Fire Crackers and Break Ins

One of the staff memembers Anna has a friend getting married last Sunday, to which we were invited.

Arriving at the grooms appartment block to see a massive long line of fire crackers, a couple of guests casually having a smoke next to them. After someone broke one off and set it off for a loud bang and a laugh, we all wondered what the whole row would sound like.

It sounded spectacular! And looked it as well, even in bright early morning sunshine with bits of shrapnel flying off all over the place. Then off to the brides house, the groom leaving in a car dressed up very cooly in its own rows of flowers.

At the brides house, after the mandatory firecrackers are let off, the groom (well mostly his friends) literally break into the place. I only heard it from the bottom of the stairs but once in the brides house, they find her cousin/brother guarding the door to her bedroom. After some shouting at each other and laughter, they then proceed to try and drag the cousin away from the door and he puts up a real fight. Once out the way its, Yi Ar San and break through the door to find the bride sitting up on her bed with her pristine dress around her.

There is an eat the egg gloopy mixture ceremony for the husband and wife before he carrys her away all the way to the car downstairs, being hounded at the door by the wifes auntie who they first try to pay off with a red envelope, then literally push her aside (all in good humour).

Around to the new appartment, bang go firecrackers and a quick look around. Then off to the hotel for a meal and ceremony.

The ceremony seems to be conducted more like a stand up comedy gig. After the couple walk to the stage with the famous music playing in the background, and speaches by every family member going; random games insue. The couple try to bow to each other but are pushed forward by the friends, the couple have to adress their parents like little children. And then we are invited up on stage to say a few words? It seemed to be greatly appreciated however. And after a short speach in English it fell to me to try and copy the garbled local dialect that was said to me, which got a loud laugh from the 100 or so people gathered there. Followed by someone from another part of china giving me something else to try and say - apparently both times it was "from my home town" but who knows.

Straight after the meal, middayish... everyone packs up and leaves, and that was it.

Carrying bike up mountain gives you long life

On saturday the 27th we got up early to go for a hike up a valley in a mountainous area near Xi'an. The advice given to people not enjoying the short drive up the start of the valley was to close your eyes but we have done this many times before.

The first thing you noticed was the air... it was clean mountain filtered air. The air quality in Xi'an is terrible, adding a ghostly quality to distant buildings, but here the mist was genuine 100% water vapour mist.

The second thing you noticed was how beautiful the area was.


















The third thing was that the toilet consisted of two walls about 5 and a half feet high; presumably they hadn't seen a James when they designed them.

The walk was lovely, with pictures to proove it. Chinese people seem to hike in very large groups and about a quarter of them seem to be carrying bikes with them. Whether this is extra excercise or just because they don't trust anywhere to tie them up at the base of the walk was unclear.

Chengdu

First, sorry I have neglected my blog for a week, monday night and tuesday were spent in bed feeling sorry for myself but enough about that. As I very briefly wrote, last weekend involved an hour and a half plane trip to Chendgu. A group of 6 of us went and had a great time.

Our evening meal, after it was suggested to us that we try hot pot at some point in China and especially at its home - Chengdu was the weirdest meal anyone in our group had ever had. A huge vat of bubbling liquid was placed in the middle of our table on a bunsen burner, while three waitresses fought over who was going to sell us a beer. We were then talked loudly at for five minutes to choose items from the menu, which were then brought and put into the bubbling pot of hot liquid. On our return we found it was more usual to cook on piece at a time while holding it with your chopsticks; but I think they had become a little impatient with us.


The rest of the meal consisted on laughing, fending off waiters and fishing for the bits of meat doing laps to the bottom of the pool spurred on by the convection currents in the cauldron.

Our trip out of the city to see a gigantic buddha which had been carved into the rock face of a mountain followed. It was gigantic, crossing the river would have let you see it all.


















The surroundings and the buildings were beautiful. Our lunch was much calmer than the hot pot; a very nice lady guarding the back gates to the area let us sneak out to a wee family restaurant, though an old gentleman being shouted at by his wife for trying to offer us a large lump of some sort of meat was interesting.









The next day started early to catch the Pandas at the largest breeding vacility in China (and presumably the world) having their breakfast. Feel free to say "awww" (oh and I think the Panda in the second Photo suits the name John).


Then, when I got back... they had a party ready and waiting to suprise me. Pass the parcel, musical chairs, a banner and a cake. Perfect weekend.

Chinese Pepsi Bottle

There are plenty of examples of "Engrish" about; the local store Trust Mart has shelves of note books with some of the strangest poems and phrases on. However the funniest lost in translation example we have seen, has to be the label on the side of bottle of Pepsi. Somehow the cool soft drink for people that are so hip they never need to wear a belt image... doesn't quite come off.

A gigantic Buddha, a red panda and a foreign girl

Went to Chengdu for the weekend, its in Sichuan - China; about and hour and a half flight from Xi'an. With 5 others I saw the most gigantic Buddha, with many temples scattered about and an awesome wee restaurant. Sunday brought Panda's; adult, infant and wee red ones. Clare managed to organise a "hold a red panda" session for the lot of us... picture of the most adorable creature being held by me to be put up soon. Lastly when we got back... my first suprise birthday party ever with a present of some wine labelled "foreign girl" just so I could say I picked one up while I was out here apparently. A lot more to be told about everything later, but for now here is our Chengdu group.


