Captain's Log

Lost track of the date. Can't tell how many days it has been since the nightmare began. The snow is still blowing heavy, the dogs have all disappeared, God knows where to. For all I know they might have torn each other into pieces. Sometimes there are strange sounds at night. It seems there is no going on from here, but I have to leave a warning to those who follow...

snow

The cold has crippled my fingers, the dim light of my IKEA lamp is barely enough to illuminate the little fortress of warmth I have set up in my living room. It is dark out there, close to freezing, visibility is down to almost zero and it's SNOWING! Yes, no kidding! I'm holding the fort as long as I can, but I don't know how long supplies will last. The door is barricaded, all heaters and weapons crammed into this room. I will not let them get to me. I WILL NOT LET THEM GET TO ME!!!

The misery of cold is painfully under-estimated. It creeps through the floors, cracks in the doors, seeps through the window... there is no escape. All I can do is pile on more clothes, scarves, hats... the gloves make it hard to type though. Even if my fingers freeze off... people have to be warned!


So you thought I was joking last time. But I did actually give my last lecture in winter jacket, scarf and gloves (fingerless to not get chalk all over them). It was miserable. I have great respect for the students who showed up and suffered with me. I had to end class early because my voice was fading. I still have a cold that knocked me out flat last weekend, and speaking in my "lecture voice" (I was told I have one, ts) at zero degrees air temperature was not a good idea.

I am not sure I have made it sufficiently clear yet - this place is crazy! Not just because a pack of 20 Lipton tea bags costs the same as a brand new 1.2 liter glass teapot, no, also because people here deal with the cold by wearing heavy down coats in their apartments! I have a good view into my neighbors kitchen and witnessed her putting on an apron - on top of her heavy coat! All the while they kept their kitchen window still open - at 0 degrees and snow?! Madness! They told me I'm going to southern China, not the South Pole! How can it be that I am freezing more here than I ever was in Montreal?! Gah! Btw, at the moment it's colder here than there, which is just wrong! WRONG!

I don't think the current weather has anything to do with the weather-experiment-gone-wrong snow storm in Beijing, but people assure me it's highly unusual to have this kind of cold weather already in November. I feel really bad for the students who live in unheated dorms where the windows don't really close. For the first time I can remember the sight of those white flurries didn't fill me with delight but with trembles of horror...

Nous sommes Canadiens!

Ohmygodohmygodohmygod!!!! I can't believe it it! Our permanent residency application was finally approved! YAY! Long live the Queen! Or wait, vive le roi? Oh my, I am already confused. And I haven't even "landed" as an immigrant yet, which I have to do before the end of the year, so I'll be home for Christmas... dumdidumdidum. This somewhat overthrows our plans, but thankfully no plane ticket was bought, no commitments made, so we can start plan B - that is me coming to Montreal for a couple of weeks (depending on my boss' good will) and then hopefully handing over the apartment to a subletter (if you know anyone who needs a furnished apartment in Montreal for half a year or so, please let me know). I am not looking forward to such a long flight again so soon, but could there be a more charming place for Christmas than Montreal? :) I had already resigned myself to not having any Christmas at all (they don't even have the tiniest break here, I would have to teach all the way till the end of January), now I might even get snow! And I have to say, upon getting the news I was so happy that all my doubts whether I really wanted to go back to Montreal after the year here evaporated.

Apart from that, life here is going on as usual. The week just flies by with teaching and Chinese class (I got the class' highest score on the midterm :P I know, I know, I'm a total teacher's pet. But you know what?! I don't f***ing care!) and on weekends I buy household appliances :P Ok, I'm exaggerating, but I did buy heaters and did not regret it for a second. I need to be able to warm up somewhere. My neighbor (the nosy one with the little daughter) could not believe I had already used my heating. She said I wasn't wearing enough clothes! I was actually wearing three layers of shirts/sweaters and two layers of pants at that moment - I had just come from Kung Fu and had just put my street clothes over my Kung Fu clothes when the little girl came storming out of their door, grabbed my leg and basically dragged me into her apartment. I swear she must have been waiting behind the door for the sound of my key in my door lock! As if I didn't get enough of 5year olds at Kung Fu.

