That’s right folks, if you’ve not had success with the low carb diet, with the low fat diet, the don’t-eat-anything-with-an-”e”-in-the-name diet, here’s one that’s BOUND to melt of those kgs!*

All you need do is find yourself a dodgy restaurant, order something with either a) meat, or b) large quantities of chilli or c) all of the above, and chow down. In no time, you’ll not only be too sick to eat anything, which will aid spectacularly in weight loss, but you’ve also got the handy excuse to not go to work, cause the children laugh at you if you keep running to the toilet every five minutes.

The past 48 hours have seen me spend waaay too long on the toilet, not to mention get through more toilet paper than I’d care to mention. And due to the nature of chinese drains, I’ve been forced to use plastic bags for my… ahem… waste paper. Hooray for anti diahorrea tablets, which I know are bad for me, but can get me through class at least.

Michael had a particularly nasty bout of gastro last night as well. Poor lad knocked on my door at 1.30am, bent over double, looking scared that he was about to die. He then promptly puked into a plastic bag right there on the landing. I doled out sympathy, water and extra bags for his puke bag, and told him that the toilet was a better place to puke, cause toilets only have one hole in them, and it’s supposed to be there. Thank god that my cold had knocked out my sense of smell!

It’s cold today, and the poor college kids STILL have to do morning roll call or whatever it is, at 7.30 am. I’m woken every morning to the hollering of “YI! ER! SAN! SUH!” (ie 1! 2! 3! 4!). I’m counting my lucky stars that they don’t expect teachers to partake – that’d just suck too much. I’d not mind the hollering so much, it sounds like fun, but the 7.30 am thing?! Bear in mind that that’s the equivalent of 5.30 am here. We may keep beijing time for time keeping, but everything happens generally 2 hours later – First classes in the morning aren’t until 9.50am. (S&G folk will know how well this suits me! I generally get to work on TIME!)

That’s all for now, preciousnesses.

*Of course, most of it is just fluid loss, and it’s possibly one of the most unpleasant of the not-so-serious ailments…

I can’t beleive I forgot to do this! I talked all about the inside of my place, but not the outside!

My apartment takes up 1/4 of the floor of my apartment building, on the large side for most apartments here. There are very few single story places here, and all of the apartment buildings are uniform: four stories high (counting the ground as one, as is the custom here), with two to four stairwells, depending on the length of the building and the size of the apartments therein.

Most places have a gorgeous clover lawn between buildings, with these cute looking chairs and tables which have been crafted out of cement, and painted to look like the stump of a huge tree for the table, and five or six smaller tree stumps around for chairs. It has a real Enchanted Forest feel to it, except that there are not many trees around the lawn. Actually, there are trees, they’re just not very old. Sprinklers are going all the time, it seems, to stop the lawn from drying up.

It’s so cute, sometimes there are veggies and stuff laid out to dry around the place. This photo was just too good to pass up, and I have to share it! Hot chillies, laid out to dry in the sun on this enchanted table thing, in the middle of a thick clover lawn:

In some of the older districts, the trees look more established, and so there is stacks of shade for kids to play under, and they do.

I said that most buildings have this clover lawn around them, the “most” part referring to the fact that my place does NOT have the lawn. My place looks like a DUMP from the outside. There is only gravel and dried up prickly weeds outside my place, and I think this is because my building and the two on either side are mostly college accomodation, and none too swish at that (apart from the foreign teachers annex, which takes up half of my building, and is cloistered in its own separate stairwell). I’ve not seen inside the apartments of other people in my area, but I would imagine that they’re not as swish as here.

Here’s what my apartment looks like from the outside:

And the view from my window:

The main building in this pic is one of the college boys’ dorms. I dread to think how many people live there. I reckon each apartment is half the size of my place, and there are probably at least 4 people squashed into each apartment. Ouch. Off to the far right, you can see the apartments for the people who work at the college. They look much nicer, and have the clover lawns and kids play sets. Several of my students live in there. All the green that you see to the far left is the primary school where I do most of my teaching. The two tall buildings in the background are the foundations of hope that town leaders have for Dushanzi, that it will one day be a thriving metropolis. All this high density housing and office space has one very strong benefit – everything is nicely compact, and easy to get to by bike. I love my bike, did I mention that?

