60. The final post for now. About Beijing and a big great list.

So I’m coming to the end of my time here in China. It’s been fantastic. A great learning curve which in the most part came through teaching. I still though felt that no journey to China would be complete without visiting the Great Wall. On Monday I finally got to tick it off as I spent a few days in Beijing. Here are a few things I noticed that were different about Shanghai and the capital, Beijing.

How Beijing is different to Shanghai.

The clouds were denser and greyer. The air quality was much worse.

There are many more historical/cultural sights to go and appreciate.

You have to walk a lot more. The streets are huge. The space at the sights were huge- Temple of Heaven, The Summer Palace and of course the Great Wall, all took up a huge amount of area.

People actually use 5 Mao notes, the equivalent of 0.5p.

The tourists are a lot more noticeable. Maybe because I was one of them but you actually experienced scam artists trying their stuff with you.

Ok so not the most flattering list for Beijing, but I suppose my best experiences in China were had in Shanghai, so that is where the hear lies. Here then is a list of things done since being in China.

School

12 different schools taught at or helped cover. They were JQM, EYA1, EYA2, YAH, FDM, LDM, YYLK, Changning Shane, two Kindergarten covers, one Hongqiao cover with Tom and a Zhongshan Park cover in my second week.

46- the most amount of kids in one class (EYA1-third class. Also one of my favourites)

14- the least amount of kids in one class (FDM Wednesday last period, they did have a boy named Superman though)

4 private students:- Bobby, Yuk, Katie and Zheng Lai.

3- times the sticky ball has gone out the window

1 the amount of times a kid has cried in my lesson, the amount of times I’ve yanked some kids table right to the front in anger at them, the amount of times I’ve confiscated pot noodles, the amount of times a kid has pissed in class (it was Kindergarten though).

Social

5 the number of live shows I’ve enjoyed (Questlove, DJ Casper, a Danish Heavy metal band, Japandroids and a DJ set from a guy from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs).

3 Table Football Finals. Only one did we win.

10 RMB cheapest drink bought in a bar. (Tsingtao in Perry’s/Ellens’s)

90 RMB most expensive drink bought in a bar (Cocktails at the top of the Radisson Blu on the second night)

Out and About

19 massages had over the course of the year. The Chinese massage being the most effective.

146- Highest score in the three times I’ve gone bowling.

7 the number of Challenges I ended up completing in the Challenges blog post.

2 times I visited the Shanghai Circus. The best entertainment in Shnghai.

Living

43 seconds it took to reach our floor via the lift.

4 times I ran the whole way up the flight of stairs to the 31^st floor for exercise.

3 guests I’ve hosted and have slept over in the flat.

6 new TV shows I’ve gotten into or finished ( Seinfeld, Game of Thrones, Curb your Enthusiam, The Wire, Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead)

300 RMB we paid overall for the sofa. A wise investment.

Sport

8 different types of sports I’ve played competitively this year:- Rugby, Football, Badminton, Basketball, Table Tennis, Tennis, Golf and TRI.

3 days where golf has played a part. Watched Shanghai Golf Masters, courtesy round of golf at the Binghai and then practicing in the Hongkou stadium.

2- Rugby tours. Many beers drunk.

1- number of World Championships I’ve represented England in. Boom!

  

Dating

204 number of views the first Dating blog post got. The most by an absolute mile!

12 girls taken on dates this year. Productive!

58% Chinese. Naturally.

4 girls taken on second dates this year. 

25% Chinese. Naturally.

Date venues:- Shopping Centre, The Docks, 7 x Restaurant, KTV, Cinema, 2x Park, Art exhibition, Heavy Metal Gig, Bowling, 2 day trip to the Beach, 1984 coffee shop, Skating, Shanghai Botanical Gardens...

Travel

6 cities visited outside of Shanghai (Suzhou, Hangzhou, Shenjiamen, Hong Kong, Nanjing, Beijing).

1852 photo’s in the China album in iPhoto.


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Will upload some photo's and edit it further soon but now I must run! England tomorrow

59. Everybody should go KUNG FU fighting!

This is an account of my week of training in the art of Shaolin Kung Fu.

 Spot the old dude of a Master. Unfortunately this photo was taken in 2010 and the man with the beard wasn't there.

Having travelled 23 hours from Shanghai, I arrived at the camp in the heart of the Kunyu mountain in Shandong province. The more in the middle of nowhere it sounds the better I thought.

Area surrounding the camp.