Speaking of Kung Fu, I witnessed a rather bewildering scene there last weekend. The other instructor (i.e. one of the guys who shows up in sports clothes and stands around smoking most of the time) - he trains the bigger kinds whereas the old Master Xu trains the little ones and me :) - got very upset at one student, I think this guy might be 18 or so. I have no idea what he did to anger the teacher so much, but he made him come to the front of the class and started to slap this guy's face. Then he said something to him, slapped him again. He seemed to become more and more angry, he got louder and started to slap harder. But the student didn't run, he just stood there, tears streaming down his face and took it. The other parents either went away where they didn't have to see it (aka the women) or walked over and talked to the angry teacher (aka the men). They didn't actually try to stop him from hitting that guy, but they seemed to try to calm him down a little. After about 30 smacks the class resumed. The boy went to wash his face and then continued the training. Wow. That was something different. Meanwhile, master Xu had continued with the little kids and told them to do their exercises and not stare at the other group. Needless to say this was the most disciplined class ever. Whereas yesterday, when it was just me and three 6-7 year olds, there was a lot of screaming, uncontrolled giggling, rolling around on the floor and playing tag with Master Xu. He carries a big stick, but never really uses it :) I will be careful to keep my distance from the other teacher though...

Last Saturday was the beginning of winter - according to the lunar calendar anyways. I managed to take Xu Feng (another one of my boss' students) out for lunch and we ate lamb - incidentally the traditional start-of-the winter dish. It's very "yang" (not just because that's Chinese for lamb) but also considered "hot" food you should feed on in winter. And indeed it was this delicious, very fatty, stewed-for-hours dish, exactly what one needs on a cold day. Xu Feng was amazed when I said "oh, this is good, and so fat!" He asked "You like fat? 90% of Chinese girls are on a diet!" (from my limited statistic I would say that's true) He says it's not because of the Western beauty ideal that girls want to be anorexic thin, but goes back much farther, maybe 200 or 300 years, when the heroine of popular novels where these fragile and sickly girls (I guess that's also what we can blame the footbinding on). Xu Feng is an interesting source of Chinese history. I also asked him about his attitude towards Japan. Apparently, the Nanjing massacre is still the number one topic in history books. It's quite embarrassing how little the Sino-Japanese wars are covered in our treatment of WWII, I think. And kind of weird how China points to Germany as a good example of dealing with their past in a way the Japanese should have - according to China anyways. Now, I wonder how the dealing would have been if the allies had decided to "denazify" Japan instead of Germany.

I have also recently worked on improving my history knowledge. I had never heard of this guy named John Rabe before my Montreal Chinese teacher mentioned him to me. He is called the "good German of Nanking" because he was the head of the International Safety Zone that was established to protect the civilian population of Nanjing (there wasn't really anyone else left since the army had abandoned the city and left its inhabitants defenseless against the Japanese killing and raping about 300,000 people in six weeks in the winter of 1937/38). There is a memorial site in his former residence, which is on the Nanjing University campus. The people who run this place (they had a seminar a couple weeks ago which I went to) take it surprisingly personal that John Rabe never achieved the same fame and popularity as Oskar Schindler, although he saved so many more people. Well, he used the fact that he was a Nazi and Germany allied with Japan to stop the Japanese soldiers. But he wasn't alone. There were also quite a few Brits and Americans involved. And how do you count exactly whom he saved? He was ordered to come home by the Nazi government and obeyed, abandoning the people of Nanjing if you want. Supposedly by then the Japanese troops had moved on or just gotten tired of the killing and raping and he had "accomplished his task" as the people at the memorial site view it. But it so happens that there are movies out there that portray him as not quite so heroic. The only proof of events really seems to be his diary, and although that's certainly an important historical document, I doubt it's completely unbiased. So, everyone has to make up their own mind, I guess. The memorial site was sponsored by Siemens & Bosch (for whom John Rabe worked in Nanjing) and Johannes Rau (former German president in case you don't know - the German president is just not that important compared to the chancellor, he mainly "represents"... and establishes memorial sites, I suppose).

