Soundscape on a Sunday morning

Thwack! Whoosh! A father practises badminton with his six year old son.
Tinny Chinese music. A dozen elderly people doing Tai Chi.
Murmur, shuffle, murmur. The older woman's walking group managing a few words as they walk past with exaggerated arm movements.
Melodious humming. A women walks past, backwards.
Sound of pee on pavement. Toddler relieves himself holding on to Grandma's hand.
Put put put. A motorised tricycle laden with large bottles of drinking water.
Hack hack! Lungs protesting.
Hoik! Ptui! Phlegm up and out.
No sound. An electric bicycle comes from behind and nearly knocks me over.
Bird call. Hadn't heard that one before. Delightful! There it is! It has a long tail.
Giggle. Coo. A silly frilly filly in an embrace with her uni boyfriend. Gender equality is in reverse in modern China. Mao would mourn.
Off campus - the distant sounds of traffic, and never ending building construction work, interspersed with ther sounds of fireworks at any time of the day or night. Poor dogs.
BEEP! BEEP! A car with a very important person in it drives along the footpath and scatters the pedestrians.

Cheap haircut

The woman on the wall behind thinks that the hairdresser's top-knot is quite cool!

(Note the leather belt holding all his tools of trade.)

A head wash and head massage before and after 20 minutes in the chair for 10 kuai AU$2.50

A cheap haircut? Well, there's not that much hair, after all ....

These oldies don't need the internet

These oldies don't need the internet. They can get their (not really free) news, for free!

Train crash 70km from Jinan

There was a terrible train crash nearby Jinan early this morning. Seems that 70 are dead and about 410 injured. Here is a link, with pictures.

Life can be good in Jinan !

After several days of spring rain and some wind -

• the streets are clean,
• the vegetation has been washed,
• people are smiling, and whistling,
• kids are laughing,
• the air is clear,
• and there's blue sky!

The weather is highly agreeable - bright warm sunshine with a cool breeze.
For the first time, I can now see fascinating mountainous hills encircling much of the city - they often have pagodas on the top of them. Very aesthetic.
At work, the half way point has been reached, and the tortuous essay assignment has been concluded. Moderation is complete. (We are now starting on an assignment involving surveys, reports and an oral presentation).
My colleagues are agreeable. The students are a delight as always.
In my own time, and on the behest of my boss, I sat in on a Chinese teacher's English class, and was most impressed. I offered her a reciprocal experience.
In my absence, my apartment has been cleaned by Jo the lovely cleaning lady. Such a pleasure to open the door to a clean and tidy apartment!
I have just opened a cold beer (cheap and excellent quality), chomped on a hard boiled egg (cooked in soy sauce).
Now I'm settling down for a Skype chat with my partner, whom I miss so much!
What's this? An SMS message from my boss? We won't get paid tomorrow as promised?
Oh, well....

Old campus

I live on the old campus. There are some older retired people who live on the old campus, too, probably for most of their lives. They would have seen some enormous changes in their country over their lives.

You can greet them with a friendly smile, but they stare back impassively.


Students may have lessons at the old campus but need to commute back to their dorms in the new campus. So they queue for the shuttle bus.


There are police who guard the entrances of the campus. From what, I'm not sure.


And here is an old lady shuffling down to the police post to see what the day might hold for her behind her breathing mask.

Soft boiled eggs for breakfast

Soft boiled eggs, on toast, for breakfast!

Big deal, you might think. The minimum culinary challenge for any man.

Well, here in Jinan, in my tiny windowless benchless kitchen, it was no small achievement.

Let me tell you why.