Interesting fact I picked up this evening at dinner from my teaching partner, Sunny: she told me that the apartments for the foriegn teachers in Keramayi are more swish again. She even went so far as to say that my apartment was no good by comparison. I can see what she might be getting at: the couches have no padding on them, they’re actually fairly chunky, with lots of bare wood. One of the things I bought from Kuytun when I went there with ShaSha was cushions for my couch, because they are seriously hard.

My bed is also rock hard. I’m thinking of looking into how much a softer mattress would set me back (probably a couple of week’s wages!), cause the mattress feels like it’s a plank of wood with a few blankets inbetween it and the sheets. In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s the case!

I’m sure it’s very good for my back, or something, though.

Not that I’m complaining. Oh no. My place is luxury compared to what many people have here. And this town is comparatively wealthy. I’m just trying to point out the incredible disparity between here and what we are used to in the west.

If my windows are open, I can hear the sounds of the college boys in their dorms: the two buildings on either side are chock full of testosterone pumped uni boys. They live there under the iron fist of the “Auntie”, usually an older lady who sits outside all day, and forbids such lewd things as having girls in the building. The Auntie also enforces the curfew. Anyway, when my windows are open after curfew, I can hear all sorts of wierd sounds coming from the boys rooms. People singing and playing instruments, lots of loud shouting and whistling. It makes it feel very active and bustling, which I like. The noise never continues till late at night, so it’s all good.

I also occasionally hear the shout of a guy trundling around on a big motorised three wheel bike, yelling that he has gas cans, or water dispenser bottles. At least, I assume that’s what he’s saying, cause it just sounds like a holler to me. On top of that, I can often hear the sounds of kids yelling and playing, in the primary school next door.

As for smells, well, the only one I can think of is a biggie, and occurs usually at about 2am. If my windows are open at night after I fall asleep, usually I wake up at 2am, choking to disgusting noxious oily fumes. I can only assume that these emanate from one of the petrochemical plants on the edge of town. I learnt early on to put on the airconditioner at night, and to keep the windows closed.

Aside from this nightly pungency, Dushanzi is remarkably pollution free for being surrounded by oil refineries and petrochemical plants. The grass is green, the sky is blue (at least for today. Tomorrow I’m sure it will turn grey again), and the air is fresh.

It’s truly a nice place. But ask me again how I feel once winter rolls around. I was convinced by Guo Laoshi to get an autumn jacket made for me, rather than jumping straight into the winter padded coat. For AU$25, I was not going to turn down a tailor made jacket. I pick it up on Saturday, and if it looks nice, I’ll give you a photo.

Cheers for now,

Charlotte

All is well here.

The weather has turned cold, i’ve been told to expect snow any day now. I’ve been totally slack about getting a coat made for me. There are a few shops in the market which make thick padded quilted coats, with feather lined hoods which just look toasty warm. You get them tailored made, and have the choice of a whole STACK of designs and quilting patterns. Expect a picture when it comes.

To give you some faces for names, here’s a pic that was taken at Robin’s birthday party a few weeks ago.

My social life is coming along nicely. There are four teachers at school who I get along with particularly well.

Here’s a pic before I start throwing names at you, taken at Robin’s Birthday party:

Left to right: Michael, King, Robin, Sunny, Apple, and Jang Laoshi (Newly given english name of Phoebe, but it has yet to stick). Jang Laoshi was the chick who played piano with me at Teacher’s Day.

Sunny, my teaching partner for kindergarten 1 and 2, is a crazy chick when she’s not in the classroom (at which point she becomes the epitome of teacher – she’s ace). She’s loud and rambunctious, with a fine sense of humour that would fit right in in Australia. She enjoys teasing people (in the nicest possible way), and can take it as easily as she gives it. Ie she has a thick skin. She doesn’t drink however, and laughingly calls me a “beer bucket” if I drink more than one cup of beer – beer, I might add, that only contains at most 3% alcohol. Initially I told her that I was going to teach her her how to drink beer, but then at one point she told me that her father drank a lot and, discretion being the better part of valour, I decided that reading between the lines, she has issues with drinking herself. I no longer tell her that I will teach her to drink beer except in jest, every time she calls me a “beer bucket”. Michael has taught her the word “piss pot”, so I can expect to be called that now.

At this point, I should once again point out that women do not usually drink beer in China. That job usually belongs to the blokes. Girls drink tea, or wine if they have to drink at all. So me being the lower end of moderate drinker that I am, come across as a piss pot, which is OK, cause I’m a brash western woman. They all like me anyway.