Ok, that's my story of the day. Next week the crazy Italian :P is coming to visit and in about a month I'm already on a plane. Wow, times really goes by fast. Sometimes I wonder if a year is enough to really get a feel of China.

Brrrrrrrrrrrrr

And the fall came... although it rather looked like winter, with all those people wrapped in their heavy coats, wearing scarves and gloves. Last Saturday we still had 28 degrees, on Monday temperatures plummeted by 20 degrees! During the night it even got down to zero. It felt so frigging cold! Although I am used to much worse from Montreal, I'm freezing all the time. The problem is that there is no heating anywhere. Not in my classroom, the cafeteria, my office or apartment! So, there is no place where one can really warm up. And even if temperatures climb to 15 during the day, it feels incredibly cold. Especially since neither my classroom nor office get sun during the day - in the sun it's quite bearable - and my apartment cools down at night so quickly, because there is virtually no insulation and only single-pane windows. Now I understand why people from Nanjing complain the winter here is cold. It barely gets below zero, but if you don't have heating anywhere, that feels damn cold. The cold just creeps into your bones and doesn't leave anymore, even when you think you shouldn't be freezing anymore... I should get some of those gloves that leave the fingertips exposed so I can hold the chalk, while my students sit there in front of me huddled in their parkas... oh, it's gonna be tough. Thankfully, temperatures have climbed up to 20 degrees again, but mornings and evenings remain cold (around 10). Anyways, I guess I'll have to go on another shopping trip this weekend and buy some heaters. Consumerism just never ends, does it? And I was wondering how I would spend all the money they're paying me.

Tomorrow and Monday I'm having Chinese mid-term exams. How exciting! :) It really sometimes feels like middle school. I don't need to study extra for the exam. Just going to class is enough to pick up everything - apart from memorizing characters. That's still the hardest part. I still read terribly slowly and I have to make a conscious effort to connect a character with its meaning. I can literally see the progress bar in my brain when it's loading Chinese fonts :)

I also have brand new toy - my boss bought me a computer, a mac book pro. And I now have a couch in my office. So, I should be working like crazy with all these incentives, right? Right. Ehm.

Pictures!

Today we're having another beautiful fall day... but just in time for November it's supposed to get cold (below 15C) next week. On the down side, it's a bit rainy, but that rain was much needed because during the last couple of weeks without any drop of water it had become so dry, that it was incredibly dusty. The air quality here is really getting to me. If you look at this you'll know what I mean

my_apartment_2

But to be fair I have to say this was mostly fog, I took the pictures this morning after the rain when it was warm and wet. On some days I can smell the coal dust though. And if I leave my windows open the whole day, the floor collects enough dust to grow dust bunnies within a day or two. Oh well, I never smoked, so I'll make up for it with Chinese city air.

I know some of you must be sick of my kitchen stories, but for those who aren't here is the before-and-after photo line.

kitchen_project

Tonight I'll put it through the first real test (I only made simple things for myself so far, still need to stock up on supplies). I promised my language partner some European food. Now, I found pasta and olive oil, but no cream or cheese that deserves that name. So, it's just gonna be mushrooms and bacon with lots of olive oil I guess. Making Italian desserts without cream is also somewhat a challenge... mh, I could make Zabaione, I suppose, but what liquor do I add? I don't think sake is such a good match...

