on the road and not stopping

China. Chengdu, Emei, Kunming, Jinghong, Mengla. Grilled tofu, urban chaos, dyed chickens, Chinese families yanking goldfish out of a pond. Tsingtao beer with strangers.

Laos. Luang Nam Tha, Luang Prabang, Nong Khiaw, Muang Ngoi, Muang Khua. Bamboo-thatched villages, dusty children, rice paddies of luminous green. Landslides, BeerLao , Laolao whiskey with ex-pat Kiwis and all-you-can-eat vegetarian buffets.

Vietnam. Dien Bien Phu, Sapa. Potholed roads, plunging valleys, tourist-hungry touts and bed bugs.

Four weeks down, eight awaiting. No guidebook, no plan, no rules. Nowhere to be but wherever I am.

Which is not, unfortunately, conducive to regular blog updates. Spending hours in front of a computer screen is somewhat less thrilling than a jungle trek or yarning with strangers over cheap local beer.

And now: it's midday in Sapa, the fog has lifted and the valleys are calling [or the bar]. Tham biet.

finding Buddha.

The first three hours were a treat. Clean air, waterfalls, birds singing. Hey, I thought. This is gonna be a piece of cake.

Hmm.

I went to Emei to escape the heat. I escaped it alright. I got fog, rain and a wet ass. The promised breath-taking views were lost to white mist. My hair smelled like sheep dags.

Tourism has, like a lot of good stuff, reduced an otherwise sacred Buddhist mountain to yet another tick-box on your average tourist’s Must-Do list. What I thought was going to be a taste of China’s wilderness turned out to be [yet another] battle to hang onto my pennies.

My mission begins at 9am. Fork out 40 yuan for a bus to foot of said mountain. Set off. Fork out another 150 yuan for a ticket to get on mountain. Dodge hawkers proffering jade necklaces, ugly statues, dried meat and other wares one would find cumbersome to hike with.

Track is meticulously furnished with concrete steps and guard rails [crafted to vaguely resemble tree limbs]. Snack vendors are ubiquitous. Prices are extortionate; a two-yuan bottle of water has shot up to eight, a mouldy apple is five, a beer fifteen. Chocolate is out of the question.

Two hours. Meet two nervous young Chinese guys who cordially ask me to join them. Conversation is limited; their English is poor, my Chinese is worse. We plod on in amiable silence.

Seven hours stiff uphill slog and I concede to paying eight yuan for a 500ml bottle of Coke [RRP: two-fifty]. Best damn Coke of my life. Plod continues.

Debate arises as to where – and when – to stop for the night. Fog is thickening. Every rock, tree and concrete step starting to look the same. Exhaustion is claiming my two buddies, yet they turn their noses up at modest monastery accommodation in favour of supposedly superior facilities two hours further.

Plod on.

Eight hours. Have visions of boys [and myself] being carried off mountain in body bags. Mother Hen takes over; we turn back.

Wind up at family home-turned-hotel: soggy wooden shack divided into poky rooms. Damp bedding, naked wiring. Chooks. Insects. But, a roof. And, inexplicably, electric blankets and a TV.

Housewife feeds me a huge plate of oily grey eggs; divine. Boys decline; declare place to be ‘dirty’ and go to bed.

More weary travellers arrive. One nonchalantly unpacks a Bible, a laptop and Sheryl Crow. Bemoans lack of network. I go to bed.

Day two. Rooster crows at four a.m. At four-thirty. At five. At six-thirty, we leave.

Rain. Fog. Concrete steps.

Silence.

Six kilometres from summit and my company suddenly make a beeline for the cable car. Cannot fathom squeezing out another 120 yuan; stagger on alone.

Pace slows to crawl. Concrete steps are vertical. More jade necklaces, stuffed monkeys and throngs of babbling Chinese tourists [fresh from air-conditioned coaches].

Golden Summit.

Forty kilometres. Clear skies, tree tops and a bloody great gilded Buddha.

I’m buggered.

Happily pay 50 yuan for the hour-long bus ride down the mountain. Later, tend to muscular ailments with [eight yuan] beer.

And leave Emei on the next train.

bittersweet

I've barely got my chops around the chopsticks before she asks again. "How is it?"

Three pairs of eyes eagerly watching, waiting, over steaming bowls of soup, fried egg, shredded potato and tofu.

Delicious, I say. So good. Amazing. Zhenda hao chi.

It's not enough. Grandma keeps telling Vivian to make me eat more; Grandpa keeps gesturing towards the egg and chilli. Vivian keeps ladling rice into my bowl. Grandma wants to cook me some eggs to eat on the train tomorrow. Grandpa gives me a package of 'special Chengdu food'. All three implore that I am very brave [crazy] for travelling on my own and that if I come back to Chengdu, I must eat with them again.

I've known Vivian for all of twenty-four hours. She and I were obliged to meet purely because I know David. She knows David. I was going to Chengdu. She lives in Chengdu. I am foreign. She is Chinese.

We meet at my hostel, she having bullied her non-English-speaking workmate into playing chauffeur for the evening. She takes me to dinner. To lunch. To the zoo. To a temple. To Chengdu's most-touted tourist attractions. To another temple. And, finally, to her grandparents' home for a real, hone-cooked Chinese meal.

And I can't pay a cent.

I am Chinese, she tells me. It is the Chinese way.

I have to physically restrain her when I slip away to pay for our smoothies at the cafe. The only chance I got to pay for anything.

Boy, did it piss her off.

It is our way! she protests.

Later, softened by half a Beer Lao, Vivian tells me she hates China.

