Disaster!
I apologise for the big delay with updating my blog but for quite a few days I have been so busy that I just didn’t have time to sit down and write stuff up, let alone transfer it to the computer and upload it to my site. Just recently the Internet has been broken at ShangLi, which has only added to the delay. Just to let everybody know I am okay, not dead, and still having a great time.
It occurred to me today that I have just one lesson left with each class I teach (three of them). Wahey! But I’m also a little sad as I’ve enjoyed teaching the younger two classes, as much due to their funny actions and faces as their level of learning. The older class… well, they’re fun too, but in a much harder way. The reason I’ve only got one day left is because tomorrow (Friday) they are going on a trip, which gives me my free day, and on Sunday instead of lessons there will be a closing ceremony, which means all lessons (mine, at least) are cancelled. That leaves just Saturday.
I’ve been up to so much over the last week, but so much has been the same. I discovered that I can get to Tiananmen Square fairly quickly by taxi and subway (which is very clean, roomy and efficient). Yesterday I made the mistake of catching the bus to a subway station, which took some 45 minutes! My first day on Tiananmen Square was, I think, Tuesday, but it could have been Monday too, and I’ve been back every day since. There is something special about Tiananmen Square that I’ve not found anywhere else in the world. It feels… well, democratic. Ironic, I know. But whatever it is it really is something. Maybe Nixon said: “It sure is a big square”, who knows?
Every day after my lessons finish (at 11:40am, which is really handy) I saddle myself up to become a true fashion disaster… shorts, my shoes (which are still going strong) with socks, a brightly-coloured t-shirt, my (Xiaoxiao’s) rucksack and camera around my neck. I took my MP3 player too, before it decided to stop working earlier on today, but to top it all off is one of my luminous sweatrags tucked into my t-shirt. I’ve found this is essential (maybe Douglas Adams had it right all along) for a number of reasons: 1) wiping sweat; 2) protecting my neck from the sun; 3) protecting my neck from my camera strap; and 4) looking really cool. I’m certainly noticable and while I look a little (!) silly I think it’s good for a couple of reasons — people notice me and that’s helped me make a few friends on the Square — a couple of regular photographers (Chinese, but we show each other photos and talk about how useless 70mm is for the kind of photos I’m trying to take ;), one of the photographers that tote red hats and the cheapest SLRs going (some of them have in-a-bag studios — camera, computer and printer!) — we only seem to talk about pretty girls. I’m not quite sure why because I spent most of my time taking photos of little kids because it’s easier than older people… or maybe younger girls is his thing? — as well as numerous do-good Chinese students (more girls than boys) after a free English lesson.
Yesterday I met an Indian guy (or as the Chinese would say “a black guy”) with his Chinese girlfriend. He was taking a photo of the many flags in front of Mao’s mausoleum (no spell-checking here, I’m afraid) when I walked up to him. I’ve found that people with cameras are always friendly… I guess the same is true of anybody doing the same thing as you. But this guy had a “proper” (not that my D70S isn’t) DSLR — a Canon 20D with high-end 35-one hundred and something lens. I thought my camera was big but compared to the 10 and 20D it’s practically puny. On that note I should mention that I see a lot more Nikon D70s than I do Canon EOS-300/350Ds but I have yet to see a high end Nikon (like the D2X). One guy I spotted today seemed to be wandering around with a Canon 1D with some humongous super-telephoto lens. I’ve found the lens I have (18-70mm) a little limiting — at 17mm I get fairly noticable vignetting (and the lens hood causes a lot more, which makes it totally useless) and at the other end (70mm) I don’t have anywhere near the kind of magnification I “need” for taking shots of people on Tiananmen square. I was fairly interested in the Nikkor 12-24mm but I think a cheapy telephoto will serve me much better.
But anyway, I met this Indian guy with his girlfriend and after talking for a while about a whole range of topics they said they had to get going and asked what I was doing now (the sun had disappeared). I was off to my favourite restaurant in Beijing — the Raj Pavillion near the China Trade Centre at guomao. Oddly enough they were planning on getting a curry too, so we got the tube and enjoyed a nice meal there. The second curry I’d had in two days and it was excellent… I think I should have gone back tonight.
But I didn’t.
This evening I ate at Pizza Hut (again)… although I didn’t have a pizza, I had two Western zesty waffle thingies and an ice cream. Nice enough and I was full at the time but now I’m dying for a chicken tikka vindaloo! After that I headed back to the roller skating place that Ming took me to on Monday. I’ve found that I really enjoy going around in circles. I’m not quite sure why because nobody talks to me… in fact nobody really pays any attention to me once they get over the initial shock. But today I had a wonky boot, so swapped twice before I got a decent one. As I was just checking it was okay (by doing lots of foot wiggling) somebody knocked me from behind and another person was walking almost directly in front of me. I went flying into them (although I don’t think I knocked them over) and then into another guy on skates… we sort of tumbled together for a bit before I fell over backwards landing very heavily on the lower part of my back. Ouch! That doesn’t quite cover what I thought, but it’ll do. I’m not quite sure where I landed but it seriously hurt… I was surprised too, because I’m actually pretty good at skating… I can’t ever recall falling over and the last two trips to the place had gone fine. That was right at the beginning, which really ruined my evening. I’m still in quite a lot of pain now — walking is a little hard and it really twinges when I sit down/stand up. My first thought was that I had broken my cocyx after seeing my Uncle fall in a similar way (although not skating… he slipped on some ice) years and years ago. I think that might have been an overreaction (especially after I prodded and poked and it still didn’t move) but it doesn’t help with the pain.
I spent most of the evening skating around in an upright position looking rather silly. I had a lot more breaks than normal. Fairly early on some Chinese guy called Li introduced himself to me and then never buggered off again. He seemed desperate to practice his shoddy English on me but I just didn’t have the heart to tell him I didn’t want to talk to him and didn’t like skating around with him. So all the evening was with him trying to cobble a sentence together (much like I do in Chinese, although with slightly more vocabulary but definitely no more grammar). Then a Chinese English teacher introduced herself and has decided to meet me at Tiananmen Square tomorrow. I have no idea how that will turn out. I don’t mind talking to people but when they make a specific point of turning up somewhere 30-odd minutes from their home it makes me think it will end up being a lot more than the usual five-minute “where are you from?” conversation. That screws up taking photographs because they really expect you to talk back. Argh! But how do I handle this situation diplomatically?
To make a good day with a bad ending a little more bad at the end I spent about 20 minutes finding a taxi driver that knew where men tou cun was. On the plus side the driver was very friendly, and even knew a few English words like “left”, “right”, etc. He also got me back one Yuan cheaper than the last guy.
Finally, I’ve noticed that I can understand quite a lot of Mandarin now. If I knew the context (i.e. when trying to find a taxi driver that knows) I can tell what they are asking — e.g. “where?”, “do you know the way?”, “what road is it on?” and so on. Impressive, if I say so myself. But dump me in a room full of Chinese people talking about cheese and I’d be lost.
Time for sleep now — it’s already late and, while I don’t have lessons tomorrow, I need to make up for lost-sleep for the last couple of nights. Hope everybody is well!
Tags: "Teaching", Travel