• I didn't know whether the eggs I bought were already cooked. At least they didn't float - that was a good sign!
• I didn't have a small saucepan - but I did have a large thin stainless steel pot.
• The electric hotplate instructions are all in Chinese, and I had to buy an adapter for the plug, and even then, force the plug into it.
• Bread that is not impossibly sweet is difficult to obtain in Jinan. The only knife we are issued with is a large Chinese chopper.
• I didn't have a toaster. But I did have a large thin stainless steel pot! I used chopsticks to turn over the cooking bread.
• I had some (expensive) butter, to be spread with a large Chinese chopper!
• No egg cup, but hey, soft boiled eggs are great just spooned over the toast. But no teaspoon! I did have a chinese ceramic spoon, which is totally unsuitable for the task.
• No salt or pepper, but a splash of soy sauce instead.
• No knife and fork. (Eating softboiled eggs on toast using chopticks is stupid.) So fingers sufficed.

Scrumptious!

(It's so much easier - and probably cheaper - to eat out.)

Eating out with affable people

"Come on, join us for a meal at a great restaurant I know."

This has always been music to my ears, as I have learned from my travels that even if you are dog-tired (as I was), if you don't seize such opportunities then you are no richer for the experience. "Us" was a group of four young foreign teachers (American, German, Phillipino, Chinese) from my apartment block, with whom I had not shared a meal before.

The challenge of Chinese menus notwithstanding, a wonderful array of dishes (dry fried fish portions, egg and mushrooms, spicy noodles and a fried spicy mash potato) were quickly consumed. $11 total. Great company, good service, clean toilets, silly talk, lots of laughter, and a short walk in the brisk evening breeze to the city square afterwards, before a taxi home. And mercifully, an odourless sleep.

Photo: Google Images www.atlaspost.com

Bwaaahh pheeuuuuwwwww!!!! (2)

I woke at 3 this morning and gagged. My apartment was reeking. I presumed it was the toilet burping again, or the shower drain (down which I regularly pour copious amounts of bleach), or from a drain or some other source outside. Or a combination of all of these. I still don't know.

I shut the windows, turned on the (windowless) bathroom extractor fan, dripped eucalyptus oil all over my pillows, sucked a menthol throat lozenge, and took short, shallow breaths. But I could only breathe through my mouth for short periods before being parched.

I just could not escape it, nor do anything about it. I felt powerless. It was just horrible. Eventually I fell asleep again, but the stench was still evident in the morning. Then after a cautious, exploratory sniff, I was able to open the windows again. To greet the morning smog.

Then a few minutes later, as I was getting dressed and ready for a full day's teaching, the power went off. It stayed off for 12 hours. (At least it's on again, now!) (You see - I think that the bucket is half full, rather than half empty!)

Speaking of stenches, and buckets, the Chinese sewer system cannot accomodate it seems, toilet paper, and so the local habit it to leave the soiled paper in a bin provided for the purpose, beside the bowl. I just wish the management of most establishments (otherwise relatively hygienic) would dispose of the bin contents frequently and periodically. Or better still that the sewer system was upgraded!

This is the entrance to the ground floor of my apartment. We are greeted by our own garbage bags (usually collected daily), in which, theoretically, is the aforesaid used toilet paper.

Little things do wonders for the mood

This photo contains a several CD's of Mozart, some er, hem, cheap DVD's of recent recent release movies, some Skippy peanut butter, a French stick (the bread is impossibly sweet in China), some wheat puffs cereal (only UHT milk is available - but good sweet yoghurt). The Snickers chocolate bar is not there, coz i ate it - no doubt causing me cold sores. I also bought a pair of speakers to plug into my laptop so I could listen to the Mozart.

Also on the (supplied but rarely used) microwave with Chinese controls, sits a table lamp ($6) which has an incandescent globe, providing a blessed relief to the dim 25 watt purplish fluorescent in the ceiling. It makes the room livable (although it could do with a rug and a wall hanging or two.)

Later I found out that two of the Mozart discs, despite their printed covers in outrageous chinglish, had exactly the same tracks! The store was happy to swap, and I did, but who's complaining for RMB 12.80 (AU$2)?

I must remind myself that I am only here for another 8 weeks and that feathering my nest like this is a bit silly - unless I take stuff home with me. Which I probably won't. Sadly such bits and pieces of furnishings, although put into "the storage room" ostensibly for the next Australian to live in these apartments, will almost certainly disappear, snaffled up by the Chinese staff. A redistribution of wealth.