She hates the people. She hates the government. She hates Mao. She hates that, at 26 [a week younger than me] she is 'too old' to be single and her family are constantly urging her to get a husband/house/baby.

I want to travelling, she sighs. I admire you. In China, no people can do this.

You are lucky, she says again and again.

I run out of excuses. Vivian - intelligent, sweet, educated - is probably right. She, like her friends and workmates and nearly every other woman in China, will live with her parents until she is bundled off to a suitable gentleman and a life of domesticity. A house to clean, a child to raise and elderly parents to care for.

I - educated, aimless - am free to do whatever the f*** I choose.

And I will.

Last night, Vivian and I parted with the usual promises to keep in touch. That, if she ever visits New Zealand, I will return her hospitality.

I'll probably never see her again.

Oh sure, I felt a bit crap. A bit guilty. A bit ashamed of the fact I'm so damn lucky and she isn't.

For, maybe, ten minutes.

ce la vie. My only luck is not being Chinese.

As far as I'm concerned, I've worked my arse off to do what I'm doing. I'm damn well gonna reap the rewards.

And I'll have a beer for Vivian.

food for thought.

Twelve days and I'll be waving goodbye to Hohhot from the seat of a plane.

Struggling now to name all the things I will - and won't - miss about this bizarre city and the six months I've spent here.

School. Lesson plans. The blistering heat. The stinging dust. My six-legged housemates. The tendency for my water to be inexplicably switched off at nine o'clock at night when I'm hot and sweaty and tired and needing a shower. Well, no.

But the kids, yes. Their squeals of "Katie-mao!!" My neighbours. The street life. Chinese diet Pepsi. The smell of barbecued meat wafting into my apartment. The men who take their pet birds for walks in their cages every morning. The stares and guffaws and shouts of 'waigouren!?' when I make my daily chug around the park. Yes, yes, yes.

And oh, the food. More than anything, the food.

wo bu chi rou [I don't eat meat] was - and still is - the single most important group of words I've managed to string together in my otherwise limited Chinese vocabulary. True, I've been laughed out of many a restaurant by drumstick-chewing, marrow-sucking Mongolians, and there has been more than one occasion when my tofu been cunningly served with slithers of mutton.

But, when they want to, Hohhotians do vegetarian like nobody else. Especially when it's from a stained two-wheeled stall on the side of the road.

Street food, I've been told, is dirty food. Poor man's food. They don't clean things. They re-use the oil. It's not safe.

Maybe. But it's damn good.

Roadside liang cai [cold vegetables] isn't just a side-dish; it's an adventure in vegetarian gastronomy. Tofu sliced, tofu marinated, tofu shredded; seaweed in black, white and purple; eggplant, seven kinds of fungus, beans, bloated peanuts; frilly mushrooms, chilli potato, cucumber, carrot, noodles; shapeless crunchy stuff that I'm yet to identify.

The man who runs my favourite stall greets me like an old friend. He parks his battered motorbike-drawn business about twenty minutes' walk from my apartment; it's worth every step. Thirty-odd stainless dishes of every kind of vegetable and seaweed and soybean derivative I've seen. Many I haven't. Oil-soaked and laced with cumin. Divine.

While other customers take their pickings away in a bag, this guy gives the waigouren a bowl and a pair of chopsticks and lets her sit on his motorbike to eat.

A boon to his business, surely. All for five kuai [about a dollar].

And the adventure isn't just gastronomic.

Of course, I'd like to think that the owner of the foot-long black hair entwined in my seaweed had bathed recently. That they used a good shampoo. That, at least, their hands were clean.

I'd also like to believe that the fingernail-sized body I once found floating in the oil at the bottom of my styrofoam dish didn't have a face. That it was a seed, a strange kernel, a slither of tofu, perhaps.

Has it put me off?

No. I've been back. And I'll go back again.

Perhaps it's the same principle I've applied to many of my experiences over here. Be it teaching five-year-olds how to say "There are FIVE apples!", explaining adverbs to adults, showering in the dark or chowing down on unidentifiable fly-infested roadside cuisine.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

When I cross over the Chinese border in a month's time, it'll be with a steely determination that I can - and will - do whatever I want.

And guts of steel.

the wheat from the chaff.

Jerry, I fear, will always struggle with English. Consonants and dipthongs stick in his throat; words just don't make their way out of his mouth. He sits alone in class, quiet, fidgeting. Ten years old and an enigmatic loner.

I give out scraps of paper and ask the kids to draw a map of China. Most produce a lopsided kidney bean. I pass Jerry's desk and he's halfway through sketching the entire Asian continent; every contour and groove as geographically and politically accurate as if he'd traced it from an atlas. Regional place names in perfect Chinese pinyin.

Later, between my crap Chinese and his crap English, it transpires that he wants me to keep his masterpiece. I do.

Jessica lucked out in the looks department. Pug-nosed and pudgy with cauliflower earlobes and a voice ["Kay-TEEE-ah, Kay-TEE-ah. FINished-ah."] about as musical as potato peelings being sucked down a drainpipe, her saving grace is her brilliance. Her English, on good days, rivals my adult students.

When I head for the door at the end of class, it's with Jessica's stubby nine-year-old arms wrapped around my waist. And with "Kay-TEE-ah, goodbye, I miss you..." screeched at my departing back.

Wing-eared Jack, in pastel shorts are too small for his chunky buttocks, could be the son of Shrek. Smart, and smart-arsed, Jack has driven many a teacher [Chinese and foreign] to suicidal exasperation. He's locked me out of the room, scattered chairs and muttered insults I don't care to have translated.

