… but it’s cold out there! I just rode down to the market to buy groceries, in below freezing conditions, with ice on the road and thick snow off it. The town is remarkably lively considering the temperature out there – people just wear more clothes, and go about their normal lives, albeit treading carefully: it’s slippery as.

I’ve started seeing cars drive around with snow chains on, in the MIDDLE of town! I’m used to only seeing snow chains at ski resorts like Mount Buller (I remember we used to go skiing regularly when I was a kid, and the memory of the stop halfway up the mountain at around the snow line to put the snow chains on the car tyres will stay with me forever) so it’s a little strange to see people using them in November in a town where I live.

Here’s the view from my window at the moment – the roads are cleared of snow, but the ice elsewhere is an inch thick where it has been packed down by feet, and the untouched snow is about 30 cms thick, and really powdery.

Out on the roads, there are work teams everywhere, squatting on icy sections of road which have been cordonned off by flourescent witches hats, hammering on the inch thick ice on the road with iron mallets, while others use BIG bamboo brooms to sweep the newly broken ice shards off to the side of the road. These broken shards of ice look like big bits of shattered marble slabs. The freezing conditions mean that the air and ice are totally dry (lots of static electric shocks from my kitty!) and so once the work team moves on, there is a nice clear section of dry road to ride / drive on.

However, that didn’t prevent me from having my first real stack on my bike today. I was riding along, going just fast enough to keep me safely upright (or so I thought), but slow enough to avoid passing pedestrians. Anyway, I rang my bell to let a little old lady know that I was overtaking (as is the polite thing to do) and the next thing I know, I’m sprawled on the ice, underneath my bike. I yelled an extremely loud, extremely profane profanity which may have started with “f” and may have had four letters (or maybe not – the only people who heard me were chinese who mostly don’t speak a word of English, so you can’t prove anything. So there). The little old lady kindly picked up my bike from on top of me, and helped me up with a sympathetic smile, and said something which may have been “get back on the horse, dearie”. Then again, she might have been telling me to “stay off the roads, you crazy western maniac”. Who knows?

I decided to be optimistic about her character and take her advice. I jumped back on the bike. To perfectly honest, I’ve already fallen over twice while walking, so I figure that riding is safer… and you’ve got that whole gyro-action thing going with the wheels. What’s more, if you do fall over on the bike, you’re not in any danger from cars, cause the bike lanes in China are just wide enough for two cars abreast, but for bikes and pedestrians only, and are separated from the vehicle lanes on the road by a little nature strip and trees. So it’s all good. I’m safe for now. But I’m not sure that my bike could take too many more spills – one of the brake handles is bend out of alignment (ironically, it is braking better now, though!), but at least the wheels are still mostly straight…

I’m sorry, I’ve had the camera back for a few days now, but have been lax in posting the birthday photos… I’ve been studying chinese, I think I’m finally at the point where I can a) pronounce words from the pinyin and b) not stand the frustration of being able to say basic prepositions like “from” and “at” and “in”.

But without further ado, here are the birthday photos:

Here is only part of the HUGE birthday feast that we had. Lots of yummy food, and other wierd stuff like pigs’ ears etc. Even some tofu, even though I can’t stand the stuff most of the time…

One of the dishes was my favorite, Da Pan Ji, (“big plate of chicken”), and at this particular restaurant, they really did put the WHOLE chicken in, including the head. Here’s a particularly touching shot of Pat The Canadian gettin jiggy with the chicken. Head.

I can’t even imagine a chinese person doing this at a dinner. We westerners really are just here as stand up comics, and cultural oddballs. We actually don’t teach any English, that’s just what we tell the folks back home – we’re really paid to provide some light entertainment between classes for the hard working Chinese students… Or something.

The cake:

 

 

Need I say more? Actually, I probably do – the writing on the top says something like “may you grow more wise and beautiful every year.” Like saying “many happy returns”. See the little horse lounging on top? How cute!

Here I am with all my guests, except Pat, who I beleive is taking the photo. This photo was obviously taken pre cake-fight.

View!