My other teaching partner is Apple, who is with me for Kindergarten 3 and 4. She is less boisterous than Sunny, but none the less has similar wit and sense of humour. She’s taller and lither than Sunny, and is a massive help in the classroom. She and Sunny are thick as thieves most of the time…

Robin works at the middle school, and is a little more staid than Sunny and Apple. Her favorite pasttime is to tease Michael, with the biggest, cutest grin on her face. She takes her teaching quite seriously, and works very long hours. She’s the home room teacher for one of the middle school classes, which basically means that on top of teaching them written English, she has to go with them to every other class to mark the roll and keep order. She is your typical case study of a teacher who’s teaching something that was not their major at uni. She studied Electronics (I think this translates as Electronic Engineering?) at Uni, and I get the impression that she is ridiculously bright, but is stuck teaching english because she can’t get a job in electronics. She studied English at uni, but it was not her major. She seems to take this with equanimity, and I think she actually like the teaching, so it’s all good.

King is the PE teacher at school, and has now got the nickname of Donkey in our little social group. Don’t ask me how he got it. I was there when it happened, but I’m not clear on HOW it happened. Regardless, he is now a “bad donkey”. Not only does King teach PE, he’s also Michael’s teaching partner for the Grade 3 Class From Hell. They have the reputation for being the naughtiest class in the school, although I think that is only due to four or five very bad boys. He’s not your typical teaching partner. Mikey told me that he gets the impression that King is there in a dual purpose role – English teaching partner, and disciplinarian. He can be a very scary bloke for the kids, but you can tell he’s just a softie at heart. I’ve seen him comfort a kid who was feeling sick or sad (not sure which) – he brought the kid into our office and sat him on his knee. SO cute!

That sort of behaviour from a teacher to a student may be frowned upon in the West – male teachers have to be SO careful in how they act towards kids these days, but that sort of political correctness has not reached China yet.

My teaching partner for my grade one class, an older lady called Gou (gwor) Laoshi, was off sick today, so King came into my class to be my teaching partner. Good lord, but they’ve never been so well behaved. I want King in ALL my classes! And all he did was sit at the back and do the occasional translation! Anyhow, we were reviewing animals at one point, and I have a flash card of a donkey in my pile, and pulled it out with a smirk on my face and said “what animal is this?!” They all yelled the correct answer, and I grinned at King in the back, and he sniggered at the ground and shook his head, laughing. Then I got all the kids to make donkey noises, and I could have split my sides laughing. It was a good class…

King gets a lot of flak from Sunny (“bad donkey!”) which he just smiles at most. He’s totally zen most of the time, but can give as good as he gets from Sunny. I must admit to flirting with him oh so slightly on our nights out – he’s a top quality flirter (and single!), not to mention being the only other real beer drinker of our group. Michael will down the odd pot occasionally, but it makes him mopey and introverted, so he’s not the world’s most enthusiastic beer drinker. So King and I are drinking buddies. But only on weekends. And only in moderation. Don’t worry.

Love to all, Charlotte

Sorry it’s taken so long for this update, I feel like I’ve not stopped going since Tuesday.

So, it was teachers’ day two days ago. Incase you’d not already picked up on that fact from the past few blog entries. I practised my little hiney off, and managed to remember the song they wanted me to play at the “concert”. Wednesday dawned sunny with the severe threat of getting hot and sticky before the day’s end. Dushanzi usually manages to carry through on it’s threats, and today was no exception.

I’d been told the day before that because Jang Laoshi (the music teacher who played piano in our little trio) and I were to go get done up at the hairdressers with makeup and all, I’d not take the three classes I had that morning, and could have a one hour sleep in. Thusly, imagine my chagrin when I’m woken up by one of my teaching partners, the one who told me that I could have a sleep in, calling me on the telephone to tell me that I DID have said classes after all.

I had NO time to get ready for class, and rocked up to my lessons looking ever so slightly bedraggled (you at Smith and Gilbert know what I’m talking about!!). Finally, lessons our of the way, Jang Laoshi and I went to the beauty salon to get done up. Wow, they piled on the make up at least an inch thick, and even gave me sparkles! They did Jang Laoshi’s hair up in a trendy french twistie sort of do, with little twists at the front like Jodie Sawyer’s hair at the end of Centre Stage (where she’s in her red costume, for anyone who knows!), but decided that they’d leave my hair undone. M disappointment was palpable, I’d always wanted to have my hair professionally done.

