— David @ 12:27 pm

I got taken to the hospital this morning, to confirm my medical information to the Chinese authorities. This is so that I can get my Experts’ Certificate and Green book.

The medical centre was a good half an hour drive through the city. When I arrived we went into a rather plush looking building, where a doctor looked at my forms and sent us back down to another office, where another form with my photo attatched was stamped. Then my photo was taken again, and we went to another room where I paid 100kwai for the checks to my documentation. I later found out that I would have to have a blood-test – even though I had the official documentation they needed – they wanted to check for themselves, China is like that.
So, I gave them my blood after the futile effort of trying to tell them that my blood group was A+ – once they had my blood and tested it they stamped a big A+ on my form.

I then had to have a another chest X-ray, because as you’ve probably guessed, they don’t trust Western doctors.

The x-ray room looked like something out of a Soviet era nuclear power station.

When I first walked into the room, my head brushed the top of the doorframe, I think the normal size for a doorway here is about6?2? – infact the ones in my apartment are lower, so I have placed yellow post-it notes above the doorways to try and stop me hitting my head.

Anyway, the radiographer was wearing a completly white uniform, and one of those white hats that only communists wear. He spoke good english, told me what to do, walked into another room, and said very loudly over a microphone ‘ DON NOT BREATHE’ so I didn’t, and that was it. Strangely, the waiting area was actually in the same room that the x-ray machine, of course I did not have to wait, being the white man, I went straight to the front.

Mind you I have to say that apart from all of the paperwork, the process took under one hour to complete and I got my results there and then. Sometimes the system isn’t that bad – although I know that I was fast-tracked because of being a foreigne

— David @ 4:13 pm

So i’ve finally finished the weeks teaching, had a very interesting class today about the difference between broadsheet and tabloid journalism. It took a while to get the students to understand how the tabloid newspapes operate in Britain, or infact what a tabloid paper is! In china there are two english papers, China Daily, and 21st Century – as well as a whole host of Chinese language publications. They are broadsheets.

At this moment I am sitting in apartment at my desk typing away on my laptop, there are 3 cleaners that I have hired to clean out my apartment. It only cost 20kwai for them to clean it for an hoir or so, and I really can’t be bothered to do it myself. Also there is so much dust here, and everything quickly gets a coat of grime over it, so i get the cleaners to do it for me – and they do a very good job of scrubbing the wooden floors on my apartment.

I had a 2 hour Chinese lesson yesterday, and I have now arranged to have 8 hours a week of formal one on one tuition with my teacher.This is on top of my 26 teaching hours which i do every week, it is quite a taxing schedule, but I think I will get used to it.

Infact, I have two Chinese teachers, both refuse to take any form of payment for the time they spend with me. This seems alien to me, but one must understand that for them, helping me is helping themselves to learn to teach and that is helping the collective society as a whole. Essentially, the society in China is more interested in collective values than monetary values – which I think is something that quite a few people in the West could learn from.

This morning I was woken at 4.30 by some workmen moving some very long pipes along the road near ro my apartment. In China generally, people start very early, and go to sleep early.

Most of my students are awake at 5am and asleep by 9. There is no or little night-life in any sense of the Western meaning of the word; even on a Friday night most are asleep by 10 or 10.30.

I think this is partly because the Chinese work so hard, my students are final year university students annd they have 24 hours a week of formal lectures, and they get at least 2 hours of homework a night PER SUBJECT!
The work ethic here is something that would be considered mad by many in Britain.

I think that teaching from 8 – 5 is difficult5, but imagine then having to do another 4 hours work on top of that!

One last thing, IF YOU ARE READING THIS YOU CAN COMMENT ON ANYTHING I WRITE IN ONE OF THESE ENTRIES BY CLICKING ON THE WORD Comments BELOW THIS ENTRY.

’til next time

Dài Wèi (that’s David in Chinese Pinyin. Pronounced Da. Way )

— David @ 8:34 pm

So I arrived on the Saturday night, spent Sunday sleeping and was teaching on the Monday. I was exhausted come the end of the week, and i’m still, going to bed every night at 9pm and waking up at 5.

The campus is on the edge of Changchun (pron Changchoon) and is about 5 miles from the downtown. The city itself is huge. It’s larger than London, and the centre of the city is quite spectacular, with many tall buildings. There is also a huge railway station and lots and lots of shops, many of which are underground, in the many miles of tunnels dug by Pow’s during the Japanese occupation.

