Bike Rides & Public Showers

There isn't all that much to tell you this time. Things have pretty much
settled down into daily routine now. I am teaching my full schedule now
and also having private Chinese lessons 3 times a week.

I find teaching much easier this year. I guess this is partly due to the
fact that I am more experienced now. I also have some lesson plans which
I can fall back on, rather than having to make lessons up each time. But
the main reason is that I am only teaching oral English classes this
year, whilst last year I was teaching Audio-visual and Writing as well.
These subjects were more time consuming than oral English classes. In AV
classes, I had to preview all the movies and prepare things like scene
summaries and new vocab, etc. The writing classes were just boring, and
marking essays and written compositions was extremely time consuming.
So, all in all, I am enjoying teaching more this year.

I can't let this email go without mentioning a few more English names.
There is a girl called Man and a boy called Fay. One boy has called
himself James Bond 007, but I am allowed to just call him Bond. Summer
and Winter are best friends who sit next to each other in class. When
they introduced themselves to me, I asked the next 2 girls whether they
were Spring and Autumn. Shmily is a name I still have difficulty
pronouncing. Apparently, she derived this name from the first letter in
each of the following words - "See how much I love you". It is
pronounced something like Emily, but with an Sh at the beginning instead
of an E. Last year I had an Iceman, this year I have an Ice and an
Icecream, both girls. Dochel, Hill and Weallie are somewhat unusual
names for girls, and I have boys named Blue and Three. Mickey and Minnie
are good friends in one class.

Surprisingly, I don't have much fruit this year. No apples, pears,
lemons, cherrys. Just one Peach. I do have some weather, earth and sky
names though- Sun, Star, Snow, Water, Rainy, and, of course, the seasons
I have already mentioned.

All but one of my classes are first year students. The other class is
2nd year students, but they major in International Trade rather than
English. Having said that, their English is pretty good.

I teach the International Trade students at the main campus, where I
live. The English majors live at the southern campus which is a half
hour bus ride from here. So most of my classes are at the new campus,
which means I can no longer get up 10 minutes before the class and still
make it to the class on time! Unfortunately, it also means that I rarely
see any of my students outside of class like I did at my last school.
Whilst sometimes it is nice not to be bothered, at other times I miss
the attention.

A few weeks ago, Irish Mark had a party at his place. He told the
foreign teachers to bring some Chinese people to the party. I took 11
people with me, including Betty and her colleague, Rain, Lizzy (from
Yancheng) and her friend, Shelly, and 7 of my International Trade
students. Lucky I did take all of those people with me, or it would not
have been much of a party! There were only about 8 other Chinese people
there, plus 7 other foreigners.

Anyway, there was plenty of red wine and beer. Too much really, because
hardly any of the Chinese people drink. There was no food though and my
students were a bit surprised by the lack of snacks so they went out and
bought popcorn, chocolate and chestnuts. Irish Mark asked me whether I
had forgotten to tell them that there is no food at western parties. I
hadn't forgotten, I just didn't know! Obviously the Americans and the
Irish do parties differently to Australians, because there is always
food or snacks at parties I have been to!

Irish Mark's apartment is quite interesting. It is on the ground floor
and the kitchen is separated from the rest of the apartment by an open
air courtyard. He set up fairy lights around the courtyard and played
music from his laptop which he set up in the kitchen. Many of the
foreigners play instruments so they had a bit of a jam session first -
Change on bongo drum, Glen and American Mark on guitar and Bill on
guitar and harmonica. After the live music, Bill put on some salsa music
and tried to get all the Chinese to dance the salsa. They were a bit shy
at first, but most of them did end up joining in and having fun.

Unfortunately, not long after 10pm, the lights and the music went dead.
Apparently we were a bit noisy and were upsetting others in the
building, so the building manager cut the power to Mark's apartment.
There were no warnings and no explanations. The power was just cut off.
So, once the music and lights died, the party sort of fizzled out. Most
of my students had to be back for curfew by 11pm anyway. The older
foreigners went home and the younger ones and a few non-student Chinese
went on to the dance club nearby. (Yes, I do include myself in the
"younger" foreigner category!)