First impressions

 Nancy who had picked me up at the station showed me to my room. A three-bunk dormitory. Glanced at the passport of the only other occupant in the room. Welsh. Bloody hell not another one. Balding, beard. Could be crazy.

Ventured into the TV room to find a fellow English chap, James, various mutual friends that we didn’t exhaust till the next day. Going back to the room I was to find a man in red pants, a little pissed but hugely enthusiastic about Kung Fu, this was Ian. He’d be my room-mate/mentor and all round bloody hero for the rest of the week.

So inspired by Ian’s late night rant about how Kung Fu and just about everything was ‘cool as fuck’. I got straight into the Kung Fu with two 1 on1 sessions with a Master (Shi-Fu) on the Saturday. I really pushed myself and in both of the one hour sessions I sweated through my T-Shirt. It being the same T-Shirt it got a double soak through.

It was weird arriving on the week-end. Everyone was so inactive and complaining of the pain in his or her body caused from the notorious power stretching or mountain run. However all I saw on the Saturday and Sunday were people lying about or playing basketball. So on Sunday I went on my own up the mountain, exploring a little.

My group 

Monday. Training began. I was in an eclectic team of Shaolin trainee’s. We had James I'd met from the TV room, New College, Oxford graduate and doing 3 months before he started work in February. Dean, an actual grand-dad and retired from the army, was doing 4 months before he moved on to New Zealand. There was a French girl who rarely spoke, Alex, an Aussie who because of his time here was pushed the hardest, Eric, once a bartender in Utah, now a roundhouse kicking kung fu king, unfortunately twisted his ankle during the week and there was also another new guy joining with me, Daniel, who like me left after the week but because he wanted to try other places. This news didn't go down well with the Masters.

Schedule

The schedule was intense but I loved it. The Masters allowed you to miss a session if you were tired or sick, but I didn’t ask all week.

 You’d wake up at 5:50 am for an hour of Tai Chi and then QiGong. I began to like Tai Chi as it was a relaxing way to bed your muscles in to another extreme day of kicks and stretches. There was a 24 step move which was being taught to all students, I was able to learn 5 steps of it by the end of the week. QiGong was a meditation period and it was very much a ‘what you put in, you got out’ scenario. I stuck with it but it was people who had stayed there for 4 weeks or so who experienced the burning sensation that encapsulated and energized your body. The Master who was high up in the art has been seen to be sweating whilst doing QiGong in his shorts and T-Shirt outside in the cold at winter. 

On Tuesday there was a presentation and nominated students performed. Sam who was the most experienced student in the camp amazingly broke 3 long pieces of metal on his head and credited QiGong for him being able to do it.

After the early morning rise, we had breakfast, which was the same everyday- bolied eggs, bread, rice and soya milk. I’d have on average 5 eggs for breakfast. Lunch and dinner varied but I’d usually have sizable portions. After using my Chinese on the dinner ladies I’d also get generous seconds as well.

There were 3 periods in the day. Two before lunch, one lasting 90 minutes, one lasting 60 minutes, and then a 90 minute session after the post-lunch siesta. There was also a chance for more TaiChi and QiGong which I often went to before dinner and a basics Mandurin lesson in the evenings.

The lessons in the day were either basic skills or sanda. We then throughout the week had QiGong at the Temple, Conditioning, Power Stretching, Forms-which was weapon practice, Sparring session, Presentation, a Taoism/Acupuncture lesson and to finish the week there was the infamous Mountain Run. We’d also start the first and the third session with a 1 km run, this got quite competitive.

Basic Skills: This lesson was full of kicks. The week I was there the Masters were trying to drill in the side on kick. So they had us hanging on to a railing like a ballerina and on ‘Go’ we’d kick out with our leg. They’d expect us to get shoulder height. It was knackering.

Sanda We’d be sparring in this form and for this lesson we practiced throwing punches and kicks usually in some kind of combo. I realised I had serious malco-ordination problems and having to punch with the left whilst stepping back with the left , then to do a quick fire with the right, as well as keeping the right footwork, punch techinique, back stance, it was a lot to handle. So the older of the two Masters would always take me aside and teach me some cool moves which he would then try on me!

QiGong at the Temple and then Conditioning One of my favourite lessons as we went up to the idyllic temple. First bit involved this calming 7 minute stretch where we had to control our breathing whilst stretching all parts of our body through arm and legs movements. It was deeply energising and you felt part of the Earth you were standing on. Then after that we did conditioning which basically involved punching trees and other people. It would harden the skin and make us tougher fighters!

