How did I get here? It’s a long way from trying to keep Scarborough BC’s financial records straight and running by the North Sea. Well SBC and I parted company, and I set out on the adventure of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), firstly getting the recognised TESOL qualification (I’m not a UK state qualified teacher), and then after spells at Scarborough International School and a sojourn in a village school on the India-Nepal border, exporting myself to China. Like many jobs these days I applied on the internet, and had a skype interview, sitting in my kitchen in Scarborough talking to, believe it or not, an Irishman in China. The school dealt with the red tape of getting me a ‘Working Permit’ and Invitation Letter and the Chinese visa cost slightly less than the British government demands of Chinese tourists.
It’s been kindly suggested that there’s a touch of Eric Liddell (Chariots of Fire) to my teaching in China. Leaving aside my unillustrious running career, China today is rather different from the tumultuous interWar years that he taught in, though who knows what the future holds.
I flew, via Hong Kong.
I was on the Dragon airlines flight from Hong Kong to Xian but this was an airline with international standards – airline stewardesses who spoke English and would I like a cup of English tea? I had been warned that this was an opportunity for a last cuppa not to be missed when heading for the home of the tea plant. There are many varieties of tea to be had in China and all restaurants with any pretentions will pour you a cup when you sit down to eat, but it won’t be black or with milk and sugar.
Xian airport has been built to handle the capacity of Heathrow, befitting a city with the population of London, but checking through was a simpler affair. There are not yet any capacity issues, so with my Chinese visa all in order and just two flights for baggage reclaim and after changing some money (you can’t get Chinese currency legally outside China), I was quickly through and a tad relieved and happy to find Claire (Foreign teacher manager) and Helen (Chinese teacher) of Hanzhong Aston School, waiting for me.
First stop was the confectionary store to load up on sunflower seeds, which it is almost de rigour to nibble on long journeys and in any bar. The floors of bars and coaches quickly come to resemble the bottom of a budgie's cage. It’s a great way for drivers to stay awake on long journeys, with the Chinese adept at separating seed and shell just with their teeth. Out of the airport terminal it was a hot afternoon, 30+, but we were soon on an air conditioned coach for the short four hour journey south-west to Hanzhong. This took us around the immense city of Xian (one time ancient capital of China) on a pan flat plain, but then quickly following a steep sided river valley and through many tunnels to get through the tree clad mountain range that will offer us protection from the chill Mongolian winds in the winter.
It was dark by the time we arrived in Hanzhong and took a taxi to my apartment block. Chinese apartments are doubly protected by an outer solid or grid door. We got in through both doors after a struggle and I dumped my bags. It was late and we were tired and hungry. But before going for food, having locked up, I’m glad I still had the wits to suggest I made sure I would be able to get back in later on. I didn’t want to be spending my first night in China on the stairwell. Of course, try as we might, we couldn’t break back in, so after a delicious outdoor barbecue, in what I now know as barbecue street, I ended up in a hotel for my first night in China.
Waking up was surreal. I recognized the car horns from the street below, but coming to to full blown singing from Hanzhong cathedral next door was not what I expected, but a pleasant way to start day 1 in China.
Claire turned up with t- shirt and socks for me, borrowed from her partner Paul and a rather natty pack of boxer shorts, purchased en route from her apartment, which apparently the school will pay for (a curious item for the auditor). You will recall that my luggage was locked away in my apartment. Breakfast from a roadside stall on the way to school was a delicious and filling crepe with omelette and beansprout filling and a liberal smear of chilli paste. I’m going to have to get used to a large amount of spicey food.
The school occupies the second and third floor of a building in a central location in Hanzhong on a major crossroads (the first floor here is the ground floor in the UK). Inside is cool and peaceful (on non-class days). I was introduced to Erin, the Chinese school manager and some of the reception staff and Chinese teachers (CTs), Lilly, Cherry, Elvia, Flora and Wendy. Education is in general a female occupation apparently. Thankfully for us Foreign Teachers (FTs), Chinese people adopt an English name when they first start to learn English. All are welcoming. I spent the day having a walking tour of the area around the school, including the supermarket, where you check your bags into a small locker before entry and of course going back to my apartment where a new lock was being fitted on the outer door. I seem to have a capacity for small dramas. When the workman finished and disappeared I found myself this time, inside the locked and unopenable door. Fortunately Wendy, CT was locked outside, with mobile, so while the workman was summoned back to adjust the lock, or as it turned out, prove that we were idiots, I rustled up a jam sandwich to assuage our hunger, feeding Wendy through the grid. A day of small drama ended with Paul, who had returned from Xian, teaching me the Chinese numbers 1-10 by means of a dice game in Bar 79. One and two are ER, like the hospital drama, 6 is like the sign of the zodiac leo said very fast, 7 is qi, but q is pronounced ch, so it’s the chi in tai chi. 8 is easy – bar. This is the ‘foreigner’s bar in Hanzhong, so I also meet (not make) Believe, an FT from Ghana (who is the sole foreign, school FT aside from us at Aston) and a couple of the Venezuelans on secondment to oversee an order of planes being built at a local factory.
I’ve been brought into the modern smartphone world. I resisted in India but I don’t want to stand out from the crowd here in China. Ha ha. It’s a Lenovo ,small enough to fit into my pocket but big enough for me not to keep losing it in my apartment, unlike my last super-mini phone. Not that there are many places to look. There was a deal of paperwork involved but fortunately Flora was assigned to do the negotiations. The price: 800 yuan, (about £80), the basic unit of the Renminbi- People’s money, but everywhere called kuai, just as the official ‘pence’ of which there are 10 to the kuai, are officially jiao, but colloquially, mao. I went to one of the many China Mobile outlets. Hanzhong also has a rather discrete and chic Apple store for the aspiring middle class, in contrast to the major Apple shopfront in Xian.
Not only do I have a smartphone but with help/insistence from school reception I’m now on WeChat. You too could be on WeChat since I gather it’s international. It’s the ‘Facebook’ for mobiles apparently, which means it’s incredibly popular here in China. There’s also QQ which I gather is the Chinese Facebook. I shan’t be joining that.
Paul and Claire are introducing me to all the delights of Hanzhong cooking and interesting places to eat. Eateries tend to be noodle houses, specialising in a particular noodle dish or rice restaurants. In these each person gets a small bowl of boiled rice and you order communal dishes. Everyone dives into these with their chopsticks, transferring food to top their rice bowls. You eat away at your rice as you feel like it in between treats from the main bowl. Pretty much every dish has a few or many Sichuan peppers floating around. These numb one's mouth in a not unpleasant way.
We end the day in the bar known by FTs as Edward’s bar after the incredibly friendly Chinese manager whose English is limited but who likes to join our card game, 2 Up, when he has time. I also meet Suri, our Australian FT of Sri Lankan heritage (his name is the very shortened version of one of those impossible Sri Lankan names) and his delightful Chinese girlfriend, the frequently smiling Sunny. Also the equally delightful Tracy, another of P and Cs Chinese friends who is studying English at han da (da means big), the big campus of the city’s University.
I have no idea how to say my address in Chinese, but it’s been written down for me in my invaluable little black book. This is enough for any taxi driver. All the taxis are metered and bar the odd taxi driver who’ll drive a foreigner a long way round if he thinks he’s new to the city, it’s a swift ride home for about 80p.
The weather has changed rather dramatically. The heavens opened last night and it continues to pour. The streets are awash.
I have a lunch date with Tracy. This is fine except that she orders me one of the ten strange wonders of Shaanxi province, Biang Biang Mian. The Chinese character for Biang is a wonder in itself, consisting of 58 strokes. This makes it far too complicated for any computer. The lexical challenge is not my problem, however; it’s that the noodle is made as one enormously long, very slimy belt. My chopstick dexterity was coming along nicely but this is a challenge too far. Fortunately there isn’t too much etiquette in getting food from bowl to mouth, so raising the bowl or lowering ones face to lessen the distance of chopstick travel to about 2 inches, and (noisily) sucking, is acceptable. Holding a conversation whilst doing so is another matter. Tracy I note does not order Biang Biang Mian for herself.
Next up is opening a bank account and changing some money. Ever helpful Helen is deputed to help me with this task at China Bank, the largest of several banks in Hanzhong. It takes a while, but after various photocopies of my passport are taken, my full name written in multiple places (after querying whether my name or signature is wanted) and entering a pin code multiple times, I have a bank account with a debit card. Then comes the idiosyncrasy. Because I have a very long name I can only exchange $90US at a time. I could walk down the road to another branch or return the next day with sanity restored, but for now I am content that I can eat and drink for a while longer. $90US goes a fair way here.
It’s Friday so Paul and I decide to return to our dice and numbers bar for a quiet end of week tipple. We are indeed the only two people in the bar. Then in walks one of the Venezuelans. Pretty soon the bar is filled with the entire Venezuelan army secondment of men and one woman (who fortunately seems to like dancing) and we have south American dance music on the turntable and another unexpected evening in the heart of China. Highlights from the Paralympics are also on the TV, followed by Li Na (family name first in China) v Laura Robson at the US Open. I guess there’s rather a lot of people watching the same programme.
Yesterday I got the coach back to Xian as I had to go for my medical this morning. This was great as I got to see the countryside I was too jetlagged or it was too dark to see on my way to Hanzhong. Out of Hanzhong we have an initial ride along the wide valley floor through mainly rice fields, but soon we’re cutting through the steep, heavily forested mountains that separate Hanzhong from Xian, with the aid of a series of tunnels. The main highway is wide and smooth. Xian is a large city but construction is still unceasing. There are whole mini towns of high rise apartments, many still under construction with a crane on top, or looking almost finished but not yet occupied. Long may the construction boom continue. The rarity of a foreigner on board the coach, gives the stewardess an opportunity to repeat her welcome speech and safety instructions in English. I don’t realise she’s talking English at first as there is no intonation or stress in her lengthy and rapidly spoken memorised speech. It really is quite an achievement. The highway road signs are also in English as well as Chinese.
The medical first thing this morning was thorough. I prepared for it as for an operation; no alcohol the night before and no breakfast. Once booked in I was conveyed around the medical test centre (in a line of many foreigners and also the odd Chinese person) to a series of rooms where a blood sample was taken, heart rate and blood pressure taken, ECG, sonar etc, you name it, it was measured. Apparently my in and out in 50 minutes was something of a record. The school will be told in a few days whether I’m fit enough to live in China for a year without being a risk to its citizens.
For the rest of the day I was a tourist. Xian has a relatively small centre, a 14km perimeter rectangle enclosed by a city walls, with north, south, east, west gates. The modern brick facing, recently restored, dates from 1568. In the centre of the city centre highway crossroads, in the midst of modern urban China stands the Bell Tower (built 1582, restored 1739: there was an older one before) and a short distance away the Drum Tower. The Bell heralded the dawn and the Drums, the dusk. First off I explore the multifloor shopping building near the Bell Tower, which is filled with every kind of modern extravagance you could think of. The outdoorsy shop sells Merell walking boots. All ways around the Bell Tower and on to the Drum Tower are accessed for pedestrians by a wide and bustling subway system. I went up the Drum Tower and took a few pictures, then wandered around the narrower streets of the Muslim Quarter to the north-west of the Drum Tower and into the quiet of the Great Mosque, the largest mosque in China. As you can see, it’s a very Chinese take on a mosque.
I’ve been in Xian for a further 3 days, doing a training course for newly arrived Aston teachers. On this arrival, there are three of us from England, a couple from Scotland, two from Ireland (I’d like to hear their students in a year’s time), three South Africans and a handful of Americans. Nothing of note to report, but I did have the good fortune to link up with Ruth and Derrick from Scotland. Good fortune, aside from being pleasant people, because Ruth did 4 years of Chinese at University including a year in China and as far as any foreigner can tell, is pretty fluent. This makes eating and drinking a darn sight less hit and miss and even enables Dave, our Irish friend, to purchase a properly bargained down imitation Rolex in the Muslim quarter. I’m going to wait until I can string a few sentences together before I go on any similar shopping trip. Especially in Xian which, unlike Hanzhong, is used to foreign tourists.
Now, you’re all wondering when this guy is going to do any work. Well tomorrow evening I have my first class at Hanzhong Aston, followed by a full weekend of classes, so I’ll soon know what I’ve let myself in for. I’ll let you know in due course.
A full weekend of teaching. I started off with a C2 class, about 5 years old I guess; the first class without parents in the class, just me and CT Rita. They’re a lively and enthusiastic bunch, lots of chanting of Are you a girl, No I’m not, I’m a boy etc. Here in Hanzhong, we’re a little behind the modern technology that Aston is introducing, so I’m back to chalk and blackboard. No harm in that, except that apart from my trousers needing a frequent wash from chopstick splashes, a day of chalk means further washing. The washing machine in my apartment isn’t sorted out yet so I’m doing a lot of handwashing. No problem for a veteran of India of course, but rinsing is a real pain. Fortunately I have a nice long balcony (not open) with washing line, so no problem getting things dry in the present warm weather. Anyway, I digress. Saturday I have classes from 9:10 till 17:45, working up abilities and ages to early teens. The school is buzzing. Between lessons, us five FTs retreat to the calm of our Teachers Office. The CTs have a separate office on the floor below. We all get on well but it means there isn’t any problem of two languages flying around. Our office is also tidy – so far.
Sunday I have to shift to a different mode as I start off from 8 till 10am with the 10 bright spark teenagers of C14. 9 girls and a solitary boy named Jack who holds his own. Not quite representative of China’s gender gap: perhaps I’ll say more on this later. All Chinese students have English names which makes learning names at least possible. There’s some interesting ones: in C14 I have Lolita, Bebabo, who was and I don’t know if still is, infatuated with a certain teenage popster, Yolanda (I suspect an African English teacher influence) and Vision, who isn’t the one with glasses. C9 after that is a bigger and more boisterous class. Then after lunch it’s a lovely quiet 2hours with the four bright sparks of C12. These are talented kids. Bill, John and Diane play the guitar while Adam plays the saxophone. When we take our ten minute break, Bill gets out his guitar and too my considerable surprise, starts playing Auld Lang Syme. He’s working on The Eagles, Hotel California. We play the 3 true, 2 false game and it turns out he does have an international pen collection.
I thought I'd show you where I live. The traffic centre of Hanzhong is probably the main crossroads with the recently erected circular pedestrian flyover on it. This is at the north-east corner of a rectangle ish, 1 mile by 1/2 mile ish, with the school at the south-east corner and my apartment at the north-west corner.The main roads in this area are fairly grid-like so I have a choice of route home.It's all pan flat. It's about a 25 minute walk or 5 minute taxi ride home. To get to my apartment I leave the main road and go down one of the narrow roads that run between the main highways. There is a major open air wholesale and retail fruit and veg market on the left (which I haven't yet made use of). I go past a barbers shop (one of hundreds) and pretty soon I turn right under the gate to our set of apartment blocks. I walk past the bike shed and make a left. Taking the middle stairwell, I'm on the (unlucky) 4th floor out of five. There are two apartments per floor per stairwell, 18 steps between floors. Only blocks with over 5 or 6 floors have lifts. Maybe they allocate apartments according to age - I'm still young and fit! I try to remember to take a torch into school as the stairwell lights don't work until the 2nd floor.
It's a two bedroom apartment but Hope (from Ghana) who teaches at Hanzhong on weekends, prefers to live in Xian and come down on a Friday evening, so the rest of the time it's just me. And the best thing about my apartment - the super efficient electric hot water tank for the shower. Next the long enclosed balcony with washing line. Floors are tiled. Otherwise it's functional. Decor wise it could do with a lick or two of paint.
The Han river flows east to west south of the school with some development south of the river. I haven't been down to it yet. From the pedestrian flyover or from certain streets you can see mountains not far out of town - the Qin Mountains separating us from Xian, are to the north, the Duba Mountains are to the south. According to Wikipedia, the population of, I think, the urban area was 530,000 in 2004, it'll have swelled a fair bit since and 3.74 million for the whole prefecture between the mountains. In area, the city's quite small, but it packs in a lot of people.
The streets get a little crowded at rush hours and there's always people about till late; main streets are alive and lit up in the evening (shops, stalls and restaurants don't close while there's a kuai to be made), but it's not too manic. The same goes for the roads. But here's the thing - most main roads have wide scooter/bike lanes and while cars and bikes weave around and cut corners and ignore oncoming traffic, apart from the odd speeding taxi, it's all done at a gentle pace. As for pollution - nearly all the scooters and bikes are electric powered. As long as you look every which way before changing direction, you're OK.
I understand that the written law is that front seat safety belts are compulsory. The unwritten law is that no-one wears them. Taxi drivers, of which there are men and women, drape the safety belt over them but refrain from clunking it in. It is a little insult for you to do so. I have confidence in most of them.
Interesting start to Class C14. There was some Chinese characters writing on the board, so I asked if anyone could explain what it said. It turned out it was about the current Chinese, Japanese territorial islands dispute. The main topic of news. For the following activity, one pair then decided to show they understood arguing ‘intensely’ by taking the Chinese and Japanese sides. Well done to R. for representing the Japanese side in this mini-debate.
I had an amusing time with tonight’s meal. I went back to the same place as last night as they were so friendly. I did my usual pot-luck and point act and got a plate of green beans in a garlic dressing and a chicken, mushroom, onion and pepper dish. As I neared the bottom of my rice bowl, without having finished the dishes, the waitress brought me, quite unsolicited, an extra, smaller bowl of rice. The waiter also slipped a spoon onto the chicken dish to help out with the last remnants. Leaving Chinese phrasebooks on the table is a great fascination and, as is usual, a waiter whipped it off the table for a closer look. But the real surprise came when I had the page open in preparation for telling them I was Yingguoren not Meiguoren (English not American) and the waitress read the page header, Where are you from, out loud. I told her in my best Chinese, which news of course I heard her sharing with all the other customers. Pretty soon I had a little posse of waiters and waitresses at my table, providing an audience for my practice of tones and reading of the Chinese and English for Green and Jasmine and Black tea. The waitress proudly told me the bill 25 kuai, in English and I would have impressed them a little if I’d been able to say it in Chinese, but unfortunately my pronunciation of ten (in two ten five) was slightly off, so they looked at me blankly. It’s a tricky language.
Hanzhong is a good place to be at present in the run up to National Day, next Sunday, the day of celebrating the post 1949 China, and military hardware parades in Beijing. There are a few small groups marching in the streets behind a banner or a drum, but everything is calm and friendly. While I haven’t been able to see too much news, I gather that anti Japanese (and American) protests in Xian and one or two other large cities got a bit more rowdy. So what am I doing for National Day and Mid Autumn Festival – well, with just three weeks into the new school term, I and the other staff of course, get a (paid) holiday, so instead of staying in laid-back Hanzhong, the FTs are taking the bus up to Xian, overnight train to Lianyungang on the coast in Jiangsu Province, where Paul’s friend from England has just started teaching, and then on to Nanjing, scene, in 1937, of the most infamous J. atrocity. I will be saying wo shi Yingguoren frequently.
National Day, always the 1st October (after 1/10/1949) follows on from Mid Autumn Festival (Moon Day), falling on the 30th October this year, according to the Chinese lunar calendar. Here’s the tale. The action takes place around 2200BCE, during the reign of the legendary Emperor Yao.
Houyi was an immortal and Chang'e was a beautiful young girl, working in the palace of the Jade Emperor (the Emperor of Heaven, 玉帝 pinyin:Yùdì) as an attendant to the Queen Mother of the West (the Jade Emperor's wife). Houyi aroused the jealousy of the other immortals, who then slandered him before the Jade Emperor. Houyi and his wife, Chang'e, were subsequently banished from heaven. They were forced to live on Earth. Houyi had to hunt to survive and became a skilled and famous archer.
At that time, there were ten suns, in the form of three-legged birds, residing in a mulberry tree in the eastern sea. Each day one of the sun birds would have to travel around the world on a carriage, driven by Xihe, the 'mother' of the suns. One day, all ten of the suns circled together, causing the Earth to burn. Emperor Yao, the Emperor of China, commanded Houyi to use his archery skill to shoot down all but one of the suns. Upon completion of his task, the Emperor rewarded Houyi with a pill that granted eternal life. Emperor Yao advised Houyi not to swallow the pill immediately but instead to prepare himself by praying and fasting for a year before taking it. Houyi took the pill home and hid it under a rafter. One day, Houyi was summoned away again by Emperor Yao. During her husband's absence, Chang'e, noticed a white beam of light beckoning from the rafters, and discovered the pill. Chang'e swallowed it and immediately found that she could fly. Houyi returned home and realizing what had happened he began to reprimand his wife. Chang'e escaped by flying out the window into the sky.
Houyi pursued her halfway across the heavens but was forced to return to Earth because of strong winds. Chang'e reached the moon, where she coughed up part of the pill. Chang'e commanded the hare that lived on the moon to make another pill. Chang'e would then be able to return to Earth and her husband.
The legend states that the hare is still pounding herbs, trying to make the pill. Houyi built himself a palace in the sun, representing "Yang" (the male principle), in contrast to Chang'e's home on the moon which represents "Yin" (the female principle). Once a year, on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival, Houyi visits his wife. That is the reason why the moon is very full and beautiful on that night.
What better reason to buy and eat Moon Cakes.
Wednesday saw us taking the coach back through the Qin mountains to Xian and then catching an overnight train to the China Sea seaside. Coaches and trains alike are fitted with overhead TVs to ease the boredom. There’s normally an ancient China drama with plenty of sword-fighting or kung fu breaking out, with a bit of magic and slow motion for good measure. Sometimes there’s a dubbed foreign thriller. On this journey we also had the delight of a quiz show contest where the losing contestant was dropped through a hole in the floor. The accompanying jingle was in English. All programmes of course have sub-titles as despite its promotion, not everyone in China’s far flung, dialect speaking provinces, understands what we call Mandarin Chinese and the Chinese call putonghua (common language), but all can read the mutually comprehensible Chinese script. This brilliant feature of a script that can translate into different dialects that amount to different languages, is of no use to me of course.
While heading for the train station I was intrigued to see a cat tied to a tree. Dogs wouldn’t be tied up of course because they tend not to desert their owners. Makes perfect sense to me. My companions were laughing because in my attempt to get the best photo I’d failed to notice the child being held over the gutter, on the other side of the road, demonstrating the effectiveness of the kaidangku, or open crotch pants, that infants are dressed in. Our cultural choices are not necessarily the rational ones. Apparently some government officials have advocated the elimination of kaidangkus in this modern global age, but Chinese mothers have told them where to go. Anyway, early public exposure is good training for the public toilets in such places as Xian train station which deals with the vast throughput by providing a long open trough to squat over. I’m not quite so culturally adapted or fortunately desperate enough to make use of this facility, so have time to retire to the nearby KFC for a little western privacy. (Note to KFC, and McDonalds for that matter: I know it takes up room, but one squat toilet is simply not adequate, especially for your female customers). KFCs have scatter bombed China. Even Hanzhong has two outlets. I haven’t been desperate enough to eat the food yet.
The main train station is an experience. First we queue in the main plaza for ticket only entry into the station forecourt, then through x-ray baggage security into the station itself. We select one of the vast, with seating, waiting rooms for our numbered train and then when signalled, jump up with everyone else to form a long queue behind the ticket barrier. The last time I’ve experienced a queue like this is trying to get into White Hart Lane for a New Year’s Day kick-off (only because Watford were playing away). The train is long; really long. Fortunately for the outward journey, we’ve been able to book sleepers for our 15 hour overnight journey. I have a top bunk (of three). Now, if you’re reading this in bed, imagine the ceiling has just been lowered to 1.5 feet above you. Try getting out of bed, dressed, get the duvet out of the way and get down the metal ladder at the other end of the bed. Not easy is it. I should have said, don’t attempt this if you have a bad back. I actually get a reasonable if intermittent night’s sleep as we rumble our way across the east of China. It’s not one of the new bullet trains.
I’d been led to believe that Lianyungang, the city where we’re meeting Paul’s friends, newly arrived English teachers like myself, was beside the sea. The misnomer is that it’s one city. It is in fact split into two districts, Xinpu and Ganyu, in effect, separate cities, with a reasonable amount of farm land between them, and we arrive at the non-sea city and have a further hour’s taxi ride to Ganyu.
We spend much of our first afternoon looking for food (which is shocking for those of us from Hanzhong, where food is everywhere) and when we find it, find the food very bland, as we are now used to Sichuan heat and spice. Then I have my first experience of an oriental institution, KTV. Karoake of course, but not as I know it. Previous experience of this in a British pub led me to think that provided everyone was in the right spirit to sing in front of friends and strangers and provided there are one or two good singers and the songs chosen by the less tuneful are short, it’s good fun. Here in China, after buying lubrication, you pay for time in one of the many rooms in KTVs timeless sanctum. Each is fitted with comfy sofas for your party to sprawl on, in front of a big video screen, a karaoke machine and a couple of mikes. Now, the thing about karaoke is that you have to be prepared to stand up in front of the audience and sing, dance if you want to and otherwise entertain the crowd. If you choose to sing Jailhouse Rock, then the audience are entertained by you, rather than Elvis Presley, however, good an Elvis impressionist you are. And nobody cares if you really aren’t too good provided you don’t get up too often. The KTV experience makes you realise why, despite the spice and variety of food, there really is a demand for KFC and McDonalds. Chinese people at times fall for the timid, unadventurous and bland. At KTV you don’t have to get off the sofa to take your turn at the mike and if your group are all too timid, you don’t even have to sing in public as you can opt for the original singer to drown you out. No chance of losing face. It’s an OK way to pass the time, and the fruit provided by management to soak up your alcohol is pleasant, but it’s otherwise uninspiring.
Friday was spent in glorious burning hot sunshine at Lian Island (with short causeway) about an hour’s taxi ride away. Most unChinese like, we walked round the island, had a seafood lunch, direct from tank to plate via a sizzling wok, before coming to wedding picture beach. Wedding photos outside the registry office are simply not sufficient for Chinese couples. So before the big day, wedding attire is packed, together with good friend or hair, makeup stylist and dresser, for the photo outing to the scenic location. Multiple snaps in wedding dress and suit are insufficient for some. The beautiful couple in yellow (which I thought really stood out from white) did a lengthy change and hair restyle before going off in their hired PLA outfits for the casual shots. Such photos are not sealed up in an album but proudly displayed in the marital home. Lian Island is also home to some large bugs (see photos).
Next stop, Nanjing, capital of China at various times and capital for the Kuomintang’s Republic of China prior to 1949.
I have wanted to see the Yangtze since listening as a child to a sketch on a Monty Python LP in which Britain’s top goalies were moved to spout poetry about the great river and Bill Shankly’s explanation got fixed in my mind: Yangtze Kiang, a river of many moods. And here we are, crossing the great river, the 3rd longest in the world, the longest in Asia, on the top deck of the double decker road rail Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge, opened in 1968, the first heavy bridge designed and built unaided by the Chinese. I have no idea whether the Yangtze in this commercial and industrial heartland of China is still ‘home to a race of fish‘ (Bob Wilson) and its seems to be in a flowing mood, but it’s broad and busy.
Here’s a good rule of thumb if you want to catch a taxi in a strange city. Walk away from the bus or train station (so that drivers don’t instantly clock you as newly arrived, not that you won’t stand out as a backpacking foreigner). Walk on the right side of the road for your direction, but don’t walk too far towards the centre, otherwise every taxi driver will have already picked up a passenger. I walked too far. Then I did flag a cab but found I had more idea of where my hostel was than the driver. Rule 3 is, have some idea of the length and direction of travel and get out of the taxi at the first sign that the driver is playing around or just incompetent. And don’t pay anything unless the driver can deliver you to your destination. Having been to Nanjing I can now also tell you that your first mode of transport should be the brilliant metro system rather than the taxi.
So I was a little nearer my hostel thanks to some footslogging and a free taxi ride when I discovered a) the advantage of The Rough Guide to China, apart from its excellent city maps b) in a place with curious helpful citizens. I wasn’t long standing on the crossroads, guide in hand and puzzled look on face, when the first of these helpful people came over and pointed me in the right direction. And how did he speak such good English – because he worked for a European company of course. A little way down the road I met the second best English speaker in my month in China (one or two CTs excepted). The third time I met an even more determined to help lady whose English was very limited but who got out her mobile phone and phoned the hostel. This gave a young couple time to pose for a picture with the foreigner. I was beginning to feel like the baton in a relay when the fourth guy made another call to the hostel, then got me to walk 10 metres back in the direction I’d come from and pointed out the large International Youth Hostel sign that I’d walked straight by. I can recommend the Jasmine Hostel. It’s in a quiet but convenient location, it’s showers are hot, bedding clean, rooms not too big but with big lockers, receptionists helpful and English speaking,
It was time to try out the Metro system since I’d arranged to meet my friends at the Temple of Confucius. They were staying at another hostel which I hadn’t managed to get booked in at. The Metro system is brilliant. Lots of ticket machines which give an alternative of English instructions, token operated barriers and fares of 2 Yuan (20p) for most single journeys (which was helpful for a simpleton like me who failed first time round to take the stairs down to the trains and went through the exit barrier instead, so that I could practice buying a fare again). There are presently only two lines, north-south and east-west (though many more are planned – imagine this in a private public partnership western city) with a couple of interchange stations. And when you get on the tube, you can follow your progress as the line of dots lights up for stations passed and the announcements are also in English. I was impressed. Carriages were a little packed in rush hour. Two things they haven’t quite got right are up only escalators and no rule of leaving one side clear for people in a rush, not that the tube lines are deep.
So we went round the Temple of Confucius, some of us paid 2 Yuan to strike the big bell or big drum and then we went for eats and a stroll around the narrow streets full of nick nacks beside the canal.
You may recall that I purchased a smartphone soon after arriving in China and its smartness now came in handy as I had no instructions on how to set the alarm on my multifunctional wristwatch, but with Paul’s help, set the alarm on my smartphone for 7:15am. This would give me more than enough time to make it to our agreed rendezvous for 10am. Setting an alarm on a smartphone is one thing, switching it off, bleary eyed and in the dark when you haven’t considered the matter before, is another. It eventually switched itself off long after I was fully awake and my three roommates I’m sure. I should have known that wasn’t the end of the matter. Of course it was going to let me snooze and wake me up again five minutes later. I got out of the dorm as soon after that as possible and noticed a strange thing. I hadn’t noticed in the dorm, but in the stairwell, there were no curtains on the windows and it was definitely still dark outside. I looked at my wristwatch. It was 3:30am. Now the human mind is an amazing thing, firstly because, if I’d listened, it was telling me that I hadn’t been to sleep for a full night and secondly, because it woke me up, unaided at 7:20am.
Note to self: If you power off your phone, the clock won't reset unless it picks up a signal or you do it manually.
I needn’t have set my alarm after all as I was the only one who had the remotest regard for meeting times during the weekend.
Who thinks WW2 started in 1939? Americans, and Russians forgetting about the invasion of Finland and division of Poland with Hitler, might say 1941. For the Chinese full scale war started in 1937 (though Japan had earlier invaded Manchuria), with the fall of Beijing, then after a major battle, Shanghai (bypassing Hong Kong for the time being), leaving the nearby capital of the Republic of China, Nanjing, undefendable. Most of what was left of the Chinese army after the Battle for Shanghai retreated further inland and the War of Resistance against Japan inland descended into stalemate (in Japan it’s known as the Japan-China War, elsewhere, the 2nd Sino-Japanese War (the 1st was 1894-1895, primarily over control of Korea, though the Chinese also ceded Taiwan).
On the way to Nanjing and then mainly over a six week period after the fall of Nanjing, the Japanese Army ran amok. The International Military Tribunal of the Far East estimated more than 200,000, mainly civilians, were killed. The Chinese estimate is about 300,000. The Nanjing Massacre or Rape of Nanjing is a crucial event taught in Chinese history. Whether it has been properly acknowledged or a ‘full’ apology given, is still a stumbling block for Chinese-Japanese relations. The Memorial to the Nanjing Massacre was built in 1985 near the ‘pit of ten thousand corpses’ and I spent a somber morning going round the memorial and museum.
Afterwards I caught the Metro to Zhonghua Men where I found a café offering Sichuan stir fried potato slivers (with chilli). These are so easy to do I recommend you give them a go. The slivers are cooked but still a little crunchy. Like most fast food you need to eat them while they’re still hot. I then took a trip much further back in Nanjing history. Nanjing was walled 2500 years ago, but most of what can be seen now (it’s incomplete) was built between 1369-73 under the first Ming emperor, mainly paid for by rich resettled families. The gate at Zhonghua Men, actually four gates and seven enclosures, designed to hold three thousand men in case of enemy attack, is colossal. I went up to the top, using the steps rather than the gradient that allowed the generals to ride up, and got a great view of the city. Like all the public places I’ve seen in China, the wall offered some great (ly amusing) examples of Chinglish (this varies from comprehensible to incomprehensible). ‘Mind your stairs’ is so nearly right.
Nearby is the Yuhuatai Scenic Area and Memorial Park of Revolutionary Martyrs. The Memorial Park recalls this area being used as an execution ground, when in 1927, Chiang Kai-shek, the Nationalist Army C. in Chief, led a purge of the CCP members and other communists within the Nationalist Party, and more widely. Chiang Kai-shek subsequently replaced Wang Ching-wei who had been the nominal Nationalist leader, based in Wuhan, since the death of SunYat-sen in 1925 (more on Sun Yat-sen below). Many communists were killed but from this time the CCP became a military force helped by defections from the Nationalist army, and Mao began his rise with a move back to Hunan (from Wuhan where had been both Nationalist and CCP member).
In the warm sunshine of Mid Autumn Festival Day the Park was full of happy families posing for pictures. Main features of the park are the Martyrs’ Memorial, a prime example of Chinese Socialist Realism, the memorial on the main peak engraved with (the words of Mao Zedong himself apparently) Long Live Revolutionary Martyrs (in Chinese of course) and on a couple of walls, the music score and words in various languages, but not English, to the Internationale. I didn’t recognise the score at the time, but it set me in the mood to recall the tune and great lyrics. I recommend you revisit it – Billy Bragg does a good version with extra verse.
I was up at a reasonable hour the next day, with no need for alarm, to stroll along part of the oldest section of city wall, before heading over to Zijin Shan (Purple Gold Mountain), a big wooded hill near the centre of Nanjing, to join the thousands heading for Dr Sun Yat-sen’s Mausoleum on National Day. Due to an organisational cock-up, however, I didn’t get started at walking up the hill until mid-afternoon and despite making good progress against the tide of people coming down, got there only to find the Mausoleum closed early to allow people to get out before dark. I got up early the next day and was one of the first few hundred through the gate and round the mausoleum. Not quite the same as a visit on National Day but a little less crowded. The Mausoleum (built 1929) on top of the hill is actually not overdone; there is a statue of the great man inside a reasonable sized dome with ceiling painted in the Nationalist colours (no photo I’m afraid as this wasn’t allowed though that didn’t stop a few Chinese). At the back of the Mausoleum are his bones, brought back from Beijing where he died (though alternatively they may have been whisked off to Taiwan by the fleeing nationalists). What really makes the site so impressive arethe 392 marble steps leading up to the mausoleum and the great view back over Nanjing from the top. Despite the civil war with defeat of the Nationalist Party that he founded, and that his attempt to found a united Republic of China wasn't terribly successful, the Dr is revered in both mainland China and Taiwan as the Father of the Republic of China that replaced dynastic rule and foreigner interference. It still sems a little peculiar though, for crowds to flock here on October 1st National Day, which recalls the proclamation of the People's Republic in 1949 in Beijing. National Day in Taiwan is October 10th which marks the Wuchang Uprising in 1911 that led to the founding of the Republic of China on January 1st 1912.
All that remained for me to do was to cash some travelers’ cheques and get to the bus station if and when summoned by my erstwhile companions who were responsible for purchasing tickets. Be warned. If coming to China, only carry American Express travelers’ cheques or don’t bother at all. Bank of China in Hanzhong wouldn’t cash my Mastercard/Thomas Cook ones. But Nanjing is one of the major cities. Having been directed round three Bank of China’s in the centre of Nanjing I finally found the ‘main’ bank which did manage to accept them. Joined up banking.
I got the message that we were getting the bus back to Lianyungang and chinese characters that checked out with the name of the long distance bus station that we’d arrived at in the north of the city. The hostel advised that I could take a number 13 bus. Getting on a bus is simple. Getting off the bus at the right stop isn’t so easy, especially when there isn’t a hoard of people getting off at an obvious bus station, as the hostel receptionist had implied. So I overshot the bus station and ended up at the main North railway station. Fortunately an English speaking couple saw my plight and got me back on another bus straight away. I then overshot the bus station once more so had about a 1k brisk walk before finally arriving at the Long Distance Bus Station. Now what I hadn’t paid attention to as I sat on the bus heading north, was another slightly shorter message of Chinese characters, being the bus station my companions were now being taxied to. I hauled out my mobile: “I’ve now arrived at the Long Distance Bus Station, as it says in big English letters and am standing right outside” I said to Claire. “Now I’m inside next to Ticket Stall Number 7”. “Is that the one behind a pillar – I still can’t see you”. “Well I must be at a totally different bus station then – where is your bus station?” “Oh, we’re at the Nanjing South Train Station and the bus leaves at 2pm – that’s what my last message said”. Forget about any lunch then. I was on my way again, getting to the nearest Metro and catching the tube across Nanjing. It took me just under an hour. I ran the length of the station, up an escalator and flopped exhausted by my companions. It was just after 2. The bus was delayed until 2:20. Four and a half hours later we arrived in Xinpu, as tickets for Ganyu had sold out by mid-morning of the day of our departure, so we had another hour to wait for a reasonably priced taxi to take us the hour’s trip back to Ganyu. We did manage to find a restaurant open, but it had run out of rice (in China!!) and only had packet noodles.
Our train ride back to Xian was another experience of China. Having left it too late to get sleepers, we were left upright (no recliners) in normal seating for the overnight ride. I got a little sleep and a bit more on the coach back to Hanzhong. It had been an interesting few days.
Several events to report this week, but the most important was Pay Day on Monday. And here in Hanzhong we get paid in cash. To make it easy for me, someone from the school comes round to the entrance to the apartment blocks where all the monthly meter readings are recorded on hanging chits, so my utilities are deducted from my pay. Most of the cash is returned straight to the bank that the school cashier has withdrawn it from, but it’s nice to feel connected with one’s money.
A friend of mine believes that you haven’t really experienced another country until you’ve had your hair cut in it. For this reason you should never get your hair cut to go on holiday. So after the bank visit, Paul, who also needed a tidy-up, took me to his barbers. One thing you quickly realise living in China is that the Chinese do like getting their hair cut, or should I say styled, since women lead the way in frequent visits to the stylist. Hairdressers are ubiquitous and open till late in the evening (as with most shops, catering for the industrious people). The staff had learnt two descriptions of the available haircuts: short or long. I chose short, which actually turned out to be a very attentively snippered trim and to my great delight, a clear out of my ear hair, without any gesturing on my part. Maybe I’ll choose ’long’ next time to see if it makes any difference. If one is in a non-talkative mood of course, a visit to a foreign barber also has the advantage of a no-chit-chat chill. But the real delight came after the haircut, when I was directed for a wash and shampoo. No going out of the barbers and straight home for a shower to get rid of the itchy hair which always evades the barber’s coverings. The price: 10 Yuan = £1.
The big event this week was our staff bonding day. Actually quite bearable – a 30 minute bus ride to the end of town/start of the mountains. Then a minibus taxi up on the main road by the side of a beautiful green reservoir. This would be great cycling country if it wasn’t for lengthy tunnels. Roads don’t go up or round. We turned off the main road onto a broken side road to get to the start of our scenic ‘mountain climb’. All walks up mountains (tree covered and steep but not that high round here) seem to consist of stairs. So we had a nice dawdle up the stairs, stopping for frequent photos by everyone, till we got to a mini pagoda sit-down point (not the top), then back down so that we got to a restaurant by the lake in time for late lunch. Walking in the countryside here is on a parallel to England. Our party mainly wore reasonably sensible shoes, though no women would ever go anywhere without a ‘large’ handbag, but there are always people who really shouldn’t venture beyond the city. Stiletto heels and stacks (Chinese women are very fashion conscious) do have their limitations.
The main lunch ingredient (fish) was brought to our table for inspection, still wriggling while we munched on sunflower seeds and drank yellow tea. There were two courses – fish and delicious cabbage in soup (with quite a lot of ginger), followed by fish in stew (whole fish, plus celery, potato, tofu, pasta strips) plus rice (of course) to finish off. All with yellow tea. The fish is so well cooked that it’s easy to pick off the bone with chopsticks and stuck together rice is also manageable. For communal eating, everything except rice is served in communal bowls put on the Lazy Susan, so everyone just dives in with their chopsticks. I’ve just read in a book that you serve yourself from a communal bowl with the non-eating ends of your chopsticks, but I’ve no idea where the author went for his research. That would be far too faffy and time-wasting if more hygienic. It was a very tasty meal indeed made more pleasurable by the waitress opining that I was a very handsome chap. This was translated.
The day was actually very good for getting the Chinese teachers to speak more English as they don’t do an awful lot of simply talking in English. And teaching simple English to young learners doesn’t really help their use of tense or natural speaking. Their image of England is not entirely accurate. But then the role and purpose of the Queen is difficult to explain nearer home. Your President will undoubtedly shake hands with her if he comes to visit. We don’t go into too much detail on who is and isn’t elected. Some segment of Chinese society is doing very well, but there is a universal knowledge that the USA and England (sometimes the UK) are rich, developed countries and China is a developing one.
Walking back to my flat I paid a bit of attention to the cars on the road. There’s quite a mix of these status symbols. Germany is doing very well indeed – BMWs, big Audis, VWs, Skodas. I understand that a lot of them are made here in China. There are Kias from Korea, Toyotas (ssh from Japan) and the odd Mazda, the odd Dodge, the odd Jaguar and I’ve seen a couple of mini coopers. Also saw a rare Peugeot. It was a very pleasant day out as blue sky and warm sunshine have returned for the last couple of days. Tomorrow afternoon is Chinese lesson, so I better see if I can remember what I was taught last week – numbers and telling the time. Actually very simple. Number eleven is ten-one, number twenty-eight is two ten eight. Eight minutes past six is six hours, zero eight minutes. The only illogical part about it is that two is a different word, very similar to zero, for doing anything other than merely counting.
Chinese kids, at least the ones we see, work long hours and are obsessed by schoolwork and homework and exams. From C9: ‘I usually get up very early, at 6am, because I must be in school at quarter past seven. I usually go to bed at half past eleven. I usually finish my weekend job on Saturday. On Sunday I have many lessons; painting, guitar and English. I must work hard at school so that in the exam I can get good grades.’
My C12 class were practising future tense this week and there was unanimous agreement that the most exciting event for them next week was sleeping. And the same the week after. But it’s not a good idea to overdo this luxury. If you get to class after the teacher, then you stand all day.
During our class interval, John got his guitar out and tried to teach me the doe, ray, me … chords. My fingers are too soft to hold the frets down comfortably. Diane also had a go at playing a recognisable tune, but her fingers are too soft also, as she had to stop practising guitar two years ago, aged 13, to concentrate on studies. She’s the one who goes to a physics class after two hours of English with me on Sunday afternoon. My fingers are also too soft because I am not a ‘worker’. This distinction was brought home to me when redpening C9s descriptions of their families and coming across lines such as ‘I am from a workers’ family’. A lot of our kids actually aren’t from workers’ families. Their moms and pas are doctors, teachers, nurses, policemen and engineers. I’m afraid American English has the upper hand here, probably because Americans fill most of the foreign teacher conversation classes at universities. There are some school exceptions. While Aston would have us teach ‘pants’ and this is recognised by the majority, a minority learn trousers. We had a bit of fun in my C2 class learning the clothes names, wearing, putting on and taking off, by having races to see who was quickest at getting in and out of an assortment of my clothing. Also a floppy green hat left over by a former Irish teacher. A green hat actually is a sign of a cuckold, but the C2 kids are too young to be bothered by this. A few years ago a Washington State agriculture official who was touring China, handed out bright green baseball caps at every stop without noticing that none of the men would put them on, or that all the women were giggling.
So the kids work hard but they’re not so different (C9 again): ‘I leave the lights, TV and computer on when I’m not using them. O I don’t mean to do it. I know it’s a waste of energy, but I forget to switch them off when I start doing something else. I’m always getting told off about it.’
Going through homework (set by the CT but some corrected by yours truly) is in parts very boring, exercises and word copying, but throws up some gems in the little stories: ‘Father’s character is very straightforward, mother’s character is very straightforward but my character is domineering exposed hey hey! My father sometimes also very funny, mother too and me is our home pistachios.’ Time to consult with the CTs on Chinglish. No-one is too sure where ‘domineering exposed’ came from: I suggest simply dominant or extrovert, but the class comedian or entertainer is a kaixinguo, which translates directly as a pistachio nut. So me is our home pistachios: I am our family entertainer.
I have been making some strange sounds this week as I try to get to grips with Chinese phonetics. I have to praise the lonely planet Mandarin phrasebook, which is small enough to fit into a pocket and has some reasonably useful phrases and dictionary, in English, Chinese characters and pinyin. The exception is the food dictionary, which is set out alphabetically in pinyin, and is therefore of no use to anyone, since even Chinese people who can read pinyin as well as Chinese characters, don’t tend to think pinyin. Pinyin means spelled out sounds and is the method of putting Standard Chinese into writing using roman script. But just because pinyin uses a familiar alphabet, don’t think you can just try to say a word without being met by blank stares and having to hand the phrasebook over for the Chinese characters to be studied. Some letter or letter combinations are pronounced similarly to English but a lot aren’t. Instead of vowels and consonants, words are put together using a combination of Initials, like consonants, and Finals, being all possible combinations of vowel sounds. Then there’s the added complication of tones, the rise and fall of pitch on syllables which can completely change the meaning of a word otherwise spelt the same. The tone to use is indicated by accents (like French) over the Final, which is great except that they’re printed so small in the phrasebook that I can’t distinguish between them, except in bright light. Of course, if I ever want to read a menu, I’ll have to learn some Chinese characters. Some of these represent whole words and some, part of a polysyllabic word. They don’t reliably indicate pronunciation (a bit like written English then). Apparently, at the inception of written Chinese, the spoken language was monosyllabic, but it’s since become polysyllabic. If you want to join me and have some fun learning the sounds through pinyin, go to quickmandarin.com/chinesepinyintable.
We celebrated Halloween at school last weekend. Our reception staff hung ‘Chinese’ lanterns, paper pumpkins, ghosts and thread cobwebs from the reception area ceiling. Some of the knowing students came in masks and Paul put on the facepaint for a zombie. This went down a scream outside his classroom, let alone inside. And then each lesson was interrupted by a reception ‘witch’ handing out sweets for ‘trick or treat.’ Paul was also determined to uphold British tradition by having his ‘English Corner’ kids make ‘Guys’. Explaining Halloween is not too difficult. And letting off fireworks is of course understood in the land where gunpowder was first discovered. Explaining the history of Guy Fawkes being caught in the act of blowing up parliament on grounds of religion is a tad more problematic. What might also perplex is confining fireworks to one night. Here they are a regular occurrence. The opening of any new enterprise or any other celebration is marked by fireworks on any day at any time of the day. The idea of these pavement pyrotechnics is to make the biggest bangs to turn heads. Doubtless our health and safety officers would be aghast but here no-one pays much notice.
The other event of note this week was the teachers’ trip to the school’s area police station for issue of ID cards. We can only speculate that this is a ‘seen to be doing something at a local level’ in the run-up to 'election time' in China and/or the recent slight souring of relationship between China and America. Nationally there’s been a rapidly introduced requirement for foreign ‘experts’ who have been in China for over five years to go back whence they came for a year, before re-entry. And in Xian, foreign teachers have had glue poured into their front door locks. Not thought up by one mischievous individual methinks. But here in Hanzhong everyone is friendly, except for the man who runs the drinks shop near my nearest ‘barbecue corner’ who will only talk occasionally to tell us we are American (he has been put right repeatedly) and who puts change on the counter rather than enter into any physical contact with ‘foreigners’. He’s probably miserable with everyone.
Anyway, this ID card requirement seemed a little strange (we already have ‘foreign expert’ passports issued by the police on first arrival, which the school keeps, and the residence permit in our passports issued after the clean medical report), but this afternoon, we all dutifully trouped down to the police station. The officer in charge of the matter was apparently in a meeting so we sat in the reception room for a while watching a CCTV documentary about the jaw strength of different wild animals. It doesn’t look wise to be clamped by a lion, a crocodile or worst of all, a turtle. The non-uniformed deskman holding the fort was wearing a T shirt below his jacket emblazoned with a young, ‘radical’ Bob Dylan. My Chinese doesn’t yet allow for exchanges on the timelessness of ‘The times they are a changing’. Some talk between an official and our school receptionist suggested that processing might not be possible that afternoon as the cards could only be issued by the police stations covering the areas where we live (two on one side of town and two on the other). Then our more senior man turned up with his official line: we couldn’t be issued with ID cards as these were only for Chinese citizens. We all went away happy.
ID cards have become more important in the last couple of years as, amongst other things, they are now needed to purchase rail tickets. We have to show our passports. Much more important though and not to be lost is each family’s city residence certificate.
It’s getting decidedly nippy. China at this time of year is divided in two in terms of weather and heating. North of the Yellow River, though the boundary does wander a bit, apartment blocks have coal fired central heating, providing necessary warmth and a deal of pollution. This is turned on on the 15th of November and off on the 5th of May. Everywhere. South of this line, and the Qin Mountains between Hanzhong and Xian are the divider, it is considered too temperate for heating to be necessary. I gather that the AC unit can be adapted as an expensive heater but I haven’t yet tried. Flats have double windows but the inner window is fitted with netting to keep flies out in summer. The exception is my bathroom window which was missing the pane of glass and for which the fix a few weeks ago was a bit of curtain. At least the flats across the way aren’t treated to me showering. I must put out another reminder that the problem hasn’t really been solved. My floors are tiled but I do have a couple of small rugs. This is a step up from the new build into which Paul and Claire moved hurriedly, before any tiles were laid over the concrete floor. The school isn’t heated either. Teachers and students have begun to wear their coats indoors. And all the teachers are now exchanging their drinks bottles for thermoses for tea; loose leaf but thermoses have a sieve at the top to stop one drinking tea leaves.
I’ve bought the thermos but must go off to buy some more thermals. Come to think of it, the warmest indoor place this week was the police station reception area. Snuggly heated.
Blue skies have returned so it’s chilly in the morning but warms up outside in the bright sunshine. Unfortunately for now, neither my apartment nor the FTs room at school get much sunlight so both are cold, but my long windowed balcony is bathed in it. No doubt next summer, when everywhere is sweltering, I’ll be glad of the shade. Right now though, the balcony is the warmest place and I spent a pleasant hour marking C3 homework – identifying whether the caterpillar went up, down or over the box, and the cat under the car – listening to some tunes and drinking green tea, of course. The water for this comes from my water cooler/heater, as in every apartment and office. The tap water is apparently foul; I haven’t yet swallowed any. Every couple of weeks I let the school know that a new bottle is needed and it is delivered within a couple of hours, for 6 Yuan (60p). Delivering water is an unenviable job when everyone lives in high rise flats, with lifts only for floors 7 and above.
Incidentally, the delivery man as is common, demonstrates the price with finger counting as well as speech. One to five is obvious, six is thumb and little finger, seven, pointed fingers held horizontal over thumb, eight is a cocked pistol of thumb and index finger, nine a crooked index finger and ten a fist. I’ve also just about memorised how to write the characters 1-10, not too difficult since 1-3 are one, two and three flat strokes, which puts my writing skills not far behind my oral inability. Character writing and recognition gets a bit more difficult from now on. There really is only one way to learn characters and that’s by repeatedly writing them out using the correct stroke sequence – left before right, top before bottom, horizontal before vertical, outside before inside, bottom last. Only another 2,000 or so to learn and sequence and I’ll have some inkling of what’s in a newspaper.
There are 71 concrete steps for the delivery man and me up to my apartment; an initial 8, and then 9, between turns with refuse shutes, down which we fling ‘all’ our bagged refuse, and turns off which are two facing apartment doors. I’ve counted them not only because I like to keep track of my daily exercise, but because there aren’t any working light bulbs until the 2nd floor and then only on apartment levels. I normally take a torch to light the way in the evening. There is apparently no drive to have the landlord fix these communal areas since it would mean residents having to pay more for their communal services.
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I meet another resident on the stairs occasionally and exchange a hello. The other day my return coincided with my neighbour going in and I briefly glimpsed a well decorated apartment with large screen TV beyond the double doors.