Eh.

We headed off to the cinema where the event was due to take place, and got changed backstage amongst school children in yellow knee length kiddy overalls with giant sunflowers on the front, and chicks in red wonderwoman outfits, and even a group of very scary looking 18 year-oldish girls in commando-like camo gear.

The Teachers Day event itself was almost like a school end of year speech night, but with a decidedly communist twist. You’d never see all the schools in the region having a big event like that in Australia. It was part speech night, part pep rally, part rock eistedford. They presented awards to top teachers (I assume), had little kiddies come in in their little sailors outfit school uniforms (I kid you not!) to give flowers to all of the school representatives. After a stack of speeches which seemed to bore even those who could understand what was being said, the concert began. It seemed that there was an act for every school, maybe. The scary looking chicks in army camo commander gear ended up doing a little dance routine with… POMPOMS of all things.

Our double fiddle and piano trio was on second last. Michael said that the response from the audience was interesting – I remember fairly little of it, I was just focussed on getting the music right. Michael said that when a blonde chick (ie me) walked out on stage, everyone just started talking amongst themselves, so unexpected was the sight of a westerner in their concert. I DO remember that as soon as we started playing this famous chinese song (maybe as famous in China as Waltzing Matilda is in Australia), the noise level from the audience must have doubled. I think we created a stir.

Anyway, we pulled it all off without too much of a hitch, me not making the same mistakes that I always made in rehearsals. All in all, we played well. Afterwards, when our headmistress came up to greet us outside, I got the distinct impression that she was feeling smug at her act having elicited such a response. It was kinda cool. She gave me the flowers that had been given to her as the school’s representative, which was nice.

That night, we all went out for dinner at a totally posh restaurant, it seemed like most of the teachers at the school were there. At this point, I’ve got to mention the feature that chinese restaurants seem to have that I’ve not seen anywhere in the west. Most of the posh joints have little private rooms with their own private airconditioners. They can each seat between 8 and 16 people, which makes a chinese dinner party a delightfully rowdy thing. The chinese do enjoy their dinner parties. They like to have a good ol singalong after the meal – not just a drunken slurred hodgepodge, but a formal, “come on X, why don’t you give us a song!” They got me to sing something Australian, so I went for the old classic Waltzing Mathilda, a bonus cause Michael could sing along in the chorus (with a bit of prodding from me!). The food was, as usual, awesome. When toasts are made in China, and everyone is too far away from everyone else to clink glasses, the all tap their glasses against the food turn table in the middle, as a kind of proxy. I like that.

Afterwards, we all went downstairs for some dancing, and I amused the natives with some outrageously stupid and embarrassing dance moves. It’s funny, being starred at the whole time means that one can do MORE embarrassing things rather than less, cause if everyone always stares anyhow, then what difference does it make if you do something that makes them stare? It’s all the same!

So I showed them the bunny dance (ie bouncing from ne foot to the other, hands up like a little meercat. Ridiculous, and I got teased for it the next day, but it’s all good) and the under-the-sea boogie (you know the one, where you hold your nose and pretend to go under water), and that old Aussie classic, the sprinkler (hold your ear, other arm out straight, wave your elbow and turn in time to the music). Most ridiculous, and King (the primary school PE teacher, one of the group of folks who’re my age) taught me a chinese insult that he said applied to me – that I had water in my brain, and fish were swimming in there. I think it’s equivalent to “you’re crazy, mate!” but in a nice way. I walked home with the other chinese teachers of my age group who all live at the primary school, and some how along the way, King got the nickname from Sunny (one of my teaching partners) of “donkey”. It has stuck since. “bad donkey!” “Carry my bag, donkey!” Sunny teases him incessantly, I gather they were in the same class at uni. Most amusing to see her tease him in English (his english is not bad!).

So all in all, Teacher’s Day was a vast success. It ended better than it started, which is infinitely better than starting better than it ends!

And if I don’t end this blog entry here, I’ll never post it.

Steve, there is “Sights, Sounds and Smells” entry in the works, I just need to get the right photos.

Love to all, Charlotte

Strange day…

They were filming lots of stuff at school today. Kiddies being told to go into the garden, and being told how to play for the cameras. They were more than happy to do this, because they were given ultra fun stuff like bubble blowing toys, and they even kicked around Michael’s Aussie Rules football (they started off throwing it, and on seeing this, Michael and I, neither of us footy fanatics, were strangely bothered by the fact that they were throwing it, not kicking or handballing it. I guess some things are deeply engrained into one’s psyche).

