Posted 8:14 AM by Gobbler
"No matter what the difficulties and hardships, so long as a single man remains, he will fight on." Chairman Mao Zedong, 'On coalition government', April 24th, 1945

Or: “Why am I here? Why am I here?” Jeremy Wolfenden, ‘The Fatal Englishman’, by Sebastian Faulks. Adapted by James Hammond.

Or Even “Anything else I can get for you?” “Phase Plasma Rifle in a 40-Whatt Range.” “Just what you see pal.” - The Terminator

I’d been looking forward to meeting this bloke for a couple of days. He’s a foreign teacher living on jons campus. Of dubious origin he allegedly is forty something and has been on the road for 30 years. That doesn’t really add up for a start. But, even better, he has claimed that he is a hitman, and has contracts open in Germany, Iran and somewhere else I forget. Currently, as all self respecting hitmen do, he is teaching English in china. Jon also told me that he boasts possession of an impressive variety of prescription drugs. He was described to me as a bond villain gone to seed, eastern european sounding. His favourite weapon is the sword as he doesn’t like guns. He’s also a keen drinker, which is to say an alcoholic, starting when he wakes up, heading straight on through and finishing when the mists gather. I’d be tempted to call the guy a sketchy punter but if word got out he might boff me. All these rumours meant that I was understandably looking forward to meeting the guy. It was in the light of this that my interest rose when, at about 11pm and halfway through watching a dvd at jons flat on Wednesday, the doorbell rang.

If it was a bondesque hitman that stood on the other side of that door, it was indeed one that had gone to seed, and probably many times if such a thing can happen. The first I heard was “Can I come in man it’s f***in’ freezing out here.” In walked a straggly unshaven figure in baggy plain blue tracksuit bottoms, a black and white sweater and flip flops. No wonder the bugger was cold. He stood in the room, arms wrapped about himself, shuffling from one foot to the other. His dishevelled countenance tempered the vaguely rugged physiognomy (always like a nice big word) so that he looked more tramp than weathered assassin, but looks can be deceiving and I wasn’t going to start to upset the guy. “Ah man!” he continued, “It’s f***in’ freezin’ in here too! Have you got a beer?”

Intent on watching the film and feeling pretty shoddy anyway I largely ignored him, tho I listened to his rants intermittently. Jon wasn’t so lucky. As Matey sat next to him drinking and smoking away, jon was distracted from the film, got his beer drunk and had to listen to matey’s incessant drivel about various topics of his interest. That nights top topics were: a) mateys girlfriend who had just dumped him. (apparently he had taken the benificent step of deciding not to kill any of her family members to teach her a lesson. Very reasonable of him.) b) swords and how marvellous they are for killing people (actually he has never killed anyone but he did once have to chop someones hand off at the wrist with a samurai sword to disarm them. Very restrained I must say) c) prescription drugs and his current shortage (“Ah man, you know, I’ve f***in’ run out of valium now and I ran out of f***in’ morphine two months ago. Can I get another beer? You want one?”)

After the film had finished, and shortly he had just let slip that he has had six wives but his last girlfriend was the first girl he ever loved “Didn’t you love any of your six wives, werent they difficult to get over?” “Oh yeah sure, but I mean, you know, you get over it you know, I mean f*** them.”, matey suggested going back to his place where it was warm (jons place was chilly) and there was beer and he had many more dvds. For reasons still not quite clear, we agreed. Off we went. Matey walks as a man not entirely sure of his feet, kind of shuffling along like a pensioner. Perhaps too much booze and prescription drugs have melted his brain and diminished his familiarity with walking.

Arriving at mateys it struck me that it wasn’t all that warm at all but there you are. We sat in mateys bedroom and watched some mediocre nonsense with antonio banderas. Matey, ensconced in his bed chowing down the tablets, seemed much happier. I went to the bog for some light relief. This would not normally be of any consequence, but the bog was in a fairly grim state, with bits of bogroll about the place that had been well used. I went to wash my hands and get the hell out, but a pair of jeans were soaking in the sink. Brief inspection showed that an accident had occurred that explained the heavy bogroll usage. One too many relaxing laxatives I guess. It struck me that his baggy tracksuit bottoms may well be concealing an adult nappy/diaper. I returned to the film.

