death warmed up

"Pray tell dear friend, what brings you to be bed-ridden on this gloriously clear and freezing Beijing day?" I hear you ask. "Moreover, why are you not at work?"

The answer my friends, is Hotpot. That's right, bloody hotpot. Now as anyone who knows me will be aware I am partial to a morsel of food on occasion, and never one to back away from something different. And so it is with hotpot.

Skye happens to love it; hotpot that is. And I have on several occasions tried to discover what she finds in it, indeed I have tried to discover what just about every living person in Beijing finds in it, and alas last night I believe i found it...

You see hotpot, as the name suggests is a cooking style whereby the restaurant sets up a huge boiling pot of (some say) flavoured water, and then supply the raw ingredients, to which, one applies to the boiling water, and 'hey presto' hotpot is in the house.

Throughout my time here I have had all kinds of food stuffs from the belly of the pot. Mutton, pork, beef, ducks blood, ducks tongue and even noodles!

I have to say I have never really understood the fuss. Its almost completely flavourless, and remind me again why I am paying tons of cash to cook my own food?

So anyway, because Skye's mates here all love hotpot, I find myself, week after week, sitting around the pot, trying to dig out some thing or another from the opaque water with chopsticks and wondering whether the stench of the boiling broth with ever wash out of my hair.

Give me stir fry any day.

"The epiphany, sir, get to the part about the epiphany!" you mutter, wondering whether i will get to the point or merely ramble on for hours as usual.

ah yes, the epiphany. So last night, after yet another hotpot meal, with Skye's mate Elissa and her cousin mark who have just spent 3 weeks touring around china (who incidentally are staying with us until Mark flies home, and Elissa moves back to Shenyang), we head home and go to bed. Come 3 am, I'm feeling a little restless and having trouble getting back to sleep. Then it hits me, the epiphany, square between the eyes, well actually closer to my thighs really! To steal a quote from a friend of ours facebook site here in Beijing, "[Alan] no longer thinks SHART is a funny word".

Sitting there on the toilet, while the 'guns of Navarro' and at least 5 million horses trot their way to freedom, I was hit by another epiphany... the dreaded 'choice'.

That's right my friends, the hotpot (or at least its secret ingredient) asked me the simple but impossibly challenging question:

"would you like to sit on the bus, or drive?"

what is one to do? I ask you?

Keep in mind, this isn't my little bachelor pad in Alexandria, I'm not the only one that using this bathroom, and indeed, we have two strangers sleeping in the spare room... what to do?

Luckily for all parties involved, I was able to drive the bus for a short distance, then become a passenger without major incident. I was certain last night that Death himself had come to Beijing to mock me, and yet refuse to take me... after all, imagine the mess I would of made of the pearly steps had there been a queue at the gates.

Alas Death did not take me last night and instead, the hotpot continues to inflict suffering upon me. Indeed as I sit and type I wonder if I'll be able to fin...

The Confidence Game -

This is a short rambling, firstly to boast about how great i am, and secondly... well actually there's only one reason.

Now, I'm not just going to crap on about how great a teacher i am. That would just be grandstanding. And as a result I am not going to talk about how last week I asked some of my advanced students to write a 300 word essay entitled "my favourite...", and two of them wrote about their favourite teacher, 'Alan' and how he is simply the bestest teacher ever (and no I didn't correct their incorrect '-est', after all, I am the bestest!) because telling such a story would just be an act of outrageous 'up-ones-selfness'.

instead I'll tell you a cute story about one of my favourite students, Martin. Martin is simply the cutest little human alive. Last week, during my 'talk time' (I call it this somewhat ironically because 5 year old English students, generally know words and short sentences, so talking is more about me asking direct questions, like 'what is that? what is this? do you like watermelon?) So anyway, I'm going around the room, asking the kiddies if their name is 'Banana', to encourage them to say, 'Noooooo, my name's Ruby, you're a banana'.

I could play this game all day, because the kids end up in fits of laughter that I just can't get enough of. So anyway, I'm going around asking, 'what do you like?' this is a difficult abstract question and often results in blank faces...except this time. I go around and one kid starts with, "I like bananas", I'm thinking cool, they'll all get it now. And they did, some liked bananas others onions (who are we to judge), then Martin says,

"I like you, Alan", then he runs towards me and gives me a huge hug!!!

I respond by saying "I like you too, Martin!" as i hug him back and recover from the goose bumps and watery eyes (my allergies playing up)

Martin then moves around to my ear, and blows into it. Now I know what you thinking, but don't go sexualising everything and making this lovely non-sexualised country as messed up as the west.

It was very cute, but the whole thing got out of hand, when Ruby, another little cutey wanted to do the same thing, but lacked the finesse and fine motor skills of Martin, and sprayed the side of face with saliva!

Ahhh, I am clucky as hell. Not good my friends, not good.

Of course, it all balances out. I did have an older kid ask me yesterday why I decided to cut a huge M in the front of my hair... little bastard!!!

After that comment I spent 25 minutes explaining why male pattern baldness is natural and not a fashion choice... little bastard!

I also had another little 5 year old who got so excited about class ending that when I said, make one line, he charged straight at me to be first in the queue and lost his footing and punched me full force in the nuts! BU HAO!

ahhh the joys of teaching!

Freezing

A lot has happened since my last ramble. Well at least it feels like a lot has happened. Skye landed a new job, turned 30, had her first professional photography gig and hung out with Jane Goodall!

I... um... well I've been doing stuff... like... ahhhh... well working 'en nat.