Coincidentally, the topic for our C12 class talk was talking in a neighbourly fashion. Though the C12 sample of 4 is small, it leads me to believe that I am not alone in not getting to know my neighbours. The book prompt went on about good fences making good neighbours. Of course garden, fence and chatting over are unknown ideas in this land of apartment block dwellers. I showed them a picture of my mum’s garden and garden fence which were a wonder. I gather that Chinese is quite an abrupt and to the point language, though this does not mean a decision and action will follow. I have so far learnt how to say ‘I want’ in three different ways, depending on the importance of my want and whether I can see it, But such roundabout ways of making a request to a stranger such as ‘I’m wondering if you could do me a favour’ are at the outer limits of comprehension. The Nescafe Gold Blend adverts would be hilarious here, or maybe were. Bill decided that asking to borrow some coffee was too trivial and leapt on to trying to persuade his stranger neighbour to swap apartments with him as she had a better view, but struggled to comprehend that he would have to offer something in return.
I got a bit of a feeling of déjà vu on being informed that owning one’s own apartment is more popular than renting because of rising property prices. Here in Hanzhong I gather that strictly speaking, apartments aren’t owned but a long lease bought, with sale prices having to take into account the end of the lease and transfer back to local government after 75 years. Lending restrictions here are, I think, supposed to be a little tighter than back home in the days of 100% mortgages, but who knows how much of the property and cars is on tick. A ticking timebomb. Stand anywhere in a Chinese city and it’s easy to see that the economy isn’t just sustained by cheap exports but a huge stimulus going into construction of high rise apartments. I took a few pictures on a walk down to the riverside, stopped by the sales board for the Han River Garden Manor offering Location, Decision, Value and a wondrous night-time vista (using ‘English’ will add a few yuan to the value) and attracted the attention of a saleswoman wanting me to take a closer look or maybe sign on the dotted line. First, as a foreigner, I’ll have to live here for a year and have a notarised Chinese name, before applying to the Public Security Bureau for permission to buy. But anyway, for the moment I think I’ll wait to nearer completion and to see if I’ll be joined by any other residents. For the moment there are benefits to living in an older apartment block. The quality of the concrete has been tested for a few years. On the other hand, my bathroom window, with missing window pane is of the older type, wood rather than metal, and fitting a bit of glass in remains an insoluble problem. Maybe I’ll have to start referring to it as an open space requiring a window rather than a window requiring a bit of glass.
By the bye, I hope everyone is now boycotting tax-dodging Starbucks, and Costa whose coffee is worse, and inviting their friends round for a neighbourly cuppa.
The changing of the seasons was marked last week by mass painting of the first metre of all the roadside trees (see photo). They are now all white. It’s to protect against bugs. And last Thursday, I gather, was the start of the tenth month in the Chinese calendar. As with days of the week, this doesn’t go by any complicated name; it’s simply month ten. That evening lots of families chalked what I thought was just a circle (but apparently it has a little door), on the side of the road near their home, inside of which they burnt spirit money/paper. So the pavement was littered with chalk circles and paper embers or little fires. I found it a little difficult to find out about this interesting tradition since my impression is that, especially an educated generation, are a little embarrassed at sharing their traditional quirks with a foreigner. It doesn’t give the right impression of a rational people. Neither does Halloween of course (but nobody takes that seriously; I hope).
Each Friday evening after classes I go to King Coffee, or more recently an establishment modelled on ‘Cheers’ with comfy sofas and chairs and a bookcase, though I haven’t found a book I can read yet, get a lucha (green tea) with limitless refills (the advantage over ordering a coffee) and wait for my weekend flatmate, Hope, to roll in on the coach from Xian. Hope is from Ghana, speaks a couple of Ghanaian languages, Arabic (he’s a muslim), half decent Chinese and English of course. He really wants to play professional football in Europe, was on his way to join a team in Australia, but ran into visa problems in Singapore, so somehow landed up in China. He’s been here about three years. Officially foreigners can only work for one employer and for Hope, this is Hanzhong Aston. Being a small city with only a handful of foreigners, any other employment would quickly become known. Xian by contrast is a massive city. So Hope lives in Xian, where he can live more comfortably and travels out for his official employment each weekend. In Xian he is the dynamic midfielder (a slightly shorter Patrick Vieira) for one of the best teams, just waiting for an adventurous talent scout to turn up. He is treated with soft gloves by the manager even though the team lose him for most of their winter games at the weekend when visa official work calls. Also in Xian, Hope has a Chinese girlfriend and a freezer full of mutton at a knockdown price – he and flatmate went to the farm, picked out the beast, slaughtered, butchered and transported the joints back. In China, more even than other places, it’s nice to know where your food comes from.
Each Friday we go to a restaurant where we go through the same ‘hilarious’ farce each week as Hope, the one of us with the most advanced Chinese, attracts the waitress’s attention with a hello and insists on sorting out our order in English, even passing his mobile over to the waitress for a clarification chat with his girlfriend in Xian, as he doesn’t like to let on that he speaks the language. Ordering takes some time. I’m kept in the game with a constant ‘what do you think?’ But last Friday, the roles were reversed as I took Hope to a restaurant I’ve been to a few times and where I’ve established a friendly rapport with the staff. A couple of weeks before, the youngest waitress had taken her opportunity to take my order, in the absence of her colleague, and in a very courageous manner, to use her not forgotten yet school English. “You want green vegetables? You want beefa?” (Chinese do like to add an A to the end of English words, unless their English teacher concentrates on the word ending). I happily encourage and try to get a little clarification of the Chinese names at the same time, but in a complete about turn, this Friday Hope decides that the waitress must speak Chinese so that he can understand. Her increasingly strident, ‘it’s beefa’ and my ‘she said it’s beef not pork’ isn’t nearly good enough. It was beef and yam, and Hope declares it delicious (yam is common in Ghana), but our weekly saga isn’t complete without the midmeal summoning Hello to the waitress: ‘it’s too bony, it’s too salty or this week, too little beef’. Much angst all round, consultation of phrasebook, remembrance of school English and message along the lines of: ‘beef is expensive and if you wanted a dish with more beef and less vegetable you should have ordered a more expensive dish.’ Quite. But not to worry; the manager who has been upstaged by his junior waitress’s language skills, has got hold of my phrasebook, put a scarf on his head and is busy being photographed to general hilarity. I will be welcome back.
Sometimes you can get by in a foreign language if you get it mostly right and sometimes you can’t. The other day I wanted a top-up of tea in a restaurant (normally you don’t have to ask) and produced a word perfect request for ‘I think I want to drink tea’ as practiced with Lily, our receptionist. This was met by blank looks. Apparently I should have restricted myself to, ‘pour water’. English is just as difficult. One of my C9 students just didn’t quite get the word order right when practicing the 1st conditional and got even more confused when it came to using ‘unless:
If you eat tigers you will die
You will die if you eat tigers
you will die unless you don’t eat tigers
I have a job to do.
It’s getting decidedly cold now. The main difference from back home is the heating and insulation of housing. My apartment has an air conditioner, which heats up the main room quite quickly, if expensively, but doesn’t really get through to my bedroom, and the temperature falls as soon as it’s switched off. It’s a little better now that I’ve put tape down the gaps in the speedily fitted sliding windows. I think I’ll be living in my duvet jacket inside and out for the winter and I now think the electric blanket is one of the great inventions.
Food and my cooking regime is a little different here. My kitchen cupboard contains porridge oats, honey and raisins. I like to start the day with something bland before the guarantee of spicy food outside my apartment. I have an electric hob for porridge or wok stir fry (most kitchen space is taken up by a two pot gas stove not connected up to any gas) and of course a rice cooker. But I rarely cook in the evening.
My most regular and favourite lunchtime meal is Shaozi Mian, the speciality of one café in the food street near school. This is a bowl of spicy noodles with chilli, diced pork, tofu, potato, carrot and spring onions. Ordering is just a matter of saying Da Wan (big bowl) or Xiao Wan (small bowl). Eating out is the norm at lunchtime. The Chinese staff sometimes bring a bowl of food from home for lunch¸ (no-one eats sandwiches; real bread is even scarcer than it is back home) or sometimes eat pot noodles, but these are a last resort as everywhere.
Of course I sometimes eat Mian Pi. This is the Hanzhong speciality; flat noodles (made from rice) in chilli oil with bean sprouts. People eat it hot on its own for breakfast, lunch or dinner, and cold as a banquet dish.
‘Now the children of China are very thin or fat. Because they don’t like do sports.
You must do morning exercises every morning.’ So says Tom of C9, or was it Gerry, his identical twin. Well the main reason the majority don’t do sports is because they aren’t given any time for them. Another reason is that they spend spare time playing computer games. So I’m a rare site taking my pre-breakfast run. But it is now the season for street badminton so there are plenty of people, mainly bored shopkeepers, knocking a shuttlecock back and forth; or playing ‘shuttlecock’, keepy-uppy with a big shuttlecock. And my neighbourhood, and I assume others, has a little playground area with a couple of ping pong tables and exercise machines. And down by the riverside I found the exercise park (see picture). The groups of mainly older women who meet up on street corners and in the central square to do gentle aerobics don’t seem to be put off by colder weather either.
Of course Christmas is almost upon us, and though it isn’t widely celebrated or a holiday in China, this doesn’t prevent the supermarkets from trying to cash in. Supermarket staff have started to wear Christmas hats and we have Christmas music: I’ve heard a pop version of God rest ye merry gentlemen, Here comes Santa Claus (or as he is known in China, Grandad Christmas) and strangely, July Andrews singing Do Ray Me.
I was fortunate to meet a lovely lady called Jin Yan just before Christmas and she arranged to meet me on Christmas Eve to help with my Christmas shopping. It feels rather like back home but not so frantic and it doesn’t get dark quite so early. After shopping we went for dinner, Huoguo (Hotpot) of course. The hotpot is a big pot filled with broth placed over a burner in the centre of the table. You order the raw ingredients and then cook them in the hot pot, fishing them out with chopsticks, before dunking in a little bowl of spice or sesame oil of your choice. I particularly like quail eggs. The Hanzhong version is immitative of Chongqing hotpot, being numb and spicy, the numbing caused by sichuan peppers, but it's toned down by use of a sectioned hotpot with spicy broth in one side but non-spicy in the other. Everyone in Hanzhong loves it while saying you really should go to Chengdu or Chongqing to eat it.
Christmas Day is not a national holiday, but since it was a Tuesday there was no teaching. Our school manager had decided that all the staff should go out for a Christmas dinner together, so we all taxied over to the venue. But before we could sit down to dinner, there were party games to be played, to get us in Christmas mode, or to improve our team ethos. This team meeting, team building thing is very much alive and well in China and gives everyone a chance to be reminded of their position. It is also of course essential that you attend, so poor Sury who should have been in bed recovering from flu in time for the weekend’s teaching, came to join in as best he could and then further spread germs through the chopstick dip. The lunch was pleasant but not Christmas dinner as we know it. In the afternoon, having made a video skype call to family, I joined Paul and Claire and friends for further celebration.
Of course, by the time teaching came round on the weekend I was going down with the virus. And because the 1st of January was a national holiday (the Chinese recognise two new years, though only one is important for celebration) our teaching days had to accommodate public school closures, so we were back in on Monday and Wednesday and Thursday. By Thursday I could hardly speak so standing in front of a class was a bit farcical. I wasn’t alone. But sick leave and staying at home and not spreading germs isn’t the done thing. With dense urban populations, large class sizes and social feeding, this is one social attitude that doesn’t help anyone.
But to compensate, this is the land of the drip. Chinese medicine and modern medicine is imbibed in quantity, but feeling run-down, got a cough, cold – go to hospital and get hooked up to a drip for an hour or four. Then go back to work. Not me though, since I knew a nurse, Jin Yan, who decided that my chronic cough needed to be cured, and dutifully put me on a drip in my own apartment for a couple of hours. Whether that did the trick or not I don’t know but my cough is gradually lessening so I should be less of a health risk next time I’m taking a class.
Believe, the English teacher from Zimbabwe who works as the sole foreign teacher at Cambridge school, and following Hope’s departure, the only African in town, introduced me to Wang Pin and Hong Li last month. These are great contacts and lovely people to know. Wang Pin is the manager of a sports centre who has practiced English for some time with Believe, making amazing progress, and who provides a room for Believe’s private lessons, and badminton courts. I’ve started to play a bit and it’s great to find I can still play after so many years off court. Hong Li’s English is even better because she is a rare émigré from Hanzhong, working in Singapore for a Taiwan company, but recently returned from a stint at the company’s office in Kent, England. She is just in Hanzhong on furlough due to her dad’s health. Consequently she has time on her hands for a game or two of ping pong. After one game we met with her parents for early afternoon dinner at the leisure centre and company’s fish farm restaurant. Naturally we ate boiled river fish having seen our meal taken from the tank. Her parents spoke little English; in fact their generation were taught Russian, before relations cooled between Khrushev and Mao. I was told that after university her father was sent to Hanzhong where he worked as a mineral drilling machinery engineer. It would have been interesting for him to chat to my father who also worked in the mineral exploration industry. In Hanzhong he met his wife who was from Sichuan, but I was told that coming from the east of China, he didn’t like spicy Sichuan food and so she had never cooked her provincial food for him. It was the first time they had eaten with a foreigner, but they were probably more surprised and delighted by their daughter’s ability as a translator.
The Chinese New Year and Spring Festival is just around the corner so everything seems to be a little busier. The universities have broken up for the Spring holiday and the streets are more crowded with returned students. The fruit and vegetable market near my apartment has lorries queuing up to meet demand as everyone stocks up on food for the coming holiday. We too have been busy each day at school for the last week, not with teaching, but dancing. In the lead-up to the New Year, the owner of the school (it’s an Aston franchise) and about twenty other businesses, decided to put on a dinner do for all his employees. The catch was that each business had to come up with an amusing act to entertain his top table and everyone else. At Aston, with little deliberation, a decision was made that the teachers should dance ‘Gangnam Style’. Here, as I gather everywhere else, we have been bombarded with Psy’s tune for the last few months. It’s been the most downloaded song in China and I gather the state media has referred to its divine melody. I have to say it’s worn a little thin. But every afternoon for the last week we’ve been summoned to school to practice our co-ordinated dance moves. Late in the week two or three of the Chinese staff were whittled out of the line-up and then on Friday with great regret came the news that there were still too many of us for the small stage and would I be good enough to stand down.
And so this afternoon we all gathered in a large function room, of which Hanzhong seems to have any number, and our select group took to the stage and performed a very well rehearsed Gangnam Style dance. Amazingly no-one else came up with the same idea – maybe we had got in first. The performances and skits of course provided the relief from the fawning reports of all the managers (one of the Chinese teachers reported this in a rather lovely Chinglish version, involving kissing, of an earthier English phrase). Select staff from each of the businesses were also presented with their Red Envelopes (i.e.cash bonuses). And for the rest of us, there was a multi-course banquet to see us on our way to the New Year.
As we get towards Spring, I can say that the winter in Hanzhong hasn’t been at all bad. We seem to get a few cold days, then warmth for a day or two before it gets cool again. But it seldom rains. For the last week we’ve had glorious sunshine. In this respect the requirements for a Hanzhong winter are not dissimilar to those for a desert as reported by a C9 student: I will take a compass in case I get lost. But I won’t bring raincoat because it’s a waste in the desert. It won’t rain.
As Chinese New Year approached, the streets became more crowded with everybody out stocking up for the Spring Festival and for the first time the roads became congested. People working away in Xian or more distant big cities and returning for the holiday, increase car numbers dramatically. I too was getting a break but leaving Hanzhong for a few days in Chengdu. On the Thursday afternoon the wind suddenly started to blow, as it always seems to to herald a change in weather, and the temperature dropped. I left a cold Hanzhong on the overnight train to Chengdu, a nine hour slow jolt south. Sleep was intermittent.
There is little likelihood of sleeping through your stop if occupying a sleeping berth on a Chinese train. First of all you are woken with music and television in time to ensure everyone has time for family breakfast. Then the guard comes round before your stop to rexchange your ticket for the metal berth tag that you got the previous evening. So I was wide-awake and looking forward to a second breakfast when we pulled in to Chengdu at 8:30am. Having experienced the Metro in Nanjing, I was delighted to again find an efficient Metro system in Chengdu and in little time was tucking into breakfast at the Holly Hostel. Scrambled eggs on toast and coffee. I hadn’t had that for a while.
After breakfast I met up with fellow Aston teachers Paul and Claire and Andy from ‘Handa’ University, who had travelled down a day earlier and we did what you do in a new city, a bit of wandering around, eating new food and of course in Chengdu, drinking tea. Chengdu is a big place with a population of about 7million but the centre, inside ringroad one of three, is fairly easy to navigate with map in hand. Like most Chinese cities it’s very old but what you see is mostly new. The new old streets really are very well done and make a nice contrast with the modern centre. Wikipedia tells us:
it’s the only major Chinese city to have remained in the same location with the same name for over 2,000 years. The King of Shu decided to make it his capital in the 4th century BC; Cheng Du literally translates as ‘become the capital’. It’s seen ups and downs. The Mongols sacked it in 1279 and massacred the inhabitants and an independent despot turned it into a ghost town again in 1644. More recently it was the last city to be taken by the PLA in 1949 so ending the Civil War. In 1958 the city wall was torn down because Mao thought it looked ugly and an inconvenience to traffic.
The big happening while we were in Chengdu was of course the start of the Chinese New Year (on February 10th this year) which is also the start of the fifteen day Spring Festival. On New Year’s Eve we joined the throngs in the area around the Wuhou Temple, ate from numerous outdoor food stalls (Andy got a taste for the taste and texture of whole roast sparrow but I wasn't so keen) and waited around for the midnight firework display. It was good but frankly not as spectacular as I had anticipated, but very noisy.
Most people don’t join the outdoor throngs but celebrate at home with their family. They watch the Spring Festival Gala broadcast from Beijing on CCTV (Hong Li tells me that Celine Dion sung to 1.3billion viewers), let off fireworks, jam up the phone system and then try to stay up till dawn. Then some miscreants try to keep people up a while longer by letting off further fireworks. Then people go to sleep.
I hope the Year of the Snake brings you good health and prosperity.
There are four must do things on a visit to Chengdu.
I returned to Hanzhong on the early afternoon train arriving at 10pm. The overnight train is definitely the better option. It had been a good trip but I had missed one notable event in Hanzhong. It had snowed the morning after I left. But only briefly and it all melted away by lunchtime.
Yesterday was Valentine’s Day. There is also a more traditional Chinese Valentine’s Day on the 7th day of the 7th lunar month, but that doesn’t offer sufficient commercial opportunity for flower sellers and restauranteurs, so the Chinese have eagerly embraced the 14th February. The wedding organisers were also out in force with one having a red Ferrari parked in the centre of Hanzhong. But it was a damp, gloomy day. I was greatly cheered by the Tyrannosaurus which has been put down in the centre of town (see photo). It moves and makes dinosaur noises.
In the afternoon I went to the Hanzhong Museum (Han Platform). I’m not too sure how old the present structure is but it’s on the site of the Hantai (Han Platform) which makes it a draw for Han Chinese. Hantai was the palace of Liu Bang, a warlord who having been made Lord of Hanzhong by a more powerful rival (to exile him over the Qin mountains and away from the capital), bided his time before sneaking back over the mountains to take the capital and after another four years of fighting, defeat his rival. He became Emperor Gaozu and taking the name from Hanzhong, founded the Han dynasty in 206BC. This lasted about 400 years. So Hanzhong has been pretty important in Chinese history. It also features in the Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history which followed soon after the disintegration of the Han dynasty but is known by all Chinese people through the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, written 1200 years later. Its heroes Liu Bei (not to be confused with Liu Bang!) and his chancellor and strategist Zhuge Liang fought battles around and from Hanzhong. All this history explains why down by the river there’s a rather nice prancing horse on a globe awarded to Hanzhong by the National Tourism Administration, and proclaiming Hanzhong the top tourist city in China. It’s a slight exaggeration but the city does seem to be able to support a lot of big hotels. A while ago I also visited another tourist site, the Alter of Conferring Titles, which supposedly marks the place where Liu Bang appointed his generals. All this history is just an excuse to show you some nice photos.
This afternoon I went to the multi-screen cinema on the 5th floor of the Wangbang shopping mall with two new student friends, Phoebe and Ivy. We were entertained by the new Chinese release, Journey to the West:Conquering the Demons. It was great: a fantasy, action, comedy, actually very good in 3D, following the journey of a Buddhist monk and his fights with demons in his search for the monkey king. I gather it's loosely based on the 16th Century Classic which in turn was based on the epic journey to India of Xuan Zang. The dialogue is of course in Chinese but there are very good English subitles (just for me).
I'm back from Xian where I went for a break after the end of our first semester and to tick off a few tourist sites. One has to go to see the Terracotta Army (bingma yong). It’s about a (hot) hour’s bus ride from Xian north railway station. The surrounding area of tourist tat is as big as the historical site for which the admission fee is of Westminster Abbey proportions. It must be hell in high, hot season but wasn’t too bad in March. The army is incredible and nice to see having read the history, but slightly underwhelming - every warrior might be slightly different, but without being able to get down amongst them, they are all basically row on row of the same. Soldiers are meant to look alike. But it does bring an incredible history to life. King Zheng of Qin came to power in 238BC and after doubling the size of his realm by defeating other warring states in the most bloodthirsty way possible, he named himself Emperor. He is thought of as the 1st Emperor of China (core China. China’s governance has since extended to a rather bigger landmass with its western provinces). He got a colossal number of workers to spend years digging out his burial tomb and lining it with mercury (this remains unexcavated) and creating his terracotta army to guard him in death as in life. Then he had all the workers murdered. Ancient civilisation but not necessarily civilised. Oh - interestingly he probably poisoned himself trying to drink an elixir to extend his life. His realm fell to pieces after his death amid much further bloodshed and the terracotta army was broken into and smashed up. Then it was forgotten about for many years. The soldiers have all had to be pieced together. They have done an incredible job. The villager who was digging a well and discovered it, now has a job signing his name in the guidebook should you wish to shell out even more. I gave this a pass.
By the way I highly recommend China: A History by John Keay.
I also cycled round on top of the complete city wall and went up the small and the large wild goose pagodas. These weren't particularly great in the daytime but the large one was really good when all lit up with fountain display in the evening. The Big Wild Goose Pagoda was built at the behest of Xuan Zang to store the sutras he'd brought back from his epic Journey to the West (India). I'd wanted to visit it since seeing the film back in February. I also ticked off the Shaanxi History Museum - fairly quickly as there are only so many clay and bronze pots and horses I want to look at even if they are old.
So now back to lesson planning and tomorrow the start of a 2nd term, my second six months.
To mark the coming of spring, we had another staff outing to walk up another hill outside Hanzhong. It isn’t a high mountain, more like Ivinghoe Beacon, for those of you who know the Chilterns, but half the staff decide they’ve gone high enough after about 10 minutes of uphill. I guess nobody, including me, is used to walking uphill. Progress to the top gave great views of the fields of rape seed for which the Hanzhong area is well known. There is even a rape seed festival to celebrate this colourful, yellow, time. Coming from the UK I’m no stranger to the countryside being turned yellow of course. Equally noticeable unfortunately was the litter left in the wake of walkers. It really needs a few of the many sweepers who keep the streets below so tidy, to do a regular sweep uphill (or for people to take their litter home).
Almost a disaster a few days ago. I came back from dinner at a neighbourhood restaurant and my key got jammed in my inner door, locking me out. Fortunately, the estate gatekeeper was able to direct me to the nearby key shop, the locksmith summoned, my flat broken into and about an hour and a half later a new lock fitted. Helping with communication on the other end of my mobile phone were my student friend Tracy, from Xian, who declared she couldn’t understand half of what the local worker was saying in his thick Hanzhonhua, and the Aston receptionist Sherry, who was more familiar with the local language (hua). While we watched the locksmith’s struggles to fit a new lock, I drank tea and the gatekeeper smoked. It would still be considered strange to think there was anything anti-social in this.
Christmas may be commercially celebrated in China but Easter certainly isn’t and the school was open as normal over the Easter weekend. On the Saturday evening, as I was with Prince, a supply teacher from Ghana, of the Christian persuasion this time, we dropped by St Michael’s Cathedral, and met the priest and some of his enthusiastic congregation. The priest speaks perfect English and presumably Italian, as he spent several years in Italy. As ever with the Christian religion, there is also a rival Protestant church within walking distance.
We do get a public holiday soon after Easter, for the Qingming Festival (Tombsweeping or Ancestors’ Day) which this year fell on April 4th. After a lapse during and after the Cultural Revolution, it’s been a public holiday since 2008 (coincidental to the Olympics?). The most distant ancestor for all Han Chinese to remember on this day is the legendary/mythical Yellow Emperor, who began his later documented reign around 2697BC, which allows for recognition of a very long civilisation.
The other evening I went to see the marvellous lights and fountain display put on every evening, gratis, throughout the summer, on the Han river. It attracts a good crowd each evening and is better than (everyone says so) the fountain display at the Big Pagoda in Xian, Hanzhong’s much bigger neighbour. The day after, I met up with my friend Wangxi who had invited me to accompany her to a friend’s wedding reception. It was out in a smaller town in the Hanzhong area. The couple actually live and work and got married the previous week in another town outside Shaanxi Province, but have returned to hold another eating and drinking session for their family and friends in Hanzhong (also to enable more people to contribute to the happy couple’s future). As the lone foreigner and curiosity I get invited on-stage by the master of ceremonies to be interviewed and amuse everyone with my mispronounced Chinese. We are all in good spirits even before the baijiu (Chinese spirit) is imbibed. Fortunately I am teaching in the evening so have an accepted excuse to opt out of all the ganbei toasts (empty your glass only to have it immediately refilled). The groom doesn’t have such an excuse.
Also attracting attention in Hanzhong is our new foreign teacher, El, from England, who has long blond hair. She stands out a kilometre away.
The new semester at Aston has meant new classes and a whole lot of new names to learn and characters in the classroom. There are also more classes as the school has decided it can make do with four foreign teachers rather than five. So there isn't much sit down time between Friday afternoon and Sunday evening. My quiet start to Sunday morning of two hours with the studious teenage girls and Jack, of C14, has been replaced with a lively C3B (7-8 year olds) and a livelier C2 (6-7 year olds). I'm gifted with two C7 and one C8 class of attentive young teenagers and a C11 class divided between three still attentive teenage girls and rather less attentive teenage boys. So the class changes are swings and roundabouts. Tommy of C11, who is built like a tank, is fine at practicing his English as long as the subject is war or guns. These can also take over the content of any written homework that he submits, not that Aston homework is top priority in his memory.
All Aston students get homework, of course, just to fill up any spare half hour they might have to relax after their normal school homework is done. My homework marking pile has also increased dramatically this term, whether it be from changed classes, a reduction in foreign teachers or rather more offloading of marking onto yours truly, So my free time during the long weekend, as Hope used to call Monday to Thursday between teaching, is considerably condensed.
A few weeks ago I was in my apartment mid-morning when what sounded like the air raid siren at the end of Dads Army started up somewhere outside. There wasn’t any other sound of abnormal bustle and no artillery salvoes, so we were neither under attack nor being deafened by the firecracker opening of a new business. It occurred to me that it must be an earthquake warning siren. I took action in line with office staff everywhere there are practice fire drills, unhurriedly leaving the apartment block. And indeed it was a practice siren test, though the important bit about instructions on what to do and congregating in safe areas and accounting for everyone didn’t seem to have been put in place. This laid back approach is somewhat surprising given the recent experience of the Sichuan earthquake in 2008 not so many miles away (death toll 70,000). Then Hanzhong merely tremored, there was minimal damage and no deaths, but most people lived in tents for the following six weeks.
The earthquake happened a few weeks later, at 8:02 am on Saturday 20th April, just as I had started teaching my C4A class. For C4A and me the earth didn’t move, so I was a little surprised when our school manager turned up at 10am to ask whether we had felt the prolonged tremor that most other people, especially those living on higher floors had felt. No I replied (and I hadn’t heard a siren either). But the message came down from on high that all schools were to close for two days with immediate effect, so classes were cancelled and that was the end of my teaching weekend. It felt very strange. We all went on the internet of course to find out about the earthquake that had struck in Yaan to the southwest of Chengdu, about 300 miles south of Hanzhong.
Outside on the streets everything was normal on a warm windless day. With a free afternoon I went over to the university to meet friends for some outdoor ping pong. When you see the hive of activity at the rows of outdoor ping pong tables you know what’s the number one game in China, Number two is represented by the many nearby badminton courts with plenty of basketball courts also demonstrating basketball’s rising popularity.
With a week’s break from teaching I decided this was my chance to climb Hua Shan (Shan means mountain), the western of the five great mountains of China and the one formed from the feet of Pengu, after he’d created (middle) earth by separating Yin from Yang with a swing of his axe. Since that time it’s also become dotted with lots of Taoist temples and as an added attraction for the swarms of tourists, has a reputation of being just a little bit dangerous.
I took the coach to Xian again and after a day of drizzle and low cloud, got up early on the Tuesday hoping the clouds would lift. Fortunately the sun burnt away the clouds by mid-morning so it was a glorious day. To get out to Hua Shan quickly (it's 120km east of Xian), I had my first ride on the high speed train running from its own recently opened and huge train station. My goodness does this move you quickly and in added comfort compared with the standard trains. From Hua Shan station, in a rather sprawling town near the mountain, and after leaving non-essential clothing at a little shop near the station, I took a taxi out to the mountain ticket office (you don’t normally enter any tourist site, natural or man-made for free) and then a bus around to the start of the traditional route. And what an excellent day’s hiking it was. I soon got away from the crowds, had a lovely gorge walk and then ascended the photogenic steep narrow stone staircase which helps Hua Shan’s reputation. In the dry with not too many people this was fine; on a crowded public holiday with rain on the polished steps it would be a different matter. Somewhere near the top of the steps I joined up with students Sunny and Mike with whom I spent most of the day, and who decided we should all get an extra thrill by harnessing up and venturing down the cliff via ferrata off the east peak. As you’d expect I got around the east, west, middle and highest (7,070ft) south peak, but have to admit to taking the cable car down in order to make the train for my onward journey to Luoyang.
Luoyang is the third city I’ve visited that used to be China’s capital (though not in the last 1000 years). It’s visited primarily for its Peony Festival, the Baima Si and the Longmen shiku (grottoes). I can recommend the Luoyang Longman Youth Hostel as a friendly place to stay and whose cook rustled up an evening meal for a very hungry and weary me at 10pm (I just missed an earlier evening train from Hua Shan).
The first day I spent in the delightful company of Laura from Beijing. We got round the Luoyang Museum (Bronzes from the Bronze Age, Tang pottery, model layouts of the ancient city) and Peony Park (peonies were banished to Luoyang from the first capital Chang’an after they failed to obey her edict to bloom) and ended the day in a fantastic food street running down to the last remaining part of the city wall and eating a Luoyang water dinner with a couple of local students who Laura had got to know through the internet. The water dinner consists of courses of different soups. It’s fun but I wouldn’t recommend it as a daily meal.
The next day as Laura had to get back to Beijing I was joined by Leo who was weighing up which American University to go to. Having already spent a year of school in America, his American English was excellent. We spent the morning browsing the Longmen shiku which are rather amazing – Buddha statues and grottoes carved out of the rock beside the river. The largest is 17m high while another cave houses fifteen thousand tiny Buddhas, apparently all slightly different. The Emperors back in 500AD kept people busy. In the afternoon we went across town to the Baima Si or White Horse Temple, founded in 68AD and reputedly the first Buddhist temple in China. Fortunately it had lots of trees to provide some cool shelter on a hot sunny day.
And so the next day back to Xian treating myself with another ride on the high speed train and then the coach back to Hanzhong. Altogether a good mini-break.
May Day is of course a public holiday. I met up with my university friends Phoebe, Ivy, Koe and Harbor for a trip to the north park in Hanzhong, a stroll round the boating lake that is a feature of every park and a look at the amusement park.
I’m fortunate to have been introduced to Andre, not just because he’s a nice chap, but because he’s one of only 5 foreigners at the university (4 Americans teaching English and a solitary Japanese teacher) and can sneak me in to a good seat in the university’s auditorium for a sell-out concert given by some music students from the linked Californian university, who are in town for a couple of weeks. Naturally since it’s a Christian university, the first few numbers are in a gospel/hallelujah vein. I’m not too sure how many of the students realise they’re being preached to but it’s all applauded enthusiastically.
I have been following the football season back home with interest, though the time difference of eight hours means I don’t get to know the results until the next day. But my brother has been providing me with some great reports on the Watford matches:
‘Unbelievable end to the season. Vydra finally managed to regain his scoring touch. A Van Persie style over the shoulder volley to put us 1-0 up. Great goal. Doyley then lost his man at a corner for Nugent to head the equaliser. 1-1 at half time. Vydra again after a great one two with Deeney splits the Leicester defence, 2-1. Watford take off Doyley and put on Forestieri to play with three up front. Attack after attack but just can’t score. Looks to be heading for extra time when disaster strikes. In fourth minute of injury time, Leicester break into the Watford area. Defender covers but uses arm to hold off the striker. Theatrical dive and penalty given. Almunia saves penalty but rebound goes straight to penalty taker. Almunia saves again. Watford break straight up the other end. Cross to far post headed back into centre where Deeney slams home the volley. 97th minute now and crowd invades pitch. Deeney dives into crowd and is booked. Zola runs on the pitch but is accidently taken out by his assistant coach and hits the deck. Ref decides game not over. Pitch cleared and game restarts. Everybody in Watford area as Leicester throw high balls in. Eventually cleared. Wembley here we come.
And then I get myself set up on the internet, to watch my first live football match, the Championship Play-Off Final. Fortunately the clocks have gone forward at home, so there’s only 7 hours difference to British summer time. What a let down, but never mind – I’ll look forward to another season of exciting Championship football.
Today is the very ancient Dragon Boat Festival day which has also been a public holiday since 2008. There isn’t any dragon boat racing here but everyone eats zongzi, glutinous rice with a little meat or bean in the middle, cooked in vine leaves. Qu Yuan (340-278BC) was a poet and minister in the state of Chu during the Warring States period. After falling out with his king, he was banished but continued to write poetry for many years before drowning himself in despair at the capture of the Chu capital. People raced out in boats to try to save him or retrieve his body, but when this could not be done, they dropped balls of sticky rice into the river for the fish to eat instead of Qu’s body. Zongzi are a little overrated in my opinion.
I’ve been making progress with ping pong (pingpang) recently. I make the trek, a 15 minute taxi ride, across town to meet friends at the university where there are many outdoor concrete ping pong tables. It’s too hot to play until the late afternoon but then there’s a lovely time before the mosquitoes come out at dusk. There are never any unused tables. All that time spent playing ping pong in my youth when perhaps I could have been studying pays dividends now, as I am able to rediscover a reasonable game (for a foreigner and as long as no-one bemuses me with a fancy serve). Afterwards, the streets near to either gate of the university are a good place to eat as they are filled with cafes to provide for the student hoards. All students live in dormitory accommodation on the campus, seven to an unairconditioned dorm but there are no cooking facilities. There aren’t any showers in the dormitory blocks either which means a trek to the shower block, when it’s open, and better be early while the hot water lasts. Actually although all students are allocated a bed on campus, for the few with enough money or romantic intent, there are rooms for rent nearby.
I also got persuaded to sit on the judging panel for a speech contest at the university. It made for a long evening after a day’s teaching at Aston. There are a lot of speeches on youth, learning the lessons from, and independence and all are recited from memory, but fortunately all are fairly short or stopped by the time limit. I tried to be impartial with regard to the two contestants whose speeches I had ‘polished’, but they both do ok and get through to the final. And there, in my absence, they take 1st and 3rd.
It’s either sweatily hot or raining. I am sometimes managing a run first thing in the morning. I come back, take one cool shower to cool down a bit, then another to wash the sweat away.
My big news is that I’ve decided to stay in China for another year, but I’m moving 5 hours down the road to teach at a university in Mianyang in Sichuan province. It’s not that far from where they’ve just had bad floods. The Aston receptionist jokes with me that it’s in an area prone to earthquakes and floods but the Sichuan food is great. That’s ok then.
Actually the epicentre of the 2008 earthquake was Beichuan in Mianyang District but districts are big in China and Mianyang ranges from big mountains going towards Tibet to a flatter basin less subject to fault lines. I’m going to trust that the Chinese think it’s safe as it’s home to Science City, a huge (military/space) R&D centre and where China’s first A bomb was built.
I’ve got into the habit of going to a KFC at the end of the teaching day. Coming from the UK, it’s curious to see that KFC is the most successful american chain of fast food eat-ins. I don’t really understand why, as the food is awful (I base this opinion on one burger containing a bit of unidentifiable animal and tasteless French fries and I’m not going to increase my sample size). Then I step through the door, at the half-way point on my walk home in the heat and after a day’s teaching in classrooms with broken air-conditioners and into air-conditioned heaven. Well, as good as it gets. Mind you, as the air conditioning has been on all day, by the evening, it’s positively fridge-like, especially compared with outside. I have to put clothes on. I also receive another reminder that, while Chinese people do many things well, communal recognition outside the family or interest group is not one of them. No-one stands to the left or right on escalators to allow hasty foreigners to make steady progress, and the moving walkways between floors in shopping malls or department stores are awfully slow. Incidentally, there are distinct words for excuse me to get attention and excuse me to get past. And few people seem to be able to make use of the pictures above the fast food counter to make ordering decisions before getting to the front of the queue. Everyone likes to have their own personal fast food ordering consultation.
On the plus side in air-conditioned heaven, a cup of coffee is drinkable and a bargain at 6RMB (compared with a slightly larger and marginally better cuppa at King Coffee for 23RMB or a jar from the supermarket which is a luxury item) and the little custard tarts are yummy. Sometimes they run out of milk but make up for this by providing an extra sachet of sugar. After a bit of homework marking I’m sufficiently revived and cooled off to make the rest of the journey home.
Today started with a jolt. I was still in bed and sleepily took a few seconds to realise this was another earthquake. The jolts lasted about thirty seconds. This one I did feel. I got downstairs to be greeted by an excited woman asking whether I had felt the quake and indicating that I had taken my time to evacuate the building. I didn’t get that word for word, my Chinese isn’t yet that good, but some things are more easily understood than others. It was pouring, so I went to shelter under the bike shed with other residents for a while, but then decided that as Hanzhong wasn’t the epicentre and the main shake had probably happened it was safe to go back home. Besides I was hungry. As I sat eating my porridge, the water in the water cooler tremored ever so slightly. It was a slight but very long aftershock. The earthquake this time was in Gansu Province, north west of Hanzhong. Ninety five people were killed, 69,700 houses destroyed and 124,300 severely damaged.
I had to apply to the British Consulate in Hong Kong for a new passport since mine expires next January, making it invalid for a new residence permit. It’s been an anxious three week wait, but first I get a call from a sorting exchange in Shanghai wanting to know where I am and then another from Xian. Finally my new passport arrives – from the UK. The passport office have got the address correct but then given the task of delivery to DHL who have stuffed it in an envelope addressed to Shanghai. I am thankful for the diligence of Chinese postal workers.
Armed with my new passport I sprang into action to get all the other documentation in order. This meant another trip back to Xian to visit the Foreign Experts Office to have my new passport details signed off in my Foreign Expert Passport, to make it valid for the remaining three weeks of my Aston contract. The change of detail made to the internet record by the school was insufficient. More sensibly, I also had to go to the provincial health centre for another medical examination, to prove my health and uninfectiousness to stay in China for another year. Chinese (non-official) people are so friendly - I was met off the bus by my student friend Eafen and her friend (the universities having broken up for the summer), taken for a meal for which I couldn’t possibly be allowed to pay, because they hadn’t welcomed me to their home city before, and then found a taxi to the hostel. Sometimes they are quite sneaky about settling the bill, sneaking off before the end of the meal to settle up so that there can be no argument. But some western habits are creeping in. Most of the time the students agree to ‘go Dutch’ as they know it.
I was up early the next morning to get to the health centre before the queue became too long. Not quite quick enough as by the time I’d stuck down all my photos on the form there was already a fair line up, mostly of Chinese needing a medical to go abroad. In front of me was a student needing to prove that she hadn’t got HIV before returning to her studies at a Russian university where she had spent the last three years. She had learnt Russian but her English was rusty (better than my Chinese of course). Behind me was a 16 year old product of the better private education available in Xian, speaking excellent English and preparing to go to university in America. Eventually I made it to the front of the queue, handed over money and form and began the round of examination rooms. Everything seemed to go ok except for the eyesight test – I hadn’t thought I’d need my reading glasses. I hope not being able to read tiny letters without glasses doesn’t bar me from work here.
In the afternoon I found the Foreign Experts Office and obtained the necessary signature in my Experts Passport. This was made easier by Mrs Xu who had spent three years at Leeds University and a year in Glasgow. She hadn’t picked up the accent. I will of course have to get a new Foreign Experts Passport to work in Sichuan since they don’t transfer between provinces.
I got my certificate of health examination delivered by post this week. All ok and I’ve gained 2cm in height which is nice.
Today I achieved a couple of things. First I went to the bank with a couple of student friends and transferred some money back to my UK account. This isn't an altogether simple process for the simple reason that foreigners aren't able, here in Hanzhong anyway, to convert RMB to foreign currency. According to the internet I can get authorisation from the State Administrator of Foreign Exchange by submitting a form obtained from the bank along with proof of legal and taxpaying employment. But try persuading the bank that there is such a form. Chinese citizens on the other hand can convert and transfer sizeable amounts overseas at the drop of a hat, no state administrator involved. So the easiest thing to do, is to go to the bank with a friend and transfer money to his/her account! The bank will then convert this to foreign currency to enable your friend to make payment into your overseas bank account. Everyone is quite happy with this collusion and the money was credited the same day. The exchange rate has been 10RMB to £1 for a long time, but now it's 9.418 to £1. Marvellous.
After the bank we went to a restaurant on the other side of the central square which does western style food - steaks and pizza and knives and forks and a help yourself salad bar. Cooking meat in joints rather than chopping it to bits for the wok is as unusual as eating with a knife and fork. We each had steak and egg; pretty good although the Chinese cook obviously couldn't bare the idea of a steak reliant on its own flavour, so it came in a peppery sauce, and served for some unknown reason with tasteless 'Italian' pasta coils and unimpressive tomato sauce. For good measure we also shared a rather yummy pizza. This is food made to be eaten with fingers but dispensing with any form of cutlery is the way food is eaten in India. Everyone knows this.
After the meal we took a taxi to the dental hospital where I made an appointment at the front desk (cost 3RMB), took the lift to the 5th floor and walked straight in to the dentist's chair for my appointment. A thorough and careful scrape and polish came to 150RMB. Come to China for your dental treatment.
There are central government directives, but every province in China does things a little differently and Sichuan appears to be a little more exacting in its paperwork requirements for Foreign Experts than Shaanxi. A job in a different province requires a new Experts Certificate so I was summoned to Chengdu to apply and present my original degree certificate at the Government Office, so that all will be processed before I start in two weeks’ time. I took the overnight train down to Chengdu, doing the usual horizontal gymnastics to negotiate the top sleeper bunk and get a little sleep before being woken by the dawn chorus of announcements, music and chatter accompanying everyone being breakfasted before arrival in the Sichuan capital. There I met Christina from the Foreign Teachers Office of Tianfu College of the South West University of Finance and Economics (SWUFE) – my new employer – presented my certificates, signed my name (assuming the Chinese writing above it wasn’t an incriminating confession) and was back out on the street within half an hour. I wondered what to do with the rest of the day, having bought a ticket for the 6:30pm train which would have arrived back in Hanzhong at 2:30am, but fortunately I managed to get a ticket on a bus leaving at 3pm to get back at 10, and cancel and get a refund for my rail ticket. My phrase book Chinese came good.
Back in Hanzhong in the evenings I’ve been listening to the England v Australia cricket matches on TMS over the internet. Cricket has some way to go in China. Most people have never heard of it, but China does have a team – it lost to the Maldives in the 2009 ACC Trophy, by 315 runs. Maybe people do know about it but it’s an unmentionable embarrassment, unlike the national football team which is a regretful embarrassment. Rather like the England team.
This week is the calm before the end of term storm of weekend oral exams for all our students followed by results and comment logging. Overall it’s been a good term with mostly good classes. C2s have been a handful, C3Bs, four different classes have been a mixed bag, with varying degrees of success at grasping the tense change needed to talk about yesterday, C5s have shown that they can use the present perfect (but will they do it in the exam?), C7s and C8s have been lovely and studious while some of C11 are more easily distracted on a Sunday afternoon, when they could be getting a final rest before another week of study from dawn till late at night. It’s been hot and sometimes a bing kafei (iced coffee) from the bakery across the road, dashed for in the ten minute mid-afternoon break, has been just enough to keep the show going.
Meanwhile in another time zone my mother has just been down to Cornwall and reports that Cornish pasties are still as good as I remember them to be. It isn’t often I think of food back home and a respite from noodles and spice, but oh for a Cornish pasty!
Phew! a last weekend spent coaxing exam answers from students, a week of filling in results and comments, a last weekend of parents meetings, a final desk clearance and my time at Hanzhong Aston is over. It’s been a good year in a nice town but time to move on and for a new challenge.
I travelled south by bus on Tuesday. It should have been a five hour trip, but near to the turn off the freeway to Mianyang, we ground to a halt (behind an accident) and there we stayed for nearly two hours. This added to movie time. First we had a movie with a plot designed around as much kung fu as possible, then a Chinese movie version of Bewitched, then a Thai film industry contribution about a runaway pet poodle and finally the US Marine Corp saving the planet, or at least Los Angeles, from metal aliens. By the time we got to Mianyang at 10pm I was movied-out and hungry. First impressions aren’t great. Michael, the Foreign Teachers’ Office go-to guy had been tasked to meet me and fulfilled his task by driving me up to the university, where no food was to be had anywhere. Food would certainly have been a priority in Hanzhong after a seven hour bus trip. Anyway, no harm done in dieting till the following morning.
Here I am at the Mianyang campus of the Tianfu College of the South Western University of Finance and Economics. I’ve been put up for now in the on-campus hotel while an apartment is sorted out. Opposite is a row of shops, a grocers, hairdressers, bakers, noodle café, cash machine, student run tea/coffee café and nearby, a supermarket also run by the students and the number one student canteen (number 2 is outside the back gate). The other side of the hotel, and my balcony, overlooks a man-made lake flanked by student accommodation and toward the other end of the lake, the third teaching building where all my classes will be. It’s rather pleasant. The first week of teaching doesn’t start till next week so for now there are groups of new students being shown around and led in various group bonding activities. The Foreign Teachers’ Office organised a meeting this morning for all the foreign teachers; about fifteen in total. We did have an agenda, but the agenda was clearly to get the meeting over as quickly as possible to adjourn to a nearby restaurant for lunch. I think I know what I'm teaching and where, from next week. I have a text book which I can choose to use if I wish, a curriculum of as many language and grammar areas as the writer could think of, and otherwise pretty much free reign. All the first year students (freshmen) have to do one class per week (two, forty-five minute sessions with a ten minute break) of oral English with a foreign teacher and one class per week of Business, also taught in English by a foreigner. So we foreign teachers are equally divided between Oral English and Business, with the odd specialist lesson. Dan, a perma-baseball-cap wearing American also teaches golf at the college’s little nine hole golf course which he designed. The principal is apparently very keen.
We are a mixed crew. There are three of us from England, a Scot, two South Africans, a New Zealander, two Canadians and six Americans. One woman, fourteen chaps. They seem to be a reasonable bunch. I think just three of us are new to Tianfu which may be another reason the main aim of the meeting was a filler before lunch.
Aside from the meeting, the main reason for arriving early at the university is so that the P.S.B. (Public Security Bureau) can process my Residence Permit to be affixed in my new passport. I hope I get it back soon. By the way, Tianfu means heaven. Sichuan has always been thought of as a bountiful, agriculturally rich, area, hence tianfu square in central Chengdu, lots of tianfu businesses and Tianfu college. I hope it's a good place for me.
That’s week one out of the way. I have 11 different classes of 26 students per class. That's a lot of names to learn/remember. Fortunately, they are all instructed upon arrival at the college, to give themselves an English name if they haven’t already got one. Some are quite funny, I have BBC (boy), Fish (girl), two Lemons (boy and girl), an Apple, a couple of Echos, Sunnys, Sunshines, an Egg and a Tomato and Wacko. Thankfully no Smarts – the evidence from Hanzhong Aston is that this name is always ironic. They're all getting name cards to put on their desks from next week as I've just found a shop that sells rolls of thin cardboard. The trick with these odd things is not to go to Walmart but to find a nick knack shop and ask and the unlikeliest product will be hidden away somewhere.
Classes have been great so far with very responsive students. They’ve all done English at school for several years but this is for the purpose of passing exams, not speaking the language. Some have clearly had lots of speaking practice before, perhaps at a private school like Aston, and some hardly any. The most common degree subject for my students seems to be accountancy. I also have a few art and design students and three who are doing French, from scratch. I gather the great attraction is a year in France. I met them before the start of classes and taught them their first words.
My timetable is not too much of a burden. I have three classes on Tuesday, two on Wednesday plus two ‘office hours’, plus English Corner, three Thursday and three Friday. Office hours are our chosen two hours to make ourselves available to students to come and talk or consult out of class. We each have an allocated office in the administrative building near the front gate, but this is a few minutes’ walk away and not convivial, so my office hours will be in the 1991 Club across the road, where we can sit in comfy chairs and teachers get free coffee. English Corner is to be each Wednesday evening. This is another time for students to come together in the lounge area of the hotel and practice English.
I’m feeling rather lucky not to have any classes on Mondays, so I don’t mind starting at 8am on the other four weekdays. Since I don’t presently have a kitchen, I’m joining the students who make it to breakfast in the canteen before 8am lessons. This is rather too early for most students who otherwise consume a (illicit) snack in the dormitory, try to sneak breakfast past the monitors into the teaching building or descend on the back street food stalls when first class is over at 9:40. Breakfast in the canteen offers a choice of xi fan (rice porridge), man tou (steamed buns), boiled eggs, fried eggs (eggs are promoted as very nutritious), potato patties and dou jiang (soya bean milk).
Morning classes finish at noon for freshmen and at 12:30 for sophomores and juniors (we’re rather American influenced here) allowing the freshmen and women to fill and clear the canteen before the next lot pile in. Our student or teacher ID cards are also cash cards and all the food outlets in the college, not just the canteen, have card readers, so food serving and payment is speedy. It needs to be with so many hungry students. Food dispensement is efficient: first collect a metal tray and teaspoon (a few students bring their own chopsticks), join the queue for a big dollop of rice from the rice tank (rice is cooked on an industrial scale), then choose dishes from the many on offer at the serving counters. The alternative to the canteen is lunch at one of the many small restaurants in the food street outside the college’s side gate. This doesn’t normally cost much more than the canteen. A medium sized bowl of noodles with spicy chickpeas costs 7RMB. It’s my present favourite.
Good news: I now have my passport back and permission to reside here in Mianyang till the end of my contract next July.
I’ve finally moved in to my apartment, in the hotel, down the corridor from my temporary room. Some of the teachers live in a building nearer to our teaching building and some of us are dotted around in the hotel. The ‘hotel’ does have a reception, but rarely a receptionist and I think most of the time the residents of the hotel are long term (I remember it well in the Tianfu hotel …). I’m quite happy. I have carpeted bedroom, a huge king-sized bed but with no sheets of appropriate size, a living room with desk, sofa and TV showing CCTV or BBC world news, a tiny kitchen and bathroom with shower. The windows fit properly. Now that I have a kitchen I’ve reverted to making porridge to start each day. On the down-side, my washing machine doesn’t work so I’m still doing a lot of handwashing. Just like my early days in Hanzhong.
The weather has been autumnal since arrival; cool and rainy. I've found the table tennis room and dropped in on a couple of evenings and had a game. In fact yesterday afternoon I played for quite a while as several different students rotated to play with me. Most of the college outdoor sports facilities are also only a short walk away. There’s an athletic track right on top of the hill, rarely used by athletes but quite popular for an evening walk or jog, with a couple of football pitches in the middle, two beautiful 50m outdoor pools side by side, crazily unused except for swimming lessons in the summer, basketball and volleyball courts and several tennis courts and of course, Dan’s mini golf course.
This weekend I went in to Mianyang and had a wander round. The college is on the top of a long gentle hill on the outskirts of town, though judging by developments, it will soon be encircled as the city grows. The number 13 bus goes from outside the college main gate down the long hill into the city centre, about a 20 minute ride to the stop near Walmart. Yes indeed, Walmart is well established in China, with one big and one slightly smaller store in Mianyang (and about 400 others elsewhere). I have to say it’s convenient for a foreigner as all the store signs are bilingual, but why oh why is it so cheap that it can’t employ a few more cashiers to allow one to get out as easily as get in. I’m certainly a captive shopper anytime I go in there, except at 12 noon on a weekday when everyone else is at lunch. KFC is of course next to Walmart.