Alex conditioning his skin by hitting a stick against his shins. Painful after a while

Forms There were presentations twice a month and in this lesson we’d practice our kind of routine. For Alex this involved twirling this huge pike/spear weapon around. Apparently one of his moves is meant to split a man in half. I played with numchuks for the lesson. The Master taught me some moves.

The nearby temple where we did forms, QI Gong and the Mountain Run.

Power Stretching The lesson I feared most. After a rigorous workout of sprinting, bunny hopping, fireman lifting etc up the slope, we got into partners and would push each other into stretching further than we possibly could or would. You’d experience seething pain. Like cry out loud pain, but at the end of it you felt a new man!

Dean giving me a good stretch.

Acupuncture/Massage Class Acupuncture class was the most disappointing of the week. It was all theory and deadly boring. Massage class was quite funny though. There were only 3 of us and there was the on running joke that it was like the ‘Homosexual’ club. Learnt some techniques and then gave and received a massage so no complaints!

Sparring session It got to Friday and it being my last day I put my hand up to spar. Surprisingly there weren’t many who wanted to test themselves in the ring especially in their first week. I did though and got put up against James. He was deadly close range so I decided to use the tactic of kicking. Unfortunately my mind was so set on this course that James’ friendly, respect tap of the gloves at the start of the bout received a high kick from me. It was an intense affair. I took a few to the face when my guard wasn’t up, but I lasted the two rounds and got a few kicks and punches away myself. Quite an experience!

My Master watched on as James and I went fist to fist.

Mountain Run The last lesson of the week and the most hyped up. The whole camp of Mantai, WaiChun and Shaoling students got together to run up and down this mountain six times. Obviously a lot of people walked, however there were some mental ones who bear crawled on all fours down the mountain, I gently jogged most of it but my body at this stage of the week was in disarray and I had to resort to walking up the last few. Somehow I did all six though!

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Legacy

So I’m immensely happy I was able to experience a week of the rigorous Kung Fu training. I’m a little upset I could not do it for longer as there was a great group of lads at the camp who were on the most part motivated, open minded and interesting.

The Masters had an aura around them similar to a Headmaster. You respected them and they pushed you hard. Kung Fu makes you do- things you didn’t think were possible or activities that you didn’t think the sane would do.

If I went again I would stay at least 3 months to get a proper stint as it was blooming awesome!

58. Chinese people on holiday

THE GOLDEN WEEK

This last week China has been celebrating its National Holiday week. Only implemented as late as 2000, the 'Golden' week commemorates the founding of the National Party in 1913. It came about also to help boost tourism within China whilst the weather is so nice.

Foreigners are warned not to travel in this period as great swarms of people move across this country in record breaking numbers! Here are some stats from Wikipedia.

'In 2012, the PRC government announced that national highways would be toll free for Golden Week, and as a result 86 million people travelled by road (13% increase compared to the previous year).^[3] The same year, the Forbidden City in Beijing had a new record of 182,000 visitors within one day on October 2, the Mausoleum of Sun Yat-sen had 215,000 visitors on October 4 (10 times the number of visitors on a normal busy day), 7.6 million people travelled via domestic airlines, 60.9 million people travelled via railway, and revenues from tourism totalled at 1.77 billion renminbi.^[4]

Thankfully I don't have to wait to long till I can go on holiday. My contract is up on the 10th, I have a visa extension to the 26th of October. So enough time to do the things I want to do before heading back to the UK.


CHINESE PEOPLE ABOARD

There is something about Chinese people traveling abroad which provokes aggravation. The country's reputation whilst traveling has gotten so bad that the Government has issued helpful 'Do's and Don'ts' tips to people leaving the country.

I had a few encounters with Chinese folk when I went to Nepal and Australia in the summer and in all instances they just made themselves stand out, or in others it was refreshing for me to see Chinese folk in a different light. Here are some of the Chinese people I met when on my travels. Unfortunately no pictures.


The Chinese Hippy. A Chinese couple wearing  pants, multicoloured knitted hoody with beanie on top. They'd really gone to town. It was funny the thing which made them recognizable as Chinese was the fact that they had brought matching gear.

The Chinese not airline trained. Man I felt sorry for the Qantas airline hostess who had to tell a fair proportion of the Chinese folk on the plane that, once finished with the tray the airline will come round and pick it up. You had the bizarre sight of Chinese people walking around with their finished trays when they couldn't find the hostesses to take it off them they put the tray down in the wheelchair assigned space.

