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03 March 2008
more photos going up on flickr - the upload speed is abominably slow so i didn't finish the batch i put up before...((written, as most posts, on my laptop in my room, and later transferred over to the school computer)) ...and finally i coax myself into sitting down with the computer and writing this. tbh i haven't really felt much like writing in the last few days through a combination of things. but i left out a very good and interesting first day in qingdao, which feels like quite a while ago now, and must be written about before i forget it. i left off my rather intense account at the flight from beijing to qingdao. this was brief and unremarkable: a morning flight and thus filled with businesspeople, including a small number of other westerners. at the airport arrivals area we were met by a small crowd of people from the three schools in qingdao which take gap english teaching assistants. then we split off with our respective members of staff and were taken to a car for the ride into the city. the journey itself was another rather disconcerting example of chinese driving: sitting in the front passenger seat, i couldn't help sucking in my breath sharply and flinching at one point: at motorway speed, the driver had ploughed through the tiny gap (certainly not intended for overtaking, as it was on the inside, and only there because it marked a sliproad) between a large chugging lorry and the concrete wall that formed the edge of the road, grazing the kerb and giving me the horrible sensation that we were almost certainly going to crash. however, as i'm sure you've noticed, we made it into the city, navigating many teeming, busy streets, dusty and ramshackle in stark contrast with the clean modern skyscrapers that towered above them, and eventually reaching taiping lu, by the seafront, and turning into number 12 middle school (aka qingdao foreign affairs vocational service school). we were allowed some time to manhandle baggage inside and get bearings before further activities commenced. so for the moment my little home is a rather reasonably-sized room on the ground floor of a small block at the back of the school grounds. my typically asian-looking barred metal gate-door (accompanied by a more traditional plastic and misted glass affair which keeps the cold out and the warm in but doesn't lock) looks out directly onto the concourse which connects the buildings of the school. just around the corner is the basketball courts, surrounded by high fences which separate it from other buildings in the vicinity. the courts double as a sort of outdoor drill area, and at the end there is a small podium, a banner saying something in chinese, the country's flag and some speakers on poles. to the side is the standard set of exercise equipment, like a giant playground, decked out in bright colours, which can be seen everywhere in china, not only in schools but in parks and on the sides of streets in beijing. i believe i saw a news story about such a set of equipment being installed in the uk (possibly manchester - i'd google it but the beeb is banned in china and i'm fairly sure that's where i saw it) in a pioneering scheme to help older people get gentle exercise. it seems rather a good idea really. some of the equipment is rather mysterious, but by far my favourite is the (for want of a better name for it, which may turn out to exist) stepper. you put your feet in big gently-swinging stirrup-slash-pedals and move them back and forward in a sort of exaggerated running motion. like those punishing step machines you get in english gyms but infinitely gentler. i'm not sure what part of the body this equipment is meant to work, but it is great fun. the school itself is a fairly average-looking white-tile affair. the whole set-up reminds me quite strongly of some (south) korean high-school films i've seen. my room itself is bigger than what i had in manchester, and thus i can't complain much. it has quite a nice big bed, which is incredibly hard and firm, though much improved by my adding the spare duvet from the cupboard over the sheets, so i am sandwiched between two thin duvets. this is also very nice and cosy as it's pretty cold here - more or less like home apart from the snow the other day, but always with a chill seaside wind. there are also two heavy blankets provided, only one of which i've found i've needed to use. there are two part-wood part-padding armchairs, a coffee table, two desks, a wooden chair, a cupboard, a lamp and a large television with a set-top box which tunes it. there is a radiator in front of the window, which comes on during the week, and an air conditioning unit on the wall which can also function as a heater, and indeed does so for me at weekends. i have a mini kitchen in the form of a fridge, microwave, kettle and toaster. i have not used the toaster yet as buying butter feels rather too serious an affair and i'm content to eat bread dry for the moment. there is a small top-loading washing machine. the bathroom is a little hit-and miss. it has a sink and a large mirror, a western-style toilet, by which i mean that it is a toilet, and not a hole in the floor that flushes (such luxury! but seriously. it actually is considered as such here...). on the wall is a hot water tank, and attached to that is a shower which makes everything else wet. unfortunately the drain in the floor intended to catch the water from the shower is rather inadequate, causing a miniature lake to form in the room as it very very slowly drains away. the whole thing was in need of a good scrub, which i duly gave it, and it is now better although there is only so much that can be done to remedy long-term neglect. there are also three rather vile-looking mops of different species. i have improved the room with various purchases: cleaning fluids, a bowl to wash things in, a teatowel, two mugs, a tumbler, some spoons and chopsticks, and some brightly coloured rag rugs (something like 60p each). on the