Ok so not much has happened on the Alan front, but its been an amazing time for Skye and as a result an amazing time for me. Jane Goodall is not only a cool person, but Skye is her number 1 fan, so for Skye to have the opportunity to not only meet her, but spend two days taking photo's of her doing her charity work is out of this world!

Nothing major has happened on the Beijing front either, except that winter arrived. Not slowly and romantically like it used to in the mountains, instead, it kicked the door in and threatened to kill us all. It went from a balmy high of 10 degrees and a low of 0 degrees one day to a high of -8 and low of -13 the next. Unbelievably cold!

In spite of this sudden drop in temperature, we decided to celebrate Skye's 30th by climbing Beijing's only high ground, Fragrance Hills.

"You know" said Skye on the morning of her birthday. "because we'll be walking essentially straight up the hill, we will probably get really hot and end up carrying our heavy coats which will be a pain. So we should wear layers instead and just take our light jumpers."

"well" said I, "you've been before so i guess you know better than I"

Off we set, several layers on, heavycoatless.

After an hour on the heated bus, and us both hoovering about 3 kgs of Sweet Potato chips, we were happy as Larry and happy with our decision to wear layers. 4 steps from the bus door at the foot of the hills, and I got the same feeling I had halfway through our week long walk in Tasmania when we realised we didn't have enough food... "oh shit!"

My friends, to say that it was cold would be factually incorrect. To say that it was unbelievably mind numbingly cold to the point where my cheeks were burning and i held genuine fears for the well being of my finger tips would be more accurate and yet an injustice to the crazy Chinese people who live in Northern China and deal with winds so cold their lungs freeze. Lets just say that for an Aussie traveller, unaccustomed to true cold, it was F*CKING FREEZING. In fact, this of how cold it was:

That's right... layers, god damn layers. The layers were so ineffective i took the extra 'layer' that i had in my bag in case of emergencies (ha!) and used it to make the quality face mask you see above. This mask was the only thing that stopped the burning sensation on my cheeks (yes my friends, that's even through the ginger beard!) although it did nothing to stop the burning in my eyes.

I know what you thinking, we should have gotten back on the bus and gone home. But where would the world be today is Sir Edmund had simply turned tail and ran the first time he discovered that his water bottle, keep inside his bag had frozen solid within about 30 minutes of arrival!!! I mean seriously! (this actually happened, not to Sir Edmund, at least not as far as i am aware, but to Skye, the water bottle was frozen, frozen... think about that... did i mention frozen)

No no, we went there to climb and climb we did. The walk was actually really lovely the scenery was nice and for the first time we were able to see Beijing from a distance without the noise, pollution and general rubbish that normally pollutes the senses in this town. I have to say the place is massive.

I think its difficult to explain to anyone that hasn't experienced Beijing but for the first time in 5 months I heard birds! that's right I heard a noise that was sourced from a non-man made construction... its was amazing.

'twas also amazing that i could still hear at all, my ears, by this stage, were almost completely numb. Poor Skye's ears, on the other hand, were nearly bleeding because I had spent a good part of an hour whinging about the lack of a big jacket and exactly who was to blame for that misunderstanding! I think secretly she wished I hadn't created the face mask and my mouth had gone numb...

Despite natures attempt to kill us (and Skye's attempt to kill me for being such a whinger), we survived the climb and enjoyed the view at the top for about 3 minutes, until a prolonged gust of wind almost cut us clean in half, and we descended.

The view from the top, and the freezing gust of wind causing the 'something about mary' moment.

On the way down, Skye noticed little patches of black ice on the pathway. These little patches were dangerous but more interestingly were seemingly patches of water in a town where there isn't even any humidity, let alone the chance of sporadic rain, then it dawned on us, it wasn't black ice, it was green ice! they were little hockers that the Chinese tourists had left behind... dirty bastards!

Although any budding scientists out there may be able to calculate the actual temperature for us by establishing the freezing point of snot! gross.

Of course, like everything here in Beijing, the fun was actually just beginning. We made it back to the bus stop, freezing, eyes stingy and waiting desperately for the heat of the bus. However, the first sign that something was wrong was when I noticed that the Michelin Man had retired from advertising and taken a little job driving a Beijing bus. The driver had, and I am not making this up:

A woollen beanie -

ear warmers -

a scarf -

at least two 'heavy jackets' -

ski gloves

and the icing on the ridiculous cake - leg warmers on his forearms.

This was not good. We spent an hour in a fridge with wheels. The bus was actually colder than outside because, fearful of catching the flu, some idiots had opened the windows (no doubt the same idiots that drop hockers all over the place, because spitting couldn't possibly contribute to disease!)

We sat there in a hypothermic stupor, wondering whether we would actually survive, for a whole hour, until 1km from the subway station (and a place with guaranteed heat) the bus stopped and the conductor motioned for us all to get out!!!

Ah well we thought, the walk will warm us up. Will it hell. By this stage the sun was down, and the weather had turned nasty, it was freezing and windy, the wind chill must have been peaking (pardon the pun) at about -15 or even -20. Because of the bus trip we had no heat left in our bodies and I was really starting to get concerned. We both looked at each other and with a knowing smile (we couldn't talk by this stage, everything was broken) we ran!!!! we ran like the wind smashing into us to the safety of the subway and warmth.

I was just happy to have survived. Skye crashed out in the train and was an exhausted mess for the rest of the night. I'd like to say I was different, but that ain't the case. Who knew that the cold could sap energy like that!

All in all, it was a great day. Skye enjoyed it, and it was the adventure that we had hoped it would be on her Birthday. I think maybe next time though, we'll accept he burden on possibly having to carrying our heavy coats!!!