The Chinese who revel in foreign conversation. Whilst waiting for a friend in Sydney, I encountered two Chinese kids on the steps by the Town Hall. I asking them some questions in Chinese. Their family loved this so much they had the Granddad filming, the Mother and another woman both taking pictures of this conversation.

The Chinese person after a photo together. Funnily enough haven't had as much as you'd think in Shanghai. However when we went to a seaside town, an elderly couple came over and requested a photo. I was with a friend and we flanked them either side in beach wear. One for the mantelpiece perhaps?

The Chinese person who is representing. Feeling completely at home again in the comforts of Australia's Western culture, I get a little reminder of what's waiting in store for me back in China when a middle aged woman walks past in her favourite pink trouser things. Maybe in China, not here.


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Here is an article detailing the governments advice to people going abroad.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/10348977/Chinas-new-guide-to-civilised-tourism.html

And the actual document
http://www.cnta.gov.cn/html/2013-7/2013-7-15-9-58-46078.html

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57. Blissful ignorance

What benefits do you have as a expatriate living in a foreign country? I thought today blissful ignorance was one of them.

Living in another country is different to just visiting that country on holiday. You encounter day to day situations you don't get the time to experience on a holiday and as a foreigner you can manage to bypass them, gain from them or vent your frustration at them without getting into as much of a bother as you would back home.

Situation 1: Leaflet givers

Just like home leaflet givers go out of their way to plant some kind of useless material in your hands. However I have found them here to retract their Chinese written leaflets from your oncoming path (as they make the judgement you would not be able to read it). It’s one less worry.

Situation 2: School canteen

School lunch’s consist of dubious meat with tasty sauce, rice and two vegetable sides. There are two different types of veg sides, one is sloppy and horrible the other is crunchy often combined with egg and quite yummy. Through some foreign lingo of grunting and gesturing, I manage to get two of the better veg dishes and sometime even come up for seconds.

It’s not allowed to have two crunchy vegetable sides but the poor ladies don’t have the English to tell me No. Every little helps.

Situation 3: The confrontations

Every now again you can get in a heated argument usually with a taxi driver. It is a welcome tonic to release a vent of anger in your own local swear lingo. As I know they are doing the same.

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Being a foreigner in Shanghai is great though. You don't get the celebrity style attention that's afforded in the smaller cities and in general you are respected quite a lot. 

Clubs often give you free tables with questionable booze so you can go into their club, and old folk are often very warm around you especially when you hold the lift for them.

I suppose the Brits have been here since the 1830's. Though we didn't exactly shower ourselves in glory with the Opium war we started. However despite the way we enacted ourselves on the law and public back then, the public in general treat you very well.

For the ones who don't you have that blissful ignorance to fall back on.

56. Three of the most annoying things in Shanghai

3.        People crowding on to trains

I know this has been mentioned before in a previous blog '10 worst things about the subway’. But it just deserves to be extra emphasised how one will force their way on to a bus or train instead of waiting for the next one. 

This situation reached breaking point for me when for the first time ever the subway line that I use every day was down at rush hour. Within 20 minutes the platform was crowded and people were trying to get on the stationary train that I had already boarded. In the end, it got a bit chaotic as everyone was trying to get to work and there was no blatant fix for the situation but stress out.

2. Dancers in clubs

However desperate my life is, I wholeheartedly promise that I will never do a nightclub-dancing job.

In Shanghai’s club scene, I have seen some strange performances. Paid girls to mill around dancing on the stage when everyone is sitting down, horrendous Chinese sung cover performances of club tunes and then just this workout style dancing which leaves everyone watching it feel a sense of awkwardness.

The Western dancers are bizarrely dressed and often surround the main Chinese singer who is really no crowd pleaser and dressed like an idiot. What’s worse is that they are usually kicking us off the stage for their cringeworthy performance.

1. ATM’s

I’m a patient person. But not when it comes to ATM’s.

The process involved in using an ATM should really be quick one. But for some unknown reason, the majority of people here seem to take a disproportionate amount of time doing this.

What makes it so infuriating is that the person will go about their business in a lockable compartment. Some people take this liberty to take their dear old time as the queue outside grows.

There have been many times where I’ve just been standing there waiting, wondering what these people are doing inside. Its for these minutes which have been needlessly wasted that I rate it as the thing which gets under my skin the most.

55. Adverts

The month of August was split between gallivanting around Australia and teaching reading courses upon getting back in Shanghai.

I want to write about the different Chinese people that you see abroad as I experienced a whole load when abroad.

But for now, we are back in the present and facing the reality that the summer is over. I go back to teaching to 40 odd students in each class the day after tomorrow and I feel a conflicting mix of dread and excitement. Dread as the summer work with small classes is a whole lot easier but teaching the big classes is a bit of an adrenaline rush.