front door there is one of those bright chinese decorations with pictures of smiling pigs and fish and a chinese knot on it. it says something in chinese which i imagine must mean 'welcome' or 'home sweet home' or something of the sort. i don't think it's a new year greeting as it is the year of the rat, and all the decorations heralding the new year have large chubby cartoon mice grinning saccharine grins. there is also a pair of red fabric fish with googly eyes hanging on the wall. i have added my eurocentric world map, an assortment of photos from home, the card hettie sent me from chile, a tube map, a diagram of maslow's hierarchy of needs and my teaching timetable. i also have the beginnings of a collection of interesting chinese packaging, including the lid of something called 'coffee flavour milk tea', which was by no means as disgusting as it sounds. ANYWAY... on to the rest of the first day in qingdao. we were allowed to gather ourselves and then whisked off in a rascal-type minivan (obv. very popular in china) to quite a smart (by chinese standards... and i say this without spite, only to mean that it wasn't england-smart) hotel, where we were introduced to the principal of the school and his daughter, and ate buffet lunch in a token revolving restaurant. the view was very good, although the day was hazy, and photography rendered inconvenient by the reflections in the glass and the fairly snappy pace at which the place was moving. the principal seemed very nice, although he spoke very little english, so our conversation had to be mediated be heidi (whose name was at first taken to be hattie, pronunciation needing to be adjusted to), a very attentive and pleasant english teacher. tsingtao beer was drunk (which has a pleasant enough, german taste) and toasts made. next, in response to murmurs about sim cards, we were taken to the china mobile shop. after much confusion and some phone-call translation from the english teachers, i obtained a chinese sim card, which works perfectly with my unlocked uk phone. my number was cheap as it contains an unlucky 4, but it does also have an auspicious 8 so i am hoping this will balance out, cosmically speaking. nothing worse than a cursed mobile phone... ;-P the next stop was a surprise, and rather a wonderful one. we were taken to the temple fair, which is to say a street fair. despite the alien nature of the stalls, i felt oddly at home. the atmosphere reminded me of nothing so much as the bridgwater fair: the jostling crowds, the pounding music, the shouts, the smoke and the smells of cooking food all conspired together in a sense of excitement and festivity which seems to transcend individual cultures. of course what was on offer was fascinating in itself, and the principal's daughter, who, with her friend (who spoke quite good english) escorted us around this maze of sights and smells, bought some of the delicacies for us to sample. first were big bark-stripped chunks of sugar cane, which we were instructed to chew and then 'womit' (ie. spit out, natch). doing so, one's mouth was filled with a cool, liquid sweetness that was surprisingly un-cloying. then, i sampled a qingdao speciality, which i have christened the 'toffee hawthorn', as it is just that. a kebab-style stick skewering a row of hawthorn berries, coated in sugary syrup just like a toffee apple, although sesame seeds were also sprinkled on. this was delicious and, i am inclined to think, better than a toffee apple, as the hawthorn berries are a far more manageable size, and their sourness offers a pleasing counterpart to the sweetness of the sugary shell. we also sampled the 'smelly' tofu (you know mao zedong, he very liked it) but this was dismissed as being of inferior quality. also available but left unsampled were a variety of interesting snacks, including squid which had yet to meet their maker. next, we went, via a roadside fireworks stall, to the principal's house, a very neat, modern flat in a smart development. we were shown in and offered snacks, and left to watch their jaw-droppingly enormous television (which had a doily on it, as did the speaker stacks and the hi-fi) while the principal and his wife prepared supper. the meal was served communal-style, each person equipped only with chopsticks to dip into the many different dishes on the table. the provision of food, as always in china, was ample. in addition to the impressive spread, we were offered dumplings and then traditional glutinous rice balls with sweet sesame paste inside. as it happened, that day was the glutinous rice ball festival, which is something like a twelfth night to the extensive chinese new year festivities, marking their close. obviously, such an occasion calls for fireworks, and lots of them. we had been hearing and seeing plenty in beijing (fireworks by night, bangers by day, let off en masse) as the celebration of the new year continued, but that night qingdao's skies - and streets - glowed with them. the most delightful thing about how the chinese do fireworks is that they just let them off anywhere. most people live in large apartment blocks, and so they simply take their fireworks out onto the pavement and light them. a great many car alarms were going off. we were given great fistfuls of huge sparklers, which our hosts lit in bunches that burned fiercely in the darkness. the principal then lugged the main attraction out of the car: an enormous barrel-shaped firework which he lit and we watched explode magnificently above the buildings. as we were driven back to the school that evening, everywhere were signs of festivity: parents with children clutching sparkers, rockets ricocheting off buildings, miniature bonfires on street corners with figures huddled around them, and in one place, an enormous fountain-style firework which had been placed right in the middle of a street, and was holding up traffic in both directions as it let a cascade of sparks rain down all around. utterly utter [
03:01 ]
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