Here's a few picks of the place...

Chinese Toilets Part One: Hutong

You knew it was only a matter of time...

OK picture the scene, its early autumn, the air is warm, the sun soft and a light breeze is blowing through the hutong (alleyway), knocking the first leaves of the autumn shed off the trees and onto the street. The picture is lovely, old Chinese men and woman sitting about chatting, young children playing, street vendors selling their wares.

Of course, i haven't noticed any of this because for the last 45 minutes on the subway home from work I have been doing my best Zen Buddhist impersonations to stop myself from wetting my pants! I was absolutely busting beyond anything you can imagine. Half-way through the hutong my bladder gave me a choice, either find a toilet NOW!!!!! or you'll be walking the remaining ten minutes with wet trousers...

Ok, ok, so I've been in China for 3 months now, I've walked through the hutong to the subway maybe 100 times, and I know that every 10 metres there is a public toilet. I know this, not just because I have seen people entering the buildings carrying toilet paper, but because, as you can imagine, in 40 degree heat with that many public toilets in a small area, well, lets just say there is a fragrance that is unmistakable.

I have avoided using these toilets, firstly because they bloody stink, and secondly they are frequented by locals. You see most Hutong houses don't have bathrooms, and so these public toilets aren't so much public as they are communal.

Anyway, so there I stand, either use the hutong toilet, or piss my pants. The choice was obvious...

But given that the sun was still up, and because I'm foreign people tend to notice me, I couldn't wet myself. The hutong toilet it was!

As I entered I realised that rather than using doors, the toilets are designed with a couple of little hallways that turn back on themselves, that way, no one has to touch a filthy door handle, and no-one on the street can see in the toilet area. Upon entering the main chamber, I was almost completely overwhelmed by the stink. I had to close my eyes for a few minutes to stop myself from passing out.

When I opened them, my bladder noticed the urinals on the wall in front of me, and without going into too much detail, I was thankful that I was wearing trousers with a zip and not button fly jeans.

While I was standing there I heard a friendly,

"Ni Hao" (hello)

from behind me. I couldn't turn fully around for obvious reasons, so I just turn my head as far as I could without peeing on the floor, (not sure why this bothered me, the place smelt like someone washed the floor with pee!) but there was no one there... in fact, there was nothing there, nothing at all.

I finished up and turned around properly, again no one there. Unfortunately, before my conscious mind could process what was happening and where the sound was coming from my eyes had already looked down.

staring back at me, in the sort of amazement locals that haven't seen a foreigner up close get, was a lovely chap in full squat, half-way through laying a cable. Toilet paper in one hand, cigarette in the other.

I hadn't noticed due to the smell when I first arrived, but the main chamber was just that, a room about 6 metres by 6 metres, tiled from floor to ceiling and completely empty except the 4 squat toilets in the floor and two urinals on the walls. No cubicles, no sinks, not even an ashtray!!

Oh and not to mention the lovely chap, who by now was finishing off his business and ready to leave with me.

I left, relieved and a little shocked.

I don't know why i was so shocked by it. For many Chinese (usually older or poorer) communal toilets are just a way of life. They don't think about it; at all. Why should they? Why would you waste your thinking on something everyone does, everyday.

Furthermore, who cares if someone is with you while your shitting? I mean really, what sort of weirdo would want to watch someone else take a crap? seriously, you simple go in, do your business and leave. enough said.

How different we are in the west. I can't even poo at work if I hear someone enter the bathroom... and I'm locked, safe and anonymous in a cubicle!! I think the Chinese have it right:

firstly - squat - its healthier for your bowels, and there is no skin contact with any surface
secondly - communal - as the saying goes, 'a community that shits together stays together'

Just to confirm, I have since used several public toilets in china, and none have even come close to the hutong in terms of their communal nature or their smell. All public toilets stink, but that toilet on that day, was something else.

Furthermore, this decline in communal style toilets in China is actually a bad thing. The more they move to more western privacy style toilets, the more they will lose sight of the equality of all people, and so the more they will strive to have more and more, striving to keep up with the Jones's. This will be the end of us all!!

For as the great philosopher Montaigne so eloquently stated,

"Even kings shit!"

anyway, sermon and funny story over!

'Get the Beers In' suffer first loss in 12 games

Well I guess the dream run had to come to an end eventually. After a horrific start to last season, we managed to put a string of wins together up there with the mighty Gers 9 in a row. We were unstoppable, but due to the short season and the general rubbishness of the bottom and middle teams we were unable to catch the two teams ahead of us on the table. So we missed promotion to the top flight by 2 points. An absolute tragedy for our fans... well ok, our fan base consists of 5 members, who it is rumoured are also the team members... but nevertheless it was hard to take.

So, we have just started the new season, and buoyed by our previous success we opened the season with a 6-1 drumming of the 'China Sports Daily' team. you'd think a team made up of sports reporters would be ok... you'd be wrong.

Then we played our new rivals, 'the azzurri', now I know what you're thinking, bloody Italians. But in fact they are a team of 6 or 7 Chinese guys, all of which can play, and at least two of which have a tight perm leading into a delicious mullet.

This is a long season, and we will play everyone twice, but again the middle to lower ranks are rubbish, so its a bit like the SPL, its a two team race, and who draws first blood has the advantage.

The ref (who is a lovely bloke) pulled me aside before the match and said something cryptic in half English half Chinese. I had no idea what he was talking about, so he made it very clear...

"they are very good, they will win"

Yeah thanks mate! I said.

10 minutes in, their lightening pace and ball control meant they were all over us, but we held firm. Shot after shot, we held.