Anyway, in the next class that I had, it was “what fruit is this?” day. Because the film cameras were around, my teaching partner had brought a stack of plastic fruits and veggies that the kids all got to wave around yelling “APPLE!” and “BANANA!” Then I was plonked down in the middle of the room and told to play my guitar for the kids, this crazy little song that lists some fruit, then talks about how good rainbow fruits are for me.

I felt like one of those little clockwork monkeys with the cybals.

After my five hours of class today, I was pooped. I’d played guitar in three of them, not to mention all of the practise I did on the weekend, so by that stage, I had developed massive blisters on my fingers, not just the little ones I’d had before. I decided that I’d not play anything, not fiddle nor guitar, for a few days, to let the callouses take shape. Teachers day is on Wednesday, and I knew that I had to play a couple of songs with the Arhu kids.

But then just as I was about to go home, I was cornered by the two music teachers and told that we needed to rehearse again for teachers day. I was ever so slightly shocked, thinking that Twinkle Twinkle Little Star does not need this much practise. But I soon realised that they wanted me to play in their little trio, playing a traditional chinese peice with two unison fiddles and piano. Usually I would jump at the opportunity, but I was knackered, and really just wanted to go home and flop until my planned dinner with Michael and friends. I read the music off the piano score, having to transpose down an octave (the sob story begins here, be warned!) from notes that were a good 6 or 7 leger lines above the stave, which still translates to fairly high E string playing. As I keep saying, normally this is not a problem. But the blisters on my fingers feel like they’re about to pop, which would be an unmitigated disaster. I kept trying to tell them that I had to stop NOW, but they kept starting to play it again. What could I do, walk out?

And then the headmaster comes in and tells me that I need to learn this five minute peice off by heart in one day. Normally, not a problem, I just play it until I’ve got it down, but… I don’t need to mention my blistered fingers, do I? They didn’t speak English, my chinese is nowhere near good enough, and MY GOD! it was so frustrating. It’s my first bout of frustration at the language barrier. Usually I’m totally cool with it, but not today. And then kids kept running in the room, shouting and screaming, and I wish they’d have just SHUT UP! It took the two music teachers about 5 minutes before they told the kids to shut up.

And what’s more, they had NO idea of how to rehearse something. You know, taking a small portion and going over it several times. NOOOO, they just ploughed through it until the end, then started again, not stopping for mistakes. I ended up stopping playing at a rough patch, saying some irritated words in English, and pointing imperiously with my bow to where I wanted to start.

I really miss MYO (Melbourne Youth Orchestra, for those of you who aren’t in it, or know that I was in it!), MYO has spectacular discipline by comparison, along with a conductor who knows how to rehearse (and no Peter, I’m not sucking up!!!).

Finally Guo Laoshi (one of my teaching partners, and older lady) came in, and I asked her to translate for me, to tell them that this practise session was doing me no good, and that I wanted to go home and practise on my own another time when my fingers were a little less raw. Thank god, then it finished.

But then (boohoo!) I get home, only to discover that Michael and his friends have already left for dinner.

And just now I got a call from a bloke who I find desparately boring, who wants to go to dinner. I had no excuse to give. So he’s coming round. Grrr.

Oh, one other bizarre thing about my day. I’d come home for lunch and I heard a commotion in the stairwell for my apartment. Michael and I both came out at the same time, to look down at what was going on, and found a large group of men coming up. Turns out they were a delegation from the Japanese Foriegn Language school or something, and were thinking about sending a teacher to come teach here in Dushanzi, and wanted to have a squiz at the apartments that were on offer for foriegn teachers. Michael’s place is always a tip, so they all pretty much barged into my place, with little camcorders, filming everything in here, dirty laundry in the bathroom, dirty pan on the stove from lunch, underwear hung out for them all to see on the clothes line. I was quite embarrased, and miffed that they’d decided to look at MY apartment instead of the unoccupied one downstairs.

Not to mention that they all scared my poor cat. He was quite beside himself, and they’d left the door wide open for him to escape. Not a happy kitty, nor a happy owner…

But all that aside, any of the above points of complaint in this blog by themselves would have been fine. It’s just the fact that they’re all stacked ontop of one another on one day. I just wanna sleep.

