Nightmare bus journeys and public karaoke

It has been an interesting couple of weeks since my last update. I am slightly busier than when I last emailed, although my work load is not too taxing yet! I have been given another 2 classes (4 periods) at the College of Information Technology. So, I am now teaching 3 classes a week. But this will increase to 9 classes (18 periods) in a couple of weeks.

I told you about the foreigners in my last email. I will send some photos in a separate email so you can check them out. The only addition to the foreigners at this school is Mr Yamamoto, a 60 something Japanese teacher. Last Sunday, the foreigners gathered at a coffee lounge. Apart from the ones I mentioned in my last email, there are two other teachers at the teachers college - Mark, an American in his late 50's and Alex, an early 20's Londoner.

On Sunday night, I met Irish Mark and American Bill (young guys in their early-mid 20's) at a bar and then we went on to a dance club where they had arranged to meet some girls. They both seem only interested in going to the bars every weekend and picking up Chinese girls, and the less English they speak the better, apparently. I was in the middle of saying something to Bill when he leaned across me and started hitting on a Chinese girl with his very limited Chinese. How rude! But then, he corrected my English 3 times. I told him that I could speak English and did not need him to correct me and to save it for his Chinese girls.

As I have had a lot of time on my hands, and not much to do with said time, I decided to go on a trip to Shanghai last week. I have an Australian friend who has married a Chinese girl and they needed my help in applying for a visa for her to immigrate to Australia. So I arranged to meet them in Shanghai for a few days.

I set off last Wednesday at lunch time. I got myself to the bus station and purchased my ticket without incident. When I purchased the ticket I said "kuai che" (pronounced kwhy chur) which means "express bus". The ticket seller nodded and said "dui" ( dway) which means correct. The ticket cost 150 yuan ($24) which is pretty expensive for a bus ticket, so I was pretty confident I was on the express bus to Shanghai.

I boarded the bus and had the pick of seats as there were only a handful of passengers. It was quite a good bus with reasonable leg room. (In China, there are varying standards of buses and the price of the ticket is supposed to reflect the standard of the bus, and also whether it is an express or a milk run bus). I had been told that the trip from Huaian to Shanghai should take around 5 hours, only slightly longer than the trip from my old city of Yancheng to Shanghai.

Well, 7 hours later I finally arrived in Shanghai. Although the bus was supposed to be express, because it was not full, the driver took all the small roads around all the small towns (the milk run) trying to pick up passengers. So for 2 hours we drove around and around picking up passengers until the bus was about 3/4's full. Finally, we entered the express way to Shanghai, and that was the start of the 5 hour trip!

I had planned to be at my hotel by 6 to meet another friend, Rose, for dinner around 6:30pm. It was obvious I was not going to make it. To make matters worse, it became plainly obvious to me that this bus was not headed to the bus station. I started to get a bit worried, because I did not know where the bus was going to end up. The driver pulled up about 5 times to let people off on the side of the road. (It seems that if passengers are picked up illegally; ie, they do not buy a ticket at the bus station, then they must also be dropped off illegally; ie, on the side of the road before the bus gets to the final destination).

At around 7:15pm, there were only a handful of passengers left on the bus again. They were all shouting and conversing with the bus driver and I think they were negotiating with him as to where they wanted to be dropped off. I, of course, could not communicate my desire to go to the bus station, so I decided to call Rose and ask her to talk to one of the passengers to try to find out where we were headed and when we would get there. So I called Rose with my mobile and then held out the phone to a passenger. He just looked at me and said "shenme?" (what?), so I said "shuo, shuo" (talk, talk) and shook the phone in his face. He eventually got the idea and spoke to Rose. He told her we were headed to a stadium and would arrive there in another 10 minutes. The bus finally arrived at the stadium at 7:30pm and then I had to get a taxi to the hotel to meet Rose; not necessarily an easy thing to do as it is difficult to get taxis to stop on major roads in Shanghai, and then they won't necessarily take you if your destination is in a different direction to where they want to go. I managed to get the 3rd taxi to take me and finally got to the hotel around 8pm.

As you can imagine, I was pretty tired and frustrated by this stage, but calmed down when I met a familiar face. Rose and I then went out for a nice, albeit a late, dinner.

The next morning I met my friends, Agung and Xiao Xiao, and we went to the Australian consulate. However, I was not allowed in with them. They had to go in first and prove to the authorities that they needed me, before I was allowed in. So I had to wait in the hallway for nearly an hour; no seats; nothing; just dirty carpet and lots of people coming and going. I was a bit pissed, being an Australian citizen and all. The least they could do is have some chairs and a waiting room! Anyway, I eventually got in to the "interrogation" room. I had previously signed a statutory declaration regarding their relationship and the "interrogators" just needed to check that I was a real person.

