Posted 5:53 PM by Gobbler
"Knowledge is a matter of science, and no dishonesty or conceit whatsoever is permissible." Chairman Mao Zedong, 'On Practice', July 1937

I awoke with a start. "Ohh!" I thought, "Ive got an early class, I hope Im not late, what time is it?... Ahh, 7:23, not quite time to gt up yet." De-de-de De-de-de De-de-de De-de-de. At 7:25 the alarm went off. "Ohh!" I thought as I struggled out of bed and began to get ready.

A banana, cup of milk, half a shower and some clothes later it was 7:37 and I was leaving my room for the 7:40 class. Its only a couple of buildings away but nevertheless i was going to be a couple of minutes late.

The thought had occured to me as I was getting ready, and it struck me again now as I walked to class. My lesson plan was deficient, ill prepared. The vague plan was to talk about different genres of movie but it struck me that they might struggle with it and that I would run out of things to do. "Oh well." i resolved, "Theres always the fruit game, hangman and 20 questions. It will have to do." Occasionally I have these last minute jitters about how a class will go. Usually when preparation time for the class has been about 30 seconds as was the case here. Two weeks ago we had finished watching Lord of the Rings the fellowship of the ring, last weeks we had talked about different themes in the film, this week we would talk about, um, um, ah! Different movie genres. Perfect. A thirty second thought process, job done. But it doesnt always work out.

I purposefully strode into the classroom. "Good morning. How are you? Ok, today we're going to, we're going to, ok." I seem to do this quite a lot, that is talk in this manner to the class, while I'm working out what to say. I use an inordinate number of 'Ok''s. If I were a student it would be a principle part of the process of imitatinig and mickey taking. Like one of my old teachers who drew breath with a short, sharp and audible rush of air. He smoked so much we thought that it was the only way he could get enough oxygen to carry on. Or the other teacher who talked a bit like Monty Burns from the simpsons, saying words like 'yes' and 'now' with a long expenditure of breath so that the words came out quite whispery but with a lingering reverberating bass undertones so that it sounded almost like a purring cat. But a male 65 year old cat with a long-standing penchant for Benson and Hedges Special Filters. Perhaps one day I will be remembered in similar somewhat disrespectful and derogatory tones...

Someone in the class handed me a note. As I read it they all looked on expecantly, and Hero, as usual, called out something highly amusing in Chinese which mate a few girls titter. Making girls titter and giggle appears to be his principle raison d'etre and he appears pretty good at it, though his humour is lost on me. Here is the note:

"Mr Golden,
Tomorrow we'll have a mid-term exam, so we want to review our lessons. Would you permit us reading books and doing exercises by ourselves? we'll really thank you very much!
All the members
of Class 2, Grade
3."

I thought of writing my name in big letters on the board and getting them to spell it out, but almost noone can spell my name anyway. There was no point in making them do my half baked lesson plan, they would have not paid much attention anyway and would have resented me for not letting them study. I muttered something about rescheduling the lesson and left.

And here I am now.

Posted 9:24 AM by Gobbler
"At present, China is one colossal construction site." Me, Just Now

An so, after a day of walking up and down and around lots of worryingly steep peaks along upsettingly steep steps we made it to our hotel for the night. Yellow Mountain is big enough and has enough slopes that arent worryingly steep to allow for numerous hotels and hostels around the top. Theres even a bank up there, for reasons best known to the Chinese. This bank is accompanied by a small retinue of two cash machines, cleverly positioned close to the expensive hotels. We were staying in the cheapest accomodation we could negotiate, at a jheight of 1820 metres, close to the heighest peak which is 1864 metres i think. Anyhow, we were tired, had to get up at five for the sunrise, and so soon went to bed. It was around this time that the construcion work started. In the bed across the room in the dormitory.

Certainly one could be forgiven for mistaking the Sleeping Fat Chinese Man for a pneumatic drill in full operation, from the moment the light went off to the moment it came on again. remarkably he didnt keep everyone awake, for in due course his penetrating bass was joined by the backing vocals of three or four other chinesies. Unsurprisingly they didnt match the SFCM's (Sleeping Fat Chinese Man) all conquering notes, merely sounding like occassionally backfiring engines. Dumper Truck engines perhaps but engines nevertheless. Their timing was all off but every now and then they reverberated together creating a cacophony that was almost tuneful. Perhaps I got an hours sleep, which was more than Chris.

