An evening with Mr. Wu and Mr. Hu

I was told about this banquet a whole two days in advance, so I knew not to wear trainers this time. The heads of the school would be at this banquet, so it was kind of a big deal. I arrived, with Tommy and Yang, to be greeted by absolutely no one! It was great, no awkward hand shakes, no awkward stares and no boiling hot tea thrust into my hand. Someone should really re-introduce China to China, all the tea is served in glasses without a handle, so if you haven't got a table anywhere near you there is no way to avoid getting your hands burnt.

Yeah, all the old men were gathered around the little table playing bridge and smoking. This place was by far the poshest place I've seen in China. The table was absolutely huge, red carpets leading the whole way to this room, one waitress for every two people and yet people were still spitting onto the floor! Dim parch de???

This was the night I got told about the shitty situation. So bad start. More people started arriving, then we sat down. I think I have a few photos actually:

The people. Me and two foreign students, one from Italy and one from the Dominican Republic along with their host families (which were common compared to the heads and teachers). One of the girls' father reminded me of a Chinese del boy. Then there was the head and the deputy head of the school, the head of international affairs, Tommy and Yang. 

Lots and lots of wine was drunk that evening, and of course you can't drink without being toasted. So it was a vicious circle: You get toasted, you drink, you both get a bit more drunk, the confidence level rises, more people get toasted, more people get drunk, more people get the confidence to toast the white girl etc etc etc. 

Now the toasts were something else on this night. Here's a few: To your beauty (bleurgh), to your eyes (yes I have 2), to your legs (yes I have 2), to your language (pal you've never heard me speak MY language), to your sexy name (mate, you call me Lewis-y)! Yeah, a few bottles of red and rice wine were drunk that night. 1) Because of the freaking toasts 2) To get over the embarrassment of being toasted and stared at by numerous old men 3) In the hope that I wouldn't remember this in the morning and 4) Because of the Chinese drinking etiquette (just a bit different to the gentleman's rules).

"Lift you're cup, dlink it up"; simple. You drink rice wine, every time the glass is lifted, it's got to be finished. You drink red wine, every time the glass is lifted, you drink half of the glass.

"Take a taxi": If somebody walks over to toast you, you have got to finish your drink, whether its red, white, rice, beer or milk. 

Many taxies were taken, many "ganbei"s turned into "bangei"'s (I was the only one who found this slip of the tounge hilarious, but then I was the only one who comes from a country where being gay isn't banned). After a few of these it took every single ounce of energy in my body to stop me shouting "Woohoo" when asked to toast Mr. Wu (deputy head) and Mr. Hu (head). 

I didn't think the alcohol had as much effect on me than the others (I was also the fattest person there, so rightly so), but by the end of the night I had accepted Mr. Woohoo's challenge of drinking a bottle of rice wine at the end of year banquet and to give my leaving speech in Mandarin at the same event (think I'm gonna need to finish a bottle to get through that!). 

The photos:

Tian, Lewis-y, Mr Wu and Mr. Hu

Dominican girl's host dad, Kiara (Dominican), Sara (Italian), Ming Li, Chavy mother, Del boy father.

Tommy, Yang, Tian, Liu-si (not deliberately trying to make a fine impersonation of an Asian person)

After the meal we all went home. Mr. Liang (international affairs guy) walked Yang and I back to my road, and offereed to drive us both around Tongling County to show us the sights. Nice bloke, kind offer. Doesn't speak English, so Yang was translating. Then he asked if he could take me out for food, I thought he meant with Yang and Tommy etc so I agreed. Was told later that he meant just me and him and he would pay for a translator! OUCH!!! Already agreed to this, I'm thinking WHAT THE HELL do I do??! There is no possible way of getting out of this without pissing him off, and seeing that I was in a shitty situation I kind of needed all the help he could get me. Oh god the feeling's come back just thinking about it! EEEEEEEK! Was dreading it the whole night and the following day until I had call from Yang just before I left, saying that the translator couldn't make it so she was going instead "I hop yhuu don't mind Lewis-y?", "Hell no!!"

Meal was good. Took us to some place which specialised in food from Guangdong, so really really delicate and detailed. Lots of different teas. He'd selected one which was good for fertility, just for me (geee thanks)!