Jon and I saw it to the finish while matey had decended into prescribed bliss sometime earlier. We made a getaway, and went to bed. I’ll be honest with you, I don’t think the guy is an assassin or anything else. I think he’s full of shit. A bit like his trousers.

But still, its all part of lifes rich tapestry…

Posted 8:23 AM by Gobbler
Let's all Drink to the Death of a Clown The Kinks

Or in this case, a bicycle. it would have been a reasonable assumption that the excitements detailed in the last post would be the end of the bicycle saga. reasonable or not, it would have been a falacious one. For this tale has a twist in the tail. Quite literally.

There wasnt much left on that bike that hadn't had some kind of TLC since under my command. The frame for one, and the wheels for another, had escaped damage. ok, so i had had to get the wheel re-aligned, but there was nothing actually wrong with it. this was to change.

In china, it is very common to see people riding on the back of bicycles, sitting over the back wheel on the flat metal thing that you used to secure your newspaper and other things to. well some people did anyway. This flat surface is quite convenient for sitting on if you can suss the balance issues. After dinner, we returned to our bikes and Chris asked if a could give him a ride to the bar we planned to visit. Sure, i said, why not? And on he hopped. Understandably we wobbled a bit as we got underway. A good five seconds and ten yards later a dangerous wobble brought chris off the bike while the bike itself jammed to a halt. Something was wrong, so i got off teh bike. Chris was laughing. Caroline, jon, rubrck and bill were laughing, everyone in sight began laughing and soon i too began laughing. The problem was clear to see and the last wobble was nothing to do with my bad cycling skills. We had pushed that bike a ride too far. The back wheel was bent; warped and twisted from our combined weights, never to ride again. What a cheap piece of crap! so now i need a new bike...


"No matter what the difficulties and hardships, so long as a single man remains, he will fight on." Chairman Mao Zedong, 'On coalition government', April 24th, 1945

I have met someone who seems to have truly taken these words to heart. Allegedly. For the sake of privacy and so's i dont get boffed i will call him Alex. He's a foreign teacher here - will finish this tomorrow.

Posted 8:03 AM by Gobbler
I Want to Ride My Bicycle Attributed to Freddie Mercury, lead singer of Queen, who was known to be very fond of bicycles. Allegedly he especially liked ones ridden by fat bottomed girls, who, he has claimed, “make the rockin' world go round.”

That's all i want to do really. Nice and simple. Ride my bicycle. However, there appears to be a Chinese conspiracy against the above. It was all going so well. Bicycle turned up, right on schedule. Sure it was a ladies bike and too small for my non-chinese-lady proportions. Sure it had a basket on the front that made me look suspiciously homosexual. It would have back in England at any rate, but not here. partly because everyone has them, the baskets i mean, as they are recognised as a useful means of transporting stuff about. apparently riding bikes isnt primarily about looking stylish in this country. what bizarre notions these people have. but this bike majalarky has turned out not to be what they call a ‘smooth ride’.

It has turned out that my bike has needed a serious refit. Firstly there was a whopping hole in the basket which i did not spot until one of my books fell out of it. luckily this happened while in campus and not on a main road or my book may have taken some serious punishment at the hands of the merciless Chinese traffic. that was monday.

Next day it was all looking up. Bill our waiban (teacher assistant matey) took me down to the bike stall and fixed me up with a new basket. A brand spanking new black one, very chic. At the remarkable cost of just 7 rmb or yuan or whatever you call it, which works out at at least 40 pence. The bike man even raised my saddle for free. Unfortunately, it being a chinese ladies bike and all it had limited extendibility and only raised a couple of inches before coming off in his hands. so it is raised, but not much. But hark! The hilarious, calamitous bike story was not to end there!

It happened that very same day, if you can believe that. Riding back from the bilingual school where i can regretfully inform the enquiring reader i am teaching 6 lessons to 13 and 14 year olds, four classes of which are to kids in only their first year of English. Understandably heated debate is somewhat out of the question. Anyway, i was riding back after my four classes, traveling as fast as my little legs would wheel me, and disaster struck. As i was crossing the road, pedaling as powerfully as i jolly well could, a loud clunking noise heralded the fact that my chain had come off, my cycling adventure somewhat derailed. Balls! Narrowly avoiding adding to the road death statistics i got to the other side of the road, and reset the chain. It kept coming off, and after some time i realised that my wheel was at a funny angle, and was rubbing up against the frame. A hefty bout of kicking did not rectify the problem and I was reduced to half wheeling and half carrying the bike home.