From left to right: Friend of King’s who I don’t know, invited himself, I wasn’t fussed; Erin the handsome guitar student; Apple, one of my teaching partners; Michael, the other Aussie here who essentially lined me up for this job; Dave the Canadian, who lives in the apartment below me and teaches english at number 1 highschool; Robin, one of Michael’s teaching partners; ME!;Chris, one of the crazy Canadian ESL teachers in Kelamayi; King aka Donkey, PE teacher at my school; Sunny, my other teaching partner and; Maggie, another friend from Kelamayi, going out with Pat (who is, as I said, behind the camera).

Here’s what happens when you let westerners loose on chinese birthday traditions. Everyone except Dave was covered in cream, but I only got a couple of shots cause I was paranoid about getting cream on the camera. King was out of the room while the cream fight was on, and so Pat (I think – it’s a totally Pat thing to do) took it upon himself to give him his slice of cake, Three Stooges Style:

By the time I remembered to get my camera and had found a clean napkin to wipe my fingers on, I guess only me, Chris and Donkey were still covered in cream. Hence the photos of only three of us. I wish I’d managed to get a photo of the actual cake fight – it’s the sort of thing that sensible people only dream about… I’ve not had a food fight since Portsea Camp 2 years ago, where I was a councillor, and I had to retaliate to one of the recreation leaders dousing me with Ketchup. I love it when ketchup comes in those handy squeeze bottles, it makes it just perfect for aiming down the back of shirts…

Here’s the beanie and scarf that I got for my birthday from Pat and Maggie, with six, count em, SIX pom poms all up. The beanie is totally warm, and I get heaps of use out of it. It’s not been quite cold enough for the scarf yet, but when it does… (ed note (what am I talking about, i’m the author AND the editor, so should it be just “note”?) it’s snowing again outside, the day after all the snow had completely melted. People seem to be less interested in clearing it up now, so it’s just piling up on the ground (except the roads), and looks lovely!)

Bowling alleys are the same the world over. Almost. Here’s my proof:

This one, though, all the bars and tables and stuff are to the side, and it only has six lanes. But still, that’s not bad for a two donkey town (I’m not counting King) like Dushanzi.

Competition was fierce between the three teams. Or not. I played so badly that my team lost each time, so I ended up lamenting my lack of bowling prowess instead of noting who actually won. I think it didn’t matter too much. I guess as host I should have organised a prize or something, but I truly didn’t think of it. Next time, gadget… Anyway, here’s my little team montage (not everyone from the party ended up coming bowling. Should I have opted for karaoke instead…? :

The snow is melting, despite the below freezing temperatures at night. It’s cold out there. There is still the odd bit of snow in places, areas which only get morning sunshine, but mostly the place is a big muddy mess. I wish that it would just make up it’s mind and get wintery already – the sun is shining like the blazes outside, and Mushuk is enjoying sunning himself.

Everyone tells me that next month it’ll get really cold, and the snow will come with a vengeance. I think the kids at school will like that – they had a ball, or rather, I should say, they MADE a ball, a huge big snow ball the size of a small boulder. It was quite impressive, and even though it’s not snowed in days, there’s still enough on the ground to have snow fights. Fortunately, they know what “no” means, when they aim the snow balls at me with twinkles in their eyes. I raise an eyebrow, say “no”, and the snow ball miraculously ends up hitting someone else. I keep reminding myself that these kinder kids have probably experienced (or at least, remembered) as much snow as I have. One of my best and brightest, Ruby, just turned 5 last week. They don’t seem so young in class, but as Michael points out, they look much younger when they’re not in school. And they are utterly adorable. I’d have photos of first snow, but I’m afraid my camera is still locked upstairs. I have to go to Kelamayi this weekend to pick up the keys from my mate there who accidentally took it home with him after my party.

Then there will be a veritable TORRENT of photos…

It’s snowing. Real snow, floaty bits of ice. And it’s snowing enough for the ground to actually turn white. It’s turned into a winter wonderland out there, snow getting to be a whole five centimetres thick in places. I went for a walk tonight, and it’s amazing how quiet everything was. Not like during a power cut when everyone is out on the streets, talking and filling in the time before the want to go to bed.

