Fujian Hot Spring Hotel Fuzhou

It has been a while.

So, not much has happened since my last blurb.

We have been exploring the city, and trying to meet new people. We went to 'English corner' the other day. It is in the square, held under a statue of a communist leader... Interesting.. The only people that go are Chinese who want to practice their english. We were the only foreigners, which as ...

Nihao all! (Chinese for Hello)...

Another week in China, which inevitably means another week of no sleep. I think I have said it before, but, the Chinese are the nation of early risers... 5.30 am and they are all making as much noise as is physically possible...

Other than that the week has been hugely productive, we have been teaching Chinese kids, opened bank accounts, restored internet access, found someone to teach us Chinese, and most important of ...

... br>I think in the next week we will start Chinese classes at the local university & I have met this young guy who wants to exchange English lessons for Chinese lessons - So I will meet up with him.

The city is so incredibly safe, there is very little petty crime, and generally everyone is hospitable. They do however stare and point at us!


Anyway, I'm finished for today.

So, we are here, living in China.

What can I say??! It is very very different. Incredibly hot, incredibly difficult, and a little overwhelming.

The city and country are beautiful, and surprisingly, clean. That said, in the Internet Cafe people just spit on the floor. However, on the whole, the Chinese people have been hospitable.

Life has been difficult the last few days as the language is so hard... We feel a little stranded, but things seem to be ...

... The codfish were so plentiful there that when the sailors had lowered baskets into the water and hoisted them up, they were full of squirming, silvery fish.

　　Although the merchants and the nobles at court did not care about this discovery, the fishermen of Europe became very interested.Before long, many fishermen were ...

When I first decided I wanted to come to the PRC I was determined to steer clear of Fujian province. I figured if anywhere was likely to be similar to Taiwan, it would probably be Fujian. Especially in accent. Part of the aim in moving here was to be exposed to different kinds of Chinese. That being the case, it would hardly make sense to move to a place where the dialect was also Hokken. So, I packed my bags and headed to Wuhan. Then I headed further north and east to ...

... by themselves at any time without any hassles. There are no shady characters hanging out at some corners like they would in any given US city. A few beggars are here and there, but mostly they do not persist for long. People generally leave you alone, sometimes I feel almost invisible, but at the same time it is easy to find some friendly help when there is a question. For my own life, this safety would be my personal number one priority. I would rate this much higher than ...

... world opens up, with overgrown gardens, temples, people practising Tai Chi under huge old trees whose roots and leaves seem to cover the whole area by the end of the day. One amusing thing about chinese parks is that there are often amateur musicians who come here to practise. While we would lock ourselves away in the deepest basement, it is totally ok here to even practise your very first tunes in public. I had to whitness the worst saxophone players ever ...

... families in the village have at least one or two sons in another country, mostly in the United States, some in Europe. 70% of the villages are considered well off. There are even people from other poorer provinces such as Sichuan working and renting in our little village! I had been to our village 5 years ago with my father and I could not even recognize the place, let alone my sister Cathy who is visiting for the first time in nineteen years ...

... then entered the walled city through one of its four gates. The town had a certain charm and we got a lot of stares as this is probably not a place often visited by foreign tourists. Just before the gate on the other side of the city there was a small shop selling tea-ware. Yoong couldn't resist buying a tiny teapot and two sets of four little cups.

We found a restaurant serving fish from a tank at a very reasonable price, then came ...