My apartment is quite nice, the floors are wooden and I have two bedrooms, one of which I have turned into a study. It is on the ground floor in a block of buildings reserved for teachers and other simular workers. I have a very good new shower, although the Chinese do not have a cubicle, they simply tile the whole bathroom and have the shower in the corner.
My kitchen is typically communist looking, with bland wooden cupboards – but I have a new oven and microwave, as well as a rice cooker, electric hob, and lots of various pots and pans.
Most importantly it’s situated on campus.

There are in total 9 foreign teachers here at the University, 2 are Japanese, 2 are Canadian, 3 are American, and there are two Britons.
The most difficult thing to get used to is the constant staring and curiosity in westerners. People will turn around and point at you, EVERYBODY takes a second glance at you, it is like being the prize fish in an aquarium.
In a city of over 7 million, there are only 300 foreigners, I am yet to see anyone foreign, other than those who I know on campus.
The language is very very difficult to understand, but I am learning, and I have a good Chinese teacher. So I hope that in a few months time I will be able to get by easily.

Overall, this place is so alien to anything I have experienced before. IT is hard to put into words the sheer difference between China and Britain. Everybody has a mobile phone, yet there are still horse and karts on the roads. Such a fascinating place.

The campus is in the process of being re-developed, and there is quite a bit of building work going on. The Chinese don’t bother with silly health and safety rules, and most mornings, I will quite literally walk straight through the centre of a building site to get to my classes. Communism has some peculier traits, especially that it seems to take ten men to do the job of one. For example, the shops are always overstaffed, there is always more staff than actually required to run a business in the free market. But I guess, they have to create as many jobs as possible for the 1.6 billion that live here.

I will take some more photos tomorrow and try to post them onto the website, firewall permitting.

— David @ 4:51 pm

So I waited at Moscow airport for a couple of hours, and I think I was the only Westerner in the airport – until a Frenchman, came over and I had a very interesting discussion about how bad the airport was, and as it turned out he had just come from Beijing, after staying for a month.

Finally, I boarded the aeroplane, after passing yet another x-ray and security check. The aeroplane was, to my delight a brand new Boeing 777, and not some Soviet propeller driven thing that i’d passed on the runway into the airport.

I walked a long way down the aeroplane, I knew that I had a window seat that I had requested in back in London, and i was glad not to be sitting in the centre section of the plane.

However, I think the Russian check-in people thought that they would have a joke at my expense, and my seat was one of two, on the left of the plane, directly above to the wing. This was the problem, on later inspection i think that this seat was probably the smallest in terms of leg room in the whole aricraft. There was a lump in the floor where one would normally put their feet, and so because of the seat in front’s angle, i measured the gap between the front part of my seat and the seat in fron at the width of my hand, about 8inches i think.
So, i squeezed into my seat, I swear i was the tallest person on the plane, because I could see everyone over the tops of the seats. Anyway, i couldn’t recline my seat because there was not enough leg room in front, and the person in front (another damn Russian) thought it a good idea to have his seat permenantly fully reclined throughout the 8 hour flight (including takeoff and landing) – to the point where his seat was reclined so far, that his seat was almost resting on my temple.

This was probably the worst night i have ever had to suffer in terms of pain and aches and lack of sleep. I spent most of the flight standing up, at the end of the plane writing this down on a pad of paper. So if you ever get allocated seat 21A on a 777 change it AT ALL COSTS!!!!

Mind you the food wasn’t bad, and i was given a set of ear plugs and blindfold for my troubles – shame they didn’t supply pain killers.

There was a nice electronic map, showing us how far we had to go and exactly where the plane was. A good idea in principle, but knowing that there is still 3606 miles to go, makes the flight seem longer than it actually is.

I got to watch a spectacular sun rise from 36000 feet somewhere over Mongolia, which was quite an experience, at 4.30 AM.

I arrived at Beijing 09.55 local time, very tired and jetlegged. Beijing airport was quite a contrast from Moscow. It was light and very clean, and everybody spoke english. I walked for a few minutes, then went down some very plush looking escalators, with a large gold sign, saying ‘PLEASE MIND YOUR STEPS’ – which i thought was quite funny. Seems they can spend billions of dollars on a new airport, but cant hire foreigners to spell simple phrases for them.