The streets were practically deserted, but it wasn’t just the lack of people that made it so quiet. Does snow absorb sound? Cause all I could really hear was the crunch of my shoes in the snow. And it’s the really fine powder snow, the kind that’s glittery and shiny. I walked under a lamp post, and just watched the snow come glittering down, all shimmery and sparkling. So pretty. And then a car drove up behind me, and I saw the sparkling of the snow on the ground in the headlights. It’s making me all sentimental, and I started singing White Christmas to myself. I put my headphones in at that point, and started to listen to a little Kate and Ruth (quality irish and australian folk. Just beautiful), and then I started to skip. There was noone in the streets, and I was taking the back way home. I skipped, and then they started playing a jig, and I began to dance, turning little circles in the snow. Childish, I know, but when one comes from a place where one never sees snow, one is entitled to a little childishness, perhaps. I’m on a little snow high. I’m sure it will last as long as I remain warm, or until I slip in the ice and fall.

Goodnight, white world. I’ll see you in the morning.

Love to all, Charlotte

So, the big birthday party was on last night, and a fine time was had. My actual birthday was two days ago, but logistics meant that the party was better happening last night.

Thusly, Friday felt less like a birthday and more like a normal friday. Yesterday was just brilliant. Not only did I finally pick up my new winter coat, my warm, quilted knee length coat in rusty orange with purple lining with a furry eskimo looking ruff around the hood, not only did I spend a mega fun day with Sunny, organising a restaurant and cake, not only did the fun Canadians from Kelamayi manage to make it with another friend from Kelamayi, but I spent a great evening with good friends, fun friends. I feel so lucky to have only been here 3 months, but still have a bunch of friends so lively and easygoing.

We started off the evening with dinner at a restaurant that I’d never been to before. I felt like a bit of a traitor, not going to my favorite restaurant, but they just didn’t have enough room to accomodate my 11 guests. This new place was ok, their food was better than average, but the company was what made it a great dinner. There was: Sunny, Apple, Donkey and his friend Liam, Erin, Robyn, plus five whole westerners – Michael, Dave the Canadian from downstairs, me, and Chris and Pat, the Canadians I met in Kelamayi with their chinese friend Maggie. Five westerners walking around together in Dushanzi – this place doesn’t know what hit it!

The guys from Kelamayi have got me all inspired to start working harder at learning Chinese. They seem to be able to understand most of what is going on around them (plus they’ve been here considerable longer than me!), and can make themselves understood with little difficulty. It’s both inspiring and embarrasing for me – I’ve been here three months, and I really just need to pull my finger out of my arse and get to work. I hate study though, and since leaving uni, I’ve got out of practise (not that I was ever much good at the consistent long term study thing – I was a champion swotter). The good example of Chris and Pat was just what I needed – they are actually having formal lessons every week, which is precisely the direction I need to take it. All I need now is a teacher.

After dinner, we shed a few party goers – King had to jet with his friend, and Dave the Canadian I suspect was getting tired of our larrikin behaviour. This came to a head during the cake eating right at the end. See, in China, cakes are generally these big sponges covered in sweetened whipped cream that lies about 2cm thick on the outside of the cake. And they are splendidly beautiful, with all kinds of decorations and stuff. It’s quite traditional for the top of the cake to have a little animal made out of whipped cream, lounging on top, according to what year of the chinese lunar calendar the birthday person was born under. I’m a horse, so there was this cute little horse lounging on top with a loony grin on it’s face. Most adorable. I ate it. *evil laugh*

Anyway, once everyone has their cake, another tradition is to smear the birthday person’s face with cream. Just a little smudge on the cheek is usually ok, but when westerners are involved, the whole room gets involved in a massive food fight with cream everywhere. I think it’s the fact that this is the one time when a westerner can have a food fight and make it acceptable – so the entire room, goaded on by the western boys mostly, started slinging cream everywhere. The look on Dave the Canadian’s face as he shrank unobtrusively into the corner said it all – “damn immature kids”. I had to laugh at him later, after he was making his apologies and bailing, I said “what, we’re too immature for ya?” He laughed, and muttered some affirmative comment. Nice guy.

After we’d cleaned ourselves up, we headed off to one of Dushanzi’s TWO bowling alleys, and I rediscovered both my joy and incompetance in bowling. Sunny, Apple and I have decided to recify our shortcomings by regularly going bowling. Then I’ll be able to hold my head high, cause I was seriously terrible. Out of nine people who came bowling, I was without a doubt the worst bowler there. Not to mention that I didn’t realise that I was putting my foot over the line for the first half of the first game.