Anyway the temperatures seem to have dropped recently from sweltering to coolish. We all enjoyed the sight of defined clouds in the clear blue sky yesterday.

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Adverts

The advertising business in this very consumerist city must be huge. You have the Pudong skyline which acts basically as a grand advertisment for foreign investment. But then when it gets to the posters, there are really some adverts that defy belief. Here are 5 which stood out.

1. The 'in awe of quite a mundane product' advert

2. The ' completely un natural, you just don't see this' advert

3.  The ' get a pretty lady and just flaunt it' advert

4.  The 'will always be seen with a badminton racket in every advert' advert

5. The 'Oh dear what were you thinking' advert

Oh China. 

54. Calligraphy

I found this great little place to learn the ancient Chinese art of calligraphy. Some girls giving out leaflets to the place introduced it to me. Funnily enough leaflet givers due to the script being in character form don’t usually stop me.

On Sunday it’s a free evening of mess about. I had a pleasurable time viewing some of the artwork displayed, testing my character knowledge on the paintings and trying to draw some later.

The place is so close to my apartment that I went again the day after. There was no teacher so we (I’d met a friend along the way and invited him too) drew characters merrily for an hour before booking ourselves in for a lesson on different days as I was going away.

Once back from my 2 day trip to a nearby beach, I remembered the lesson and went along.

I was to find out that calligraphy is not as easy as it looks, The strokes you have to master to complete what looks on a paper a straight line, takes a lot of practice and skill.

For someone like myself, who is happy to make do, this infuriated me. No exaggeration here, the whole lesson was spent trying to do this horizontal line but for a 30 minute gap where the teacher allowed me to write a Happy Birthday Mum message in Chinese character form,

The teacher spoke in Chinese and I was to hear the words for ‘too big, too small, too long, too short, too tall, too fast, a little slower’ throughout. I listened but the deft touch that was needed was beyond me.

It's not the end of the world. Understanding the characters is a challenge in itself.


I've committed my time to something else though. Getting fit. Yes the balmy nights are making me sweat so much that going for a run seems the natural thing to do. This is all in preparation for doing a Kung Fu course in October. I have signed up and I will begin when my contract is up. This I am mega excited about. Lets hope that I take to it more than I have done in calligraphy!

53. Beauties and the Geeks

 Work hours haven’t been fruitful for me since returning from Nepal. The problem is that my employers have designated summer intensive courses elsewhere due to my planned trips to Oz and previously mentioned Nepal.

I had a brief stint as a tennis instructor to fill some time, but was later informed late on Monday night that I was surplus to requirement as they didn’t have enough students signed on <sad at a missed opportunity face>.

Last night, I checked my computer for things to do. Shanghai is blessed with many good Western What’s Going On internet sites. I had a quick look at the most popular of these: smartshanghai.com, and found a festival called Cosplay happening over this week-end.

COSPLAY

Cosplay, to my knowledge, is where computer game loving folk dress up as their favourite anime character and prance around for the public. So it surprised me when we turned up at this massive EXPO center that was like a dozen or so aircraft carrier buildings linked together. How many prancers are there I thought!

The first few were empty and we walked through with the public wondering where this festival was at.

Finally a ticket barrier and we paid 50 RMB to get in. Housemate Sean nudged me telling me to look at these two ladies at 2 O’Clock. Fair enough, girls like that were hard to find in the daylight. They were perennial ladies of the night.

We weren’t really ready for what Aircraft hanger 9B had in store for us.

We were hit by a flurry of activity. The music was loud. There were lots of people but in a very unbalanced ratio.

See the people who had bought tickets to this event were men. Men ranging from the teenage geeks wearing shirts celebrating World of Warcraft to middle aged men whose front set of yellow, gaunt teeth seemed to be permanently sticking out. All with a camera at the ready.

What they’d come to see was plain to see.

There were cosplay characters who were walking around with massive swords, crazy hairstyles and cool dress wear. But they weren't the source of most of the attention even though they were quite cool.

 As we delved deeper into the hangars, we found it was basically a big computer game roadshow. Promoting each computer company were a number of scantily dressed Chinese woman. These women and there were hundreds of them, were the most beautiful in their sheer quantity and quality that I've seen in China.

I don’t know how much these girls were paid. But they no way had any care towards the computer company. They were told to pose, and pose they did. It was incredible, quite astounding. I’ve never seen women so open to having their photo taken on a constant basis by so many nerds.