Then, in true poachers style, we nicked a goal. Vere, our giant English midfielder-cum-defender-cum-striker, was in the right place at the right time to slot away a deflected cross.

1-0, and the perm brigade started to panic.

Moments later, Aubrey, our Dutch super star, was wedged between two players about 5 metres out from goal, a third defender was approaching (Chinese do not hack, like Aussies and Brits), so he rolled the ball left as if he was going to try and break through, but half way through the roll, dropped his foot back, and toe poked it at goal...

2-0, and the perms were starting to frizz. I wink at the ref, and give him a big, 'stick that up your arse smile'

After the break they started to get nasty: lots of hacks, and verbal abuse. There's a funny thing, they would slag us in Chinese, we'd slag them in English, neither knew what was being said, but both knew it was nasty... its quite nice, you can't snap in case they aren't talking about you, but you still get fired up, in case they are!

5 minutes to go, and the wheels well and truly fell off the Beers. Two lucky long range curlers put them equal. Then, 1 minute from time, the head perm and trash talking ring leader, looses a shot that Georg "The Hammer" Albertz would have been proud of, and...

2-3 the perms go wild. And the ref winks at me and gives me the 'i told you so' smile... prick!

Getting beat was bad enough, but after he scored, the head perm ran around us yelling:

"win-ah, win-ah, we win-ah"

Devastating. It took me two days to get over it... but never fear as they say in the classics...

NO SURRENDER

we'll beat them next time round and hopefully win the comp on goal difference!

Update and stuff

I've been copping a little flack in the comments section about having posts with just pictures and no words. Naturally I take these comments positively and assume that you all love my magical writing so much and are merely disappointed with the lack of words. So much for a picture saying a thousand words!

Anyway this post is an update, and an update is what you'll get....in words.

Let's start with the lovely Skye. She's great! Irritatingly her Chinese language ability far outweighs mine. She just has a knack for proper pronunciation, which, as you may be aware is all that really matters in Chinese. For example, the sound mei (may), means either buy or sell depending on the tone used. This obviously can create confusion when suddenly the shopkeeper wonders why a foreigner wants to sell her a bottle of water.

Overall I think i've learnt more chinese from Skye than from my chinese teacher!

Skye's job is touch and go at the moment, whilst I'll leave the details up to Skye, essentially she has very little work to do. I can hear many out there saying, 'lucky her', but the reality is that Skye is trying to build her career and its not being helped by doing nothing of any importance, and dealing with a knob of a boss (he's a German Australian cross, and a strange man!) But there are positives of course. She is heading out on a field trip later this week, I can't pronounce where she is going, so I have no hope of spelling it. Its somewhere in Western China though, and it means an opportunity for her to see some of countryside and get out of Beijing for a while.

What's next, ahhh, me of course! It was only a matter of time until I turned my self-indulgent blog back on myself..... Well I am good. As i mentioned my language skills are ok, but i struggle with pronunciation. But then I can't pronounce many English words correctly so I'm not sure what i expected. We all remember, everybuddy! Having said that, I'm also keen to give it a go, and being an English teacher I am also able to demonstrate or sign just about any word. Seriously, if only I could go back in time 60 years, I'd give Charlie Chaplin a run for his money. The combination of bad Chinese and good sign language means I get my meaning across, even if most Chinese people think I'm crazy.

Talking of crazy I have taught my high level students two new and very important English phrases:

"Are you mental?" and
"You are a Muppet!"

Nothing makes me happier than after I have done some bizarre demonstration, or created some crazy game, to hear the kiddies say, 'are you mental?". I'm even laughing now with the thought.

teaching is bloody great. Sure its fun and the kids are great, but I also have the ability to shape young minds, which sounds tacky but its true and important. Often the kids first and main contact with the foreign is with me. If I act weird or strange, they may well believe all foreigners are weird and strange. Its a lot of pressure, but its great. For example, I was recently teaching a class about Famous and Infamous. They gave me a million people that were famous, all Chinese sporting hero's and actors, but they couldn't think of any for infamous, so I helped them out.......... George W Bush! Yay...

As an aside, did you know the Chinese name for George W Bush, in pinyin (the translation from chinese characters to English letters) is 'Bu Shi' (pronounced Boo Sure). Sounds just like 'Bush' with a chinese accent when you say it. This sounds also means, 'Not right'. Bu is not, and Shi is yes or right.

So when he is introduced, he is being introduced as President Not Right. A fair estimation of the man I believe.

I have been reliably informed that this double meaning is not intended, as the actual characters for Bush are not the same as the characters for not correct, they just sound the same. Still in a country where they believe the number 4 is bad luck because it sounds like the word for death, I can't believe they didn't get the joke when the translated his name!

Here's another nice teaching story, that doesn't involve me warping the young minds of Chinese students:

At the end of every small stars class (under 6's) we have to write in what we call the children's Passports. Its just like a weekly report card. I normally write things like, 'Well done Eric, good effort', or if the kid is naughty, "wow, Frank, you have lots of energy", The kid can't understand, and either can the parents, but we do it anyway. As well as writing comments, we also give the kids stickers. Stickers to a Chinese child are extremely important, they are a status symbols and are not be to taken lightly. I found this out first hand, when a little girl, Katherine, got to the front of the passport line, but didn't have her passport. I was forced to send her away sticker-less. I obviously very nicely said, ask your mum where your passport is and come back', well, this was clearly unacceptable, and she opened a barrage of Chinese on me like no other. Absolute nonstop abuse, until her face turned red. This was made worse when I said, "Wo Ting Bu Dong" which means, "I can hear you, but can't understand", I thought she was going to stab me. Meanwhile the other kids, sensing that my life on this earth was coming to an end, were rushing to get their stickers before Katherine killed me with her bare hands.