Just down the road is Renmin (People’s) Park, a pleasant spot with the usual quiet treelined paths, boating lake, teahouse and amusement rides and arcades. And a short walk in the other direction from Walmart is the Fu river, quite a wide flow crossed by several bridges. The highways department in Mianyang have got a thing about separating cars from pedestrians; there are foot bridges everywhere. I’m not sure it’s a good city for the elderly or disabled, but blind people will be ok – tactile paving is everywhere.
As with the other Chinese cities I’ve seen, the shopping choice is incredible. There are Walmarts, Carrefour (French hypermarket with 235 stores in 73 cities in China), other shopping mall posh shops and streets of little specialist retailers who must survive on a pitiful turnover. These days they also compete with baidu, Chinese internet, which judging by the students, is a massively popular way of shopping.
Mid-Autumn Festival is coming up again but Mianyang Exchange Association are getting in a little early with an afternoon shindig. As a new teacher, someone still wanting to please, I got an invite/request to attend. Shirley, the foreign teacher’s office head, cannily found another important meeting to go to and so two of us went down to the selected hotel with Michael, who saw us settled at the foreign mugs table, but is also terribly busy that afternoon. There isn’t too much ‘exchange’ as all the foreign invites are sat on a table together, out of the way, and none of the speeches, read out in Chinese speech style, are translated, but the mid-autumn day story performance at the end was quite good and the great thing about Chinese functions is that there’s no lingering at the end. When everyone can depart they do – swiftly.
One thing I’ve had to do is open another bank account. I already have a bank account of course, from my Hanzhong days, but the college requires me to open an account with its bank. My salary will be paid in each month, unlike Hanzhong where I was paid in a wad of notes. Fortunately I got chatting to a student on the bus into town and she helpfully accompanied me to the bank and told me what to write in all the gaps in the paperwork. The bank’s communication is very good: I get pinged a text to my phone within seconds every time I use my card to make a purchase, a withdrawal from a cash machine or when the college pays me.
I like this. Four weeks of teaching and then a week’s holiday for Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day combined. Shortly before the holiday all the foreign teachers get a request from our office asking that we notify our holiday plans for the PSB’s records. We all notify something, just for the record. The college as is normal in China, is very sweetener aware, so all us have been given a beautiful box of mooncakes, inside which are mooncakes in individual boxes. Packaging is all. The college emptied of students on the last Friday, with students bringing cases to class so that they could make a quick getaway for home. This is partly because they are very family orientated but mainly because when everyone travels at holiday time, the trains and buses are packed.
Interestingly the students here have a much poorer sense of location than I think/hope is the case in the UK/USA. Where is your hometown? is a difficult question to answer, even when the students know the compass points (is it north, south, east, west, north east etc of Mianyang/Chengdu? – I don’t know!). How long does it take to get there by train or bus, is a little easier to answer. Plainly few have spent much time looking at a map. I bought a map of Mianyang and once tried showing it to someone to help with directions, but this was mightily confusing. Incidentally, Chinese compass points are about face, or the right way round, depending on one’s viewpoint, as with much else in language – they say east-north, east-south etc.
Anyway, most headed off to somewhere in Sichuan. There are students from further afield, from Shanghai or the far north of China and I have one student from Lhasa, and these minority stay on at college for the week, as going home takes just too long except by plane. But the campus is a pretty silent place with most students gone and all the on campus shops and canteen also closed. The college also makes all the stayers-on feel pretty unwanted by locking the side gate, so to go out to the food street, instead of a two minute walk, is a trek down to the main gate and round the perimeter of about 20 minutes. Of course the more entrepreneurial of café owners take take-away orders through the gate.
A couple of weeks ago I got to know a small group of junior (3rd year) students, who meet each Friday evening in the 1991 Club to socialize in English. A couple are English major students and the others, just keen. We drink tea. Riotous. Leading lights are Kaiser, who has somewhere picked up a German inflection as well as name, Joey, who cycled to Lhasa in the previous summer vacation, Francis who talks ten to the dozen and to maintain calm, Catherine and Amber. Those of us who hadn’t departed for the full week decided that we must go somewhere on National Day, and where better than Jiangyou in Mianyang District, hometown of Li Bai. Li Bai and Du Fu are the Tang dynasty poets as well known, but more universally recited, as Shakespeare in England.
‘What time does the train go in the morning’ I asked, the evening before. ‘Oh there are regular trains, every 45 minutes, but we should get a taxi and get to the train station early to buy our tickets and beat the crowds’ came the reply. So I was up early to have breakfast before an early taxi ride and only a short queue to get tickets – for the 10:15 departure. Over another breakfast at a local café I enquired about internet information. ‘Yes, it’s very simple to find all the train time information on-line; that’s what we normally do!’
The train was crowded, standing room only for the 45 minute journey,, but after a while I got offered a seat next to a lady who wanted to practice her English. I often do my ‘job’ out of hours, but it’s usually pleasant. Due to our late arrival in Jiangyou, we only had time to go round the Li Bai theme park and have a pleasant lunch of course, but it was a lovely day. Li Bai’s poems celebrate the pleasure of friendship, the depth of nature and the joys of drinking wine, with such titles as ‘Waking from Drunkenness on a Spring Day’. He’s another one who drowned, according to legend. More here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Bai
‘I’ll have a go, but I should tell you that the last time I played tennis was… 25 years ago’ (that’s before you were born). I might be a bit rusty’. So started my second tennis career when I wandered over to the tennis courts one sunny Saturday afternoon and got offered a game and a racket. I guess I must have played quite a bit in my youth and sport is marvellous in instilling skills that lay dormant but aren’t forgotten entirely. My main hitting partner, Bruce, is very keen and it looks as though I could be playing every weekend. I’ve started running again reasonably regularly and what with that and tennis, which I’ve refound to be a pretty physical game, and a bit of table tennis, I’m fast getting back into shape.
I don’t think I’ve yet told you the most notable thing about our college. Girls vastly outnumber boys. Chinese higher education seems to be set up like this. There may be some universities with a wide spectrum of courses and evenly divided input, but there are many universities of science and technology which do mostly science subjects and attract more boys while finance and economics (and accountancy and arts) universities get more girls. Many girls wish there were more boys of course, while I think the boys are quite happy! I covered physical descriptions in one class and while they struggled to describe what they were wearing (Q.What are you wearing? A. I wear a t-shirt) everyone knows that girls are beautiful and boys are handsome. “Teacher, do you think Chinese girls are beautiful?” “Teacher, do you think Chinese girls or western girls are more beautiful?” A. “There are many beautiful Chinese girls and many beautiful girls in other countries”. When I was in Hanzhong I was told that Chengdu was famous for the number of beautiful women, but now I’m in Mianyang, close to Chengdu, I’m more often told that Chongqing, to the east, is famous for beautiful women (especially by students from Chongqing). I naively tried to elicit a distinction in one class: “so women are beautiful and who is handsome?” to be met by a chorused answer: you are!” This isn’t a bad place to teach.
I’m often told, ‘Chinese is very difficult for foreigners to learn’. This pleasantry and understanding is true to an extent, mostly on my part because it requires a lot of time and hard work which I haven’t been very devoted to. It’s true that the different tones make it difficult and mistakes very easy, but for Chinese students, English is very difficult because there are so many ‘little words’ that don’t add meaning, which aren’t necessary in Chinese, and so many different tenses. Chinese doesn’t have tenses, rather marker words are used to indicate whether one is talking about the past, present or future. Present Perfect Simple is a confusing tense: I spend some time drawing out the distinction between past simple and present perfect: “What did you do last week?” “What have you done this week?” Add in contractions (I’ve) and irregular verbs, I ate, I’ve eaten and there’s a lot to work on.
My conclusion: Chinese university life is a lot like boarding school. Many students are used to this since many high schools are boarding schools. Staying at school all day and night might just help them get through the all-important Gaokao, the university entrance exam (more here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Higher_Education_Entrance_Examination ). Once at university they continue with dormitory accommodation, separate shower blocks and canteen food, though the food vendors around each campus do offer a choice and have prime sites. At this college anyway, they also all have to be back on Sunday evening for register class. That isn’t popular. There are more classes/lectures including compulsory ethics and sports classes than at UK universities, but compared with high school it’s a breeze. There are also clubs and societies to join, including the Communist Youth League, which it’s a good thing to be a member of.
Time for some reflection. How does teaching at Tianfu compare with teaching at Aston? Different age group of course. No Chinese co-teacher. More flexibility over course content. Teaching on four weekdays rather than two and a half at the weekend but with a rather less concentrated timetable, and Friday’s teaching day ending at 3:40pm, about the time I’d be gearing up for the hectic weekend of teaching at Aston. Less lesson preparation, less homework marking. About the same basic pay but with overtime paid for teaching ‘hours’ over 18. That’s four hours per week, thank you. A better deal on travel allowance over the full year, a little spending money credited on the college cash card per month and some food vouchers for the hotel restaurant. Better accommodation. Two long paid university holidays per year. Living on campus rather than in town has its positives and negatives. I’m a little more cut off from the local community and city life but I now have a five minute walk to work, I have friendly students all around and can’t usually walk far without exchanging pleasantries. Some people might want to be a bit more inconspicuous when they leave their home but I find it very pleasant. By the way, did I tell you in an earlier post that I travelled from Hanzhong to Mianyang by bus, for less than 100RMB and was met by the college’s representative. That wasn’t true and I have the paperwork to prove it – I flew via Xian and Shanghai and was fully reimbursed for my domestic travel.
Bzzz. That’s the noise I heard from below after I’d pulled on my Ron Hill tracksters and shoes to go for a run. Fortunately the hornet hadn’t waited for me to do my laces up yet before telling me that he’d woken from his sleep in my clothing (presumably having crept inside when it was on the washing line). Fortunately he only got his fangs into me once before I disrobed. I took him outside, whereupon he decided to fly straight back in to the warmth. As you can see from the picture, I eventually got him in jail. Killer giant hornets have been menacing people, mainly in more rural places, including the Hanzhong district, so I was pretty lucky to just come across one smallish specimen.
The weather has been absolutely glorious for weeks. We’ve had the odd cloudy, rainy day but mostly days of blue sky and sunshine. Of course it’s got colder, especially out of the sun and at night but one really can’t complain - it’s winter. We’ve all read about the smog in Shanghai, and Chengdu not far away, also has pollution problems, but no such problems here, though there aren’t normally many stars in the night sky. As with Hanzhong, Mianyang is south of the north-south heating line divide, so no central heating here, just air conditioners. I tried mine the other evening but it just blew out cold air, so I’m now wearing my down jacket inside and out. Classrooms aren’t heated either. Everyone sits in class in coats while hand-warming muffs, some electrically heated, are very popular.
I’ve found two great ways to keep warm in the evening. One is to go over to the ping pong room for a game. But better is in-line skating. Nearly every evening the in-line skating club lay down the little cones used to practice skate skills, right outside the hotel, put on the ghetto blaster and zig zag their way through the evening. That’s just too tempting for me not to give it a go. With Alex, the skate king’s help, I bought a pair of in-line skates, though I feel he didn’t bargain too hard on my behalf with his coach who runs the skate shop in Mianyang! I’ve previously had one skate lesson in London and done a lot of skate skiing on snow, so the sliding sensation isn’t completely new to me. There is one difference from the skates I tried in London though – these ones, used for tricks, haven’t got any brakes. There are other methods to stop. Alex is teaching me the tricks; I’ve got some ground to make up on most of the other skating students. I’ve just about mastered the fish and the cross-over, which leaves numbers 4 to 50 still to get to grips with. Skating backwards kicks in at about number 6.
There are more foreigners in Mianyang than Hanzhong, the majority teaching here at Tianfu, but I met a few more of the others the other Friday evening. First I hitched an invite round to Zack’s apartment for the inaugural evening of cooking on his new barbecue imported from the USA. Chris, a Russian, has been in China for quite a while; long enough to learn Chinese, marry a Chinese lady and set up in a beautiful apartment. Like most apartments here, what looks pretty moderate on the outside is usually decorated and kitted out beautifully inside. He teaches English at one of Mianyang’s language schools. So that’s fluent in three languages. The barbecue is fired up on his balcony and we eat about a week’s worth of meat in one sitting. Naturally since he’s Russian, there is also vodka to be drunk, followed for some reason by tequila. Then we descended on Mocha, a little bar run by Dan’s Chinese girlfriend and hive of the foreigners in Mianyang. It was a long night. But as seems to happen with me, there’s no rest for the wicked, and I had to be up early on Saturday morning as I’d previously arranged to give a tennis lesson to Lulu, one of my students (yes I know I was just relearning how to play myself only a post ago). She is so happy and makes good progress from scratch but maybe she’ll have to get another coach soon if she’s going to progress to be another Li Na.
Cameron is gone and BBC World News is back. I don't know if the Great Firewall sprang into action to save expats and Chinese English learners from having to put up with being hectored by this embarrassment of a PM, or if the downtime had to do with a Noble Peace Prize Award, but it wasn't a great loss. BBC East Asia, broadcast from Singapore, has been taken over by corporates and Aussies. I did hear that the most important question put to the PM while in Chengdu was about the release date for the next series of Sherlock. Queue more bluster.
Christmas is just around the corner. Walmart has an aisle of Christmas tat and is making all its customers and worse, its long suffering staff, listen to endless repetitive Christmas tunes. Christina sends an e-mail inviting the foreign teachers to come together for a Christmas dinner on Saturday 21st December and wishing us all a happy Christmas holiday on the 25th. A couple of hours later, an updated e-mail arrives hoping we all have a happy Christmas on the 25th, but it isn’t a holiday. Classes will be as normal.
Christmas week was very pleasant. It started with our Christmas lunch in a nearby hotel; a typical Chinese banquet with the Lazy Susan (Here it’s simply a dinner table turntable: canzhuo zhuanpan) laden with dishes and numerous replacements until we were all topped up. Strangest dish was perhaps the small bird, beak and all. I think one of the fish dishes was eel. Most pleasant surprise was a red envelope for each teacher: a little cash bonus.
My Christmas class was fun. We learnt a bit about Christmas and New Year and dates in accordance with the Gregorian Calendar, sang the Twelve Days of Christmas along with John Denver and The Muppets and then had a raffle to dole out the gifts that each student had brought. Then because it was the last class of the semester and my last class with many of the students, it was photo time. Incidentally, the Gregorian Calendar was adopted everywhere in China in 1929, but many students didn’t know why this year is 2013 or why Christmas is so-called and on the 25th. They do now. (the Chinese lunisolar calendar remains to calculate festival dates)
Christmas isn’t an official festival or holiday, but supermarkets and young people like it and I got some nice gifts, mostly of warm socks and apples. Students were surprised that giving apples isn’t a western Christmas tradition.
In the spirit of Dongzhi Festival, the Chinese equivalent of the European pre-Christmas pagan mid-winter festival (though not very important here), I ate dumplings in soup for Christmas lunch. The bowls at the café come in three sizes and additionally you just need to decide whether you want to eat little spice, more spice or extra spicy. Even though we’re in Sichuan I note that the little spice is still quite hot enough for most customers, including me.
Apart from spicy dumplings, it’s easier to be cheerful here in mid-winter than in London, England because of the daylight. The mid-winter sunrise here at latitude 31.47N (just north of Cairo) is 7:57am, compared to 8:06 in London (51.51N), but sunset isn’t until 18:03. That’s over 2hrs more daylight. The temperature this week is about the same, 7C falling to 2C at night.
Another reason to be cheerful is that though we had to work through Christmas, we get a full week’s holiday next week for New Year. Then there’s two weeks of revision and exams, before the long winter vacation. But even better, all of us teaching oral English, give our exams in week one, so after that it’s a matter of completing the exam paperwork and then we can submit our travel expenses and say bye bye till next semester. The weeks at college have been great, but who doesn’t like paid holidays.
The PSB forgot to ask us where we were going at New Year. I had a marvellous week and took a few photos. On Saturday I went on a bus trip with a couple of student friends, sophomores Nikole and Annie, to the Wolong Cave and Longyin Town in Beichuan County of Mianyang District. Beichuan, about 45 minutes’ drive from Mianyang City was largely destroyed by large aftershocks of the 2008 earthquakes. A new town has been rebuilt on a different site and actually looks pretty good; apartment blocks done out in small brickwork and none higher than 5 or 6 stories. We were the only passengers wanting to go further than the new town, but the bus driver was happy to take us to the cave. It reminded me of the caverns above Castleton in the Peak District. We entered one end by boat and after a time were dropped off for a hike through to the other entrance. The cave roofs were interesting, as were the signs advising us to slip carefully. And out of the other entrance was Longyin Town, a film-set village maintained in the 1920s. After lunch we had a go at making pots on a potting wheel. Good fun but my budding pots always ended in a collapsed mess of clay.
On Monday we three plus Alex, set out by train for Nikole’s hometown of Guanghan, just north of Chengdu, and the nearby Sanxingdui Museum. This is great. Sanxingdui (three stars mound) was discovered in 1986. It’s the site of a Bronze Age society, of 11th-12th Centuries BCE, reckoned to relate to the Kingdom of Shu. Found in the south-west, it confounded the long-held idea that Chinese civilisation spread from the central plain of the Yellow River. There are amazing bronze heads, jade knives and bronze bird trees to get closer to heaven. It was a very weird society.
Over a hotpot lunch, Alex was nominated to ask the question that they had been mulling over that morning: we've all been wondering how much is your salary? This is a very natural question in China, usually but not always ranking just behind enquiries as to age and family. But there are some things that students don't need to know. I'm afraid my opinion of Chairman Mao - over whom history, enquiry and opinion are controlled but divided - also remained undisclosed. After lunch we went to have a look around the grounds of the Civil Aviation Flight University of China in Guanghan, where lots of pilots, air traffic controllers, engineers and other ground staff are trained, and which, by way of the runways and air terminals needed for the training flights, is the largest university in China, as measured by area. There are lots of rotating things which you wouldn’t want anybody trying out after a few drinks.
After an eventful day we all went our separate ways and I stayed the night in Holly’s Hostel in Chengdu before catching a bus south to Emei Shan the next day. Things didn’t seem promising as the bus driver took a long lunch break at a service station to see whether the fog would get any thinner. When we eventually got to the bottom of Emei Shan visibility was a little better. So by bus and then by foot I made it past the monkey tribe to spend New Year’s Eve at a lodging a third of the way up. My goal for New Year’s Day was to make it to the top, at 3099m, the highest of the Four Sacred Mountains of Buddhism in China (not to be confused with the Five Great Mountains, including Hua Shan, or the Five Scared Mountains of Taoism). It took all day, lots and lots of steps, snow-covered for most of the way, my mountaineering equipment provided by enterprising locals for 15RMB, consisting of a bamboo stick and mid-sole crampons. Fortunately when I eventually got to the top, it was above the clouds and there were great views. This being a pilgrims and tourist mecca, finding somewhere to stay a little below the top wasn’t difficult, but my efforts to see the sunrise from the top the day after were thwarted by fog. I was happy to opt out of all the steps downhill, getting down first by cable car and then by long bus ride round and down the mountain, long enough to watch most of Men in Black 3.
My main walking companion, Holly, and I celebrated our conquest with a well deserved big lunch and then it was time for me to take a shared taxi a little east to Leshan to tick off Sichuan’s other major tourist spot, Dafo or Big Buddha. As you can see from the photos, Dafo is quite an imposing figure; maybe the biggest stone carved Buddha in the world. The taxi and tourist bus drivers have it well organised between them. Before going to see Dafo, we, that’s me and another two Chinese tourists I met in the taxi, had bought our tickets for the bus back to Chengdu and had our luggage stored. We were on a tight schedule allowing enough photo time but little dallying. It suited me fine. On the bus back to Chengdu I was seated next to another interesting tourist, a Chinese student back on vacation from her university in Germany. She struggled to remember English and I struggled to remember both Chinese, and German from even longer ago, but somehow we managed. Chengdu gave me the opportunity to indulge in one more Holly hostel café breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast and apple pancake, before heading back for more porridge at Tianfu.
Exam week: 280 students each get 4.5 minutes to impress me, with changeover kept within 30 seconds, while I try to maintain interest to the last. Most are good, a few are excellent, a few haven’t picked up much English in 6 years at school and haven’t suddenly been transformed into linguists in my class. Sharon isn’t one of them. Her favourite book is The Great Gatsby which she has of course read in English, and given a time machine she would like to be transported back to decadent 1920s New York. She goes off each Friday afternoon to learn Japanese at an out of college language school. I don’t need to give her 4 minutes to show her linguistic skill, so I pull back some slipped time. I guess it’s harder doing exams but it’s a pretty non-stop tough week as far as teaching goes. My coffee intake goes up.
On the Friday evening I went for fish hotpot with my friends from the 1991 Club and with the need for plenty of cooling beer, this got a little more excitable than our normal Friday evening tea-drinking. Students here can’t head for the Student Union Bar but a sing song and beer drinking session in KTV is a popular way of celebrating the end of exams.
All that remained after the exams was to enter all the scores on the college’s computer system and obtain various signatures with regard to documentation and sign-off of travel expenses. This done, I beat the mass exodus of students out of university as I caught the train for Chengdu. Tomorrow I catch BA’s direct flight to London, landing a little over 3 hours after take-off (plus 8 hours which we’ll lose watching the Gobi desert and Siberian tundra roll by). It’s been a good year and a half in China. I’ll be back soon for more teaching at Tianfu and interesting times.
I’m back in the land of cranes on tower blocks, in every city, and cheap and reliable public transport. While I was one of the few foreigners on the flight to London, there were quite a few non-Chinese on the way back. My flight was 11 hours, plus 8 lost somewhere above the Siberian tundra, but that was nothing compared to some. The guy next to me was an Israeli who’d flown west to London to catch the China flight. He slept all the way. And then there were a group in front of me from Brazil, going to China via Toronto and London. They were flying into Chengdu for a computer gamers’ competition over the weekend, then reversing their epic flight on Monday. They didn’t seem to need sleep – maybe they will on the flights home. B.A. made up for the mostly awful choice of in-flight entertainment by having three episodes of Cheers. Still brilliant after all these years. Baggage reclaim took no time, passport control took even less and though it was a fair old walk to the airport’s long distance bus station, the bus to Mianyang departed ten minutes after I’d bought my ticket. I woke just before the bus sailed past my college but the taxi driver drove back up the hill as if trying to make up for my lost time.
The on-line Guardian is being blocked again. I guess an article about well-connected uber rich Chinese using British and American legal criminals (tax experts) to set up companies in the British Virgin Islands may have touched a nerve. The paper must be doing something right, managing to upset the governments of Britain, the USA, Russia and China. BBC world news has no sound and on the BBC website I can see headlines about Obama meeting the DL and Beijing’s pollution but can’t access the articles. Hopefully the blocks will come off soon.
Military training for the freshmen/women is in full swing. There are squares of camouflage uniformed students surrounding the hotel and more on the promenade leading to the main gate. All freshmen/women at every university have to do two weeks of military training. It’s normally done before they start student life, but our lot are square bashing now because some paving work was going on at the end of the summer. I’m looking out of my window right now at one lot in the square below, practicing a routine to a rousing marching tune. The same tune and march for the last day and a half. I get roused at 7:15 by the sound of marching feet, whistles and lots of yi, er, san, si (1,2,3,4) being sung out at pre-breakfast drill, and go to bed shortly after evening practice. I can see why the Chinese do those Olympic ceremony routines so well. Mind you there are lapses in discipline: if I walk past at a pause in the proceedings, I’m greeted by waves and cries of Hello Patrick!
I want/I’ll have/I’d like (can I have..?). Three different countries. You can tell quite a lot about a country’s culture and recent past just by food ordering.
Spring has come. We’ve had a few overcast cool days, but I no longer need my duvet jacket. The odd day of blue sky has been warm. Soon it’s going to be hot. The birds are chirping and the trees are in blossom. We have some lovely flower displays. The weeks of the second semester are flying by faster than this blog is being updated.
I’m busy as this semester I have 13 classes, five days a week with four 8 o’clock starts. I get paid overtime for classes 10-13. As well as spoken English, this term (revert to English) I’m giving a course on the Society and Culture of English Speaking Countries to second year English Major students. Last term they did American culture with Dan. There’s actually a pretty good text book to dip into for the U.K., Ireland and Australia. New Zealand has been forgotten. It came as somewhat of a surprise then, when the first homework sent to me by e-mail was all about environmental issues for New Zealand. An error of attachment.
Chinese is a very direct language compared to English and there’s no need to state the obvious. So while he and she are represented by different written characters, they’re both spoken as ‘ta’. This leads to mirth in class as a student often forgets to recognise a difference in English but will be reminded by all the other students. I often get told: ‘I back home at the weekend’ Why use two or three words when the meaning is clear from just one. One of my English Major students has gone the other way though. In his first essay he wrote: ‘From my point of view, perhaps as others would understand, British history has been, as a matter of fact, a history of invasion. In other words, it is continuous invasion in the early stage of Britain’s coming into being.’ I have told him to get to the point. Written homeworks take a fair bit of time to mark as the students get to grips with English and then an alien culture, but promise to be amusing. Another student wrote: ‘At the beginning, Wales was bothered by English neighbors’.
In English classes, we’ve been talking about food. Sichuan food is easy to describe: spicy and delicious. What’s bitter? coffee without sugar of course, but much more recognisably, Chinese medicine. Chinese people take great pride in their food, but I’m afraid many of this student generation won’t be cooking delicious food at home. The most popular recipe described in class is scrambled eggs and tomato. New classes mean many new students, which means many new names to learn. Misse on the register, turns out to be Messi. He supports Bayern Munich and can now pronounce it properly. A few students come back for the new term with a new name. My ex-students of course haven’t forgotten my name as they greet me around the campus and expect me to remember all their names. I try.
The news here has of course been dominated by flight MH370 and everyone knows about Putin and the Crimea. The BBC World News is unblocked but The Guardian, I’m afraid, you are not yet forgiven. Normally an announcement of extra holidays would be joyful but the two new holidays recently announced here are “necessary in the circumstances.” We are scheduled to have Victory Day on September 3rd to mark Tokyo’s WW2 surrender and Nanjing Massacre Memorial Day on 13th December.
My birthday this year was a joyous affair as I celebrated it with an excellent birthday lunch. My Chinese friends from Friday evening tea drinking, rented an apartment room off-campus (sub-let by an entrepreneurial student) and cooked up a birthday lunch. At least two of them could cook. They had played mah-jong in the morning to decide who washed the dishes. I then cut the obligatory cake after blowing out the candles (not a full age number) and mostly avoided the traditional cake cream fight. A lovely day.
I haven’t flown a kite for many years, but age is no barrier to kite-flying in China. On a sunny weekend, the river bank in Mianyang is filled with picnicking and kite flying families. Here at Tianfu College, kite-flying time is early Saturday morning, the best time for a breeze. I had asked Yearn, ‘what are you doing this weekend?’ Answer: ‘I’m going to fly my kite’. At 8am the sports field was alive with kite flyers and of course I was asked: ‘do you want to have a try?’ Fortunately the kite I was handed was one of the less magnificent but more flyable ones and I got it into the sky quite easily. As I left for breakfast, Yearn turned up with an official’s arm band marking her out as one of the kite judges.
I normally run around the athletics track before meals and had thought the track was underused. My friend Nickole must have heard about my running on the student grapevine and sent me a text invite: ‘we can run together every night. It takes about half an hour’. I took up her offer after English Corner one Wednesday. At just after 9pm, under the floodlights and in the cool of the evening, the track was packed. Lane discipline wasn’t great but fortunately not too many students, us included, were going very fast. Aside from jogging being very much a health and slimness thing rather than a more serious sport, the shower situation makes getting up a sweat something to be avoided. As with the university in Hanzhong (and lots of older housing), student dormitories don’t have showers, so taking a shower requires a trek to the shower block. And just to add a disincentive to daily exercise, there’s a charge of 3RMB. I’m fortunate: I go back to my apartment, to a shower and permanent hot water. My daily exercise has taken about half an hour.
I wonder if the CEO of New Balance would he happy wandering around Tianfu and most likely, universities all over China. New Balance are the vogue fashion trainer for this student generation. Quite how NB have beaten Nike and Adidas in this market I don’t know (maybe by being more likely to have been made in China than Vietnam, Indonesia or Thailand). To my untrained eye and without close examination, they all look the genuine article, but whether they are all manufactured and retailed with NB approval is a different question. I’m pretty sure the authorised shoe isn’t cheap by any standards, even though NB has sourced its trainers from Chinese factories for some years to take advantage of cheap labour (though unlike other sports shoe companies, it does also make shoes (or 70% of the shoe) in the USA, which imposes a shoe import tariff, and in England for the European market. Knowing student shopping habits, I assume that most Chinese students make their shoe purchase on taobao (on-line shopping site) where almost everything is cheaper and regular delivery is made to the college.
NB is also promoting its Color Runs in Chinese cities. This is the shoe manufacturer promoted 5k fun-run take-off of the Indian Hindu Holi Festival of Colours, when everyone gets splashed with paint. They will be enormously popular here. I met a student on the bus the other day who was hoping to go in May to see the first one to be held in nearby Chongqing (4 hours by bus). I’m bucking the trend: not going to run to be splashed with paint and for this season, wearing Mizuno (made in Vietnam) and Brooks (China)
The sports field and spare areas of ground have also been in use on recent evenings for practice in the run-up to the Sports weekend. The opening ceremony must involve plenty of formation dancing and the main sport seems to be multiple-legs-tied races (an expanded version of a three legged race). Meanwhile my efforts to stay in shape have been hampered by a recurrence of sudden calf cramp. I mentioned this problem to a Chinese teacher who sometimes joins me for a game of tennis on Saturday afternoons and he called around that evening with a little bottle of TCM (traditional Chinese medicine). It smells just like Deep Heat. I might try it in the evening but I certainly won’t be rubbing it on before standing in front of my first class of the morning.
With a little downturn in athletic activity, I’m trying to be a little more careful about portion control at mealtimes. This is easily done at food outlets outside the back gate where bowls of noodles come in three sizes, bowl 1, 2 or 3. In the college canteen it’s not so easy because of traditional discrimination: men are served a 0.60RMB large scoop of rice while women get a slightly smaller scoop for 0.40RMB. One could ask for a larger or smaller serving but no-one does.
As if pollution isn’t bad enough, it is common knowledge that Chinese people have to put up with being duped over food authenticity and cooking standards (though I also read that the meat in certain food outlets in Britain may not live up to the billing). It made me laugh when the crispy rice café that I regularly ate at in Hanzhong was awarded a smiley face health certificate to proudly display, a day after the staff had all been busy with an annual discovery of the kitchen’s white walls. Meanwhile another outlet in the shopping centre, with a scrupulously clean cooking area open to public view and a non-smoking husband and wife team with permanently clean aprons, displayed a non-smiley face certificate. The customers weren’t fooled or influenced. Over dinner, a student friend told me the best Chinese joke I’ve heard on the subject: when the world gets so toxic that all life is threatened with extinction, only two species will have built up the necessary adaption and immunity to survive – rats, and Chinese people.
Mealtimes in China are rather less flexible than in ‘the west’. When the clock ticks round to 12 noon, everyone that can, stops work or study to eat. Shopkeepers normally cook up lunch on a small stove at the front of the store. Restaurants don’t have sittings – when the customers have eaten, it’s the turn of the restaurant staff to eat out front. Of course, it’s necessary to get lunch over with to allow time for a half hour nap before work or class in the afternoon. But I suspect there’s another good reason not to delay – there’s less chance of the oil or rice being recycled. Dinner is also usually eaten as soon as possible after classes finish at 5:40pm or 6. I’m told, in accordance with the healthy living guidance that all students get at school, I really must finish dinner by 9pm. There seems to be more flexibility in the summertime – barbecues are often eaten later when the air is a little cooler for eating outside.
I have had one additional job to do this term; to give oral retake exams to all the students I failed in the last semester: 21 in total. Over half failed themselves through being disqualified from taking the exam first time around because of missing 3 or more classes. Another fail means they’ll have to take an evening retake class starting in the autumn semester. Some students get very busy as their college life progresses and their retake classes mount up. I pass six who manage to utter a few more words than before the holiday. The bar really isn’t very high. A couple who haven’t attended all term come along hoping to squeeze through but that isn’t really on.
Athletics weekend was April 12th and 13th. All student weekend leave was cancelled though participation and attendance weren’t compulsory. Some students definitely preferred to stay in their dorms and play computer games. Meanwhile, the sun shone on Saturday, though events were delayed by pouring rain until lunchtime on Sunday. I missed the opening ceremony to make up some sleep, but I did get up to the sports ground in time to see some sprints and tug of war competitions. Now, all the students are expected to pass a PE test, part of which is an 800m run for women and 1500m run for men. The standards aren’t high and that’s just as well from what I saw. But the longest distance allowed at the sports day was 800m. I heard two explanations as to why there was no 1500m or longer. One was that there had been one or two incidents at other universities of students having heart attacks when competing over 1500m and so tianfu wasn’t going to take the risk of that happening here. The other reason I heard, from a girl, was that the standard shown by the boys in their 1500m test was so pitiful that there wouldn’t be enough entrants to make a race.
I took in the magic mushrooms outside the Wanda Shopping Plaza and went to see Captain America 2 in 3D at the IMAX. I admit I’m not up to date with superheroes: I lost touch when my mum changed the comic subscription to ‘Look and Learn’ when I was about 10. Maybe the Chinese audience are avid comic book readers. Otherwise, I can’t help thinking what a strange impression they got of how Americans like to see themselves (sorry, their superheroes). I always laugh when the movies show heavily muscled guys able to run ten laps of the park at 400m pace. The funniest part of the film came when the baddies on the pirate ship turned out to be French and my companion sprang into action to translate the Chinese subtitle for me.
One of my Wechat friends has named her site, Auld Lang Syne. This has puzzled me for a while but now I think I have an explanation, thanks to Martin Patience of BBC News. The song apparently featured in the 1940 Hollywood film called Waterloo Bridge which was popular in China first time around and made even more accessible and popular when dubbed and rereleased in the 1980s. Auld Lang Syne, taken from the movie, and called You Yi Di Jiu Tian Chang (Friendship forever and ever) is taught at Chinese primary schools and popular at school and graduation parties.
I caught the bus into town the other week and met three students on their way to the cinema. Of course, when they learnt that I was going shopping for trousers and a shoulder bag, they were eager to help. Summer trousers and shorts were quickly bargained for and bought and then we went to a street with nothing but bag outlets, which I would never have found on my own. Some tough bargaining ensued while I feigned disinterest. While I know the Chinese for ‘too expensive’ I couldn’t have achieved such a result without streetwise help. The success was of course photographed for circulation on wechat and qq before we went our separate ways.
The first eight weeks of the semester shot by and so we had a week’s mid-term holiday. Three public holidays fall during this term, Qingming (Tomb Sweeping Day), May Day and Dragon Boat Festival, but tianfu college does the very sensible thing of combining our holiday into one straight week around May Day. Most students were as always, desperate to leave for home or travelling and so my Friday afternoon class was a little down on numbers. Dandelion cleverly snuck into my first class of the week and pleaded nicely to be allowed to stay. Another four had left written notes of sorrow with their classmates to hand to me when I called the register. Two have had to go home to attend to a grandmother’s birthday and two just had to go home early because later tickets on the bus/train were sold out. Skipping classes/lectures isn’t done lightly here. Students who miss a class are expected to bring me an explanatory form completed by their class tutor or administrator (it’s all in characters, so illegible to me) but of course none of the early holiday skivers can get one. They’re relying on my kindness not to mark them down.
An English teacher joke is that all Chinese cities have the same tag ending, examples being, ‘Yibin doyouknow?’ and ‘Zigong doyouknow?’ A proud exception in Sichuan is ‘Guangan, youknow - Deng Xiaoping’s home town. That’s Guangan near Chongqing, not to be confused with Guanghan near Chengdu.
My Chinese student friend, Francis, offered to be my tour guide for a few days rather than going home. We had left it too late to get a cheap flight to Yunnan and decided against a 25 hour train journey, so our less ambitious programme was a tour of Chengdu (again for me, but new for Francis) and Chongqing. We arrived in Chengdu and after wandering around the shopping area of Chunxi Lu for quite some time, with no sight of the hotel that Francis had found on the internet, I called time and we ended up at my usual Chengdu place, Holly Hostel. From there we ventured out to see the new/old street of Jin Li (again), the People’s Park (again) and eat delicious (as always) food. Francis decided to test out the X-ray machines at the Metro stations by leaving a can of shaving foam in his backpack. It was picked up 8 out of 10 times so I guess the security is pretty good.
On day two we took the bus out to the nearby town of Dujiangyan to see the famous ancient flood control and irrigation scheme. The original dam and artificial islands, splitting the Min River were begun in 256BC and the whole complex including suspension bridge and obligatory ancient temples is set in a nice park (90RMB entrance fee). That evening Francis’s mother rang: like all good parents she was anxious that her son showed no signs of settling down and she wanted him to come back to meet a lovely hometown girl.
Day three of our trip saw Francis and I taking the fast train east to the even bigger city of Chongqing. This used to be in Sichuan but is now the centre of Chongqing Municipality. Chengdu is spread out on a flat plain dissected by a couple of minor rivers. Chongqing in contrast, is based around a comma-shaped peninsular, at the junction of the Jialing and Yangzi rivers. Think of Manhattan but surrounded by a city of endless high rises rising from the surrounding hills. It was Chiang Kai-shek’s wartime capital, but what wasn’t destroyed during the war has subsequently been pulled down so that the new city could rise. It’s known as the Mountain City (hills), Fog City (60+ days), one of the three furnaces on the Yangtse, because of the heat in summer, and is one of the seven Chinese cities that make the list of the world’s top ten of polluted cities. In late April, however, it was comfortably warm and sunny.
Like all tourists we first took a bus out to the nearby, attached village of CiqiKou, which offers oldie China in the form of 100 year old flagstoned streets, wooden buildings and alleyways full of touristy craft shops. There we also found our accommodation from my guidebook. After an afternoon of wandering around and drinking tea, we were picked up by Leslie, one of my English Major students, who proudly displayed his driving skills, (and family wealth) speeding us in the rush-hour mayhem to sample what Chongqing is best known for: Hotpot. Chongqing hotpot is supposed to be the spiciest and indeed it was pretty hot, but also rather delicious. From there we took a trip down to the Chaotianmen docks on the tip of the peninsular to view the rivers and city at night. An awful lot of electricity goes into lighting Chinese cities at night, but that’s certainly when they look their best.
The next day, when we were joined by my friend Nicole, we took a tour of somewhere not in my Lonely Planet Guide; a museum made out of the KMTs prisoner of war camp, (to confine communists during the civil war) discreetly hidden away in the hills near Chongqing. The prisoners are all considered martyrs as they were all shot towards the end of the war. Of course, both sides committed atrocities. After that we needed somewhere lighter for the afternoon, so where better than the Foreigner Street area in Chongqing, which is an amusement park. Francis and I had a go at go-carting. Then another highlight: a ferry cruise back to the city centre.
May Day, public holiday, was probably not the best day to try to travel back, but while Francis bowed to parental pressure and took a bus back to Nanchong, the rest of us luckily secured a seat on the fast train to Chengdu. Another good break and only another 10 weeks to the big summer holiday.
Dragon Boat Festival is here again and this year I got to watch some dragon boat racing. Tom and Shelley and I were planning on taking a trip out to nearby Xianhai Lake and fortunately Tom met a couple of Normal University students the previous evening who offered to give us a lift and be our guides. In the event we all packed into uncle’s car on a beautiful day and joined the flocks at Xianhai which is a touristy spot (as is any scenic place near any city). Our driver had a trick in his boot, a segway or solowheel with which he soon got ahead of us walking minions. Misfortune struck, however, when a kid on a bike ploughed into him and bruised and battered, he had to abandon the outing. Now before any racing, comes food. First the students bought enough loquats (Chinese or Japanese plums – originating in China) to keep us munching for more than a day. They are very tasty. Next we had a leisurely lunch of fish hotpot and then by mid-afternoon it was time for some racing. It’s clearly a lot of effort for a short time and moderately exciting. Having raced point to point, the crews have to row back to the start at a considerably reduced pace. There may have been a second race, but we didn’t stay for it.
The College treated us, as with mid-autumn festival mooncakes, to a lavish box of zongzi, the glutinous rice and filling wrapped in corn leaves, that goes with the Festival, so I was still remembering Qu Yuan, the suicidal scholar who the people couldn’t save from drowning, long after the racing was over.
I was back in Chengdu on Sunday and Monday to go for the annually required medical. This meant no breakfast before reporting at 8:30am to the medical test centre. Already there was a long queue for submission of paperwork and payment but once past that point it all goes very smoothly – from room to room for various tests. After a delayed breakfast/early lunch I had time to visit the big Decathlon store in Chengdu, which is just by the standard Ikea. Then it was back to the test centre to pick up the results (a little heavier and 1cm taller) before catching the train back to Mianyang. It was a busier week than usual as the classes I had missed in going to Chengdu had to be made up on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. The students were thrilled about that too - but I put on an episode of Sherlock to pacify the sacrifice of an evening.
Whilst thinking about health, I also decided to go for a dental check at the dental hospital in Mianyang. I was told that I’d recognise the building by the set of teeth outside (see photo). Once inside I was helped along by an English speaker and got into the dentist’s chair after a wait of about 40 minutes. I chose option number three – three things, scrape, polish and anti-decay treatment application. All smoothly done. And the best thing was that I could pay for it all by handing over my health insurance (cash) card. Salary deductions for insurance go partly for a pension which I am unlikely to qualify for (minimum 15 years needed) and partly onto the cash card.
Do you remember the days when you used to be able to order a coffee or tea without being questioned on what type? OK you may say, it’s only at those places that have followed the trend of the faddy tax avoiding coffee shops where you can’t get an ordinary drink. Well there is no such simplicity in China. Take a look at the menu at the on-campus tea/coffee outlet – over 100 choices. I really should go to a Workshop on tea/coffee ordering. I know I don’t want the tea with the black bits of jelly floating around in it and getting stuck in the straw.
Ask any Chinese student which country has most fast food outlets and they invariably say the USA, associating fast food with KFC, MacDonalds and of course junk food. The answer is of course China. There is made on the street fast food everywhere and any restaurant with a wok in the kitchen (all of them) is pretty speedy at food delivery.
While walking around the campus the other day I came on the practice/demonstration terrorist kidnap enactment being put on by the police at all universities these days in the wake of the Kunming train station stabbings. I’m not sure how reassuring it was – it took the armed police quite some time to arrive. But once there they didn’t waste time. The disarmed terrorist was shot.
I walked into the student dining hall for lunch one day and there were several TVs mounted from the ceiling that I hadn’t noticed before. But what drew my eye was the football match between Argentina and Nigeria. I checked the date. Surely the World Cup hadn’t started yet. I sent a quick text to Gordon, our Scottish teacher and football and film expert. The reply came back: “No it doesn’t start for another week, but don’t worry about missing anything. The Chinese go mad about the World Cup”. Too true. I’m fortunate to have a TV in my apartment. CCTV5, the sports channel, had 24 hour coverage. The games normally kicked off at 12am and 3am so being someone who needs sleep I missed a fair number of the live games but could catch up with the highlights in the morning before class. Of course when England played I made an exception. “Should I watch a game of football at 3am?” I asked on wechat one time. Answers came back: “Yes”. “Go crazy”. “Of course”. “Ring your class and we can all go and watch it together in the dining hall”. Every match was indeed shown in the dining hall, though attendance varied. For Germany (a favourite team) and Portugal (Christiano Ronaldo) it was packed. For others, there were always some diehards - or sleep the next day students.
Interrupting all this World Cup action was the final of Tianfu Idol. The Chinese are addicted to talent shows and various TV impersonating shows occur at Tianfu College during the year. But the final of Tianfu Idol was the big one for me as I was invited (with minimum notice of course) to be one of the comperes for the show, organised by the Student English Club. My fellow compere wrote a great script for us, and I had just enough time to do an edit. Our opening lines will give you a flavour:
Patrick: In June, the sunshine and drizzles of the early summer bring silent wishes.
Luvain: In June, the flowers and flying butterflies present the beauty throughout the whole campus.
Patrick: everybody is feeling young and youthful in such days
Luvain: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the 2014 Tianfu Idol hosted by E-star club. I’m Luvian.
Patrick: I’m Patrick …
The acts were pretty good too, though my photographer chose to take pictures mainly of Luvain and I.
End of term seems to come round quickly at Tianfu, so here we are again at the oral English exams: 300+ 4-5 minute slots for the students to show me that they are as good or bad as I thought they were. We’re not supposed to start our exams until the 19th week but some teachers spread them out over a couple of weeks and are already finished. I’m sustained by kafe and water. Then when the final exam is over, the students make a stampede for home and the place becomes a ghost town. All the cafes in food street shut up for the summer with just the odd bit of rubbish drifting in the wind and the solitary English teacher hanging on. (have you noticed my use of the historic past?)
I was hanging on for a few days of relaxation before a flight back to Blighty and also to go to Dan’s wedding. Dan is an American teacher who’s been in China a few years. He was brought up in America but with Austrian immigrant parents, so he speaks German fluently, English of course, and also Chinese as if he was a local. Which is fortunate, because his Chinese bride who runs the bar in town that most of the foreigners frequent, speaks minimal English. Weddings here are a two part affair. There’s the civil signing of papers in the government office, which doesn’t need any witnesses, and then there’s the wedding proper. This one was a good do. As the couple were mixed and the crowd was mixed, the wedding comperes did it all in two languages and so did bride and groom. Then we all laid into lots of food – the dishes just keep coming. Then we all decamped to private rooms upstairs in the hotel for leisurely afternoon games of mah-jong, world cup highlights of course, and more booze.
On my way to the airport I attended another wedding. I got a lift down to Chengdu from Gordon and Mia and we went via the Marriage Registration office in Chengdu for them to sign the papers and have the official photograph taken. The wedding is going to be at a later date. Then my last activities in China were a game of tennis on the (gated) community court with my student tennis partner, Bruce, and shopping for tea to take home to my family. Of course you are able to sample the merchandise first.
This time I found the airport bus from near the centre of Chengdu, rather than going by taxi. Bus fare 10RMB or just under £1. If only the flight was a little cheaper.
Switching to teaching at a university (this one at any rate) has the marvellous advantage of enabling one to not teach at all for several weeks and still be paid a salary. Those teachers amongst you will also know the need for breaks for both teachers and students. In my case, while I like the food here, I was also starting to yearn for British fare. Having gone back to the UK over the Chinese Spring Festival holiday and watched the rain come down day after day, I also decided it was time to enjoy a UK summer. Of course I also wanted to see family and friends.
This time I’d left it too late to book the direct BA flight from Chengdu to Heathrow (11 hours) so I took the Etihad flight via Abu Dhabi (17). I’ve now sampled all the variations of China – UK – China air travel and the only recommendations I can make are, hope for a seat next to a small adult or preferably no-one, sleep and take a good book. My winter flight to London, with an eight hour time difference, was a very stretched out day looking at Mongolian desert and Siberian tundra, as we kept ahead of the night. The return flight, leaving at 4:30pm, shortened the spring night to land us in mid-morning sunshine at 10:45am after ‘only’ 11 hours. This time, leaving Chengdu at 9:10pm and finally touching down in London at 7:20am, was a 17 hour night, punctuated by 2 hours of standing around in the light, and ridiculously air-conditioned chill, of Abu Dhabi airport. The second half of the trip passed very slowly as I sat between a rather large lady and a stocky gentleman with a toddler on his knee. I guess it was a long night for him as well. My return trip was a day-night affair, leaving after 10pm and getting to Chengdu at 9pm the next evening, after catching up seven hours. Did you follow that?
I landed in Chengdu in reasonably good shape after the last marathon. I was entertained on the first half of the flight by an amiable and opinionated lady on her way to Bangladesh, who after conversing for a while, put on her headphones and tuned in and sang along to Abba’s greatest hits. The long hours were more eased by finding myself engrossed in ‘A Lot of Hard Yakka’, Simon Hughes’s tale of county cricket and Mike Gatting’s feeding habits (thanks Martin for the ‘loan’). Not only a good read but it’s so much better to read a book than an electronic device.
Etihad also, unexpectedly since there was no mention of it on the outward flight, came up with the Indian vegetarian alternative meals that I’d ticked the box for on booking. These were quite tasty but came with the added advantage of being served long before my fellow passengers in prol class got to tuck in. I can’t recommend: it made me feel almost as much of a traitor to my fellow human beings as if I’d been sprawling in the upper caste section of the plane that we all walk through on our way to crampedville.
Whilst I landed safely in Chengdu, wearily watching the baggage carousel produce all possible bags off the flight, it became clear that my bags hadn’t. A delayed take-off at Heathrow, because one passenger got on and then decided he was too ill to fly, had meant a fast walk to catch the waiting plane at Abu Dhabi. I made the flight, but clearly the pilot hadn’t waited for my luggage. Several other passengers lining up at Chengdu to fill out the lost baggage form had also arrived unaccompanied, from different places.
I decided to rest up in Chengdu at the Traffic Hostel, which plays the best music at reception of any hostel, but whose food isn’t a patch on the rooftop restaurant of Holly’s Hostel (should you be coming to Chengdu). But after a day of no news on the whereabouts of my baggage and having no clean shirt left, I took the train back to Mianyang and hoped my bags would follow. They did: the morning after I took a call which I presumed was about my bags and started heading for the main college gate. Shortly after, I got another call, presumably this time from Etihad rather than the courier, with instruction from an English speaker to go to the back gate. And there was the China Post courier man waiting patiently with my luggage. So all ended happily.
Having recovered from jetlag in Chengdu and Mianyang, and with a few days to kill before the start of the new term, I decided to take a trip to Hanzhong to see old friends. The scheduled bus time is slightly quicker than the train, though the bus is slightly more expensive. Time of course is dependent on clear highways. First, the incoming bus from Hanzhong was 2 hours late and then our bus sat on the highway for an hour and a half behind some incident, so we didn’t roll in to Hanzhong until nearly midnight. What I noticed as we came in, apart from yet more expansion, were posters for the Tour of China’s visit to town on Sunday.
An internet search revealed this story from the 2012 race about a stray dog that ran 20 stages and ended up in Tibet http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-18220285 Whether this caught the imagination of the Hanzhong public or whether it was the good promotion for their town or the novelty of cycle racing, I don’t know, but on Sunday morning the main thoroughfare was lined with people awaiting the arrival of the peloton. And like watching most bike races on a flat stage, they came and they went, but the atmosphere was marvellous. After the race I called in to see my old colleagues at Aston and Claire showed me the transformation of the classrooms, with fitted electronic white boards. Having left in summer 2013 and gone to a place still using chalk, I have kept one step ahead of modernity again.
Of course I couldn’t go back to Hanzhong without eating Shaozi Mian, my favourite spicy noodles with diced pork and vegetables, Rou jia mo, flatbread filled with chopped pork and spices and the Hanzhong speciality, Mianpi, flat noodles made with rice flour and bean sprouts in chilli oil. A delicious cold breakfast. I also went out to the university where I got soundly beaten at ping pong by my old coach (Fleur) and to the Red Leaf Hotel for a game of badminton with my friend Wang Pin, where I held my own a little better. After the delay of the bus trip, I decided to get the overnight sleeper train back to Mianyang. And so I got back to Tianfu Campus just as the new students were being put through their pre-breakfast run, at the start of another day of military training. They were setting a good example and I duly went out for a run myself.
New students’ English names always provide some mirth. This term Elton has sat next to John. There’s Accordion, Unique, Gump, kkk, Mermaid, Miracle, Canoe and Cinderella. I rarely insist on a name change but I had to explain that Weirdo is not a good name choice. I wasn’t going to call any student Weirdo for the next eighteen weeks.
My old students must have felt well enough of me to write some kind comments in the feedback they give on each teacher before their final exams. Either that or it was my turn to be selected as deserving of a 2014 Excellent Teacher award. It meant another outing for my suit at an evening awards ceremony to pick up an Honorary Credential Certificate. The following weekend I got called to the main gate to pick up a prize – a swanky food processor. My present cooking habit extends to breakfast porridge, but perhaps things will change.