What was just unbelievable was the hurry and care to which the creepy men would run around with their camera and take hundreds and hundreds of pictures of these women. It wasn't just from far away in slight embarrassment, these men were zooming in on these girls and they didn't care one iota. With no porn in China, I imagined that it was a years worth to these guys Banks.

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To be honest I soon got involved, Zoolander style.

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In one of the hangars the stages were a lot more interactive.

If you wanted to be selected to come up on stage you had to scream loud enough to be recognized by the stage host. I had the advantage here, as basically the guys around me could produce no more than a whimper and I was selected frequently.

I really wrapped up to the delight of Alex my Chinese work colleague who got it all on camera. EA Sports had a American Football throw comp with some Chinese Quarterback, you basically had to throw some balls with him. Simples. There was another stage where there was a SCREAMOTETER, again wrapped up on the prizes.

On stage.

With the stage hosts and my prize an anime cap!

When selecting the winner from the group of selectees the host would call for the ‘Weiguoren’ (Foreigner). I stood out like a sore thumb.

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This city is unique. One day they will have an event where the biggest geeks mix with the most beautiful girls, then the next day/tomorrow, the city plays host to the biggest name in Hip Hop, DR DRE. Surely there is no other city where these two events can happen.

Man even with all the free time in the world at the moment, its impossible to be bored.

52. Face

The notion of Face in China was drilled into us from the very start. Chinese people especially men, will never back down from a situation as their own dignity, pride and reputation amongst their peers will take a hit if they do. So if it ever comes to it back down before something kicks off.

However I had not really seen this concept in the flesh, which is surprising given that it was supposed to have originated in China. The country has a large amount of words to describe different forms of Face (Wikipedia) showing its prevalence in society.

This wasn’t till last night when it all kicked off.

Since March, every Monday night has involved a group of us partaking in a 7-a-side football league. The social but also physically exerting event has been great for general banter outside of work.

However it hasn’t been so successful on the football side of things.

In fact we hadn’t won a match in a while. Our opposition last night a Chinese team, ‘the Flying Seven’ in our league looked on paper and current form to continue that streak.

I’d say we are the Millwall or Leeds of the league our English style is treated with scorn and Sean made an effort with the ref before the game that anything said to him during the game is only out of passion.

We are a decent outfit, its just the last 15 minutes where we concede late goals and lose the tight games. With a look at the two benches, it looked like that trend might continue.

Whilst the Chinese team had a William sister-esqe Entourage with WAGS, an actual coach and enough substitutes to run us ragged, our bench was empty as we waited for Raf our 6ft4 Trinidadian superstar to turn up.

The game kicked off. We had a 3-2-1 formation with myself playing the lone man up front. I think they had a similar formation. Their three men at the back weren’t the typical Chinese, these guys were built, were fast and good on the ball.

They had a set game plan of regimented passing and keeping set positions around the field. 10 minutes in the ball popped to their no 9 from an attempted clearance, he struck it clean and into the bottom left, 1-0.

We responded well. Upping the tempo. Unsettling their defenders who were giving some added attention. As well as physicality in the tackle, the right back was wrapping his arms around me like I was going away for a year. I pushed said guy off as he embraced me on the half way.  He blurted out the obscenities he wouldn’t have been taught in a Shane English class. Forgetting the previously stated lesson from earlier I stood my ground, this caused uproar, players were flying in, the referee arrived to break it up.

He clearly acknowledged his country man was the aggressor but told me simply to ‘Remember Chinese custom’.

Tempers had flared. Tackles were becoming later and shouts were becoming fiercer. We won a free-kick, Darren capitalised and knocked it round the wall and past the keeper.

We continued this momentum and having missed two opportunities to put us ahead, I rose to meet a Sean cross, the ball flying into the top right. We’d gone 1 up and it stayed that way to the half time.

Second half, their coach made some changes bringing on one clear psycho who would react to anything.

Needless to say he didn’t react well to us going 3-1 up via a Sean cleanly hit strike from an indirect freekick.

Incidents on the field were greeted with this no 2 who would run in thinking we’d insulted everyone of his family. Darren received an elbow to the head, but worst came when this hot head cleared his gob of spit on me. I’d amazingly learnt a lesson and didn’t react, still no card given as the ref spoke to the spitter.

After minutes of following passes back and forth and starved of possession we conceded a late goal. But with minutes left it was too late for the Chinese outfit.