(anna, elizabeth, james, clare, ped, nancy)

Would Yao Ming or Jackie Chan win in a fight?

So, new lesson idea that seemed to go down very well... debating sessions. Gets everybody talking, a wee bit of writing preparation before hand and it might even be possible to keep it going for the full two hours.

The tricky bit is finding topics that aren't politically or culturally contraversial. So far we have looked at weather chinese or english is a harder language to learn, and if sports are better than computer games.

Coming up next, would Yao Ming (famous chinese basketball player) or Jackie Chan win in a fight? Any more suggestions welcome, but here are some photos from the first class... wo keye pai jaopian ma?

22 floors up with 15 students

Yesturday a happy coincidence of nice weather, open windows and me teaching on the 22nd floor of a building, means I have some nice overhead photos for you all. These will hopefully give you a better idea about the city of Xi'an.

And you think they stand still outside Buckingham Palace

Yes its the world famous, london visiting, motionly disadvantaged Terracotta Warriors. One Gigantic Hall with around 6000 of these guys in, (they have only uncovered 1000 so far... the soldiers in the next pit were more varied and interesting and after 10 years ever the archaeologists fancied a change). Very cool, very tall (6'2" some of them) with authentic weapons made from a bronze,tin,lead alloy. Chemistry lesson came in useful, our guided didn't know what the third metal was, but Pb broke the language barrier.

Final note to those who may follow in our tourist shaped footsteps; when the gift shop tells you 100yuan for the box of 5 replica soldiers, within 2 minutes walk back to the car park you will be offered the same thing for 20, ok no 10, ok no 5 for you one dollar!


(Pit number 1, yes they are the heads of chinese tourists to the bottom left)


(Pit number 2, you might notice the wee bit of yellow on one of the guys necks... original colouring oooooh)


(and finally, archer guy who apparently has the same silhouette as the shape of shaanxi province)

Korean Warcraft player

I'm on day four of teaching a small class of twenty at most, in english speaking, writing and listening. All of them can speak english about as well as I can speak german if not better, infact some of them are really impressive. Trying to teach them to play 20 questions was interesting, especially when at one time, the person we were guessing was a korean famous for playing Warcraft. But I guess I should count myself lucky as another volunteer trying the same game with another group of people had someone choose laughing gas!

On wednesday Andrew (a young lady) had a birthday, and interestingly the cake had some slices of cherry tomatoe on.



(cake with cherry tomatoes ontop).














Today im planning to try a roleplay suggested by another volunteer (there is a primary school teacher in our group! He has been so helpful, thanks Ped).

I also attended an english corner last night, a free for all of chinese people wanting to practice english. It was very quickly remarked upon that I was a "gentleman" though this turned out to be less to do with my manors but because I have a very clear and proper english accent and should be a news reader.

Speaking English in Xi'an

Put infront of a group of 10 chinese students, all with pretty good english that seemed to refuse to talk for about half an hour. Ok mild exaggeration but come break time and everyone comes up and starts talking to me... where were you 10 minutes ago. After that it livened up quite a lot but I am very greatful for Ped - (teacher volunteering over here doing a similar job) who I am going to exchange ideas for lessons with. I have been offered a guided tour of Xi'an so I can't be doing too badly (even if I did have to go back and add an extra o to the to i just typed).

Xi'an from above (6'5" up anyway)

Taken out for a wonder around the centre of Xi'an today. Xi'an's centre is a big waller rectangular area (about 8.5km circumference) jam packed with stuff. You think some of the shops along oxford street are packed together close and spilling out onto the pavement - try the market in the muslim quarter over here.

Anyway, was too busy staring most of the time to take some photos but thought id give you a glimpse of what the place is like.


cool buidlings


If I remember correctly this is the entrance to the arts market


out the window where we are staying - our place looks like these from the outside

Just a note, I can only seem to make new posts at the moment but can't get my blog to upload so I can look at it. So if the formatting comes out a bit strange, ill sort this as soon as I work out how to say... how much for internet cafe?

Zaoshang Hao!

A Goodmorning to you all, coming all the way from Xi'an China! Yes there are likely to be a few exclamation marks in this one; just a few!

Had a safe trip, no problems, asked for around 50 glasses of water to show off a tiny bit of chinese, asked for some tea as well but didn't work so well.

Everyone here is very friendly, warm welcome from the staff and a tasty breakfast (haochi) from Ms Li. Some really broken conversation on my part and now at the computer taking full advantage of the fact no one else has arrived yet.

Getting into Shanghai was interesting, huge crowds from all over and lots of polite chinese staff directing everyone in excellent english. As you got further from the arrivals area the amount of english disapeared very quickly, but I am enjoying the excuse to make bumbled attempts at speaking chinese... chinese pod's lesson "too polite" has prooved very useful! (just another wee ! there incase you hadn't noticed)

So yes, appropriately silly and happy photo of me in our homebase to follow soon, take care everyone, ziajian

Right now

I'm packed, going in an hour and a half, see If I can bag myself an emergency exit row seat for the crazy length flight. Take care and will say hello again soon.

What already?

I'm leaving, really soon. When did that happen? Trying to finish reading Wild Swans in a hurry as I don't really want to try and read that on a plane to China. Saving as many Chinesepod lessons onto an old Ipod as I can cram (plus plenty of music) and have forgotten how you say "pleased to meet you" already... erm gaoxing renshi ni? something?