Bowels

I'm learning, I'm learning. Although the food is probably quite hygienic (even street vendors use the old inverted plastic bag trick, and never touch the food when serving), one's fingers definitely are NOT hygienic. All sorts of bugs, including the dreaded hep, can be picked up on the fingers - just by handling money (it really is quite filthy), gripping rails in buses, pushing doors, even shaking hands. So what's the point of using your fingers when eating finger food, like steamed pork buns (yum!) if they have not been thoroughly washed first? I'm learning to use the old inverted plastic bag trick.

Commuting

The shuttle bus takes 40 mins each way. If they had told me that this China posting would entail sitting on a hard bus seat (or worse still standing and lurching) for a total of three days, I may have reconsidered! Ear plugs are useful.



Ralf is a German teacher. He reads Brecht.


James and Effron (a Ph.D. English teacher from the Philippines) enjoy some technological dialogue.



Here is how I usually spend the journey, dreaming up my next lesson plan.

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.)

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.

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.

The apartment

Spartan and gloomy. (Although for many Chinese, it would be luxury). High ceilings. Grey with clunky dark furniture. Low wattage bluish fluoro lights. (I’m going to buy some small lamps with warmer incandescent globes). The giant tiled floor would be freezing in winter – no mats or rugs. Nothing on the walls. No colour. My apartment is facing north so I get no sun.
Essentially two interconnected rooms (each with a keyed front door to the corridor), with a smaller windowless room in each (“kitchen” and bathroom) with ceiling exhaust fans.

Contractually there is a microwave, fridge, washing machine, hot water service, shower, TV, water dispenser (with a hot and normal temperature), large 3-piece lounge, a couple of small cushions wardrobe, double bed (ridiculously hard mattress), cheap linen and towel , desk and telephone and allegedly an internet connection.

There is central heating and a form of air conditioning. There’ are adequate power points and all things seem to work. The kitchen consists of a few cheap cupboards, sink, hotplate, wok, frypan and 3 cooking implements. What more could a boy want?

Well, this boy would want it clean, at least. This responsibility apparently lies with the woman who met us with the keys. Although she had done a cursory job (the obvious areas were clean), the kitchen and bathroom and shelves and cupboards were not so good. In fact, filthy. And there was overriding bad smell coming from the bathroom. Or wardrobe? Or under the bed? I’m glad I brought along some eucalyptus oil. Later I purchased some bleach, toilet cleaner, and degreasing products, and got to work. (James fared better with his apartment – which is furnished identically).

From Jinan airport to our digs

The not small size of Jinan airport is an indication of the size of the city (5.5 million people). We were mercifully met by a University representative and his driver, who drove at breakneck speed along an efficient freeway which gradually disintegrated into chaotic traffic as we neared the city. A variety of horns and sirens employed by our driver aimed at cars and trucks all around generally had no effect. It seems true that Chinese drivers do what they want oblivious of rules, as I watched a car driving the wrong way down a five lane expressway, causing mild mayhem.

Dust is the overriding impression. (Later: Grit pervades through clothes, hair, bed linen and the whole apartment.) Few street lights accentuated the dusty gloom, even in the centre of the city.

All we wanted to was to get to our apartments and sleep, but the Uni representative insisted on buying us a meal. He was somewhat annoyed that task of meeting us had interrupted his normal mealtime. A dubious looking restaurant with staff wearing old and tattered red brass band jackets, and some rather unremarkable food. It turns out the restaurant was opposite the living quarters of the boorish rep, who bade us farewell and left us with Mr Dong, the driver, to get to our quarters. I’m unsure how far we detoured.

The woman responsible for the apartments (housing 18 foreigners, all working at the Shandong Jianzhu University) met us and handed over the keys for the ground floor apartments. We briefly met George, our co-ordinator (another teacher from Melbourne, who arrived several days earlier) and who was also new to Jinan, although he had had prior experience with working with VU in China. Then we crashed, after 24 sleepless hours.