It appears that bowling may be a good form of stress relief for Michael – he was chucking that ball like a wallet (Michael, if you’re reading this, you know what I mean!), which is to say, VERY hard. I was afraid that the ball would end up cannoning it’s way through the floor to the pool hall downstairs!

We drew names out of my new beanie that I got from Pat and his girlfriend Maggie (canadians call a beanie a toup or something, and they say a beanie is a cap with a little propellor ontop. Aussies, leave comments to correct the silly Canadians) to give us teams, and there was much shouting and frivolity to be had. Good fun all round.

Then we headed back to the “westerners” apartment building, and took up residence in the unoccupied top story apartment. We had both my guitar and the new guitar that Erin had just bought (he’s coming along so quickly, and will even more so now that he has his own instrument!), and it turns out that Chris and Pat are quite the minstrels. They played some songs, I played my party peice of Hotel California, and we had some nice harmonies going. Then I had a brainflash, and dashed downstairs for my fiddle. I’d forgotten how good it was just to play with people, even if I am playing improv like an amateur at the moment. My irish playing is doing well, but the lack of improv is making my improv boring. Lois boys, I miss you!

Despite the scrappy playing on my part though, the whole thing sounded kinda good. Pat threatened to invite me up to Kelamayi to lay down some fiddle tracks on the originals he’s recording, which I have to say is the LAST thing that I thought I’d be doing when I came here. Sounds like fun, though.

All in all, an excellent birthday. Even if it was a day late. Hey, the browncoats were still wishing me happy birthday well into saturday, which was still friday for them, so it’s all good. Thanks to all those who’ve sent birthday emails or left posts in the goldenfool browncoat birthday thread (I feel so loved!).

Unfortunately, no photos of the party are yet forthcoming, due to the unfortunate state my camera is in – locked into the room upstairs, because an unnamed North American from Kelamayi forgot to give the key back to me… You know who you are. Bad boy. So I’m unable to give you photos as of yet, cause it seems that my boss has dissappeared, and he’s the only one with a spare key. Other casualties to the situation are my violin, my guitar, a mostly eaten cake that will soon start to smell bad, and my variegated spider plant that will need water soon, which I put in the apartment to make it look a little less stark. I will go on a mission to find Kang Laoshi tomorrow to get the key.

Check back here soon for photos, there are some rippers!

Love, Charlotte

Just a few comments to the comments on the primary school entry so far:

Why I’m commenting so much on the Uyghurs? Probably because I can differentiate them so much easier than the Han Chinese kids – their faces are more familiar to me, and so I can pick distinguishing features more easily. I have a little difficulty with remembering the names of the chinese kids a) because there are so MANY of them, and b) because at that age, they look so alike – hair colour and style, fashion, eye colour, it’s all the same, so the only thing I can use to distinguish them is facial structure. I have enough difficulty with caucasian kids, so imagine how I am with all these cute little Chinese kids! So in part, I comment so much on the Uyghurs kids cause I maybe notice the individuals more, on the whole. I know the names of ALL the Uyghur kids, but maybe only half of the Han Chinese kids. (Of course, there are only about 20 Uyghurs, and more than 80 han kids)

To make a GROSS generalisation, grown up Chinese and Han do not mix all that much, and I’m sad to say that the same is beginning to happen with the Uyghurs at kindergarten level. I think – I could just be noticing the Uyghurs more again. Bad habit, must kick that one. All of the classes have a good mix of Uyghur and Chinese (about 1/4 uyghur), and the teachers mix them all up so that they’re sitting together. I think that Han Chinese, while not quite regarding Uyghurs as a lower form of life, certainly see them as different. A few Han girls I’ve spoken to have said that they’d not consider marrying a Uyghur, but that it’s not unheard of for uyghur girls to marry han boys (marrying is a big thing here – I’ve not heard much speak of “going out with”, only “marrying”).

As for whether I have to do the exercises – they have class monitors up the front of each class, who have been approved by King, the PE teacher, as being competant enough to demonstrate. The teachers are there as crowd control.

That’s interesting, what the “anonymous” person said (I’d love to know who you are!) about the morning exercises being the governments answer to the “Little Emperor” syndrome. I do know that primary school exercises are the same country wide. I’d also say that Kinder is not to young for this kind of exercise – it gets them thinking about coordination. These kids can already speak better english than some of my college students (edited to add: what I mean by this is that the early age treating them with greater discipline and teaching them more things is certainly paying off – cultivating coordination and language skills from an early age can’t be a bad thing, right?)