A few more banquets since then. New foods (bearing in mind I'd never eaten duck or shrimp before arriving here): Pigs ear, pigs feet, eel, donkey, duck heart (valves included), duck blood, duck liver, duck head (the head's the "best" part of the duck, so they always give it to me, even after many "no, no I insist you have it, for your kindness"'s, they WILL NOT let me not eat it), lotus flower, shrimp, goose and more unidentifiable meat. and yellow wine (ticking off the colours as I go along). 

I'm bored of writing now. And again, cannot be bothered to read over it. Guaranteed I'll read over it tomorrow and be really gutted that I left something out. 

Coming soon: 

The medical check (BLOODY HELL)

KTV

Teaching (kind of why I'm out here so I suppose I should write a bit about it)

The stalkers; Jonathan and Frank

Super singles day

Still waiting for the white girl novelty to ware off. I'm sure they'll get bored soon. 

If you're reading this first...START FROM THE BOTTOM POSTS!!  

Mandarin Lessons

I managed to bag weekly Mandarin lessons in return for speaking with Tommy's daughter (Lydia) for 1 hour, once a week. I've always said Welsh must be a difficult language to learn and I'm so glad I was brought up speaking it, as I could never learn it. But bloody hell Mandarin is on a whole new level!

I'm over the whole "ooooh look at those pretty Chinese characters" stage already, all day everyday I'm bombarded with the characters as there is NO English anywhere to be seen in the city (that's a lie, some foods have completely incorrect English translations and I'm none the wiser if foods do have them). So now I just ignore the symbols and guess what the shop is, or what the street name is.

I'm slowly learning though, I can work out the difference between the Men and Women signs on toilet doors (which is always handy), although they're pointless as every public toilet consists of door-less cubicles and a hole in the floor. Lovely. The presence of a white woman is still somewhat of a novelty here in Tongling, so as you can imagine (or probably not actually) Chinese people will make the most of EVERY SINGLE freaking opportunity to stare, whether it's walking the street, sitting in a tea-house or in a door-less cubicle! I'm pretty sure there is no angle the population of Tongling hasn't seen me from! And I'm the girl who wears trackies before a night out so nobody has to see these legs!

I'm proud to say that I am currently on Unit 3 of a Kindergarten grade 2 Mandarin book...go me! I have learned how to say Hello, Thanks, Goodbye, Yes, No, Cat, and a few basic questions and answers. I can't always remember the joining words in the sentences, so I usually just add a word that I think is right. So I've ended up saying "I'm a British cat" to several people, thinking I was completely right, until Tommy's 11yo daughter told me otherwise! Oops! You'd think somebody would have told me before, but no, let's all laugh at the white girl. My skin must have got a few inches thicker since I arrived.

The lessons consist of Tommy speaking, me nodding in agreement as if I understand exactly what he said, Tommy's kid on my laptop, random Chinese symbols written across my book (he thinks I can read these so doesn't bother putting the meaning or pronunciation near them), Tommy asking me to correct various English words e.g. Loverat, Cock-sure and my favourite "The General Erections". It takes all my energy so stop myself from bursting out laughing in his face, I'm counting down the seconds before he leaves so I can drop to the floor laughing (moments passed by then so it would quite sad if I did that). I then google translate everything I can remember after he leaves so I get a rough idea about what I've just been nodding to for the last hour.

The lesson lasts for about 2 hours, because Tommy rambles on for about an hour about subjects that quite frankly I don't give a sh** about. Picked up some interesting facts and tips though; never ask for flour in a shop as that's what Chinese people call drugs. Green tea has been scientifically proven, on mice, to lessen your chances of getting cancer, depression, heart disease, helps with weight loss and speeds up your metabolism. But what I want to know is how they got mice to drink green tea?!

He also translated my waching machine, so I now have clean clothes and don't smell like a Chinese person! Tommy also told me that his wife smells because she doesn't use "dee-oh-dee-runt"! Nice to hear he thinks so highly of her.

I've been invited to spend the Spring festival with his family and friends. I did have plans to go to Hong Kong and Macau with Cari, so not too sure what to do now. I'll have 2 weeks after the golden week to travel a bit, so I suppose I could go down South then. And to spend Chinese New Year the way a traditional Chinese family spends it would be one hell of an experience I'm sure. But I don't know. Decisons, decisions, decisions! I might be back in Wales by then, so delaying any decisions until December.