After the consulate, we went to a buffet restaurant called "Vegas" which is based on the Las Vegas casino buffets. The food was mostly Chinese style rather than western food though. At lunch, I asked my friends to help me buy a bus ticket on an express bus to Huaian the next day. So, Xiao Xiao made some phone calls and purchased a ticket for me on an airconditioned sleeper bus. The ticket was delivered to the hotel. Strangely, the ticket price was only 84 yuan (plus a delivery charge), which was cheaper than the ticket I had bought.

That evening we went to a German restaurant & bar with a friend of theirs. The friend's English name is Olivier (pronounced the French way). He is Chinese but has lived in Paris for a long time, so he speaks English with a French accent. Very strange. The accent, not the person. The bar was good and it had a great Phillipino band singing American rock, pop and latin songs. The beer was great; strong German beer, rather than weak, watery Chinese beer. It was very expensive though; 68 yuan ($10) for a pint. That is compared to 2 yuan (30 cents) for a tallie at my local. Fortunately though, in the typical Chinese way, Olivier invited us so he took care of the bill.

Next morning, Agung and Xiao Xiao took me to the bus station. Although we had been assured the bus was an express and would only take 5 hours, I decided to play it safe and leave early as I had to be back in Huaian for a banquet at 6pm.

Well, it was pretty obvious when I boarded the bus that it was not going to meet expectations. Firstly, it was not a sleeper bus (which is a bus with reclining bed seats for long or overnight journeys). Secondly, it was one of those very cramped buses where you have to use yoga techniques just to be able to get into the seat, and once you are in there, you are wedged into place by the back of the seat in front of you. The seats were covered in grey vinyl.

At least the bus was almost full. I thought to myself that, "although it is going to be uncomfortable, at least there is no room to fit any other passengers so there will be no milk run". Ah, but how wrong I was. This is China afterall! We had been going no more than 2 minutes, and we were just around the corner from the bus station, when the bus pulled over and about 20 people piled on. They were all pushing and shoving and yelling and carrying on. It was a cacophony of noise that not even my IPOD could drown out. It seems that the driver had done a dodgy deal with these people before coming to the bus station. Their bags were already on board and they created a mighty ruckus trying to push and shove their way through the crowd to find their bags. "Where are they all going to sit" I thought to myself. The answer - on tiny plastic stools in the aisle.

After about 10 minutes we were on our way again. We took the express way out of Shanghai, but it was not long before we left the express way again and we were back on the milk run. By 11am, the bus was really hotting up. If the bus had airconditioning, it was not working very well. I was starting to perspire, which makes those vinyl covered seats really comfy!

Anyway, 6 and a quarter hours later, and after being stopped by the police and fined for having illegal passengers, I finally made it back to Huaian. I am a bit reluctant to travel by bus to Shanghai again, but I have been assured that there are express buses which do not pick up illegal passengers, it is just a matter of finding the right bus company!

Fortunately, I made it back in time for the dinner that night. The foreign affairs department of my school invited the foreign teachers to dinner to welcome them. There is nothing much to tell you about the banquet. It was pretty quiet.

After dinner, we went back to Change's place for a jam session. Let me explain. We had been invited to attend a banquet, the next night, put on by the Huaian city government for the mid-autumn or moon festival. We had also been asked to perform at the dinner. The Chinese love karaoke and it is not unusual for there to be singing and other performances after a big banquet. All the foreigners in Huaian were invited to this banquet, and invited to perform.

So, the HIT teachers decided to sing a couple of songs. Glen and Roger play guitar, Change plays drum (native style drums), Jennifer plays the flute and Joe and I were the "back up" singers. I found out that Roger is actually a former musician (he is now a writer) and apparently achieved some fame in Australia, although it was a bit before my time. His name is Roger Wells and he was the singer/song writer for a local Melbourne rock band called "Little Heroes". Apparently the band had a hit with a song called "One perfect day". Do you know him?

Anyway, Roger, Glen and Change decided to do a song written by Roger called "Open up your heart". Then the whole group would do "Leaving on a jet plane". We did a couple of practice runs and we thought we sounded pretty good in the confines of the apartment.

The next night we were taken by minibus to an international hotel where we had dinner with the city foreign affairs officials. All the foreign teachers were there, including a young couple from the UK who had just arrived and are teaching at a middle school. Katie and Nick from London; they are 21.