Filthy on the world and especially me, Katherine spun around and marched out, no doubt to tell her mum that the hairy monster refused to give her a sticker (or in fact the several stickers she deserved for behaving impeccably all class). When she returned she had her mum in toe. Katherine was fuming and her mum was ashen faced as if she too had copped a barrage of abuse. He mother explained that she and not Katherine was to blame for the missing passport and was it possible for Katherine to have a sticker anyway, and placed on her hand. I gave Katherine a sticker, and as if my magic, the anger dissipated, she smiled, gave me a hug and said Bye Bye.

Never, and I mean never, get between a Chinese kid and a sticker. Its not worth it.

Well folks that's about all I got for now. I am planning on writing some retrospective stories about the Great Wall incident, and a few others things that have been going on, but they will have to wait sorry.

Photo's

Here's a whole bunch of photo's of Beijing to give you a feel for the place. Enjoy



Outside the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square:

The Boss

'Nut Bush City Limits'

The Forbidden City:

Forbidden my arse...

Its huge!

No room for subtley in China...



The lovely Skye taking great photo's.

Check out the blue sky... if you check my previous blog you may see the picture but with a slightly different 'aura'.


The Great Wall:
The wall is very cool. Its also bloody every where. This section is probably the best, because as you can see its almost tourist free!!! There is a story that goes with our visit to the wall, I just haven't had time to pen it. It involves mysterious touts, crazy cab drivers, getting fleeced and at least one near death experience...

Only two shots, the pollution was bad during our visit!

Our House:

Pretty nice, huh!

Our View:

These photo's were taken during the Olympics... hence no cars... the story is very different now!

Hot Springs

Thanks to my work, I spent Tuesday afternoon relaxing at the Beijing No 8 hot springs! what a place, it is the perfect picture of opulence. Marble, lush fabrics expensive couches, all manner of spas, sauna's, steam rooms, man beauty products (including milk and honey massages). What a place and all for nixs.

Of course, like all things Chinese, this place is not for the faint of heart. I mean I'm no stranger to weird situations surrounding hot springs, after all I have been party to the weird 'cleanliness' assessments at the Blue Lagoon in Iceland, but this takes the cake.

The hot springs are all nude. Something I only discovered after the change room attendant not only informed me casually, 'bath, no clothes, no clothes', but also decided to he would assist me in striping naked by pulling off my pants for me... very weird. Obviously I was slightly taken a back by this hands on approach, and so flustered kind of bolted from the attendants reach into the hot springs area, only to be chased by him waving a pair of cotton 'hygienic' undies above his head. Needless to say the other very naked Chinese men in the spring thought this hilarious, and then thought it side splitingly funny when the attend then proceeded, without clear consent I may add, to dress me in the cotton undies!!!

Ahh well, I thought, its too late now, and let's face it, there's no way I'm saving face, so undies firming attached I plunged into the pool. It was bloody fantastic. The mineralised water makes you feel instantly refreshed...

I then proceeded to take advantage of all the freebies:

sauna - apparently Hot is not enough in china, this sauna must have had a direct feed from the sun... it was face meltingly hot.

steam room - I don't even know what I was thinking. After the sauna I could barely stand, the steam room was a small room filled from the floor to the ceiling in molten lava pretending to be steam. The problem was once you entered you couldn't see anything and because the steam is so hot, it burns your lungs and nose, then slowly your hair feels like its on fire... its bloody horrible.

I entered the room with my boss (who conveniently speaks Chinese and was able to tell his attendant that there was no chance he was wearing anything but his swimmers!!!! bastard) Although the attendant got the last laugh, because upon entering the steam room, and feeling himself being set alight, he panicked and became disorientated... he almost started to cry with panic as he screamed... where's the door, the door, ahhh my lungs... where's the f*cking door... He was rescued by the omnipresent attendant, who incidentally had the largest smile I have ever seen on a Chinese persons face... it was great.

Flesh eating fish pool - That's no typo, you may have heard of this. The pool is about the size of a standard spa, but it is filled with millions of small fish about the size of pen lid, which fairly obviously, love nothing more than sucking the dead skin off human bodies. It is singly the strangest experience I've had since being in china!! At first it's just wrong, you spend the first 5 minutes sayings, ah, ah, get them off, get them off, then after a while you relax into it, and it just feels like a light pins and needles.... all over your body. Until of course you loose concentration and make the dreaded mistake of looking down... The sight you are confronted with is stuff of nightmares... millions of little creatures attached to your body... everywhere and I mean everywhere, biting and nibbling... its a just weird. But after about 20 minutes, my skin felt fantastic, even my feet (possible the driest in all china) were perfectly exfoliated!!! You have to try it!

Shower time - That's right you guessed it, after about 2 hours in the springs we all decided to retire to the restaurant for a meal, and then to the relaxation room... a massive room with individual lounges and individual flat screen TV's with millions of movies available. But before that the attendant insists that you shower. No drama, off comes the the nappy and i step into the shower recess, when I am pushed back by the attendant, who quickly turns on the water, and makes me wait until the temperature is perfect for me. heaven forbid I injure myself with water that is too hot or worse too cold. I then had to utter the following words, i kid you not...

"no thank you, I will be washing myself today" - I had the instant thought of Eddy Murphy in 'coming to america' except more manly... no thanks.