Jack waves when he sees me now. He laughs at my jokes. He stands when I ask him to. I dunno what I did; I don't care to find out. I just know that Jack would rather be smacked over the head with a book than told to write fifty lines for homework.

Susan is fifteen. She looks [walks/talks/dresses] twenty-one. I've had to boot Ali in the groin more than once for ogling her. She's invariably bored; her mates are all out shopping or giggling over milkshakes with their first boyfriends.

I ask her if she enjoys class.

No, she says.

In the middle of a a board game last week, Susan snatches my marker. She writes, in perfect cursive, "Don't trouble trouble until trouble troubles you."

"Katie, have a good trip," she says. Beatific smile.

Five months down, three weeks to go. And it turns out I actually like these brats.

That I'm going to miss them. That, months and years from now, I'll be wondering what they're doing, what they've become, whether they remember their weird yellow-haired foreign teacher who came from some unpronounceable place in the outback.

Today Mike is wearing a t-shirt that says COC-BOY.

I point at his head.

"Nose!"

I point at his nose.

Sloppy grin, lolling tongue.

"Mon...key."

Well. Some of these brats.

flogging the rocking horse

I'd put up with his foot-swinging. With his kicking his shoe across the floor, with his sliding off the chair.

I'd turned my back when he'd dropped his pencil case for the ninth time and thrown the flashcards at the door instead of handing them to me.

It's when I point to the colour black - after twenty-nine minutes of drilling and chanting and games and Find-Me-A - that I nearly lose it.

"Bla-nana!" he slobbers. Triumphant grin.

We hadn't even covered fruits in this lesson.

Mike was lucky that day. Had I another five minutes, I'd have spent them washing his blood off my hands. Instead, I calmly left the room and went to my next lesson.

A few months ago, Mike's stunning display of ignorance would have been the final blow. Sent me to the window ledge of a fifteen-story building. Or the bottle. Anything to redeem my apparent utter failure to elicit a simple "It's black."

Experience [read: apathy] has mollified me.

I've since learned that for every nine kids who pick up "It's a GREY elephant!" within minutes and bounce out of class with a book full of Happy Points, there's invariably a tenth who will stare vacantly.... blink slowly.... and, eventually, painfully, produce a goldfish-like 'o'.

Or, a blanana.

Some I can't blame. It's the weekend; the kids are at school because Mama and Baba have [besides fat wallets] dreams of little Johnny becoming CEO or a bank manager or the next Bill Gates. China's job market is fiercely competitive; extra tuition is sometimes just one of many desperate attempts to help their little ray of sunshine climb to the head of the food chain. Meanwhile, Little Johnny would rather be out roller-blading or squashing ants with his [less well-off] mates in the park.

Some kids, of course, are just plain thick.

Sunday, 6.25pm. Five minutes left of my twelfth - and last - class for the weekend. I've been teaching since 8am. I'm tired. The kids are tired. The room is stifling. We're learning about the weather.

It's Harry's turn to be in the Hot Seat. The word on the board behind him is 'sunny'. The rest of the class has to mime the word. He has to guess it. It's a game we've played many times.

Kids are pointing at the sun beating down outside. Kids are drawing circles in the air. Kids are fanning themselves and gesturing at an imaginary sky.

Harry blinks slowly.

"Winter."

Rules are forgotten. Kids are leaping out of their chairs. Frantic pointing, yelling, fanning, gesturing. Hot! It's so hot! Summer! Today! Outside!

Harry opens his mouth again.

"Snowing."

I think it was a hyperventilating Tom Three who eventually screamed it in his ear. I don't know. I just know that by the time the poor kid mumbled 'sunny', my last shred of sanity had left the room and was dropping ice cubes into a tumbler.

I care. I do. But sometimes I think the parents of kids like Mike and Harry would have been better off investing their two thousand kuai in the kid's retirement fund. Or a new car.

Or another school.

[five weeks to go]

the best things come in small packages.

A teacher on the cusp of her retirement once told me, you aren’t made a teacher, you’re born one.

Her words rang true the other night as I walked out of school feeling, well, crap. Exhausted. Had struggled through severe sleep deprivation [read: hangover] to lead brattish six-year-olds in a pointless game of duck-duck-goose before teaching a lacklustre ninety-minute adult class.

Left class guiltily wondering if I’d sent my students away more confused about English than they were an hour previously.

That voice in my head at work again, bludgeoning me with the steely blade of self-doubt.

Thinking, not for the first time, f*** it. I’m not meant for this.

Appetite lacking, but limply agree to meet Ali for dinner. Food, after all, fixes all.

First restaurant shoos us away, owner making vague gestures at closing. Bemoan craving for spicy tofu and a stiff drink to mark general crappiness of evening.

Rice it is, then. Onto our local, Mary’s.

Salvation. Ever-welcoming Muslim mother scrambles to her feet. Ushers us inside, clears our usual table. Round face, bound in headscarf, eagerly awaits to be ordered in our [my] bad Chinese.

Cue eleven-year-old daughter [and restaurant namesake]. Bright-eyed, pony-tailed Mary bursts from her bedroom [a wall away] still in school uniform. Urgent babble between mother and daughter; flurry of excited hand gestures transfers attention to us. In painstakingly slow Chinese, Mary explains to us ming tian wo yao kao shi …. tomorrow I have… something. The rest is lost in translation; even Ali’s four-lessons-a-week worth of private Chinese lessons fail us.

Then a shabby exercise book is fetched. Click. Kaoshi: exam. Mary wants to read to us.