Next day, today, (which sadly means that this hilarious tale is almost at an end) bill accompanied me once more to the bike shop. He instructed me to return a couple of hours later to collect the bike. Once more he paid for the repair. Returning at the appointed hour, everything seemed hunky dory. I say ‘seemed’, because there was to be one more exciting turn in the bicycle saga.

Riding home I felt quite pleased that my bike was once more operational. Imagine my reaction when, of all things, the bloody chain broke. This bike is being put through its paces, and I can’t help but feel that we are not destined to be together forever. Returning to the shop once more, it took bicycle repair fellow just two minutes to repair the chain. Charging me one yuan, which must be at least 6 pence, I was operational again. On this occasion I made it home without further upset. I will use a more sedate pace from now on, though it looks as though bicycle blokey and I are set to become firm friends.

Guan Xi (Gwan She)

This cannot be directly translated, but it essentially means ‘You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours’ or perhaps “A nudge is as good as a wink, know what I mean, know what I mean.” This concept is a cornerstone of Chinese society and one of the reasons why it is so difficult to stamp out corruption within the country. Basically, it’s all about Guan Xi’ing it up to the max with those who you want to do things for you. Yesterday the teacher of one of my first grade teachers was buttering me up saying he wanted to help me by me teaching his lesson material in my classes. I am unclear how this will help me but he insisted. I am happy to do this. Thinking up my own material is largely pointless when the kids speak five months worth of English. Today someone from the same school invited me to lunch, a classic tactic. I’m not normally one to pass up a free lunch but on this occasion I had to be back to make some telephone calls. One Miss Heather Alcock, a delightfully intriguing girl who was on the language course back in London, and who is teaching up in some coal mine to the north, reports that she mentioned to someone that she was thinking of getting a mobile and was by the end of the day meeting the head of a phone company. She’s been thoroughly guan xi’d. I counter attacked on the guan xi front today by giving my waiban a box of chocolate biscuits from England that dearest mama wisely packed me off with. See what that does for me…

Posted 7:58 AM by Gobbler
I Want to Ride My Bicycle Attributed to Freddie Mercury, lead singer of Queen, who was known to be very fond of bicycles. Allegedly he especially liked ones ridden by fat bottomed girls, who, he has claimed, ?make the rockin' world go round.?

That's all i want to do really. Nice and simple. Ride my bicycle. However, there appears to be a Chinese conspiracy against the above. It was all going so well. Bicycle turned up, right on schedule. Sure it was a ladies bike and too small for my gigantic girth. Sure it had a basket on the front that made me look suspiciously homosexual. It would have back in England at any rate, but not here. partly because everyone has them, the baskets i mean, as they are recognised as a useful means of transporting stuff about. apparently riding bikes isnt primarily about looking stylish in this country. what bizarre notions these people have. but this bike majalarky has turned out not to be what they call a ?smooth ride?.

It has turned out that my bike has needed a serious refit. Firstly there was a whopping hole in the basket which i did not spot until one of my books fell out of it. luckily this happened while in campus and not on a main road or my book may have taken some serious punishment at the hands of the merciless Chinese traffic. that was monday.

Next day it was all looking up. Bill our waiban (teacher assistant matey) took me down to the bike stall and fixed me up with a new basket. A brand spanking new black one, very chic. At the remarkable cost of just 7 rmb or yuan or whatever you call it, which works out at at least 40 pence. The bike man even raised my saddle for free. Unfortunately, it being a chinese ladies bike and all it had limited extendibility and only raised a couple of inches before coming off in his hands. so it is raised, but not much. But hark! The hilarious, calamitous bike story was not to end there!