Oh. i was about to finish the blog, but then Michael and his friends just walked in and said “so, you still up for dinner?” YAY! much more interesting people. So I’ll go with them and the dull man, and not have to make conversation by myself.

Day’s looking up!

Bye bye!

Charlotte

Today was an excellent day. Not only was it Saturday, not only was the sun shining (as it usually does), not only has my kitty been increasing in size in a very healthy manner, but two things occurred today that made my day brilliant, but they both resulted in me getting a sore bum and blistered fingers, respectively.

First, I bought a guitar. Eric, and (I think) his girlfriend Maggie – both in my college spoken english class, came with me to the music shop, to help. Eric plays guitar, and I wanted to hear the two prospective guitars from the front, and so needed someone to play for me. He’s a sweet player, got some good jazz and blues stuff goin’ on. We both ended up agreeing that the cheaper guitar was better value for money, and so I bought a mid range steel string guitar for 700 yuan – about AU$175, and about US$90.

Hence the sore fingertips. I’ve been playing everything from the Beatles to Black Velvet Band to Hotel California, right through to Heads Shoulders Knees and Toes. You know that healthy sore finger feel, when you know that if you go gently enough, you will end up with good quality callouses? That’s what I’ve got.

But what about the sore bum? you ask. I’ll put you out of your misery: I bought me a BIKE today! I’ve not had a bike since I was about 10. The feeling of power that you get, when you get off your feet and suddenly whiz along, the breeze in your face, cooling your skin with the sweat that you got from walking. Here’s my gorgeous bike:

See? It has a basket at the front, for my cat (I put him in there, but he yowled at me, so I took the hint, and took him out again!), and it even has the cool handle bars that look like they should have little streamers coming out of them. I shall have to find some…

Dushanzi is almost totally flat, and this afternoon, Michael and I went for a 2 hour ride, going from one end of the town to the other, and then out into the desert on the other side. I’ve finally worked out how to use the auto panorama on my camera. It’s quite spectacular to watch it stitch together images. I’ve been wanting to show you the foothills of the South Mountains for awhile, with the snow capped peaks off in the back ground. (To save on bandwidth, I’ve made this a popup image, so that you don’t have to load it every time you check my blog. It’s also a very WIDE photo. You may need to scroll the image to see all of it!)

< >

Everything you see here is in the “Forbidden Zone” – the photo was taken from the edge of the forbidden zone. It sounds very imposing, but all it means is that foreigners can’t go in – it’s full of camels and shepherds and real live cowboys.

Speculation is rampant between Michael and I as to why it’s forbidden. We’ve come up with countless theories – it’s a intercontinental missile test site, a landing gound for missiles launched in the far south of china. We know that the test missiles do land somewhere in Xin Jiang. We also heard that in the later half of last century, the Chinese were worried about invasion from Russia, and so have large weapon caches in there, so that they could fight a guerilla war if they had to. There is also the story of the many prison camps in there, not to mention the numerous military bases. Who knows really? Everyone has a different theory, but noone seems to be able to give a straight answer for why we as foriegners are not allowed in there, apart from the broad excuse that it’s for “military reasons”

My own personal theory is that it’s China’s own version of Roswell. There’s a Chinese Area 51 in there. I’m sure of it. They have alien spaceships and everything. A goat told me. It was a very reliable goat.

Baaaaaahhh!

Charlotte

So, Chinese Teacher’s Day is coming up soon, on Sept 10th. Most of you know that I’m a violin player from way back, but for those of you that don’t, I am. I’ve been playing since I was four, which when I think about it, is a bloody long time. I’ve been through classical and Irish, done a bit of Klezmer, a bit of Jazz, a bit of alternative Rock, even tried my hand at a bit of Kurdish music once. That was an eye opener. I like a bit of variety to keep things interesting, so I’ve been very interested in learning some Chinese instruments and styles.

In this town at least, Teacher’s day seems to take the form of some kind of talent show, where everyone, kids and teachers alike, gets up to sing, or play something or other. I was informed by my headmistress (through Gou Laoshi, another english teacher), that I was to play violin.

Then Sunny (another english teacher) and the primary school music teacher show up on my doorstep this evening to ask if I want to go play some music with them. We ended up going into the PS multipurpose room, where I met the
arhou teacher. Arhou (I’m pretty sure I’ve got the spelling wrong!) is like the Chinese traditional equivalent to a violin, played upright like a cello, but resting in your lap. I’d never seen one up close before, and so had never appreciated the sheer COOLNESS of the instrument.