I’ve continued to play tennis this term, but on one glorious Saturday afternoon my tennis partner asked whether I’d like to go to the Mianyang High Tech Expo that afternoon instead. The Expo attracted large crowds with whom we circulated around three big halls filled with trade stands, but frankly it wasn’t that exciting. Probably the highlight was meeting a small group of primary school children, notebooks in hand, and being interviewed by them (see photo). I think it was probably the most interesting thing for them too. Later I asked Bruce about the Expo: “well I was pretty astounded by the price of coffee at the Expo’s café. The black fighter jet looked pretty fast and very black. Aside from that, it’s ok to be a translator.”
Foreign faces were also welcome at a mass public bike ride (about 20km) around nearby Xianhai Lake Park. A coach was provided to collect foreign teachers from the universities in Mianyang and ferry us to and from the lake, where we were also provided with bicycles. At the front, I believe there was a race, but the rest of us were set off in groups according to workplace, club etc. The foreign teachers’ group was somewhere near the back, but it didn’t matter: it was just for fun. We were supporting healthy activity. This is unfortunately something you see less and less of out on the roads of China, where cars now rule.
This blog is to show off our new Tianfu campus art. Back last term, Merrill Orr, an American artist and sculptor, was commissioned by the college to design and oversee the installation of some sculptures around the campus. He and his wife were with us for around six weeks and the results of his creativity are dotted around the campus. My early straw poll of students indicated that they weren’t particularly enamoured with the artworks. “What are they about?” (the usual question for modern art) and “the money would have been better spent on reducing student fees” (as if that was ever going to happen). I can’t say I was that keen. But over the weeks, the artworks have grown on me and now I think they’ve definitely added to the place. What do you think?
As back home, autumn quickly gives way to winter here, and before you know it, it’s Christmas. I’m sure this winter hasn’t yet been as cold as last; I’ve not often worn my warm boots to class, though I’ve been grateful for my electric blanket. One student from Xinjiang (NW China) told me that Sichuan was so cold in the winter. I thought he was talking nonsense until I realised he was automatically talking about inside temperatures. Here in Mianyang, it rarely falls below 0C but the temperature isn’t wildly different inside or out, unless air conditioners and electric heaters are put on full blast, whereas the winters in Xinjiang are properly cold, but all buildings are centrally heated.
Although Christmas isn’t officially recognised or a holiday, Walmart regales its customers and staff with repetitive Xmas songs and has an aisle of Xmas tat, and some of the other shops try to show a bit of Christmas spirit, or at least have banners and staff hats to try and induce some more sales. It seems to work: the queue for the checkout at Walmart gets longer because of course the corporation is too stingy to employ any more staff on a pittance of a wage.
I was having dinner with two student friends on Christmas evening, when one of them showed me photos from the internet of the riotous Christmas evening free for all inflatable baseball bat bash that has taken off in Chengdu and here in the People’s Park of Mianyang, over the last few years. This I have to see I said, so we hopped into a taxi and went down to the park. I guess unsurprisingly, the most notable thing about the park surrounds was the number of police, including special police and the absence of people carrying inflatable baseball bats. The public bash had been banned on safety grounds. Have a look at the picture to get some idea of the event in years past. I doubt this sort of event would even have been allowed to get off the ground in the first place back home.
With Christmas behind us, we got our week’s holiday for New Year, another week of teaching and a week of giving oral exams. I decided to have a bit of fun and posted a message on WeChat (China’s advert-free Facebook for mobiles) saying that I had decided to fail students who told me that our college is too small but couldn’t say why, or told me, “no why!” Previous students reply: “Good idea”, “Fail this type of student” and “Are you kidding?!” I was, but irony doesn’t translate well.
I had one more duty to perform before leaving for the winter holiday. I and another foreign teacher had been encouraged to take part in a teachers’ competition during the term. The initial competition requirements looked quite onerous, but in the end it boiled down to having one class sat in on and videoed by and for a panel of judges. I turned out to be a winner and so attended another awards ceremony, but this time I was also chosen to give a short (vetted) speech to the gathering. It seemed to go down well and on the walk back from the ceremony, my mobile phone pinged with a text from my bank telling me of the credit of a cash award. It made for a very pleasant way to end the term.
Lucky Air took me south in just over an hour from winter in Sichuan to springlike warmth and sunshine in Yunnan. We landed at Lijiang and took the shuttle bus to the entrance to the Old Town where everyone goes. It’s an old town, cobbled street, little canals, wooden buildings tourist mecca. But really very pleasant in out of season winter, especially for an early morning stroll before the tourists wake up. More than half of China’s 55 non-Han ethnic minorities reside in Yunnan, and Lijiang is home to the Naxi. They of course have a special dress that lends itself to profitable photography, nice food, their own language and a pictographic script, which just a few people can still read.
Lijiang also provided me with a link to my past as it was on the Tang/Song era Tea and Horse Trail that took tea from southern Yunnan, through Tibet to north-east India. Traded horses went the other way from Tibet. I don’t go back that far but I was in Kalimpong at the other end of the trail in 2010. Of course, due to the Raj, Kalimpong and nearby Darjeeling, are now surrounded by tea plantations. The tea transported in bricks back in Song times (1.5 million kilos) was Puer tea or Hei Cha, meaning darkened or black tea. That’s different from the black tea now commonly drunk in western countries, which in China is thought of as red tea.
After a day of strolling cobbled streets and acclimatising at 2,400m, I took a bus 60km north to trek the famed Tiger Leaping Gorge (TLG). Michael Palin managed to do the trek by stretching his 2004 Himalaya series out this far east in the Hengduan mountain range, following the Jinsha river (the upper Yangtse) down from the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau; so I thought it must be good. The draw is that it’s one of the deepest canyons in the world, measuring over 12,000 feet from the river to mountain tops on either side. The path runs high on the less vertical and farmed side above a road which is itself high above the river. Don’t come here in summer which is the rainy season. In January it was lovely and uncrowded, and I guess I was lucky as it can’t always be warm enough for shorts. Lonely Planet says it’s a strenuous eight hours to walk to middle TLG where you drop down to the road. In all honesty it wasn’t that strenuous (compared with climbing up Ermai Shan the year before) and I didn’t feel the need to choose between the offers of Snickers bars or hash at the pathside stall, before tackling the 28 bends uphill, but I was definitely in need of feet up and food when I got to Sean’s Guest House at Walnut Garden. Sean was away but I, as the only guest, was well looked after by presumably, his wife and two daughters. The following day I took a steep down and up path to the point where the tiger leaped across the river. This left just time for lunch and a bask in the sun beneath the walnut tree before taking the bus back to Lijiang. Actually the views from the bus were better than from the trekking path. Superb.
The tourist trail in this part of Yunnan runs from Lijiang south to Dali or visa versa, so after a further night in Lijiang, I duly caught the bus to Dali. Dali is another walled town but with no canals, and spacious streets running from north, south, east and west gates, meeting in the centre. It’s overlooked by the green mountains while a gentle 5k cycle leads down to Erhai Lake. It’s a nice place to hang-out, seemingly a backpacker hippy destination of old and I couldn’t help thinking of tunes from the Shaved Fish LP (John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band), as I strolled the streets. This heritage has left it with a surfeit of coffee shops (with as far as I know, just coffee), cafes and buskers who look as though they settled in town a while ago. The indigenous Bai people have catered for the newcomers well with their Batik printed cotton and silk clothes. It makes for a touristy but relaxed place and there’s lots of good Bai food. Lao nai yangyu, Grandma’s spicy potato was superb. The thing to do in Dali is hire a bicycle and go for a cycle along the lakeside, so I did.
Next on the tourist trail was the provincial capital of Kunming, known as the Spring City. I stayed in a lovely hostel near the central lake which made great pizza. Unfortunately the weather turned to imitating an early English spring of grey skies and rain, so I made a getaway on an overnight train east to Guilin in Guangxi and from there, a short bus ride to another tourist mecca; Yangshuo. You can see from the photos that this is the oft drawn Chinese landscape of peaceful rivers and weird sprouting karst humps. Unfortunately, most of the photos from here are courtesy of fellow travellers, since disaster befell me on the bus. When I fell asleep my mobile phone/camera either slipped from my lap or was lifted. Needless to say that despite its pricey western breakfast cafes, which can be escaped by walking out to where people live, the surroundings are glorious and hired mountain bikes perfect for the countryside lanes that turn at will into narrow footpaths between the rice paddies. The sunshine and blue sky didn’t return though.
For something a little different I also sat on a bus for four hours to go west of Guilin to Chengyan village where the famed Dong carpenters have built a wooden bridge without nails. The best part of this stop-over though was to see the clear night sky and stars from the countryside with just the feint lights of the village disturbing nature. Living in Chinese cities, or most cities with light pollution, one forgets just how many stars are up there.
I have been playing tennis most weekends for a few months but it obviously isn’t sufficient exercise as my usual tennis partner said to me, “you have a little fat”. It’s a common grammar error. Chinese seems to be a very possessive language: my immediate family has three people (the usual in China) rather than there are, and I am starting to have a respectable number of years. Fortunately I have a little more free time this term so I have started to address my unwanted possession. I have got back to running a little more regularly, bought a bicycle and joined a gym. My bike isn’t quite the lightweight racer I have back home, but then it cost a fair bit less, absorbs the shocks of sudden manholes (and the urban Chinese roads are in a better state than the awfully maintained roads in the UK) and is faster than the mountain bikes which have captured the market here despite there being no mountain anywhere near. It’s been great for the 20 minute ride down to the gym (back up takes a little longer) and getting out of the city into the other world of the Chinese countryside. Maps are a bit hard to come by. All Chinese people have Baidu maps accessible on their mobiles. I find (VPN assisted) google maps adequate, though sometimes a new four lane highway will appear, that google hasn’t yet caught up with.
I have been aided in my fight back to fitness by Tom, an American, and Chris, a Russian and together we make up the triumvirate of foreigners at the gym. The gym is like pretty much any gym – running machines, free weights, weight machines, static bike studio, aerobics gym and personal trainers.
Our mid-term week’s holiday has come round and I have been up to Hanzhong again to see old friends. Our college puts the days for Qingming (Tomb-sweeping day), May Day and Dragon Boat Festival together so that we get a week long break, this time overlapping May Day. I of course once again enjoyed Hanzhong Mianpi (see photo) for breakfast. On my visit I was struck by the little electric cars which would be great if we could just reduce the petrol/diesel cars and the madness of their drivers.
I saw that the heat wave in London took the temperature on 1st of July up to 36.7C. It’s thankfully a little cooler here, though not everywhere in China. And our term should finish before it gets really hot and sticky. Hopefully it will also finish before the mosquitoes really start multiplying. They haven’t been bad at all so far, and the ones here don’t carry malaria.
Last year it was the (Men’s) World Cup and this year the Women’s World Cup has been getting lots of CCTV sports channel time, though there isn’t the crazy excitement of last year. The Chinese and English teams both do better than their male counterparts, but the most exciting game has been USA 5 Japan 2. The games from Vancouver have been on at breakfast time which has also made it slightly more watchable than last year’s early hours viewing.
I have meanwhile been introduced to the new for me, team sport of Ultimate Frisbee. It’s Feipan in Chinese – flat plate. Tom, from America, is our Ultimate Frisbee guru and has been leading our Friday afternoon games. We are usually joined by about 14 students, mostly girls, as the boys are too busy bouncing a ball up and down. It’s great because the basics are learnt very quickly. What takes a bit more learning is that it’s more like football than basketball – you have run a bit further into space to make for an easy pass. We are very Chinese at the end of every game – we all pose for a photo which goes up on our Frisbee QQ group site.
Same flight and time as last summer and a case of déjà vu as I stood in Chengdu airport late in the evening, watching the baggage carousel go round and round and then joined a number of other people at the missing luggage desk. The outbound flight from Abu Dhabi had been delayed as well as the inbound flight, so Etihad had less excuse this time. At least they’re now giving a little monetary compensation for what seems to be a systematic problem. And second time around I was more prepared and rather less stressed. On my mobile was a photo of my luggage, taken before it disappeared at Heathrow, and my Chinese address in Chinese, so filling out the baggage claim form was easy.
What I hadn’t thought about was that the next day, 3rd of September, was China’s new national holiday a) to commemorate the victory over Japan 70 years ago (aided by a couple of atom bombs) and/or b) to give nationalism another prod and have a big military parade in Beijing. It isn’t sufficient to have a daily diet of tv war in which the unrepentant Japs are kept at bay by band of brother red army heroes (and the role of the KMT marginalised). A few days later the UK Establishment was also dipping into the past with a Battle of Britain, 75 years ago, commemorative service, and giving the new Labour leader flak for standing in quiet contemplation while the dirge to a God and the Queen was played. One must belt the awful outdated tune out apparently.
Not thinking about the holiday, I went first to Chengdu East station to catch the fast train to Mianyang, only to find all the trains booked (and there’s no standing on the fast smart train). So I had to catch the Metro round to the north station, for the ‘slow’ train, where I should have gone in the first place. The fast train is gleamingly newer, roomier, and has airline hostess style cabin crew, but the time difference to Mianyang is just 30 minutes and for that one pays over twice the price.
Jet lag is a strange thing. This time I felt fine at first, then for a few days woke up early in the morning, at a time when I would have started to feel like bed if back home in the UK. Arriving only four days before term start, I had to adjust quickly as I am not going to get much rest this term – I have fourteen classes and five 8am starts. The new students seem like the lovely enthusiastic ones I have got used to here at Tianfu. There’s just more of them – nearly 400 names, fortunately English names, to try and learn, as well as trying to remember the names of students taught in the previous two years who I meet around campus. One that stands out is Danger. He is indeed a big guy who looks not to be messed with, but is turning out to be a good student.
We also have six new foreign teachers this term, having said goodbye to seven. It was a bigger turnover than previously; three left after a year while two had stayed the maximum five years. Sichuan universities, unlike those in some other provinces, operate a five year rule: your contract is not normally renewed once you have worked in China, no matter where, for five years. To work again at a Sichuan university one has to take a time-out out of China for eight months. An alternative is to find a job in another province. Of the newcomers, we have four Americans (who replace four that left), an Italian and a Frenchman. With the departure of my Scottish colleague, I’m the sole Brit. We have a range of experiences: Josh has spent fifteen years teaching in Japan, Chris three years in South Korea, Tim, a couple of years at different places in China and Caitlin is just starting out overseas, but following in a family tradition. Both her parents and older sister have taught here. Fabrice is a relative newcomer to China. He speaks English, Italian and German but is teaching his native language, French. Luigi, who is of course our Italian, has spent long enough in China to have a Chinese wife and child. He will be teaching Business in English with an inimitable Italian accent. I met him in the student café the other day where he explained that he had a pressing task of teaching them how to make coffee. Their present brew just isn’t. Proper coffee should fill the whole room with the aroma. I have an invite for a post lunch, post nap, pre afternoon class expresso round at his apartment any day I need real taste and a wake-up.
I forgot to tell you about my luggage. It followed me to Tianfu College two days after I arrived.
What’s it like living on a Chinese university campus? Generally, very cheery. One has a ready-made village of friendly young people all around. I exchange hellos, smiles and greetings a lot more frequently than back home. And the longer I stay here, the more students and ex-students of mine there are. Next summer will be the first time when students I taught in their first year will leave. Mind you, you can’t acknowledge everyone. One ex-student sent me a message: ‘I wanted to say hello to you but you so seriously didn’t see me’.
I have continued with running a Friday afternoon game of Ultimate Frisbee but it has been more interrupted by rainy days than I can remember previously. The students generally don’t play sport in any rain. One student told me on QQ that ‘it is raining and it is a good choice to share sorrows and happiness with your friends’, which means stay inside and chat. Another told me to ‘please complete rainproof measures’ which was clarified as ‘take an umbrella’. What we really need, I am told, is an indoor stadium.
In class we have been trying to describe towns and countryside. I have been trying to overcome the students’ natural inclination for formulaic speech. For instance most students when asked to describe their hometown will within thirty seconds mention the delicious food, followed by the many beautiful girls and then lapse into tourist guide speak on the famous sites and the famous poet who lived there for part of his life and ending with ‘you can come to my hometown, I will be your guide.’
On a rather grander scale in promoting British/Chinese relations or at least Chinese business, President Xi and his wife have visited the UK this term. Actually although he has risen in the Communist Party since joining in 1974, until recently his wife of 28 years, Peng LiYuan was better known in her own right, as a singer, with regular appearances on the New Year TV Gala show. Her singing career started after she joined the PLA in 1980 (she now holds the rank of General). She also has a Master’s Degree in traditional ethnic music. I was interested to know what my students made of the visit. The royal palaver seems to have impressed as did the perfectly polished and exquisite tableware at Buckingham Palace. They were also interested to see Xi photographed with a pint of beer (the man of the people pose) but most of all with Peng’s dress, which apparently got the praise of the British people.
Aside from selling the UK an extremely expensive nuclear power plant, the British government has apparently also been sold the idea that maths is much better taught in China and British children are way behind in this key subject. I know one reason why Chinese students may overall be better at maths – they spend a lot of time doing it (at the expense of subjects which require a wider view of the world or any sport or leisure time). A wider understanding of the world is of course not what most politicians anywhere want from their citizens. The craze for maths continues into university where students are required to study maths way beyond what is needed for their major subjects. My students tell me they wish Newton hadn’t been born (he jointly invented calculus). On the plus side for UK exports, a new Clarks shoe store has opened in Mianyang. Looking at the price of shoes, my simple maths is enough to tell me that Mianyang has an affluent class that doesn’t extend down to teachers.
I spent most of our week’s holiday for National Day (always 1st of October) and Mid-Autumn Festival Day having a rest and recovering from a cold, so my festival highlight this term has been an American Thanksgiving Day dinner (the fourth Thursday in November), replete with turkey, mashed potato and pumpkin pie. Dinner was mostly found and prepared by Caitlin and Shelley (American and Canadian), carved by Chris (Russian), hosted by Rafael (Mexican) with additional eaters from the US, UK and France. There wasn’t sufficient spice to suit the Sichuan palate. It was delicious.
We were talking about celebrities in one of my classes and one group of students tried to tell me the recent story of orange man. It all started in New York when Matt Stopera had his phone stolen. A few months later, photos of a Chinese man standing in front of orange trees, began showing up on his new phone. He wrote about it on Buzzfeed, the story got to Weibo users in China who said they would help find 'orange man', and a little while later Li Hongjun, who had been given a phone as a gift a short while before, was told that his selfies were all over the internet. Li invited Stopera to come to meet him in China and their lost-phone-found-friend story made them both celebrities for a short time. But the fruits weren't oranges, they were kumquats.
Oranges, kumquats and just about everything else grows in Sichuan, aka Tianfu, land of plenty. But the population growing them must be becoming older every year. They have seen a lot – land redistribution from landlord to peasant, collectivisation, followed by the disaster of the Great Leap Forward and famine (1958-61), decollectivisation in the 80s and mass migration to towns and cities in the last 25 years. Most of my students live in towns or cities with grandparents in the countryside or grandparents who have moved into the city to live with their grown-up children on retirement, or to take over child-rearing while parents move to a bigger city to work. The population shift is enormous – the rural population has reduced from 82% in 1970 to about 50% now. Families may own or have their country house on a long lease, but most land is owned by the local government and leased or allocated to households or small groups. That’s not such a bad idea. Although there are modern polytunnels and areas of monoculture, lots of the land is divided up into small plots and strips. It makes the countryside a whole lot more interesting than huge fields of the same crop harvested by a few people with huge machines. But aside from aesthetics, a combination of low labour but high land productivity, which ensures large numbers are employed, is a good thing, even though the living is tough, where there aren’t plenty of alternative jobs. China has a big enough problem coping with urban migration without throwing people or encouraging people off the land at an even faster rate. Quite what will happen when all the old people in the countryside providing the food die off, I don’t know. It may well revert to large scale landlord ownership again with a reduced peasantry.
I haven’t got riding out into the countryside much this term, but I did get out for a day trip with Dan as driver and our friend River, to the north of Mianyang. I attach a few photos including one of our village lunch of proper countryside food (as reminisced by city people): pork sausage, pork dumplings and KongXinCai (hollow stem vegetable), which you might know as Water Spinach. There were corn cobs hanging to dry from the eaves of all the houses.
Talking of cities and countryside, rich and poor, I was interested in the map of China posted on wechat by a student friend, comparing the life expectancy of each province to a country. It can’t be a map drawn up in China – Taiwan is missing! Unsurprisingly, the most affluent provinces are the most urbanised (better housing, more doctors, more education, more varied diet) despite the pollution. There is very much an east-west divide, but the current regime is making some strides to bring development to the west, not just for political purposes. The left behind province of core China is Guizhou, with my friend noting that he comes from this 'Cambodia'. I passed through this rural, rugged, red-earthed province last winter by train and I’m not surprised. Sadly it’s also noticeable that it’s where most of my weaker students are from.
To contrast with the countryside trip I went to see the New Century Global Center which opened in Chengdu in 2013. It’s the world’s largest building by floor area (the Boeing factory in the US is bigger by volume and the Aalsmeer Flower Auction in Holland, bigger by footprint). It has plenty of shopping, offices, two hotels, an IMAX cinema, a skating rink and a Paradise Island water park with artificial beach, which can transform into a concert venue. It’s almost too big to get into one picture. The billionaire head of the development company was arrested on corruption charges along with a number of government officials shortly before its opening.
Lastly I attach a poster from the Chengdu Metro that caught my eye. It seems that Superman and Batman aren’t such good guys after all.
I’ve had a couple of colds this term and one thing that Chinese people are very happy to give is health advice. The students send me messages telling me to pay attention to the body, have a good rest, drink more water and even, perfectly natural here (and maybe everywhere), to play less on my mobile phone. In the UK we might think it a little patronising, but here, although everyone knows it’s unnecessary, it shows concern. That’s nice.
My poorer health is related to more work – my fourteen classes at the beginning of term became 15 after four weeks, with the leaving of one of the new foreign teachers, who wasn’t a good fit. As well as the standard English classes I have a resit class on a Wednesday evening and a British Society class to give to the 2nd year English Majors. The resit class looked like being an unrealistic chore with the thirty-five students who’d managed to fail spoken English first time around, until I took a tip from a colleague and gave them a resit test in the fourth week: those that passed could choose to absent themselves from the remaining weeks in return for a minimum pass or continue in the hope of getting a higher pass mark. Unsurprisingly there was a mass exodus of those that passed, which whittled the class down to a much more manageable fifteen. Equally unsurprisingly, these were all the boys who sat at the back and always spoke as little as possible. With a smaller class there was nowhere to hide and they made some progress. Nearly all lasted the course and I was happy to give a pass to all who did so.
In an effort to get the English Majors to do a bit of thinking rather than sitting back and absorbing, or not, I asked them to come up with questions about UK politics. Here’s a few of the ones that they came up with which I think show a fair bit of thought, and tested me as a former economics and politics student.
Another term has passed speedily by. By the beginning of December it got decidedly nippy, with the odd morning of light frost. The shopping malls and supermarkets also went into Christmas mode at the same time: they have to fight back against the massive internet shop that happens on the 11th of the 11th. My Christmas shop consisted of a job lot of 13 soft toy santas and reindeer for the gift exchange I do in Christmas week classes. Wrapping took a lot longer than the purchase. Singing the 12 Days of Christmas, the Gift Exchange and teacher donning a santa hat always goes down well.
Although not encouraged, I get the odd gift, and of course Plato had his singular way of doing things, donning Han Dynasty dress, for presentation of a jar of home-town spirit on Christmas Eve. Plato, by the way, sits next to Caesar, but is a lot more voluble.
Did you notice the full moon on Christmas Day? The phases of the moon almost line up with the same calendar date every 19 years. There was a full moon over China on Christmas Day in 1996, but it was still Christmas Eve in the Western Hemisphere. Maybe I’m more aware of the moon here because of its importance in setting the Chinese calendar and festival dates. Anyway, it marked the start of our one week New Year holiday, after which we had a last week of classes and then oral exam week: five days of putting a limited set of questions to 380 students at 4.5 minutes intervals including in and out. A longer holiday is definitely needed after that. Fortunately we now have five weeks.
Qingcheng Mountain is a mere two hour bus ride west from Chengdu, just past the town of Dujiangyan (visited in April 2014) and a bit of tramping up and down stairs in the fresh air was just what I needed after exam week, and before an 11 hour flight back to the UK. Fresh air was aplenty and lots of negative oxygen ions apparently (see photo), but no views. I was, per the sign, also walking in the footsteps of Premier Zhou Enlai (Premier from 1949-76, though subordinate to Chairman Mao). Instead of views, first there was sleet and then a little higher, a little snow. Qingcheng is a centre of Daoism, which I can’t begin to explain except to say it is all about living in harmony with the Dao (the path/way). This seemed very appropriate as I climbed up the steps to the temple at the top. Religion has been entwined with language here as elsewhere: zhidao means, to know (the way) though I seem to more frequently say buzhidao (don’t know).
I was back in the UK for the Chinese New Year on the 8th of February, which wasn’t a particular loss. The New Year is all about spending time with family, and in the process, booking out every train and bus, so it isn’t the best time to be a lone foreigner in China. Even family-run restaurants are closed. I did, however, exchange many new-year messages across continents on WeChat. I arrived back in China mid-way through the fifteen-day Spring Festival which starts on New Year and ends with Lantern Festival day.
The earliest date for the New Year is the 20th of January (of the Gregorian calendar) and the latest, the 20th of February. The Chinese calendar is lunar-solar: the first day is decided by the lunar month that has its first day nearest the start of spring according to the solar calendar. The Chinese knew of course that a solar year was just over 365 days well before Julius Caesar started a 365 day calendar on the 1st of January (to fit in with the Feast of Janus). They divided the solar year into 24 periods, always starting 3rd-5th of February (3 periods after the winter solstice). The solar periods describe the year beautifully (see below). But of course the moon is an important time marker too, so the Chinese kept their lunar calendar. Each moon cycle is very close to 29.5 days, so the Chinese lunar calendar is made up of 12 lunar months of 29 or 30 days, each month starting with a new moon. The same month can be short or long (have 29 or 30 days). 12 lunar months of course only brings us to 354 days, so usually every 2-3 years there is a leap month added, coinciding with a solar month including two new moons. This brings the lunar calendar into line with the solar calendar and shifts the Chinese New Year back again.
The Gregorian calendar was adopted by the Republic of China and then the People’s Republic in the 20th Century and it’s used for the National Day (October 1st) and Labour Day (May 1st) but most other public holidays are set by the lunar calendar and so move around. The exception is Qing Ming (clear and bright) also known as Tomb Sweeping or Ancestors Day which is set by the Chinese solar calendar and is always 4th-6th April. We also have a seven day week here but it hasn’t always been so. In the Han Dynasty, officials could rest every five days, but the Tang Dynasty changed this to every 10.
At Spring Festival, Chinese cities are even brighter at night, with lanterns everywhere. There was quite a display in the Mianyang People’s Park which drew crowds, though the lights were dimmed at 10pm, which is the official closing time (though it doesn’t actually close). Here are some colourful pictures from the park and streets.
The periods of the Chinese solar calendar: start of spring (3rd-5th February), rainwater (Feb.19th), awakening of insects (March 6th), Vernal Equinox (March 21st), clear and bright (April 5th), grain rain (April 20th), start of summer (May 6th), grains plump (May 21st), beards of grain grow (June 6th), summer height/solstice (June 21st), minor heat (July 7th), major heat (July 23rd), start of autumn (Aug. 8th), limit of heat (Aug. 23rd), white dew (Sept. 8th), autumn equinox (Sept 23rd), cold dew (Oct.8th), appearance of frost (Oct 23rd), winter start (Nov.7th), minor snow (Nov. 22nd), major snow (Dec 7th), winter solstice (Dec. 22nd), minor cold (Jan 6th), major cold (Jan 20th).
Chinese cities frequently have more than one inter-city bus station. Fortunately the day before intended departure, I went to the main one in Mianyang that I knew of, to find that the bus to Langzhong went from a third station across the river that I hadn’t previously known existed. It was only a short bus ride from one to the other and I got a ticket for the next day. Incidentally a city bus stop is a gonggongqichezhan (pinyin), or chezhan for short. Translating each character individually, that means, public altogether steam vehicle station. The inter-city bus station is for some reason just a qichezhan, though the long distance bus is a changtu (long-distance) che. A qiche, without the gong or zhan, is of course a car. If you say qiche with a rising instead of a falling tone (the written character is different) it means ride vehicle, i.e. cycle, but a bicycle is a zixingche – one’s own self-travel vehicle.
Langzhong is quite close to Mianyang, a mere three hours on the changtuche. It’s a pleasant way to travel though a little more expensive than an equivalent train (huoche – fire vehicle) journey. One goes to Langzhong because of the old town with its black-tile roofs, courtyard-style homes and flagstone car-less lanes. Or to load up with vinegar, for which it is famed or just enjoy the vinegar-flavoured food. True old parts of towns are a rarity in China and to step from the bustling built for cars new town into the old town is very calming. At least it is if you avoid a public holiday time. Unlike Lijiang Old Town in Yunnan, full of music bars (visited the previous winter), Langzhong Old Town has restricted its nightlife to one end of town, so it really is quiet at night.
That afternoon I took the ferry across the river from the old town to view it from the hill on the other side and of course was happy to come across the memorial to LuoXiaHong, an ancient astronomer (Western Han Dynasty 206BC-24AD) from Langzhong who initiated the precursor to the calendar I talked about in the last blog.
Wechat is sometimes very useful. I had posted some pictures of Langzhong on it and two former students got in touch to say I was in their hometown. One advised me not to delay in going back to the bus station to get a bus ticket for the following day. Normally one can roll up and get a seat shortly before departure, but this is not the case, of course, at the end of a student holiday. Wise advice: I secured a ticket on the last bus of the day. The other student berated me: ‘you should tell me you will come to Langzhong ahead of time’. Sadly I hadn’t remembered being told two years ago. She wasn’t free to be my guide that afternoon but could tell me which bus to catch across the river to visit DaFoSi (big Buddha Temple) and which stop to get off at. Silly me – I had expected the DaFoSi stop to be recognisable and didn’t listen sufficiently to the bus announcement. Of course I sat on the bus until it became obvious it wasn’t about to take a turn toward the river which the Buddha was bound to be overlooking. ‘I am now at the Agricultural Market bus stop’ ‘Are you sure?’ ‘Yes’ ‘there is not this stop - you have sat too far’ ‘I am on the bus back now’ ‘I think you will spend hours to get to dafo’. The upshot was that I abandoned seeing Dafo that afternoon, went and got a haircut instead and met up with my guide for dinner.
I had a final busy day in Langzhong. I couldn’t of course resist the previous evening’s suggestion of a pre-breakfast bus trip to the end of town to climb the thousand steps of Yutai Mountain. It provided perfect exercise but no views – the mist started lifting as I started descending. But I appreciated, all the more, the spicy breakfast of zhangfei niurou (preserved water buffalo beef in spicy noodles) named after General Zhang Fei of Three Kingdoms Period fame, when I got back into town. Afterwards I caught the right bus and got off at the right stop for Dafo, only to find that my guide wasn’t exaggerating by a lot: it was still quite a hike. Of course, in comparison to the Leshan Dafo, Langzhong’s Dafo is small. It's nonetheless impressive and certainly less swamped by tourists. Anyway, having now seen a fair share of Buddhas in my time in China, I think that might be the last one I feel the need to go out of my way to visit.
It was my birthday this week. Last year a student friend sent me a text message: ‘happy birthday to us and it’s also my birthday today”. So this year I remembered to wish her a happy birthday. The reply came back: “Really”. Then “I don’t know”. Then “I mean I don’t know today is my birthday”. Then: “it’s a complex thing.” It is, and I had been caught out. The Gregorian calendar is used for official purposes and by some with an international outlook. But many people calculate birthdays according to the Chinese lunar-solar calendar. My friend’s birthday, the 4th day of the second lunar month, moves around on the Gregorian calendar. Last year the Chinese new year began on the 19th of February per the Gregorian Calendar and the first lunar month had 29 days. Twenty-nine plus four days on from the 19th of February last year was indeed the 23rd of March. If you’re confused you may want to reread my New Year blog! This year her birthday was on the 12th of March. The students, add additional confusion by saying such as, ‘my birthday is February 4th in oldest calendar.’ I say no it’s in the 2nd lunar month, which doesn’t have a special name and it isn’t February. After that rocky start I took her advice: “You should eat an egg today. That means you can get through the year smoothly!”
One disadvantage of measurement in accordance with traditional Chinese custom would be that not only would my birthday shift around each year, but I would be one year older: from birth to the end of the Chinese year is year one and then a year of age is added at each new year. Another way of computing age in China is by animal year. When a Chinese person asks what animal year you were born in, it’s a sure bet that what they’re really interested in is your age and they’ve calculated it as soon as you’ve said Dragon or Monkey or any of the twelve.
Our spring term got underway with a week of beautiful sunshine, blue sky and spring warmth, but it’s been mostly overcast and cool ever since. Four new foreign teachers have arrived in dribs and drabs as visas have been sorted out: another American, a fellow Brit from Newcastle, an Austrian business teacher and just arrived, Mary from Kenya. Unlike Eastern Chinese cities or the mega-city of Xian, there are hardly any Africans in Chengdu let alone Mianyang. But I don’t think she will have any trouble winning the students over – her accent is crystal clear and she has an advantage over most of us: one of the other three languages she speaks is Chinese, the result of doing a degree at a Chinese University including a pre-year of learning Chinese. She is also a runner. I might just be motivated to get back to doing a bit more running as well as cycling and playing frisbee. Competition is often not a bad thing.
Talking of running, I read this on get-top-news.com this morning: ‘In 1986, Chengdu people held the first international horse race to become one of the first Chinese cities to carry out marathon. After a lapse of 30 years, the level of people's marathon reproduce Chengdu. Chengdu double left Marathon 2016 3 May 27 start running. this will add dual left marathon trace movement color and cultural city, Chengdu, will also become a runner hearts 'marathon landmark.' and 'double-left' not only witnessed the heritage of human history and culture more people will witness for healthier, greener, more sustainable future lifestyles pursuit.’
The 2nd consecutive running of the Chengdu Marathon, actually from Dujiangyan, is today. Another website tells us that most runners coming simply to participate will ‘run light-heartedly along a route steeped in history, passing alongside the clear sparkling waters of mountain streams, and with every stride fill their lungs with clean cold fresh mountain air.’ I think the course does get out of the city and go near Qingcheng Mountain, but Chinese tourist boards are the equal of any others when it comes to hyperbole. I don’t recall being too light-hearted or feeling light in any way toward the end of any marathons.
No marathons for me these days, but the Tianfu Ultimate Frisbee players are getting better and keeping me on my toes.
I was watching the high jump at the Tianfu sports weekend when a student sidled up and asked if I could help with a difficult passage in the English book he was reading. Yes I said but became a little anxious as he pulled out a copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover. He opened the book at the relevant difficult passage and with relief I read the difficult words: ‘I’ll say nowt and ha done w’it’. Ah, I can see how Nottinghamshire dialect and phrases could be difficult.
Works that are deemed to be Classics are even more revered in China than in the west, so it’s not surprising to find students getting hold of western ones, either in English or translated. Another student in my class was reading a translation of On the Road, certainly a classic of American 50s angst but not the smoothest of reads even in English and with a knowledge of the context. One of the books studied by English Majors is Catch 22, which I agree is quite brilliant, but I fear the humour of it passes them by.
Here’s a question I was asked by an English Major: ‘Mr. Patrick, I've recently finished the new series of 007 acted by Daniel Craig and started to have interests in things going around this film, like MI6. How much do you know about it? What's the relationship between this organization and PM and any other important political organizations in the UK? Can the leader issue an order without PM's consent? By the way, compared to the US agents of some movies, like Mission Impossible, I really prefer the way of the British Agent. I still remembered Daniel Craig escorted the queen to the place of the 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony. What do you think of this arrangement?’ Interestingly, I found that both MI5 and MI6 have websites.
Chinese got a whole lot more difficult to decode this term as we progressed from Textbook 1 to Textbook 2 of the New Practical Chinese Reader. Each chapter has a dialogue to read: in book one the format deceptively switched from showing Pinyin first (Pinyin is the method of writing Chinese using romanic letters) and Chinese characters underneath, to Chinese characters on top, but Book 2 removes the pinyin prop except for listing new words (see pic.). Learning to recognise if not to write Chinese characters isn’t an option. In daily life, as back home, hardly anyone writes anything anymore, except that here the restaurant customer writes the order on a pad rather than the waiter noting it down. They have to make an exception for my verbal orders. Otherwise, text messaging, which may soon become as important as speaking, is done by typing pinyin and then choosing the required Chinese character. I’ve attached a couple of pictures showing the pinyin input screen and the choice of characters available, using ma or na as an example. The mobile isn’t clever enough to tell what tone is wanted with the pinyin syllable. Depending on the tone, ma could mean, ‘mother’, ‘horse’ or ‘I’m asking a question’ amongst others, each of course represented by an individual character.
As if learning Chinese wasn’t work enough, this term the college laid on a course on Chinese culture for any foreigners in town. I suspect the purpose was primarily a recruitment exercise, and being on Sunday afternoons the response from the foreign community was sporadic, but I did my bit and went along several times. In the best one we had a go at traditional Chinese water colour painting – my bird effort is attached. Otherwise, it was of most interest as an indication of Chinese primary schooling – lots of singing required and questions not anticipated or welcomed.
Not far west of Mianyang city, the rolling land of the Sichuan Basin comes to an abrupt end with the Longmen mountains forming its northwestern rim and also forming the eastern rim of the Tibetan Plateau. The high mountains aren’t often visible from Mianyang but just occasionally the air is clear enough for a rare view. Two Mianyang Prefecture Counties, Pingwu and Beichuan Qiang Autonomous County fall into this mountain area. Carry on ascending north-west and you’re in the Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture of Sichuan called Aba (or Ngawa). I'm guessing that many people think of Tibet and Tibetans as one area and people, but before 1951 there were three main divisions of area, people and language, which at times had different degrees of independence from Lhasa as well as Beijing. Now U-Tsang is the main part of Tibet Autonomous Region (AR), Amdo falls mainly into Qinghai, while Kham, home of the Khampas, falls mainly into Aba and Garze ARs, which make up about half of Sichuan by area, though with sparse population. For ‘autonomous’ take a pinch of salt. Han Chinese, at 21% of the population are still a minority in Aba. 57% are Kham Tibetans, 19% Qiang and 3% Hui (Chinese Muslim). As for the Qiang people, rather unfortunately one might think, they got stuck between the Khampas and the Han Chinese, but are hardly uniform themselves. There's a Northern and Southern Qiang language but because of mountains and valleys, Qiang dialects vary too much for mutual understanding even within the Northern or Southern division; and there isn’t a written language. It’s no wonder they are known for their village watchtowers. Nowadays, most Qiang also speak Chinese.
Anyway, I took the daylong bus ride up to Songpan in Aba for a little break during our mid-term holiday. I had been told it was a lovely green place in the autumn. Unfortunately this was late April and up there it hadn’t properly decided that it was spring. I have to say I rather enjoyed sitting in Emma’s café watching the sleet come down outside. Not quite as intrepid as fellow Brit., E.H. Wilson who beat me to Songpan by over a 100 years and who I imagine wouldn’t have let a little sleet prevent him from collecting plants. After a couple of coffees I was a little more intrepid too, and yomped up the hillside above town and along to the west gate, high above town, then down for a well-deserved late lunch. Songpan was set up by the Han Chinese as a military post and trading centre for tea and horses on the road to the Tibetan Empire, but now the main trade seems to be caterpillar fungus (the fungus infects the hibernating caterpillar and consumes it before growing a fruiting body!). The main street is lined with gatherers/sellers on stools binding the fungus together for sale. It’s a very expensive ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine.
I didn’t go gathering fungus, but the following morning Emma (backpacker hostel and café entrepreneur) invited me to join her and the cook on a pick at their mountain allotment (there might have been something lost in translation). Soon enough I was joining in the foraging for dandelions on the hillside. Having done my share, I was invited to join the café staff for that evening’s dinner, in which the central ingredient was dandelion. It was ok, maybe healthy once in a while, but I won’t be making dandelion my go to green vegetable any time soon, though I daresay it will be thriving when other crops are dying out.
The descent back down to Mianyang went via a different route and change of bus at Maoxian followed by the spectacular descent of a river gorge. All well until the bus had a back wheel blow-out. I am all in favour of buses having double wheels. Fortunately we were able to get a wheel change at a village soon after. I guess all such places on bus routes are equipped. And so we rolled into Mianyang in late afternoon where spring seemed to be pretty much over and summer arrived.
From the May Day holiday to the end of term in July, it heats up here. I got out on my bike a little, played a little ping pong and much more ineffectively took to the basketball court for a foreign teachers vs Chinese teachers match. The game largely passed me by (I don’t remember it being my game when I last played over 40 years ago) but fortunately we had David from the US on our side who showed that individuals really do sometimes count more than team.
One Sunday in June, we foreign teachers loaded into Dan’s van and a borrowed car and drove out west to Old Beichuan Town Earthquake Ruins. Beichuan and surrounding area was hit by the 2008 Sichuan earthquake which struck at 2:28pm on May 12th followed by aftershocks and landslides. Maybe 70,000 – 100,000 people were killed and 4.8 million made homeless. Beichuan High school was one of many school buildings to collapse, due to poor construction and concrete, killing all the students. It was China’s deadliest earthquake since the Tangshan Earthquake in 1976. At least this time the Government wasn’t more concerned at the imminent death of a dictator, nor was it hamstrung by fiscal austerity rules a la the EU and money has most certainly been spent in the area. The town of Beichuan has been left as a propped up memorial ruin. It makes for a sober walk around.
Shanghai is very photogenic, so a few more photos than some other blogs. And it’s the place to see the world’s most … (choose superlative). To start early with these, arrive at Pudong International Airport. The Maglev (magnetic levitation), world’s fastest commercial train service, can then whisk you most of the 19 miles from Pudong to the centre in about 8 minutes. Like most visitors I spent the first three minutes watching the speed indicator, while the Maglev accelerated to 430kph, with a brief minute or so to snap the picture of the top speed before the deceleration. Speed does cost money – 80rmb for a return, just to remind one that Shanghai has western prices, and is the reason maglev hasn’t got off the ground elsewhere. Off the maglev, and straight onto the extensive Metro for 5 stops and I was at my hostel near the Central Square in less than an hour. The directions given by the hostel were of great help, as the People’s Square Metro (with myriad shopping walkways) has 12 exits.
I may have said this before: for the single budget traveller, hostels in China are great. This one, right in the centre but tucked away in a quiet alley, cost a Shanghai mark-up rate of 100rmb (£11) for a dorm bed, but with a nice bar with TV for the US Open tennis and air-con on 24 hours. We are keeping ourselves cool while destroying the planet. Outside it was hot though not as sweltering as Mianyang. I had time for a wander in the People’s Park, which takes up part of the Square. Difficult to picture now, but the Square was previously the No1 Racecourse Far East. In 1949 the course was handed over to the new regime and the land followed shortly after in lieu of land rent owed. Horseracing was made legal again in 2008, but not Chinese people’s favourite (illegal) pastime, which makes re-establishment of horseracing a little problematic. There is, however, a running track around the park, to encourage human exercise. One cannot just run anywhere in Chinese parks: they are not green spaces.
From the park I took an evening stroll down to The Bund, guided by the Oriental Pearl TV Tower lit up across the river. Bund is from the Persian word, band, for embankment, of course. So there are many bunds but this one on the west bank (PuXi) of the Huangpu River is pretty special. The view across to the skyscrapers of the recently developed east bank (PuDong) is impressive. I returned the next morning to compare day and night-time views and stroll along without the crowds. The guard at the Monument to the People’s Heroes (built 1993 in the shape of three rifles) had so little to do that he gave me a little explanation to relieve his boredom. A lot more people in central Shanghai speak some English. The street-side of The Bund, (or Waitan, by its independently derived Chinese name) is a monument to the sturdy neo-classical buildings of the International Settlement Area ceded after the First Opium War. There begins the modern Chinese history of foreigner oppression. Among the bank buildings is the previous home of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank set up here and in HK in 1865, which moving its HQ to London in 1941 before the Japanese takeover, continues to trade dodgely as HSBC. Incidentally the Japanese invaded at Shanghai in 1937, but didn’t occupy the International Settlement or French Concession areas (or Hong Kong) until after their attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941: that’s how foreign governed these areas were. Why two separate areas? the French dropped out of the British, French and American Shanghai Council to have their own French enclave. Adjacent to both areas is the now shrunken Chinese Old City which acted as the ghetto for non-foreigners. Its narrow streets, low rises, tiny shops and chaotic wiring are for now preserved as a ‘historical cultural scenic area’.
From the Bund, resembling Whitehall in London, through the Old City, I walked into France, or at least the French Concession. It’s all plane tree lined avenues and villas or low apartment buildings. This isn’t where the mass of people in the world’s most populous municipality (24 million) are housed. It is the area for boutique shopping. And expensive outdoor cafes. With delicious irony, the building where the first congress of the Chinese communist party met in 1921, is next to Xintiandi, the latest upmarket shopping and dining complex. Now a museum cum shrine, I had a walk through, mildly amused to read that Chen Wangdao had only completed translation of the Communist Manifesto sustained by his mother’s rice dumplings, and then went for my own café dining experience with the thought that the founders would be spinning in their graves at today’s outcome. I wonder if my fellow diners from the fortunately wealthy minority gave it any thought.
After viewing from The Bund, a visit to the Pudong New Area is a must. Until the 1990s this was boggy farmland. Now it is the most densely populated area of Shanghai (popn. 5 million); nearly all due to immigrant workers from elsewhere in China. In the middle is the new financial centre. All apartment and office blocks are put in the shade by the stand-out draw of the three mega-tall towers of Pudong. I suggest an evening visit to see them towering up into the darkness of the night sky: they are jaw-dropping. First built was the Jinmao Tower, which at 420.5m was the tallest until 2007. It’s the one built of steel wafers, making it easily climbable in 2007 by French Spiderman Alain Robert; in 90 minutes. It’s still supertall, and it does still have the world’s longest laundry shute, but it’s ever so slightly cute beside the other two newer beasts. Next up in 2007 was the Shanghai World Financial Centre (SWFC) at 492m, making it now the eighth tallest building. Originally the hole at the top was to be a circle, referencing Chinese mythology, but this was too similar to the sun sign of the Japanese flag. The design was changed to the instantly recognisable ‘bottle opener’. The last, with exterior completed in 2015 to tower over the other two, is the mega-tall Shanghai Tower. It has so much glass that no-one’s going to climb the outside now, but if you want sweaty palms, there is a short video on youtube of the 2014 ascent of the steel skeleton by a Russian and Ukrainian pair. It has to settle for being the second tallest building in the world, at 632m, but it is the world’s tallest building by height to usable floor level (floor 127) and it has the highest public observation deck (floor121) opened only in July. The 120 degree twist in the glass façade apparently reduces wind loads and construction materials.
I spent much time walking around and craning my neck up into the night sky and then decided I would come back the next day to try and ascent.
I got on the Metro early to return to Pudong’s supertall and megatowers. In the morning sunshine an ascent looked less vertigo inducing than in the dark. All three towers have observation decks; of course I went up the tallest. Possibly as astounding as the height, is the ultra-high speed lift (world’s fastest) which, with hardly any feeling of movement, takes well under a minute to go up 121 floors. The view from the observation deck is stunning, as expected and I was rather surprised at how secure it felt. Looking down on the Bottle Opener, Jinmao Tower, all the mere office blocks and rows of apartment buildings for the multitudes, the Shanghai Tower is the last showy statement, here anyway, of mega and gigantic against which mere skyscrapers are very ordinary. I wouldn’t, though, ever want to go up here on a daily basis. But being around only for the thrill and photos, I took a clever fellow visitor’s advice and ignoring a further fee for another observation deck, went up by the ordinary lift to the hotel bar on only the 91st floor of the SWFC for the highest coffee I’m ever likely to drink in a stationary man-made structure. Yes it was very expensive, but the coffee was good and the view again sensational. From seat and coffee in hand I viewed the Jinmao Tower’s latest wheeze to make up for its lowly status: people trying out the skywalk recently opened on its 88th floor. I didn’t feel any need to do that.
Back on a more human but also dramatic level, the Grand Theatre, designed to look like a Chinese cooking pot, was celebrating Shakespeare 400 years after his death. The RSC had performed Henry IV 1 and 2 and Henry V earlier in the year (a princeling coming to power being most appropriate), presumably in English but now the local theatre troupe were putting on translated versions of Hamlet and Taming of the Shrew. I settled for watching a free big screen viewing of an orchestral concert next to the theatre. Further culture was also provided by a flying visit to the Shanghai Museum. Lonely Planet says ‘expect to spend half, if not most of a day here’. I was out in the beautiful sunshine again in less than an hour, but then I’ve seen plenty of jade, bronzes and ancient calligraphy elsewhere. I also poked my nose into the Shanghai Library, following the characters in my Chinese textbook, who had recently shown me what to say to get a library card and borrow books. The Shanghai Library is the second largest library in China behind the National Library in Beijing, but it does have seats for 3,000 readers and with 24 stories is the tallest library in the world.
Maybe you’ve looked at the pictures and thought the air quality in China’s largest city doesn’t seem as bad as sometimes reported. It wasn’t; for two reasons. Firstly the air quality is best in August and worst in the winter. Secondly, I have to thank the two day G20 summit being held in nearby Hangzhou in the following week. To get the air clear for some blue sky thinking in those two days, the Chinese authorities had closed down all the highest polluting factories in the region. Unfortunately for my idea of visiting Hangzhou, they had also closed the city to everyone but G20 VIPs, and moreover, given Hangzhou residents a week’s holiday with encouragement to go forth. All very strange. So leaving Hangzhou to the talking shop, I took the high speed train on a short day trip out of Shanghai to Suzhou, the ‘Venice of the East’. Strolling around the old town by a canal was pleasant and the sample aristocratic garden was pleasant and my lunchtime treat of spicy crunchy cauliflower was up to scratch. I wasn’t bowled over. This may be the best ‘old’ town of the east but I preferred Langzhong and Lijiang. They are the same in one respect; old and new are not mixed. The old is preserved or reinvented for tourism in one area, but outside those boundaries there is little sentiment about clearing away the past. I made a mistake on my walk back to the station. The walking way to the old town had seemed obvious and pleasant, but wrongly routed on the way back I got caught up in the spaghetti of roads, overpasses and non-stop traffic that has taken over all cities. Fortunately I had enough time to get back and take the picture of the statue outside the station. It’s of Fan ZhongYan, a Song Dynasty politician and literary figure who thought politicians should "bear the hardship and bitterness before others, enjoy comfort and happiness after others". Sounds like a very rare breed of politician.
Whisked back to the metropolis, I had one more day to see how Shanghai has been transformed in the last 40 years. The Jing’an Temple, which shares the gold of FanZhongYan’s statue and his Song origins, is as symbolic as all the skyscrapers that surround it. Rebuilt in the Qing Dynasty but converted into a plastics factory during the Cultural Revolution, it is now renovated as a place of worship to Buddhism or perhaps the unbridled capitalism that surrounds it. Besides fastest, tallest, longest, a perk of this is that good non-Chinese food can also be found. I had an excellent curry served and presumably cooked by Indian staff, though the advertised Darjeeling tea was polluted with ginger and probably not from Darjeeling. And while Starbucks has infested the centre of Shanghai, the coffee is chic craze has led to lots of little coffee houses for a caffeine shot at a third of the Starbucks price.
On the subject of food and drink, one last pleasant surprise awaited. The budget airline that had managed to serve a decent meal over lunchtime on the three hour trip to Shanghai, also served us dinner on the way back. The plane didn’t arrive till 7:30pm and Chinese customers expect to be able to eat at six.
The new term started with army training and a blood test for the new students. No such loss of blood for me. Now that I’m established at Tianfu I don’t have to do an annual medical. Amazing to think that this will be my 5th year in China, and 4th year at Tianfu College in Mianyang. It must have something going for it: the lovely students of course and some decent colleagues, not having a boss in the classroom, no paper-pushing, a less than 10 minute walk or bike to work and a two hour lunch-break. And as autumn turns to winter; the latitude. It begins to be dark for getting up as winter approaches, but it’s light before first class at 8 and still light for a while after last class. Also, watching politics from a distance is slightly more bearable. Trump is of course talked about here too – mainly incredulously. He is the fifth President to have won the US election while losing the popular vote (the previous one was George W. Bush). Here politics is designed to ensure people are even more easily bored with it (except those who go through the hoops of joining the Party) and no-one loses a vote.
A mystery. A new teacher came. She went for a medical with another teacher, she changed rooms, she borrowed my plunger. Then she disappeared before the start of classes. She left behind two big suitcases of clothes. Where she went and why, nobody knows. Why she would be concerned about unblocking a drain in the last hours before leaving, and what she did with the plunger, is a mystery.
