University - video views

To give you an idea of the size of the university, here is a short video, most of it taken from the shuttle bus window.


The library is an impressive building. It has five floors around a large courtyard. One floor is dedicated to Foreign resources, and one room has stacks of high quality, Chinese published, English books. They hardly seem used. Unfortunately there seems to be no catalogue of them in English.

Waiting in vain for the heating fairy

There must be a little fairy somewhere, finger poised over the "On" button for the central heating. She must be otherwise engaged. Probably mucking about with an elf.

I know the central heating works (both in my apartment and in the classroom) as the fairy did her job reasonably well in the first week I was here. But not since!

And it does gets cold! The other day it was 3-10 degrees, colder in the basement classroom for the computer lab.

After some investigation, it seems that there is NO central heating after 23rd March, despite the temperature. And it's not just for my apartment, or for the university, but for the whole province!

I'm told the air conditioner in my apartment is reverse cycle, but I haven't yet deciphered the Chinese on the remote, and all my button pushing has only yielded cold air. Never mind, the weather is getting warmer day by day. (Just over a month ago, many parts of China were hit by severe snow storms.)

Construction of four football stadia

Of course, everyone knows that the Olympic Games will be held in Beijing this year (the torch has already arrived!) starting 8 August. But few of you might realise that in 2009 Jinan is hosting the All-China Games, and in 2010 the 16th Asian Games will be also be held in China - Guangzhou, to be precise.

It seems that Jinan decided to have a few more football facilities, and so not one, but four giant stadia are currently being built on one site near the road I travel every day to work. The scale of the construction is really quite enormous. Here is a video I took from the bus window, to the sound of Sabre Dance (so turn up your sound!):

Lunch at the University

The University site is so large (161 hectares), it is difficult to comprehend how some 20,000 students and 2000 staff can get fed in 30 minutes at one place. The building is in the centre of the campus and is three stories of food serveries and dining area, efficiently catering for so many people.

It's not difficult to find. Just follow the throng at lunch time. It's a 15-20 minute walk from our staff room, quite pleasant through landscaped gardens and past a huge ornamental lake. But it would not be very pleasant in inclement weather. So we have been ordering our lunch from the same kitchens, to be delivered to the staff room.

A huge central kitchen with hundreds of white uniformed staff serving behind long rows of mainly hot food counters. Students can select from hundreds of options and they stick a "food card" into a special machine in front of them as the serving staff punch in the purchase amount, updating the balance on the card. All incredibly efficient!
The ground floor ("first floor" in this part of the world) is typical uni union refactory with lots of useful shops, fresh fruit and veges (strawberries!), photocopiers, computers, chemist, technology store, and a well stocked supermarket selling a good range of food and goods. This seems to be a better place to shop than the maddening Carrefour supermarket back in the city. And all purchases in the student building can be made using the "food card" - wonderful!

Strolling back to my own building I delighted in the blossoms appearing on the ornamental trees, and the first blush of green of the willows and other decidious trees, all with white painted lower trunks.

Canal walk

Not far from the Hotel Sofitel is the huge Quancheng Square,
which buzzes on weekends. Today it was almost deserted (by Chinese standards), but there were a couple of kite fliers. Here are some first photos :

Then I walked back along the canal, which boast some of the springs that the city is famous for. It's not an easy walk for arthriticky knees, as there are many ups and downs. The springs themselves are only of mild interest, but they seem to excite the Chinese tourists. The locals fill up their water bottles as you can see in the photos.

I then got lost in some interesting back lanes, which was not at all unpleasant in the spring sunshine, and then found some food stalls - one offering delicious potato / onion pancakes.

The old buildings are gradually being demolished to make way for the modern monstrosities. I am witnessing an end of a bygone age.

It's not the destination, but the journey

I bought a web cam for about AU$8 at a giant computer emporium - six floors of every conceivable piece of technology. It didn't work, when I got back home. :-(

I decided to valiantly pursue my consumer rights and so returned early the next day with my computer. I had to wait a while until the shop opened, so I took a few photos. I then finally found the shop, and showed to the manager my problem. She ummmed and aahed, and enlisted the help of several other stall-holders. Another more expensive brand worked, but I refused to pay extra. Eventually it worked!

I left in high spirits, and hailed a taxi that was perhaps the oldest and dirtiest (inside and out) in Jinan. The driver was also old and dirty - but the meter worked - and I showed a Chinese instruction to take me to the Sofitel Hotel. Two minutes after being dropped (on an expressway), I realised that I had bequeathed this piece of high technology to the old taxi driver.

