National Day Holiday, Qingdao and Dentists!

Yes, it's me again, with more tales from China.

China's national day is on 1 October and the school has 7 days off for
the national day holiday. I took the opportunity to travel to Qingdao
(pronounced Chingdow) in Shandong province to visit friends there.
Actually, I travelled to this city earlier this year, in May, but I
don't think I sent an email about my travels that time. Anyway, I will
write more about Qingdao later.

Firstly, let me tell you about the concept of a Chinese "holiday". The
school gives the students a "7 day holiday" for national day. National
day this year fell on a Saturday, so the 7 day holiday starts from
Saturday, 1 October. However, what I don't understand is how Saturday
and Sunday can be considered part of the "holiday" when there are
usually no classes on weekends. Furthermore, there are classes scheduled
for this weekend to "make-up" Thursday and Friday classes. So, in
reality, it is a 3 day holiday!

In any event, I was not officially told about the make-up classes over
the weekend, although I suspected this might be the case and had heard
some rumblings about it from the other foreign teachers. But I was not
told which days were to be "made-up" and I didn't bother to inquire. I
received a phone call from Alex in the foreign affairs department this
morning asking me if I have classes today. I told him "no". He said that
today I should be teaching Thursday's classes, and I told him that I had
not been given this information so I would not be teaching until Monday.
He didn't seem to care much. I think he was just told he had to call me,
but it didn't surprise him when I told him I would not be doing the
classes this weekend. (I only have to teach each class 16 times in the
semester. If I run out of time, I will arrange make-up classes to fit in
with my students during the week. Afterall, the poor students don't want
to spend their weekends in classes either!)

So, from Monday, I am no longer a lady of leisure (well, not as much as
I have been recently at least) and will start my full class load. I have
not taught a full class load since mid June, so I am a bit out of
practice.

You might recall that last year I emailed you about some of the
interesting English names the students have. Well, new city, new school.
The best one is QQ Tang, but I need to explain this one. In China, there
is an internet instant messenger service called QQ which has a penguin
as its mascot. So the penguin is known as QQ. In addition, there is a
chewy jelly sweet, known as QQ Tang, which also uses the same penguin
mascot. So, basically, this girl has named herself after the lolly.
There are many flavours, so I have been meaning to ask her which flavour
she is!

Although they are not my students, I have met two boys who go by the
names Island and Jet Li. Apparently, Island is the name of an American
basketball player, although I have never heard of him. (The Chinese are
mad about NBA). Jet Li is a Chinese martial arts movie star. This is his
English name. You may have heard of him, or seen him in movies like
"Hero", or his latest one which was in the cinema when I was home,
"Unleashed". (In some countries, the movie is called "Danny the Dog").

As for my students, so far, remembering that I only have 3 classes at
this stage, I have - Voper, Peak, Asir (he pronounces it Arser), Halley
(as in the comet, a boy), Star, Ruijen, Brain (yes, Brain, not Brian),
Icecream, Pallas, Lansing, Catherick, Blue Angel, Queenie, Saintess and
Cha Cha. I think, sometimes, they might not know how to spell the names
properly as I also have some students who have a very unusual spelling
of their English name.

I think I told you in my last email that I bought a bike. Island and Jet
Li helped me to buy it. I have been having fun riding around town. It is
completely flat here, so it is not very difficult. I cannot do much
sightseeing while I am riding though, as the traffic is completely
chaotic and I have to spend most of my energy on concentrating on the
road. There are no such things as bike helmets in China, and, whilst
technically illegal, it is a common past time to dink someone around on
the back of your bike. So I have been reliving my childhood dinking
Betty around on the back of my bike.

Talking about Betty, she has had pain and swelling with one of her
wisdom teeth for the last 3-4 months. It seems that, in China, the
standard treatment for any illness from the common cold, to headaches,
tooth ache, or really any illness of any description is to give the
patient an intravenous (IV) drip. I am not sure what the medication is
in the bottle, or whether the medication varies depending on the nature
of the illness. Whenever one is sick, s/he heads off to the nearest
hospital or clinic and sits in a drip room for a few hours with an IV
stuck in his/her arm. Yes, they actually have drip rooms where, at any
one time, you can see anywhere from 1 - 20 or 30 patients sitting in a
chair with a drip tube attached to their arm and the bottle hanging on a
rail above their head. I think it might be a social outlet for some! I
wish I had a photo to show you. Next time Betty is sick I will have to
remember to take my camera.

Anyway, over the last few months, everytime Betty has had some pain and
swelling she has had a drip over a course of 2 or 3 days. She was
getting a bit sick and tired of this so she decided to have the tooth
out 2 weeks ago. I was lucky enough to accompany her to the dentist and
witness the most primitive dentistry methods you can imagine. It was an
absolute butcher job. Whilst the dentist did apparently give her some
local anaesthetic around the tooth, it obviously did not do the job and
I had to listen to her screaming in pain as this butcher yanked out her
tooth with what looked like a pair of kitchen pliers. It certainly makes
me glad that I had my root canal surgery in Australia before I left!!