My latest training wheeze is step running in the tube at the end of the teaching building (see pic) - 10 flights, 8 steps per flight, alternating reps of one step at a time and then bounding two steps at a time. It got me fit enough to gain a place in the foreign teachers football team for the college tournament. We started well, winning the first two matches 9-1 and 5-0, then injuries and clash of schedules depleted our team, then another team didn’t show up, but we couldn’t be awarded the points nor reschedule. So we just missed out on making it out of our group. I’m not saying the competition was designed with this result in mind.
When December rolls around, we’re on the home stretch to the end of term and holiday. The temperature falls and the air quality worsens. Here at Tianfu College it doesn’t seem too bad, presumably because we are on the edge of Mianyang and up on a hill above the city centre. The bigger the city the worse the problem seems to be and I didn’t take a trip down to Chengdu for a little while after reading about it here https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/12/china-riot-police-seal-off-city-centre-after-smog-protesters-put-masks-on-statues
Still, we have Christmas classes to cheer us and the days lighten sufficiently in January for early morning moons to enhance the cold starts of exam week, and then once more I’m jetting off to see family in the U.K.
The flight back to China should have gone from Heathrow Terminal 4 on KLM via Amsterdam to Chengdu arriving at 13:45. Instead, due to traffic control problems at Amsterdam, I took the long walk and train ride to Terminal 2 and flew Air China via Beijing. The seats weren't quite as comfortable as KLM and there wasn't the choice of movies (though there was on the flight to Chengdu), but the food was decent and I read a book and got some sleep. Really interesting book - Red Dust by Ma Jian. It's an on the road travel through China in the early days of Deng Xiaoping after Mao and the Cultural Revolution. Life was certainly getting better under Deng but it wasn’t all a bunch of roses. Unsurprisingly the book is not sold in China and the author lives in London.
The Beijing detour meant arriving in Chengdu nearly 7 hours later than expected and too late for the last bus to Mianyang. By a stroke of good fortune though, I managed to get an unofficial taxi ride to the front gate of the college. £17 for 97 miles.
Bad luck, good luck and more bad luck: I broke a tooth on a bit of cereal two days before heading back to China. No time to have it fixed before I head off for a little more holiday but my dentist here tells me that we will be meeting several times over the course of a few weeks when I get back. Fortunately I still have a bit on my China State Medical Insurance cash card to cover part of the cost.
Being based in China, and given a little time and money, provides a great opportunity to explore some of the nearby SE Asian countries: Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar/Burma. I haven’t explored this way before so where to go first. Landlocked Laos of course. I nearly didn’t make it twice over. Don’t do these things: leave your phone charger in check-in baggage and have to report back after getting to the front of departure security. Pick-up your hand luggage from the X-ray check but leave your mobile phone. I got half way down the plane boarding walkway in Kunming before I realised I didn’t have my mobile phone. Fortunately I’m still just fit enough to do a 300m sprint, very fortunately my phone had been put to one side, and somehow I just had enough for the lung-busting effort back to the plane where I sauntered on, still recovering breath, as the last passenger. I then proceeded to sweat profusely for the next 10 minutes while we took to the air.
It was 9C in Chengdu, 18C in Kunming and 32C on arrival in Vientiane, capital of Laos. Vientiane: the Mekong, Buddhist temples, French colonial architecture, an excellent version of the Arc de Triomphe, a massive American Embassy, Vietnamese coffee, good food, Beerlao and a welcoming national stadium. The Mekong was a distance away; I assume it’s a lot nearer in the rainy season, but the night market by the bank was worth a stroll. The French left as colonials in 1954 after their defeat at Dien Bien Phu (in Vietnam). Putuxai or Gate or Triumph, aka the Vertical Runway because of being built with cement donated by America for a new runway, was built. And the Americans followed their cement ‘secretly’ into Laos, taking sides in the Civil War and as the Vietnam War extended into Laos (used by the Vietcong as a supply route). The U.S. apparently dropped more bombs on Laos than it dropped everywhere during WW2. 30% failed to detonate, leaving parts of Laos hazardous. The Laos Civil War ended shortly after the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. Close relations between Vietnam and Laos would explain the good coffee I found at the Little Hanoi. The scale of the American Embassy, out of site behind a high white wall except for a communications/listening tower, is more puzzling, given that it took a while for diplomatic relations to be restored with a small, poor, bombed country. I’m guessing it has rather more to do with nearby China. Beerlao is thanks to local rice and malt, yeast and hops from France and Germany. The Old National Stadium which unplanned I strolled into in the late afternoon, was a perfect fit for the laid-back town. Alas all the recent money has been spent on the New Laos National Stadium, 16km from town, built in 2009 for the SE Asian Games.
I knew from the flight down, that Laos was hilly, but hadn't realised quite what an effort it would be to travel back north from Vientiane, which after all is two-thirds of the way up a small country. After lolling around Vientiane I took a half-day bus ride, fairly flat, north to Vang Vieng. A nice spot by the river surrounded by karst hills - it was discovered a while ago by the backpacking crowd and then turned into a drug, drink fuelled, rubber tyre- floating- down- river hangout until the Laos government clamped down. It seems to have been restored to a less rowdy hangout, with more travelling-through backpackers and lots of young Koreans, who come because a Korean film star did a shoot there a year or two ago. I got a bed in the tranquil part of town over the river only to be woken up throughout both nights by a rooster that didn't know the rule about just crowing at daybreak. On my day there I hired a bike and went out on a backroad, gravel and rather larger rocks. Even on a mountain bike it was tough going.
From being jolted around on a bike I went to being swung around for most of a day in the back of a minibus for the next stage north to Luang Prabang. The tourist thing to do here is to visit an elephant sanctuary, but I decided to leave them in peace. Lao is known as the Land of a Million Elephants, but there are now just 400 in the wild and 450 put to work. After a day of taking in Mekong views and French colonial buildings, I jolted for another day to Luang Namtha. The difference between the oases of tourist money towns and the poverty of the countryside is striking. Stretches of the main north-south road were ok, stretches were unmade or already worn through by rain. Deforestation is apparently a problem but from the back of a minibus one mostly sees a hilly jungle, with few elephants, the odd river valley where a bit of rice or other can be grown and in between, occasional small villages of shacks where there is just about enough space to carve a living between road and jungle. In Luang Namtha in the far north near China and Burma, there were some grander dwellings. Probably not unrelated are the offerings from the old Akha women who patrol the night market: not just strings of beads, but rather more discreetly, packets of opium. I explained that I was going back to China the next day and that I would be in rather a lot of trouble if found to be carrying any Chinese tobacco. As it was, compared to the returning Chinese, my little backpack was only opened for cursory scrutiny and my main backpack not at all. I have an innocent face.
The contrast between Laos and Chinese roadbuilding could not be more acute. Instead of winding up every hill, as in Laos, the Chinese have blasted tunnels through every mountain that’s in the way in Xishuangbanna, the Dai ‘autonomous’ prefecture of southern Yunnan. The Dai are one of those minorities divided between different countries. In China, their homeland has also been planted over with rubber trees originating in Brazil and the elephants confined to a rainforest reserve. My day in Jinghong in Xishuangbanna, was spent wandering between and sitting in cafes due to a bad cold. Not such a bad thing as the rainy season came early with a big downpour in the morning and then general dampness all day.
Holiday over and another warmer term begins. As usual we find out what classes we have been allocated, the day before terms begins. Monday is my busiest day, the rest of the week not so busy as the foreign teachers' department have recruited more teachers and done away with additional classes. Additional classes and the additional pay have always been a given, one could say, required by the college. The previous term was the most remunerative, so we are going from feast to famine. No consultation or prior notice of course. What we need here is a Union. I am joking. Strikes and protests are hushed up though not unknown, but independent unions? No.
What consolations are there? Well for one, more leisure time and now CCTV is showing a live Premier League match each weekend, so once in a while I get to watch Watford FC from hundreds of miles away.
I didn't think I'd be returning to skiing in China. There are I think, 3 man-made ski 'resorts' in Sichuan. Maybe you can find a review of Taiziling ski resort on google. It's not very far west of here, near the town of Maoxian. I went with a few of the other foreign teachers here and a Chinese friend. We drove up on Saturday evening, stayed overnight in Maoxian and then drove on up to Taiziling on Sunday. In December and January it’s sunnier but dry, so they often have to make artificial snow. In late February and March it snows more but isn’t often sunny. We had cloud but uncrowded slopes and good snow.
The pistes aren't very extensive as skiing is a pretty new thing here. A chairlift served two or three longer, slightly more challenging slopes beyond the beginner runs, but it was broken. We were told that the machinery had just been stolen but I suspect that they just couldn't be bothered to operate it towards the end of the season as so few people use it; of course there was no discount given on the quite expensive tickets. A multi-national group hiked up to the top of the chairlift once for a nice, but not very long, ski down, but it was rather too much effort to repeat. I found I could still remember how to ski. And skied for the first time on the short downhill skis which were introduced a few years ago after I reverted to cross-country skiing. Quite a long drive for a fairly short ski but it was an enjoyable outing.
1/5/2017
Spring, March into April, was dull, with just an odd half day of sunshine and then overcast again. My trips to the dentist to replace my broken tooth were also fairly dull. The dental practice has 'painless' local anaesthetic machines and needles. It’s painless but a faff. Anaesthetic, which my dentist practiced saying a number of times, is much simpler in Chinese - mayao, literally, tingling or numb (ma) medicine (yao). Finally the onlay was fitted on my tooth and it’s very satisfactory. Also a good deal cheaper than having the same job done in the UK, not to mention the US.
16/5/2017
Spring might have been dull, but we’ve now had multiple days of 31C. It seems to have been hotter earlier for a longer spell than last year.
3/6/2018
June is the month of GaoKao (College Entrance Examination). How would you do on the GaoKao - would you be off to Peking University or paying, um, Tianfu College to take you? Here’s a little test: http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/07/asia/gaokao-quiz/index.html The essay questions are more interesting than I thought they'd be.
22/6/2017
I've just been to a concert in our academic hall given by the orchestra of the MianYang Music University. It was really very good. The sprinkling of foreigners in the orchestra including the lead violinist, are from Russia and the Ukraine. Their occupation for visa purposes is teacher, but they don’t do a lot of teaching.
25/6/2017
The other day my bicycle went for a ride without me. It's my own stupid fault as I rode over to class in the teaching building and forgot to take my lock and then forgot that I'd ridden to class until some while later, having walked back. I guess it was just left too long as a tempting target. I bought the bike for a little under £100 and got 3 years use out of it so I can’t be too sad.
On a more sombre note, you may have read about a landslide which seems to have taken away an entire village at 6am this morning - so far 141 people missing. It was in Mao County (where I went skiing) in the Aba Tibetan and Qiang 'Autonomous' Prefecture adjoining MianYang District. Disaster everywhere but I guess this one was a little less predictable.
7/7/2017
Sometimes additional teaching jobs are on offer for a little extra to top up the university salary. I rarely take them as I like my leisure time. A secondary reason is that I am not supposed to do any work except for the employer who applied for my work licence. But back in June I agreed to help out at a friend of a friend’s training school for an afternoon. It turned out that I wasn’t wanted so much as a teacher but as a children’s entertainer, and in the play area of the shopping mall. Hardly discrete. But it confirmed what I thought when I moved from Hanzhong to MianYang; that I was happy that my days of entertaining small children were (all but) over. This week, as a break from completing the end of term exam paperwork, I was offered (via one of the university’s teachers) a lucrative afternoon’s teaching in a high school in the nearby education district. It was a boarding school that took kids from far and wide and they were bright. They will be sitting the Gaokao in a year’s time and doing pretty well.
Lots of new students everywhere in their military fatigues. The sun is shining. Got here just after 5pm so that's 24 hours after taking off. Got some sleep and watched The King's Speech.
The workmen were in during the summer to spruce up our apartments in the campus hotel. The not so good news is that they seemed to have got to a certain point in the refurb and then decided they were finished, with no-one there to tell them that they hadn't finished. I now have new wood effect tiled floor instead of carpet and painted walls rather than wallpaper, but old, too short curtains, hung up on a bent rail so they won't close, a bathroom with the bath stripped out but nothing else done to contain and drain the water from the shower, kitchen cupboards without any doors (apparently because of new regulations for materials) and nothing to cook on. Some progress may be made on one or two of these things in the coming days. Meanwhile I am sleeping in a normal hotel room which has curtains and coming up to my apartment to make breakfast and use the desk and internet.
We have a new cafe on site set up by non-stop Dan, our long-time Tianfu American teacher. I say non-stop because he teaches English here, golf down at the Chengdu campus, plus the odd tournament, runs the bar down-town most frequented by the ex-pats, along with his Chinese wife, and now this café, at the behest of the college principal. While we were elsewhere on holiday, he was making a café out of a vacant lot. He’s also designing a golf course. The pizza is very good. So is the music.
I have acquired a bicycle to replace the stolen one. A Chinese friend said his bike had been gathering dust in the bike shed below his apartment for the last two years, and he’d be happy to see me looking after it and riding it. It was a bit covered in dust and cobwebs and gunk, but having cleaned it up and got the cycle shop to do a little more maintenance, I have a quite rideable bike. I'm not quite sure how old it is but the down-tube gear shifters take me back. Most road bikes since 1990 have had gear shifters integrated into the brake levers.
I’ve also acquired a new (Chinese) mobile phone. This allows me to access the internet 2G quicker. Also with help from a techie friend it can load up all the in English apps. It’s a mix of Chinese and American technology and assembly. I’m not worth spying on by either nation.
I was eating a slice of pizza after playing frisbee when a tooth broke, the one on the other side from the one I had patched up earlier in the year. It isn’t sensitive, painful or sharp, but I will be spending several mornings down in the dentist’s chair during the rest of the term.
A strange activity, to me at least, has gripped Tianfu’s foreign teachers. Every other Saturday for a lengthy session, and on Wednesday evening, several of them meet for a game of D and D (Dungeons and Dragons). It doesn’t tempt in the slightest. Around the same time that D and D started up, and rather more importantly, the National Congress ended with President Xi being 'voted' back for his second and unlimited term with no-one in the Politburo Standing Committee as a viable successor.
I’ve been a judge for a couple of rounds of student drama competition and the final was last Sunday. There was the conclusion of Romeo and Juliet in French, the Chinese equivalent of Romeo and Juliet in Japanese, the Titanic and Cinderella. A rather more original and well-acted domestic violence sketch made an alternative but my vote wasn’t enough to get it through to the final. All were pretty well done, but I don't need to ever see Romeo and Juliet again or anything with the same amount of wailing.
Entering December, it’s now not light long before our classes start at 8am and dark shortly after 6pm. I know that's still better than winters in the UK, and better than for those unfortunate people in Xinjiang who have to maintain the same time zone as Beijing when they should be 3 hours behind.
‘You’re going to Beijing for the New Year holiday. Have you bought your (air pollution) mask?’ I had, but it wasn’t needed. I must have done something right in a previous life because for my four day visit the sun shone, the sky was blue and even nearby mountains could be seen on the horizon from various city vantage points.
The flight from Mianyang in Sichuan took 2.5 hours, just long enough to be served lunch. The Beijing Metro comes out to the airport, so via a couple of changes, it wasn’t long before I was moving with the crowd up Nanluoguxiang (a modern wide tourist alley) to the Beijing Downtown Backpackers Hostel. This proved to be a good choice: once through the door it was a quiet, well-located hostel. Nobody in my 4 bed dorm packed and left in the early hours (in fact I had the room to myself for the last night) and the deal included an egg, bacon, toast and slice of melon breakfast at the music café next door. I happily paid for coffee.
Next morning I was the first to disturb the peace to make an early exit for the metro round to Dongzhimen Bus Station for an early bus out to the Great Wall. A few asides: it can’t be seen from space! (it would be difficult enough without it being nearly the same colour as the surrounding land) and it isn’t continuous (they didn’t continue the wall up every mountain). And although a considerable length, mostly of rammed earth, was built under the 1st Qin Emperor (221BC), for whom workers were expendable, and more during the following Han Dynasty (to 220AD), most of what survives is down to the revivalist Ming dynasty (1368-1614) wall builders who used brick. The earlier wall didn’t do too good a job of stopping the Mongol invasion initiated by Genghis Khan, resulting in the Yuan Dynasty under his grandson, which made Beijing its capital. The Ming Wall was rather compromised as well: a dissenting Ming General left gates open for the Manchus to walk straight through and replace the Ming with Qing dynasty. The foreign warmongering Qing then bequeathed an expanded China way west of the Wall.
The Chinese name for the Great Wall is more descriptive: Thousands of Miles (or Vast) Long Wall, usually just shortened to Long Wall. The Ming Wall’s ends are about 5 and a 1/2 thousand miles apart – the other end being at Jiayuguan in Gansu.
Various stretches of Wall are 70-90km from Beijing. While most foreign politicians are taken to the nearest stretch at Badaling, I followed Bill Clinton to Mutianyu. Maybe you’ve seen pictures of crowds on the Wall with a background of autumnal colours. In winter the background is drab, before snow, but I got there early enough for it to be crowdless and even later, it wasn’t too bad. And I have to conclude that it should be on a China tourist’s itinerary. It’s good exercise too: there are lots of steps up and down. The top parts of the Mutianyu wall are clearly even more recent than Ming, but show you the way it was, and you can continue walking beyond the point where most people stop to a very much unreconstructed part in almost splendid isolation. The problem is deciding when to turn back.
The next day I took the Metro to a modern wonder or folly; the vast concrete expanse of the Olympic Green which required goodness knows how many homes to be bulldozed, and of course the Birds Nest and Water Cube. One now buys a ticket to climb up to and clamber on the Birds Nest roof and imagine. With blue skies, it was certainly a good vantage point. Afterwards, I met a friend of a friend from Hanzhong and we went to the Lama Monastery where crowds were lighting joss-sticks and saying a prayer for the New Year (only officially is China irreligious). Then, at my suggestion, we high-tailed it to see the flag lowering at Tiananmen Square. We were too late to be among the select few allowed to stay in or let in to watch up close, before the Square is closed for the night, but we joined others watching from a distance; and almost missed the moment of actual lowering.
I went back to Tiananmen (literally Heaven Peace Gate) Square the following morning. For my generation and older and able to view and read recent history, it’s a misnamed, isolated and ghoulish place even under blue sky and bright sunshine. Isolated because you can’t just stroll into this most central public space. Entry is controlled via security check and subway under the road. One emerges onto a very large square with views over to the surrounding imposing buildings such as the Great Hall of the People and down at one end beyond the flag and across Chang’an Jie (road), to Mao’s portrait on the entrance to the Forbidden City. It’s a shame that views are somewhat obscured by one big ugly building in the square containing a corpse. I didn’t visit.
Instead I took the subway out, under Chang’an Jie and past both uniformed and ununiformed security to enter the Forbidden City. This is where the Emperors of previous dynasties, from Ming to Qing, including the last Emperor who succeeded to the throne as a two year old, holed up away from commoners. When you can summon a million workers, as with the Great Wall, you don’t content yourself with a mere palace. There are several colossal courtyards (when people were let in to hear from the Emperor, they were expected in their thousands), marble terraces and bridges, gates and numerous halls for promoting goodness: the Hall of Supreme Harmony, Hall of Preserving Harmony, Hall of Mental Cultivation etc. Yes it’s impressive and doubtless there is enough to fill a full day as advised by Lonely Planet, but I found it samey enough to be through and out the other end and to walk up the hill of Jingshan Park to the north, before a late lunch. Jingshan Park was formed from the earth removed for the FC’s moat. After taking in the view I made my way to Wangfujing, a main shopping street that the characters in my Chinese textbook are always referencing, and found a good English language bookstore. As well as finding a book for the train south, it was also warm.
One last day and a last site to see, I decided to take the Metro out to the Summer Palace (where the Emperor came when he tired of the Forbidden City). Halls and pavilions, much more modest than the FC sit on a hill overlooking a big lake. The Long Corridor of wood lined with paintings shows a tasteful use of wealth. At the other end of the spectrum seems to be Empress Dowager Cixi’s marble boat. In fact it’s a replacement pavilion for the one destroyed by Anglo-French troops during the Second Opium War, made to look like a boat by imitation paddlewheels, and it’s actually made of wood painted to imitate marble. Cixi wasn’t completely mad. She’s normally given a pretty bad write-up in history but wasn’t dealt a great hand: the death of her Emperor husband left her five year old son as Emperor, though she took charge. He took power aged 17 but died within two years so what was she to do but install a three year old cousin as Emperor and carry on in charge.
Beijing’s squares and streets had been a bit cold but quite pleasant but walking round the lake at the Summer Palace was chilling. Fortunately I met an old friend from Hanzhong, now living in Beijing, who had a car and knew of an excellent restaurant to sample two other Beijing staples: Beijing roast duck and Beijing boiled sliced mutton.
What else did I see in Beijing: the Bell and Drum Towers lit up at night and Beihai Lake partly frozen over for skating; and I also had a wander around the hutongs. These are the alleyways and older one story homes and courtyards of the city that have survived being bulldozed to make way for something more modern. I enjoyed Beijing which has some interesting sites and more characterful areas than many Chinese cities, though the centre is a little too soviet and the whole place noticeably overpoliced.
I took the fast train back to Mianyang in eleven hours. That was a little slower than scheduled, I guess due to snow on the line. The last stretch of line from Xian to Chengdu had just opened, reducing the journey time by fast train by 15 hours. It was good to see the northern part of China between Beijing and Xian rather than fly over. Worth it to know that it’s mostly a flat wasteland never needing to be visited, at least in winter, and definitely not a place to take a bicycle.
After the New Year break, we have two more weeks of classes, a week of exams and then Spring Festival Holiday. This is at least a week longer than last year because the Chinese New Year, which starts the Spring Festival, is later this year. We owe the winter start of the solar year to Julius Caesar who decided it should commence at the Feast of Janus, making January the first month. The Chinese New Year relies on more astronomy. It starts at the second dark moon (the last visible crescent of a waning moon) after the winter solstice. So the Chinese calendar is Lunar-Solar.
While the train from Xian went mostly through tunnels under the mountains, the snow followed me over. Not a lot, but it settled overnight and got everyone a little excited. It’s the first snow in the five winters I’ve been here. But after the wintry start, we reverted back to clear skies which means cold at night but warming up to a nice temperature by lunchtime. Layering and delayering are essential.
In the last week of term I not only gave exams but also had my own lengthy test, in the dentist’s chair. In just under 2.5 hours, Dr Yi carefully replaced my second broken tooth in a year. I will be happy if I don't have another lengthy dental session for a while. Afterwards I posed for a picture with restored teeth and Dr Yi. Not something you do back home and now I’m ready for a decent holiday.
A day of airports and planes sees me to my room in a villa in Siem Reap. The fan moves the air somewhat, but cold it isn't - 30C on arrival. Siem has clearly expanded in recent years for the hordes that come to see the Temples of Angkor a short distance up the road, but it’s pretty pleasant.
Lots of people see Angkor by tuk-tuk, but it’s perfect by (hire) bicycle. That gives you even more idea of the scale of the city it was. It’s about a 35 minute pedal up the road from town to the Angkor Wat temple itself. From there I peddled west, north, east, south with stop-offs at various temples along the way. All flat. It’s said to have been the largest pre-industrial city, the capital city of the Khmer Empire from the 9th to 15th centuries, before it was abandoned and taken over by forest. No-one is quite sure why it was abandoned: maybe after war or due to flooding. The forest was gradually cleared away again from 1907-70 but the wooden houses had of course gone, leaving behind just the sandstone temples, sometimes entwined by a tree. Imagine a flat older London with all the houses cleared away leaving only the cathedrals and churches. And a ring road with hardly any cars, warm weather and stop-offs for temples and food and drink.
Lonely Planet says ‘One day at Angkor? Sacrilege!’ and suggests three. I got round a lot of the perimeter temples on day one with a lot of peddling, but I needed a second day to see the main Angkor Wat temple and have a longer second look at Angkor Thom and the Bayon. Unlike the other temples which emerged from the forest, Angkor Wat and grounds were protected by a moat and intermittent use, so it’s most complete. Also gigantic. It was built by King Suryavarman II (1113-52) who unified Cambodia and was a Vishnu (Hindu) devotee. After him, King Jayavarman VII saw off the Chams (from modern day Vietnam) and tried to go one better by building a new inner city (Angkor Thom), just north of Angkor Wat, protected by a wider moat and more massive walls. In the middle he built the Bayon Temple, dedicated to Mahayana Buddhism. It’s the one decorated with 216 faces of the bodhisattva of compassion called Avalokiteshvara, or possibly his own face. They are lookalikes apparently and the experts are divided about just how egotistical he was in thinking of himself as a god-king. It’s an amazing old and photogenic place anyway but with a rather unique and more recent name. It was originally Jayagiri (Victory Mountain), the French colonials called it the Banyan Temple (as the Buddha attained enlightenment under the Banyan tree), the locals pronounced this as Bayon and the name stuck. As well as a change of names, there have also been religious changes. After King J. VII died, there was a reversion to Hinduism during the reign of his namesake and then later to Theravada Buddhism which remains the prominent religion. Very very briefly, Theravada Buddhism is practiced most in South East Asia, Mahayana Buddhism most further north, in China, Japan, Korea, while Vajrayana Buddhism is aka Tibetan Buddhism. More on Buddhism elsewhere on the internet.
One remarkable occurrence happened while at an Angkor Temple. I got chatting to an English couple about my age. ‘Where are you from?’. ‘Well, originally Bushey near Watford’. ‘Remarkable, me too’ ‘So which school did you go to?’ ‘Bushey Meads’ ‘Same here’. ‘Year?’ ‘Ah, we were in the same class!’ Only for about a year though and over 40 years ago. I guess we don’t look quite so youthful now. So if you’re reading this Michaela, it was great to bump into you.
A long day in the heat and the saddle is fine with sufficient water, but it’s nice to be able to look forward to a little treat. I found it in one of the good restaurants of Siem: Bruntys Somerset Apple Cider on ice. The restaurant menu describes it as a British-style Southeast Asian cider and indeed according to the label it is produced in Cambodia under supervision. Whatever, it hits the spot.
Over now to the pictures which may do Angkor rather more justice than my script.
Phnom Penh likes and dislikes: a decent independence monument (built in 1958), motorbikes ahead of cars, too many bikes and cars, zebra crossings, cars and bikes taking over the pavements, smaug the dragon statue, keepie uppie and exercise on the riverside, flags flying over the Mekong (every capital should have a decent river), an excellent and not too big national museum, constant noisy traffic, incessant ‘hello’/’tuk-tuk sir’ from the tuk-tuk drivers, simple, healthy delicious street food and great coffee and cafes. In one I ordered the iced coffee and the waitress came back with iced coffee and iced tea. I only ordered the coffee I say. Yes she says and the tea is free. More likes than dislikes from a visitor perspective.
I didn’t visit the Killing Fields S-21 prison just outside Phnom Penh, preferring to enjoy Cambodia as it is now, but of course one should be aware of history and the present state below the surface of a tourist’s view. Cambodia might have been divided up between Thailand and Vietnam but the French directed subsequent events in a different direction by taking over Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos (but not Thailand which was a convenient buffer zone between the French and the British in Burma ) and from 1887, putting them together in an Indochinese Union. Fast forward to 1949 and the People’s Liberation Army winning the civil war in China, followed by the Viet Minh led by Ho Chi Minh, winning the First Indochina war and ending French colonialism. Cambodia and Laos got independence in 1954 at the same time as Vietnam was divided into North and South. Then came the Vietnam War, aka the Second Indochina War, with America getting involved in bombing the Vietnamese in northern Laos from 1964 and joining the war on the ground in 1965. US bombing extended to Cambodia in 1969 and shortly thereafter Cambodia became a full scale part of the Vietnam War, split between the Vietnamese communist army and the forces of a new Cambodian government, installed after a coup in 1970, backed by American aid and bombs. From the Vietnamese side emerged the Cambodian Communist Khmer Rouge gradually becoming independent from the Vietnamese. Also falling out in the sixties were China and the Soviet Union and as a result, the Soviet Union took over as the main weapons supplier for North Vietnam, opposing the USA, while China became the Khmer Rouge’s backers. Phnom Penh was taken over by the Khmer Rouge led by Pol Pot, in April 1975, just a few days before the war in Vietnam ended with the fall of Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City). The Khmer Rouge proclaimed it Year Zero, renamed the country, Democratic Kampuchea and proceeded to preside over mass death by famine and execution. Thankfully they couldn’t help themselves in interfering over the border in Vietnam where they hoped to take control of the Mekong Delta Region, which had been part of the Khmer Empire until 1698. Eventually the Vietnamese had enough of their neighbours and entered Cambodia on Christmas Day 1978 to quickly oust the Khmer Rouge. Just to round things off, China then invaded Vietnam for a month to cause a few more thousand deaths as a signal of its displeasure to Vietnam and the Soviet Union, and while the new Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping consolidated power. In Cambodia, the Vietnamese occupation lasted till 1989 and a famine killed many more thousands. It has slowly since become a place of poor but seeming normality with tourism and logging added to a peasant economy. Seeming normality. Under the Khmer Rouge, private property was banned and land titles destroyed. Now, lots of land is being leased to non-peasant investors including many non-Cambodians, with the joint beneficiaries of these deals rather hard to identify. The Prime Minister is the long serving Huan Sen who first took up the post aged 32 in 1985. He’s had to make do as joint PM on several occasions due to elections, but in the last one his party won all the seats in the National Assembly. One important thing he doesn't control is the currency, which for most non-peasant transactions has, since 1992 and UN aid, been the US dollar.
After a couple of days of strolling around Phnom Penh I took the bus back to Siem Reap for my flight back to China. That, the bus trip, actually turned out to be pretty exciting. Cambodia has acquired enough cars and buses combined with philosophic attitude to life to make for a nerve shredding travelling experience.
8/4/2018
I read this Chinese happy ending story https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/07/reunited-after-24-years-rare-happy-ending-for-chinas-broken-families . 50,000 - 200,000 children are estimated to go missing every year! Coincidentally a week or so ago, a student I taught last year, from Beijing, told me that her parents had just recently told her that she was adopted as a baby. Rather unsettling I think.
11/4/2018
I had a good weekend in Chengdu. I went down to meet Simon who is the Australian cousin of a Leeds triathlete friend of mine. I had learned through Facebook (it does have its uses) that Simon was cycling from Melbourne to Leeds. He had just come up through northern Laos, which I know from the back of a minibus to be a cycling challenge, and then up through Yunnan, taking in Tiger Leaping Gorge before the real challenge; the direct north pass up to the Tibetan Sichuan town of Litang at 4014m, before taking a right for a long long descent to Chengdu. I did tell him it would be the more interesting route, but going that way at that height before winter has finished, was more than interesting. He deserved a few days’ rest. I think I was the first native English speaker he’d spoken too in quite a while. I was able to show him how to use the underground (even though it's all in English I guess he's been away from a big city for quite a while) and we went down to Decathlon, the French sports superstore, to get him new shorts and trousers. Then for an Indian curry and a dark beer; an evening off from Chinese food and drink. He had to spend a few days in Chengdu to get worn out bike parts replaced, then make the long climb north-west (from Chengdu at about 500m to over 3700m) to join the Silk Road for the long journey west out of China. But fate intervened for him a day out of Chengdu when he fell ill, hobbled into Mianyang and made the sensible decision to cut out all that climbing by getting the train to Lanzhou in Gansu. There he had time to get a visa extension and hopefully now has enough days for the still epic Silk Road ride across Gansu and Xinjiang and out of China. I tend to think Mianyang and certainly Lanzhou are a fair way west in China, but Xinjiang is so vast, as well as empty, that Lanzhou is actually at about the central point.
The only downside to my Chengdu trip was that I left my glasses in Simon’s hostel. The hostel has put them to one side for when I am next in town and able to collect. I have a spare pair, though they are somewhat bent out of shape; they fell off and then I trod on them in class a few days ago!
15/4/2018
I am a little tired this evening after playing badminton for a couple of hours this afternoon. Haven't done that for a while. I got invited by a Mianyang resident who turned up at the college a couple of weeks ago looking for English speakers. A bit of a high-flyer: the Chinese government paid for him to do a PhD in aeronautics at Southampton University. I assume he is now working in Mianyang Science City (Military/Industrial area off-limits to foreigners). So much for free trade, free from government support! We ended up as partners for several doubles games, at which I didn't quite hold my own, but we weren't embarrassed (though I suspect we could have been). The badminton hall was a no frills warehouse space with 18 badminton courts, getting well used. No wonder the Chinese are pretty good at badminton.
28/4/2018
I have just swatted a mosquito in mid-flight. Hopefully that means I will get through tonight without being woken up, post blood sucking.
I’m just back from a May Day holiday, half-term break. I decided to travel the route that cyclist Simon missed out on, but in reverse, downhill and by bus. First I flew to Lanzhou where I had booked into an economic hostel on a Chinese booking app. I’ve had great experience with Chinese Youth Hostels. I located the address with the help of two students from Inner Mongolia who I met at the airport. It turned out not to be exactly a hostel as expected, but a spare room on the 23rd floor of a high rise. The room with bunk beds was already occupied so the proprietor (using an app translator) asked if I'd prefer a room on my own (as I am a special foreigner guest). We then went along to a different apartment somewhere in the high rise complex where I was able to nab one of the single bedrooms. The app booking was cancelled and the app fee split, so I got a cheap room and a key to let myself in and out. Imagine turning up and doing that in a high-rise in London or Manchester.
Until recently Lanzhou was ranked as one of the cities with the worst air quality in the world, due to industrial pollution and its situation in a narrow river valley. But in 2015 it was awarded a climate progress title after pollution reduction measures. It was certainly ok for my visit. That river is the Yellow River, still in its upper reaches but already a fair flow. The sprawl of Lanzhou on its southern bank isn’t an architectural jewel but the main mosque is impressive, especially lit up at night. And the Hui community (Muslims spread throughout China but deemed ethnically distinct by religion) have made Lanzhou famous for one thing: Lanzhou beef lamian (hand pulled noodles). There are supposedly over a thousand lamian outlets in Lanzhou. Unfortunately the one I tried, though next to the mosque, was a disappointment with minimal beef. I had much better on the street in Hanzhong.
From Lanzhou, my first stop-over after a morning bus ride was in Xiahe which is dominated by Labrang Monastery. Here, I was in the historically Tibetan Amdo region. The Monastery was shut down during the Cultural Revolution and the monks sent to their villages but it reopened in 1980, albeit with enrolment restricted to 1,500. As well as the monks, it attracts an awful lot of Tibetans on pilgrimage and a fair few other tourists like me. Of course I joined the kora (pilgrim walk) around the Monastery and turned all the prayer wheels.
Fortune smiled on me the next day as I was given a lift to Langmusi on the border with Sichuan by a couple in matching sweatshirts that had stayed at the same hostel and were driving that way. Langmusi is also a monastery town (one for each of the two competing Buddhist sects). Here I stayed in a hostel actually run by Tibetans. Strange to go from listening to a language that I may only be able to pick up a few words/phrases in, but which now sounds familiar, to a completely alien one. Next day I hitched a walk with a Belgium couple and their Tibetan guide for most of the way out to their overnight camp, and then jogged back down to town. The route was free of fierce Tibetan dogs and as Langmusi is at 3,700m, I got in a bit of altitude training. From there it was a two stage bus ride back to Songpan in Sichuan which I’d previously visited (see 14/4/2016). And then all downhill, mostly following the river, for another 6 hours to Chengdu. The air was certainly a good deal fresher up in Amdo than down in Chengdu. And down here I was connected up again to globalisation. The main news item on Metro station TVs was Arsene Wenger’s resignation from Arsenal.
I've been ranging a little further afield out into the countryside by bicycle this term. Here are some pictures. The exerciseway along by the Fu River through Mianyang is great. Hot work though and plenty of refreshment needed.
After 5 years at Tianfu College in Mianyang I’m off to pastures new. From next September I’ll be teaching at Anhui Foreign Languages University on the outskirts of Hefei in Anhui Province. Hefei is a little west of Nanjing, just north of the Yangtze (a river of many moods, beloved by English goalkeepers, if you know your Monty Python). So t'other side of the country. Why? Well, the Bureau for Foreign Experts in Mianyang implements a 5 year rule: foreigners at Tianfu who have worked in China for 5 years can’t normally get residence and work permits extended. So those in this position must either leave China or move to another place. A stay outside China for a year will get one a further 5 years residency. But I’m choosing the other option, waving a long goodbye to Tianfu and moving to a Province that doesn't implement this rule (most don't). A third possible option was muted: move across town to the public university, but the salary is lower, and sometimes the time is right to move on. What’s that I hear you say?- ‘You’ve been in China for nearly six years including the first year in Hanzhong’. True. Last year I was granted a further year beyond the five, but it isn’t happening a second time.
How does one find another teaching job? Through the Teaching English as a Foreign Language websites, sending off CVs and fairly undemanding skype interviews. There is then a deal of paperwork, cancelling of one work permit by one college, application for one by another, a medical to be passed down in Chengdu and a visit to the new city to apply for a new residence permit. Mianyang to Hefei is about 1500km. So on June 22nd I flew from Chengdu to Hefei, got the airport shuttle bus to Hefei South train station and then taxi to the Entry and Exit Bureau. It all went very smoothly. There I handed over my passport, so that it could rest in a drawer for three weeks before being retrieved by the due date for the residence permit to be stuck inside. In return I got a receipt which also acted as ID and travel warrant in place of passport. That was Friday so I stayed over in Hefei and went out to have a look around my new living and work place the next day before a late Saturday evening flight back to Chengdu, another hotel stay and train back to Mianyang on Sunday to be ready for classes on Monday.
Impression of Hefei: as per most Chinese cities, many incredibly ugly uniform tower blocks but also some lovely tree lined streets. The central area is nicely distinct as bounded by lakes. The university is way out of town near a mountain scenic area, so suspect I will be partying infrequently, but may be keeping fit. I attach some pictures. Its teaching buildings are certainly very grand. We’ll see in due course whether it lives up to first impressions.
I got back from Hefei in plenty of time to watch the football, which was quite a satisfying end to the weekend (England won). The World Cup is on TV of course. My impression is that there’s not quite as much promotion of it or enthusiasm as four years ago. This may be something to do with another four years of the Chinese national team showing little sign of any progress and a political leadership pushing a more inward looking line. But it also doesn’t help that Chinese people’s favourite foreign teams and players, Germany, Ronaldo and Messi all failed miserably.
After my Hefei trip there was just one more week of teaching and then exams before the end of term. It has flown by as usual, with spring turning to the usual hot summer, but July this year brought a deluge. It rained pretty non-stop for a couple of weeks reaching a crescendo of a downpour last Tuesday night. The river in Mianyang broke its banks and areas near the river were flooded. Even at Tianfu which is up on the hill, the drains couldn’t cope and the college roads were flooded for a time. The water was cut off for a night but quickly restored. It was a climatic finish to my time in Mianyang. Then there was the packing or throwing out. I haven’t accumulated that much over five years here, but it was still a task to get the apartment emptied. China Post turned out to be very good. The guy came up from the depot in Mianyang to collect my bundles, repacked them all and sent them on their way to Hefei. Thence I followed, not quite without incident. The ID given in lieu of passport by the authorities in Hefei got me on the train from Mianyang to Chengdu, but when I presented it at my hotel, they took the ready for pick-up date (the previous day) as an expiry date and refused my booking. I ended up going to a police station to report the circumstances and thankfully the police called the hotel to say they’d prefer me sleeping in a known place than wandering the streets in the rain. Either that, or for the hotel not to be so daft. It meant that I was able to relax and join friends in an apartment rented out with big screen to watch the World Cup final. And fortunately there were also no questioned asked at the airport the next day, so I was able to board the plane and fly back to Hefei to retrieve my passport. The following day I trailed out to the university again to check that my baggage had all been delivered by China Post. And for rather more RMB than is quite reasonable, my bags are now safely stowed for the summer at the Post Depot near the university. And here I am, now sat in Shanghai and UK bound tomorrow. It’s the end of one happy period and I’ll be back in late August for a new beginning.
It's now 9:30pm, an hour ahead of China and eight ahead of London where my journey began. I'm relaxing in one of the cafes that seem to be everywhere here in Seoul having reached my hostel a little earlier. First there was a long haul from Heathrow to Shanghai, then a quick in and out again for the short hop to Incheon Airport in South Korea (S.K.). China now requires all entering foreigners to have fingers and thumbs digitally scanned, but even with that, I probably got in more quickly than does a foreigner dealing with the UK border force. It’s all about manpower. A little time between flights also enabled me to lighten my baggage thanks to Shanghai Pudong Airport’s Left Luggage.
Incheon is the replacement airport that London wishes it had. It was built on an artificially created island off the coast, 43 miles west of downtown Seoul (so it doesn’t add greatly to noise pollution) and of course the train connection is excellent and inexpensive. Here we have joined up thinking as well as the advantage of starting recently from sea up. Incheon might also remind visitors of why most things are relatively modern. It’s where the amphibious landings took place in 1950 that reversed the Korean War, with the North Korean Army thereafter forced into retreat all the way up the Korean Peninsula. The Chinese then intervened and after much to-ing and fro-ing (Seoul changed hands four times) the border was set not far north of Seoul. The Koreans to the south seem to have made a pretty good fist of it since then.
Day one in Seoul started a little late as I didn't wake up until about 1pm (that was after having to get up at 5:30am to rouse one of the other dorm sleepers to turn off his alarm). I guess oversleeping is allowable after 36 hours of travelling. As breakfast was missed, I checked out the staple of Korean cheap eats, bibimbap. It was good, not really any different in Seoul from elsewhere, but then it’s a difficult dish to mess up. I then took the metro to Seoul Plaza and after taking in the new and old town halls (the old one built under Japanese direction is now a library) found myself taking in churches: Methodist church, Anglican cathedral and Catholic cathedral (from the late 19th century), plus one palace and a main shopping area. Christianity now has slightly more followers than Buddhism. There are also non-adherents, in part because the church and money-making have got a little too closely associated. Underlying these is Confucianism, which seems to me to be at odds with Christianity: the Confucian would have passed by, not recognising a stranger in his social order, before the Good Samaritan came along. And pretty clearly overlaying it all now is consumerism, cosmetics, coffee and K-Pop.
Day 2 I walked. First from Seoul Plaza north up to the Gyeongbokgung Palace past impressive statues of King Sejong the Great and Admiral Yi. Admiral Yi is the Korean equivalent of Admiral Nelson, having always won against the Japanese before being shot in a final victorious battle. More here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ieaDfD_h6s . King Sejong the Great is best known for inventing Hangul, the alphabetical writing system which could be read by the previously illiterate people unable to master Chinese characters. Given that Chinese and Korean are non-related languages, King Sejong deserves his epithet for replacing the foreign Chinese characters that people had struggled with for the previous 1500 years. Here is Korean (language) written in Chinese characters and in Hangul: 韩语 and 한국어.
The Gyeongbokgung Palace, originally dating from 1394, but mostly of more recent reconstruction is not as impressive as the Forbidden City but a good deal less crowded and more tranquil. Most of the Korean visitors get in for free by hiring out traditional costume. There are costume hire shops nearby. It certainly adds authenticity to their photos and mine. From there it was a short walk to Insa-dong, an art shop and café area of Seoul where a ubiquitous American coffee chain has had to concede to operating behind Hangul only script. Everything else in the city is translated for tourists. After lunch, as the sky threatened a deluge, I walked south, over Namsam Park immediately south of the city shopping centre, on top of which is the N-Seoul tower and down through a lovely trail through the woods and then down further through a lovely district to Itaewon, which is a happening bar district (originally due to the US base on its doorstep) and then on down to a subway station next to the River. That was enough walking for one day so I caught the underground back round to the rather more studenty Hongdae district of my hostel. I later learnt that the typhoon that everyone in Seoul was anticipating, veered off course and only hit the island off the south coast. We got ominous clouds, but only drizzle and light rain.
Sometimes it’s good to find yourself with a little time before the bus pulls out. Having walked a fair part of Seoul I decided to take a bus over to Sokcho, a town on the east coast. Conveniently the bus station was on the north side of one of the bridges over the Han River, so I walked across to have a look round the Olympic Park. The Seoul Olympics in 1988 may be remembered as the one where Ben Johnson was disqualified, with the gold going to Carl Lewis and silver to Linford Christie (aided by ginseng). The 200m world record set by Florence Griffith Joyner (long nails) still stands! Mm. The grand entrance and flags as were in 1988 are quite a reminder of change: East Germany, Yugoslavia and the USSR weren’t with us to compete in Barcelona in 1992. The World Wide Web just about was.
Inland Korea, from inside a luxurious coach, looked to be hilly and forested. By the evening I was in a lovely hostel in Sokcho. The town is fairly non-descript, though with sea, lighthouse, harbour and seafood. But I was there to join the Koreans in their national hobby of hiking as the Seoraksan National Park is a short bus ride south of town. The sun shone, though not too hotly and it wasn’t too crowded. Routefinding was easy thanks to obvious trails, signposts and a map indicating the strenuousness of paths. Lots of secure steps led to the tops of rocks or viewpoints which would otherwise have required a very long route. I had a very good work-out! And took a few photos. Buddha is there at the start of the paths (no church). Can you see the climbers on the slab? We had steps to get to the top!
I got the coach back to Seoul in time to meet an old friend for lunch and coffee. Seoul has little restaurants everywhere and nearly as many coffee places. If a coffee crop failed, Korea would change; they wouldn't be able to sustain working such ridiculous long hours. Anyway, I met Bo at inlingua Cheltenham in 2010 when I was doing a tefl course and she was there working on her English. Now that she has finally had to end her student days (MA in English Literature) she is making up work time in ridiculously long hours, subway commute and limited holiday. South Korea seems to be a great place except if you're Korean (but then a further comparison can be made with fellow Koreans on the other side of the line).
In the afternoon I went for a walk along a section of reconstructed city wall, another arty area and another university district. I hadn't realised before just how many universities are here, all with their own district. It's a very modern and greatly expanded Oxford with more hills and subway system. And the food is great, except I think I might get tired of kimchi (spicy pickled cabbage) which is served with practically everything.
The next day it poured but I just had to get from hostel to subway station without getting too soaked as I was on the way to the airport and back to Shanghai. I had been pretty lucky with the weather and Korea was very impressive. China is going to take some getting used to again.
Just a few days in S.K. and now back in China. You may be wondering when I start back at work. Me too. My new university was seemingly unable to tell me. I assumed the new term would commence at the beginning of September, so I flew back to Shanghai on August 28th to be ready to take the train over to Hefei (3 hours away). My contract is from September 1st. But I was put on hold: ‘classes don’t start yet and the teachers’ apartments are not ready, so stay on holiday for a few more days’. I can manage that. Fortunately, two of the top visitor draws in China are within a few hours train ride of both Shanghai and Hefei, so this gave me an opportunity to get them both chalked up.
Usually, due to my poor Chinese or others’ poor listening, when I tell anyone here that I previously spent a year in Hanzhong, they say ‘Oh, Hangzhou’. ‘No’ I say, ‘Shaanxi, Hanzhong, not Hangzhou’ (in Zhejiang Province). Hanzhong, as you’ll know from early blogs, should be known to all Chinese as it gave its name via the Emperor to the Han Dynasty and hence the Han (Chinese) people, but Hangzhou is undoubtedly better known due to its West Lake. It was also the capital of the (Southern) Song Dynasty, China south of the Yangtse, after the north was taken over by the Jin and before both were defeated by the Mongols led by Kublai Khan who set up the Yuan Dynasty. Poetic scenery and history trumps just history. I planned to visit from Shanghai in 2016 but the G20 were enjoying Hangzhou at that time and everyone else was shut out, so I went to the equally famous (for canals and gardens) Suzhou instead. Now I had a chance to complete the tour of SuHang, as Suzhou and Hangzhou are collectively known.
It’s just an hour south by fast train from Shanghai to Hangzhou. The city itself seems to be the usual unlovely modern Chinese version, but it has an efficient underground to whisk one underneath all the unloveliness to the side beside the famed West Lake, backed on the other side by hills growing the also famous Hangzhou tea. A short bus ride took me around the end of the lake and on to Hangzhou Zoo. Thankfully then it was only a 10-15 minute walk to the West Lake Hostel. My backpack was heavy. This inexpensive hostel could be on a twisting road rising through a touristy Mediterranean village. The road seems to be the hill of choice for local cyclists and runners. Having dumped by heavy baggage I went for a walk up to the tea plantations with evening views down to the Lake and river and met absolutely no-one.
For the last three days I’ve been running and walking. I’ve gone for a pre-breakfast run up and down the road here before it really heats up. We are near enough to the city to walk in, but it’s definitely countryside; also a cool retreat. China is hotter than Korea was; over 30C since my arrival. On the first day after a strange breakfast of French toast plus banana with strawberry jam (see picture!) I spent the rest of the day walking around the West Lake and taking photos. It certainly is photogenic, don’t you agree? Half way round I came across the only Costa coffee I've seen in China, though there are apparently over 90 (it's a very long way behind Starbucks) and gave the British export my support. A cold latte also went down well. Sadly I checked the internet and the news that day told that Costa was being acquired by Coca Cola.
West Lake is good, but I then discovered that what’s really good about the Hangzhou area are the footpaths, and steps of course, which run up and down the ridges between the tea plantations. These are getting me in better shape for the challenge of Huangshan (Yellow Mountain) where I am headed tomorrow. The weather forecast has been predicting thunderstorms every day recently but I haven’t yet been under one. Let’s hope my luck holds.
I am presently feeling a bit bushed but Huangshan (Yellow Mountain) is superb. For those looking for a real workout with a fair touch of exposure, it's right up there. All steps, all day. The more popular way up is apparently the east steps, so I went up the west steps, then joined up with an Austrian guide, took the cable car down the north side and that's where the fun really began: steps hanging out from the cliff over a sheer drop. This would make a simply awesome climbing area but it looks to be hardly touched. My Austrian friend had to take the cable car down due to dodgy knees from a climbing fall, but insisted that I should descend via the east steps. I got back to the bus stop just before an almighty downpour. Hopefully I will be able to walk tomorrow without groaning at each step.
Huangshan is not yellow or a single mountain. It’s an area of several peaks, the highest ones being Lotus Peak, Bright Peak and Celestial Peak. It’s also not one of the Five or Four Sacred Mountains of Buddhism or Taoism or one of the Five Mountains that the Emperors decided were to be subject to imperial pilgrimage. Maybe they decided that it was too inaccessible or too much of a slog even to be carried to the top. Instead it owes its fame to the poets and painters. Plus the name change: it was YiShan until 747AD when its name was changed by imperial decree to honour HuangDi, the mythical Yellow Emperor and Han Chinese ancestor. About those stone steps: there are apparently more than 60,000 of them with the oldest having been laid down over 1500 years ago. You just have to trust that the ones over a sheer drop have been tested or reinforced more recently.
The way to Huangshan was fairly uncomplicated despite confusing names. A three hour train ride from Hangzhou took me to Huangshan City or Tunxi (it changed name to Huangshan in 1987 for tourism purposes but the downtown is still called Tunxi). From Huangshan City/Tunxi, it’s a 50 minute bus ride to Tangkou Town which is actually the gateway town for Huangshan and where I stayed. From there one is organised and ticketed according to one’s steps starting point and then bused for a further 40 minutes into the park. On arrival a final Huangshan ticket purchase allows use of the cable-car, or freedom to start ascending those steps. It isn’t a walking area you simply rock up to.
I’ve finally arrived in Hefei and at Anhui International Studies University. I took the bus from Huangshan (Tankou Town). The four hour trip north gave me more of an idea of Anhui. The south is mountainous, then travelling north Anhui is bisected by the wide Yangtse flowing north east on the way to Nanjing just to the east of Hefei in Jiangsu Province (and continuing east to flow out to sea just north of Shanghai). Once over the Yangtse, it’s pretty flat, and apparently easily flooded. Just south-east of Hefei is ChaoLake, one of the largest lakes in China and I gather also one of the most polluted. I’m not that keen on freshwater fish anyway. Once arrived I had another day to look around Hefei (and a further night in an inexpensive hostel) mixed with seeking indoor air-conditioning. It was 32C outside.
Then I got the text to say I could come to the university as the apartment was ready. It wasn’t; neither ready nor an apartment. It’s pretty clear what has happened. The university had apartments for the number of foreign teachers it had previously, but now it’s increased the number of foreign teachers but without making any significant alterations for accommodation. All that’s been done is to make some minor modifications to rooms previously set up for Chinese teachers – the younger unmarried teachers get put up two to a room. It’s one rung up from when they were students, six to a dormitory. Foreign teachers usually get more favourable treatment but our expectations are only as advertised and in our contract. What is a shame (though no surprise), apart from the downgrade in accommodation from bedsit with kitchen, to bed and desk, is the foreign teacher office staff’s pretence that all is above board and that the Chinese understanding of ‘apartment’ is one room, when at the other end of our building and with separate entrance, they are also welcoming back the returning teachers to their apartments.