I got invited to dinner with Tommy's family last Friday, before my Mandarin lesson. And the sly sod roped me in to teach his 6 year old nephew some Engligh as well as his sister and daughter. Now I had no idea about this, i thought it was just a dinner and a Mandarin lesson, so I didn't prepare anything. So I spent an hour teaching the little guy "1,2,3" and his sister about various kitchen appliances. I thought her English was pretty poor...until we left. As soon as we were out of the flat she started slagging the security guard off; "He is dhog sheet", "f*** yhoo, f***yhoo"!! I thought to myself, do I praise her for speaking English well? Or do I say I tell her off? So I just decided to wet myself with laughter instead.

Note: Never thank people by saying "ta" in China, I found out about a week too late that "ta" is in fact the Chinese answer to saying "F*** yhoo". Again, oops! Could explain a few of the stares I've been getting.

...but that's China for you

I genuinely have no idea where to start, so these next few posts are going to be all over the place. I'm looking at my notebook, where I've vaguely written about my days (when I can remember) and most if consists of a few words put together, in no particular order by the looks of it, with a shedload of exclamation marks, question marks and the words "odd" and "weird" every few sentences. >>

What did I tell you?

Right Monday the 7th November, it's just dawned on me that I have to write about 2 weeks worth of events (I've just had that mid-dissertation feeling, yuk)! Didn't start teaching, as planned, due to the fact that the students had mid-term exams. One exam in every subject, if they do worse than they did at the last set of exams they are likely to get beaten by their fathers! Bit harsh in my opinion, but that's China for you.

Had a phonecall that evening with yet another "I'm outside your gate, can I come in" statement. It was Yang and Yuky (not Yuki, I've just found out) they had planned to take me to some culture market in Tongling County. A warning would have been nice, but again, that's China for you. As we stepped outside Yang dropped the bombshell that I would have to be on my own with Yuky for the first 30mins as she had to go and meet a friend. That would have been fine, except the only English Yuky knows is "This way please" and the only Chinese I know is "Ganbei" (the best option for both of us would have been to wait for Yang in a pub, but that didn't happen.)

Bless her, she had downloaded an English-Chinese translator app on her phone and had obviously been practising since the last time I saw her, this time she could answer me when I asked "How are you", she did answer with "I'm god", but I got the drift. So we got on a bus, full of smelly Chinese men on their way home from work and got off in Tongling County, near Tanjing Lakes. The place was stunning and heaving with people who had come to see this "culture market".

The entire conversation with Yuky revolved around the days of the week, big, small, mother, father and sister. So she now knows exactly what Hanna does every day of the week and what days my mother and father work (I say knows, I mean she was told, so probably has no idea). 

Culture market my ass! It was like a fair, where gypsies set up camp and open stalls selling anything they can get their hands on. The products varied from statues, paintings and carpets to bird cages, dead rats and live dogs (I don't think they were alive for much longer after that). The food stalls were pretty impressive though, it was like a pick-a-mix of frogs, crabs, small birds and unidentifiable meat. Yuky treated me to mutton on a stick (although I had to wait until Yang came back to tell me what it was, as her translator had broken!), pretty darn good too! 

Yuky, a pink bag, mutton on a stick.

Is it just me or does that photo remind you of the Shrek scene when they eat rats on skewers?

Walked up and down the gypsy site a few times, met more teachers from the school, said hello to numerous children who were forced by their parents to speak to the foreigner and got stared at for the entire time, just your average evening in Tongling.

We went to some museum then, that's pretty much all I have to say about that. A museum's a museum.

A classic error in translation next. I was told we were going to walk home as it wasn't far, but to get back to my street, we'd have to walk "thl-oo tha lake". My obvious reaction involved some sarcastic remark about getting wet and Moses, which they obviously didn't understand and I looked like a complete and utter plonker. Next thing I intend on introducing to Asia...HUMOUR!

The walk home was gorgeous, the lake was full of lights and the buildings were decorated (i have no idea why) and there were random sites of old people doing tai-chi (which Yuky preceded to join in). I don't think they were too impressed with the flash on my camera interrupting their relaxation time, but hell, I'm a foreigner, I don't understand these things. To date, I still don't understand what's relaxing about standing on wet grass, in socks, listening to a screeching Chinese vocalist and stretching into positions that people their age shouldn't be able to do. But that's China for you.

What I learnt that evening:

1) Yang has a husband, she sees him once every two weeks because he lives in a different city. She likes it this way because they would "ahh-gu" if they saw each other more, great basis for a relationship that.