So i wash myself using some of the most extravagant soaps and shampoo's, then I step out to be greeted again by the ever faithful attendant who is holding the towel open... I take the towel and dry myself, something I notice after looking around is unusual here. Most men are standing still while the attend drys them... I appreciate that up until 20 years ago, all men were equal, and so now some are living it up by allowing others to wait on them...but some things are a solo operation!

What a day, and what an experience! If you ever get a chance to experience a Chinese, or Korean or Japanese hot spring, take it... its fantastic.

Beijing Zoo or Concentration Camp

Fortunately for us, we both had Monday off. Unfortunately, we decided to go to the Beijing Zoo. Words can not describe the horror of the zoo. All zoo's are bad, but this was just the next level of abuse, cruelty and using animals as play things.

Don't get me wrong, some of the enclosures are OK. for example the panda's seem relatively happy in their concrete enclosures munching away on bamboo shoots. And they did have at least one big cat enclosure that looked OK (as you can see below),but the problem is that they have 1 decent enclosure for big cats, but about 10 cats; tigers, lions and a leopard. So it seems they only let one cat out at a time. The others are kept in a viewing hall that looks like the sheep exhibit at the royal Easter show, except the sheep are in bigger pens. Most of the cats could barely move in the their cells, most if not all had hunched backs from the the lack of movement, and when looking into their eyes, only the hardest of hearts could not feel their pain.



Naturally like all zoo's, this one was filled to the brim with knob heads, that don't care about the conditions, they just want the perfect photo of the beast... hence they scream out, yell, bang the bars with bottles to get the animals attention. It was f*cked in the worst possible way.

At one point I was actually praying to the god of lions, that the guy who was laughing as he ran his bottle across the bars would slip and his arm would fall between the bars and the Lion would have at least one moment of joy in his horrible existence by ripping the pricks arm off. If it had happened I would have burst out laughing, and taken hundreds of photo's of the prick bleeding to death.

So, now that you know how I really feel, i have included some photo's below of animals that looked mildly happy. However, I even feel guilty showing these because I feel like I have made those animals life worse by taking part in that horrible display.

Relaxing China Style

As you may or may not know, the Chinese people absolutely love a public holiday. They have millions of them for various reasons, some logical, some less so. As it turns out, Sunday was one of the 'less so' ones. According to the lunar calendar Sunday was mid-autumn festival day, and as a result a public holiday.

The significance of this holiday is not important, what is important is that my school gave me sunday off and Skye's work gave her Monday off, these facts coupled with our regular days off meant that for the first time since arriving in Beijing Skye and I had two days off together. Hoorah!

We decided to spend the sunday relaxing Chinese style, as a result, we headed off to the nearest public park and just wandered about on the concrete paths and admired the perfectly manicured lawns (which must be landmined because no-one and I mean NO-ONE ever breaches the santurary of the path and steps on the grass) and lovely old trees.

The park we chose is particularly famous as it is on the only hill in all of Beijing. Naturally the hill was man made in the 1400 by an emperor who fancied a panoramic view of his city and people (that is of course when he was allowed to venture out of the Forbidden City, and across the road to the park.)

The place, as you can see from the photo's is both beautiful and busy.

But not just busy with people having picnics (there are no picnics because you can't walk on the god damn grass!) and maybe playing a bit of footy or something. No the park is filled with people doing what the Chinese love to do when the get any spare time... Karaoke!

As far as we could tell there were at least 7 different Karaoke set-ups, ranging from traditional opera with live bands, to weird Asian pop rubbish. Some had dancers, like this photo, others had these great picture boards with the music and the words to help out the singer.

It obviously goes without saying, however, you'll notice from the picture below that it was not just singing karaoke, but also instrumental, the elbow you see is a guy belting out everyone's favourite traditional tune on the chinese version of the violin.

Whilst I am being somewhat flipant about the Chinese love affair with Karaoke, I have to say it was bloody fantastic. Chinese people know how to have a good time. they don't get bogged down with all the rubbish about what others think, or how they look, they don't worry very much about silly ego issues at all, instead they throw caution to the wind and get up there, sing, dance or play instruments.

I can't help but think that at some stage in history, the Chinese must have had some contact with the Scots, because they share two great loves, singing in public places and getting roaringly drunk... not always in that order.

Before you ask, whilst I was invited several times to sing... after flipping through the song book I was simply unable to find 'I think we're alone now' by Tiffany, and so, whilst tempted I had to decline. However, Skye did flirt with the idea of trying out a bit of instrumental karaoke, as evidenced by the photo to my right, however, whilst she is very good on the gord flute (and I mean that seriously... those clarinet lessons were usuful after all!) we were unable to find a set up that needed an extra gord flutist and alas, Skye chance of 15 minutes of fame went begging.

However, she did managed to bargain the guy down to a decent price and so is now the proud owner of that very gord flute... of course we may both end up with Hep A, after the guy 'demonstrated' how to play it several times... But hey, its China!

Overall the park was bloody fantastic. We spent several hours just wandering around, listening to the karaoke, watching about 100 people ballroom dance (yes i know its random) there was even a 'speakers' corner where a few older blokes were chewing the ears of anyone that would listen. Luckily for us we couldn't understand a word they were saying. Although interestingly, some people were obviously saying things that were controversial because they were speaking very softly and the listeners were gathered around close. Having said that, we are in China, so speaking out about a controversial subject probably means slagging the very boring, heavily chinese focussed olympic games coverage (oops, this blog may get blocked after that comment....)

I shall leave you now with a few photo's of the park... enjoy.

Pollution? What Pollution?

Ahhhh... that pollution!