I’ve been terribly lax, in not including an entry about the place where 80% of my work is – the primary school. Reading over past blog entries in my archives, I see that I’ve drawn some erroneous conclusions about some things to do with children and schools.

Kelamayi Chuang Xin Foreign Language School is the official name of my employer, generally shortened to Chuang Xin School, at least in english. It’s a private school, as I’ve mentioned before, which until recently, was unheard of in China – all schools were state owned. Tuition at Chuang Xin is quite expensiveby Chinese standards , which explains why there are four kindergarten classes, and just one of each of grade one, two and three – the parents send their kids to the private school for kinder, to see if it agrees with them, and the drop out rate is about 75% by grade one. But once they make it to grade one, they seem to stay on.

My timetable consists of classes five days a week. I teach all four of the kinder classes, and the grade one class. The classes vary wildly in general ability and behaviour – for example, my favorite class to teach is kindergarten one, cause they’re just so sweet, and for that reason, I have Inara, Simon, Kaylee, and Summer in that class (Firefly reference, get with the plot, non browncoats). Kindergarten four is a class of little terrors, so there is Kyle, Stan, Eric (as in Cartman), although I reserved Kenny for another student in another class, one who was so naughty that I just wanted to kill him in a different way each lesson (Southpark reference for those not in the know, I know you’re out there).

Here’s what the class rooms look like. This is the Kinder one class, my fav.

The cute little Uyghur girl, second from the front and second from the left, wearing pink and giving an adorable grin is Inara. She’s my star student, she always knows the answer, and is loved by everyone. I told her and her parents that Inara is the name of a very beautiful woman. I neglected to mention the whole companion thing (another Firefly reference – watch it, you won’t regret it!), I’m not sure how her folks would react if they knew I’d named her after a prostitute, albeit stunning and classy.

You remember that I got to give English names to all of the children. There is one ace little Uyghur chick called Faith (as in the Slayer, always my fave Buffy character), and in the same class, there is a Buffy. There’s also a Kendra, but the rest of the Buffy names are too obscure for English names (“hi, my english name is Giles”) or too hard for kids to pronounce (“hi, my english name is cord… codd… cadaaa.. Cordeeelia”). I did bend things a little and called one Alex, in tribute to Xander, not to mention to my father, Sandy. I have a Corbin, after Corbin Dallas of the Fifth Element (one of my heroes), and a Jude, for Jude Law (not to mention that Hey Jude is a very well known song here). The rest are a mishmash of names from all over the place, but quite by accident, I ended up with the entire Gurry family in my grade one class – I’ve got a Matt, a Julia, and a Sarah. Someone pass that on to the Gurrys (Gurries?) with my best wishes (the Gurries are a family of impossibly, irritatingly beautiful people, who play in my brother’s rock band, but I love em despite their irritating beauty).

Here’s a cute as pic, of random kids mixed up from lots of classes. You’ll notice that some of them look distinctly non Chinese – those are the Uyghurs.

There are different “looks” of the Uyghurs, too. For example, there’s little Connor, inn the red jumper with the “w” on it, who looks almost indian with an arab look about him (you can only see half his face, but he’s an utter cutie. In his class, kinder 1, there’s a little boy who speaks better english than he does chinese – his folks speak Uyghur at home, and he had to got to the loo today, but didn’t know how to say so, so we got Connor to translate for him. Connor is named for Angel’s Connor – Handsome, cute, heart of gold, but slightly confused, and an utter handful when he gets it into his head to be so). Then there’s little Daniel in Kinder 4, with the v-neck, looking away at the back. He looks more kinda greek or eastern european. But they all count as Uyghur.

So, here’s the competition. There are 8 kids in this photo where you can see their faces. Comment and tell me how many Uyghurs you see. (shameless plug for comments, or WHAT?!?)

How cute is the little man at the front, doing his monkey impersonation? We’d learnt “monkey” just the week before.

Imogen, I tried to get three of them called Imogen, Phoebe and Amelia, mindful of your mother’s philosophy of obscure names in the class room, but none of the kids could pronounce them, although there is a tribute to the Curtis family with a Millie in grade one. I tried Amelia on her, and she just couldn’t wrap her mouth around it.