Few things get between me and my dinner. But, that night, over chopstickfuls of rice and egg and green tea and a badly-animated school book, we hear our little waitress speak slow, careful English for the first time. We hear about Zip and Zoom and what Zoom thinks of Zip’s school canteen. We guide Mary’s timid pronunciation of “is”, “they” and “it’s”. We test her grammar, her spelling.

I drop noodles and tofu all over the table in between nods of encouragement and “Yes, good!”

Forty minutes later, I sign my name and a smiley face at the bottom of her Unit One vocabulary list; she has managed to get nearly every word right. We praise her; she returns a shy “thank you” before babbling away in enthusiastic Chinese. Draws us a map of how to get to her school from the restaurant that is her home.

We leave. Mary is smiling. I’m smiling. The table is a mess.

So, maybe I’m not a teacher. Maybe I’ll never get my adult students to say “thank you” instead of “sank you”. Maybe I’ll never get those spoilt over-privileged children to stop throwing my pens around the room or pinching me on the arse when I turn around.

Whatever. I feel good again.

a pound of flesh. plus some.

Hohhot just turned up the hot.

Two weeks into summer. Thirty-two degrees. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.

Just an endless blue sky, a searing sun and hairy sweaty bulging bellies at every turn.

I knew summer here was going to be hot. Google told me so. Wikipedia told me so. Lonely Planet, Aston, the ancient volume of Encyclopedia Britannica gathering dust on my parents' bookshelf. The whole damn world was warning me.

But back when I signed that contract in January, I figured - ah, I'll handle it.

The things we learn.

This is only the beginning. July, I'm told, can [and will] hit thirty-nine degrees.

[someone save me]

Am mildly comforted by the fact that I’m not the only one suffering. The local park is littered with panting bodies stretched out in hammocks or on the footpath. The more desperate are joining the dead fish and stinking rubbish in the lake [read: cesspool]. Students gasp their way through Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes in our airless forty-degree classrooms. Young and old Hohhotians are sucking down iceblocks for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Chinese women especially fear the sun. God forbid their skin be a shade beyond milk-white; the slightest tan is as undesirable as finding a cat hair in one's noodles. Those who dare to venture into said disfiguring rays do so beneath a [suitably garish] umbrella, long sleeves, gloves and a hat. And, to be sure, a skin-bleaching sunblock.

Men - unfortunately exempt from Snow White rule - are zealously rolling their shirts up. Great hairy swollen paunches saunter alongside the taut midriffs of mohawked teenagers; shirtless middle-aged men sit glistening over warm beers in restaurant windows. No gut is forsaken.

But when that cursed ball of fire sinks below the horizon, all is forgiven.

It’s like flicking a switch. Summer evenings in Hohhot are riot of food, beer, street stalls, plastic tables and bad music blasting from bad speakers. Once-quiet streets are clogged with hawkers [bellowing handbags nail clippers Spongebob socks slingshots ] who jostle for space amongst street food stalls [frying noodles skewered meat seaweed tofu]. Daytime dust and pollution are choked by the stink of oil and grease and chilli and barbecued flesh of godknowswhat animal.

Life resumes. People eat, gossip, laugh, sing, cry, shout, drink, yarn, eat some more. People celebrate being able to breathe freely; being able to stand up without their arse sticking to the chair.

The crowds, the noise, the joy, the sensual pleasure of it could almost make one forget the stifling sickness of the day.

Then I wake in twisted sheets and too-thick air with sandpaper mouth and stinging eyes. Solid wall of heat burning through my limp curtains.

Frizzy hair. Swollen feet. Sweaty backside.

And my neighbour's glistening girth.

Twelve goddamn hours to salvation is just too goddamn long. Bugger this; I'm going home.

grass, dust and hand-picked lamb.

In a city with few drawcards [bar whimsical foreigners trying to make a buck by teaching English] Hohhot's proximity to the famous, guidebook-proofed Mongolian Grasslands is, quite possibly, its single saving grace.

And nobody lets you forget it.

Ah, the grasslands, they say. Very beautiful. Very green. Lots of green. Lots of trees. Mountains. Horses.

Not like Hohhot, they add. Hohhot; very dry. No green. You must go to grasslands.

Now, a hundred and forty kuai down, I can say I've seen the sodding grasslands. I've also experienced Chinese tourism at its "organised fun" best.

Eight am. Arrive at pickup point ten minutes late. Wait with bored-looking driver. Fellow tourists fail to show. We leave.

Ninety minutes later, scenery drifts from patchwork farmland and various mud-brick villages to open space. Wide open space. Acres of it, stretching over plains and hills and into the distance. Occasionally dotted with a sheep or goat.

And vague brushstrokes of green that could pass for blades of grass.

At this point, tour guide [bored 20-something girl in sneakers and sequinned Micky Mouse t-shirt] eventually swivels around in her seat to toss us the magic word: grasslands.

Right.

Arrive at what appears to be centre of Organised Fun. Van deposits us between tethered horses, motorbikes and rows upon rows of 'traditional' Mongolian yurts. Yurts turn out to be motel rooms [for the serious tourist], complete with key, starched linen and TV.

So it begins.

Turns out our deliciously cheap fee for the Exclusive Grasslands One Day Tour only covers half the fun: getting there. Dumped in the middle of the desert, we are now expected to either get on a gleaming quad bike [200 kuai per rider] or the back of a mangy horse [240-500 kuai per flea-bitten rump].

Or, kick around in the dust.

Deliberations. We choose the bikes. I get a battered two-wheeler and its beer-bellied, cowboy-hatted owner.