5-a-side Soccer

That's right my friends, I have joined a 5 a side soccer team. Well actually I am a founding member!!!! This may turn out to be an important factor when we go on to win the Mastercard Beijing Club Soccer League (division two). Or when they realise i'm rubbish and try and oust me!!!

The team is truly international. They consist of:

Me - obviously
Kang - an Australian guy who used to work at my school, but has since landed a very sweet job in an international school teaching P.E
Aubrey - a Dutch teacher, who also happens to be Kang's boss.
Dave - A Glaswegian science teacher
Rio - An Australian Tennis coach - no-one really knows him, or even knows why he's in the team, but hey, its China, randomness is the only way.
Antonio - A Spanish science teacher.
Josh - An Englishmen who occasionally turns up, gets into fights then disappears for a few weeks

Individually we are weak, but together, we join forces to become the irrepressible - 'Get the beers in'

I should point out that the Mastercard Club Football comp is not some mickey mouse operation like the Tempe indoor I used to play.

Firstly, its outdoor. The pitch is FIFA approved synthetic grass (the you know the really cool stuff that is like little plastic blades of grass).

Secondly, they have real referees and monetary fines for yellow and red cards. Its rumoured that a red card will see you suspended for 1 week and fined upwards of 300 yuan (AUD50).

Thirdly, because most of the teams are expats its like a world cup every week. Italians playing dirty and sneaking wins in the last minute, Chinese diving, and Russians threatening to kill people's families... its bloody great!

So, now that I have clearly explained that the comp is serious, you won't be surprised to hear that in order to join the comp we needed to play two trial matches to have our level assessed. After the trial matches we quickly sent off a late entry form for the paralympics 5 a side comp, but unfortunately, whilst the organisers felt for our situation, they explained that firstly a team must consist of 8 members from the same country, and secondly being unco-ordinated is not yet considered a disability!! HA! bureaucracy gone mad!

After the trials we were placed in the South League division two.

By some miracle (some of the other teams are suggesting by design) we are a better team than the trials showed. We have since played 4 league matches (we play double headers every Tuesday night!) won 2 and lost 2, we are sitting in 5th place in a comp of 8. Sounds bad but we are only 2 points off second place, and in fact, 2 wins tonight will see us move into second place!

to quote escape to victory, "Hatch, Hatch, we can win this."

Oh did i mention that last week, it was pouring with rain, and we only had 4 players!!! we managed to hold the very fancied Italian team to 1-1 right until the dying moments when they got a lucky goal (always the way, bloody Italians!) and then we absolutely poleaxed a Chinese team 4-0.

Stay posted ladies and gentlemen, because I can sense a league win for 'Get the Beers in'.

Exotic Foods list

All of the below were delicious... once i overcame the very strange consistencies!

Duck's tongue - you have to try this!!! get yourselves to China Town asap
Duck's blood - take it leave it
Donkey - this was surprisingly very nice. Like beef except more gamey
Eel - just a another type of fish
Kidney - I've now had various kinds, i can assure you a cow's kidney tastes similar to a pigs
Cow's intestine - Doesn't taste like anything, and has consistency of rubber. With a good sauce its lovely
Frog - strange one this, their ain't much meat on those tiny legs!


The list is growing stay tuned

Update

Well, it feels like so much has happened since my last email, and at the same time as if nothing has! I have been working, a lot. 6 days a week to be exact. Although it’s hard to think of it as work, firstly because I haven’t been paid yet, and secondly because it’s so much fun. The kids are just great. I am now teaching the full range of ages, from 3 to 15. I have 4 classes of my own, and I am also teaching 2 ‘summer camp’ classes and two VIP’s (that’s right 1 on 1’s). It sounds like a lot, but I only teach the VIPs and my own classes once a week. I teach the summer camp 3 times a week, but that’s only for 1 more week. After summer, I’ll have it pretty easy. I’ll only be actually teaching 3.5 days a week, the rest will be either off or ‘planning days’ which is teacher code for day off. The only bummer is that my 3.5 days are Thursday, Friday Saturday and Sunday. But you have to take the good with the bad.

To give you a basic idea of what it’s like teaching English over here, i’ll give you a quick summary of my lesson plan for my ‘small stars’ (kids 3-5 years old). The class runs for 1.5 hours, I spend about 45 minutes of that playing Head shoulders knees and toes, then ring a ring a rosie, then I like to do about 10 minutes of Star Jumps (all the time introducing new concepts in English, for example, stand up, fall down, sit down, run over there, come here, numbers letters etc). Usually by then, the kids are starting to tire, and I am close to vomiting from the exercise. So its song time, we sing some horrible song, like, “1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 and 10, Hello again!” there is close to no tune and the music is just irritating but the kiddies love it. Then I hit them with the hard work. That’s right my friends I don’t care if they are 3, my class isn’t all fun and games... actually that’s not true, I normally spend the rest of the time, playing games with picture cards, hide and seek, twister etc. By the end of the 1.5 hours, the kids have been exposed to English, and can understand a little more, maybe even say a few new words, and I am completely stuffed, but happy!

oh, I forgot the puppets. Yes, yes, stop laughing, I too have trouble picturing we sitting crossed legged in front of 6 kids, having a conversation with a puppet. But i'll have you know that Mr Tiger is a lovely bloke, and surprising has an Australian accent. The kiddies go bloody mental for it. They know Mr Tiger is just me with a sock on my hand, but they don't care!!! Ahhh so much fun, and they pay me for this! (Hopefully anyway, refer opening paragraph!) So, what else is happening... Ahh, I bought a push bike today! That’s right my friends, I am now one of the masses. It’s great, I spared no expense and bought the best brand new bike, AUD50 can buy! It’s beautiful, it looks identical to the far more expensive foreign brand ‘Giant’, except it’s made from Chinese parts! I bloody love it; I’ve been out all day today just cruising about. When I get a chance i’ll take some pictures and send them through.