No more fear

I have started socializing with my neighbors. There is this one little girl, she's maybe 6 years old, who often runs up to me and asks "do you have time to play?" According to her mother, she wants to learn English from me, but I am not sure how much of that isn't wishful thinking from the mother's side. And my, the mother is nosy! She already walked into my apartment once and remarked what a big fridge I had! Way too big for one person! And recently I let the little girl into my apartment, she kept bringing me fruit and other snacks, and of course I also had to let the mother in. And she was absolutely not shy to inspect my furniture, test the softness of my mattress and ask how much I paid for this and that. This lack of privacy is something I have to get used to, especially after six years in North-America. I don't really mind though, I don't perceive it as unfriendly. Even in my Kung Fu class (yes, I finally found a school), where I am clearly the attraction and people come and stare at me or eavesdrop when I talk to the teacher. And it's so funny how offering a piece of information (like "I teach physics at Nanjing University") creates a satisfied murmur in the crowd :) Of course, another reason they stare is that I am making a complete fool of myself there. The students are mostly kids, with beginners as young as 5 and the majority younger than 12. Some of the older kids can do pretty amazing stuff, they are all extremely flexible, can do splits, somersaults, jumps... one guy can even jump and kick while he's flying through the air (like in the movies!), but since I am a beginner there, I have to march in one line with the 5-year olds. Well, there's not so much of a march or a line, usually they run from one end of the hall to the other or roll around on the floor. It's kind of impossible to copy what they are doing (well, I could just wave my arms like mad and topple over, but I don't think that would get me very far), so I have to send a helpless look to Teacher Xu (he's not a 师父 "shifu" just a 老师 "laoshi" which might be an expression of the fact that this is not a very traditional school, it's more a sports club, but I also find it very down to earth - I have to say I am slightly annoyed with Westerners who run martial arts schools and call themselves(!) "Sifu", even if they don't speak a word of Chinese), then he drops his bamboo stick that he uses to keep the kids at bay and shows me which combination of jump, kick and slap your foot with your hand I am supposed to do.

On weekends training gets really crowded and all the parents sit around watching their kids and me - the new attraction! Good thing I had my ego already broken, I guess :P Once I had a twelve year old showing me a sweeping move, it was quite humbling to have her tell me to keep my back straight :) But man, did she have flawless stances and posture! That this is much harder for me because I have to move about three times her weight was of course not obvious to her. So, I was pretty much dead when she was done with me. In the meantime her mother stopped by and wanted to go home saying "you've been here nearly two hours!" to which she replied "but I'm teaching her!" (and yes, I actually understood all of that in Chinese, but talking to teacher Xu I need a translator, which means I talk to someone else in Chinese and they repeat it (with the right accent) to him... oh well, I am used to being treated like an idiot by now, thankfully that doesn't hold me back from talking to strangers anymore). One of my students found out about this school and sent me the address, which was still hard to find. I biked around quite a bit in this huge sports complex; there are tennis courts, basketball courts, old ladies doing some kind of dance in a big parking lot, table tennis and badminton halls... but i couldn't find the 武术馆 "wushuguan", until someone I asked pointed upwards; then it occurred to me to check out this seemingly abandoned sports "theater" (if you're from East Germany think "Kulturpalast") - turns out it's not so abandoned at all, they are using the lobby for martial arts! well, it would be a waste not to make use of the parquet, wouldn't it? It's really funny, there are punching bags hanging from the open stairways, and below people train Kung Fu or kick boxing.

The first time I went I just wanted to check this place out, but I happened to get there just before class started and after a little chat with the teacher he agreed to let me try (I got a little speech that I have to be willing to train the basics and will not start off with forms - at least I think that's what he was saying :) so I think they are serious about what they are doing) and was apparently satisfied with what he saw. He says that I should train the basics (what they do is slightly different from what I learned before, much more about flexibility and jumping, it's a much more open style than) and in two months or so we'll see. He says he would teach me the Chinese Lohan style. They train six times a week, so this could be potentially intense, but I certainly won't go there every day. So far I went four times in one week. It's a bit weird, I haven't quite figured out what *their* style is, but when I asked one of the older students he said they all do something different. At first I had no clue what he meant by that, but then I saw that some of the adults who hang out there (and most of the time chat and smoke) from time to time take one of the kids to the side and teach them something individually. There is this one girl for example, she's learning Tai
Chi, and to me her moves already look pretty close to perfect, but they keep criticizing her. I still don't know what to think of those guys... they always show up in sports gear, but I have never seen them actually do anything! Teacher Xu, who is the oldest, runs the training with the little ones, and he's still pretty flexible for his age (I think he's between 60 and 70, not sure). He still makes a flawless split and his posture is really good. Although I am sometimes reminded of ballet by the kind of steps and jumps we are doing :)

Remember me complaining about fireworks? Well, they actually never stop. People are getting married every day and apparently close to my language school, because every day we have to pause class for a couple of minutes because of the mayhem outside. And that's not the only one of course. Sometimes I also see fireworks in the evenings. They really love them!