2) Teaching assistants don't exist in public schools, other teachers do the job of teaching assistants

3) Chinese women can't get married until they're 24, yet Yang's cousin got married at 18 it just wasn't official (let's be honest, they're not REALLY married then are they?)

4) Yuky has a thing for coppers and screamed the lake down when I said (through Yang) that Dad was a copper. Rach you've got competition pal! I brought her back down to earth by saying that most British coppers are fat, old and sit in their cars eating doughnuts all day, EXACTLY like they do in The Simpsons!

5) The Chinese have their own version of Snack-a-jacks, which is like a tube of rice cracker which you've got to eat by putting them on your fingers. So it's quite common to see people walking around with claws about 6 inches long, made of this rice cracker stuff

6) Yang thinks that alcohol is bad for your stomach; think maybe she should add head, liver, bank balance and dignity to that list. 

I've just seen how long this is, and I really really can not be bothered to read over it. So I apologise for any typos and general mistakes. 

Fi x

There's a man standing outside my apartment with a wheel-barrow shouting "ma-ma ho-ho".

Mini explanation

I've been pretty shitty at keeping everyone updated over the last two weeks. So just to let you know I'm alive! Not been knocked over by a speeding scooter or a runaway rubbish wheelbarrow or died after eating gone off donkey, or drowned when the Yangze river flooded. I can picture mam reading this now, fuming at my dryness. But it's all good, I'm alive and loving life!

Reasons for my shittiness 1) It's been a manic two weeks, met so many people, been to numerous social engagements with people I've never met before (or might I have, just can't remeber) 2) Started teaching, sooo much work to do, with the whole 4 hours of teaching a week! 3) Ridiculous problems regarding paperwork, visas, permits and lack of communication between employers and the school.

Whole point of this mini blog is to give a little explanation on the last point so I can get on with all the totally amazing stuff I've been doing when not stressing over or trying to sort the mess out.

BASICALLY there's a distinct possibility I could be home on December 1st. And as I get closer to November 30th (the date my visa ends) it's looking more and more likely that I will be forced to come home. Reason: I have do get a residency permit to stay here until June, fine. To get a residency permit I have to have a medical check, they wouldn't accept my medical check from home because the local authorities couldn't understand the signature (they wouldn't because my doctor isn't freaking Asian), so I've had to have another medical check, not fine, but FINE! And that they won't accept my certificates because 1) They're not on the list of certificates they accept (I've seen the list...it consists of 1 name, so not really a list is it!), yet every other bloody province accepts it 2) They decided to accept it by the end after I created holy hell, but then they wouldn't accept an electronic copy, yet every other province accepts it.

Now what upsets and infuriates me most is that the school, the Chinese Education Authority, the Australian Columbian College (my employers) and the local authorities accepted all of the above when I sent them the documents before coming, these documents were used to grant me the visa, work permit and invitation letter. So I arrived here thinking that everything was sorted and I had a job for 8 months, the only reason I would have to go home would be if I didn't like it here.

SO because of somebody else's (I don't even know who, so I've had a go at everyone) f*** up it's very likely that I will be forced to give up a job of a f*****g lifetime and there's f*** all I can do about it!! The situation is only worsened by the fact that nobody speaks English here so I've got to rely on other people to sort the mess that they created out.

Rant over. Now I wait until Nov 30th. See if Australia can send the proper documents across in time. Wait for more results. So yeah, start thinking about what you're gonna get me for Christmas!

I've just read over the last paragraph and tried to think of a better way to vent my frustrations without using certain words beginning with "F", as my mother is going to read this :S,  but nothing else seems to get my anger across. So I'm gonna leave it and be grateful that I have atleast 9 days before she can shout at me for swearing. If she decides to shout at me over skype, there's always the mute button! Caru ti mam :P

A more upbeat post next, with less swearing, more sarcasm and less anger...

Ganbei!!

Lots of strolls around Tongling, smiling at staring children, "Nihao"'s and "Xie xie"'s in past few days as I am completely free!

 Got invited for an afternoon out with Tommy (Maths teacher) and his friends yesterday. What an afternoon! Text said " R U (impressed with the text slang!) free tomorrow afternoon? How about this: I'll show you my fitness club first, u can have a look of Chinese most popular Pingpong, and we have dinner with friends then, after that we go to language salon in cafe, meet another group of my friends. Will you?"

1) Tommy owns a fitness club??!

2) What the hell is a language salon?!