After that gruesome story, I had better tell you a nice one that
involves some pampering. Betty has a friend who owns a beauty salon, so
we go there once a week for a facial and massage. It is a nice way to
relax. And so cheap! I have paid 700 yuan (about $110) to buy French
facial products. But the 700 yuan also gets me a 1 hour facial and head,
neck, arm and shoulder massage each week for 8 months! So that is about
$14 a month for the products and 4 treatments/month. Not bad, eh??

Now, about that national day holiday. I had decided to visit my friends,
Agung and Xiao Xiao, in Qingdao. Whilst I have already been there, it is
a great city and worth a second look. Especially when friends live
there. Also, Betty came with me and she has not been there before.

But the first test was to buy train tickets. As most people have a 7 day
holiday for national day, there is a dramatic increase in the number of
public transport users over this period. So, during her lunch break,
Betty and I took the bus out to the train station to buy tickets. The
local bus takes about half an hour to get to the train station which is
on the outskirts of the city. When we got there, the line was huge.
(Surprisingly, there was actually an orderly queue, which is most
unusual for China.) We were standing in line for 15-20 minutes when
Betty saw a notice on the ticket window which said that they weren't
selling long distance train tickets until after 2:30pm. Of course, she
had to be back at school by then, so we could not wait. We talked about
coming back that evening to buy tickets, but we didn't know until what
time the ticket office was open. Betty tried to ask a couple of people
who looked like they worked for the train station, but it obviously
wasn't thier job to sell tickets, so they were not prepared to give an
answer and just grunted and pointed in the direction of the ticket
window!!

So, instead of possibly another wasted trip to the train station that
evening, I decided to ask Island to take me to the train station the
next afternoon, after 2:30pm. We were faced with another long queue, and
this time there were a few people pushing in and crowding around the
ticket window. I discussed this social problem with Island and he said
that the people who push in are of "low quality". (This was a bit
concerning, as I have witnessed Betty "pushing in" on occasions. Do I
have a friend of low quality??) Anyway, I suggested to Island that if
the "high quality" people wanted to improve this problem, then they
should not let the low quality people push in and should say something
to them. He gave me one of those indulgent nods, as if to say, "silly
foreigner, what good would that do but make me lose face?"

Eventually, he was able to buy me 2 tickets to Qingdao for the Sunday.
It would, of course, be convenient if you could actually buy a return
ticket, but that concept proves a little difficult for the Chinese to
comprehend. Why wouldn't you want to stand for hours with throngs of
people waiting to buy a return ticket at the other end??

Given that we could not get tickets for the Saturday, which was national
day, I decided to go for a ride to the new park which had opened a few
weeks earlier. Betty had to go home that day to spend some time with her
family before going to Qingdao, so I invited Island to come with me. He
borrowed a bike from a friend and we rode to the park and spent a few
hours wondering around.

It is quite a huge park which features a big, man-made lake in the
middle. Apparently it was built for the Garden Exhibition which was held
in Huaian this year and was part of the mid-autumn festival celebrations
a few weeks ago. (Remember, I had to do a solo public singing
performance for the mid-autumn festival).

At one end of the lake there was a rather unusual feature, a man-made
red rock canyon type thing. All artificial of course. When I knocked on
the 'rock", I heard a hollow, plaster-casting sort of sound. There
appeared to be some sort of pagoda at the top of the canyon, so we tried
to walk up through the canyon to get to this high point. However, it
became apparent that the canyon was still under construction and we
could not actually reach the high point this way. That did not seem to
stop many hundreds of Chinese people, including my friend, from trying
to go through areas which were clearly incomplete and quite dangerous.
At one point, we walked from the light into a dark "cave". Of course, we
could not see anything and in the few seconds it took for my eyes to
adjust to the dark, I nearly walked off the edge of the incompleted
staircase and into a deep abyss of scaffolding which was holding up the
"canyon". There was nothing and no-one to stop people wandering into
this trap. It was at that point I decided to abandon the quest for the
high point of the park.

Apart from this death trap, the rest of the park was quite nice to spend
a few hours wandering around, although it will take some time for the
trees, which have obviously only recently been planted, to grow.

So, the next day, after lunch, Betty and I set off for Qingdao. The 8
hour train journey was pretty uneventful. The train was pretty full, but
not overcrowded, so we did not have to fight for our seats. (We had
allocated seats, but sometimes you have to throw others, who have only
bought standing tickets, out of your seat). The seats are
(thinly) padded bench seat style, so not particularly comfortable over 8
hours. We arrived in Qingdao around 9:00pm and caught a taxi to my
friends' place where we would be staying.