This didn’t settle with their bench, when on the final whistle, their bench ran on and threw a chair at Darren who had cheered the result. In the fracas they bellowed out ‘THIS IS CHINA’ as well as the worst type of Chinese profanities that our resident bilingual translated for us.

The escalation that had happened throughout the match culminating in the pitch being stormed was Chinese Face being questioned.

The league is very international, with team players from literally all over the world. Yes this is China, but this is also football. 

51. Guanxi Golf

Sitting down on the train today I noticed sweat marks on the knee-caps of my trousers.

It’s that time of the year where the coldest setting on the shower is deemed too warm, the extra cool subway train are now a safe-haven and having black bed sheets is a perfect solace.

So I am now back from a quite extraordinary 3 week trip to Nepal, where my brother, father and I trekked through a desert-like region called Upper Mustang in the Himalayas.

My schedule is certainly not as hectic at the moment, allowing me to apply for a position as a part time tennis coach. But also to take up a parents offer to play in a golf tournament!

Guanxi

It is said that Chinese business runs on this thing called Guanxi. I see it as under hand dealings which benefit people in your personal network. Lavish gifts are given to seniors to earn their notice, while companies bosses will take their staff to special KTV to keep them humming.

Broken down the characters of ‘guanxi’ mean relationships and connections. But it’s cultural significance has a huge implication in one of China’s premier business cities, Shanghai. It seems like a nice thank-you letter just won’t do if you want to keep that contact.

Roy, one of my privates Dad, recently invited me to one of his Member Invitational Golf Tournament. It was one of the best days I’ve had here.

Without going into too much detail, everything was too good to be true. From a bus filled with promo women, a driving range that looked out onto a vast lake, to clear blue skies and hot weather, to finding out Phil Mickelson was the course designer, to having your own caddie and driving your own buggy, Spaghetti Carbonara that was done well, showers were all types of shampoo, free towels and a ‘banquet’ to conclude the day.

Looking round at the banquet it was clear to see from players wives, the response of members who won awards and just the general attire that there were some seriously wealthy people in that hall.

Roy wasn’t at the golf tournament but I’ll be sending a thank-you letter in the post. The British way I feel.

However Wednesday night saw me act as the giver as Sean and I went out with our Welfare officer, Alex, who has been an absolute gent since our arrival. We paid for his whole night as a gesture of thanks.

50. Questions

The last 2-3 weeks of this school semester have been slightly monotonous but mostly enjoyable.

I teach over 600 students spread over 22 weekly classes in 4 different classes, and for these last few weeks I’ve lazily or bravely decided to give a one on one oral test with each and every one of them.

I put the formatted the test into four parts:

1.     Opinion on English. How have you studied it? What do you think of studying the language? How will you use it in the future?

2.     Drinking game Question. Usually consisting of a Would you rather, or What have you never done, or The Teacher’s Perfect But….This provided some insightful points.

3.     Course related question. In this section I asked the student a question about something covered in the last 12 weeks. They were fairly on the ball.

4.     Question to me. Took a while for the student to comprehend what they had to do here as they are used to answering questions. It offered an entertaining end to the conversation and kept me on my toes. Below are some of the questions asked.

YAH the good school

What do you think of the Chinese education system? Can I have your e-mail? What advice would you give to studying in China? How much do you know about the history of Shanghai?

Stop and think Questions questions

Why is Tom not here? Is this your first job? If you were a Zombie, what would you do? Do you like teaching our class/in our school? What do you think of me?

Factual Questions

How tall are you? What’s your Chinese name? Do you like rainy/sunny days? What size are your shoes? Will you teach us next year? What animal/film/country do you like best?

Out of the blue Questions

Are there a lot of farms in England? What kind of girl do you like?

Popular Questions

Where are you from? Why did you decide to be a teacher/come to China/Shanghai? How old are you?

And most common: Do you have a girlfriend <snigger>?

Chinese choosing English names

I asked for their English name as well before the interview started. There were some classics which were usually found on my more enigmatic students, names included Sharrot, Panda, Memory, Cinderella, Lucky, Ronaldo, Dinosaur, Dad, Boss, Kingslayer and Darth Vader.

Classic Quotes or Memorable Moments

‘You are you, I am I’, ‘I want to control robots’

A girl called Pigeon telling me she really liked Pigeons. Well durr.

The biggest boy in this one class called Dick. Tom was giving him the interview. The interviewee Dick was cracking me up with anything he said. Whenever he was stuck he’d just say ‘Eat’ with a big grin and when asked for his name he pronounced it ‘Deeeek’.

A girl called Jessica admitting to wanting to be a Zombie so she could bite people.