Now permitted to undertake our First Real Experience of Traditional Mongolian Life, we are driven to a lonely yurt made of white tarpaulin slapbang in the middle of... well, grasslands. Yurt is conveniently equipped with tables, chairs and sour-faced yurt-dweller-cum-waitress. We are fed traditional Mongolian fare of biscuits and milk sweets [from store-bought plastic packets] and weak tea [poured from thermos].

Back to Yurt City and lunch. Large dining hall peppered with listless Real Mongolians dressed in Real Traditional Costumes [over their jeans and Converse sneakers]. And snap-happy tourists. Tour pamphlet has promised meal of traditional "hand-picked lamb"; assume this to be the platter of grey gristle and bone delivered alongside dishes of vegetables [glistening with monosodium glutamate]. Dining experience is accompanied by soothing traditional music [played on Yamaha keyboard]. The vegetarian eats the celery.

Showtime. Costumed men gather in centre of circus ring for curious wrestling match in which objective seems to be none other than to pull one's opponent to the ground. Crowd cheers politely.

More costumed men. Horses. Men gallop on horses and attempt to pick up something [dunno what] from the ground. Crowd cheers politely.

Show over. Back to bus.

Not, however, end of Organised Fun.

Arrive back in [beloved] Hohhot. Sleepy tourists deposited at doors of ... factory.

March with other tourists past Live Examples of Authentic Workmanship: scores of downtrodden workers hunched over desks sewing/hammering/painting leather canteens, trinkets and wall hangings.

March on. Factory becomes showroom. Endless maze of cured leather canteens/trinkets/wall hangings/handbags interspersed with jade bracelets, carved knives, stuffed animals, rugs, sheepskin slippers.

Piles of packaged dried beef. Packaged dried milk. Packaged dried lizard.

Some twenty minutes later, waiguorens exit factory. Empty-handed. Find van. Wait.

And wait.

Last of fellow tourists emerge a full hour later, happily shopped out and happily laden with bags of dead animal products.

Well. The Grasslands.

Tick.

what the guidebook forgot.

June.

Doesn't seem quite real. The first three months have flown [ dragged?] by. So long ago it seems that I got off that plane and breathed in China's [minus-five degrees Celsius] air for the first time.

Have I settled in?

Culture shock still bites. It's the little things that still make me gape. Little things that jolt me out of my complacency; remind me I'm still here, remind me how un-Chinese I am.

That make me realise how, in many ways, China and I are still holding one another at arm's length.

And how, in many ways, China and I are still utterly fascinated with one another.

• the spitting. Chinese can spit. I wake every morning to my neighbour's particularly gutteral, hacking, phlegm-filled expulsion. I dodge parcels of it on the street every day. It's an art form; one I am yet to master.
  
  
• dignity [lack thereof]. Women's toilets lack locks; sometimes they lack a door. Children are not exempt; in lieu of nappies, babies and toddlers wear crotchless pants and simply squat - or are held by parent making 'whisss whisss whisss sounds - wherever nature calls. Street corners and restaurant steps know no mercy.
  
  
• privacy [lack thereof]. Whole families sleep, eat, watch TV, cook, wash, spit and fight within fifteen square feet of one another. A family of indeterminable size [up to twelve people at any one time] live on the bottom floor of my apartment building in a room the size of railway carriage. Most night I see them [through open door] crammed around the two double beds, bowlfuls of noodles/meat/soup/bread in hands, TV blaring, three mangy dogs wandering amongst it all.
  
  
• advertising. Cabbage, dates and apricots are something to yell about. Or, to tape oneself yelling about and play [on loop] from a tinny ghetto blaster tied to the back of a battered donkey-drawn cart.
  
  
• etiquette. Consumption of one's noodles should be heard by one's grandmother in Shanghai.
  
  
• fashion. Anything goes. Fuschia-pink spandex, green denim, floral print, sequins, bows, ribbons, feathers, giant silver buckles. Together.
  
  
• road safety. Mothers with child balanced on the back of a scooter [the latter using both hands to eat an ice cream] will drive, utterly blase, in front of a bus.
  
  
• comedy. A waigouren returning a "hello!" is the funniest thing most Chinese have ever heard.
  
  
• children. Those between the ages of four and eight embody the proverbial Duracell bunny. Minus the OFF switch.
  
  
• tradesmen. Usually lacking in tools/skills/English. But get the job done
  
  
• street food. Oh, joy. At three in the morning, nothing is more satisfying, more alcohol-absorbing, more lip-smackingly divine than a three-yuan, piping-hot egg pancake fried on a street stall and eaten from a plastic bag.
  
  
• road safety #2. At three in the morning, taxi drivers are sometimes more intoxicated than their passengers.
  
  

China, I do love you.

But, bloody hell, you're hard work sometimes.

it has a soul.

Perhaps it's the elation of being invited to share in a family's modest dinner [ironically, in their own restaurant]; perhaps it's the flicker of pride in realising I spoke more Chinese than English today.
And, perhaps, it's the drop or two of bloodcurdlingly-sweet putaohongjiu [Chinese red wine, not dissimilar to motor oil] I imbibed earlier this evening.

Whatever made today a good day, I'm closing my eyes tonight feeling a little less alienated.

Set out on foot this morning in anticipation of usual aimless wander. For I am the Cat who walks by Herself and all Places are alike to Me. Never know where I'm going, or how far, or why; my stomach dictates the route.

Chanced upon fruit and veg market. Oh, boy. I love a good market. Rarely do I actually want anything, let alone buy anything - I just love the assault on the senses. The push and crush and noise and smell and utter chaos of it all.