It happened that very same day, if you can believe that. Riding back from the bilingual school where i can regretfully inform the enquiring reader i am teaching 6 lessons to 13 and 14 year olds, four classes of which are to kids in only their first year of English. Understandably heated debate is somewhat out of the question. Anyway, i was riding back after my four classes, traveling as fast as my little legs would wheel me, and disaster struck. As i was crossing the road, pedaling as powerfully as i jolly well could, a loud clunking noise heralded the fact that my chain had come off, my cycling adventure somewhat derailed. Balls! Narrowly avoiding adding to the road death statistics i got to the other side of the road, and reset the chain. It kept coming off, and after some time i realised that my wheel was at a funny angle, and was rubbing up against the frame. A hefty bout of kicking did not rectify the problem and I was reduced to half wheeling and half carrying the bike home.

Next day, today, (which sadly means that this hilarious tale is almost at an end) bill accompanied me once more to the bike shop. He instructed me to return a couple of hours later to collect the bike. Once more he paid for the repair. Returning at the appointed hour, everything seemed hunky dory. I say ?seemed?, because there was to be one more exciting turn in the bicycle saga.

Riding home I felt quite pleased that my bike was once more operational. Imagine my reaction when, of all things, the bloody chain broke. This bike is being put through its paces, and I can?t help but feel that we are not destined to be together forever. Returning to the shop once more, it took bicycle repair fellow just two minutes to repair the chain. Charging me one yuan, which must be at least 6 pence, I was operational again. On this occasion I made it home without further upset. I will use a more sedate pace from now on, though it looks as though bicycle blokey and I are set to become firm friends.

Guan Xi (Gwan She)

This cannot be directly translated, but it essentially means ?You scratch my back, I?ll scratch yours? or perhaps ?A nudge is as good as a wink, know what I mean, know what I mean.? This concept is a cornerstone of Chinese society and one of the reasons why it is so difficult to stamp out corruption within the country. Basically, it?s all about Guan Xi?ing it up to the max with those who you want to do things for you. Yesterday the teacher of one of my first grade teachers was buttering me up saying he wanted to help me by me teaching his lesson material in my classes. I am unclear how this will help me but he insisted. I am happy to do this. Thinking up my own material is largely pointless when the kids speak five months worth of English. Today someone from the same school invited me to lunch, a classic tactic. I?m not normally one to pass up a free lunch but on this occasion I had to be back to make some telephone calls. One Miss Heather Alcock, a delightfully intriguing girl who was on the language course back in London, and who is teaching up in some coal mine to the north, reports that she mentioned to someone that she was thinking of getting a mobile and was by the end of the day meeting the head of a phone company. She?s been thoroughly guan xi?d. I counter attacked on the guan xi front today by giving my waiban a box of chocolate biscuits from England that dearest mama wisely packed me off with. See what that does for me?

Posted 4:47 AM by Gobbler
"If in Doubt, Put it In" Mrs Stackhouse, 1991

Thus spake my class teacher the wise mrs stackhouse back when i was nine. I hold her personally responsible for two things. One) cheekily bastardising my established understanding of the English. It got me quite confused when instead of saying “if in doubt, leave it out” she said the above. There was no call for it, it put me into a stir. Especially moving for me was the sly grin that broke across her face after she had said it. Two) making me speak proper. While I now possess a grasp of the English language that is as firm as any in Illyria, and certainly rivaling that of the queen, (someone let slip to me that this was so much the case that parliament was considering changing it to Warlord’s English. Corr blimey guv’nor that sounds right brill and tubular to me) once upon a time there wasn’t a ‘th’ sound anywhere in my speech, instead a forest of ‘f’ sounds. If dear grandmamma were here today she’d vouch for this by the fact that I once began a Christmas thank you card:

“Dear Grandma,

Fank you very much…”

Quite why I have moved onto this subject I cannot say. Apparently I am in China and am supposed to be peppering the reader with amusing anecdotes of my trip here. The connection of course is that Grandma was herself a teacher and so unsurprisingly was mrs S.

Six classes were had today. The day began in grim fashion at 7am. Never one to volunteer for the early start, I can at least be glad that I have only one such class. It went well as far as I remember, the students being 20 odd year olds in the third year of their teacher training. Much more like what I had hoped I would get. Somewhat regrettably, with a higher standard of English comes more sensible names. All far too sensible for my childish tastes. The best I can offer you is that I misread a couple of them for a millisecond and wildly imagined that it was a petite girl called Rugby and not Ruby, and another called Shitty when it was really quite clearly Chitty. The class went fairly well, the only problem being that I cannot at present recall exactly where we got to in the class which may have unfortunate results next week…

This afternoon saw classes that were even less like cricket than I had thought. Firstly I had four separate 40 minute classes instead of doubles. They were only 13-15 year olds and the last two classes had only been learning English for 5 months. Understandably they didn’t understand most of what I was saying. And with 46 kids it took the whole lesson for everyone to stand up and say their names. Slow going.