It has a looooooong neck, with a small body about the size of a medium milo tin that sits at the lap end (for the non Australians, that means a cylindrical body about 20 cms long (you do the conversion!) and about 15 cm in diameter). The body is skun like a drum at either end, like a banjo. There are only two strings, which are set into a bridge that rests on one side of the drumskin body. But here is the cool part: it is played with a bow that goes between the strings, and so to change strings, you press the bow forwards or backwards to make contact with only one string.

So, the Arhou teacher let me play the arhou, and he picked up my fiddle, and we had a rather scratchy sounding session. I started out by playing the little communist kiddie’s song that I learnt on the train (the song about going to Tianamen because the Great Mao tells us to – it’s a cute song, really!), and then the Arhou teacher (who’s name I didn’t quite catch) comes out with, of all things, Click Goes the Shears – a more quintessential Australian bush song you’d not find, unless perhaps you count Poor Ned or Waltzing Matilda. We established that I shall play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star with ten other primary school kids at the Teacher’s Day concert.

What a night. Much fun to be had, with a few of the other teachers at the school (who live there in embarrasingly cramped quarters, compared to what I’ve got) coming along to listen and laugh at us. I established that a upper-end crappy arhou costs only about 400 yuan, and that Arhou teacher has one that he can sell to me for that much. I’m going to try it out tomorrow, and if I like it, it’s to become one more thing I have to cart home… On top of the guitar that I plan to buy tomorrow or the next day, for teaching purposes. I wonder if I can claim a tax deduction?

Love to all, Charlotte

know this isn’t anything to do with China, apart from the odd Chinese Cussword thrown into the script, but I just have to crow to the rafters, cause I’m so happy and there’s noone here to share it with:

THEY’RE GOING TO MAKE THE FIREFLY MOVIE!!!! HOORAH!

Check out the article!

This quote makes me happy: fans created such a demand that DVD presales on Amazon.com sold out within 24 hours.

Aussies, they’re putting it on Aussie TV soon, if not already. Watch it. Stay with it past the first two or three eps, and you’ll be as hooked as the rest of us sorry souls. You’ll not regret it, except for the fact that there are only 15 hours of TV and maybe 2 more hours of movie in the making, and you’ll regret that you’re hooked and there is so little to watch.

All praise to Joss. Back to our normal programming.

Wow, what a rush!

I just got home from teaching my first two Kindergarten classes. I’m on a total high! Which is bizarre, cause I came home at lunch time feeling totally drained! This morning I had a double college class, followed in quick succession with a grade one class, and I came home from that feeling like I needed to sleep for another 3 hours.

But then I jumped back on the horse with the Kinder kids. The first Kinder class, I took in the big multi purpose room, got them to sit in a circle. Seemed like a good idea at the time, but it meant that some of them weren’t looking directly at me. I had difficulty keeping their attention. We did the whole “hello, how are you? I’m fine thank you” thing, and it took FOREVER. I kept forgetting that getting little kids to do things individually only results in them going all shy, at least at this level. So, the first kinder class was not such a success. But the second one. OMG, the second one!

It took place in the kids’ tiny little class room, cause the multi purpose room was occupied. At first, I thought, “geez, this is never going to work”. But then I started hamming it up, and giving out little red peices of paper as prizes, and the effect was monsterous.

In a good way.

I would dash to the front of the class, waving my hands and shouting HELLO! and they’d all shout back HELLO! Then we got the whole “how are you?” thing happening and the moment I told them (through my english speaking chinese teaching assistant) that I couldn’t hear them, they started yelling at the top of their little lungs. Then we did the stand up and sit down things, and they weren’t easily tricked by my sneaky cries of SIT DOWN! when they were already sitting down. They caught on quick, this second class.

There was one little boy who refused to stand up with the rest of the class, didn’t even open his mouth, and refused to do anything. Poor kid. And then there was the little girl who burst into tears right at the beginning of class, had a splinter in her finger or something. She came back from the sick bay and promptly won the prize for the fastest stand-up, and then on in was the quickest and smartest for stand-up and sit-down.

So. I’m on a high now. I laughed so hard in the class, and I got to act like a total goon, which, as those who know me are aware, is what I like to do most in the world. I giggled the whole way home. I now know what I need to do in my grade one class. Just act like a goon, make a ninny of myself, and I’ll be right!

Love, Charlotte