There is also a gorgeous little Uyghur lass called Sarah in kinder four who looks uncannily like my mum, Sara (no h) when she was little, as well as her Uyghur friend Lucy, who looks like my cousin Lucy when she was little. One of my favorite kids in Kinder four is called Jessie (one of my best friends in the world) – shortly after she was given that name, though, her two front teeth fell out, and she says “jethie”. She’ll get that “s” sound back again. Eventually.

But enough about names. Class starts at the primary school at about 9.50, and each lesson goes for 40 minutes. After second period, there is a twenty minute break not for play lunch, but for morning exercises. First the kids sit in their classes and massage their eyes in time with piped music (yi, er, san, suh… wu, leo chi, ba – One two three etc), and then they all head outside for the aerobics routine, which is an incredibly complicated series of motions which include lots of clapping and jumping and marching on the spot. The whole thing is disturbingly militaristic, where all the classes are lined up at arms length out the front and to the side. The other morning, I witnessed the flag raising, which was even more militaristic, complete with kids marching like in a military ceremony, pointy toes and all, raising the big red chinese flag that Hollywood so loves to wave around to indicate veiled threat. It was truly bizarre to see it flying here in a primary school, and I didn’t realise until I got here how much Hollywood has infiltrated my subconscious with it’s symbols of threats to the west, not to mention all of my politics classes that I ever took on Asia. I still get a delightful little shiver of intrigue whenever I see the flag flying over the school. I realise I’m being a tad silly, but I do enjoy it…

Here’s a photo of the kids doing morning exercises. It’s actually kinda cute, especially to see the complete disaster of the kindergarten classes lumbering through the moves, compared with the competant precision of the higher grades…

I can’t quite tell how I feel about these morning exercises – on one hand, they’re good for fitness and coordination (and believe me, you need to be coordinated to pull it off), but on the other, as Michael puts it, it’s perhaps indoctrinating the military conformist attitude from an early age. But then again, it may be having quite the opposite effect – my mother made me go to church as a child, and I may have given all the outward appearances of being a good little catholic (and later anglican when I was forced to got to chapel at highschool), but I turned out to be an avid disbeliever in organised religion. Perhaps these kids, while outwardly marching in time quite literally, will grow up with a certain distaste for that kind of regimen…

Questions? Comments?

I have big plans for my b’day on friday, the tradition here is that the birthday person hosts and pays for everything. No shouting drinks for the birthday girl here. So I’m trying to organise dinner and bowling, but it’s difficult when i’m not sure how many folks’ll be able to show up. And bowling is even expensive here. 15 quai for one person for a game? That’s a whole $3 per person! What IS the world coming to?!

To quote a great man:

Peace, out
C.M.

It’s not as scary as I would have initially thought. Although I buy all my packaged goods (like instant noodles, jam, apple juice etc) from the local supermarket, I mostly buy my fresh goods at one or other of the multitude of markets around the place, where the fruit and veggies are excellent quality (though now dwindling in both quality and quantity not that winter approaches), and the experience is the most fun.

Some of the fresh foods markets are ouside wherever the stall owners can find somewhere to set up shop, but now that the weather is getting colder, most markets are under cover. There are two that I go to regularly, right next to each other. One is just a single long strip of individual stall owners set up on two rows of big solid tables with built in cupboards underneath. As you walk down, you pass by all sorts of things for sale, from brickabrack, to dried fruits and spices and staples like rice and noodles, and at the far end, fresh fruit and veggies. Every now and then, there’s a glassed in booth, where they sell cooked meat, like chicken and mutton.

This market is like a big walled in hall a block long, and there is another floor upstairs where there are rows upon rows of clothes for sale, and socks and stockings and a few tailors. It is open at either end (but the edges are lined with individual shops, selling clothes, shoes, electircal goods, more brickabrack, and wool) and a few weeks ago, they put up big huge broad clear plastic flaps, like something you’d see in the door of a fish and chip shop, to keep the heat/cool in. As a result, the temp inside is never too chilly.

Yet.

The other market that I frequent regularly is more like an open air market with a roof over the top. One end has a glassed in area with a few open windows, where they make Uyghur breads etc, and there are other individual storeowners who sell eggs, bread for steaming, dried goods (dried mushrooms, yuck!), and the BIGGEST hunks of tofu that you’ve ever seen.