Alos the room is not ready. A cooking worktop is to be installed in the entrance area tomorrow. That will go opposite the wash basin which will double as the kitchen sink. It sits in the entranceway next to the door to the en-suite toilet and shower. It isn’t connected to the hot-water tank above the shower. It’s fortunate I don’t do much cooking and don’t create much washing-up. I am told that curtains will go up on Monday and hopefully Wi-Fi connected early next week. There is a washing machine out on the balcony but it’s apparently not yet connected up to any water. We may at some time get a sofa or comfy chair, though it will be a squeeze. It's not a good start.
As for teaching, classes for 2nd, 3rd and 4th years kick off next Monday, but I have been given eleven 1st year spoken English classes. The 1st years started military training today and they will be marching throughout next week, so I have another week to drink coffee, see around and get organised. This side of the campus is the teacher and student accommodation blocks. Fairly drab. The teaching side of the campus though, at least on the outside, is quite grand.
One change that is noticable since I came in July is the name. Big letters above the main gate now tell you it's Anhui International Studies University. That sounds more like the better known International Studies Universities in Beijing and Shanghai. When I applied for the job, it was Anhui Foreign Languages University. It still is in Chinese: only the English name has changed by way of a less literal translation.
I’ve started teaching, met the other foreign teachers, had another holiday and been to a wedding. With more emphasis on foreign languages than my previous university, though other arts subjects are taught, the foreign teachers are also rather more various. We have 9 English teachers: 3 Brits, 2 Americans, 1 Kiwi, 1 South African, 1 Filipino and 1 Cameroonian (who also speaks French, probably at least two African languages and pretty good Chinese). There’s also 4 Japanese, 3 Koreans, 1 Thai, 1 Ukrainian (teaching Russian), 1 Egyptian (teaching Arabic), 2 French,2 German, and 2 Spanish. We haven’t yet all taken over a restaurant for dinner, but I think I’ve said hello to everyone in our residence corridor or in the nearby café. Most speak pretty good English.
Our class sizes vary. The Arabic teacher, who along with his Arabic speaking Chinese wife, makes up the Arabic department, teaches 4 years of classes, but with under 10 in each class. I’m teaching 5 classes of students who are studying various things (in classes of 30-41) and 6 classes of English majors (in classes of 30-33). I see each class once a week. It seems to be arranged, as at my previous university, with the idea of giving all the 1st year students a foreign teacher spoken English class. The problem is that as some of the foreign English teachers are also asked to teach reading or writing classes, and they haven’t recruited enough of us, some classes have to make do with a stand-in Chinese teacher. One or two students pop in to my classes from time to time to get an authentic foreigner experience.
Make-up classes are a phenomenon of Chinese universities. My previous university was very western and sensible in arranging the calendar to avoid them. Not many others do. Like I said, classes started but not for long. After five days of enrolment education and 10 days of military training for first years, ending on a Monday, I started with a four day week. That took us to a long weekend including Monday for Mid-Autumn Festival. Then I had classes Monday to Friday, and make-up classes on Saturday and Sunday. The classes on Saturday were for the Monday students in place of the class they missed due to military training. The other Monday missed will be made up on a Saturday at the end of term. The Sunday make-up class was in advance of Thursday classes that will be missed for a Sports Day on a Thursday in November. One could get confused without a good calendar.
After that, following soon after Mid-Autumn Festival this year, we were off for a further seven days for the National Day Holiday (Mid-Autumn Festival moves, but National Day is always October 1st). Weekends are always counted in the holiday days to make it sound better, even if one doesn’t normally work weekends. Now regarding that wedding. My friend and fellow teacher at Tianfu, Josh, was getting married to a lovely Chinese lady, and over a beer or two I had said I would fly back for the wedding. So after buses, plane, bus and taxi I was back in Mianyang on October 4th. The wedding on Saturday the 6th passed off smoothly and a good time was had by all with plenty of food and drink. Pictures tell a better story. Sunday I travelled all day back to Hefei. For times like that I really like my timetable: my first class on Monday is at 2pm.
I’m now into the groove of living and teaching at the new place. Classes are going well, the students are nice, food is on the doorstep, the autumn weather is superb. There’s just one fly in the ointment: the university administration and pay. We return from the October holiday, and after a few days delay due to the holiday, receive our September salary, only to discover that it’s considerably below the expected amount. At times like these one would normally refer to the contract and we do have one, in Chinese and English, though the ‘foreign languages version is for ‘reference only’! For the most part, the words are reasonably translated. It starts out: ‘in line with the principles of legality, fairness, equality, mutual agreement, honesty and trustworthiness and in a spirit of friendly co-operation…’ and continues, ‘The term of this contract shall be from September 1st ... Party A will pay Party B 10000rmb per month …The salary will be paid monthly since Party B performs his duty (since the first working day of the new semester). September 1st is the official first day of term according to the university calendar and that salary isn’t at all bad for a university, but always be wary of words in brackets! I receive 7816rmb before tax and am shall we say, puzzled. I am first told that the shortfall is due to my classes not starting until September 18th, the delayed start due to the 1st year students’ military training. But besides not being in line with any of those words at the top of the contract, besides the fact that I was expected to be at the university from the first week of September and indeed attended meetings in that week, the paid amount is an unaccountable proportion of 10,000. I eventually uncover that the salary has been calculated on the basis of the number of days after September 1st until my arrival date plus an increased deduction because the missed days are calculated on the basis of 5 day working weeks in the month. This is nothing to do with the written contract but everything to do with using power to penny pinch. I arrived only after September 1st because the University’s Foreign Teacher Office told me not to arrive before the day I did. I find out that the other new foreign teachers have been treated in the same way, except for one who arrived before September 1st and had to be housed in temporary accommodation. She has received the full 10000. There is a mood of rebellion amongst the European and native English speaking teachers over this (our Japanese and Korean colleagues stay silent) and the deception over our housing. We are also not too happy that our 'Apartment' Building supervisor puts an inside lock on the entrance door each evening (to keep bad people out), so to go in or out after 10pm, we have to knock on her door, or on her window if outside, to rouse her from sleep to unlock it. She considers this part of her job. We consider it against all fire safety requirements.
So how did the dispute get settled? Well, we didn’t get anywhere on the pay. Rational arguments hold no weight over losing face. The lock was eventually taken off the door though, so we have our freedom. And better late than never, those of us who had volunteered to do additional classes beyond the contract number, got paid for them. Without tax deduction. Overtime is apparently dealt with by a different finance office from the one dealing with normal taxable pay! Oh and the only teacher that decided to leave was the one who had received the correct sum for September.
What would Plato who wrote The Laws have to say on all this? I believe that’s him in the courtyard of the library. And for good measure, that’s Mark Anthony on top of the Administration Building by the lake. That rules are made by and for those with power I guess. How far that has changed from Greek and Roman and Qin and Han Dynasty times is debatable.
This university is in Hefei but only just: it’s a long way into town. A big shopping centre with an RT Mart is 50 minutes in on the bendy bus. The bus starts here so I can always get a seat for the trip in but it’s nearly always standing room only for the return. The actual centre of town is a further 20 or so minutes by taxi. Bus and taxi is the most cost and time economical combination as the bus costs 2rmb and the taxi a further 20rmb. A bar and restaurant area is 45 minutes by taxi, near to the centre. Getting a returning taxi after a night out is a little more problematic as the drivers don’t like coming this far out at night and not being able to get a return fare. Aside from a huge variety of evening venues, though, we have what I need on the doorstep. There are lots of restaurants on our side of the road, and the other, where there is another university. Down the road are two more colleges, adding customers. All these colleges are private: land is cheaper out here. Just up the road is the Tulip Driving School which seems to have live-in instructors or students. Then there’s Zipeng Community Village which looks as if it’s grown to house all the people that make a living from the university students. Every building in the village seems to have a solar panel. Beyond that, a 10 minute run away, the road ends at my running playground, Zipeng Mountain Park. It wouldn't be a mountain even in Wainwright’s book, but a hill with a Buddhist temple on top, various other Buddhist statuary, stone flagged paths and some legs and lungs testing stone steps. Helped by a glorious autumn of blue sky, I’m getting in the best shape I’ve been in since coming to China.
Singles’ Day, which is of course on 1111, was apparently begun by students at Nanjing University, but then the commercial world took over and now it’s the largest shopping day in the world. In 2017, 1.48 billion transactions were processed in 24 hours by Alipay, the payment app. Fortuitously, I decided to buy a bicycle that weekend and got an 11/11 discount. Most Chinese cities of any size have one or more Giant bicycles shops so Giant was a natural choice. The transaction was easy, especially as there was an English speaking student hanging out at the shop. The ride back out of town to the university was harder, given that I hadn’t ridden any bike since the summer. Of course I got the bike just as the best of the weather was over, but I’ve layered up and gone for a few spins since. The countryside is on the doorstep, there are few cars and the roads are mostly smooth. The drivers released from the city, drive way too quickly though. Incidentally, Giant, pioneer of the sloping top tube, was only started up in Taiwan in 1972 and has grown to be the world’s biggest bike manufacturer (it also makes frames for Trek, Scott and Colnago), making bikes in Taiwan, mainland China and the Netherlands. Going the other way, American owned SRAM makes many bicycle components in Taiwan and China, but still some stuff in the USA.
Since coming here I’ve changed my diet a little. At Tianfu, I often had lunch in the student dining hall. Nearly always with rice as a base. I’d also have rice or noodles for dinner. And often porridge for breakfast. Too much starch. Now, frequently, I have a bowl of fruit with some yogurt for breakfast, even after a pre-breakfast run. I still get some carbohydrate from a banana, and protein and fat from walnuts and yogurt. There’s a greengrocer’s just down the road, so for lunch I make up a bowl of salad, add a boiled egg and sweet potato, with a side plate of baozi (stuffed steamed buns). Dinner is a rice or noodles dish. Actually, probably not much less carbohydrate than before, but less starch and more fresh fruit and veg.
Living out here on the furthest edge of town, we are a little cut off from city delights, but last Saturday a few of the foreign teachers went down to the 1912 area and to a TexMex restaurant (in 1912, the Qing Dynasty ended and the Republic of China was established). Apart from us, the restaurant was almost completely taken over by the Hefei Road Kings biker gang. Fortunately there didn’t seem to be too much Hells Angels about them. There was good live music, provided by the gang and then by a Filipino and Canadian combo and tucking in to pizza and tacos, with lots of cheese, was great.
We were asked/instructed to perform a song for an end of term teachers’ concert to be on the afternoon of Friday 28th of December. I pointed out that I had a class at that time but was told it would be rearranged. How to show off our diverse language talents? A well-known (unsurprisingly) sentimental Chinese song, Gardenia Flowers, was chosen and verses translated into our various tongues. We were summoned to rehearsals over several lunchtimes: ‘this is not only a task, but also a collective image of all our foreign teachers. Thank you.’ Then on the 26th, notice came down that the concert was changed to January 16th. It was understood that we might already have left or be leaving. It was hoped that we could all give the organisers much understanding. I’m sure we did, as we made our getaway by various trains and planes.
The term passed quickly as it always does. The autumn weather was superb, but when winter came it seemed colder and wetter and more miserable than in Sichuan. It snowed a little just in time for a tramp to exams through slush. And sitting through hours of spoken English exams, even in layers and a duvet jacket, was cold. But when those were over and as I headed off to Shanghai for a flight and five weeks of winter holiday, I thought there are definitely worse jobs. I’ll report back again in a while.
Shanghai to London via Bangkok and a middle of the night transfer in Mumbai, seems a long way round, but other than picking up a cheaper Jet Airlines flight from Bangkok with an option of decent vegetarian food, there was another reason. It made sense as I flew back into Bangkok four weeks later for a week’s holiday in the sun. That’s not nearly long enough to see much of a long country, but it was long enough to relax in ChiangMai and take in enough of a glimpse of Bangkok.
In ChiangMai I stayed in the Awanahouse guest house, which was the first on the list in my dated Lonely Planet guide, but had stood the test of publicity and remained organised, clean and relaxed. Also in town was my friend Tom, teacher at Tianfu, who came over from his poorer choice of accommodation for breakfast and the bar. Day 1 proper I joined him in a scooter ride out into the countryside. This was old hat for him as he scooters everywhere in MianYang, but I have to say I was somewhat relieved at getting enough of a hang of it from the start to be able to scoot away from the hire place without toppling over. It was a steady learning curve during the day, from quiet roads to a steady build-up of traffic coming back in to town. Then after a spot of Monk Chat at WatSuanDok, a little night riding to drop the scooter back. Well, I can now ride a scooter in addition to a bicycle, but am no wiser on Thai Buddhism.
Perhaps it was easy for me to scooter around in Thailand having just come from the UK, because in Thailand they also drive on the left. So do drivers in India, Indonesia and Japan. India of course, as a result of British imperialism. Thailand was never colonised but its royal family maintained links with the UK Royal family and public schools. Indonesia inherited left hand driving from the Dutch who used to drive on the left before Napoleon came along. In fact nearly everyone did until a keep right rule was instituted in Paris in 1794. Japan's first railway was built in 1872 with British help and of course the trains ran on the left, so a trend was set.
Staying in ChiangMai, it’s almost obligatory to do a Thai Cooking Course or meet some elephants. Tom did the cooking course on the day I was arriving, so we went to see some elephants on the day after our scooter ride. Amazing animals. It would indeed be better if there were more of them in wild families, but Asian elephants of course have long been used by man. Now few are needed to shift anything, should they be kept for tourism? A lot of tourists certainly part with a lot of money, which provides employment for people and elephants. We tried to enquire as to a less exploitative, least circus-like place, where the elephants, recognising our blue garb, gobbled our proffered bananas at a rate of knots, went for a wash with lots of mud and then appeared to be off-duty till the next day’s tourists’ arrival.
Blue sky warm weather, elephants, scooters, temples, good food, good company, but to cap it all, we were in ChiangMai at the right time to watch the Sepak Takraw competition for free. That’s kick, or rather, no hands, volleyball apparently played all over south east Asia. What an excellent, exciting game. Two more things to do while in Thailand: first I got a haircut and then I thought how convenient it would be to get a teeth clean and polish here rather than trying to locate a dentist in my new city in China. My guesthouse rang around and found a practice that could see me that afternoon and an hour later, I had a revived pair of gnashers.
Having flown up from Bangkok, I decided to limit my further involvement in global warming by taking the overnight train or bus back to Bangkok. The train was booked out, so bus it was. Two salutary tales; one previously learnt and one a tad uncomfortable. Firstly, I knew where the bus station was and had time to walk there, so when a tuk-tuk vendor quoted five times the reasonable rate for a ride, I could decline. Always agree the fare before taking a seat in unmetered vehicles. But the mistake I made was in not ensuring that my name was on the bus ticket which the guesthouse purchased for me. To cut a longer story short, I didn’t end up buying another ticket for a bus the next day as the bus company employer wanted, but I did end up sitting upright in the driver’s mate’s hard seat, rather than reclining in the back. I got less sleep but I didn’t see much more of the north of Thailand countryside beyond a flat dual carriageway in the dark.
Bangkok is big, busy and noisy. It has both a metro and elevated skytrain, which serve the business area, but neither extends down to the tourist area by the river, near the palace and temples. I could have taken a pink or green taxi, but a little more walking didn’t do me any harm, though there is far too much traffic.
I recommend doing the Bangkok sights in a day or two and then getting out to somewhere with fewer people and less traffic. I’ll be able to miss it out on a return visit to Thailand. Of course this time, that’s all the time I had before my last flight, 5 hours, back to Shanghai. From 33C and blue sky to 5C and drizzle. I was told that it’s better to visit Thailand in our winter when it’s not so hot, but winter further north certainly takes some getting used to again.
Spring term started out pretty cold in February, but by the time of the Buddha’s birthday (in China, the first full moon of the 4th month of the luni-solar calendar: May 12th in 2019) summer was on the way. As our university is on the outskirts of the city, the traffic on the road is not normally too bad, but the Temple Festival at ZiPengShan just up the road, brought crowds and traffic jams from dawn till dusk. Buddhism in China is a little like Christianity in the UK. It doesn’t play a major role, and certainly doesn’t interfere in the state, as the church and education in the UK, but the days of the Cultural Revolution when Buddhist temples were closed or torn down are over: they are needed at New Year and other times when good fortune needs wishing, and to stave off encroachment of more recent foreign religions. A cultural revolution is meanwhile in full swing against Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang, though of course not reported here. Incidentally, the 5th and 6th centuries BC were pretty enlightened times over a wide area: Buddha, Confucius and Socrates were all born within 80 years of each other. Anyway, my main observation from joining the crowds on the Sunday was that most people didn’t get much beyond the food stalls at the bottom of the temple hill.
Also in May, I was a judge at the University’s Movie Dubbing Competition and went down to the city to find a bar in which to watch Watford (vs Manchester City) in the FA Cup Final. Buying a double yoke egg earlier in the week didn't bring sufficient joss. The less said about the final the better. But being a long-distance and sole supporter in a bar sometimes has advantages.
I have perhaps had to work rather harder for my pay this term than in the previous one as some classes I had with English Major ‘benke’ students, were swapped to classes with ‘zhuangke’ students. BenKe students are undergraduates (in China, 4 years) while ZhuangKe students are doing a three-year diploma/degree. The difference in standard, and application towards English study was marked.
Toward the end of the term I ate in one of my frequently frequented restaurants and the laoban (boss – and chief cook) asked how old I was. From there it’s a quick step to knowing your Chinese zodiac sign. But the joy was in explaining, with the aid of her son’s drawing, that we were both Tiger Year born. I've also had a couple of outings with other foreign teachers for birthdays and farewells. One was to an excellent Thai food restaurant in town. For the other, we said goodbye to Stone, our Chinese American teacher who will be much missed for his good company and (Chinese) language skills, acquired from parents who emigrated from China in the 80s. He struggled a little with the local dialect on first arrival but leaves with a little more Anhui style. And as a reward for being such a frequent diner at his favourite restaurant, they laid on a (free) banquet for us. Chinese traditional style.
I’m back in South Korea again. My visit last summer (per blog) was too short to see more than Seoul and one day in a National Park so I thought I’d explore a little more of the country starting from Busan at the bottom. I endured the long-haul flight again – London to Paris, Paris to Shanghai, Shanghai to Busan. Twenty-eight hours of travel from doorstep in the UK and another eight lost due to the earth revolving. That was enough time to read The Girl with Seven Names by Hyeonseo Lee, her story of upbringing in North Korea and then travails through China to final asylum in South Korea, followed later by her mother and brother. Those were truly long hauls and difficult transitions.
I got up at noon the next day and had a wander through the central Seomyeon shopping and eating and drinking district, the market (lots of fish and veg.), the Citizens’ Park and after a much-needed cold coffee, up steps to the Samkwamgsa Temple. This is the most overtly showy Buddhist temple in Busan, being a relatively recent build with money gathered from the followers of a modern-day holy man. It’s open 24/7.
The next day, via metro and short walk, I wandered around the United Nations (Korean War 1950-53) Cemetery. South Korea of course, wouldn’t be as it is without the terrible history. Not a Forgotten War here. There are graves for some of the soldiers from 11 nations who fought on the south side. The largest number of UN fatalities were of course from the US, then the UK and next, Turkey. ‘Casuality’/fatality statistics aren’t uniformly reported/certain. Maybe 37,000 UN troops died (35,000 US) and then the bigger numbers: 3 million Koreans (most civilians), two-thirds of them on the North side, and many thousands of Chinese troops, and a land in ruins, particularly in the bombed north. One might at least say, looking today or from the early 80s when S.K.s economy took off, that the outcome for at least part of the peninsula, and 67% of its future population (51m S.K., 25m N.K. approx.) was beneficial. They weren’t caught up in the North Korean Famine, 1994-98 when another half-million or so people starved. It was a very close-run matter: in 1950 the invading North Korean army advanced all the way to the Busan (Pusan) Perimeter around the south-eastern tip of Korea before being held at bay for six weeks, and then forced to retreat by troop losses and supply shortages and the counterattack at Incheon near Seoul.
After the morning’s contemplation, I had a lovely afternoon with a stiff walk along the Igidae coast path, looking at lovely coastal scenery and modern Busan. That got me ready for a stiffer hike the next day around the Geumjeong Fortress on Geumjeong Mountain, one of the hills that split and surround Busan. It isn’t really a fortress but a lengthy wall around the top area of the mountain – an area to retreat to and from which to view the invading Japanese. When I got back to the hostel in the late afternoon, I was done in by a combination of jet lag, foot weariness and sun and I made up a bit of sleep and felt much better. Most people seem to think that jet lag is worst flying east, but I seem to recover more quickly going that way.
I had two more days with Busan as a base. On the first, I walked the tourist trail around Gamcheon Culture Village. On the second, I trekked up Gajisan (Mt. Gaji). Gamcheon Culture Village is fun and so clever. Take a mountainside slum, paint the houses bright colours, create a tourist path around it with little cafes and art installations along the way, and a bus for the start and finish points, and voila, bring employment at minimal disturbance. A bright map is available at minimal cost with spaces for ink stamps at certain locations, to ensure you stay on the path, and with a reward of three free postcards which one may use to entice further cash-laden visitors. Gajistan Provincial Park, a few miles north of Busan, was easily reached by bus but I had it virtually to myself. The path up and down was signposted and obvious in summer, so no need for a map. But it required rather more sweat than the day before, and a bit more caution: on a scrambly part on the way up I nearly put my hand on a small coiled snake, and we had a little staring match before it slithered away.
From Busan I took a bus for an hour or so, while it rained, north to Gyeongju, where the rain had almost stopped. Bussing around South Korea is so simple – the automatic ticket machines allow you to see all the locations (in English), know when the next bus goes and the seats available, and pay by card. To pay by cash I think you have to speak to somebody. Gyeongju was the capital of the Silla dynasty and modern Gyeongju is now built around the massive tumuli of the dynasty’s kings. Silla’s founder was born from a magical scarlet egg to begin the kingdom, and Silla armies then battled through Korea’s Three Kingdoms Period before allying with China’s Tang Dynasty to see off the last of Korean rivals in 660AD. That left the northern part of Korea as a Chinese Province, but the Chinese were fairly quickly dispossessed when distracted by trouble from Tibet, and the Silla Dynasty went on to rule a united Korea from 668 until 935AD. Regional challengers in the north gave Korea a brief Later 3 Kingdoms Period, until the Koryo/Goryeo dynasty took over from the Silla, ruled from 935 until 1392 and gave Korea its name. But before that, 900 years of Silla kings left an awful lot of the aforementioned tumuli, which remarkably appear to have remained fairly undisturbed by grave robbers, even untouched by a 13th century Mongol rampage, until recent archaeologists came along and removed contents to an excellent museum. Not only have the tumuli not been flattened, but there aren’t any high-rise buildings trying to overlook them.
Though there are more tumuli and Buddhist temples in outlying districts, I got a good impression from strolling around the central parks and the museum in one day, and so was happy to watch from a bus as the rain poured down the next day. I had a longer ride this time, north to the city of Jecheon and then a shorter journey to Danyang in Chungcheongbuk-do, South Korea’s only landlocked province. It had stopped raining before I arrived. Danyang is a lovely little resort town on a river, with the mountains of the Sobaeksan National Park as a backdrop. Tempting as it was the next day to sit on the guest house balcony and watch the hang gliders over a prolonged breakfast, I got out and walked out to the national park and up Sobaeksan (1389m). That was the easy, well-trodden path. My route along the ridge to another high point and then descent into another valley was much less trampled and uneven underfoot. Fortunately when I got down, and while waiting the hour and a half for a bus back to town, a group of Korean hikers invited me to join their picnic of kimchi pancakes and sparkling rice wine.
My Korean sojourn was coming to an end. I had one more day of bus to Seoul and afternoon and morning to stroll around, which confirmed Seoul as just about my favourite walkable city (also with an excellent metro), and the discovery of a Little League Baseball game, and then it was time to head for Incheon airport and the plunge back into an altogether more crowded Shanghai and China. It was probably time to get back to work.
Back to university and all classes started on September 2nd. No army training for 1st years this year. There are students in army fatigues around, from the university on the other side of the road, but apparently (a student tells me) there aren't enough sergeants to provide training for our (majority girls) university. Is there a war on?
Tuesday of the second week was Teachers' Day. Not a holiday, but an opportunity for lots of good wishes from students, and flowers and a card. It's a good place to teach. This was swiftly followed by our first holiday on Friday 13th for Mid-Autumn Festival. We will make up for the Friday off by teaching on the last Sunday of the month. Hopefully by then, autumn, weather-wise, may have arrived. Presently it's 34C outside.
Another two weeks of classes and everything workwise comes to a halt again for the National Day Holiday. The commemorative day is October 1st, being when Mao declared the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, but a further 6 days holiday turns it into a Golden Week. Workers must make up for this largesse with two weekends of work. We teachers just have our term extended to accommodate it.
Everybody in the UK of course knows, from bank holiday Mondays, that granting everybody a holiday at the same time can lead to traffic congestion. Imagine popular tourist spots, in China, for a week. This year I decided to join the throng for a trip down to Xiamen, on the Fujian coast facing Taiwan, a little over six hours south by train. Xiamen is actually an island, joined to the mainland by several bridges, though the city has now also spread onto the mainland. Maybe it wasn’t the wisest choice given that Xiamen is a tourist mecca. Most of the planes and trains and hotel beds were booked out well in advance, but somehow I found a train ticket there and back left over for me, together with a bed in the Xiamen Youth Hostel for four nights.
You may know Xiamen as Amoy. Amoy is the English interpretation of the city’s name in the local Hokkien dialect; Xiamen is the Mandarin/standard Chinese name, meaning Mansion Gate. The British followed the Portuguese and Dutch to Amoy, which then became a treaty port after the First Opium War (it was needed because the nearby port of Quanzhou, to which foreigners were restricted, was silting up). Before and after the British moved in, and particularly after they moved the tea trade to India, Hokkien Chinese emigrated en-masse to Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. So Hokkien is a widely spoken Chinese dialect, just not in China. Fortunately for visitors, the locals can mostly speak Mandarin, while reverting to unintelligible Hokkien when they want to curse those visitors.
While locals were moving out, the British and other foreigners moved in, mostly onto the little sub-island of Gulangyu. It was an International Settlement, administered by the British with a Sikh police force. Concession of a foreign settlement may have been a source of Chinese shame in the past, but Gulangyu, with winding streets and colonial architecture, is now the number one tourist draw. There are two ferries to the island. The more convenient five minute ferry is for locals only during the day, while tourists must go to a more inconvenient ferry terminal for a 20 minute ride. That didn’t matter to me: tickets for all tourist day and evening ferries for the time I was there had already been sold out via the internet, despite the daytime ticket price being jacked up from 35rmb to 250rmb (£28). Never mind; I’ve seen a lot of European architecture and I saved money and was saved the crowds. The number two Xiamen attraction of wandering around the grounds of Xiamen University was also ticket limited and sold out. So I had more time for other wanders and to sit out of the hot sun in nice cafes.
Near my accommodation was the NanPutuo Temple. It provided a nice treelined and shady stairway up past the Buddhist temples and grottos to a viewpoint. I always like to read the English translation on the information boards at these places. This one told me that ‘The Hall was built by General Shi Lang, who recovered Taiwan in 1683, at the beginning of the Qing Dynasty.’ Recovered, maybe, captured more like, from a Ming (Han) loyalist who after being ousted from the mainland by the Qing (Manchu), had ruled in Taiwan for 21 years after expelling the Dutch who had in turn decamped over a non-Han indigenous population. The Board explaining Buddhist enlightenment to bring peace of mind and prosperity was more of a gem. Peace of mind apparently leads to the ‘stability of the thatched cottage while the determined nature brings about the fragrance of vegetables’. It finishes with what seems to be Buddhism with modern Chinese characteristics, a mis-count and a pet-hate; a non-attributed saying: ‘This the five blessings in terms of wife, talent, offspring and salary will descend upon your house …As the saying goes, “Peace of mind leads to peace of body, peace of family, peace of everything, peace of society and peace of the world!”
To make a small impact on the peace of the world, and to keep warm in the middle of summer, I decided that I had to have words back at the youth hostel. Why today’s youth feel it necessary to have the air chilled by an air-conditioner on throughout the night is beyond me. Put it on for ten minutes if necessary to cool the air, then switch off and go to sleep. Fortunately in China, elderly teachers are usually obeyed, if reluctantly. It’s their future for goodness sake. In this plague of course, China has followed America: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/11/ditch-your-air-conditioning-youll-be-fine#comment-131894037
While other tourists were clambering over themselves on the ferry to Gulangyu and filling its 2 square kilometres, I had a walk along the shore, and another nice walk along the grandly named Railway Culture Park; an old railway track turned into a footpath, including through a tunnel, on the other side of which was the Monument to Martyrs. Later I asked two hostelers who the monument was to and both assumed it referred to the War against Japan, despite it being the October 1st National Holiday. The monument does actually use a little poetic/politic license since the soldiers at the front of the battle are hoisting the flag of (the People’s Republic of) China which was first hoisted by the PLA in Tiananmen Square on October 1st 1949 after the end of the civil war against the Kuomintang (who fled to Taiwan). And also, how could it refer to the War against Japan when most of the fighting on the Chinese side was done by the Kuomintang led by Chiang Kai-shek? (you won’t find that in Chinese school history textbooks).
As often happens, I next walked into ZhongShan Park, so walking from one historical monument to another and back in time. Dr Sun Yat Sen, one of the founders and leaders of the Kuomintang (the Nationalist Party of China) established immediately after the 1911 Revolution that overthrew the Qing Dynasty is known in China as Zhong Shan. He died in 1925 before Chiang Kai-shek took over and fell out with the Communist Party. Sun (or Syun in Cantonese) is his family name, Yat-sen his Cantonese art name acquired while in Hong Kong and ZhongShan derived from his Japanese pseudonym while in Japan. ZhongShan refers to his birthplace in Guangdong (aka Canton Province). You may not remember that I visited his mausoleum in Nanjing on National Day in 2012.
Before leaving I should mention my two best finds in Xiamen. Firstly a vegetarian all you can eat buffet restaurant near Xiamen University, and secondly a bookshop and café that served both really good coffee and tea. There is usually no bridging the divide between traditional teahouses that wouldn't dream of brewing coffee, and the newcomer coffee shops. And I could bring my own book.
Pot Noodles - no doubt the inventors would say they are the long train journey food par excellance and they are certainly the go to here (in the absence of sandwiches), with hot water dispensed at the end of each carriage. I've put off trying up till now. Let's just say they will again in the future be a last choice.
The four-day Ministry of Education inspection visit finally happened at the beginning of November. We’ve known about it since last term and strenuous efforts have been made for months to spruce the place up. Campus roads have been dug up and relaid, new drains put in, lakes drained and recently refilled with clean water, a ping-pong hall created and most recently a campus-wide sound system installed to pipe calming music, or more frequently, the school song, at us. Nothing has been done about the classrooms, particularly the need to hang a few curtains in those where the sun slants directly in and onto the blackboard, obscuring it for half the class.
We do, however, have a new textbook. The one we used last year was very good, but apparently it wasn't up to standard for the Inspection, being more than two years old, and dare I say, written by TESOL native English speakers. It's replacement demonstrates its Chinese authors' learning and hipness, but is otherwise useless as a oral English teaching aid.
We teachers are not about to be involved in spending priorities for an educational establishment, let alone our area of expertise, but our annual mid-Autumn Festival red envelope (given to children at New Year, wedding attendance and as tax free employee sweeteners) was particularly generous this year. With our co-operation assured, pre-inspection we took a lead role in the promotion video that the university commissioned from a Shanghai production company. This involved tranquil scenes of teaching hand-picked students under the shade of a tree and getting spruced up in suit and tie to perform as English lecturer. Inspection week came at last and we met our rota duties of sitting in university cafes, alfresco English club meetings, and request to otherwise wander around and be more visible to inspectors’ gaze. We were fortunate: the 3-year technical course students were advised to stay in their dormitories, out of sight, when not in class. All of us, teachers and students, were most fed up at having the school song relentlessly pumped out at us at every break-time, but there were positives to the inspection: students sweeping classrooms clean and hand-soap in the washrooms for a short time.
Not long after the inspection, a select group of foreign teachers (of course including your author) were requested/required to show up on a Saturday afternoon and lend our presence for a police community open day for our area of Hefei. Either the local police station is overmanned (probable) and/or other units were drafted in from elsewhere in Hefei to present a commanding presence. A plaza was taken over for displays by the motorbike division, sniffer dogs, and the riot police complete with overhead drone. Stalls around the parade ground displayed confiscated weapons, warned the community of various frauds and offered a chance to meet the faces keeping us safe behind the scenes, such as the police emergency 110 operators. We strolled, everyone was friendly and at one point the local TV channel caught up with a couple of our more fluent Chinese speakers to ask the usual closed question: 'China is very safe isn’t it?' I’m pretty sure everyone would say its cities feel safe to walk around in, day or night. Levels of off-street, out of sight crime – who knows. Anyway it was a pleasant afternoon and duty done.
Back on campus, the door to our foreign teacher apartment block is still, after two years, lacking the handle to allow it to be kept closed but openable, but surveillance camera and TV have been set up in the hallway. For a time the TV shows pastoral scenes and Tom and Gerry as well as comings and goings, but eventually it reveals another purpose: gathering of facial recognition details. My mugshot has presumably joined my airport collected fingerprints on my clean record on the central database.
There is another university across the road from mine, and though I frequently eat in restaurants across the road next to it, I've had no reason other than curiosity to enter its gates. Its resident student population is probably bigger than ours, so its important in sustaining all the food outlets. I'd often hear students on the bus back from town heading for Wenda. At first I heard this as Wanda, which is a chain of multiscreens and shopping centres, but those shouldn't be confused with Anhui Wenda University of Information Engineering. It's a lovely warm Saturday afternoon and curiosity has got the better of me after over a year, and as you can see, it's a pretty nice campus, with a good running track, lakes and views towards Zipeng Shan. The lakeside pavilion for English Corner is a nice touch, though it would be a chilly venue in winter. And isn't that flower meadow beautiful. I couldn't find a cafe on campus though.
Autumn is long and glorious in Anhui, but when the weather turns, it’s sudden. Well into November it was both sunny and warm. It wasn’t too bad walking to class in the morning on November 25th either. But by lunch break it was snowing. Still, a slightly uncomfortable ten-minute walk back to one’s room, beats being backed up in commuter traffic caught out by an early snowfall. Another pleasant aspect of being that little bit closer to nature comes in the evenings. Rather than staying in with a TV dinner, I walk, well wrapped-up, down to food street and then often to a campus student café, and realise how aware of the changing moon and planets and stars our ancient ancestors were. We are not far enough into the countryside for a grand display of the Milky Way, unencumbered by air or light pollution, but it’s not bad.
Colder weather hasn’t stopped me running (1hr57min pre-breakfast run) or cycling, but I’ve had to work training around playing football once a week (no pictures – I’m either playing or running for the last bus back out to AISU). I bumped into Doug a year ago while I was out running and he cycling; he’s a Canadian PE teacher at an American school in Hefei. This semester he put together a team of Hefei foreign teachers and students, playing under the name of his school in a local evening league. We are a little rough around the edges but with just enough skill to make it to the play-offs. Unfortunately for the vital match, our Chinese goalie is a no show, no guesses for who goes in goal, and the remaining outfield players fall well short.
Here’s a picture of some of my fellow foreign teachers at a café and another of us out for Christmas with a little gift sharing action. At the front of the table in black are Jumer and Joel from the Philippines, next facing each other are Andoni and Francisco from Spain, then you can see me facing Larisa from the Ukraine (teaching Russian), next to me is one of our friendly students and then at the back is Anthony from New Zealand and Ahmed from Egypt. We are joined at Christmas by two French colleagues, Warren and Delphine, and by Min and Cindy from Korea and Motoki from Japan. That’s not all. We are twenty-five altogether. Interestingly, just one American guy here who arrived in September and isn’t the garrulous stereotype: he just about manages to say hello when greeted.
Lucky me to have met mostly friendly foreigners and locals during my time in China. And right now I am especially grateful to my friend Victoria who sent me some delicious spicy rice noodles all the way from Hanzhong. There’s good food in Anhui, of course good Sichuan food, but spicy rice noodles and mianpi from Hanzhong take some beating, especially on a cold winter day.
The semester ends as usual with an endurance of giving oral exams in freezing classrooms, followed by submission of reams of paperwork and then we are free once more until mid-February. I take the train to Shanghai on the 1st of January and then once more, the long flight over the empty winter wilderness of Mongolia, the Russian tundra and northern Europe. I'll repeat the other way at the end of January, and then I'm off on another adventure before the start of spring term: I'm flying on from Shanghai to Taipei, then hiring a bike to see if I can bike around Taiwan over 12 days. Back to Shanghai on February 12th. Spring term starts on February 17th.
January 2nd - after another long flight over the frozen north, I'm back in Blighty. Have to pack a lot in before the return trip on the 29th. My mother as always provides a good base for rest and good food.
January 13th - just back from a weekend rambling in the Peak District with my big brother. The Derwent Reservoir is full, nearly over the famous dambusters dam (as used by the WW2 Dambusters 617 Squadron for low level practice flights before the bouncing bomb raids on German dams). It was decidedly blowy on top of the moors. My brother now sports an impressive statesmanlike/adventurer beard.
BBC reports the death of a man in central China, Wuhan, from a peculiar new disease. Chinese officials say it's largely under control, with most patients showing light symptoms and already discharged. The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market is suspected as the source and has been closed down.
January 22nd - returned from an excellent long weekend. First an excellent couple of days in Bala, north Wales with an old friend - blue sky, mist, snow on the tops, cosy pub. Then north by train to Edinburgh to catch up with my buddy from Sichuan. Francis is in the middle of his Masters studies at Edinburgh University. Another Tianfu student made good. I had forgotten just what a beautiful city Edinburgh is. Except for the weather. Francis tells me that the Chinese restaurants are nothing to rave about, but thanks to floods of tourists there's no shortage of world food outlets. Our chosen Kurdistan restaurant was excellent. Of course the Kurds should have their own state.
BBC reports Wuhan under lockdown. A Chinese city of 11 million people with streets silent except for wailing ambulances, hospitals inundated and roads in or out closed. Oh, apparently 5 million people got out before lockdown and to see out the Chinese New Year elsewhere and foreigners are boarding the last planes out. It's coming up to Chinese New Year, so millions of other migrant workers have also travelled home. My city, Hefei, is just a couple of hours on the fast train from Wuhan.
January 25th - we are all watching the news intently now. I've sent an e-mail to the bike hire shop in Taipei who are asking for a deposit. I'm more than concerned that my flight to Shanghai and on to Taipei may be cancelled.
January 27th - Chinese New Year holiday (24th - 30/1)/shutdown has been extended. Non-essential workplaces in all provinces are to stay closed until February 9th. Everyone told to stay at home - particularly those Wuhan evacuees. I hope they're staying with family out in the countryside as Hubei Province (Wuhan) numberplates won't be welcome in other cities. No-one will be travelling back to their work city at the end of January.
January 29th - I'm not going back any time soon either. I've cancelled my flight back (KLM say I can rebook up till February 29th). If I arrived in Shanghai I would probably be stuck there due to travel restrictions inside China. And I couldn't fly on to Taiwan. Taiwan hotels are not accepting anyone traveling from mainland China.
How things have changed in a month.
January 31st - a return to China is on hold. Spring term clearly isn't going to start on February 17th. I might as well see a little of Europe as sit around watching the worsening news from China. I have decided to see if can still remember how to XC ski and Italy seems to be one of the few places with snow. We are not only upsetting nature in China but the signs of climate crisis are slowly slowly showing. Flying between the UK and China is unavoidable, but flying to ski in Europe is not. I'm going to take the Eurostar over to Brussels. Then head on by train down to Munich and on through Austria to Dobliaco in the Italian Dolomites just across the border from Austria. I'll return by train and bus with a stop-off in Munich. Working out the travel itenerary and booking all the train tickets and accommodation takes an effort, but the internet still amazes me.
BBC news (February 3rd-4th) - the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office advises against all travel to Hubei Province (Wuhan) and all but essential travel to China and 'if you are in China and able to leave, you should do so'. Italy has caused irritation in the EU for unilaterally imposing a complete ban on flights from China after a Chinese couple tested positive in Rome. There's an an odd case cropping up in other countries, Japan has 20, but it seems to be pretty well controlled in China, and not spreading from Wuhan. More cases are on a cruiseliner called the Diamond Princess which has been quarantined after arrival in Japan, with 3700 people confined to their cabins. Seems harsh but necessary.
February 4th - early start taxi and train into London St Pancras to catch the 8:55am Eurostar train to Brussels, arriving 12:05. The Eurostar is a reasonably comfortable train, but no trolley service and not a scenic journey. SE England and SE Belgium don't offer stunning landscapes in February and then of course there's a lot of journey through a tunnel. I am slightly out of place, and just a little awkwardly laden, walking through the centre of Brussels with backpack and 2m long ski-bag, but I get installed in the narrow-staired Royal Hotel (not upmarket) and I have the afternoon to explore Brussels. It might have been better if I'd packed an umbrella as well as skis, but the leaden sky and cold rain is atmospheric. And after a good wander, and a nose in a proper record shop, I find a superb help yourself buffet restaurant.
February 5th - Train travel day: this is the timetable: Brussels Midi 6:25 - KolnHbf 8:15, KolnHbf 8:53 - ManheimHbf 11:21, ManheimHbf 11:31 - MunchenHbf 14:27, MunchenHbf 15:34 - Fortezza (Italy) 18:44, Fortezza - Dobiacco (local train), arrive maybe 20:00. Walk through an empty Brussels centre and have time for a quick coffee and croissant before boarding the 6:25am to Koln. Change trains at Koln and we follow the Rhine down to Mannheim. This is a brilliant train ride. The sun glints through storm clouds on a very full river on which long barges show an alternative to noisy heavy lorries. We pass the Lorelei Rock without being lured from our tracks. Then, approaching Mannheim our train is held: even German trains can be delayed. I find myself at the train door with 3 other Munich bound passengers, watching our changeover interval rapidly diminishing. We get in to Mannheim with one minute remaining to change platforms with a flight of steps to descend and ascend. Despite my good deed efforts, carrying the suitcase of the eldest of the four of us as well as backpack and skis, we two get to the door of the Munich bound train just as it is closing (the other two ahead make it onboard). What seems like a set-back actually turns out very well, as I share a slightly early rather than slightly late station cafe lunch with my fellow slower of foot Munich bound passenger, a knowledgable German lady with impeccable English and hardly a hint of German accent as a result of time in the USA. We catch the next train to Munich an hour later and I have a comfortable 5 minutes to walk to the next platform, as directed by the guard, to catch my original train to Italy. This is a delight - finally as the light disappears, there is snow on the ground. And best of all, this is a train with a dining car with linen tablecloths and good non-packaged food. I decamp at Fortezza for another twist in the journey; the train service to Dobiacco is out of action due to avalanche, so the last stage of the journey is by replacement bus. Not quite the last: my hotel is not actually in Dobiacco, but in the little hamlet of San Silvestro, 2km north. It's a good way to end a long day: a final stretch of the legs, albeit a little overloaded, out in the cold silent night with the big dipper hanging in the sky directly ahead, but I am glad to finally get into a cosy hotel sixteen hours after setting off.
And next morning I wake and look out on a picture postcard Italian Tyrol village and blue sky.
Having gone into detail over one day of train travel, this will be a brief report on XC skiing in the South Tyrol. I got up each day, ate a hearty breakfast with good coffee, caught the bus down to Dobbiaco/Toblach, skated up and down along good trails, stopping somewhere for lunch, returning, maybe after afternoon cake/coffee, to catch the 5pm bus up to San Silvestro, put the skis away, showered, rested, ate a sumptuous dinner at my own little table, lay down wearily, slept, woke, repeat. Very happy. Most of the time the sky was blue and it was just cold enough for good snow. Best of all, I could still skate-ski, though it took a while for balance and rhythm to come back. Not altogether surprising as my last outing on XC skis was the 2008 Engadin SkiMarathon (2hrs:48) with just half a day of downhill at a Chinese ski hill in 2017.
Aside from my skiing, for a language (or history) teacher the South Tyrol is interesting. German (Tyrol dialect) and Italian are both official languages and most things, importantly names and menus are dual language, for instance Dobbiaco is also Toblach (or visa-versa). It's a result of the majority German speaking Tyrol being split into north and south and divided between Italy and Austria at the end of WW1. The German speaking majority was reduced in 1939 when the population were given a choice in an agreement between Mussolini and Hitler, to stay in South Tyrol and be Italian or emigrate to Germany (Austria). South Tyrol German is still the first language of the majority, followed by Italian and a much smaller number of Ladin (Romansh) speakers. Most of those in tourism related jobs can speak in South Tyrol, Italian, standard German and thankfully for me, English.
I've seen no TV and heard no-one mention the coronavirus.
February 12th - my skiing trip is over and I've travelled back as far as Munich. The good news this morning was that repairs to the avalanche damaged line between Dobiacco and Fortezza were complete and today was the first day of train service resumption. It hasn't been timed for my convenience; more likely the works end date was set for the numbers heading to Antholz, just to the north of here, for the Biathlon World Champs that start tomorrow. I arrived in Fortezza early, in time to find that there was a Munich bound train leaving an hour earlier than my scheduled departure, so I jumped aboard. It was almost empty and I had a carriage to myself, but this cut no ice with the guard who examined my ticket as we approached Austria and declared that I had broken the sacrosanct rules and must get off at Innsbruck and wait for my train as ticketed. This kind of nonsense infests everywhere these days. Anyway, I got to have a brief look at Innsbruck, which was more interesting than hanging around Fortezza train station.
My hotel here in Munich was easily located by google maps, after another ski-toting march. It seems to be in a theatre and middle eastern food and barber-shop district.
February 13th - Munich sightseeing day. But first I want to commend the Hotel Deutsches Theater for a splendid breakfast buffet. And next Iraqi barbers, judging by the splendid haircut followed by a nice glass of tea given and served up just along the street from the hotel. I think I followed in the footsteps of several famous footballers judging by the display of footballer plus barber snaps on the wall. I recommend Munich, not only for breakfasts and haircuts but as a nice place to stroll around and try interesting food (some people also come here for beer?). Watching the surfers at Eisbachwellein in the Englischer Garten is a must.
February 14th - travel back to Blighty and to the news. The first part is by bus, leaving late enough for me to enjoy that breakfast buffet again. Here's the timetable: BlaBlaBus to Mannheim, 8:45 - 15:00, then by trains, MannheimHbf - FrankfurtHbf 16:05 - 16:36, FrankfurtHbf - Brussels 16:43 - 19:35 (a crowded train but I eventually got a seat and later some food), Brussels - London St Pancras 20:22 - 21:33.
I get home to hear news from China. Dr Li Wenliang of Wuhan Central Hospital has died. He was one of the doctors dressed down for spreading false comments and severely disturbing the social order, when sounding the alarm over a new virus at the end of December. Also a message from my university in Hefei: stay away until we tell you.
The coronavirus has been given a name - COVID-19. That's CO (corona) VI (virus) D disease- 2019
February 17th - should be the first day of Spring semester classes in Hefei. No-one is returning to school or university in China. Departments are apparently deciding how teachers should give on-line classes, but this appears to mean Chinese teachers, not foreign teachers.
February 19th - no-one is getting together in China, but the San Siro in Milan has hosted 40,000 Atalanta fans from nearby Bergamo and 2,500 from Valencia in Spain. Atalanta won 4-1. Italy has three confirmed COVID-19 cases.
February 25th - China's draconian restrictions may be working. But the coronavirus is on the loose. The WHO chief reports 'numbers of new cases reported outside China exceed the number of new cases inside China for the first time.' Italy seems to be in big trouble: it's case count has shot up to 400 cases and 12 deaths. Worse may be Iran with 19 deaths. There's also an outbreak on Tenerife, affecting panicked British tourists, and in South Korea where a superspreader member of the Shincheonji Church in Daegu, appears to be have brought the virus over from Wuhan and be behind 1300 cases in a city of 2.5 million people. British Airways 'continues to operate to and from Italy and can reassure our customers that we are continuing to monitor the situation closely'. Thanks B.A.
A friend comments on Facebook: Hope you stay ahead of the coronavirus. I can report that I feel good, spent my days in the fresh air not mingling with 40,000 others, and in the sparsely populated Tyrol rather than Lombardy, which is the Italian coronavirus centre.
It’s March 28th. No chance of returning to China in the foreseeable future. It’s been a month of going nowhere for me and many others and of farce and tragedy. Events have rapidly overtaken our little lives. Here are some of those:
February 26th – Trump boasts ‘because of all we’ve done the risk to the American people remains low.’ At the end of January the US prohibited entry to other nationals who had recently been in China, but American citizens could come in and travel home. And continue returning from anywhere else.
February 28th – KLM has now revised its China flights’ cancellation and rebooking advice: flights cancelled up to the end of May can be rebooked for June. No-one should expect to fly back from the UK anytime soon. There have now been 16 recorded COVID-19 cases in the UK and one British citizen has died aboard the Diamond Princess.
March 3rd – Boris Johnson, U.K. Prime Minister doesn’t think COVID-19 will spread in the UK if we wash our hands: “I was at a hospital the other night where I think there were a few coronavirus patients and I shook hands with everybody, you will be pleased to know, and I continue to shake hands,” he said. “People obviously can make up their own minds but I think the scientific evidence is … our judgment is that washing your hands is the crucial thing.”
March 7th – 1st death from COVID-19 in the U.K. and a statistic of 167 confirmed cases but no-one who isn’t ill enough to require an emergency ambulance to hospital is tested, so it could be pretty misleading. South Korea now has 6767 cases, mostly in Daegu thanks to the church worshippers, but more deaths are recorded in Italy and Iran.
March 11th - The Director General of the World Health Organisation (WHO) says the world is dealing with a pandemic, the first caused by a coronavirus (SARS in 2002/3 was really limited to China, Taiwan, Singapore and Canada and the common cold just makes us a little miserable. Flu is caused by an influenza virus). Countries need to ‘detect, test, treat, isolate, trace and mobilise their people’.
Meanwhile in the UK, our Chancellor gave his budget speech. He says ‘the government is well prepared to protect people’s health and support their economic security throughout this period of temporary economic disruption… The scale is highly uncertain and the economic impact is likely to be temporary’.
March 12th – 15th - COVID-19 is driving events very quickly except here in the UK. Individual EU countries started to act independently in closing borders, to the consternation of the EU Commission President. Then Trump suspended entry to all foreigners from Europe. Italy went into a shut-down, followed by Spain and France. People can only go out to buy food and all but essential businesses are closed. We in the UK are told that beginning social distancing too early runs the risk of people becoming tired, but we are apparently moving out of the ‘contain’ phase into the ‘delay’ phase of the government’s plan. Our Health Secretary has changed his advice within three days, from advising the over 70s to avoid cruises to advising that everyone over 70 is likely to be told to self-isolate within the coming weeks. The rest of us will build up herd immunity (the rest of the world is aghast). We shouldn’t now fly to Spain. The Atletico Madrid fans who joined 52,000 Liverpool fans for the Wednesday evening match have presumably flown home. The Cheltenham Festival Horserace meeting is in full swing with 150,000 attendees over four days. Handwashing is being encouraged. Most of us know this is a loopy last hurrah.
March 23rd - We all knew this was coming and there was a panic buy of toilet rolls! Our PM has been on TV to tell all of us to stay at home. We are more fortunate than Chinese or Spanish people because we are allowed out to exercise as well as to buy food, but everyone except essential workers and construction workers (and their children for whom schools will be kept open) should work from home. There have been 422 covid deaths so far. March 23rd Lockdown Day is an easy date for me to remember – it’s my birthday.
Our position in Europe doesn't look good but we are fortunate beyond our existing good fortune to be European when compared to the lot of ordinary Indians. Their PM gave 4 hours notice of a lockdown leaving thousands of migrant workers jobless and trying desperately to get back to their home villages.
The Japanese Olympic Games Chief says Japan is 'not considering cancelling the Olympics at all'. Wonder how long that stance will last.