Figured I had nothing else to do so I'd go ahead.

Fitness club...nope! Two rooms with sweaty Chinese men beating the hell out of each other with ping pong balls. I have never seen anything like it! I used to think Dad was good at Ping pong on holiday, but bloody hell these men were outstanding. The games were so fast, the only time I actually saw the ball was when they all stopped to stare as I walked in, again a lot of "Ni hao"'s! Was taken into another room then where I was immediately surrounded by about 10 kids speaking flat out Chinese to me, again "Ni hao" was the only reaction I could think of. Played a bit of Ping Pong against Tommy's 11 year old daughter, I say played, I think I touched the ball maybe 3 times in the entire game...beaten by a 11 year old!

Tommy told me on the way out that he got asked if I was Korean and if I was Lydia's mother (Mama)! 1) Do I LOOK Korean? 2) This Lydia girl is 100% han! Not 1 fragment of her DNA is caucasian! Daft daft kids.

Went for dinner then, which I found out was a "banquet" as we arrived, but at least I wasn't wearing trainers this time! First to arrive...the City Court JUDGE (plus family), second to arrive...the city planner (plus family), this guy designed the blueprint for the entire city and designed some of the buildings within it! Now I'm a geog graduate and have studied cities since I was about 14, yet I still cannot think of any better adjectives to describe a city than "big" and "busy". So when asked "Whaaaat do yu tink off mah ci-tee?" (MY CITY??!), I just smiled and said "yes, very big, very busy, lots happening" he took it like the biggest compliment in the world, slapped me on the back several times and laughed in Chinese to the rest of the men. 

The final bloke to arrive then was only the owner of the freaking restaurant we were dining in (plus family). My conversation was limited to Tommy, the planner and the restaurant owner's wife as they were the only people who had any English. Now, English in a strong Chinese accent is pretty difficult to understand at the best of times and there's generally a lot of smiling, nodding and various hand gestures between both parties. So add to that a deaf, English speaking, Chinese woman and the conversation is just on another level! It was like something out of Little Britain!

Before we moved to a similar rotating table the men (and Tommy's manly wife), played Bridge on the square table in this private room. they play cards with 2 decks over here, and will never play with an already open deck of cards. 

Dinner was served/spun around towards me and this time I ate pigs ears, donkey (I hope to god that was lost in translation), pumpkin (picture the pumpkin soup incident of 2004!), smelly tofu (definitely wasn't lost in translation) and various other animals and vegetables. Very similar to the last rotating table occurrence, lots of toasting, smiling, standing and dropping of food due to the chopsticks. Only add to all that: Rice Wine!! Not too sure what I was expecting, but it definitely was like nothing I've drank before, which says something after 3 years in Aber.

So toasting was a lot different this time 1) More people were drinking the wine, so definitely didn't suffer from a lack of confidence when it came to "speaking" to the Welsh girl 2) They didn't just drink out of their glasses, they poured the wine into a small wine glass (kind of), picture a wine glass scaled down to the size of a shot glass. So with the whole chopsticks, wine, mini wine glasses, donkey and numerous "Ganbei"'s (bottoms up/cheers) it was just one mess!

Tommy was asking about alcohol and drinking in Wales, so I started describing a good old Aber night out. Taught him the "I like to drink with Tommy" song and said that we played lots of drinking games. He said they play "dlin-kin liddles", where you drink if you can't get the riddle (sounds fun!) he then goes on to ask me what games we play. I was under no pressure whatsoever and had all the time in the world to answer and the only freaking game that came to my freaking mind for the whole time I sat there was "Never have I ever"! So I explained the game using the example "never have I ever jumped off a building", he seemed to understand this, so I used another example; "never have I ever lived in Wales". Nothing in the world could have prepared me for what happened next. Tommy, the fourtysomething year old Maths teacher says "Never have I ever had sex" and preceded to gulp down his wine forgetting all about the mini wine glass. I don't care what country you live in, where you come from, what language you speak or how well you can speak it, there is NOTHING you can say to that, NO facial expression, NO hand gesture, NO English or Chinese response. Soooo, as you do, I turned around to teach his daughter "head, shoulders, knees and toes".

After Tommy explained to me how Tomatoes boosted one's "shex -yu-hal end-hu-lance", and that his wife wanted him to eat more of them (this time it was "row row row your boat" I taught his daughter), we left!