At the bottom of the escalators was a very large hall, with a huge Chinese flag pronted onto the wall, and many many immigration desks – and a huge sign in gold saying CHINESE BORDER CONTROL.
I joined the queue marked foriegners, and waited my turn, handed over my passport – got it stamped by a chap in very very smart grey uniform, and that was it, I was in China.

I then followed the signs for domestic transfer, and came to another huge hall, with two x ray machines and about 20 staff manning them. (In Britian and Russia there was 2 staff at security).
They then took my bags for me, which were very heavy, and in English told me to walk through the metal detector and wait. I was passed my bags almost as soon as I had walked through the detector.

I then spent the next 30 mins or so trying to find the departures, and discovered just how MASSIVE beijing airport is. I had to get to another terminal, so I first went to the bank to get some local currency – they gave me 2800RMB for my 200 pounds i still had not converted.

Then a voice said ‘ excuse me sir can i help you’. I was naturally suspicious, of the man’s motives, but later discovered that it was his job to help foreigners around the airport. He took my luggage and walked ahead of me towards the other terminal, which was a good 20 mins or so away. He took my ticket and checked me in and said that I would have to wait until 1.30 to check in my luggage, about 3 hours or so. So I thanked him and headed for a seat to wait at, but he persisted took my luggage and insisted that he wait with me for the next three hours so that he could help me check in my baggage. I said that I would be fine, and that I did not need his help, but he insisted to the point where i couldn’t say no.

So i waited for a while at the airport, and noted how very clean it was. I did not see one piece of rubbish, trhe marble flooring was spotless. There also appeared to be lots of quasi-military looking people marching around the airport, though unlike Moscow they carried no weapons, just their immaculate looking uniforms and hats.

At 1.30 I checked in, went through another security check. This time they checked everything, made me open my hand luggage, which was quite funny. They made me take everything out one by one, i took out a couple of sausage rolls and the Chinese lady asked very politly ‘what are these’ . I said that they were sausage rolls, she looked confused so i took a bight and gestured that it tasted good. I think they understood. Then i took out the bits of food, several tins – which they inspected – and quite a bit of fruit, that they didn’t pay a blind bit of interest to.
Also there was a couple of pairs of pants, socks and some orange juice cartons. Paradoxically the orange juice gave them the most concern. I handed a carton to one of the guards, and they had no idea what it was. I said it was a drink, and they asked me to open it, so i got the straw and pierced the foil. I was then asked to drink it, and i noticed them watching me to make sure that I swallowed it.

I think they got the message after that, and they could see the funny side to it which was nice.

So I then went to the gate and boarded the China Southen Airlines flight to ChangChun, and i was travelling first class this time. The aeroplane wouldn’t have been out of place in a museum, it looked old, and felt as though it was falling apart on takeoff. I was impressed though that all of the crew spoke good english, and i was offered an interesting selection of food. I decided to pass on the food as I was very tired, so i slept pretty much the entire 4 hour flight, until the landing at ChangChun.

Once the plane had landed, I was beginning to feel a little aprehensive. The airport can be best described as military looking. I passed some soldiers marching, two fighter jets under covers, and lots of camo-covered equipment. There was also a sentry standing bolt-upright at the entrance to the terminal.
Once I was off the plane, it was another bus to the terminal building. I waited for my luggage at the carousel, and waited, I thought what if my luggage hasn’t arrived? But it did eventually, and i took it about the full 20 yards distance from the exit of the airport and the arrivals, and I saw the Man who I had arranged to meet.

I felt a certain sense of relief, knowing that I was in Changchun and knowing that I had somewhere to stay and work.

More Tomorrow

— David @ 1:05 pm

Here’s my first lengthy post, I’ll start at the beginning.

The journey to Heathrow was uneventful, arrived at the airport at half past eight in the morning, only to discover that my main suitcase was 7kg over weight – so I re-packed a few things, so that my hand-luggage weighed a ton.
Got through security to discover that all flights to Moscow had been delayed by an hour. So I had to wait until 11.45 to board the plane. Most of the passengers on the plane were either Russians or Indians on the way to Delhi. The flight took rather a long time, but I had some great views as it was clear most of the way. I worked out that the plane went from Heathrow north east, over stansted, along the coast to I think Great Yarmouth where the plane turned right accross the North Sea to Holland. Holland is unmistakable from the air, lots of dykes, small tidy patchwork like fields – and the plane flew over the Zuiderzeeworks a huge causeway in Holland. The plane then went up following the coast and accross Denmark, and up the Baltic, crossing the southern tip of Finland (another unmistakable place from the air, peppered with lakes) and accross Russia to Moscow Airport.
I arrived at 7pm local time, having taken off at midday – the flight took 4 hours – after circling around Moscow for half an hour for a landing slot.

