Shangri-La Fuzhou

... result means we were swarmed. They fire question after question!!!

The school took us out for dinner again yesterday, which is great. They pay for everything! However, it means that one of the english teachers (who is Chinese) ends up either getting me drunk, or challenging me to stupid things. So, last night we had a chilli eating competition - he won. But you should ...

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 ...

... Rock-paper-scissors. They buy spirits by the bottle, and drink it so quickly. They listen to cheesy western pop music... It was great. We met some young Chinese people who were really friendly, and invited us to play games and join them for drinks...

So, as you can tell yesterday was like the coming of China... I have decided that I love it now. Especially now I have an English map ...

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 ...

... of me. Food and sightseeing were already planned, all I had to do was turn up. We started off with a toasted sandwich (might sound rather ordinary to some, but for anyone who has lived in China for, well, long enough, a toasted sandwich is a wonderful thing) then headed out, armed with m&ms to the old hutong section of Fuzhou. The old hutong section is being renovated, so in a few months it will no doubt look stunning, if a lot less old. We cut away from the new/old ...

... 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 ...

... was quite edible and even tasty. But the best of all was the waitress, very cute and gentle, with the sweetest smile I had seen in a long time. She didn't speak a word of English, but would I ever mind? After being patiently served by her and all my wished except one were fulfilled, I asked her for her phone number, but she must have thought, oh what a jerk, doesn't understand a single word on the menu but can fluently ask a girl for her phone number in chinese.

... 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 ...

... they needed a major overhaul so I paid the princely sum of Y4 to have them made as good as new. The man took the precaution of checking with Yoong that I understood how much I would have to pay for this privilege. Just before finding the cobbler I had bought a pair of slip-on shoes at a nearby shop, not so much for wearing on the trip, but because I always have difficulty finding shoes my size, and these would be fine ...