An aside about tofu: The chinese call it “dofu”, so it is not a difficult word to remember, but somewhere in their deep english learning past, someone decided that “dofu” translates as “bean curd”, which I suppose it essentially is, but I’ve had a hard time at various instances, trying to tell people that no, we generally call it “dofu” with an Australian accent in Australia. Vile stuff, whatever way you look at it. It’s like eating badly set jelly. glarp. Aside over.

Almost the entire other end of this second market is given over to fresh vegetables. Almost no fruit in sight. This place puts the Vic Market to shame, in terms of how many veggie sellers there are. I’ve never gone all the way down the end, because the further down you go, the scarier it seems to get. It’s like, the goods are the same, the people are the same, but everything is bigger. There are bigger piles of veggies, the huge big sour melons are even bigger, everything is just bigger.

Or perhaps the reason I don’t go down the end is because off to one side is the livestock area. There are pens and pens of chickens (like chickens to the slaughter, quite literally), and fish in big aluminium tanks, and rabbits in cages. Fortunately no puppies or kittens for sale, cause this is the meat section, not the cute little pet section. The rabbits are seriously huge. Bigger than Spartacus, for those of you who know my big black cat-beast back in Australia. These are feed-a-family-for-a-week rabbits. Maybe even two weeks, if you pad it out with enough rice and veggies, which they’re very good at doing.

At the near end of this market, there’s a small shop that sells only Uyghur bread, or Nan. It’s like a cross between good turkish bread and flat bread, and it’s delicious. I’ve not found anywhere else where they sell their bread as fast as they make it, so if you arrive at just the right time, you can get some nan fresh out of the oven – warm and crisp on the outside, and fresh and soft inside. It goes stale ridiculously fast (ie between morning and night), in that it goes so tough and hard that the only way to revive it is to cut it up into sections and toss it around in a fry pan to crispen it up. But when you have it fresh, there is nothing better. I’m going to miss nan when I go home.

My shopping vocab is very good. I can say “I want three, please” (although I’ve not learnt the word for Kilo. I think this will help me). I mind my Ps and Qs, and can bargain down prices with a flutter of the eyelids or a firm “wo gei ni si quai” (I’ll give you 4 yuan). I can tell an apple seller that I think her apples are not good when she tries to sell me bad ones, and I know when to walk away when I think that the shop keeper is trying to take advantage of the dumb westerner – fortunately, this does not happen very often.

I usually go shopping with my bicycle and a back pack, and by the time I get home, my bike basket is full of fresh food, and my back pack full of things like UHT milk (getting fresh milk is a task not to be undertaken lightly here!), juice, and other things too heavy or bulky for my bike basket.

At the supermarket, they have these little lockers with keys, where you are obliged to put your bags before you go in. Chinese supermarkets are not quite the same as western ones, and this is where the Chinese got their confusion over calling a department store a supermarket. The closest thing that Dushanzi has to a supermarket has what one would consider a traditional supermarket on the ground floor. There is fresh produce at one end, and packaged/ preserved/ processed goods at the other. There’s even a small dairy section, that sells yoghurt and stuff. But no fresh milk, and no fresh cheese. I’m missing the cheese terribly. I’m just hankering after a nice slice of matured Cheddar cheese.

However, the supermarket has THREE floors. Downstairs there’s all the household goods, toiletries, towels, house slippers (still gotta get me some of those), and upstairs on the first floor, there are lots and lots of clothes and shoes etc.

No wonder the Chinese are so confused in English as to what a department store is. They call a department store a supermarket (you know, like Myers), and they call a very big fresh produce market, like the big one in Kuytun, a supermarket as well.

There’s one of these bizarre supermarket/department store hybrids in Kelamayi, but it’s the epitome of non efficiency. You can’t just dash in and grab a bottle of milk. Oh no. You have to go in, put your bag in the locker, go up the escalators to the wierd department store area, wiggle your way through all of the one way check points, out the back, down this big down ramp at the very back of the store (as in, down the outside of the back wall) and then back into the actual supermarket part of the store again. If you forgot something further back, you have to go and do the full circle again. It’s ridiculous. But this new store is very very new. I think it had only been open one month, and they were mega paranoid about theft, to the point that at one of the check points (one way check points), if you’d not put your bag in the locker, they put your bag in a big ugly red heavy duty plastic bag, zipped it up, and sealed the zip with one of those ink staining security tags that they use for clothes.