March 28th – Quite a turnaround in one month. At the beginning of the month I couldn’t return to China because of the coronavirus there. Now I can’t go back because the virus seems to have been pretty well halted. And they don’t want to import it. The reported death toll stands at 3300 (take pinch of salt). Anyone flying in since March 14th has had to quarantine in a hotel under government direction for 14 days. But now that option is gone: China is closed to foreigners (at least temporarily). Meanwhile the UK Prime Minister and Health Secretary have both contracted COVID-19. I couldn't make this up.
The lockdown has wiped motorists off the road and everywhere is beautifully quiet and tranquil in the UK, except for the sound of ambulances on the move, carting the really ill off to hospital. I’m allowed out to exercise and cycling, sans reckless close-passing motorists, is a joy. The air is fresher. In fact across the world, the lockdowns are doing wonders in reducing air pollution. Families are taking walks together (I mean members of the same family).
We China teachers are divided between those foreign teachers who never left or got back into China while it was still possible, and those of us who remain outside after a winter holiday or having fled on government advice. A couple of colleagues made it back from Thailand and were then quarantined in their apartments for two weeks. Another colleague is holed up in Cambodia.
Lockdown in China has been thorough; according to the WHO, ‘the most aggressive disease containment effort in history’. Travel between cities was restricted, manufacturing plants were shut down, and many cities kept people locked down in their apartments for a period, with only single household members allowed out periodically for food or to make or deliver food. And by the end of February everybody’s movements and contacts were tracked and dependent on being able to show a Green Code on a smartphone app. A yellow meant a period of home quarantine and a red, a stay in hospital. Such drastic measures are of course more easily enforced there, but it looks like they’ve worked to contain and diminish covid cases in a short time, and lockdown has pretty much ended, whereas our, with plenty of exceptions, lockdown drags on.
Schools and universities in China are still closed, but teaching moved on-line back in February. Not all teachers or their courses are of equal importance however. The Chinese teachers at my university including those of my General English department started online in February, a week after normal term start and the French department got their foreign teachers working from the beginning of March. Foreign English teachers were finally given the go-ahead to teach on-line from mid-April. We will of course, somehow, be expected to make up 8 weeks of lessons before the end of term. There is also the little matter of getting back the salary that was deducted in March.
On-line teaching, with classes of 35-40 students all sitting in their bedrooms five and a half thousand miles away is a new and interesting experience. The first day of classes was a disaster, with the internet cutting out, but now I’ve sorted out the technology, (ditching wireless and plugging in to a modem router), classes are mostly a joy, as they were in person.
Unsurprisingly, the difficulties of teaching, in class or online, are the spokes put in the wheel from above. First it was the delay in approving on-line teaching by foreign teachers, with my English department being the slowest. This was followed up by moving May 1st, 4th and 5th classes (Friday, Monday and Tuesday) to Saturdays and Sundays, in order to observe May Day holidays even though the students are sat at home with their English class as a rare highlight in the day. Then, the decision not to allow us to do any extra classes to make up for missed ones until students returned to university. Perhaps understandable for lessons returning to a classroom, but not for those continuing on-line.
May 24th and 25th, students returned to uni., but not to complete freedom; they weren’t allowed to leave campus. They can walk from dorm to class to canteen. I wonder how many of the small restaurants, which rely on the student population, and shut up when the students go on summer vacation will survive. They cooked for me very regularly.
With the return to university, my boss thought I was going to start classes at 1am to fit in with the normal Chinese class time. I point out that this is entirely unnecessary and talk to my students to arrange classes at times that suit us all, i.e. in my morning and their afternoon and evening, with time off for dinner. They can access the internet from their dorms; no need to sit in class. This common sense approach is taken for granted by my French and Spanish colleagues faced with the same time difference, but my boss doesn’t do common sense or consultation.
As China returns to normal, in the UK we are still under a kind of lockdown. The stats show 46,000 deaths involving covid, but a fall in daily numbers since the peak of over 900 daily in early April. We overtook Italy, at the beginning of May, for most covid deaths in Europe. There is some way to go to get the virus out of circulation, but public faith in pulling together was binned on May 22nd when the media revealed that at the end of March, a few days into lockdown, the Prime Minister’s Chief Advisor, by the name of Dominic Cummings, drove his wife and child 425km from London to his parent’s residence in Durham. On April 12th, his wife’s birthday, he then drove back to London, but only after a 30 mile drive out of his way to scenic Bernard’s Castle, apparently to test his eyesight for the longer drive. To compound the public’s distrust of authority, he will remain in post and the police are not going to take any action.
Not unexpected, but done with the usual perversity and no charm. At the end of May, the Teachers’ Office sent us all a message asking whether we would like to renew our contracts for another year. A nice touch given our on-line participation from afar to keep things going. A few days later, the majority of us opened an unsigned e-mail to read that our contract would not be renewed. The choice of teachers for the chop is unexplained, but not a straightforward in and out of China decision, as they’ve axed two French teachers on campus while giving a contract to another to teach on-line from France. We suspect the axe has fallen on those who at any time raised questions on contracts, classrooms or being locked in at night – the awkward squad.
Thanks to being in China for a while, I have quickly found a university in Nanjing that is recruiting for the autumn, assuming travel restrictions are lifted, and have been offered another contract. It all depends on getting back to China though.
In the meantime, it’s all hands to the pump to get classes completed, and the small matter of getting paid the salary withheld in March and end of contract ‘flight’ allowance. My mornings are filled every day for five weeks, first class at 8:35am which is 3:35pm in China, and last class ending at ten past two in the afternoon, which is ten past nine in the evening there. It's hardly a dawn till dusk schedule I guess, and no commuting, but a lot of time being the lynchpin in front of a computer, and I see why every seventh day should be for rest. But it looks like I'll be having a longer summer break than normal after the last class on June 23rd.
It’s a strange, somewhat sad parting with this academic year’s lovely students, and possibly an end to such university classes and China life. Lots of the students write lovely parting messages to me on QQ, showing the charm sadly lacking from (my) China bosses.
I got paid in full. I'm sure the boss of the Foreign Teacher's Office would have liked to find some petty excuse to withhold salary and allowance, but she didn't have any. The money, of course, is paid into my Chinese Bank Account and I have to find a way to extract it. My room on campus is also as I left it in January. The university has no immediate need to clear it out for another teacher, and will leave everything in situ for the time being.
Meanwhile, in the UK, this month has seen the unwinding of Covid restrictions. The experts might have wanted to limit mingling a little longer, but that was doomed by the Cummings farce. At the beginning of the month, we could meet outdoors provided gatherings were limited to six, all shops opened on the 15th and by the end of the month, the beaches are rammed. Others flew off to Spain.
Today I met my Chinese friend Francis and gave him my one day tour of London. He has just completed his Masters Degree at Edinburgh University, through covid. He managed to get a covid test and is flying back to China, via a 24 hour airport stay in Seoul, and then to a period of hotel quarantine.
I’m not going anywhere. China is not yet issuing working visas to foreigners.
We started off in Greenwich, stood on the Meridian Line, looked over at Canary Wharf and the Olympic Stadium, passed by the Cutty Sark, a manifestation of the British Empire’s extension to China and trade in tea (and opium). Next an external inspection of the Tower of London and Tower Bridge, then on to the Bank of England and St Paul’s, across the Millennium Bridge and down the south bank past the London Eye and back over Westminster Bridge. Big Ben was covered in scaffolding. When we were in Greenwich, Francis had remarked on the lack of police (in contrast to Beijing which is possibly the most overpoliced capital in the world). When we got down to Parliament Square, however, it became clear that one reason for an absence of police elsewhere may have been that they were all here, and above in a helicopter, completely outnumbering Extinction Rebellion protesters. We went and peered at Buckingham Palace, as close as allowed by the police cordon. By that time, despite good use of the Underground, we were a little footsore and in need of a St James’s Park bench. That gave us enough energy to make it down to Trafalgar Square (around the Downing Street environs police bus park) and on to China Town for a well-deserved, reasonably authentic meal. We joined two fellow students, who had done shopping. I think Francis got the better deal.
London is a great city, especially when one can walk in a straight line and get a seat on the Tube. Covid is still keeping most tourists away and workers at home.
No return to China in the foreseeable future, so post 60 (this year) I have decided to embark on new challenges. First up is to see more of the UK, on two feet. I cycled Land's End to John O'Groats (LEJOG) many years ago, but how about trying to backpack a scenic way, starting at Land’s End and seeing how far north I get. I won't be challenging any fastest walk records; the plan is to use and join up off-road paths, the South West Coast Path, Offa’s Dyke, Pennine Way, and into Scotland, assuming I get that far, the Scottish National Trail, West Highland Way and Cape Wrath Trail. That’s the idea, I’m in good shape, let’s see about getting it done.
Day on the train 11/5/2022
A long day of train and bus travel. Five hour train journey from London (Paddington) to Penzance. Just two hours down to Exeter, then it slows down. The line along the coast from Dawlish to Teignmouth is worth slowing down for. A slight delay due to sharing the line with a freight train, meant I had an hour spare in Penzance before a short bus ride along the coast to my walking start point at Treen. Not sure whether the Penzance – Land’s End bus driver has a great job or not. Fresh air and countryside but steep ups and downs, tight turns and narrow lanes combined with car drivers. The timetable for the tourist season must surely allow for continuously stopping and waiting for cars to reverse.
Thankfully, only a couple of such incidents on this early May evening, and I had time to take in the sea view, pitch the tent and wander down the lane for a pub dinner. All still in daylight, which was just as well, as I'd left my reading glasses in the tent and had to take the menu outside to make sense of it. Hopefully I've got that error out of the way.
Up and down: lots c.15½m
Turned out to be a long first day. Down to little coves and back up, I passed the Minack Theatre but only got a distant cliff-side view as it was closed for general viewing with a performance due to start at 11am. Land’s End then made a nice target for lunch, the first of many Cornish pasties and the obligatory photo. Presumably long gone are the days when you could stand beside the signpost. These days one has a choice between entering the railed-off signpost area for a professional photo, £7, or a selfie/swapping of cameras for a free photo by the rail.
By afternoon the clouds had disappeared and I was applying sunscreen before dropping down into Sennen Cove. A short walk along the sand is nice but that of course is followed by the climb from the beach. Followed by more ups and downs. As the Guide Book (Walking the SWCP by Paddy Dillon) says: ‘The Coast Path works its way across a slope, passing old mine shafts. Tight zigzags climb, followed by widely sweeping zigzags ….Walk down into a little valley ….Climb 80 stone steps.’ I was doing the opposite, though with equal effort, because the guidebook is written for the majority who walk the CP anti-clockwise. Walking against the guidebook, I was flagging by the time I got to Cape Cornwall in the late afternoon, and the blue sky had disappeared.
Away even a short distance from Land’s End, it seems, at least in early May, that one has the path and the view pretty much to oneself, so people will probably not feature greatly in any photos. Just before Land’s End I stopped for a brief chat with my first other SWCP backpacker. She, cheerful and obviously fit, had been on the path since mid-April, starting in Minehead. Many miles and days ahead of me.
Aside from walking, the logistics of the coast path, food and shelter, are not so simple. The options aren’t abundant. Some people manage to stop at a pre-booked B&B each night, but civilisation is pretty spaced out along the path or just off it and not given over to B&Bs. And also, find £60 minimum per night. Campsites are spaced out too. The other option, wild-camping, of course leaving aside the often unviable idea that one is supposed to seek out a landowner and get permission, isn’t available everywhere either: gorse covered slopes are rather more the norm than small patches of level grass. No-where at Cape Cornwall, so I tramped on.
Fortunately, if one still has the legs, there is likely to be daylight in May. There is apparently a campsite just off the coast path at Botallack. I failed to see it, but good fortune came by way of a soft patch of moss/grass on the cliff top next to the path. The idea of wild camping is to be inconspicuous (there weren’t even occasional walkers or dog walkers on the path, but my pitch was just about in view of a distant house window in Botallack), so I boiled up some water and rehydrated a freeze-dried meal, actually pretty tasty, and watched the sun go down over the sea, before pitching and bringing the first day to a close.
Up and down: lots c.13½m cum. 29m
Woke up still early for a final time after a blustery night, packed up and on the path by 8am. I meant to take a picture of the tent with a backdrop of the sea, but remembered only after packing up, so there’s a picture of my backpack instead.
I thought I’d walk a mile or two before breakfast. Most of the Cornish tin mines have left an iconic chimney perched on the sea-cliff, but the SWCP at Pendeen takes you through a wasteland of ruined buildings attached to Geevor Tin Mine. The mining here in the 18th and 19th centuries was relatively small-scale, but much more extensive mining took place after a restart in 1909 by an Australian Gold Mining Company, until final closure in 1990. The only other walker I met in this wasteland, of course going the other way, was a Swiss woman, setting off from a B&B in Pendeen. I soon left the remnants of industry behind and regained the unspoilt coast at the Pendeen Watch lighthouse headland. There’s a small campsite here, which I hadn’t felt the need to reach the previous evening, but I stopped nearby for breakfast: tea and porridge.
The guidebook describes St Ives to Pendeen Watch (visa-versa for me) as ‘a rough and remote stretch, often along narrow and sometimes vague paths, with numerous short, steep ascents and descents.’ Just an occasional walker going the other way. The sun came out and seemed pretty strong. The path was reasonably clear until nearing Zennor, at which point I lost the coast path but fortunately found a short-cut path across fields to the village of Zennor which provides the only café and pub anywhere near the coast path on this stage. I took a much needed lengthy break at the café.
Amazing what a difference a break and food and drink make; I felt much more energetic over the 6 miles to St Ives, which finally came into sight after about 5 miles. Now the question again of where to stay. Good fortune again came by way of a chat with a couple who had brought their dog and bottle of wine and glasses down to the rocks to watch the sun descend. They were camped on a campsite: ‘head five minutes back on the path to the new metal gate and then head inland’, up an indistinct path and then for what seemed longer than suggested, a gravel track to a small gathering of houses and at last a campsite. Campsites, as confirmed on following days, are for the most part beside roads set well inland from the coast hugging path. They are primarily taken up by campervans and caravans, but thankfully find a small plot for hikers’ tents at a friendly lower cost (average £10). Wild camping can be a beautiful experience, but the campsite price seems worth paying when pitched on a flat and more sheltered patch of grass, and enjoying a hot shower at the end of a long day. And in this case, a washing machine and drier to provide sweat-free socks and base-layers for another couple of days.
via Lelant and Hayle Up and down: negligible except the steep hill out of St Ives and little ups and downs in the dunes c. 12½m cum. 41½m
A relaxed start to the day. I walked the mile and a half from campsite into St Ives, bought a pasty for a late lunch and found a waterfront café, just in time to get my Fantasy Football line-up sorted before the 11am deadline; only to find that football doesn't begin until tomorrow. One gets pleasantly out of touch quickly on a walk. The Hub seems to work on the basis that surfers, if not foodies, have lots of time to kill, but need caffeine and arty food; two very small poached eggs on avocado on equally small bits of burnt toast plus a double espresso took about 40 minutes to arrive, and not because it was packed. Fortunately, I had had a bowl of porridge for first breakfast and was not in a hurry. And fortunate to make the breakfast/brunch sitting; customers rolling up after 11:30 were told that they were welcome to chill, but that lunch orders wouldn’t be taken until 12. Presumably for lunch after 1pm, after a couple of drinks.
With the morning gone, I set off with the idea of a shorter, easier walk to get around to a campsite on the other side of the Hayle River inlet. The stunning isolated coast walk has to be put on hold for this stretch, first to follow the road and tourist train from St Ives to Carbis Bay, and then because of the inlet, to turn inland to find the road bridge over a tidal lagoon, and then back toward the sea through the town of Hayle. It should have been a shorter, easy day, but turned out to be the biggest trial so far because of a rather massive blister on my left little toe, which suddenly made its presence felt on the hill out of St Ives. Thank goodness for trekking poles. With these I propelled my way around, though I abandoned trying to find the coast path from Carbis Bay to Lelant, and opted for pavement by the straight main road. Additional scenery wasn’t the priority. I’ll remember this stage for the discomfort, discovering just how much unnoticed good work little toes do, and the workout for arms as well as legs. Eventually I got round to the other side of Hayle, and a couple effortlessly enjoying the sun outside their holiday home, provided a welcome mug of tea to spur me on through the dunes.
There are lots of towans (from Cornish: tewyn meaning sand dune) but The Towans is this 3 mile stretch of sand dunes from the River Hayle estuary to Gwithian Beach. Fortunately by late afternoon, my little toe seemed to have got tired of signalling displeasure at being force walked. Trying to stick on the correct path through the dunes, with the occasional stone marker for guidance, was also a welcome change. And then to add extra incentive to hurry on to the campsite at Gwithian, the sun disappeared and it started to rain; not sufficient for waterproofs but perfect conditions for a trial of my windproof/shower jacket. It passed the test, leaving me just damp as I finally reached Gwithian Farm Campsite and the small grass patch left for hiker tents amongst the huge campervans and caravans. I was joined by just one other hiker, a Dutch woman just beginning a week of SWCP walking, going anti-clockwise of course. She isn’t aiming to walk the entire trail and so will take my advice and take the bus to St Ives and start from there.
I haven't gone anywhere today. I decided to give the blister the best chance to settle down. And this campsite is a good spot for a day off. Yesterday evening a takeaway chap was on site with two enormous pans of curry. I had a superb chicken balti with rice and nan bread. And this morning there was a van for toasties and coffee. Just as well as I am already out of fuel having only set off with one small gas cannister for my stove, and the only shop in St Ives that sold gas stove cannisters, sold me one that screws on but doesn't break any seal to release gas. I hope I find a more useful supplier very soon. For today, thankfully there was a pub across the road from the campsite, which despite incredibly slow service did produce a good nut roast for a late lunch. I finished eating just as the beautiful day disappeared and got back under the campsite reception awning with a good book to sit out the rainy afternoon. It’s good fortune for the rain to come when I’m undercover. A fish and chip van served the camp/caravan site that evening. Not my favourite meal and not the best cooked, but then the fish on offer had travelled a long way: from Iceland and New Zealand. I guess locally caught fish isn’t caught or landed in great quantities any more, and is probably bought up by the restaurants of St Ives and Padstow and London.
via Godrevy Point, Portreath, Porthtowan, and Trevaunance Cove (St Agnes) up and down: a lot c. 20½m cum. 62m
Started out a little rainy up to Godrevy Point, but afterwards, cloudy with sunny intervals. I reached the beach at Portreath for late lunch and Trevaunance Cove (St Agnes) by late afternoon. I had intended to stop there but after a lengthy debate amongst beer drinkers outside the Driftwood Spars PH on the topic of camping and campsites in the vicinity, I detoured inland only to find two not yet open campsites, and trailed on to Perranporth. On the descent into town, the sign for the YHA lured me on a detour back to the coast, but only to find it fully booked out by a weekend group from Manchester, with no intention of making space for a weary backpacker. YHAs used to be for people arriving on two legs or wheels! On down into Perranporth, a total absence of B&Bs, but sanctuary came in the form of the Seiners Arms down by the beach, which otherwise I would probably have been sleeping on. And entertainment: the bar provided a decent dinner and was holding a Cornish shindig. A majority of customers had come to join in with fiddle, harp or other Cornish instrument. They were very good, except that there didn’t seem to be an orchestra leader to draw each tune to a close without the reel being repeated umpteen times. Under shelter, full and with a comfortable bed, it was an unexpected way to end the longest day so far.
up and down: not so much c. 8½m cum. 70½m
The Seiners Arms provided breakfast outside in the sunshine. And the sunshine lasted for the full hour it took to walk Perran Beach. Fifteen minutes later it started to pour. Fortunately thirty minutes later I reached the shelter of the awning of a most conveniently sited café at Holywell Bay. There I lingered, aided by two pots of tea, chilli and cheese over chips and amicable conversation with fellow rainwatchers. The rain finally stopped but by that time I had decided on a short day, to just walk a mile on to a campsite at Crantock and leave the Gannel estuary crossing to Newquay till tomorrow. I also fell in at the café, with Rachel, who was staying at the campsite. Not only good company, but she also solved my cooking dilemma with pasta and pesto.
via Newquay up and down: moderate c. 11m cum. 81.5m
A leisurely start today as the café just up from the campsite doesn’t cater for early starts. That suited me fine as it meant that I timed arrival at the low tide boardwalk over the Gannel perfectly, at about 11am, to find it emerged from the water and crossable. The alternative walk to a footbridge further inland would have added at least two miles. I waited briefly for a blind border collie, coming offlead and ahead of its owner, to negotiate the boardwalk. It didn’t manage a straight line but was obviously able to sense the edge of the boardwalk and avoid wet feet. I was less successful; I took three paces back to take the photo of the boardwalk, forgetting about the large pool of water behind. After crossing, I sat in the sunshine, ate a pasty and changed into dry socks. From there it was a short walk on a footpath between Fistral Beach and a wild coastal wildlife area, or rather, land taken over by people wheeling trolleys and hitting little balls around, into Newquay. Surf schools and surf shops abounded. None dealt with nutrition, but fortunately I found an outdoor store that had a gas cylinder, which I hope works, and some freeze-dried food.
In the afternoon I cleared Newquay fairly quickly and had a pleasant walk along the cliff-top above Watergate Bay, before rain came at about 4pm. Not long after, seeking temporary shelter under the awning of the ice-cream shop at Mawgan Porth Bay, I crossed paths with two lively, or one could say spirited, hikers who were progressing along the Cornish Celtic Way. This shares the north coast with the SWCP after crossing Bodmin Moor. They seemed to have managed to cut out even more gear from their backpacks than me. They explained that they were staying in churches along the way and so didn’t need a tent, but their small packs were still impressive, I guess pilgrim sized. They set off for another few miles to the next church sanctuary, while I headed for the nearby campsite. This turned out to be most welcoming. I was actually the only hiker camper; it was given over to campervan/caravaners who all knew each other because they had been coming on holiday to the same site for years. My nearest neighbours took pity on me contemplating pitching my tiny tent in the rain, and supplied chat and tea, and then a burger while I dried off under their caravan awning. By which time it had stopped raining. The campsite also provided an excellent hot shower and all for a bargain price of £5. It had been an excellent mixed weather day, but perhaps not the best nutrition-wise: pastries for breakfast, an early lunch pasty, a mid-afternoon bacon and egg butty and an evening burger. At some point I’ll make up for lost vegetables.
via Bedruthan Steps, Porthcothan Bay, Treyarnon Bay, Constantine Bay, Trevose Head Headland, Harlyn Bay, Stepper Point Headland, Harbour Cove and finally Padstow. up and down: moderate c.19½m cuml. 101m
Lovely weather and a day of pleasant grassy clifftop walking coming down at intervals to cross Porthcothan Bay, Teyarnon Bay, Constantine Bay, Harlyn Bay and Harbour Cove. The famed Bedruthan Steps beach was closed, due to erosion I think, but I wasn't going to descend and ascend hundreds of steps for no progress anyway. Excellent pasty for lunch. Second cafe stop only had cake. Banana and chocolate, good but could have done with a bigger chunk. The SWCP, sticking to the coastline, had also to go around Trevose Head and Stepper Point. I confess to thinking of taking a shortcut across rather than around this final headland, but missed the turn-off for tired feet, so that meant six more miles. Got to Padstow about 8pm I think and the campsite was the other side of Padstow. Reception was closed by the time I arrived but a board showed vacant pitches. I'm afraid I didn't sample Padstow's culinary delights as I wasn't walking back into town after pitching tent and a shower, so settled for freeze-dried spaghetti bolognaise (which tasted pretty yummy) by the light of the showerblock. It’s due to rain overnight but tomorrow is another day.
via ferry to Rock up and down: moderate c.12½m cuml.113½m
It rained early this morning before I was out of the tent, but stayed dry for most of the day except for a brief shower once across the estuary. A leisurely start back in to Padstow to load up with pasties and blister plasters and catch the ferry over the River Camel Estuary to Rock. A bit of dunes walking, then easy around Polzeath before more added coastal kilometres around Pentire Point, on to Port Quinn and finally a tranquil wild-camp spot at Pine Haven just short of Port Isaac. Felt a bit weary in the morning as a result of yesterday’s lengthy effort, but more energised post lunch.
up and down: lots (brutal) c.10½m cuml.124m
An interesting start to today. I looked up to see 2-3 black streaks on the outside of the inner tent. On closer inspection, they were slugs. None inside thankfully. I guess unsurprising with camping in moist grass next to a stream. Fortunately very few insects - probably not a good environmental signal. Cooked up some porridge, then made an earlier start to the day. Good job too, as Port Isaac to Trebarwith Strand is a good test/brutal. Long ups and downs with stone and wooden styles thrown in, and no cafes. Soon after Trebarwith, I passed Tintagel YHA but it was too early to stop, so I carried on around Tintagel headland, deciding against an added detour across the English Heritage bridge to the 'castle' at non-peak season rate of £16. The Tintagel campsite on the way into town required, according to its notice, advance bookings and three night stays. Rather than test whether any exception could be made for a lone backpacker, the next door B&B got my custom with the enticing prospect of a bed, hot shower without cold floor, working internet, plus special bonus of a laundry service and breakfast.
up and down: lots (brutal) c.12½m cuml.136½m
A day off from making porridge. B&B - cereal, fruit salad and cooked breakfast, with popular music tunes, looking out at the massive hotel that dominates Tintagel. It was t-shirt weather in the morning, before clouding over. Passed through Boscastle early afternoon. Very pretty. Someone was swimming in the harbour. Quite a strenuous day and few people after Boscastle. Got to Crackington Haven which appears to be served by one Inn but no campsite. The alternatives were to head on in the hope of a nice wild camp site or head inland to a campsite at Coxford. I opted for campsite with shower, though it did mean a trek inland up a blooming steep road. There are just two large camper vans and me on site. There’s internet reception down by reception though not where I'm pitched.
up and down: lots c.13m cuml.149½m
I admit I didn’t go back down the steep lane to Crackington Haven, but opted instead for a country lane and footpath start to pick up the SWCP on the clifftop a little further along. Made it to Widemouth Sand by 1pm, which was the hard part of the day’s walk cracked, and I carbo-reloaded with a bowl of sweet potato chips and mayonnaise. Sweet potato chips are too sweet, except when you’re well-exercised.
The afternoon walk to Bude was easier. I walked a little further up the coast to Northcott Mouth and then inland to the mapped campsite only to find that it had been turned into a mobile homes park. Thankfully a local couple were able to redirect me to the homemade sign I’d missed on the beach and thence to the farmer’s field campsite above Northcott Mouth. Facilities are basic, a plumbed, flushing metal box lavatory in the corner of the field, but so is the price, £5. I am sharing this almost wildcamp and exposed experience with two surfers in a van. It's blowy. So far my tent seems robust enough. Got food cooked and eaten just before taking to tent for a passing shower. Clouds and sea nearing to the sundown are dramatic. Hopeful of staying put and getting some sleep tonight. Tomorrow onwards towards Hartland Point.
up and down: lots (brutal) c.11m cuml.160½m
Can't complain at the weather so far. Slight delay to getting out of the tent today because of rain, and one 10 minute shower this morning, but otherwise another almost dry day. Just up from Bude I passed the high fenced Bude GCHQ listening station. Apparently 25% of all internet traffic travels through Cornwall due to Atlantic undersea cables. Not sure how they manage to filter that lot for items of interest.
The short stretch either side of Bude was just a brief intermission in this most challenging stretch of the SWCP. I thought the bit round Lands End and up to St Ives was up and down, but it was gentle compared to Port Issac up to here. Steep river valleys one after another. Steep down, steep up, brief flattish bit on top, then repeat. I crossed into Devon today and the cliffs got higher. Thankfully I seem, touch wood, though both little toes are still swaddled with compeed blister plasters, which annoyingly stick equally well to socks as to skin, to have walked through a blister discomfort phase. Not troubled at all the last 2-3 days.
Towards the end of the day, feet let you know that you have pushed them just a bit far. Aching. I have pitched up this evening at Elmstone YHA - an absolute gem of a place. Elmscott (about 3 houses, a farm and a YHA) is a little south of Hartland Quay. Actually my tent is pitched in a little bit of back garden for £10, but I have the run of the hostel - hot shower, laundry done and drying in the drying room, chilli con carne on rice cooked in the self-catering kitchen, and the elderly volunteer warden got the wood burner stove going earlier in the evening in the common room. I had it to myself until one of the two other guests and the warden joined me for a chat. Fills me with delight that such as this place has survived.
up and down: lots c.13m cuml.173½m
For the sake of economy I endured a pretty blustery night. But fortunately not the morning downpour thanks to the hostel. Its 1970s stock-cupboard, meant I could follow porridge with beans and little sausages on toast. The helpful warden who runs the place out of a good heart and as a means to chat, then pointed out footpaths and hostel possibilities right up to Bristol. That filled time while I watched it tipping it down outside and then stop, leaving no excuse to take a rest day.
To Hartland Quay was fairly easy. Then it was up and down with very gusty wind, mostly blowing me sideways, thankfully inland away from the cliff edge. Stopped for coffee, cake and crisps at the tea shack at Hartland Point and exchanged campsite information with a couple going the other way. I then made very quick progress over merely undulating ground (not terribly interesting as the path ran between farmers' fields and hedging on top of the cliff) and thought I would have a reasonably early finish, considering late start, but this coast path usually has a sting in the tail; before Clovelly there were three steep wooded valleys to be descended and ascended.
The path goes along the top of Clovelly, but if one wants accommodation (and there is no alternative nearby that provides a hot shower), then you have to go down the cobbles, and pay Clovelly prices. My luck held, as there are only four B&B options, and I took the advice of a couple of locals I met on the way down to head for the Harbour View Cottage most of the way down the main street, a little before the bend and final cobbles to the harbour. I went up to the pub for dinner, then down to the harbour, in the interest of photography.
up and down: moderate c.11m cuml.184½m
The sign at the top of Clovelly says just 99 miles to the end of the path at Minehead (1st objective). I knocked just a few miles off that, stopping just short of Westward Ho! because of the campsite here at Westcott Farm. Quite a short day: not an early start after a B&B breakfast and I had the tent pitched by 5:30. A fair bit of walking through woodland or on a narrow path through scrub with the sea more often than not hidden, except on coming down to a couple of bays, hence I was less prolific with the camera.
via Westward Ho! and ferry to Instow up and down: negligible c.10m cuml.194½m
The ups and downs are over for a little while. The walk from campsite to W. Ho! was gently rolling on cliff-top. After that, promenade past Kipling’s If - poem, then sandy path walking around the headland between sea/estuary and golf course to Appledore, from where a ferry goes over the Torridge Estuary to Instow, but only for an hour or so either side of high tide. Otherwise it's a 6 mile walk around, taking in Bideford. Fortunately the tides worked for me, as I was there in good time to catch the first ferry at 3:05pm. The only passenger. It's £2 for the 5 minute trip. After that, a flat walk on a track by the river to a campsite at Lower Yelling Farm. There is a little restaurant on site attached to a micro-brewery, so I think I'll save the dehydrated meal for another night and have the pizza on offer, with a small ale.
About Westward Ho! It’s not the only town with an exclamation mark; there’s also Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha! in Quebec. Westward Ho! got in first with the exclamation mark by about 10 years, established as a Victorian resort named after the novel by Charles Kingsley whose hometown was nearby Bideford. The novel features Elizabethan Caribbean adventures with Francis Drake, setting out from Bideford, though the title derives from the cries of boat-taxi men on the River Thames (also Eastward Ho!). Rudyard Kipling was sent back from India to attend the public school in Westward Ho! founded in 1874 to school boys for service in the Empire, hence the photo showing the beginning of the If poem spelt out along the promenade. The coloured row of houses is Appledore. Quaint.
mostly flat c.18½m cuml.213m
A long, warm, day of flat walking down the south side of the River Taw Estuary, across the new bridge at Barnstaple (bypassing the town), seawards on the north side and then over the Braunton Burrows to the coast again, not very far as a crow can fly from where I was yesterday lunchtime. Tarmac and stony tracks. Shared the track with the Tara Trail - lots of people on bicycles. Past the Royal Marines and Royal Engineers barracks at Chivenor. Had a cafe lunch on reaching Braunton. Then onwards sticking on the path through the dunes which, by sound, an unseen army were obviously training in, then past a golf course, and finally the sea and Croyde Bay. I thought of going around the headland to Woolacombe, but saw a convenient campsite so called it a day.
Have just eaten a pub curry, with a distant view of a fairly small TV. The soundless pre-match chat for the Champions League final has gone on endlessly. I’m tired enough to need sleep rather than watching from a distance, so will head for my tent (I later found out that the match was delayed while the fans were crowded into subways and tear-gassed by the gendarmerie)
via Woolacombe and Ilfracombe up and down: lots c.18½m cuml.231½m
A gritty path ran around Baggy Point and I dropped down onto Woolacombe Sand because the tide was out, but that left a ribbed beach walk to Woolacombe. The masses are already making places like Woolacombe a place to pass through quickly. Half-term hols I think. Still a chilly wind on the beach. Had a pleasant coffee from the Tourist Information outlet overlooking it.
Another confession. My feet then took me into the village of Mortehoe rather than out to Morte Point, and out on a track the other side to join the coast again and miss a good mile of the SWCP. There was then a fair bit of up and down, the guide says ‘rollercoaster’, before arriving in Ilfracombe. Lots of people. The metal footprints in the tarmac were mainly a good guide through town and thus to another climb onto the cliff path, and down to Hale Bay, and up and down to Samson’s Bay and up and finally down to the campsite at Watermouth. I was just in time to get a last portion of the Sunday roast from the mobile caterer, though they’d run out of roast potatoes. I had to make do with apple and rhubarb crumble with custard to get much needed carbohydrates. Another long walking day.
via Combe Martin up and down: lots c.15½m cuml.247m
Slightly delayed start as there was no point in not waiting a while for the rain to stop. The BBC didn't say percentage chance of rain was 100%. Also hung around a while to give my phone some time for charging – enough to take photos if not to communicate. Late arrival yesterday meant that didn’t get seen to. Unfortunately I didn’t know such a thing as a speed charger existed when setting off and my 3*charge battery pack is one of few equipment disappointments.
The SWCP goes straight up through the campsite so enroute straightaway, and soon down to Combe Martin for lunch supplies. Then up onto Exmoor past the bump of Little Hangman and up to the cairn on top of Great Hangman. At 1,043 feet this is the highest point on the SWCP, and the cliff rise to the moor is the highest sea cliff in England (800ft). The grisly names in modern English are apparently, per wiki, more likely to be the result of a mix of more ancient and less sinister Germanic and Celtic: hang is the Germanic word for "slope" and man from Mynydd meaning mountain in Welsh.
Soon after Great Hangman, a steep down for a footbridge crossing of a stream, then steep up onto Holdstone Down. Then comfortable walking with great sea views until a big stoney path descent and zig inland at Heddon’s Mouth. I guess it’s a good thing that presumably the SWCP Association, have been busy re-stoning the track to prevent its erosion, and it probably won’t be too many years before the stones are ground down, but right now with a heavy backpack, it’s an ankle tester. More cliff top path and then along a narrow toll road to Lee Abbey. It must have been just after 5pm and just before the Abbey when I met a German lady with a large dog hiking the other way who enquired about wild camp spots. I hadn’t noted any reasonable pitch since before Heddon’s Mouth. Hope she found something. Just after the Abbey in The Valley of Rocks were grass patches she must have walked by that just required the daylight to go to make them ideal; at least for one quiet person. Eschewing these, I finally made it down through Lynton to the Sunny Lyn campsite beside a noisy river.
Going nowhere
Just two more legs to go to the end of the path at Minehead, but I went nowhere today. My achilles, left leg, decided to swell up overnight and I could barely hobble to the campsite café. An overuse and stoney path injury. Good job I made it to a campsite with a café that does hearty breakfasts, a sun-deck with tables and parasols, the weather is lovely, and ibuprofen started on the inflammation sufficiently to make the adjoining Cottage Inn with thai kitchen reachable for an evening take-away. I’m out of other food. I can highly recommend their stir-fry and it was great to use chop-sticks for the first time since my return from China.
SWCP Return to base.
My achilles swelling is much reduced today. Ibuprofen is doing the job. Not miraculously enough to make continuation on the SWCP realistic today or probably for a few days, but I can make it up to the bus stop in Lynton. From there, bus back to Barnstaple and train via Exeter to Paddington and back to base. It’s one way of avoiding campsite booking problems and the masses over the Jubilee Holiday. My Big Walk hopefully continues from here sometime soon.
16/6/2022 Trains SW again
My achilles recovered very quickly given a little rest from being marched over uneven ground with a heavy backpack. So I’ve travelled down to Devon to restart the big walk. The heatwave may also be waning tomorrow. The train to Exeter was delayed just sufficiently to arrive after the train to Barnstaple departed. The next Barnstaple bound train was cancelled. I learnt something anyway - you can get 20p off your two sip Starbucks espresso if you produce your own drinking vessel, though it gets cold very quickly in a mug. That Exeter St Davids has a soulless American coffee franchise in place of a station café is I suppose less surprising. Anyway, the train to Barnstaple eventually came and despite stopping at numerous request stops to let one person off, it made it into Barnstaple, late, but 5 minutes before the last bus to Lynton left. And the bus driver dropped me at the campsite on the way in to Lynton. I pitched the tent and enjoyed a repeat of the excellent Thai takeaway from the next door Cottage Inn.
Here's my kit.
one long haul up c.14m Day 20 via Land's End Day 20, cuml. miles c.261
Reasonably early start, underway about 9 (so not very early) but after the sweaty slog up the long hill out of Lynmouth, most of the path was in the shade and not too tough, and I felt fairly well rested after 2 weeks off. Not too long a first day back. I’m pitched in the campsite at Porlock and have opted for the local pub's pizza over a freeze-dried meal.
My effort out of Lynmouth was nothing compared to the 1899 lifeboatmen https://rnli.org/about-us/our-history/timeline/1899-launch-from-porlock-weir who hauled their lifeboat up the hill and after refreshments at the Blue Ball, where most of the helpers/crowd dropped off, continued on what is now the A39 rather than the coast path. Controlling the boat on the downhill into Porlock may have been most difficult. Reading the end of the tale, it seems like, although all the crew of the stricken ship were rescued, the lifeboat didn’t actually play the major role after all that effort.
Porlock to Minehead 8m on the SWCP (cuml. 269m) Minehead to West Quantoxhead 10½m
Day 21 from Land's End cuml.miles 279½
A walking day of two halves and three seasons. The last stage of the SWCP didn't take too long, and amazing what difference it can make getting off early. A long climb, a fell-runners delight, onto Exmoor from Bossington then pretty flat until the descent into Minehead. Few photos: the mist was down with light rain. I followed up my early porridge with a lunchtime breakfast at the sort of seaside cafe that thinks it's ok to have Jubilee memorabilia still up and big band renditions of popular tunes, but the breakfast was good. Vegetarian breakfast with a slice of bacon rather than beans. After that I found the statue for the start/end of the SWCP and then onwards for part 2.
Made good progress, for the most part following the England Coast Path, along the coast between sea and golf course to Blue Anchor, then road to Watchet because of coastal erosion, then on to Doniford under a threatening sky. The first ‘campsite’ thereafter was static caravans only, but fortunately the next at Home Farm, after a footpath through acres of bean fields, welcomed me. I got to the ‘campsite bar’ just as a huge flash of lightning and thunder preceded a deluge. Food therefore became the first priority; gammon and chips followed by rhubarb crumble. I don’t normally eat rhubarb, but I don’t turn down post-walk carbohydrates. The weather warning said the threat of lightning should end by 7pm and indeed it did, and the rain eased until I stepped out of the bar with 200m to go to my pitch, which I noted as I sped another 100m metres to shelter in the toilet block doorway. It didn’t stop raining, but it did ease off after a while, sufficiently to go back and forth to get the tent up, get showered and finally inside in dry clothes. Then to bed in the dry and asleep to the beating rain.
up, rolling, down, flat c.15m Day 22 from Land's End cuml. miles 294.5
Bright and sunny in the morning and all day. I took directions from the campsite (“don’t tell anyone we told you”) on the path to the road at West Quantoxhead through the land of St Audries Country Manor, which after a time as a Buddhist retreat is now a Wedding Venue, for wedding patrons only. And a happily trespassing backpacker. Then up, and along the Quantock hills and down through the Great Wood to The Foxy Bean (café) at Adscombe for much needed afternoon tea and cake. A few kilometres of country roads further on I came to the, under development, community organic vegetable farm and campsite at Splatt, just past Spaxton. It’s on Google maps, but too new for Ordnance Survey. And too new for hot showers. But it's quiet. I'm the only camper here. The birds are tweeting. Goodness knows how loud the dawn chorus will be. Just hope the crows don't decide to join in. They are not songbirds.
Fairly flat c.18.5m Day 23 from Land's End, cuml. miles c.313m
A warm day and not too much shade. Through Bridgwater, then pretty flat walking over the Somerset levels towards the Mendips, mostly on roads but hardly any cars, and hedges/ditches one could see over. I took one footpath which turned out to be infrequently trod and rather overgrown. Pitched up at Splott Farm campsite on the B3139 between Mark and Blackford. There’s not only a hot shower but washing machine and washing line. Unfortunately I set the machine on a hot wash which took ages, so the socks need a final dry in the morning and hopefully haven’t shrunk.
up Cheddar Gorge c.19m Day 24 from Land's End, cuml. miles c.332
I reached the bottom of Cheddar Gorge later than hoped after traipsing along the edges of farmers’ fields, more overgrown footpaths and under an electric fence strung across a right of way. All under the hot sun. I am beginning to resemble a reddish walnut. An early afternoon second breakfast revitalised me to stomp up Cheddar Gorge and onwards to reach a campsite just north of Compton Martin and West Harptree. The day had been almost traffic-free but ended along the sort of road used my motorists that see laden backpackers as a sub-species. Fortunately a free-range (during the day) chicken farm sits between road and campsite. I braved the road again after washing the day’s attire and self, to have dinner at the nearby pub, but in vain as it had apparently run out of food or willingness forty minutes before the advertised time. So I am presently having my last freeze-dried meal back at base. I left the mince beef hotpot till last and I'm afraid my intuition was right; it seems to be Smash with the odd bit of carrot and pea, but absent of beef. This is a bit of a theme with this Adventure Food range. The Goulash was paprika flavoured Smash. The curries were ok.
up and down: lots c.17m Day 25 from Land's End, cuml. miles c.349m
There was I thinking that after the Mendips it would be easy walking to Bristol. Big error. I seem to have walked up and down every hill, sometimes fairly steep, between the Chew Valley and Bristol. Maybe the main road, not walker friendly, takes a flatter route. When almost there, I walked back and forth trying to find the walking way to the Suspension Bridge. First I was directed to go through Ashton Court, a stately home and grounds. I was then confidently directed out of Ashton Court and found myself walking towards Ashton Gate with the crowds flocking to see Elton John. I stopped a woman on a bike, who confirmed that I was going a long and less scenic way around, and directed me back to Ashton Court. 'Who (which idiot) directed you this way?' she asked. 'Ask a dog walker.’ And fortunately as I re-entered the park, there was a dog-walker on hand to direct me to go through the deer park. This did indeed lead to the right entrance out of Ashton Court and up ahead was the Bridge. I paused to wonder how, 35 years ago, a friend and I had climbed Suspension Bridge Buttress from the Avon Gorge, then hurried across to find the nearest shop to buy energy drink and water as I was flagging, dehydrated and my feet were complaining. And then I had to traipse all the way down and through the City centre to find The Full Moon Hostel. I should sleep well but it feels like it's going to be one of those sultry nights, especially in a dorm with a way too warm duvet.
Land's End to Bristol is apparently 167 miles as the crow flies, or 202 driving via Exeter, but walking it offers miles more joy and a helping of suffering too.
23/6/2022 Bristol Rest Day Day 26 from Land's End
I took the day off. I slept well and still need more rest. A bed made a nice change, as also not being woken by the dawn-chorus and light at 4am. Only two other chaps in my eight dorm, and only one with a fairly unobtrusive snore which didn't prevent me nodding off, and no-one in the bunk above. I didn't rise until eight and have since been in leisure mode. I went up the road to find a perfect cafe, the Crafty Egg in Stokes Croft: properly arty with veggie, vegan and Afghan alternatives, good coffee and feisty waitresses in eight hole docs. The leisured/alt class Bristolians seem to start the day late, as all inside tables were taken going on 10am when I arrived, so I started with a coffee on one of the two outside tables, studying the graffiti opposite and watching the St Pauls locals. I shall be writing my guide to the country's best breakfast outlets in due course. Cheddar was good, but this is the best.
I didn't do an extensive tour of Bristol because I wanted to avoid walking and give my little toe and slightly swollen achilles a rest. It has a cathedral which one can actually fit in a photo, nice cafes, and a scooter hire scheme which actually seems to be used and works, and also lots of cyclists. I think I just missed walking past the place where Edward Colston stood. It took a fair old roll to cast him into the docks. Looks like the council have put in some anti-roll devices to prevent Edmund Burke going the same way. I managed to get my hands on the last remaining gas cannister in the outdoors store, with stocks apparently depleted by Glastonbury Festival goers. After, I failed to find the Sichuan restaurant I’d walked past the previous evening, but enjoyed dinner in a Sri Lankan restaurant displaying a Jay Rayner (Observer restaurant critic) approval. I concur, the food was pretty good, as also the vibrant decor and reasonable price.
up: only out of Bristol c.16m Day 27 from Land's End, cuml. miles c.365m
Today turned out to be a fair old walk and didn’t end well. First out of Bristol through the tree-lined streets of Montpelier district, then to Westbury-on-Trym and Henbury. Then a bit of pavement walking by a dual carriageway, then quiet road to Pilning, on which I came across a slow worm, and then a reasonably marked footpath that brought me nearly to the Severn Bridge. I would probably have been ok if the walk had ended there, but it took getting on for an hour to walk over the bridge as I slowed due to the ball of my left foot blistering as well as little toe. And another 2-3 miles to get to the Three Tuns on Bridge Street in Chepstow where I am spending the night. My mood wasn’t then brightened by the travesty of what the Chinese restaurant called Kung-Po chicken. I hope Chinese students in Bristol would prevent such an atrocity across the Severn Bridge.
I've walked about another 96 miles from Minehead to here in Chepstow, bridging the gap in national paths from the SWCP to Offa's Dyke, but I'm going to take another break here. The last part of yesterday's walk across the Severn Bridge wrecked my feet. Time will heal the blisters whereas pushing on into the Welsh wilderness would be a slow, painful business, taking me further away from trains and buses. No travelling back to base today though because of the train strike. More annoyingly, my pub B&B was fully booked for tonight, so I've had to decamp to a more expensive B&B. That left plenty of time to watch the peregrine falcons who are nesting on the cliffs above the River Wye.
moderate undulation, c.10m Day 28 from Land's End, cuml. miles c.375m
Six weeks out. Blisters took about four weeks to heal fully and then a little more time for feet to harden again and for a spell of good hiking weather. I caught a National coach west this time, a lot cheaper and from London to south Wales, more direct and quicker than the train. It left me with an afternoon to begin the third stage of my big walk. The plan is to follow Offa's Dyke until it meets the Montgomery Canal near Oswestry, then to turn east across Shropshire and Cheshire to the Peak District and the start of the Pennine Way.
I started where I’d finished in Chepstow and since I wasn’t intent on walking the length of Offa’s Dyke, I didn’t feel the need to backtrack a mile and a half to its start above the River Severn, so I crossed the River Wye and continued uphill to follow the river north from on high. The banking above the path is the Dyke I guess. The path guide extols this first section as ‘widely regarded as one of the classic walks of lowland Britain'. It’s pleasant, but that’s way over-egging the pudding. Much of the walk is on forest trail, with a view across the Wye obscured, exceptions being a good view of the river bend at Wintour’s Leap and of Tintern Abbey from the Devil’s Pulpit. Shortly after that came the first navigational puzzle, leaving Offa’s Dyke to try to find the right way along a maze of country lanes up to St Briavel’s for the night’s stay. I made it to St Briavels YH just before very light rain turned into a downpour around 5pm. Enough for a first day - I was obviously tired as I went for a lie down after the hostel meal (very substantial serving of sausages, mash and peas with gravy) and only woke at 10pm in time to go to sleep again. It would have been a noisy night under canvass, so a wise choice.
This is a trip down memory lane as I stayed here as my third stop on my LEJOG cycle trip in about 1986. Slightly slower progress this time. The YH is in a castle with creaky floorboards, but very comfortable beds (mattresses have been replaced since 1986).
up and down: over the Kymin c.13m Day 29 from Land's End, cuml. miles c.388m
Not an early start I'm afraid as I went for the cooked breakfast which was said to be available from 7am but didn't arrive till after 8am. I will no doubt have a few porridge days in days to come with chance of earlier start.
A good day. Pleasant walking, cool and overcast but no real rain. More forest trail to the village of Redbrook, apparently once a busy river port, and its excellent Village Store and Post Office. Then up to the Kymin, 18th century roundhouse, built by the gentlemen of the Kymin Club as a Gentlemans’ Meeting and Dining place, and Naval Temple built in 1800 after the Battle of the Nile. Nelson paid it a visit in 1802. He had a great view overlooking Monmouth. I hurried down, over the river and past Monmouth School for Boys which clearly takes its rugger and cricket and rowing seriously, into Monmouth for a very late cafe stop and cheese and tomato sandwich.
The way out of Monmouth is over the now pedestrianised Monnow Bridge. Though reconstructed in the 18th and 19th centuries, it is the only medieval bridge with gate tower (c1270s) left in Great Britain. The nearby stone-built Robin Hood pub is just 200+ years younger in origin. I was quickly through a much newer estate and walking along the edge of harvested fields and up through a wood to finish at a campsite at Hendre just after 5pm. Nice hot shower, a kettle which means I don't have to use fuel for my stove to heat water, a pretty flat pitch and not many other campers. The birds in the nearby trees are making more noise. I met only two other hikers going the other way during the day and I’m the only one staying here. It is absolutely still.
Moderate uphill in the afternoon c.14m Day 30 from Land's End cuml. miles c.402
It was a peaceful evening yesterday, but at some time in the late/early hours, the neighbouring farmer decided that it was the only time to start shifting stuff with heavy machinery and blazing lights. So much for undisturbed sleep.
The creatures that scare me on Offa's Dyke are the cows. Last time I passed this way, two of them charged me when I turned my back and it was a close thing to make it to the out gate. This time the same field had a group of young ones. I stopped before the in gate and they came up the field to take a look at me. I decided on a little food and drink break hidden from sight, rather than direct confrontation, and they got bored of waiting to grind me into the dirt and wandered upfield in search of some other thing to pick on. There were another couple of cow fields to negotiate, but I got through without incident. I have to say I feel a little safer with my walking poles stuck out on either side to warn off any that get too feisty.
After that the path led through an apple orchard, cornfield, past the White Castle (a Marcher defence against the Welsh) and then generally upward towards Pandy. I was revived mid-afternoon by a church stop, with coffee and kettle laid out for passing walkers. That is the way to get me looking more favourably towards religion. Few taking advantage of this benevolence - I didn't see another Offa's Dyke walker all day. The only sound was the meowing of a buzzard.
I reached Pandy and am staying on the campsite of the Rising Sun, in which I am currently ensconced watching the European Athletics Championships. Its bean chilly with chips and rice was very good.
up, up, along, down, down, down c.18m Day 31 from Land's End cuml. miles 420
The way up onto the Black Mountains ridge, road then path, didn’t seem that long, the way across clear and easy, but the descent to reach Hay on Wye takes ages. Not hot, not cold except for a chilly breeze at the start of the ridge, no rain and could see a long way over Herefordshire. The horse in the final field before Hay was agitated by something and charging about. My goodness are they fast and powerful. I crept by. Got to Hay just before 5pm, too late for a cafe stop but the Spa shop was open for a boost to supplies. The campsite is a bit the other side of the river. Very pleasant: they provided me with a thermos of hot water so that I didn't need to boil water for dinner or breakfast. I passed two other Offa's Dyke walkers on the trail, doing two stages, who turned up here after I’d settled in.
Flat then undulating c.14½ Day 32 from Land's End, cuml. miles 434½
There was a shower early this morning, so I turned over for another 20 minutes in 'bed', but it was dry all day again. An excellent varied day’s walking, first through riverside meadow, then rising and falling countryside to the little village of Newchurch where St Mary’s Church provided coffee and a biscuit for a happily given donation. I was just finishing my coffee with a sandwich outside, looking at the interesting gravestones, when the two walkers from the campsite shot by, apparently unaware of the available coffee break. Soon after, I caught them up, then went ahead again when they stopped to eat, then a little after Gladestry, they leapfrogged me on the Hergest Ridge, and finally we ended up walking into Kington together (where they were finishing).