I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here!

The end of the penultimate class of today saw first one then the entire class coming up to me to ask for my autograph. Apparently these kids are insightful little blighters and have sussed that one day those signatures will be worth millions, and I can but credit them for it. Regrettably it turned out that my writing was if anything more incomprehensible than usual as they jostled and pushed to get their books into my hands. I didn’t have time to sign them all. I’m a professional English Teacher Foreign Expert dontya know, I have places to be and t-shirts to buy.

Tonight has been a quiet one. Ive been sleeping in most of my spare time, as my cold has turned vicious and my defences are at full stretch. One hopes that they will prevail against the influenza assault as I have no intention of being CIEE’s next casualty. Imagine the headlines!, “Foreign expert dies from exposure as college fails to provide heating during arctic winter.” As I have never been ill before and in fact consider myself to be immune to all diseases and may well be immortal. Taking the words of Chairman Mao Zedong to heart, I firmly believe that “All reactionaries are paper tigers.” (Talk with the American correspondent Anna Louise Strong, August 1946). This dribbling nose, headache, apparent weakness and intermittent cough are reactions to my living in a mockup igloo without adequate seal-skin attire, and are thus paper tigers. Thus one only has to take a stick to the thing and it will surely crumble. This has yet to work, however, and I have only just stopped my nose from bleeding after I thwack-ed it batman style. I will persevere.

On the subject of exposure, a quick soiree to the only English bar listed in the lonely planet, ‘Jill’s Bar’, ended in tears last night after we stayed a might too long. The road determined to make us regret having one for him with the result that jon got back to his campus after 10:30 and was thus locked out. He was lsat heard from sheltering in the internet café at some point last night. Contact has not been established since, and CIEE may have lost another of its experts.

And as I’m writing an essay, I might as well go on…

Which was no doubt just what you all wanted to hear. The trip to jills bar was not a smooth ride. Highlighting the name in the lonely planet, which lists it in mandarin as well as showing it on the map, we were initially encouraged when the driver, after studying the relevant page for some seconds, happily exclaimed “Ahhh, Jiw Baa!” yes yes, we replied, step on it my god man, there’s beers to be drunk and people to meet! These ‘people’ consisted of jon, the chairman. The two others, Carolina and Mr. Tofer were unreachable. It transpired that, while Chris was eating again, what he eat wasn’t hanging around for discussion and a detachment of immodium had been called in to fight the gooey fight and consolidate the troops. Not shy of a bit of eat, however, they had upped and gone to Pizza Hut. Yes, we have pizza hut, maccy d’s and kfc. The buggers are everywhere. Beware fellow Bloggers, and prepare! “If the U.S. monopoly capitalist groups persist in pushing their policies of aggression and war, the day is bound to come when will be hanged by the people of the whole world.” (Chairman Mao Zedong, Speech at the supreme state conference, September 8, 1958)

anyway the taxi took us to the wrong bar despite his and the barstaffs protestations that it was indeed jew baa. after a quick beer we regauged our bearings and made it on foor to jill's bar. jon was immersed in a game of pool, happily spending some quality time woith a barmaid. and that was the day that will shortly have passed away, never to be seen again, nay. so clever.

Posted 7:51 AM by Gobbler
Chapter 22: Methods of Thinking and Methods of Work

"In their social practice, men engage in various kinds of strugl and gain rich experience, both from their successes and from their failures." Chairman Mao Zedong, Where Do correct ideas come from?, May 1963

Rubrick was first up today with a class at 7:40. i was not to be on centre court until 2 pm. Awaking this morning at 7 am i discovered that i had developed a nasty cold. easily accounting for this by the fact that i had for the last two days been living in a fridge i went back to bed, resolving to get up again at midday to make final preparations for my lesson.