Undaunted, I found my way to the Business Centre of the swank Hotel Sofitel, and tried to get some information about taking a holiday somewhere in China (I may have four days off 1-4 May). The girls who spoke excellent English were apologetic in that they only knew the local tours, and that their attempts at getting other travel agents to help me resulted in "booking are not yet open for that date".

So I had achieved nothing, but had enjoyed the process.

Footpaths are not only for feet

Look over your shoulder, when walking along a footpath in Jinan. Not only are there bicycles, but also electric bicycles that whip along an an amazing pace, (and you can't hear them coming) and motor bikes (with drivers without helmets, pretending to be cyclists) who may or may not beep their horn at you for daring to be a pedestrian on a footpath!

The man on the right was benevolently crazy - coming up to a few inches from my face and bellowing "Hello!"

A pedestrian crossing is no guarantee of safety (see photo). Indeed pedestrians seem to be the lowest in the pecking order.

The number of people in China

1.3 billion. That's 1,300,000,000
This is a projection based on the last census in 2000.

Massage - with a cow horn

Realising that I was particularly stressed - as my neck was like concrete, I decided to venture into a busy massage place - which looked quite legit. What an experience!

For AU$30 I had 90 minutes of foot reflexology, ear cleaning, back, neck and head massage ending with what can only be called a facial.

Hot towels, cupping (popular in Chinese medicine), prodding and scraping with various implements - one of which was a smooth edged cow horn. The young male masseur, probably straight out of massage college, was snappily dressed in a black trousers and shirt with maroon tie and maroon silk waistcoat. Our language difference caused few problems, as he was able to interpret my ow's and ah's.

While he was viciously prodding my feet, which was quite painful, a woman came in to the room with a miners light, and an assortment of gear including a swag of miniature bottle cleaners. After my lug holes were appropriately reamed, she chimed a tuning fork and held to an implement stuck in my ear causing my lug holes to resonate at the same pitch.

I feel better now! Although I have cup bruises (no less than 13) all over my back.

Here is a video of some other people's experience, probably at the same establishment.

A rosier view - something to do with good food

Things are picking up - perhaps it's the bright Spring sunny Sunday.

We found a great restaurant near Daming Lake, which specialised in dumplings. It was clean, efficient, and we were treated courteously.

In the bus coming back, someone actually stood up and offered me a seat with a smile.

In the evening we caught up with our student contact (whom we met on our arrival at Beijing airport) who steered us away from the "dirty" local restaurants and after a ten minute taxi ride ($3) introduced us to a part of Jinan the likes of which we had never seen before. Clean roads, and buildings! Dozens of brightly lit restaurants each offering dishes from various provinces! We had a splendid Sichuan food, and it was a very enjoyable evening. Thank you, Luke. Jinan is redeeming itself.

For meals from now on, I don't mind paying a $3 premium for a taxi to a better part of Jinan.

Daming Lake in the centre of Jinan

A chilly Spring overcast Sunday, and James and I went exploring one of the "must see" attractions early in the morning - Daming Lake, which is in the centre of Jinan. It was a photographer's paradise.

Quite a few photos can be seen by clicking here, and I reckon some are quite good, even if I do say so myself!

Here's a sample of my work:


But this is a photo from the official Daming Lake website.

"With an impervious rock bottom, the lake keeps a constant level the whole year through. The lake is recorded as early as in The Annotated Book of Waters by Li Daoyuan who was active about 1,500 years ago. With a waterly picture and quite a number of historical cites in the urban landscape, it has always been a tourist attraction through the centuries. The banks are overgrown with flowers and trees, dotted by picturesque buidings. On the water are birds playing and feeding on fish swimming in the wake of pleasure boats. Half the city is filled by mountain tints, the other half by the lake."

I've never seen the "mountain tints", let alone the mountains, due to the smog.

A walk downtown

As my spirits were spiralling down dangerously, waiting trapped in my apartment for a colleague to get some keys back to me (that I had foolishly left in the staff room), I eventually set out in the afternoon in warm spring sunshine to explore the city.

I came back after several foot slogging hours, not really that impressed. Sorry, Jinan citizens! So far I find a grey, dirty, gritty city, that doesn't welcome a foreign visitor. I had hoped for much more. Cafes and restaurants seem to be subsumed by giant shopping buildings, and building with huge edifices, and little understanding can be made of the Chinese signs in front.

Although I teased James for eating Kentucky Fried Chicken recently, that is exactly what I found myself doing, in the absence of anything else obviously clean and inviting.