The campsite here is also a good find. The warden couple in charge of the site from their big tent, provide a chair and mug of tea or coffee on arrival, electric points for recharging phones, and there is a spindryer, so I washed socks etc, and my spun washing is hanging overnight in the awning of the wardens' tent. £11, no extra for showers. Finally I walked the short distance into town and found a little Thai restaurant that was excellent.
Oh, do you like the cute little shrew I met on the path. It stayed quite still while I took its photo, then waited till I'd moved on up the path before making for the undergrowth.
undulating c.14m + detours Day 33 from Land's End, cuml. miles 448½
From Kington to Knighton was supposed to be half a mile shorter, at 14 miles, but ended up a bit long after several detours. First I went slightly wrong walking out of Kington and over the wrong footbridge, then I went too high on Kington Golf Course and took time finding the stile to get off it, then I walked on a path the wrong side of a copse that led to barb wire rather than a stile, then I went straight on to the top of Herrick Hill rather than forking round to the side. This on a day when I started late due to waiting for the campsite wardens to wake up (my washing was drying in their caravan awning) and then being tempted by a supplementary café breakfast. I reached the campsite the other side of Knighton in time to pitch the tent before dark. It’s rather a simple site with a temporary shower in farm buildings in another field, found by torchlight, Fortunately the wash and toilet block is nearer and has an electric kettle, though its light is on a short time sensor which requires frequent movement.
Offa’s Dyke appeared again today for the first time since the first afternoon, and the path walked beside and occasionally on it for long stretches. Much eroded/trodden-down no doubt, but it was great to be walking in 8th century footsteps. It remains a mystery as to why Offa commanded all this landscaping. Later a herd of sheep followed me, which I wouldn't have minded except that I was slightly off-route and trying to find my way back on amongst much bleating. Hopefully I’ve got all of this extra walking done in one day.
testing ups and downs c.14.5m Day 34 from Land's End, cuml. miles 463
The guide warned me of the toughest day in the Shropshire Hills and it was correct. Several genuinely steep ups and downs over 14.5 miles (after one mile back into Knighton for food and a bacon and egg butty). Fortunately only one minor detour so I arrived at Mellington Hall in time to pitch the tent, shower and eat before dark. This appears to be a stately home which is paying the bills by giving over a section of its grounds to static holiday caravans and a small patch of grass for passing Offa's Dyke hikers. Just me today. Very friendly and obliging scouse warden, provided me with hot water for tea and rehydrating the free-dried. I passed the halfway mark, 88.5 miles, of Offa’s Dyke today.
My minor detour came near the start and fortuitously led me to walking the first part of the day with Jan, who had watched me plough on up the hill and then backtrack, rather than take the path around. She knew I had gone wrong, not only by being more with it, but also having OS maps on her mobile. I am converted: so much easier to halt briefly to consult a to hand mobile, and see the red arrow showing where you are and even which direction you're facing. She was also good company, but doing a shorter day to a B&B.
flat, long up, long down c.13m Day 35 from Land's End, cuml. miles 476
A walk of two halves. The first half fairly level through farmers’ fields across the Vale of Montgomery. Then the other side of Forden, a long uphill, starting on a lane following a Roman Road, and then through a pinewood to the site of an ancient fortress (now a tree-covered hillock) and then long downhill through sheep-fields. I can understand sheep-farming being the only viable type of farming, with government subsidy, on rugged mountainsides, but I do wonder whether Shropshire and Welsh border farmers couldn’t have other options for some of their hillsides. The sheep cropped grass is very nice to walk on though.
Eventually I got down to the Green Dragon Pub/B&B/campsite at Buttington, just NE of Welshpool. I was looking forward to this; an evening of home-cooked food and imagining it as the cosy Green Dragon in Hobbiton. Anticipation killed stone dead: a sign outside the pub said it was not open that evening due to electric problems. All associated with the pub appeared to have gone to Welshpool to find an electrician. The campsite wasn't closed though and the hot shower for campers was working. I was out of evening meals but not completely out of good fortune. One of the campervan campers gave me a surplus chicken and leek pasty and then a lone touring cyclist arrived with rice, beans and sardines, which he invited me to share. A slightly odd mix but it filled a spot just as I was thinking I would be making do with porridge. It stayed dry again all day until a few spots in the late afternoon and a few more after I reached the campsite.
flat c.14½m Day 36 from Land's End, cuml. miles 490½
There was a shower at about 6am, but then it was dry all day. The first part of the walk was across fields by the wandering Severn, then along the Montgomery Canal. Some lovely trusting local entrepreneur had set out chairs and under a parasol, home-made cakes that were too tempting to resist for a late elevenses. Maybe because of this pause I was caught up by that rarity, another Offa’s Dyke walker who had wild-camped before the Green Dragon. He was an arborist from whom I learned that there are two native oak species: the Pedunculate (Common or English) Oak and the Sessile (Cornish or Irish) Oak have different leaves and lengths of acorn storks.
At Llanymynech I parted company with my arboreal expert and with Offa’s Dyke, as he continued north on it, while I stayed on the Canal Towpath to head east. Montgomery Canal is the most peaceful. In 1936 an embankment was breached which made it unnavigable and it was abandoned to nature until the Friends of Montgomery Canal began restoration work in 1969. It’s now navigable west from its junction with the Llangollen Canal at Frankton Locks, but only boaters seeking real tranquillity venture down to the dead end just past Maesbury Marsh (village). Beyond, it’s still given over to wildlife until another navigable but unconnected section past Welshpool. I know all this because the cyclist at the campsite gave me a guide and maps to the Llangollen and Montgomery Canals, which will prove invaluable in guiding me bridge by numbered bridge, all the way east to Middlewich over three days.
Today I was just heading to Canal Central (Bridge 80), but found its tearoom, shop and campsite were all closed until the weekend. The Navigation Inn at the next bridge also only opened for long weekends. Fortunately Fairhaven Campsite, just a mile or so off the canal near Maesbury Marsh, was open, with a lovely owner who took in my laundry. I still wasn’t provisioned, however, so I had to resort to calling for a takeaway curry from nearby Oswestry. Mistakenly I went for the Special Biriyani thinking that would deliver a copious simple meal. I should have remembered the SB is always bland, greasy and filled out with those big tasteless king prawns, but it did the job.
flat c.23m Day 37 from Land's End, cuml. miles 513½
The Montgomery Canal may be the best for wildlife watchers, but it’s lined by trees on either side preventing a view of the countryside. Soon, however, I was up to the Frankton Locks and after a chat with the lock-keeper, turned right onto the Llangollen Canal to Ellesmere. If I’d gone left, it would have taken me up to Thomas Telford’s superb Pontcysyllte Aqueduct (which the Offa’s Dyke path crosses) and on to Llangollen. Fortunately, Ellesmere was much nearer going the other way and I arrived for a very late lunch/2nd breakfast of poached eggs on avocado on sour bread and coffee and a big chocolate brownie. Then to a Tesco next to the canal inlet for much needed provisions.
I was thinking of stopping at a campsite near Cole Mere, not far past Ellesmere but forgot to note the bridge number to get off at and went straight by. So I carried on, a long way, to a campsite just a little short of Whitchurch. A friendly cyclist paced me over the final miles (me going as fast as possible, he as slow). It got dark as I was pitching the tent and I ate dinner, a Tesco’s beef risotto, by the light of the shower block. It’s dark much earlier than when I began walking in May. And colder under a starry sky.
Almost level c.18½ Day 38 from Land's End, cuml. miles 532
Another day of towpath walking until the afternoon, when I made the decision to leave the canal, thinking it would be quicker to cut out the dog-leg of canal junctions and go across country by lane and footpath to pick up the Shropshire Union Canal north of Nantwich. This was a mistake. One should trust canal engineers to have found the most level way, instead of which I was back to hard and hot tarmac, cars, and stiles and overgrown footpaths. It was hot and I ran so low on water that I had to go knocking on doors to replenish a bottle. Then I faced the difficulty of a place to stop. This part of Cheshire not only has a dearth of campsites but also a dearth of B&Bs, especially ones with vacancies at the beginning of a bank holiday weekend. And while it has level countryside, much of it is given over to cattle. With my mobile phone dying, I called in to a fancy hotel at Worlesdon. The receptionist declined to offer a discount to a sweaty backpacker, but bless her, she spent the remaining time of her shift phoning around to try to find me a cheaper bed, within walking distance. Her endeavours came to naught though, and I had dallied too long to want to pick my heavy backpack up again and trek on, so I parted with a wodge of cash for a comfortable bed and to be swooned over by nice staff. We probably both knew this would be the end result.
flat c.12m Day 39 from Land's End, cuml. miles 544
Change of plan. The bottom of my left leg has been niggling me towards the end of the last day or so (shin splints?) and could benefit from rest. Also I’m feeling more tired after three days of flat walking and a night in a comfortable bed than after all the ups and downs and camping on Offa's Dyke. Affordable lodging also seems unavailable over the Bank Holiday weekend. So I’ve hiked up the road and along the canal towpath to Middlewich and then a rather less pleasant last four miles by the side of a busy road to Holmes Chapel, and jumped on a train back to base. I would have liked to have made it over to join the Pennine Way, but now I’ve left a couple of days lead in to get there when I start out again. At least I made it to the right side of the M6. Now for a little time out and RICE. Cheshire I might say, is full of large dairy farms and otherwise large houses which I suspect to be those of ManU diaspora.
slightly undulating c.11m Day 40 from Land's End cuml. miles c.555
If the 8:04 from Watford Junction hadn't been cancelled, I would never have been on the slow train to Edinburgh, looking up to see the parrot perched on the shoulder of the man across the aisle. Introductions were duly made and parrot came across for a photo. Apparently three years old, raised in the same household from a chick, free to fly at home but on a leash when travelling. Fine recompense for a delayed journey which saw me into Holmes Chapel via Crewe at midday.
I had to get a bit of a shift on to make it over to my intended destination, the campsite at Sutton Lane Ends, just south of Macclesfield. All quiet country lanes except the last bit along a canal. Made it just before six, and tent pitched, hot shower and evening meal consumed before the night descended. Fortunately it was a nice day in Cheshire with just a few drops of rain as I was pitching the tent. No photos other than me and the parrot, as I was trying to save time and phone charge, and the country lanes of Cheshire didn't offer particularly enticing views except for the ridge line of the western boundary of the Peak District getting closer. The balls of my feet are just a little tender, a result of fast walking on roads and a lighter summer pair of walking socks, but I think I got blister plasters on before any real damage. I shall see tomorrow.
flat, then up and over c.13m Day 41 from Land's End, cuml. miles 568
I got off to a reasonably early start at 8:15, along the canal past Macclesfield to Bollington, where I took a good hour out at the Bollington Community café, with a pleasantly priced coffee, while my phone charged, and then joined the camping and caravan club which has taken over several of the campsites en-route.
This marked the end of flat canal tow-path walking days. Up I went onto the Peak District and along the Gritstone Trail. Extensive views. Descent to New Mills in sunshine while looking across at a rainbow on Kinder Scout, then along a valley trail to Hayfield.
It didn't rain all day until I stepped out of the Hayfield store with food for tomorrow and a mile still to walk to the campsite. But it turned out to be a short mile and rained only lightly. I decided, after pitching the tent, to put the hot shower on hold and go for food at the nearby Sportsman's Arms while the rain held off. So I have just enjoyed a rather delicious chicken breast and am contemplating a dessert. It is raining outside but only lightly. Dessert ordered - an alcoholic bread and butter pudding. I may well get soaked on the way back to the tent, but I am going to be full.
Rest Day at Hayfield Day 42 from Land's End
I have a little niggle, left leg (again), a little above outside ankle, so decided to have a rest day before heading up the Pennine Way (PW). Walked back to Hayfield, sans backpack, for an evening curry at the Royal and met the farmer couple and their lovely sheepdog family; mum, dad and two brothers. The blue plague on the stone terrace on the way out of Hayfield celebrates the early childhood home of Arthur Lowe (Captain Mainwaring). Lowe’s father worked for Great Central Railway. Hayfield had its own branch line from New Mills, built to supply its cotton mills and then becoming used by weekend walkers coming out from Manchester. It ran until 1970.
up, over the moor and down c.14½m Day 43 from Land's End cuml. miles 582½
Another calm night and no rain.
I’m aware that the Pennine Way (PW) south end starts at Edale but I’d have to trek back along it to get there. I’m perfectly comfortable ascending from Hayfield and Kinder Reservoir beside the stream of William Clough (the clough named after a local William) to join the PW on top of Kinder Scout. That’s the way the walkers of the Kinder Scout Mass Trespass ascended in 1932, having come out on the train. I left the campsite at 8:30 and joined the PW at 10:05 just short of the rise of Mill Hill. I was at the Snake Pass Road within another hour, walking made easy as flagstones have been laid all the way across Kinder Scout. Flagstones have also been laid along parts of the path across Bleaklow too, which certainly makes it easier and keeps feet dry. I say have been, because I've been this way before, in about 1978, tramping up the PW with fellow Venture Scouts, being introduced to the joy of sharing the outdoors, and wet feet.
The path goes past the crash site wreckage of the B29 Superfortress that crashed into Bleaklow in 1948 due to low cloud while flying between bases in Lincolnshire and Cheshire. The plane had previously been used to photograph the Bikini Atoll nuclear test and just taken part in the Berlin Airlift, but this flight was a payroll run. The money survived the crash fire and was recovered. Thirteen crew were killed. Two further USAF and five RAF planes have also crashed into Bleaklow. It can be bleak. The weather was kind to me. I got over Bleaklow Top before a fairly heavy but brief shower at ten past one followed by a little lighter rain. Then it stopped until I had descended and was 10 minutes from the campsite, when a thunderstorm of deluge proportions got me. I managed to stay dryish - a good test of my waterproofs, and it stopped shortly after arrival. The midges then came out as I pitched the tent. Fortunately I can get that done pretty quickly. Crowden is in the middle of Longdale which is filled by five reservoirs and the main road from Manchester to Sheffield. No internet signal though.
My left leg behaved itself. The rest day has done the trick, I hope.
undulating c.20m Day 44 from Land's End cuml. miles 602½
The PW seems to have dealt with its summer rush and now there’s hardly anyone on it. I met Stefan from Slovenia at the campsite, but he got off ahead of me this morning and looks to be doing it in lightweight style, so I doubt I’ll see him again.
Today was quintessential Dark Peak undulating peat bog/moor plodding broken by the occasional road crossing. A bit of an ascent up the watercourse to Black Hill, then to the road crossing at Wessenden Head, across Black Moss, past a couple of reservoirs, another road crossing, along Standedge, another road, more moor, then what seemed like a landmark, the bridge across the M62 and up onto Blackstone Edge. I called it a long dark peak day when I got to the White House PH by Blackstone Edge Reservoir and called my friend who conveniently lives just down the road in Calderdale. An evening of curry, pub and convivial chat made quite a change. I didn’t actually sleep that well in a comfy bed.
undulating c.18½m Day 45 from Land's End, cuml. miles 621
Not the earliest of starts, but once dropped at the White House, I made good progress across the moor to Stoodley Pike, the landmark obelisk above Hebden Bridge (the original, started in 1814 to celebrate Napaoleon’s surrender, was completed just after Waterloo but collapsed when struck by lightning in 1854. Its replacement has survived so far). The PW should then descend to Hebden Bridge for a choice of café stop, but instead descends to the road a mile from town. I need a specific incentive, or to be out of food to make a detour with a loaded backpack, so I ascended all those metres lost since Stoodley Pike and plodded on. The weather stayed dry all day but clouded over as I descended past High Withins in the late afternoon, to give an appropriately moody setting. Interesting to note a signpost to help those who have made a 5,000 mile literary pilgrimage stick to the path (步道, budao = path). The translation for Wuthering Heights wasn’t given, but Chinese know it as 呼啸山庄, Huxiao shanzhuang (whistling mountain villa) which sounds suitable.
Not long after, I got down to Ponden Reservoir and found the campsite at Ponden Mill. The Mill is now a B&B with bar and event space, but as there was no event on and I was the only camper, the owner didn’t keep the bar open till I’d pitched the tent, showered and eaten. Not long after, rain started beating pretty heavily on the tent and I was just happy to take to my sleeping bag.
undulating, then fairly flat c.21¾ Day 46 from Land's End, cuml. miles 642¾
Spent most of the morning crossing boggy ground in hill mist. I was having doubts about the beauty of the sparse moorland, but then the landscape got greener up ahead and I knew I’d finally reached the Dales. I had my first lunchtime pub stop since setting off in Cornwall, at the Hare & Hounds in Lothersdale (Welsh Rarebit and sweet potato chips). Post lunch, there was one more bit of moor to go over and then a brief bit of canal towpath along the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, reminding me of the miles I’d done in Shropshire and Cheshire, though this was rather muddier, before more fields to led to Gargrave. Stopping there would have been a decent day but I got tempted into continuing on to the Friends’ (Quakers) Meeting House and Barn in Airton whose website said it was open all year round, and that if the bunkhouse was full, there was room for three tents in the grounds. I couldn’t get a response from the phone number, but trusted that it would be open, or a serene spot for a wild-camp would appear.
Four miles of rolling fields and path by the River Aire later, I got to Airton as the light was going and found the Meeting House, but locked up and no sign of life. Around the back, the lower part of the ground was given over to ex-Friends, leaving a nice grass patch for a tent. As it turned out, I couldn’t have picked a more undisturbed wild-camp with no light or sound from the village.
some proper ups and downs c.16¾ Day 47 from Land's End, cuml. miles 659½
Cloudless last night (I was just about warm in my just about 3-season sleeping bag) and my goodness it was cold first thing this morning for the forty-minute stroll along the river to Malham, where I hoped to get breakfast. Surprisingly for a tourist trap and climbing mecca, there looked to be only one café in the village, which didn’t open till 10am (Pete Livesey's climbers’ café is sadly long gone) so I treated myself to breakfast at Beck Hall Hotel. All inclusive, expensive, but very good. Then I hung around waiting for a cafe or shop to open to get something for lunch, but everything remained closed. So back to Beck Hall, where I had left my pack, and the kitchen conceded to make money for very little, rustling up a sausage sandwich and a Danish pastry (left-overs from breakfast) to see me through to Horton. In addition to nuts.
When I finally got underway, the walk from Malham to Horton was excellent, in beautiful warm sunshine. Maybe the best of the PW so-far. First to Malham Cove, the ascent to the limestone pavement on top, then on to Malham Tarn, then a deceptively long way up to the top of Fountains Fell and a first sight of Pen-y-ghent across the valley. Or Penyghent as Alfred Wainwright (AW) tells us; ‘a real mountain at last.’ I made good progress down to the road, but then took a considerable time-out providing an audience for a motor-biker, relating his glory days as a triathlete back in the day of proper hard triathlons like the Yorkshire Dales. Once free of reminiscing, there was just Penyghent to get over and a bit of geographical wiggling. The PW turns south-west down the road, then east to pass Dale Head until a turn north at the Churn Milk Hole shake hole and the steep but easier than it looks climb to the top of Penyghent. North along the top for a bit until dropping west off the mountain. Then the awful part of the day, a long stoney track descent going the wrong way, back south to Horton in Ribblesdale. I’ve been this way before and don’t remember the path being too bad, but it’s different with a full backpack; I felt every sharp stone.
uphill drag, then comfortable c.15m Day 48 from Land's End, cuml.miles 674½
Lightweight tents sell on the basis of weight savings and pack size, but the quoted weights should really be as packed up wet, unless they deal really well with condensation. The inside of my tent’s flysheet, after a dry night in the UK, is usually wet. One either waits for it to dry out in morning sun, or packs up. Aside from the wet weight, as I pack the inner and outer together (the inner hangs from the outer), by the end of the day, some of that moisture has usually got through to the inside of the groundsheet. So before I lay out sleeping mat and bag, I usually have to mop dry. Fortunately I have a magic towel, which works a bit like a chamois. It dries the tent and still works sufficiently to dry me after a shower. Just about.
Today wasn’t warm enough to dry the tent, so I packed up and headed off without delay. It stayed colder, with a chilly breeze, so no second day of t-shirt weather. A lot of the way was on stoney tracks which didn’t make for particularly pleasant walking and the views were pretty barren. An exception was a great view of the Ribblesdale Viaduct at one point (as per photo). Nor was the walk enhanced by food. The SWCP is so much better for this. The Golden Lion in Horton-in-R was good for steak pie, chips and peas, but their packed lunches are a total con. £8 for one cheese sandwich, cut into two triangles, no pickle, apple, bag of crisps and a bottle of water. Which walker doesn't bring a bottle with them? The alternative would have been to catch the train to Settle for re-supply.
I got to the Youth Hostel in Hawes twenty minutes before it opened its doors at 5pm. Stefan was there before me. Apart from us two, I’ve just crossed paths with an occasional person or two doing a couple of stages, and maybe two people walking the Pennine Way from the north, but that's it. I am camping on grass at the back of the YH as the cost for camping is £17 compared to £55 for a room. The hostel seems to be still affiliated to the YHA although independently run, by a lady with a strong Eastern European accent, and it no longer does cheap dormitory accommodation. Youth hostels aren't what they were. But it’s providing a warm common room, hot shower, acceptable dinner of vegetable lasagne and chips and a kitchen for making my breakfast. Also a much-needed clothes wash and dry for me, along with my Slovenian friend, so I am grateful to these people who have stepped into the breach left by the YHA.
Aside from sharing the laundry, Stefan has also helped me out with navigation. I have been using the OS maps app on my phone (see Offa’s Dyke walk from Knighton) but on the PW, sometimes the detailed map fails to open on demand to leave one staring at a space more empty than the surrounding moorland. As back-up I have Harvey’s excellent trail maps with three covering the PW, but today I stuffed the middle one in my backpack’s water bottle holder, and three miles down the stoney trail I discovered that it was no longer there. The solution; Stefan kindly let me photograph his trail maps, so I need not fear bringing up a white space when the map app fails. I'll make do without the you are here red pointer.
long up and down, then more up than down c.16¾m Day 49 from Land's End, cuml. miles 691¼
Hawes has rather more on offer than Horton-in-Ribblesdale. There’s not only a Spa, where I replenished my porridge oats, but also an independent grocer's which does good sandwiches and pasties and pies. I made good for a couple of days’ lunches and left Hawes in good spirits. Just as well, as that's a long old pull up to the top of Great Shunner Fell. To quote AW: ‘the way is long. Always there is a cairn ahead. Mile after mile is trodden. Always there is a cairn ahead.’ The summit when reached is the highest point so far walking north. Fabulous views back south to Ingleborough. Then down to Thwaite in Swaledale. A long way down.
The PW should then go gently east over fields and then north beside the river to Keld, where a welcome Youth Hostel awaits. Instead it skirts the hillside using the stoniest, rockiest path available, finally coming down to cross the river and head on north without troubling Keld. The brilliant Keld YH has in any case been sold off, upgraded and re-opened as a hotel. I decided not to trouble it, just about having the legs and the daylight to press on up Stonesdale to the Tan Hill Inn. Thankfully apart from being uphill, the way was comfortable. Nearing the Inn, the RAF gave me a noisy fly-past.
Tan Hill Inn. Highest public house in Great Britain (at 1732ft, 201ft higher than Wanlockhead Inn in Scotland), isolated on the top of Arkengarthdale. I rocked up expecting a log fire and a sprinkling of walker types, to find the place hosting a wedding reception. Fortunately by the time I’d added my tent to Stefan’s (he’d been up ahead all day), and two others, on the exposed moor beside the Inn, and made use of the basic but good campers’ outside shower, the wedding crowd had mostly cleared off to their own room, leaving space in the dining room, and a folk singer for outdoorsy types’ entertainment. The (veggie) bangers and mash, sold as vegetable hotpot hit the spot.
undulating c.16¾m Day 50 from Land's End, cuml. miles 708
It’s been colder the last two or three nights, particularly last night I guess, on top of the moor. I am having to layer up inside my sleeping bag. My phone reported 5C when I set off this morning. I almost put gloves on.
The first couple of hours was a cold, misty, boggy plod north-east across Sleightholme Moor. The Yorkshire Dales National Park surveyors excluded it, stopping at Tan Hill, and AW doesn’t hold back in calling it ‘tedious and uninteresting’. Hereon I’m in the North Pennines, though still for a while in Yorkshire’s North Riding. Just after the bridge over Sleightholme Beck, Stefan appeared from nowhere. He’d been taking a break and trying to warm up and get some energy back in one of the animal shelters. I think he’d underestimated how many layers might be needed for the Pennines in mid-September. Anyway, he seemed to be recovered and shot off after an even speedier lone and less burdened walker who overtook us both. Briefly we were three in a row, but they fairly soon disappeared out of sight.
At Trough Heads Farm, with plenty of the day left, I turned north, the honourable way according to AW, rather than taking the Bowes ‘soft’ alternative. Soon after, I stopped for a break on God’s Bridge, a natural limestone bridge over the River Greta, and then went under the A66, the main east-west road across the Pennines. Fortunately the weather got brighter and warmer. More moor followed including descent into Deepdale to cross a couple of rivers, ascent and then descent to Blackton Reservoir in Baldersdale. A further moor crossing led to a bridge over Grassholme Reservoir and up again onto the moor before, finally, a pleasant grass path descent to Middleton-in-Teesdale. I’m now in County Durham. I think the border was a little before Baldersdale.
I was happy to find a campsite, again mostly static caravans, before the bridge over the river into town. I walked to the main street after pitching the tent, but I’ll have to come back in the morning as I was too late for the baker’s. I am back on steak pie, mash and peas tonight at the campsite pub. It's ok, but I will also need a rest from pub grub when I finish this walk.
river walk, uphill grind, down c.21m Day 51 from Land's End, cuml. miles 729
Another long day, again. But a really excellent refreshing one after yesterday. The weather was almost cloudless from the start until late on. And up till Cauldron Snout, it was a beautiful flattish walk by the Tees, past Low and High Force. It made a nice break from ups and downs.
Stefan appeared again – he’d started out later than me this time, having decided that he needed the recuperation of a B&B in Middleton after struggling the previous day. His struggles weren't helped by a nasty blister. My goodness I know that problem, though I've had no trouble on this my fourth leg of walking from Land's End. So I had some spare New Zealand lamb's wool padding and offered a bit of first aid. This stuff is just the bee's knees, far superior to blister plasters. Not overhyped in marino wool fashion. I guess drovers probably used a similar remedy years ago. It got Stefan moving in relative comfort again anyway.
The flatish walk came to an end with a nice scramble up by the side of Cauldron Snout, followed by a long slog up a gravel track and then more pleasant river walking that took us to the top of High Cup Gill. How is it that I hadn’t heard of this spectacular place before; England's version of the Grand Canyon perhaps. Then, as with the way down to Horton, there followed a long stoney track down to Dufton, just to remind that every day must include a little suffering. And after all that, I’m a lot further west, but not even as far north as yesterday.
The Dufton YHA still exists. I remember pitching up here on my LEJOG cycle ride in 1986. But no bed was to be had in 2022 because the YHA hierarchy has stipulated that dorms are to be family only, still citing covid restrictions. Fortunately there’s a campsite two minutes up the road. Stefan, with foresight, is taking a more comfortable approach, having booked a B&B. The pleasant YHA warden eased my hardship considerably though, by agreeing that I could return for dinner, and warmth, and saving of a rehydrated pouch meal, and to come back for breakfast. I’m glad I brought a head-torch.
proper uphill, then downward slog c.20m Day 52 from Land's End, cuml. miles 749
Thank goodness I had a double-breakfast in Dufton, firstly my excellent camp porridge and then a YHA cooked breakfast. The following walk up onto but around the radar station on Great Dunn Fell, and then a little higher to the shelter on the top of Cross Fell was excellent. Cross Fell, at 2930’ is the highest point on the PW. Time for hat, gloves and windproof. After dropping off the top, the PW follows the old Corpse Road all the way down to Garrigill. It’s so-named because, as with other ancient corpse roads, it was used to transfer loaded coffins from isolated villages to somewhere that had consecrated ground. It’s aptly named for these days, because the trudge along the wide stoney path that desecrates the landscape is foot and soul-destroying. I was fairly anti-PW by the time I reached Garrigill. Then there were another four miles following above the river to Alston. Nearing Alston the path went past one of the rare youth hostels, and I would gladly have stopped there, but it was closed. So on to Alston.
I called in at the Cumberland Hotel to get directions for a campsite and enquire how much more it would be to stay put, and didn’t need much persuading to opt for a comfy night. And also to get my laundry done. Fortunately I was in good time for dinner, as shortly after my serving, the 60 amp fuse for the kitchen electricity blew. Not that there was too much delay. One of the other diners was an electrician who knew how to install a spare fuse.
Tomorrow I should make it to Hadrian’s Wall.
easy - undulating - route march c.22¼m Day 53 from Land's End, cuml. miles 771¼
Started in leisurely fashion but another long day. I would have had a relaxed start anyway after a cooked breakfast, but was delayed further waiting for laundry to tumble dry. Wool socks take an age. So didn't leave the hotel in Alton until 10:45. The PW started out as a fairly gentle walk NW, past the first sign of the Romans at Epiacum Fort, into Northumberland, up the valley of the South Tyne River and nicely flat by the South Tyneside railway until Slaggyford station. The train line survived Beeching’s destruction, only to close in 1976, but reopened in 2018 as South Tynedale heritage railway. I was dreamily hopeful of an open station café, but no such luck.
AW describes the next miles: ‘undulating cow-inhabited pastures succeeded by a dull and featureless moorland that has not even the merit of a decent altitude.’ I see his point. And it extends for a good while. I didn’t get to my intended day-end at Greenhead until about 6:30.
Reaching Greenhead is a bit of a landmark for PW walkers. As AW points out, by name this should be the end of the walk as the dull moorland just passed is the northern extremity of the Pennines. The River South Tyne did a sharp turn to the east just before Greenhead to head for Newcastle, and the barrier of Hadrian’s Wall runs along the top of the escarpment to the north. But the PW can’t miss out on this walk back in time, and, to finish in a tiny village in Scotland, must run on for another 60 miles or so, becoming a Cheviot Way. Greenhead does though seem like a good place for a break, with both a hostel and campsite marked on the map. I duly called in at the hotel which has taken over running the hostel, over the road, only to be told that the hostel was fully booked out by a school party and the campsite had closed some time ago. A room in the hotel was £120. The nearest campsite is off the military road (B6318) near Haltwhistle.
The choice, other than blowing the budget, was to continue on the PW to a wild camp below the Wall, or to march up the military road to campsite (shower) and nearby pub (food). That gave two reasons to temporarily abandon the PW. A third was that I’m trying to save my last freeze-dried meal for the Cheviots crossing. Decision made. The military road is mostly very straight, and quiet at dusk in September, as the A69 between Carlisle and Newcastle caters to most of today's speedsters. The Milecastle Inn was on the corner of the turnoff to the first campsite, so I called in, and the good people phoned the campsite to say I was coming. Reception would stay open for me. So off I went again, hungry but having ordered food, another half a mile to the campsite, pitched with the aid of headtorch (it’s a no light campsite), and walked torchlit back to the Inn and dinner. I have just polished off a very good nut roast and await chocolaty dessert and ice-cream. Then just another half mile back to a hot shower and I should sleep well tonight. It’s been one of the longest days.
(Would I have persuaded myself to abandon the PW a little earlier and follow the South Tyne Trail, and the river to Haltwhistle, if I’d known there was no hostel or campsite at Greenhead? Several miles of featureless moorland and a road march would have been avoided, and I wouldn’t have been still walking in the pitch black. Oh well!)
undulating c.19¼m Day 54 from Land's End, cuml. miles c.790½
Hadrian's Wall was begun in 122AD, and built in 6 years, mainly of stone. Offa's Dyke, 8th century, is also amazing, though rather more weathered. By comparison, there’s little to be seen of the earth-built Qin Dynasty (221-206BC) Great Wall. The brick Great Wall is amazing, but it was constructed in the Ming Dynasty, so not before 1368. One can’t help being patriotic striding along in the footsteps of the Romans, even if they were invaders of Britannia. It made for an excellent first couple of up and down hours, before the PW left the Wall for the wild north.
Actually rather more man-directed than wild, sixteen centuries on from the Romans departure. There’s a bit of open countryside, but Wark Forest (a southern part of Kilder) is soon reached. This is the Mirkwood of the Pennine Way. And Forest England made sure I lost all sense of direction with an alternative Pennine Way to avoid storm damage, which seemed to involve a zig-zag course along the stoniest of their forest roads.
One has to have faith that if one keeps on going, eventually the other side will be reached. Emerged from the forest, there was more up and down before Bellingham (pron. Bellinjam). I chose to stop at the first campsite, a Camping and Caravanning Club place with spotless facilities, but am somewhat regretting the choice as it’s 15-20 minutes short of the village. I walked in after pitching the tent, sans backpack thank-goodness, but too late for pub dinner servings. Fortunately the co-op was still open and fortunately this C&C site has both an oven and a microwave. I mixed cuisines: pizza heated in the oven and chicken curry done in the micro-wave. I can eat for two. The impact of those stones on my poor feet is just about wearing off.
Rest Day Day 55 from Land's End
Twelve days on the Pennine Way to get here, maybe only two more to the end, but I am cumulatively fatigued and have decided to have a rest day.
On a rest day, there is no need to do anything quickly. I wandered up to the village for a café breakfast (the Rocky Road Café) while the sun dealt with the condensation on the tent. Then wandered back, packed up and went back to the Rocky Road for lunch before setting up at a farm campsite five minutes away. There are two other campers here. The showers are along by the side of the cowshed. It’s perfect for my needs but I don’t know how people can walk the Pennine Way, on a budget anymore, without being kitted out and weighed down for camping. The farm also used to have a bunkhouse but has made that a holiday cottage, Bellingham YH no longer exists and nor does Byrness YH (the last place before Kirk Yetholm). It’s now Forest View Walkers Inn, offering fewer beds and none available for tomorrow night. A last pitch with shower may be available at the Border Forest campsite just before Byrness. Kirk Yetholm YH does still exist as a SYHA affiliate hostel called Kirk Yetholm Friends of Nature House. At the moment it still has beds available.
I went to a different place for evening meal, the Fountain Cottage café. Very pleasant. Today, rest day, the sun shone again. I gather it will rain tomorrow.
undulating c.24¼m Day 56 from Land's End, cuml.miles 814¾
Number one priority before hitting the PW, was a visit to the Village Bakery, the last place for supplies before Kirk Yetholm, 70km away. Its Cornish pasties are excellent and cheaper than any I’d bought in Cornwall. The rest day seemed to do the trick. Definitely felt more sprightly. The first few miles were across featureless moorland, then even less interesting, through Redesdale Forest, but thank goodness, on a less stoney and straighter track than before the rest day. It looked like it could rain anytime, but started only lightly as I emerged from the trees at the Blakehopeburnhaugh (yes, all one word) picnic area and conveniences. At that point I made a big mistake by not topping up my backpack’s bladder and water bottles, thinking I could top up at Byrness. The last campsite came up soon after, but it was still early afternoon, too early to stop and leaving too many miles to Kirk Yetholm. A short walk along a river and I reached the A68 main road. Now it dawned on me that the PW only goes a short way along the road to Byrness before taking a steep path up onto the Cheviots. I should have detoured to get water (not from the river with a sewage works half a mile upstream), but it was pouring and I really wanted to get to the Yearning Saddle Mountain Refuge before dark.
My plan was this: Byrness to Kirk Yetholm is about 28 miles over boggy ground. I walked it in one day in my youth, between youth hostels, so not loaded down, and it was a long day. The Mountain Refuge is 8.5 miles on from Byrness. Walking that extra distance from Bellingham would make making it to Kirk Yetholm in daylight on the last day much less epic. Knowing I had a target, though safely with a tent that I could have stopped in, put an extra spring in my step. The downpour thankfully stopped as I ascended Byrness Hill and once up, the path along the tops proved surprisingly unboggy. It really has been a dry summer. It still took me about 3 and half hours to reach the refuge. Just in daylight.
And, though company is ok, thankfully I had the refuge to myself and so could spread my wet gear out, put on dry and settle in. The refuge is basic, wood, wooden seating and concrete floor, on which I put down my sleeping mat. Not warm, but warmer than an unsheltered tent. It was a good decision as it was a starlit night and the temperature was not much above freezing. An even better or more fortunate decision was that I had been carrying along a rice meal that just needed heating, not rehydrating. Dehydrated meals are great except when you need to preserve water for drinking. There is of course plenty of water on the Cheviot, all of it in peat bogs or peat-boggy burns. There is a clear stream at Hen Hole, north of The Cheviot. Ten miles way.
undulating c.19¼m Day 57 from Land's End, cuml. miles 834
A cold starry night and beautiful early morning. The refuge faces east so the entrance was bathed in warm sunshine. The miles this side of Byrness definitely paid off, leaving a comfortable distance today. And my final day good fortune, about 40 minutes in, was meeting a local rambler who was weighed down by too much water and happy to donate some. So I didn’t have to worry about pacing myself and limited water supply along to Hen Hole. Thereon I enjoyed a nice day on the Cheviots with intermittent sunshine. Just after the Cheviot (I didn’t divert to walk up to the top) I caught up with one other final day PW walker who’d overnighted in a farm B&B in a valley below. A couple of miles further on, the PW offered a last choice: a 4.5 mile high level route or a 4 mile alternative route down to Kirk Yetholm. I wonder how many people choose the high level route. I didn’t. And having followed the border all day, I strode into Scotland. The final downhill off the Cheviot is lovely, but the PW isn’t finished quite yet. There’s still a final bit of road and one testing little climb, before Kirk Yetholm finally comes into sight with just half a mile to go.
I made it. Down to Kirk Yetholm and to the Friends of Nature Hostel by ten to 5. Friends of Nature is apparently a long-established German/Austrian organisation that has taken over a few of the YHs that the YHA no longer wanted. A little more expensive than a YH dorm bed, but basically unchanged from the old hostel. And unless anyone else turns up while I'm having dinner in the hotel, I have the dorm to myself.
I have decided to finish walking here for the time being. The Pennine Way in fourteen days of walking and one rest day, which I was all the better for, was about my limit carrying all the gear. I could do with more than a day’s rest now, besides which it’s getting dark early and chilly at night (and my sleeping bag is not quite up to a clear sky temperature drop to near freezing). So that's the length of Britain walked. Maybe I'll get Scotland done next year.
From Treen, via Land’s End, to Kirk Yetholm took 53 days of walking with 4 mid-walk rest/recovery days, 45 nights in the tent, 1 on the concrete floor of a mountain refuge, 7 in B&Bs and 7 in hostels and 1 with home-comforts at a friend’s. Bedding down in the great outdoors is wonderful (a 3-4am dawn chorus not quite so much) although I still haven’t mastered a night of unbroken sleep inside a sleeping bag. After nights of camping I was pretty self-sufficient in the morning, cooking up porridge with added nuts and sometimes added flavour and carbs from an energy bar. Dinners were fairly evenly divided between cooking (or more often rehydrating freeeze-dried pouch food) in the great outdoors, and pub grub. The SWCP was the best for readily available cornish pasties, Offa's Dyke, with few en-route towns, probably the most problematic for on the move food and resupply.
Not everything went to plan, with injury and blisters intervening, but the upside was setting out on four different adventures after time out at home. And I had no injury or blister on the Pennine Way. What a joy. All in all, a great way to see the summer pass by.
From Kirk Yetholm, it's a bus to Kelso, bus to Berwick-upon-Tweed, bus (replacing train) to Newcastle, and train down to London. A full day's travel, but an easy day for the legs.
Finally on my way to continue my big walk from last year. This summer is a complete contrast to last year’s prolonged dry spell, but it looks like I have a few days where I may not get soaked. Today is déjà vu in reverse; train up to Berwick upon Tweed, bus to Kelso, bus to Kirk Yetholm, dinner in the border hotel and to bed in the Friends of Nature Hostel. Tomorrow the Scottish legs of my adventure begin. The aim is to mainly follow the Scottish National Trail (on St. Cuthbert’s Way, the Southern Upland Way and the Cross Borders Drove Road) to West Linton, then branch off westwards to cut off the National Trail dogleg as it goes on to Edinburgh, pick it up again on the Forth and Clyde Canal to Milngavie (north of Glasgow) and then follow the West Highland Way to Fort William. About 12 days.
uphill start, then easy walking, c.21 miles Day 58 from Land’s End cum. miles 855
I remember now. Walking days start out easily and you feel like you’re making good progress. Then the afternoon comes round and there’s still a long hike to a campsite and a considerable time later you finally arrive not wanting to walk another step.
I headed off at a decent time, south-west and up to the top of Wideopen Hill, the highest point on St Cuthbert’s Way, a recently devised footpath linking Melrose, where St Cuthbert (c.634-687) grew up and became a prior, to Lindisfarne (Holy Island) where he was made a bishop. I’d be surprised if he came this way rather than following the Tweed, but maybe he wanted to take in the view. He actually did more travelling after death as his remains were moved about to evade the Vikings, finally ending up in Durham.
From Wideopen Hill, I descended to the village of Morebattle. The name is apparently derived from mere-bool, meaning dwelling place by the lake in the Northumbrian Dialect of Old English. To confuse matters, the local Linton loch was drained in the 19th century. There is still a village shop, which supplied sandwiches and across from which was a convenient bench where I met a couple of Americans walking St Cuthbert’s Way to Lindisfarne. I’m walking the contrary way again, as with the SWCP.
From Morebattle, St C.’s Way followed country roads to the looming ruin of Cessford Castle, still dominating the landscape even though left abandoned in 1650. It was previously the stronghold of the Kerr clan, most notable of whom was Andrew, who fought on the Scots side at the Battle of Flodden in 1513, and was one of the few Scots nobles to survive, only to die in 1526 in the clan battle of Melrose. Has there ever been a more futile battle than Flodden? James IV decided to go to war with England to honour the Auld Alliance with France because Henry VIII, at the time married to Catherine of Aragon, got England involved in the Italian Wars against the French, in support of the Habsburg Holy Roman Empire. James IV got himself killed along with a few thousand others.
After Cessford, the Way led mostly west on track and path until making a ninety degree turn to follow the line of the Roman Road of Dere Street; straight of course. The Romans didn’t have to cross the busy A698 but even they had to put in a couple of bends to search out the best place to cross the River Teviot. The current suspension bridge was built in 1999 to replace an earlier one swept away in a flood. I was happy to have a crossing to myself. On went the Romans and so did I, on a ridgeline to Lilliard’s Stone, which was apparently a big stone rolled here by Melrose Abbey monks. The farmed fields below it were the site of the Battle of Ancrum Moor in 1545, at which the Scots regained a little compensation for Flodden. This little bit of history is presumably the reason for the, very overgrown, footpath down off the ridge to the main road. Down this and then a half-mile back on the roadside verge finally got me to the Lilliardsedge Holiday Park, with holiday lodges, golf course, restaurant bar, but most important for me, a tent area and showers. Long first day, with a bit of history. Tomorrow on to Melrose.
c. 12m, easy walking, then up and over the Eildon Hills Day 59 from Land's End cum. miles 867
Day 2 has got me to Melrose, where I part company with St Cuthbert's Way. Pleasant enough day, with minor annoyances. The alternative to reversing the uneven footpath overhung with nettles that led down from St C’s Way yesterday, not to be repeated, was 2-3 miles along the grass verge of the A68 main road to Edinburgh with the petrolheads whizzing by. Once that was out of the way, I joined St C’s Way again on minor roads down to the tranquillity of the River Tweed, but I didn’t linger by the river for too long, because a short-cut to St Boswells (town) and a late breakfast, seemed more attractive than another bend of the river. I was recommended and directed to the Book Shop Café, but the only breakfast on offer was a bowl of granola. What use is that? A lunch sandwich was not available till noon. I had a pot of tea and a cheese scone by which time it was noon, but I’d been idle for long enough, so made do with an on the move Cornish pasty from the butcher/pie shop.
From Newtown St Boswells (just around the river bend from the original), St C’s Way could get to Melrose in about three miles on a minor and easy gradient road, but this would miss out on the climb over the Eildon Hills. Once the muddy walk along Bowden Burn and the hike up through the forestry plantation was out of the way, I enjoyed this longer, more strenuous and certainly more scenic diversion. Melrose is pleasant, but there is only one caravan/campsite, operated by the Caravan and Motorhome Club, and charging £24:60 to put up a tiny solo tent. I’m joined by two Dutch cycle tourists (one tent) and a man with a van and rather racier bicycle. On the plus side, a veggie chilli in a comfortable hotel dining room, is a treat worth saving a rehydrated version for another day.
c.21m Flat start, progressively hillier, Day 60 from Land's End cum. miles 888
Long day, shortish day and another long day. I guess I didn’t start at the crack of dawn, having gone for a second breakfast in Melrose and then chatted a while to the cycle tourists, so I can’t expect to finish early in the afternoon. The Southern Upland Way was excellent; first along the Tweed to Galashiels, then a jaunt south-west over open moorland and down to the Tweed again, before the big climb of the day, unfortunately on a pebbly track through forest to the Three Brethren look-out cairns (see photos), then a pleasant walk over the tops before the long downhill through forest to Traquair. Traquair House claims to be the oldest occupied house in Scotland visited by all the Kings, but there’s no campsite, so I plodded a further two weary miles to Innerleithen which does. In at 6:30.
On the main road before Galashiels, a sign warned motorists of heavy rain, but there was only a little late afternoon drizzle. The deluge is now predicted to arrive in the early morning. I hope I can sleep through most of it, and stay dry.
c.19m Flat start, then up and down. Day 61 from Land's End cum. miles 907
It absolutely bucketed down last night but my tent proved watertight. This morning there was just a little light rain, but I packed up in a dry interlude, and rather than wait for porridge to cook, headed for a café. I wasn’t previously aware, but Innerleithen hasn’t just been content with being a place to stay for fly fisherman, golfers and passing ramblers, but with the help of surrounding forested hills has turned itself into a centre for mountain biking. Only two cafes though and only one open for breakfast before brunch time on a Saturday, but it proved to be a cosy, vegan one with laid back Southern US tunes/blues. Feeling suitably mellow and nourished, I enjoyed the five miles or so along the car free Tweed Valley Railway path/cycleway to Peebles. More of these everywhere please. I avoided all twee cafes in Peebles and went for an economy lunch plus phone charge in Greggs. Then the real work began.
Out of town was a long uphill drag on the Cross Borders Drove Road, NW, to open country and then pine woods, in which I missed the turn (sign-post not obvious) and did a little out and back, before finally getting down to the main road before West Linton. Another 2.5 miles of road walking to West Linton. I have to commend the Gordon Arms Hotel there. The kindly staff found a seat at the bar for a dehydrated leg-weary outsider on a packed out Saturday evening, brought me a glass of water, and followed with an excellent sweet potato curry. Much revived, and following the advice of a walker going the opposite way, I went up the road opposite to try to find his perfect wild camping pitch in the community wood. I spent the remaining daylight looking without success, but I finally got the tent down on a reasonably flat patch under the trees just before dark. And without further to do, settled in sleeping bag for the night.
c. 19½ m moderate up and down Day 62 from Land's End cum. miles 926½
From West Linton, the Scottish National Trail goes north over the Pentland Hills and on to Edinburgh, and then turns west, following the Forth and Clyde canal towpath all the way over to the outskirts of Glasgow. I decided to strike out in a more north-westerly direction, cutting out the Edinburgh dog-leg. It’ll mean more road miles but fewer miles overall and less towpath walking. I’ll go via Forth and Shotts, and pick up the canal just north of Cumbernauld.
First, after packing up and out of the wood, and stopping for a porridge breakfast by the side of West Linton Golf Couse, I followed easy paths and farm roads skirting the Pentland Hills, to the hamlet of Dunsyre. Then north-west on a footpath over the western end of the Hills and down to the A70, along which the cars speed up and down to Edinburgh. Then a spot of bother – the path on the map leading through the windfarms has clearly been sabotaged by Scottish Electric as there’s no bridge over the brook before them, so I had to retreat back (up) to the main road and plod north along it to pick up another path and then minor road heading west. The sun came out and it was warm. I was down to the last suck of water in my backpack reservoir when I managed to waylay a chap who had just pulled into his driveway and he happily got me refilled. My goodness water is heavy though.
Short of Forth, energy rather than water was running low. Energy bars and sandwiches and nuts have their place, but a cold Adventure Foods Lancashire Hotpot, not needing rehydration, hit the spot. Soonish after, I walked through Wilsontown. I admit to never having heard of it before, but it has a claim to being the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution in Scotland. The Wilson brothers, three, founded the coke-fired ironworks here in 1779 (the same year as the (first) Ironbridge was opened over the Severn in Shropshire) and production continued until 1842. Unfortunately it wasn’t a great commercial success; the key ingredients of iron (previously imported from Sweden) coal and limestone could all be mined locally, but without decent roads or canals it wasn’t so easy to get the finished product to port. The railway which could have used the iron and transported it, came to Wilsontown too late, in 1867. Coalmining continued nearby until 1955, at which point the railway line also closed. Only the Ironworks foundations remain, but there’s a village of neat ironworker houses and walker trails through Forestry Commission woods. I thought about finding a spot for the tent but walked on to Forth.
Wild-camping is fine for out of the way areas with a water source. It’s not so easy in lowland farmed or inhabited Scotland. I was pondering this at the crossroads in Forth, when a chap leaned out of his living room window and offered some advice; you might find somewhere up by the windfarms on the road to Shotts, or turn left for a half a mile and then take the footpath opposite the bus stop down to the woods. I went for the latter, nearer option and got the tent set up fairly inconspicuously away from the road, just short of the trees. Several young people passed by as dusk fell, but this is sensible Scotland where wild-camping is unfrowned on (and legal). I had a rehydrated meal and a cuppa and then settled down undisturbed.
c. 19½ m moderate up and down road walk, Day 63 from Land's End cum.miles 946
Awoke to a grey and showery day. First stop was Forth’s petrol station where I was made welcome and fuelled up with sandwiches and coffee. Then on the road from Forth to Shotts, 7½ miles, passing Black Law Wind Farm; 88 wind turbines built on an old opencast coalmine restored to shallow wetlands. It’s not a picturesque landscape now, but at least an environmentally friendly one.
The rain swept down just past the windfarms, but stopped as I walked into Shotts. I’d crossed over from South Lanarkshire to North Lanarkshire. Shotts was the base for Shotts Iron Company which operated from 1801 to 1952 and exported gas lamp standards throughout the Empire, and was a centre for coalmining up to the 1960s. HMP Shotts, opened in 1978, now provides some local employment. A rainy day can make many places look drear, and its most active times may be behind it, but it still has a station on a line to Edinburgh or Glasgow, a championship winning pipe band (latest win in the World Pipe Band Championships in 2015), hosts a Highland Games every June and Shotts Town Centre Wifi provides a good connection. It also has a down to earth, not twee, café with friendly staff where one can get a hearty Scottish breakfast – square sausage, black pudding, haggis, bacon, egg, beans, toast – approaching lunchtime. St Boswell’s book café it isn’t.
The road out of Shotts went past HMP Shotts and then past a smallholding with two rhea, confined to their patch within a chicken-wire fence. Apparently they can produce between 30-90 eggs per year, and tasty meat, but they are flighty, fast and prone to escaping. And definitely not for petting.
Soon after, I went past the Kirk O’Shotts, aka the M8 Church, and then crossed the M8 from where drivers see the isolated church. Crossing motorways seems to be a good measure of my progress north, and provides the greatest contrast to my pedestrian progress and exposure to the environment.
After the M8, the minor road led up Black Hill with its TV and radio transmission mast. The view was impressive. I assume I was looking at the Campsie Fells in the distance. I should be skirting to their west side in a couple of days.
From Black Hill, it was still quite a trek down to another east-west main road and continuing north past Plains (village) and a zig-zag of minor roads, with light now fading and I finally reached the location of Blairlinn Campsite at the Cumbernauld Outdoor Activity Centre, aka World of Wings (Birds of Prey). The Activity Centre had obviously closed for the day. I wandered around in search of the campsite, but the only sign of tent friendliness was a couple of circles mown on a patch of grass.
Maybe I missed seeing a secluded field, but at that moment as I contemplated knocking on a World of Wings door, serendipity struck in the form of a passing dog walker. He kindly offered to point me in the right direction for wild-camping spots offering the darkness of the campsite crop circles but with no fee or even more benevolently, space for a tent in his back garden, with water on tap. Well that was an offer I couldn’t refuse, so here I am, tent pitched on a secluded but nicely flat and mown lawn behind a frog-friendly pond, relaxing on a comfy chair on the decking of my host’s outhouse, with the day’s exertions just a memory. And to cap my good fortune, my lovely hosts have extended their pasta dinner by an extra portion for me. I’m looking pretty contented.