I have also confirmed that my bargaining skills are rubbish. I’m like the guy in monty python’s ‘Life of Brian’. This is how the exchange went (oh, he didn’t speak English, but he had a translation program on his computer, so imagine the below exchange, but with him typing, pulling a face then stepping back so I can type! It was like a Helen Keller convention!):

“It’s a great bike, good quality and good price, 350 yuan” he typed (read said)
“Ok, sounds good I’ll take it” I said and typed
“Yes, I know it sounds expensive but the price of Steel has gone up” he said
“that’s nice, I’ll take it.” Says I
“Ok, ok, i’ll throw in a free basket.” He says
“ cool, a free basket, I’ll take it” i say
“alright, you win, I’ll throw in a free lock and basket, for 350”
“ok, i’ll take it”
“sold!”

It was unbelievable, at one point I thought HE was going to ‘walk away’, only for me to chase after him and convince him I want to pay full price. Yes, yes, I know what you’re thinking, a basket! What a big poof. But the reality is a bicycle without a basket is like a bum without a hole; sure it looks great, but it’s not very practical!

I mean seriously, you can’t expect me to hang my fruit and vegies on the handlebars for the 5 minute ride home!

Chinese Medical

After settling into my new job (code for working my butt off within 15 minutes of getting off the plane) my employer duly informs me that in order to obtain my foreign expert certificate and so remain in Beijing longer than 30 days, I need to undergo a full Chinese medical. They take pains to ensure me that the process is very basic and should only take a few minutes, so if I could make arrangements with the visa officer-cum-translator-cum-guide that would be great.

Obviously, I don’t have any problem with this new request, after all, anything that means I can stay in Beijing longer that 30 days is a good thing, right?

What my employer failed to mention was that quite possibly the hardest part of the medical would be finding the hospital! The visa officer was gracious enough to agree to meet me at a nearby subway station to escort me to the hospital, however, she failed to mention that the particular subway station in question may have more than one ‘exit B’! After spending nearly 20 minutes playing the ‘how can you be at exit B, if I’m at exit B and you’re not here’ game, we eventually met up and made our way to the aforementioned medical facility.

At the hospital things seemed pretty easy, I filled out all the forms, and started making my way around the various rooms. You see in China, going for a medical is like the gym. You stand around waiting for the particular doctor to be free to do the individual examinations. Heaven forbid a Doctor should branch out a take both your height and check your vision at the same time! Chaos would reign.

I was making good progress moving from room to room. Weight was ok, height was ok. My vision raised some questions (not because I’m blind but because the sight board is in some sort of bizarre characters! How do you say in Chinese; ‘I can see it I just don't know what it’s called’?) The chest x-ray was ok; they made me wear a pair of very trendy lead underpants, only. Apparently cancer in the balls is bad, but cancer of the head is no problem! The blood test was my usual; disappearing veins. The Chinese nurses must get trained in the Sydney blood bank, 'if you miss the vein, don’t panic just move the needle around in the patients arm until the blood appears.’ Ouch!

Then I come to the final, dreaded, internal examination. Now, at the time I had no idea what that meant, but the only thought going through my mind was; looks like I’m taking one for the team here (if you're picking up what I’m putting down).So I enter the room and all is well, the Doctor says;

“Ni hao”
“Ni hao” I respond hesitantly, wondering what the Chinese for, ‘take off your pants and bend over is’, and hoping he doesn't say it.

He motions for me to lift up my shirt. He looks at my stomach, nods all official like, and prods me several times hard in the stomach. I'm thinking, is that the internal examination, or is he just stretching his fingers, so as not to injure his tendons when I bend over. Then the dreaded signal, turn around, he motions something about my belt, oh no, this is it, the moment of truth... Then he says in shockingly bad English for a Doctor;

'America?'
“No, no” I say, “Australia.” But he doesn’t seem to comprehend.
“bu, bu” I exclaim, “Aodaliya, Aodaliya” panic has well and truly set in at this point.

I don't mind baring my arse to this guy, he is a doctor after all, I don't even mind if he wants to stick his fingers up my arse, HE IS A DOCTOR, right? but if he has to do it, I don't want him thinking I’m American, and so doing it angry. Nooooo, I want him to be happy and relaxed. RELAXED! I’m almost screaming now, “Aodaliya, Aodaliya”, and desperately searching for my translator, (you see the Chinese idea of privacy is having a medical exam in a small room with the door wide open and 20 foreigners and Chinese staring at you). Finally, the doctor (well the dude in the white coat, clearly implying he is a doctor, but by now I’m not convinced) says with a big smile;

“Ahhhh, Aodaliya... no problem, finish finish”

For the first time during the 5 minute exchange I relax my sphincter, stand up and almost run out. I found out later he was looking for surgery scars and had no intention of inserting a digit in my date. Thank god! It seems that according to Chinese doctors all Americans are fat, unhealthy beasts that are always moments from death, and so more than likely will be covered in surgery scars; a somewhat harsh judgment in my opinion.

Anyway, the moral of the story, and there is always a lesson to be learned, is;

1) Always make your nationality known. If you happened to be an American (not that there’s anything wrong with that!), say you're Canadian; and,

2) Just relax and take a deep breath, it will only take a moment.