rupert and hannah

Hi Rupert here again, I know that may disappoint some people (Esther...) but Hannah is busy cleaning at the moment and doesn't have the energy. So, you'll just have to grin and bare it.

So, it's been a while since our last post, not because we have been that busy, but because we have been relaxing during our holiday. Quite a lot of stuff has happened.

First, we went to a Banquet, held by the Government for selected foreign guests to celebrate the 56th anniversary of the founding of the PRC. It was held in a 4/5 star Hotel on the coast. It was a very nice location. Before the meal got underway we had to listen to a few speeches, sadly not by the two really famous guests (the ex-President of Thailand and his wife). After the speeches finished, we then got down to eating. The food was really nice, lots of things we haven't eaten before. It was all served buffet style on each table. All the Chinese guests were getting up and wandering around and talking to their friends, then coming back to eat some more food. Much more relaxed than at any UK formal meal. What was funny was the way the meal ended. Suddenly, this lady, who had been announcing things all throughout the meal, suddenly got up and announced that the meal had finished, at which point all the Chinese guest stopped what they were doing and rushed for the door, it's as if everyone suddenly thought, all at the same time, "I'll get my coat". It was bizarre.

After the meal, we went out to a bar with some of the foreigners who were there. It is a thing we aren't keen on repeating, not with those foreigners anyway. Some of them, bar the odd exception, seemed to be in China for all the wrong reasons (mostly because they want an easy life, to live like kings and have any Chinese women they want (so long as they can pay for them)). They seemed to treat the locals quite disrespectfully, expecting them to wait hand on foot on them, so we made our excuses and left. Besides, we have met foreigners here who are very nice, so we won’t mind not being pals with these!

This meal basically marked the beginning of our eight day holiday, to celebrate the founding of the PRC. It aint the best of holidays, since all the teaching days we miss we have to make up by teaching over the next few weekends, after which we will need another holiday. The first day of the holiday we went to Holiday Beach, where we had been a week ago for a BBQ. It was really nice just relaxing on the beach and watching the Chinese world go by. According to the Rough Guide, the Chinese are not to sure what to do when at the beach. They get there all kitted out in the right garb (if it was the 1980s) and then sort of stand at the waters edge and look a bit lost, ohh yeah, and throw handfuls of sand at each other and in the air, that might explain why they all look sad when they leave the beach.....the sand in their eyes!

The next day was one I had been waiting for, for ages; it was time to buy our DVD player. We hadn't chosen the best day, because it was National Holiday, so Haikou was very busy, but it meant we got some good deals. We went with a third year Chinese student, called Lilly, who was very good at bargaining. We got what we think is a good deal. A multi-region DVD player for about £20 with lots of cool features, plus it glows blue (like yours Emma) and looks like a UFO, now we can watch our large DVD collection on the TV. Talking of which, it is even bigger now that we got to borrow loads from our American friends, including half of each season of Friends and loads of films. In addition, we recently picked up another TWO seasons of 24, so we now have three of the four seasons of 24 on DVD, all for about £5! We also bought some little tape players to play the tapes that accompany our books to our students, for £2.50 each. Stuff is pretty cheap out here, and I am sure I will end up with some more gadgets before I leave, they have hundreds of i-pod type things.......We also bought some cool things for the flat, including three big posters of cool pictures (bamboo forests, mountains and some Chinese art) and also a very phunky rainbow striped light, that looks very cool. Our flat now looks very homely and it is a nice place to chill out in.

We took it easy for the next few days. We were thinking of going to the Hawaii capital of the East, Sanya, but had read in many guides that it is very expensive and busy to go during National Holidays, so decided to stay here. We met some friends who did go during the holiday and said it wasn't too busy, but, oh well, we weren't to know, and hopefully it will be cheaper when we go.

During the week we decided to check out the park in Haikou. It was an interesting experience, a bit like being tortured. There was some Chinese opera going on in the park. Imagine two cats in drag having a fight late at night with loudspeakers attached to them, and you kind of get an idea of what Chinese opera sounds like. It looks very cool though. The park itself was pretty run down. We also decided to have a go on the peddaloes (yup, Ridge and Gillie, you can't keep me away from a peddaloe). It was shaped like a swan and kinda cool. The pond was nothing special, although it did have some interesting local fauna - some vagrants who lived and washed on the lake-side and the first birds we have seen, some wild kingfishers, very beautiful.

A few days later we went for supper in our cool bar in town, called Red Ant. I can't remember if we have described it before, but you have to slide your hand into this gap to open this automatic sliding door to get inside. Once in, it is all moodily lit, with pictures of Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan on the walls, lots of comfy sofas and telephones on each table to call one another. It is the coolest bar I've been to in a long time, we are going there tonight to cheer us up after all our lesson planning today (which i am clearly working on so hard right now, given that I am writing this). The food there is excellent, so people, if you fancy a night out in a trendy bar in China, you know where to call.

We also went out to eat in a Japanese restaurant recently. It was really nice, and my first taste of real Japanese food, including Sake and proper sushi (not too dissimilar to the stuff you get from Boots and M&S). Hannah absolutely loved it, and we are planning to go to Japan sometime, (we are talking in years here not in months). It had cool little booths in which people sat and ate, and very cute decor.

Last night was rather amusing, we had been at Holiday Beach again, wandering up the coast to see what was round the corner (more luxury Chinese hotels, who seem to think that the best way to decorate the beach they own is to dump a load of red bricks and concrete slabs on it and let them get washed out to sea, and palm trees). We got back and went to a restaurant that we had been taken to when we first arrived, where we had lovely sweet and sour fish. We tried to order it again, alongside some pork and cashew nuts and some egg and tomatoes (kinda like an egg and tomato omelette). We were less than successful. When we got back to our flat to open up the food, we found we had ordered raw fish with slices of bamboo, some weird sea food vegetable thing which stank and some minging egg and tomato soup. We were less than impressed and suddenly lost our appetite!

That’s about it. The only other thing to say is that I am doing a, what they call symposium, but i think it is basically a lecture, on modern western dance music, my chosen topic. Obviously I am in seventh heaven as it gives me the chance to talk about my favourite topic and play loads of tunes, to a captive audience (or should that be held captive). So I am busy making a fancy PowerPoint with loads of pictures and samples of music and stuff. I doubt my audience will understand half the stuff I say, but they can read the ppt slides and listen to the songs and they should get the picture. I think I am annoying Hannah coz I am spending ages preparing for it, but it will be worth it. It is not taking place till November, so I will say how it went then.

We have got lots of teaching to do over the next few weeks, to make up for lost time. After that, on our first free weekend, we will go to Sanya for a long weekend, we can't wait.

Laters.

# posted by Unknown @ 3:38 pm