We walked into what looked like a really modern bar (yey), very gutted to find out that it was in fact a tea house! Again, walked through to a private room where there were steins of tea for us this time, to meet more of Tommy's friends (this was the English Salon). I met Sarah (Chinese-English interpreter in some multi-national air conditioning/wire company), Frank (public servant...didn't ask), Jack ("tax-ee man", turns out he was a tax collector not a taxi driver), John (English masters student), Joy (male, data analyst) and finally I met Alltheway. I kid you not, this guy, who was a retired "public servant" was called All the way!! Might not be as good as some of the other English names I've heard, but it's a start. 

English Salon: basically a room of people drinking tea and talking about various topics, main topics of conversation that night: me and Tom Cruise! Heard 2 different opinions on the One Child Policy 1) Rich people would want to have more than one child if they could 2)Poor people wouldn't want to have any more children even if they could. Then, of course, they turned to me! Went back to geography A level days and waffled something about one child being spoilt more than if he/she had siblings, the one child carrying the whole responsibility for caring for his/her parents/grandparents in old age. Miss. Jones daear would have been proud! Got the nod ('s) of approval so must have been allright. They ended the night by slagging off the British government, as much as I agreed with a lot of their views, cmon look at your own government first!! I could quite easily have brought up Tiananmen square, Tibet or Taiwan, but didn't really want to face "re-education" camps or deportation just yet!

Outcomes of English Salon: Bagged myself free weekly Mandarin lessons, a tutoring session with Tommy plus friends' kids, a pot of "hai quo-lee-tee gleen tea" and a lift to the lakes every week (?). 

Note: 

The Chinese love the "Where are you going on holiday?", "I'm going to Romania/Remain here" joke

I've seen my first Chinese six pack, belonged to a ping-pong playing policeman

Rice wine tastes like what I imagine urine would taste like, gonna have to do a Guinness job and force myself to like it

Chinese university students don't have freshers week, instead they have a week of military training! The only marching I did during freshers week was crol teircoes!

"Egg flied lice" is a genuine Chinese dish

It's a Saturday and there's grade 13 students in school as we speak

I slept with a lizard under my bed last night

Muchos loveage xx

Tongling better be ready...

Rhwng dau feddwl i neud hwn yng Ngymraeg neu'n Saesneg. Ond wedyn feddyles i, os i fi'n neud e'n Saesneg, llai just posto'r link I Dad yn lle ysgrifennu email hir iddo fe. So, sorry Catrin a Manon!

Firstly, my camera sustained many injuries during its three years in Aber, the downfall being that I'm too ashamed to get it out in front of people. So no photos yet...but soon!

Got off the plane, no sign of Larry, the bloke who was meant to be picking me up. Gave him a ring and he was very very apologetic that there had been "two co-ishahhhns" on the road. So lots of traffic. Got to his car (huge BMW) then he took me to the supermarket to buy me a load of snacks (still in various pots and packaging on top of my fridge, might risk trying some tonight). Must have spent a fortune, then gave me the change, so I won't have to break any hundreds (to date I've only spent 100 on a sim card!). Went to buy a ticket, then went for food. 

He got us into a VIP section and served within minutes- "I use your face to make me VIP". What a hero! Tea turned up (as expected), then he asked if I liked chicken, I was soooo grateful that he wasn't going to throw me in at the depe end and make me eat turtle or something. What turned up?? Chicken FEET turned up! And we all know Liwsi isn't the biggest fan of feet. Nevertheless I shoved it in my mouth and smiled! Another 8 courses fololwed; varying from shrimp "balls" to sweet dough to sweet rice soup, all of which (except the soup) were eaten with chopsticks. 

We missed the coach to Tongling. You would think that this would be the most important thing my TRANSPORTER had to do. But yes, we still manage to miss the bus. 

Larry didn't seem too worried about the time during lunch, so I didn't question him. The ticket, which he paid for was in Chinese; so I couldn't even read the time. Again, he used my face to drive into the back of the coach station, blocking all coaches from getting out so I could catch the bus (which was already on its way to Tongling). Got on a coach 3 hours later and arrived in Tongling around 8.30 Tuesday night. On the bus, 2 old women moved out of their seat so I could sit in the front, joined by the poor girl Larry had roped in to sit next to me. She had no English whatsoever, as did the old men sitting opposite who couldn't stop staring. So yeah, there was a lot of smiling, fake laughing and thumbs up for the entire 5 and a half hours...and I thought the x40 was bad!!