Kitchen Stories

7:30 - I get an SMS from my boss (they asked me for a Chinese speaking contact when I bought the kitchen) - the IKEA people are supposed to come in an hour

8:30 - I got my breakfast and am now waiting

9:05 - They're here! Three men in blue overalls (but not IKEA blue - they're contractors) invade my apartment and start to rip open IKEA boxes. Very thoughtful - they put blue plastic bags over their shoes to protect my floor. They seem very professional, brought cordless electric screwdrivers, jigsaws, a level and tons of other stuff

9:24 - All 4 base cabinets assembled. To those who complain IKEA furniture is a hassle to assemble, I say to you "that's just because you don't do it for a living!" Two of them (one is clearly the boss) are really fast, the other one seems new to this. Now they're cutting holes for the pipes into the back of the cabinets

9:32 - Oh no, one of the electric screw drivers' battery is empty! Will they make it to lunch despite this setback?

10:17 - All base cabinets sawed to fit and installed. Slow guy turns out too incompetent to adjust two cabinets to the same height. They sent him out into the hallway to unpack doors

10:28 - They're starting to work on the countertop. The blue shoe bags are seeing the first holes

10:32 - Incompetent guy figured out that there are two doors that don't seem to go anywhere. I explain to the boss I want them beneath my stove. Turns out they don't quite fit! Also, they have the hinges on the wrong side, they're made for hanging cabinets

10:35 - The boss doesn't give up so easily, he's now taken to the impossible task to get those doors under my stove somehow

10:42 - The countertop is in place, now guy number 2 is starting to work on cutting a big hole into it for the sink

10:57 - The boss seems to have a plan for making these impossible doors fit; at least he's developed activity with some leftover plinth (the board that goes around the base of the cupboards)

11:08 - Indeed, he screwed some plinth to the inside walls under the stove; now the doors would fit, but what is he going to do about the hinges being wrong????

11:18 -Ah, they also brought a circular cutter, he actually made new holes for them - the size they use to cut a hole into the countertop to install the water tab also fits for hinges! My dining room has turned into a sawdust strewn battle field, they have even taken over the hallway outside

11:22 The blue shoe bags have dissolved in the heat of the battle into rags

11:25 - Guy number two has installed sink and water tab. I am quite amazed at the almost perfect circle he managed to cut, while incompetent guy can't even hold the countertop straight - they seem to be getting annoyed with him

11:35 - Yay! It seems I can actually get my custom-made doors; maybe he could have made the ugly insides facing the bottom, not the top, but well...

11:50 - The cabinets are anchored to the walls, now the drawers are being installed. The boss is angry because someone got grout on a door

11:55 - It's past Chinese lunch time, the tension is rising

12:05 - Incompetent guy has to scrape the grout off the door

12:10 - Putting on the final touches

12:25 - Installing handles on doors and drawers while incompetent guy is sweeping the floor... someone should tell him that sweeping up a step doesn't work so well

12:45 - Done! And they're gone! And I have a shiny new kitchen!

13:45 - Sawdust is a bitch to clean! I need to go out get some fresh air and clear my lungs... wait, I live in China! Darn...

It must be fall, because most of the girls have taken to wearing short skirts with high boots... a nice sight (certainly better than the fills and laces that dominated the summer, also the colors have changed to much less pink... apart from the Russian girls in my language school - who ever spread the lie that pink hot pants with leopard print and matching suspenders is an acceptable fashion statement should be severely punished). I'd totally follow that trend (well if I had such boots, but more importantly) if it wasn't still friggin' 27 degrees out there! The Americans on the other hand are still wearing tank tops and flip flops. Speaking of which... how is it that Chinese girls wear ultra-short skirts but never show any cleavage? Most shirts are made in a way to hide whatever is going on in the chest area - buttoned up to the neck and a huge bow or some other frizzly stuff on the chest. So, when I walk around in a tank top I get lots of stares (disapprovingly from elderly women)... eliminating them from my wardrobe would mean tossing half of what I can wear at these temperatures, so... stare away!