Qingdao is a reasonably large, modern city on the coast. It is famous
for 4 things - Laoshan (Old Mountain), beaches, German architecture, and
it is the home of Tsingtao (also pronounced Chingdow) beer. This city
was a German concession after the Opium wars in the late 19th century.
(This was around the same time when Hong Kong was ceded to Britain for a
99 year lease). The Germans occupied the city up until the Japanese
invasion in 1937. During their occupation, the Germans built the
Tsingtao brewery and started brewing this beer, which is China's most
famous beer. There is also a huge Catholic cathedral and a lot of
European style architecture. It is a very interesting city, looking very
European in some parts, but clearly Chinese in others.

The weather was a bit miserable on the Monday, so we just went for a
walk along the beach near my friends' home and joined in with many
others trying to catch tiny crabs among the rocks. We had lunch at home
and then in the afternoon we spent a couple of hours at karaoke, a
favourite Chinese past time, visited a big book store and then went to
the New York bar for some expensive drinks and western music played by a
Philipino band.

The weather was good the next day, so Betty and I spent the morning on
our own exploring the old city and the main beaches. In the afternoon,
we met my friends at a park which featured many different styles of rope
bridges, flying foxes etc. We spent a few hours testing our skills and
strength on these activities. Whilst it was fun, I'm afraid it did not
come close to comparing with the adventure activities in Africa.
However, I was a bit pissed when the attendant would not let me go on
the flying fox. It was one of those ones where you just hold on to the
bar without any sort of harness, but there was a big net to catch you if
you fell off. The guy was trying to tell me something and when I
couldn't understand he spat the dummy and wouldn't let me on. Betty was
already over the other side by that stage so there was no-one to
translate for me. She seems to think that he didn't want to be
responsible for a foreigner getting hurt!! How to explain to this guy
that I have done a 58 metre free fall and then swung out over the
Victoria falls gorge strapped to my father, so I am sure I can handle a
tiny weeny flying fox???

After the park, we headed into Taidong, which is the modern shopping and
eating district of Qingdao. Agung wanted to take us to this little
restaurant he knew for some rouchuan (pronounced row-chwan - bbq meat on
a stick). We gorged ourselves on bbq bacon (yummy - a meat which you
cannot get outside the major cities), pork, lamb, prawns, octupus, etc.
There were a few weird ones as well - octupus mouth, knee ligaments,
elbow tendons ... that sort of stuff. I didn't think much of these last
ones, really just like eating gristle. Oh, Qingdao is also famous for
seafood as well. It is interesting just walking along and looking at all
the weird and wonderful sea life on display - fish, shell fish, eels,
sea slugs, sea snails, various types of sea plants, etc. Most of it does
not appeal to me to eat, but interesting to look at.

The next day we went to Laoshan for the day. On my last trip to Qingdao
in May, I had also done a trip to Laoshan, but it was the closest
section which has a climb up to a ruined temple and views out over the
ocean. The part we went to this time, was further away from the coast
and had scenic walks along the creek with rock pools and waterfalls. It
was very beautiful and would be a peaceful place to spend some time
outside of the holidays. Unfortunately, we had to stand for an hour on
an overcrowded bus to get there and then the paths were crowded with
people as well. Still, it was beautiful and a nice way to spend the day.
We took the walks slowly and rested quite a bit. At various points, we
stopped to sample local fruit which was delicious. At another point, we
stopped to sample another local delicacy called Liang Fen. It is some
type of sea plant which looks like jelly fish and is served like jelly,
in a bowl, with some pickled vegetables and raw radish. The plant itself
was tasteless. I'll put that one on my list of "have tried but need not
try again".

We had to stand in an overcrowded bus for an hour on the way back to.
Now, when I say overcrowded, I really mean packed in like sardines! The
best part of the day though was watching the people try to get a seat on
the bus. As the bus was pulling up, there were crowds of people running
along side it trying to position themselves close to the doors to be the
first ones on the bus. The bus was still moving and I am surprised that
no-one fell and got caught under the wheels of the bus. Once it stopped
and the doors opened, there was pushing and shoving and yelling and
screaming as everyone tried to force themselves onto the bus. There were
women and children crying from being squashed and trampled. It was quite
a scene. I took a movie of the crowd surging toward me as the bus was
approaching. I tried to push and shove a little myself, but gave up
after a few seconds as it was clear I was not going to out muscle any of
the Chinese who have a certain in-built desperation when it comes to
mounting public transport.

That evening, my friends invited other friends over for dinner, an
American and his Korean wife. There was a mixture of Chinese, Korean and
western food on offer - pork dumplings, BBQ chicken dumplings, tuna
salad biscuit sandwiches, pumpkin soup and Korean style sushi.

And the next morning it was all over. Another 8 hour train ride back to
Huaian.

Well, that's it for another chapter. You are now up to date with my life
in China.