Living it large in Apartment 3104
We had a party last night. It went down well I thought. We had been umming and erring for a while, mainly due to everyone having a Monday and a Tuesday off but for my housemate Sean and I. So after a while of putting it off and we decided upon Monday, due to Sunday clashing with the Manchester derby. Thus Today, Tuesday, my busiest day of the week, has been a struggle.
Our fellow teaching community came along, most things seem to be done within the teaching community, drinking being the main one of them. But we also had the pleasure of three Chinese girls turning up. I had sent a text to my craigs list bike seller, Sheila, who in turn brought round two other Chinese girls, who no joke had never even met each other before last night.
The funny thing was that in England, you will say the party starts at 8 O'Clock, and typically people trickle in at 10 - 11. However, when I got the text back from Sheila saying she was to come, it was to come on the dot. I had turned party host entertainer earlier than planned.
Most lethal was the transparent liquid, Baijo, a very strong 53% rice liquor. 2.5 litres for 30 kwai/£3. The apple juice(pinguo ju) mixed with the staple Lambrini made it taste quite nice. I also put some chopped up melon, which was given to us by our estate agents because they use our flat for potential buyers in the building. We've been assured that they're not potential buyers of our flat.
Anyway, the party was a great success. Here are the things I've learnt:
1. Quite a few new words in Mandurin. One of the girls took it upon herself to name pretty much every object in the flat in Mandurin.
2. Gambei. One word and it is within the Chinese honour to down their drink.
3. M50. One of the girls worked at a famous art gallery just down the road. She said she'd swap typograph art lessons for english lessons. Deal.
4. These floors in the flats are great for wiping up spilt drinks and in quite extraordinary circumstances urine as well. Poor fella.
5. The need to get business cards. It really is the done thing here.
6. As well as being a valuable conversational tool, viewing maps is also a manly activity.
Tuition
Referring to the business cards, they are essential if you want to get well known in the tuition world.
I had my first 1 on 1 session on Saturday and it went well. The teacher from Fu Dan school who gave me the contact came to pick me up and we walked for 20 minutes. Luckily the kid lives in the surrounding area so I did not have to take a train.
We got there, thank god as it has started to get extremely nippy in the night. I was all smiley as we entered the flat, which went down well.
The student's flat was very small, he lived with his parents, who were both excellent cooks I was told but unfortunately did not stay long enough to find out, in about a 70sq metre 3 room apartment.
I got talking to Bobby the student in his room. We got on well. The conversation subjects as I seem to remember were why are Western people so big? What is rugby? What team do you support? Hobbies. Getting a part-time Job. School. Morning exercises. Why its important to be happy? Philosophy and the Utiliatarian approach. Why money isn't important? And of course football and girls (you can't have a male conversation without those two).
He was 16, incredibly happy go lucky character and seemed to treasure anything I owned. My phone number for instance he told me was special.
It was a 75 minute chat, I said the first session would be free. After a bit of awkward negotiations, i think we agreed on 100 yuan for a weekly meet up.
In a show of friendship I suppose, Bobby and his Dad decided to walk me home with the teacher.
and finally....the McDonalds Delivery Man
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