I also found out why nobody here bothers to lock their bikes to a fence or railing. Apparently people here don't steal parts. They only steal bikes if they can pick the lock. So I was told by my students and, well, also experienced first hand... I am lucky, I've still got my bike since I invested in a good lock... but by trying to pick it they destroyed the locking mechanism and I could for the hell of it not get it to open. I had to go to one of these little bike repair shops that are at pretty much every street corner and had to have it broken. It was impressive. Even with excessive brutal force it still took a good twenty minutes to open it. Of course, this guy also sells locks... which makes me wonder if he is the one going around destroying locks so people buy his (I wouldn't be surprised if he has a spare key to the lock I bought from him, but maybe that comes in handy if I ever lose my key). This happened on the second day I had my bike! I had locked it in front of the language school. They have a guard there in the mornings who watches the bikes, but I guess he was taking a nap in the afternoon. In any case, I am not taking my bike there in the afternoon anymore, which is only once a week anyways. If I have to buy a new lock every week, it will very soon exceed the price of the bike.

This weekend I'm having my kitchen installed... exciting. First I have someone tearing out the old sink and demolishing the little walls it sits on. This guy, 王师傅 Wang shifu (where 师傅 "shifu" here means someone with technical skills, like a handyman or cab driver; 师父 - also "shifu" is respectful for teacher, like a Taichi or Kungfu instructor) is quite funny. He already drilled holes for me to hang up my shelves and refused to take any money, because he is a friend of my boss. So I plan on slipping him some money this time together with a bottle of brutal liquor (the shelves in the supermarket are flowing over with this clear 50% and more rice-schnapps, there are so many varieties, it's mind boggling). He can't refuse a gift, can he? He always treats me a bit like an idiot, I mean, clearly, anyone who doesn't speak Chinese is an idiot! Instead of talking to me, he starts to mimes things when I don't understand. It doesn't help that he has this accent where "s" sounds exactly like "sh." Many people do that here. I really don't understand how they can communicate. Chinese already has so many homophones, why add a few hundred more by not distinguishing between "z,c,s" and "zh, ch, sh"? It's insane! In the end I usually catch his meaning, but he doesn't believe me (although he even wrote it down!), so I have to call Lingfei to translate. Turns out he told me exactly what I thought he did. So, I'm looking forward to an entertaining evening today.

My Chinese is making big progress. I have also found a language partner. It's not quite fair, because her English is already much better than my Chinese (and I feel like my English has deteriorated in the last couple of months, I'm starting to use some phrases I pick up from Chinese that don't exactly have the right Grammar!) but I think it's going to help a lot. Usually I only practise speaking with the people in my class whose accent is just as bad as mine. It's easy to pronounce the tones correctly in a single word, but to string them together to sentences fluently is a challenge we consistently fail to live up to. Liu Xing, my language partner, is the first Chinese with siblings I meet who was born after the introduction of the one-child policy. So I asked her what punishment her parents had to face and she said they only paid a small fine and probably lost some job opportunities, but they didn't experience it as a real hardship. And she never felt discriminated or encountered any problems because of that. She thinks today the punishment would be much more severe though. And another interesting fact about this topic - in Jiangsu province couples are allowed to have more than one child if they both don't have any siblings. But that's not true for everywhere in China. Oh, and ethnic minorities are also exempt from this rule, I was told.

Meeting Liu Xing was fun. My writing teacher introduced us and we met in this western-style cafe. They wanted to have dinner, but ordered only sweet stuff! Apart from a salad. But in true Chinese fashion, all the food arrived at once and we ended up eating salad, cheesecake, crepes with ice cream and grilled cheese sandwich all at once :) I just can't understand why one would want to eat mediocre western style food when one can get really good Chinese food, usually for less money. And I firmly believe that me eating Chinese food three times a day is what has prevented me from catching the virus everyone else in my Chinese class came down with. Must be the soy milk :) But Liu Xing is really interested in Europe, so I guess I should cook some European food for her some day - when I have my awesome, awesome kitchen! :) Can't wait. Still need to buy a wok and a cleaver. I have been putting of this purchase. It's an important decision that should not be rushed. I mean, we're going to spend a whole year together! I don't want some cheap impostor in my kitchen...