the principle disturbance was rubrick returning at half nine or so after his first class. some talk followed and it seemed that things had not gone according to plan. the poor fellow seemed quite disheartened. we had been assured that the students would be excited to see a foreign teacher, had excellent discipline and were polite and attentive. he reported that they read magazines in class, chatted amongst themselves and offered little feedback in class. given that he was teaching 20 year old future english teachers, this turn of events was quite disheartening. after offering my condolences and briefly discussing how we might edit our established lesson plan i returned to my bed. sleep seemed an obvious way to avoid worrying about things.

i should mention that due to various tweakings and playing with the buttons my heater has been going for several hours now and shows no sign of going on strike. it doesnt chuck out much heat tho, and often makes disturbing clunking and whirring noises. every now and again these clunks reach a certain level so as to precipitate a full system shut down, but after just a couple of minutes the thing drags itself back into action. so now i cant see my breath in front of the computer. i consider this a bonus. whats more, bill showed me how to operate the water heater so my shower today was satisfyingly pneumonia resistant. Donning shirt and tie i soon received the call to meet bill down stairs. this was it. soon - my heater has just died - i would be in a class full of 20 odd year old will be teachers. i gathered my things, bringing with me several books. i had no intention of using most of them; i figured they would make it look more like i meant business. as i had expected, things were not quite what i had expected.

travelling by bicycle to the another campus, it quickly emerged after arrival that i wasnt teaching 20 year old future english teachers but 17 18 and 19 year olds with what even my contact teacher described as not much english. i suggested that this simply wasnt cricket, that my lesson plan relied on the students being confident enough in english to talk back. bill suggested that he would sit in on the class in case of problems. Looking through the window i could see many of the kids looking at me expectantly. after disshevelling talk - my heater has come back to life - with the teacher by the doorway, bill motioned me in. i took a breath, gripped my books, straightened my tie jimmy bond style, flicked invisible dust from my sweater tony blair style, and strode in.

all in all it went reasonably well. with rubricks warnings i was wary for the kids to be not paying 100% attention and tried to keep things moving, not dwelling when they didnt respond to my questions. DId they not understand or did they not care to reply? there seemed little point in dwelling on it. it meant that come the half time break i had almost run out of material, big whoopsie. it was hard to get them to cooperate by doing group work and chit chat escalated as soon as i stopp3ed adressing the whole group. eventually i found that by getting them to write stuff down some results were produced.

after the break i was in fairly desperate straights as to what to do so i went over again some of the stuff i had brushed over before due to lack of interest. the differences between england and china and other things about england and china. write it down. by this point i had been given the list of names that i had asked for. this provided me with some amusement. they take english names tho usually they dont know what the names are. Thus from the only slightly obscure 'King' and 'Ice' i have the entertaining 'September' and 'Coffee' and from the downright silly 'Shadow' (girl) and 'Vootor' to the incomprehensible and possibly slighty naughty 'Ice Cream' and 'Toy'. Better just mention other favourites Snow, Sea and Purple as well.

met up for a couple of beers afterwards with rubrick and jon to regroup and consolidate. in jill's bar, or so we thought as the taxi driver nodded in excitement at a bar clearly named something different. we asked teh bar staff; they claimed it was jills bar. it wasnt. did they not understand or did they not care to understand?

And so the He-man-esque thought for the day is: remember, kids, who is doing the teaching around here.

Posted 9:00 AM by Gobbler
It was a somewhat jaded Nicholas James Goulden that greeted the world on Saturday morning, somewhat behind schedule. One too many traditional toasts involving what the chinese unashamedly call 'hard liquer' and what i call 'a grim time all round' where toasted, and numerous farewell drinks acompanied them. the best way to avoid the harshness of saying goodbye is simply by not saying it, but sloping off unnoticed. i thought about doing this but bade my farewells like the best of them, both friday night and saturday morning.

after hastily packing it was time to leave. our waiban, the guy who will look after us and make sure that we have everything that we need for our stay. some of tehm are atrocious but ours, bill, has been pretty good so far. tonight he took us out for dinner again and then gave us a guided tour of the supermarket. above and beyond the call of duty, nice to see. but i digress.