Turns out Chinese markets are the epitome of such. Bellowing vendors, dirty vegetables spilling out of carts, raw meat bleeding on chopping boards, fish dying in shallow buckets. Sacks of chamomile dried lemons sunflower seeds bean pods spices mushrooms; stalls crammed with socks dishbrushes woks tablecloths crotchless knickers. Brilliant.
Dates and fruit leathers are thrust at me; I am obliged to buy sultanas and dried apricots gathered and weighed in vendor's cracked bare hands. My crap Chinese produces usual hilarity.

Later, indulge in bread pancake [fail to recall Chinese name] stuffed with egg and spring onion and cooked in hot oil on [open-air] stove. Served in plastic bag. Epic.

Post-lunch wander takes me back into city centre. Investigate black market mobile phones sold from makeshift tables on street corners. Turn down offers of 50 kuai for quality brands of NCKIA, SamSing, Sharb.

Later [en route to purchase of aforementioned sickly alcohol] take a detour through backstreets near my apartment. And feel somewhat ashamed it has taken me three months to discover entire network of shops/restaurants run by Chinese Muslim community. Alleviate this by buying a kuai worth of sweets and having a conversation in bad Chinese with headscarfed shopowners. Who tell me I'm beautiful.

Salty dinner required. Head to our local; a restaurant dubbed Mary One in honour of eleven-year-old waitress who fairly runs the place. Restaurant is unusually empty; the only diners are the family themselves [who live in the next room]. Headscarfed mum [head waitress] is dishing up noodles to husband [cook] and daughter [Mary One]. I make lame acknowledgement of their food [hao chi ma? - It is delicious?]. Husband eagerly fetches saucer. Much nodding and gesturing follows; generous serving of their evening meal is ladled out and handed to me.

Hao chi, indeed. Just like mumma would have made.

I eat, and watch the family eat and talk, and feel the tiniest pang of homesickness.

Then real diners arrive and mum, dad and Mary are back on duty.

Return home, sated.

And wonder, dreamily, if I am perhaps beginning to forgive Hohhot for its dust/wind/bad plumbing/doorless toilets/cellphone thieves/mad traffic/spoilt children.

If, perhaps, this is the beginning of some kind of affection for the place.

And find cockroach in bathroom sink.

Oh, well. Only three more months.

put it in the zoo.

Three months. The halfway mark.

And still a freak.

I admit I'm one of those people who has never really fit in anywhere. One of those restless misfits, destined [doomed?] to wander the planet, anxiously seeking 'the' one place I belong. Searching, perhaps, for somewhere I don't stand out.

But if China has taught me nothing else, it's that my freak status is the highlight of their day.

Sat in the park with my journal last week; portrait of the aspirational writer, full of literary intent and intellectualism.

For four seconds.

Heads turn. Elbows nudge; excited murmur breaks out.

Fellow park dwellers suddenly torn from blissful observation of spring blooms to observe the stranger, the creature, the utter freak that has wandered into their midst.

I, harmless and unsuspecting, am beset on all sides by throngs of jabbering schoolkids and toothless elderly men and mothers with toddlers. Thirty or so delighted Chinese bodies pushing and jostling to get a closer look at me, at my journal, at my sandalled feet, at my oh-so-strange nose.

Have flashback to when I used to catch spiders butterflies and seal them in a glass jar.

Nervous giggling and pointing all round. Whispered phrases in broken English; suspense builds until one bold individual [a kid of about nine] dares to shriek, "Ha-lo!!"

Explosion of raucous laughter. Sea of thrilled faces above me closing in; kids in red tracksuits tripping over one another to get a closer look. Dribbling toddler shoved at my side by grinning mother. Camera flashes.

Am running out of oxygen.

Not, unfortunately, my first experience of celebrity treatment. Have learned that this is a lose-lose situation; responding elicits more laughter, silence produces near-hysteria.

Some days, it's almost amusing.

Some days, I'm hungover and it's not. This is one of those days.

Whistle blows. Kids scatter like fish. Some genius tosses a "Bye-BYE!" in my direction. Hysterical laughter fades with pounding feet.

Am left with damp toddler and a transfixed mother. Camera flashes again.

Leave park in haste with warm cheeks and unopened journal.

Three months here and I still can't quite comprehend magnitude of cultural barrier in such situations.

Can only conclude that - in Hohhot at least - an individual who doesn't look like everyone else also doesn't think like everyone else. They are, instead, an object of utter fascination.

An alien. An exotic bug in a jar. The Elephant Man. Utterly thrilling and exciting and untouchable all at the same time.

And, ultimately, inhumane.

A freak.

Still. It feels better here than at home.

gone and done it.

I've said it before. I don't do sightseeing.

I don't do cities; hustle and bustle and bright lights and nightclubs and billboards.

I grew up in rural New Zealand amongst cows and bamboo. Part of me is still wild-haired and barefooted, chasing rabbits and throwing cowpats at my brother. I still vie with death every time I step off the footpath in Hohhot; a city of a mere 2.5 million people.

Three days in China's capital and I was a hermit crab without its shell. Holiday it may have been; relaxed it was not.

Arrive Beijing West Railway station Tuesday morning. Enthusiasm already at a low ebb having spent eleven sleepless hours in cattle class wedged between postage-stamp sized table and Ali’s armpit. Still shuddering at memory of watching fellow passenger mow through breakfast of chocolate biscuits and raw chicken’s foot.

Celebrate novelty of new surroundings with own wholesome Beijing breakfast [Subway] before making sudden transition from novel waigouren to Tourist. Tiananmen Square [tick], Mao's portrait [tick], Forbidden City [tick], temple temple temple.