We got out of bed bleary eyed a little after 5 for the dawn to join the jostling masses at the viewpoint for the dawn. I can see why it could be beautiful but when youre being pushed about by a horde of excited expectant Chinamen it feels more like youre waiting for Iron Maiden to walk on stage than the sun. In any case, surprise sur-bleeding-prise, it was a total no-show. Cloud and mist meant that instead of sunrise it felt more like God just turned up the lights slowly using his dimmer switch. Ah well.

Then, no! We began walking again, setting a good pace. Schoolboy error! Where was the breakfast. dammit people, whats wrong with you? There are easily understood and followed steps to this walking malarky. Step 1, breakfast. Step 2, walkies. As we bounded forward following our enthusiastic guide who appeared not to understand our disgruntled looks, i polished off the rest of my aforementioned tin of Pork Luncheon Meat. I was quite pleased with myself but all smugness was wiped away when after a few minutes of walking we came to a restaurant and passed inside. Breakfast.

After that it was time to ascend the highest peak and then descend to the minivan. Though our hostel was only 46 odd metres lower than the peak it emerged that we had to first descend about three hundred metres before climbing again, and all this via about half a million steps. Off we went. Up and down, up and down, up and up and up.

This peak, Lotus Flower Peak, is a big rock that does not easily accommodate steps and paths. As a result they were winding and steep, a bit like the steep stair and the winding stair of the secret entrance into mordor in the lord of the rings. I shall refrain from putting names to characters as I think itd be a bit harsh to make anyone Gollum. We got there in the end, in good time, and were rewarded with a few minutes relative solitude before the droves of people began to arrive. We left to begin the descent.

Getting off that peak is via a different though equally improbable path consisting of a set of equally improbable steep steps. This way down gave us a view of another peak, that we couldnt ascend as its closed for maintenance. This one has a staircase cut into the rock that just goes straight up it as far as the eye can see. I was quite glad it was closed. I mean, what kind of prat builds steps so ludicrously steep? Not very good on distances im not sure exactly how long these steps went on for straight up the mountain before turning off at a slightly more practical angle (Im not even sure if that happened at all, I couldnt see), but it seemed that the path proceeded for about 400 metres at an angle of about 2 in 3 without messing about with handrails or any of that stuff. No wonder they lose tourists every now and again and no wonder it was closed for maintenance while they figurted out how to stop killing tourists. So, in short, we didnt go up it. Mind you, Lotus Flower Peak would have seemed pretty suicidal if it hadnt had stone banisters at the more exposed points near the top i.e. about half of it, and even allowing for that I for one was glad to get down.

39,000 steps later we were at the bottom, and then we went home.

Any advice on what i should do for my class tomorrow?

Posted 8:49 PM by Gobbler
"Look at the size of that thing." Some Dude, referring to the Death Star, The Return of the Jedi

Or:

"...why should physical strength survive in a world where there was never the need for physical labour?" Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier

Mountains! Thursday we trundled off to Yellow Mountain, which partly explains another long absence. Yellow Mountain refers to a collection of mountain peaks clustered together in Hefei province. Together with some other mountains somewhere else they comprise the two most famous mountains in China. Of extraordinary, quintessentiall Chinese beauty, Yellow Mountain bursts out of the ground below it in a series of jagged protuberances which provide a stunning profile especially as special chinesey pine trees grow on the rocks, making the whole scene that much more attractive. These mountains are blooming steep, too. Well, all this is hard to imagine so lets not worry too much and crack on shall we? Just think of some big, vaguely yellow, (on account of the dry grass that grows in places) spiky mountains with trees growing here and there.

Classes on Friday were cancelled and rescheduled for Sunday, which meant that we could leave on Thursday. Naturally enough, the reason for this was intricately related to trains, the evil machinations of Dr. Octagon (a foe thought long conquered) and progress and stuff like that, but mostly trains. They opened the new train station yesterday (Sunday) and to help keep the crowds down they made the students have lessons, and cancelled friday as a compromise (although in fact this didnt happen. Sure, they made them work yesterday but they didnt bother giving them the time off on Friday. They werent told I wasnt coming, they werent told i would come on sunday instead. When I rolled up to classes yesterday they werent expecting me. I had to evict another teacher before I could teach. Thats dedication for you). Where were we? Ah yes, Friday was cancelled so we left for Yellow Mountain on the Thursday eve.

