classes on
Friday anyway). So, on Thursday, Max & I went to the
bazaar and bought a tiny, pathetic little plastic
Christmas tree with some dodgy lights and a few
pathetic ornaments.

On Christmas eve, Max, Betty & I went with other
foreigners, Piers (and his Chinese friend Lizzie) and
Rachel to Da Zhong lake about an hour from Yancheng.
Piers has a friend in the tourist bureau who invited
us along and told him that there would be a big
Christmas banquet and free accommodation at the lake.
So we spent a very cold afternoon walking around the
lake, visiting the pagoda and temple, playing in the
peddle boats, riding tandem bicycles etc. The banquet
that evening turned out to be a bbq inside a rotunda.
It was freezing so all the doors and windows were
shut, and the smoke from the 20 or so stone bbqs was
thick and suffocating. There were perhaps 80 people at
the Christmas bbq - Max, Piers, Rachel & I being the
only foreigners. Everyone was given santa hats and
there was a very dodgy, thin as a rake, Chinese santa
clause. When we first arrived they were playing very
strange techno half-English; half-Chinese Christmas
carols. Most of the entertainment involved the guests
getting up to sing karaoke, although we did play some
games like balloon volleyball and a type of charades,
and we also saw a Gong Fu (Kung fu) display. The hosts
insisted that the foreigners sing a song, so we all
got on the stage and sung jingle bells.

Afterwards, there was some dancing and then, in
typical Chinese fashion, there must have been
something that signalled the end of the entertainment,
and all the Chinese disappeared suddenly. So we
foreigners and our Chinese friends were left in the
rotunda, surrounded by rubbish, and wondering where
our hotel was located.

To our suprise, the accommodation was brought to us in
the rotunda. Tents and sleeping bags! My God! The
temperature had to be at least 5 below zero (even in
the rotunda) and we were going to be sleeping in
tents! We didn't have much option, so we spent
Christmas eve shivering in our sleeping bags in our
tents which were set up on the dance floor in the
rotunda! To make matters worse, the toilets were
outside, about 100 metres away! It was certainly a
unique way to spend Christmas eve!

The next morning, we got up to find that the lake had
iced over during the night, so we spent half an hour
sliding bricks and rocks along the ice. We had a late
noodle breakfast before heading back to Yancheng.

I spent the rest of Christmas day curled up under the
quilt in bed, watching DVDs with Betty. It was warm
and nice!

On Christmas night, Max & I met a group of foreigners
at the Yueda hotel for a "traditional" Christmas
dinner. We were met in the hotel lobby by some young
girls dressed all in white, looking like angels, and
singing Christmas carols around candles shaped like a
love heart. Unfortunately, they had only learned 2
Christmas carols which were just sung on repeat for
about half an hour.

We then headed up to the banquet hall. There must have
been 200-300 people at the Christmas banquet. In true
Chinese style, everyone got stuck into the buffet
straight away. To our delight, there was actually a
real turkey and ham, although it did not come with the
usual condiments and accompaniments. The rest of the
buffet was mostly identifiable Chinese dishes.

The entertainment was not particularly Christmasy.
There were no Christmas carols etc. There were several
singers & performers - Chinese love songs, pop, folk,
opera, modern dance, latin dance, gong fu, a young boy
playing a saxaphone and, of course, we played games.
Max & I got dragged up on stage once again to join in
the games.

Then, at 9:30pm, there must have been some signal that
the entertainment was over, as all the Chinese
suddenly departed and the foreigners were left sitting
at their table on their own, cradling their beers.

So that was it for Christmas in Yancheng. I still have
to tell you about my birthday and New Year's Eve, but
I think I have developed a repetitive strain injury
from typing, so I will leave that until later.

Bye for now.