FOOD. Donghuamen night market. Turn down skewered scorpion [still writhing] and fried dog to dine on stinky tofu, sizzling unidentifiable shellfish and sugared pineapple. Momentarily abandon vegetarian morals to sample battered snake. Do not go back for seconds.

Sleep debt now around 36 hours. Tend to waning energy with Chinese beer [and Red Bull and vodka and tequila and gin and tonic]. Wake next morning in hotel bed still fully dressed and surrounded by ketchup-flavoured potato chips.

And somehow climb Great Wall of China. Have photos to prove it.

Spend final day [and funds] on taxi fares between guidebook-recommended Must-Sees. Smirk at American tourists laying sandalwood incense before Buddhist statues. Duly marvel at incomprehensible design of Olympic Stadium Bird’s Nest, though am more fascinated by ingenuity of foam-filled squat toilet [port-a-loo style] in Olympic Park.

Boys decide to end holiday on a high note with final helping of quality local cuisine - Big Mac combos. I have a McFlurry. After all, it is Beijing.

Depart Liuliquiao bus station mid-evening Thursday having forked out extra for comfort of bus with air-conditioning, leather upholstery and irresistibly brief travel time of six hours. Delight in bad Jackie Chan movies showing on overhead projector. Settle back to enjoy journey home.

Reach Hohhot dishevelled and disillusioned some thirteen [sleepless] hours later.

Turns out Chinese highways experience rush hour at 11pm. And 1am. And 2am.

At 4am, rush hour stops. Traffic stops. Lights go out, engines switch off. Drivers curl around steering wheels and fall asleep.

Thus, memory of Beijing is forever marred by being inexplicably stranded on lonely stretch of highway in over-heated bus, surrounded by twenty snoring, farting, fingernail-clipping, sunflower-seed-chomping [but otherwise complacent] Chinese men.

With Jackie Chan kung-fu fighting overhead.

Since ditched guidebook. Have managed to somewhat placate self with knowledge that what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.

And that I don't do sightseeing.

Beijing. Tick.

lights, camera...

Perhaps it was whilst watching the electrician hack at my ceiling [screwdriver in one hand, cigarette in other, balanced on wooden chest of drawers and chair] that I realised China no longer shocks me.

Or perhaps it was when a light bulb exploded inches from Sparkie's face [still balanced atop furniture] and the man didn't even blink.

Must admit that two-hour pantomime in which light was restored to my shitty apartment was as entertaining as a made-for-TV movie.

The scene: Friday morning. The stars of the show arrive [two days and one hour late; not conducive to warm welcome]. Monkey-like man whom I take to be electrician [in torn jeans with broken fly, wielding official-looking toolbelt] lollops into my apartment. Is promptly followed by one of my Chinese colleagues [for translation purposes] and two heavyset uniformed soldiers.

Sparkie's friends, apparently.

All three men have a good nosy around my humble abode. No doubt take in empty baijiu bottles on windowsill and threadbare knickers hanging from hat stand [I don't usually have visitors].

Sparkie points out that electricity works. I point out that I know this. Lights are tested. Lights found not to work. Light fittings inspected. Wiring declared faulty.

Bathroom inspected. Solider 1 produces digital camera and takes photo. Explanation not given.

Men set about clearing a table. Table dragged to centre of living room. Chair added. Up goes sparkie. Unscrews ugly '70s chandelier and deposits on floor. Plaster and bits of wire sent flying as hole in ceiling mercilessly attacked with crude tools. Chunk of ceiling scones me in the head. I move.

Continuous stream of Chinese between three pals. Probably discussing my laundry.

Soldier 1 lights cigarette. I send him out. Solider 2 sniggers.

Hours pass. More plaster flung around room. More Chinese banter. Sparkie attempts to use back of wrench to hammer staples across ceiling. My colleague disappears and returns bearing {rust?]stained hatchet. Duly used as hammer.

At some point, wiring restored.

Assume job is complete when men abruptly storm out of apartment, having re-attached chandelier and dragged chest of drawers back against wall. Leave behind dead lightbulbs, several metres of wiring and sour smell.

I stand amongst ceiling rubble and consider all that I have learned.

Now know that tradesmen care not for punctuality, carrying tools or OSH. Or English. And that a photo of my bathroom is now the property of the People's Liberation Army.

And that my lights [all two bulbs of them] work.

Have odd feeling this won't be the last I'll see of my new friends.

sunday blues.

Sunday night: sixteen hours of teaching completed [and duly celebrated]. Am in throes of usual post-weekend exhausted stupor.

Usual sense of satisfaction, however, has been obliterated by ugly demons of self-doubt brought on my comments from bitter colleague.

Finished teaching at 7pm with a heaviness I've not known before; deficient immune system means eight hours of "who can draw a big D?" and "what is the opposite of BIG?" and "the Chinese mask comes from ChinAAAA" was something of a battle.

Made an admittedly less-than-flash job of beginner-level adult class. Returned from WC to be abruptly confronted by Chinese assistant teacher regarding whether or not I "enjoy" teaching.

Upon limp attempt to explain that "perhaps some days are better than others", received what seemed at the time a thorough bollocking but was probably some insight into how Chinese colleagues regard us waigourens.

Chinese teachers, X said, they work all the time. They have to think about lesson planning and exams and bums on seats. Not like foreigners. Foreigners, they don't have to work very hard or teach many hours. They don't care about the children or whether the children come back to the school. They don't care about grades. For the foreigners, X concluded, it's very easy. They are only here for the money.

Perhaps some of bollocking was lost in translation, but the message was loud and clear.