The only part of this excursion that was enjoyable was exploring a little of the "canal" (see photo) and a huge bookstore where I bought an English-Chinese dictionary for 1/10th the price I would have paid in Melbourne.

On dropping a parcel in a crowd, one person gruffly indicated my problem, but not one person bothered to assist me, although it was obvious I was having difficulties.

Here are some of the photos:

Boys going fishing.
Shoppers on a Saturday afternoon.


"At least I have my back to you!"

These old men playing a board game totally ignored me when I requested a photo.

I must explore this street - I think it has many restaurants in it. (Later - no, I was wrong).

Skype

The cheapest way (ie free) of communicating (if you have a computer and broadband) is through Voip technology - eg Skype. The software is free to download. Click here to learn more. It helps if you have headset with microphone (cheap to purchase).

My Skype address is deedubble.you
Remember that I am 3 hours behind Australian Eastern Time. I am unavailable Tue to Fri until 6pm, although I may be home on Wed and Thu mornings. I look forward to connecting with you!

One child policy

When making conversation with Chinese, one question we might normally ask is not very polite. You will be met with an embarrassed silence.

"Do you have any brothers or sisters?"

Since 1979 the Government has dissuaded people from more having more than one child through hefty fines, pressure to abort, and denial of benefits. Even forced sterilisations. This has resulted in new generations of incredibly spoilt,(mainly) boys. Known as "Little Emperors" they have little opportunity to learn about sharing and co-operating.

The rule, recently extended to at least 2010, has been estimated to have reduced population growth in the country of 1.3 billion by as much as 300 million people over its first twenty years. Source.

Bwaaahh pheeuuuuwwwww!!!!

The toilet in my ground floor apartment last night must have decided to "burp" gas.

The stench of Chinese sewers consumed my apartment. I opened windows and doors, left the extractor fan on all night, and was thankful for a few drops of eucalyptus oil on a tissue near my nose.

I can only hope it is not a regular occurrence :-(

Here is a photo looking into the bathroom. The wooden toilet seat is too small for me so I can't use it. The very Chinese hot water service provides the shower below it via very Chinese exposed plastic plumbing. To get hot water to the hand basin or kitchen I need to carry it in a bowl. There is no shower curtain, so everything gets wet. The floor is always wet. The mop is important. The hose runs from the washing machine hidden on the left to a large hole in the floor from which the terrible smell most probably emanated. The washing machine (as are all appliances) has knobs and buttons and dials in Chinese, which demands some intuitive experimentation.

The kitchen will now be cleaned

It is difficult to describe how depressing a filthy kitchen can make me, particularly if someone is responsible to have it ready before I moved in.

So I negotiated with that person to get in another person to the job, and yes, I'll pay. I was quibbling over whether AUS$3.75 for 2 hours work was too expensive, when I realised that life was too short - hang the expense!

So a lovely woman called Jo, is furiously scrubbing, mopping and wiping, spreading the dirt elsewhere.

I look forward to actually entering my kitchen when she is done.

Postscript: Yeah! I was able to enter my clean kitchen! No, next task - the hotplate plug doesn't match the power socket.

The course

”You need to be flexible and have a sense of humour” we were told in Melbourne. Well, on arrival in Jinan we find that the two classes for each of us of 20 students, has now changed to three classes of 26 students, that we share teach. This means a totally different approach to our lesson planning, to ensure that we integrate our teaching.

There is a workbook that the students will expect us to follow. (Unfortunately it is not yet available.) What we have to deliver and assess is quite prescriptive.

Today was my first day of teaching - 7:50 - 5:10. It went well. Although some students found it difficult to stay awake. (Not fair - this student was snapped listening to his MP3 player during a break time).

The program we are expected to deliver is the module "Compare and Contrast" in a course Certificate III ESL (Further Studies) designed and administered by the Victoria University, English Language Institute in conjunction with the Shandondong-Jianzhu University. The students are at an Upper Intermediate level, and in the first year at university. They live in shared dorms on the campus which is isolated and situated far out from the city. The Victoria University, through this joint project, hopes that some of these students might be interested in completing a degree in Australia - quite a costly undertaking for the student's family.

Food

With the “kitchen” in my flat not properly commissioned until it is thoroughly cleaned, I usually eat out. There are many restaurants and food stalls. Sadly, the food I have experienced in this city is not as good as the Chinese food I have experienced elsewhere (including Melbourne).

