China Travels | Phil & Sabine's Excellent Adventure
April 2010 - April Adventures
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The same weekend as Easter, the Chinese commemorate “Ching Ming Jie”, Tomb Sweeping Festival, a time in the year when families remember their deceased relatives and go to the cemetery. It is recognised by a bank holiday and so we took advantage of this and went to Xian for the weekend.
We met up with some other volunteers and apart from eating and drinking a lot, we climbed a local mountain called Hua Shan. The weather was really spring like and we walked to a couple of peaks. Despite the warm sun, you could still see the remnant bits of snow. About 6 hours later we returned, tired but happy. The next few days our calf muscles were aching like they had never ached before. It took 4 days for them not to hurt! One of the great things about Hau Shan were the lovely signs that you saw at regular intervals. |
6th -11th April
This week was film club for the senior students and we watched “Avatar”. Not brilliant, particularly as we did not have the 3D glasses but the students seemed to enjoy it. Xifeng is currently under construction. Lots of new buildings are springing up everywhere and simultaneously, buildings are also being destroyed. One of the reasons is to make the roads wider as over the years there has been an increase in the amount of cars on the road. Even during the short time we have been here, it is noticeable how the city has changed. And things change quickly and daily. For example, I went t withdraw some money the other day only to find that where the bank once was, there now lies a pile of rubble. Two days earlier, I had deposited some money into my account. |
At the weekend we went for a walk with some of the teachers from the local college. We caught what was already a full bus, but they managed to squeeze us on somehow and travelled to the next county. An hour or so later we arrived at our destination and disembarked and walked down a dusty track to where the Yellow River was. We walked along the banks until about lunchtime. One of our group had crossed the river at an earlier point and had wandered off by himself. We then got a phone call from him to say that he had ordered some food for us from one of the cavehouses not far from the river. In Gansu there are still people who live in houses carved into the surrounding mountains. The only problem was, the only way to cross the river was to wade across. Mmmmmm. Not something I really fancied doing, for many reasons, but a couple of our group tried at many different points to prove that it was possible. But it wasn’t!! Instead we headed back to our starting point and walked a short while until we reached a couple of other cavehouses. It was here that we ate our lunch. There were 8 of us and I presumed that one of our group knew the family that was kindly cooking our lunch. Not so it turns out. We had just invited ourselves. They were quite poor and to cook for all of us must have taken up a considerable amount of their weekly food. I suggested that we gave them some money, but this was frowned upon. I felt pretty bad. Luckily, Phil carries some one and two pence pieces in his pockets and gave these to the children. This eased our conscience somewhat.
11th-18th April
Midweek we did another leadership training but this time to some primary heads. The day went quite well. As is often the case, at lunchtime and in the evening, we are usually treated to a meal with the local education staff. Lunch was pleasant…. For the evening meal we were rushed out of the training room as the food had been ordered for us in advance. We hurried to the restaurant but not everybody was there. The food was, but not the leader whose presence was required before the food could be eaten. Several phone calls were made but still the food sat at the table going cold. Nobody wanted to eat anything until the leader had arrived. We waited and waited. Eating without the leader’s presence showed disrespect. After 40 minutes, I suggested that we start and that some of the dishes were reheated. This was met with a very uncomfortable silence from the others but they relented. We started to eat and just before we had finished, the leader appeared with an entourage of about five other people. People who we had never seen before. More food was ordered. Feeling quite full and tired at this point, I would have preferred to have gone home but as this would have been totally disrespectful, I agreed to stay and eat some more food. At regular intervals during mealtimes in restaurants, Chinese men like to play drinking games; namely dice games. Fortunately, women are not expected to drink as much as men or sometimes, not at all, and so the men in the group often bully Phil into playing. Every time he seems to be winning, the rules change! This is less of a problem in the evening, but at lunch time, when the training continues in the afternoon, Phil has to be very assertive otherwise he will end up legless. The “hangers on” who do the bullying, are not to be seen in the afternoon. They are busy doing “paperwork”. Our training courses are for many an excuse to meet up with friends have a night out. Not always what we want after training all day. This was one of those occasions. We eventually got home four and a half hours later. It had been a long day! |
Saturday was supposed to be the same training but to another group of leaders. Late Friday night it got postponed until the Monday. Still don’t fully understand the reason but that is often the case when colleagues explain why something has happened or rather not happened. Often you are given an answer which bares no resemblance to the question. And so it was postponed until Monday. Sunday, came and then it was decided that Monday was not possible either. Postponed until further notice. This training was supposed to happen originally in February……..
The weekend was Phil’s birthday. I naturally showered him with gifts (!) and we met up with some friends for a meal. After the meal, we did something we had never done before… we went to the recently opened KFC in town and bought an ice-cream. Well it was his birthday!
The weekend was Phil’s birthday. I naturally showered him with gifts (!) and we met up with some friends for a meal. After the meal, we did something we had never done before… we went to the recently opened KFC in town and bought an ice-cream. Well it was his birthday!
19 – 25 April
A relatively subdued week following the birthday frivolities of last week. Tuesday and Thursday are my regular busy days, when I visit two schools in Xifeng and work with the respective English departments. Surprisingly though on Tuesday, it rained all day! – unheard of in Xifeng. It made for more luxurious travel to school; car instead of my bone-shaking bike. |
On Friday we rose early to board a bus to Xian. However, this was a special, fast (or so the story went) service, provided by the local oil company. ‘Be there at 8 sharp’ we were told. We were, however the bus came at gone half past eight! No biggie, we’re used to this sort of episode now. So five hours later we hit Xian and decided that a meal in a favourite hostel would be a good idea. It ended up being two meals (Bine’s idea – she’s so greedy at times) and they tasted good. Luckily, as we were leaving the hostel, we ran into Mr Panda (we find Chinese names difficult to remember so we create appropriate names for people based the situation. This guy had previously taken us on a trip to see the pandas near Xian) who corrected us on where to catch a bus to Zhen’an. Just before 9pm we pulled into Zhen’an bus station to be met by two fellow volunteers Barbara and Wu Yang Ming who work there. They’d organised a hotel for us for our two-day stay to observe their training for local education leaders.
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Saturday brought a very different landscape of green mountains, showing that there’s more water here than Xifeng. Following the day’s training, we hiked up a few hundred steps to a communal square to join the locals milling around and generally relaxing and to watch the Tae kwon do class taking place. This was reassuring to see as we rarely observe Xifeng people taking it easy. After a few snaps we headed back down for sustenance and a beer of course. |
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