But the Bacon goes to this Korean girl who put me in stitches with a tirade on Chinese life. She gave quite a plain interview and had been quite quiet all year so I took it upon my English self to answer her ‘Why did you come to China?’ question with a slice of sarcasm.

Upon hearing that I came to China because of the school food, the tightly packed buses and the pollution, she was clearly astonished and erupted in an incredible rant.

She described the school food as ‘plastic’ and she once found insects in it. The school soup she said was yesterday’s vegetables, with boiling water and then oil on top. She described the Chinese people as ‘nothing’ compared to the beautiful Koreans. Furthermore she talked about it being so unfair that she couldn’t express her femininity in this ‘ugly’ school uniform. She felt embarrassed to wear it. The uniform she said could not even adapt to the seasons as students were made to swelter in the summer but then freeze to death in the winter. She talked of the ‘injustice’ that teachers could enjoy air-conditioned rooms but the same wasn’t so with the students.

It was breathless stuff. A good teacher I find is one that knows and respects their students especially when they are old enough to have an opinion. Having sat in an English lesson of one of the local teacher today, I find this is not the case with Chinese local teachers to their students.

49. Imperialism on Earl Grey tea.

The morning of the 1^st of June was spent listening to an informational talk on Wellington School, Shanghai. The biggest development I learnt that day was the new Director of Sport would be 18-capped England ‘hero’. Carlton Palmer. I was one of few who knew who he was so we had a decent chat after. I let him know about the TRI World Championships of which I've been picked to represent England!!!

Palmer.

England's kit for Monday

Upon arrival, you had to present your business card. My minimalist card design stood out quite nicely, hopefully this can put me in good stead for getting a job there.

 The room was filled with big dog parents and corporate people. The exchanging of business cards was outrageous. I accumulated about a dozen within half an hour of circle chatting. I can’t imagine how many Carlton Palmer received.

A reminder of my 'mingpian' produced in November

There is a ‘Lujiazui’ group that has helped finance the building of this private English school. It will be a notable landmark in a new renovated part of Pudong by the river.

An English education is obviously still hugely sought after.

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Minor drama today, upon realizing my Earl Grey tea bag supply was running alarmingly low.

Ventured out and found the infamous ‘Avocado Lady’ shop. It’s reputation for a decent supply of Western goods far exceeded what the shop actually was. It felt more like a hangout, and the shop was too small for that to be the case. Popped across the road to ‘M. Eat’ and bought myself my first decent looking sausages since I arrived 8 months ago. Cannot wait to cook them.

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Before this tea calamity had been semi-resolved I had gone to the Shanghai History Museum with fellow teacher Alicia.

There was a number of things that struck me as we made our way around this very good museum.

1. The old generations of Chinese people are crazily shorter than the current crop of Chinese. The diet has obviously changed for the meatier.

2. The British were the first to develop modern society therefore they will always have a say in the world.

The Industrial Revolution of the late 1700 to mid 1800 in my opinion saw the development of the modern city and the industry that powered them. Half of the world’s population now live in cities and this is surely growing. Cities contain a large number of internationals. English is the most commonly used language and will therefore be the lingua franca to these emerging cities.

Britain’s Imperialism in this period has given the language and the country a stability that we’ll always have. 

Wax model of Britain instilling themselves on the Shanghai judicial system after successfully invading in 1850.

A great motivator/appeal to learning a language is knowing its people (something which I'm experiencing at the moment.....;-).... ), its culture, its way of life.

Therefore England will become more and more a tourist destination as language learners fly to our shores. English customs might even come more and more commonplace around the world.

The worrying fact though is the most stereotypical Brits will be found living an expat life, milking their passport’s international value, tuning into the Six Nations perhaps and like me worrying over their Earl Grey reserves.

I don’t think they are in touch with the British multicultural landscape back home. There lies the misconception problem. Now English is a world language which language/culture do we teach, I say this as the rooms in my language school are named 'Cambridge, Oxford, London and Hastings'. 2 University towns, the capital and a place famous for a battle. Basically says all that needs to be said.

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I feel a country also needs global stars from which to almost model their country. Thankfully Britain has been blessed with people like, David Beckham, Rowan Atkinson, Stephen Fry, stars who are likable, globally known and can fly the Union Jack. I kind of feel that our supply line of genius’ are running low.

That being said Benedict Cumberbatch’s global popularity in Sherlock is having more of a say on his country than he probably would imagine.

Mr Hun, or something similar he's called over here which translate to Mr Stupid. Undeserved personally.