So I had arrived at Sheremetyevo Airport, in Moscow Russia, and it was now dark. The airport was typically Soviet looking, a large rectangular structure, with red letters lit up on the top of it stating that it was Sheremetyevo 2 – the international terminal.

The planed taxied around the runway, passing a few old relics of the Russian Fleet
It then came to a halt, and i got off the plane, walked down some very precarious steps and straight onto a bus. The bus was not large enough to allow all of the passengers onboard and it was stupidly overcrowded. The driver also seemed to enjoy throwing around his passengers, and drove as if he was in some sort of transit-time-trial. The driver seemed to be going in the complete wrong direction, he went dangerously close to the runway, then turned a full 180 degrees and went straight back in the same direction – whereupon he stopped again to let more people on the allready overcrowded bus.

People were now almost standing upon each other, and i was squeezed into a corner set , holding on to my luggage. Outside of the bus were a possy of pilots, all wearing very smart uniform, smoking and taliking. There was also the same soldiers, also in extremely smart uniform who were standing menacingly when I stepped off the plane.

The bus now sped towards the terminal building, and went around the back of the building to an area that is best described as a cross between a container port and something from a hollywood movie, where the bad guys are making some dodgy deal go down.

We went past a large door, with a lone man standing there holding a M16 Rifle, then another door that was open, and then the bus came to a sudden stop.
The doors opened, nobody really knew what to do – so i just followed the crowd in through a side door (i think it was a fire escape) past some very old and dusty computer systems, up a flight of stairs, and I was into the airport proper. Or at least I thought I was.

I followed the large yellow sign saying ‘TRANSIT PASSENGERS’ up another flight of stairs to three desks and a very large crowd of over 100 people trying to get to the front of the crowd. Nobody was willing to form a queue, so I pushed my way as far forward as i could and waited in the line for 30 mins or so.
After half an hour I was at the front of the crowd, at which point the woman behind the desk, said in very good english ‘ this desk is closed – use the one next to it’ which had a massive queue. I said something like you cant be serious look at the queues, and some Bulgarians behind me started cursing in Russian at the woman.
So I moved to the next queue, waited and waited – then after about 30 mins both of the clerks decided that they would bugger off somewhere else, and leave the 50 or so people stranded in limbo-land, regardless of the fact that some had very imminent flights to catch. Luckliy I still had 4 hours to kill, so I wasn’t getting that worried.

Finally an hour later they all turned up again, and decided to actually do their job – I got my boarding pass and my transut visa, and passed through yet another x ray security and passport check.
I thought, now I can get to the gate I need to be at, and I will wait there for my flight.

However after the passport check, was a huge glass screen, with no visable doors in it and a few other bewildered tourists looking suitably confused. I was bery confused, the airport proper was the other side, but why could we not get through?

I don’t know why, but after about 20 minutes, a soldier in full military gear opened this with a special key and frogmarched us through to the airport proper.

Moscow Airport is a really horrible place to be, there is as an air of hostility to the place, its poorly lit and brown. Of course the gate I wanted was gate number 1, which was right at the other end of the airport. This airport was the first experience I have had of Russia, and it is enough to put me off the country for a long time. The staff were unfriendly and rude – they spoke good english, but thought it better to use Russian all of the time, even when asked a question in English.
There was also lots of quasi-military looking people marching about, infact there was almost as many military as passengers in the airport.

The next installment will follow tomorrow, i’m off to bed – starting teaching at 8am

19/10/2004

sorry this isn’t any longer, but I have been extremely busy and have not had any free time to write a full account of what’s been happening. However I hope to be able to do this soon…

All I can say at the momennt is that this is such a fascinating place, and so very difrferent to anything i could have previously imagined about China.

I am very very tired, and have a full day teaching tomorrow. I need sleep, and it’s only five past nine