Most dishes are oily. Watching the amount of oil being added during the cooking process is a definite turn off. James agrees, saying his experience of the cuisine of southern China was superb compared to this. But I shall persist and look forward to discovering the ideal restaurant.

Smoking in restaurants is something hard to get used to – yet it only a matter of what, five years, since we legislated against such a practice in Australia?

If I don’t eat out, I call into a local corner store and attempt to break through incredible communication barriers (eg is this egg cooked or raw?} and take home sachets of yoghurt, Nescafe, UHT milk, small oranges, apples, nashi pears, bananas, biscuits – even ice-creams! I also purchased a nine pack of Chinese beer, which is palatable indeed! My only attempt at asking for something in Chinese – la cha (green tea) – resulted in stunned expressions, experiments with various tones, the enlistment of a passing student, much mime-acting, and no I didn’t want a bottle of liquid green tea, just the tea leaves, please! Cha! In the end, it turned out they had none in stock.

Carrefours

Within 15 minutes walk is an oasis – a shopping mall, with some western goods, and price tickets that have a (tiny print) English translation. Bliss! The prices are high for locals, but reasonable for us. It is here that I obtained some urgently needed goods such as cleaning materials as well a some CD’s of light classical music (playing on my computer as I type this) and a couple of DVD’s which can also be played on my laptop – “Elizabeth” and “Miami Vice”. This will be welcomed entertainment after experiencing the nth repeat of the government party line documentary on the only commercial TV channel. Any news is interesting – it seems that the unlawful scuffles in Lhasa were the work of the “Dalai clique”, and that the offenders will be caught and severely punished.


It is comforting to know that this store is nearby, but it still is difficult to get to, with the traffic and building works, and new sewer pipes being installed, effectively negating the footpaths. Which are often the preserve of motorcycles anyway!

Walking around the familiar layout of a large supermarket, I was able to find what I needed fairly well without assistance. Nevertheless, with the hordes of shop staff standing around, I was somewhat thrown when, undecided what brand cleaner I should get, a young woman thrust a container at Harpic at me, intoning in Chinese, perhaps, that this was the best product for stubborn stains. I accepted it with a curt nod, and fled.

One department to avoid is the toy department. With the one child policy in China, the little darling is allowed to run free and try out all the noisiest toys without restraint.

Out of habit, we look for signs, and labels and brands. Which is fairly useless when they all written in Chinese.

The travelator has tempting snacks to loook at while travelling.
The store has free lockers - something we don't get at all in Australia.

Contact!

It still took several days before I was able to work out how to get them to ring my apartment from Australia using a phone card bought in Australia – by far the cheapest way. No less than 40 digits to press makes it a bit of a challenge.
Still no internet connection in the flat, though.

The caretaker woman insists all we need to do is enter an IP address on our computer. When requested to do so, she couldn’t. It is an ongoing saga, and quite frustrating, as my reliance on the internet for so many things, least of all lesson preparation, is considerable.

Postscript: all is now working - persistence has paid off! Thank you all, for your messages of support - they are very much appreciated.

The classroom

Wooden or plastic desks and chairs in regimented rows for about 50 students. The teacher has a raised podium and lectern, in front of a large blackboard. Chalk provided. No overhead projector or AV equipment. No clock. Overhead fans. Heating in winter.


The classrooms are on the ground floor and the staffroom/office (for the VU staff) on the first floor – for which my arthritic knees will be most thankful. The computer lab is in the opposite building only 5 minutes away. The library, however, is a shuttle bus stop away. Photocopying needs to be ordered 2 days in advance, and is discouraged.


Three computers (connected to the internet !) in the staffroom. Simple but adequate facilities.

The university

The apartment block is in situated in the compound of the OLD university (still in use by some facilities). Mercifully it is quiet and away from the frenetic main roads, although close to the centre of the city.










To get to the NEW university we need to travel some 40 minutes on a shuttle bus (for which we have to pay)queuing with the students and often having to stand the whole way. The timetable isn’t generous, and it wouldn’t be very nice to miss the last bus. Although there is an advantage separating home from work, commuting like this is a definite disadvantage. Admittedly living at the new university, away from all the facilities of the city, would be just as unattractive.

The new university is something else. It is so far out of town, and so large, it is almost a suburb by itself. When the Chinese embark upon a project they can do it on a grand scale. See the photo images at http://www.sdai.edu.cn
Students have to walk a long way between classes. (Luckily we don't!) The toadstool in the foreground is a rubbish bin. The streets of Jinan are surprising free of litter.