I have been enjoying my bike rides around Huaian. Actually, whilst you
could never describe this city as being beautiful, there are certainly
some very interesting and somewhat pretty parts. This city is on the
"disused" Yellow River. That is, many moons ago, this river used to be
part of the Yellow river system (the yellow river being one of the big
rivers in China), but over time the river "moved" and so it is now
called the "disused" or "abandoned" (direct translation from the Chinese
word) river. Anyway, the river is, surprisingly, quite clean, although
brown. And there are also many small rivers or canals throughout the
city. The rivers and canals in Yancheng were filthy, smelly, polluted
things, so this is a nice change. Also, the local government have
developed pathways and walks along the river, so it can be quite
pleasant.

I have been going out for a long ride most weekends and some afternoons
(which is possible because I don't really work all that hard over
here!). There are some really nice tree-lined streets which, again, is
different from Yancheng, although while I was living there, they were
trying to "green" the city. I have also been visiting some nice parks
and gardens, where I can go for a walk and read a book. I need to make
the most of this now though as the weather is already starting to get
quite cold and it won't be long before this activity will become quite
unpleasant!

I also ride my bike out to the new campus on a Tuesday morning, as my
first class is not until 10am. It takes about 40 minutes, but there are
2 hills! Well, sort of. There are a couple of bridges over the river and
these have a rise on either side to allow for boats to go under the
bridge. And whilst not particularly steep, it is a pretty long rise! At
least I actually ride my bike up the rise. Many chinese get off and walk
it!

I don't really have too many food stories to tell you these days.
Everything is becoming quite normal to me now. I can tell you that the
chinese eating habits, particularly those of the men, have, for some
reason, become more noticeable again recently. The slurping and spitting
really is beyond disgusting sometimes. It reinforces to me that there is
not much chance of me coming home with a Chinese boyfriend!

I observed a very unusual food ritual the other day. I was in a small
muslim restaurant and two guys came in and ordered chao fan (fried
rice). They had a plate each. One of the guys had a raw garlic, not a
clove, but a whole garlic, with the skin still on. Periodically they
would break off a clove of the garlic and eat it raw with their rice.
Yummy!

I have another bath experience to tell you about. Many of you will
remember my stories about the public baths/showers I had to have during
the last winter holiday (Jan/Feb here). Well, I have managed to avoid
them since then, until recently. You see, the public shower thing is not
just about getting clean, but it can also be a social experience in
China, particularly for men. Anyway, my friend, Betty, had been
pestering me to go the public showers with her since I arrived here, but
I had been avoiding it. But I finally gave in the other day. So we went
back to the "upmarket" public showers at the international hotel. It was
reasonably late when we arrived so, thankfully, there was no-one else in
the showers apart from the workers - the naked ladies who give you a
body scrub.

After the shower, we went into the resting room. This is a darkened room
with lounge beds where you can go for a chat, a sleep, watch tv, drink
tea, have a massage, etc. This is where the social side of the public
shower takes place. I had been to the resting room before, but just with
Betty. On this occasion, Betty had arranged to meet a couple of male
friends. So the guys showered in one room, and we showered in another,
and then we met up in the resting room. This was a bit weird,
particularly as the guys were in pyjamas and robe! We decided to have
foot massages though, so this was nice.

The weirdest part of the story though is that Betty had only met one of
the guys the night before. Her other friend had "introduced" them with a
view to matchmaking. They had met the night before and so this public
shower evening was something like a "date". Pretty unusual first date if
you ask me. (Or even 2nd, 3rd, 4th date really!) And then at the end of
the evening, the guy wanted to pay for our showers and massages.
Definitely a cultural experience to remember!

Anyway, that is about all from me for now. I have had an exciting job
offer, but I don't want to say anymore about it at this stage, until
more details are known and things more definite. So stay tuned!