WE had, at tremendous expense, gone through a tour group to organise our accommodation and in fact whole trip, and we departed at about half six i think fo the seven or eight hour trip. Given the millions of people building the millions of roads here it is somewhat dishgeartening that they seem to have only finished about three of them with the result that our journey largely consisted of driving over clapped out ancient roads apparently built before the chinese worked out what the concept behind the words 'flat' or 'smooth' was, or driving through building sites of future roads which, though all varying somewhat, all vaguely resembled WWI No Mans Land. This disappointing state of the roads for what is known in the trade as 'hazardous Driving conditions', and made for what we shall call 'Even More Hazardous Sleeping Conditions' as the minivan we were travelling had, it seemed, been built before the invention of suspension. We'd be just nodding off when the van would career into a ravine-like pothole -presumeably created by a one ton bomb going off or at least by a spiteful construction worker with a shovel and lots of spare time) at an unwise speed which on the one hand made a terrible, crunching bang like a bomb going off and on the other hand propelled everyone from their seats and threw us at the roof. And when we hadnt hit a pothole or ditch for a while the driver would head towards a toll gate or other object at suicidal speed, apparently only remembering at the last moment that he was a minivan driver and not a Kamikaze pilot and therefore slamming on the breaks to avoid collision, an activity that expelled us once more from our seats, this time onto the floor or into the seats in front. Under such conditions nnone of us got a great deal of sleep, and I perhaps the only one to get any at all. We rolled up at the hotel in a town near the mountain at about two or half two and got to sleep as soon as possible.

Have you ever heard people talk about 'climbing a mountain before breakfast', indicating that the person in question is a rather tough fellow fond of excessive feats of strength and resilience? If not, no matter, for I have. Climbing a mountain before breakfast is a lunatic idea, it is silly. What kind of idiots would do that? I think you can see where Im going with this one. We got up at about half eight, got in the minivan, drove to the mountain, got out and after picking up a big bottle of water for the journey ahead began walking. Have you realised what I realised at the time? There was no breakfast anywhere, not a sniff of it. AS we muttered things like 'Thats a f***ing crap idea isnt it' I looked at the mountain, ominously imposing as it disappeared into the cloud above us.

China has got lots of people in it. Yellow Mountain is famous in China. Thus lots of people want to go to Yellow Mountain, and lots do go. Three seperate Cable Car Lines bring people to near the top, and three seperate paths go up to. WE took the path, being miserly and wanting the exercise. I say path, but this perhaps isnt the most appropriate description of it. Stairway might be better as there seemed to be more steps than anything else, and it was six and a half kilometres to the 'top' which is in fact some distance from the top but nevertheless was a ridge that served as trhe end of the first leg of our journey.

There were five of us not counting the guide, Mike, Ruboid, Chris Caroline and I. Mike, being somewhere in his fifties and thus not having the newest knees on the block, turned a little pale at the sight of all those steps, but soon turned to more of a lobster colour as the number of steps climbed moved past the hundreds. Caroline soon went off the steps too as shes got a bad knee which was ok on day but did her increasing wrong over the trip. Poor old Chris was torn between his strong desire to bound ahead and get to the top as soon as possible and his sense of duty and whatnot that made him feel that he should stay with Caroline, encourage her and make sure that she was ok. In the event he sort of oscillated between the two although it seemed that carolina did not encourage his forays. Rubers kept somewhere in the lead and I loitered at the back. Guide matey was around about. Unfortunately he didnt have a flag. You would have thought that he might have a flag. We paid enough for a flag

In due course we all got to the top about three hours later. It was by now certainly time for breakfast. It turned out, however, that we were too late for lunch, let alone breakfast, and the people in this restaurant by the cable car that we went to were unwilling to cook us anything for what we thought a reasonable price, so we had instant noodles. You can imbue a similar quantity of energy and nutrients from eating paper as you can from noodles, or so ive heard, so i supplemented this with half a tin of Pork Luncheon Meat. To most people the mere idea of Pork Luncheon Meat is quite nauseous, as it consists of, as far as i know, all the pig that cant be used elsewhere mushed and crushed and boiled up and put into a tin. But for me, for one who has been to the Great Fray Bentos Pie Factory in Uruguay, it was quite simply a tin of yum. And best of of all everyone alse was too appalled to eat it so i had the whole lot to myself. It would last the whole journey. You see, even insects and germs dont like Pork Luncheon Meat so it keeps quite well without a refrigerator.

We walked all round the top and settled for the night in the Snoring Chamber of the hostel we stayed at near the top. Which I'll have to try and tell you about this afternoon as I have right now to go and get a haircut. THis is my first haircut since December, and that was the first one since May. So this is a rare and exciting event for me. Are you as excited as me? Of course you are. Laters people.