five of us were heading for Yangzhou, City Of Dreams. I'd harped on about Yangzhou being the 'city of dreams' so much that it emerged today that at least one person thought i was being serious and that was its actual name. alas it is not the case. Jon and i have become decent amigos largely because he was the Chairman and i was the Warlord and the two of us were going to be sharing the experience in the city we christened Yangzhou City of Dreams. alas it is not the case. the five of us, encased in the van, were driven, as often happens with vans, to where we were going, via a service station where lunch was had. All fairly standard stuff so far, like a school excursion, a walk in the park, a jolly little ride. Then we arrived at jon's campus and he got out. on his own, he met his minder and was whisked away. our van sped from the scene. It began to hit home that, contrary to popular fiction, we were not here in china on some pleasure cruise heading for one jolly after another, but to teach chinese in china which is full of chinese people and thus really not much like home at all. Next Rubrick and i were installed in our accommodation. once installed in the 'hotel', bill the waiban left to take Christopher (The very same Chris Tofer of last week) and his lady of sigificance Caroline (who shall hereafter and until such time as Bill gets it right be rechristened 'carolina').

I was alone in my room, bade to sit out the hour and a half until dinner. Tired and done over from the preceeding events, I did begin to wonder just what the hell i was doing here. Surely, i thought, surely. thats all i thought. it made me smile. this doesnt make me quite as insane as it might sound. its one of the things i remember from the mandarin course i did in london 3 weeks ago. 'Ba' in chinese indicates a question i.e. bla bla bla ba e.g. 'are you insane!?' while 'ma' indicates a question of a different nature. its used the same way as ba but means instead, to use the same example, 'surely you are insane?!' it works well with even mundane conversation such as 'do you want some tea' and never failed to raise a titter that weekend. Pacing the room last night, too cold as the heater wasnt working and too dishevelled from thewhole affair to sit down for more than a few minutes, surely sure made me chuckle.

We all gathered for dinner. five staff inc. bill the waiban gathered to greet us. The highlight was jon turning out in an old PLA greatcoat, green with gold buttons, that one of the staff had given him when he looked cold. Marvellous. He really was the chairman now. Chris Tofer looked like he was about to expire due to a severe bout of food poisoning he had picked up. that was his story anyway. it may have just been the booze, although he really did look unwell. BEforehand he had expressed a disinclination to eat anything and that what he really craved was a glass of orange juice or three. Duly, and it seemed miraculously, orange liquid was poured in our glasses. The first smile i had seen on his face that day broke through his jaundiced visage as he brought the glass rejoicingly to his lips. his expression did not emerge into one of deep satisfaction and satiation however, and, trying the beverage, i soon discovered why. It was corn juice. to find out what this tastes like, open a tin of sweetcorn and drink the juice. a bit like that, but fresh, oh, gloriously fresh, and thicker; the flavours, oh the flavours! Mr Tofer was not overawed.

Conversation was stilted at dinner, though it was not unpleasant. I think we all wanted to escape to our bedrooms for some quality 'me' time, which we were eventually allowed to do. Unhappily i wasnt very warm as the heater resolutely refused to fulfil its design parameters. i slept with most of my clothes on. Disturbingly i think it may have been colder than the torres del paine in southern chile, nearby where some penguins live.

Anyway, tho suffering from chronic joint pains, pneumonia and bird flu, i got up the next day, which was today, to meet everyone for brekkie. brekkie consisted of dumplings. apart from obvious point, that breakfast should not consist of dumplings, the dumblings should not be boobytrap dumplings. a boobytrap dumpling is one which is full to bursting with liquid that squirts all over ones trousers leaving an unpleasant stain. Jon experimented with this and can vouch for its veracity, being the proud owner of one stained pair of trousers. The trick, which we learnt today, is to stick in a straw and suck out the juice before eating the rest. Bacon and eggs is much simpler. Shreddies are in a different league of convenience. Bubt if your civilisations been chowing down booby-trap dumplings for 5000 years then who the blinkers are you to argue with tradition? Huh?

Lunch was with the college director. It was a boozy affair but i escaped the worst of it, somehow escaping the hard liquer challenge, where it seems that goal is to become friends by downing as much of the sickly stuff as possible before either one of uoy throws up or the drink runs out. My time will surely come however. Being a warlord and all i reckon i'll be able to take a couple of em down with me. but as i say, leave it for as long as possible. lunch was all good.

SOooo, first lesson tomorrow. lesson plan done, more or less, and im tired. Wish me luck people...