Fortunately, Dushanzi is not that paranoid yet. You have complete ease of movement in the supermarkets, joy of joys…

That’s all for now, chickis,

Love, Charlotte

This was just too brilliant to pass up – thanks to Blair, aka Freesoup of Canada for the fun and games. He tells me he typed it in real time. Some people have the gift of the gab. He did admit that everything he wrote came out like a sea chanty, and I’d have to agree… Here it is, The Ballad of Mushuk:

“There once was a kitty in old Xinjiang
Whose tail was high as he strode the strand
of the city known for its trains and flans, and his
name, that kitty, …was Mushuk.

Now we all know that furriners is strange,
and even a kitty can get out of his range,
but Mushuk found a blond ‘Strine Charlotte
as he mewed her name, …did Mushuk.

And when he first met her Mushuk was a lad,
a kitty with promise and all through the land
this kitty looked forward to meeting at hand
with kitties of concave persuasion: …like girls!

(half tempo)
But sadly for Mushuk young Charlotte had plans
for the future of Mushuk the male and the grand
and these did not include some maidenly fans
…for Mushuk….. (sad instrumental bridge, ominous)

So in a taxi they went for a trip
to the local pharmacy there on a strip,
and Mushuk did find that he was stripped
for the unkindest cut that ever was snipped
…for Mushuk…. (“oh, no!”)

And that is the story I’ve sung now to you.
I am almost done here but not yet quite through
in our tale of poor Mushuk who has joined the crew
as a capon and not as …a skipper…
(suddenly fast and loud)
Serves him right the ball-less young nipper!
(flourish)”

Today marks the first saturday in about a month and a half which has not been taken up with travelling, rehearsing, or with workmen ringing my doorbell to install bars on the windows (which, by the way, don’t look nearly as bad as I thought they would).

Despite the lack of need to awaken, my body clock curses me with the wake-up-at-8am virus. Then at precisely 8.30am, while I’m blissfully watching the sky lighten (the days are getting shorter, and Xin Jiang suffers from perpetual 2 hour jet lag as a result of keeping Beijing time), I hear that Miles Otis from the next building along has awoken, and has decided to regale the world with what may have been an attempt at Revielle, or not.

Every morning, he delights in getting out his trumpet and blasting the hell out of it, from his first floor balcony, pointing it directly towards our building.

Every morning, I consider buying a BB gun.

I don’t want to point fingers or anything, but:

This guy sucks. I mean, he blows. Seriously, he’s obviously just taken up trumpet (last week it was trombone, and the week before that, sax or perhaps some kind of Chinese reeded instrument. Doesn’t matter, he played them all equally badly) and he is taking his practise very seriously. All he’s doing are harmonics at the moment (and not too many of those can he GET!). I wish I could open the window and yell at him to take up knitting instead.

I’ve got a far more neighbour friendly pet instrument – my guitar and I have been getting marvellously acquainted. Finally bar chords are within my grasp (so to speak), and I’ve been happily stringing together chord progressions and humming along with ditties. I’d love to come back to Australia with a notebook full of songs, but I have a problem.

I can’t write lyrics. I’ve never been able to. I listen to other songs, and the lyrics seem so obvious, you’d think it’d be easy. But no lyrics come. Maybe I’m not tortured enough. Do you need to be tortured to write good lyrics?

I used to write lyrics, but they were terrible – corny, cheesy, and then I was in a band where the lead guitarist laughed at them and told me that they were shit, and it took me YEARS to ever be able to play any of my stuff for anyone again.

Anyone got any hints? Carter? Mr I-Can-Write-Lyrics-While-I’m-Driving-Through-The-Nevada-Desert? (you know what i’m talking about.)

Eh. Maybe lyrics and I were just never meant to be.

In other news, this day of sloth and idleness has given me the opportunity to clean my floor, a gargantuan task. You know you’ve been busy when the filth has encrusted over the sticky patch where you spilt your coffee last Monday, so that you can see every splatter mark. It’s so nice to be able to walk barefoot again and not have grit covering the soles of my feet.

Don’t judge me cause I take time between cleanings. Teaching 20 hours of kinder a week is exhausting. Mushuk understands.

Love to all,
Charlotte