"Poor girl" rang Tian once we arrived who turned up immediately, was too skrawny to lift my suitcase into the taxi, so I manned up and did it myself. Point made Rach?? Turned up to my apartment, which is behind an awful looking block of flats (most buildings are awful looking here). Padlock on the gate, my own garden-ish, only the people with keys can walk through to get to the school's "botanical garden", which has a guard dog, that I'm told will stop anyone who isn't meant to be in my garden. 

Apartment: I HAVE AN ACTUAL TOILET! I wouldn't complain if I lived here at home. 1 apartment on every floor, but no one lives downstairs so I get both. Kitchen pretty basic but I don't intend on using it much. Double bed, corner sofa, 2 wide screen TVs (not flat screen though...tut tut), 2 balconies (overlooking the shitty flats and a side of the "botanical garden"). Went to KFC...not so sure what the C stands for though! Walked around the school campus, it's like an university!! 4x 5 storey buildings, track and astro, gym, pool, labs, gardens. EVERYTHING! And there are over 10 of these in Tongling. They even have their own security guards. Who like to laugh at white girls!! Went back and chilled for the night then (after unpacking don't worry Mam), slept like a freaking baby!!

Wednesday: Tommy (maths teacher and my technical assistant), Yang (not Lao as mentioned in the email to my parents) and Tian turned up at my gates (locked so they couldn't even knock on the door...oops). No idea how long they had been standing there. Meet and greet, then asked if I would like to go to dinner with them, I was thinking another KFC or corner stall....boy was I wrong!! Turned up to this HUGE building with a red carpet going into the lobby, went up a few floors to a corridor which lead to this provate room.  4 waitresses (dressed Chineesy [?]) served us tea (no PG tips job). While we sat on a 4 person table (set out for poker). There was huge 12 seated table in the centre of the room (kind of regretted wearing trainers at this point). A load of people turned up, so I thought they were just gonna eat on the big table. Then I was introduced to them!!

The head of the local bank, along with his wife and child (Lydia). A "Big Ceety bis-hee-ness man", along with his wife and child (Alex ). Both children had been taken out of school for this!! I sat down after being pointed to the "head of table" (the table was round so I don't know how they worked that one out) and the middle of this freaking table started rotating when the waitresses started to put food on it. Food was good, can't tell you what it was though!! So there's me eating with chopsticks, kind of, being poured more tea every time I took a sip...then all of a sudden everyone stands up, I followed, they all laughed, because apparently they were all toasting me. So we carried on eating and not 30 seconds went by without me having to stand up, be toasted to by various individuals, sit back down again. Inbetween all this I had to pick something off the rotating table, with chopsticks, having no idea what animal I was putting in my mouth. Everything tasted great though, again couldn't tell you what is was, but I guaranteed it had 4 legs. Tongling's spicy cuisine gets my vote over Shanghai's sweet.

Since then, got a new numbet, been showed around the school. Met two international students (Italian and Dominican), who know as little mandarin as me...and they get lessons!! Said goodbye (or tara...which they find hilarious, so guaranteed it translates to some body part in Mandarin) to everyone. And found out that next week I dine with the headmaster and his friends, as well as more similar gatherings with all of Tommy's friends, who are all "leely eee-gah" to meet me. Found out I start teaching on Monday, have a few lessons on Tuesday then have 5 days off. So should get a chance to see a lot of Tongling in the next week. 

Was invited out to dinner/supper/tea (god the word tea confused them!) with Yang and her friend Yuki (that's her English name) tonight. Yuki's a sport teacher with very little English. Her favourite and possibly only sentence is "this way please", but she seems cool. The only Chinese person that I've met who shows any expression other than a constant smile or constant frown so far, so pretty easy to work out when she was talking about me. Yuki apparently enjoys "sing-song" (karaeoke) and "danc-ee" and likes to drink red wine...so I'm gonna have to learn Mandarin just to be able to be go out! 

Worth a note: Not seen any two year old kids get knocked over

                      Not seen any hot Chinese blokes

                      Not seen any manly Chinese men in fact

                      This little city (population bigger than Cardiff) has a three way carriageway running through city        

                      centre

                      The Chinese love Mathew Stephens

                      The Chinese love twilight

                      Chinese alleyways smell the same as British alleyways

                      Chinese will eat anything that has four legs and a pulse

Lots and lots of Chinese love