We were told that the performance would be somewhere else, so we had 25 minutes to wolf down the banquet. So all the dishes were bought out at once. I will send a photo. We were then taken in a bus to another hotel where we "had a rest" before the performance. Then we were ushered out of the hotel and we thought we were being put back on the bus again. Actually, we were escorted across the road to an outdoor stage that had been set up outside KFC right smack in the middle of downtown. Oh great; a public performance! (I will send a movie).

The officials had cordoned off an area in front of the stage and we were escorted to tables in this area. There were thousands of local people crowded around the cordoned off area, all gawking at the spectacle of a group of foreigners sitting down to a little party in front of KFC. The performance went for about an hour and a half and there were many Chinese performers as well as the foreigners. The young American, Bill, played the harmonica and then played the guitar and sang "Norwegian Wood". The young London couple sang "Yesterday", and the American from the teachers college sang a song called "Internationale", which was partly in Chinese and partly in English.

We were one of the last performances. The problem, of course, is that we had 4 people playing instruments and 2 people singing, with only 3 microphones and the great outdoor expanse. We were also competing with the noise of the traffic in the main downtown area. So, we set Glen and Change up on one microphone, Roger and Joe on the 2nd microphone, and I had the 3rd microphone. Jennifer had no microphone for her flute. Luckily I could hear Glen playing the guitar next to me so I had my cue when to sing and Roger and Joe followed me. Unluckily, the only thing the crowd could hear was me. Lucky them! So in the end it was basically a solo karaoke performance by me for thousands of nameless, faceless Chinese.

To make things worse, there were photographers and cameras all over the place. They were filming it for the local tv station. Thankfully, they did not tell us when it was being televised so we have not had to put ourselves through the torture of watching ourselves on television. But we did make the front page of the local newspaper - a big photo of the london couple and a smaller one of our group with me out front singing away. Got to love China!

The next day was the mid-autumn festival. This festival has something to do with the moon, which is always full on the day of the festival. Like chinese new year, it is a time to spend with your family and eat traditional moon cakes. These are a round pastry cake things stuffed with all sorts of things - you might get red bean paste, nuts, fruit ... or even beef. Yes, a beef cake; not a pie, but a sweet beef cake thingy. Personally, apart from the occasional one which tastes ok, I think they are pretty revolting.

Anyway, Betty invited me to her home town (about 20 kilometres from the city) to have lunch with her family. I don't know if this is typical of most Chinese families, but her family is not very affectionate. They don't even seem to greet each other, let alone hug or kiss. And whilst Betty is expected to come home for the festival and have a big lunch "with the family", her father was at the table for about 5 minutes and then took his food into his room to watch a tv program and her brother stuffed his face as quickly as possible and then just got up and left without saying anything. Very strange.

After lunch, Betty convinced her father to let me drive his car around town for awhile. She started to direct me to a lake somewhere on the outskirts of the town, but we hit a dirt road which was very muddy and cut up from recent rains. We drove a few kilometres down this road, but then decided to turn back as the road was too cut up and I was concerned about getting her father's car stuck in the mud. Betty was worried about how dirty the car was from the mud and she didn't want to make her father angry. So we drove the car back to her Aunty's place, drove it into her courtyard and tried to wash it down with water and a cloth. Her aunty came home and saw what we were doing. She said there was a place down the road with a pressure hose where we could wash the car. So the 3 of us piled into the car and drove back to the this little shack on the outskirts of town which sells petrol in used coke bottles. The lady of the shack used the pressure hose to wash down the car. The locals, who had probably never seen a foreigner before, all came out to watch the spectacle. We then took the car back to Betty's aunty's place and dried it off with cloths. Her father never knew!

Later that afternoon, Betty's father drove us back into the city. However, he told Betty I could drive. Betty's dad is a kind-hearted man, but very quick to anger. I was so nervous, driving his car with him in the front seat, not to mention the crazy, eratic driving, the bad roads and driving on the opposite side of the road. Anyway, I apparently did a good job, except for missing a turn off and then turning on a red light. Ooops!

On Wednesday I bought a bicycle. One of my students arranged for 2 of her male friends to help me. Their names - Island and Jet Li. They took me to the 2nd hand bike market and we tried out a few different bikes. I ended up buying a Giant (which is a good brand) for 280 yuan ($45). Again, I drew quite a crowd who were watching me test ride the bikes. And then, before they would let me leave, the shop owners insisted that I sing them a song! So, I did a brief reprisal of "Leaving on a Jet Plane" and I was allowed to leave.

Well, that pretty much keeps you up to date. I have a trip to Qingdao planned for the national day holiday in the first week of October. Yes, I have holidays already. Anyway, I am sure there will be another instalment after that trip.

Bye for now. Take Care.