Fairly floored me. Had willingly believed that current state of exhaustion [compounded by sleep deprivation and onset of yet another cold] and unnatural buzzing in my ears was sure sign that I'd worked my butt off.

Later [having imbibed glassful of something not dissimilar to paint-stripper] took a walk around neon city to ease troubled mind. Came to conclusion that X is probably bitter, and has every right to be; her future is painfully limited in comparison to my own. Most Chinese women [brains or not] are destined for either a career in the classroom, the supermarket or in the home. Most don't want either and most could do much better.

But, bitter or not, X has a point. Of the foreign teachers I know here - myself included - few are in it for the sake of imparting knowledge on eager young minds. High salary and low responsibility equals a carefree lifestyle perhaps unattainable back home.

As mentioned earlier, have discovered that one [sometimes unfortunate] consequence of high demand for foreign teachers here is that effort comes down to the individual.

Certainly some have a real passion for the job; shining example is British colleague Paul who, at 44, has found his true calling in leading kids through their ABCs.

Some are here for love, some for money, some for the culture. And some because they can get away with rolling out of bed [following a night on the turps], staggering into class and slurring through a pre-packaged lesson plan.

Me?

I'll be honest. I'm not passionate about teaching. I love the kids, I love the challenge and I love Chinese food, but there are days when I'm not a teacher's asshole.

I'm a traveller, a wanderluster, a restless spirit. Dust and cockroaches and ill health and a less-than-adequate apartment are a small price to pay to fund my desire to traverse South-East Asia; just like the thousands of other Kiwis and Australians and Brits and Americans and godknowswhoelse scattered all over China.

Still, X's accusations certainly forced me to [guiltily] reflect on whether I have a right to live so selfishly.

It's one of those riddles without a good answer. At least, not an answer I can dredge up post-midnight.

Am done with philosophizing as means to alleviate sting of being told [implicitly] that I'm crap. Eyes are on the horizon.

And baijiu close to hand.

seeing the light.

Plans to compose insightful blog have been thwarted by current lack of cognitive function [owing to last night's over-zealous participation in beverage appreciation] and also by latest development [un-development?] in apartment saga.

Total darkness.

Electricity, yes. Lights, no.

At least the gremlins responsible for this un-ending bad luck are creative.

Was initially and cruelly fooled into believing bathroom lightbulb had simply blown. Bought new bulb. Tried to screw in new bulb in dark bathroom. Had bright idea [ha ha] of switching on living room light to carry out said task.

And found living room lights do not work. Bedroom lights do not work. Kitchen light - does.

Unbelievable.

Accomplished tricky business of showering in otherwise pitch-black bathroom by balancing bedside lamp on toilet. Am already becoming adept at using aforementioned facility in darkness.

Landlord [or rather, landlord's flunkie] arrived to begrudgingly inspect fuse box. Failed to solve problem. Bestowed me with, "Maybe tomorrow a man will mend".

Added that perhaps I should fill a few buckets. Water is due to go off again tomorrow.

Flunkie then escaped dark hole to return to own apartment. With working lights. And water.

Well. I guess sometimes all you can do is laugh.

Ha.

Have put my sleep-deprived, patience-tried self to bed. Am looking for the silver lining [I refuse to call it the bright side]. My internet works. My fridge light works. I have a roof over my head. I have legs.

[touch wood touch wood touch wood touch wood]

And I thought I wasn't going to blog tonight.

we are not amused.

Despite my lifelong ambition to avoid creating a spectacle of myself, it seems my morning stomp around the local city park has become something of a cheap thrill for the people of Hohhot.

Having previously dragged my blonde, pale-skinned ass around India, I am fairly accustomed to drawing blatant stares from genuinely curious locals.

Yet, nothing quite compares to the delighted laughter that rings out behind me as I jog, nonchalantly, between my fellow park-users every morning.

Most days it's tolerable, sometimes even amusing, trying to figure out whether it's my powerwalk-slash-jog, my three-quarter-length pants or just my freakishly round eyes that cause such a stir. It may well be that baring three inches of leg is a sure way to draw gasps and pointed fingers [skin is rarely flaunted here].

Some days, however, it really gets my back up.

Yesterday, having woken to no power, no water and a fermenting stink from blocked toilet, I was feeling less than humorous when a middle-aged female jogger took one look at my head-down, minding-my-own-business self and burst into peals of merry laughter. Right in front of me. As I passed, she continued chortling and guffawing and clutching at her friends and pointing and carrying on.
Snap. I wheeled around [mid-arm-swinging, butt-shaking stride] and bellowed "What?"

And added fuel to the fire. The poor woman [and about twenty other equally bemused locals] were fairly helpless with joy. It was pure theatre.

Needless to say, I motored on. Fuming.

Fortunately, I'm not usually such a grouch [yeah, right, I hear all the way from New Zealand].

Ironically, it was I who was one suppressing giggles the first time I ventured to this public place of leisure and exercise.
To Westerners, a 'park' is usually a grassy area equipped with swings and slides and dog-poop stations. Not so in China. Here, the park near my apartment is a huge complex laid out with transplanted trees [I saw a heap brought in a truck last week], temples, cobbled paths, filthy pond and a hodge-podge of dilapidated fairground rides.

But it's the people that bring the park to life. From dawn, the place is alive -not with kiddies and yummy mummies pushing strollers - but with white-haired, bespectacled retirees. In one corner, crowds of them gather before giant tinny loudspeakers blasting Chinese pop music to practise what appears to be the standard hobby of ballroom dancing. Clad in boots, heels, sneakers and flats, they dance alone, in groups, or couples; men and women, women with women and men with men. All utterly expressionless and utterly devoted to the music and the movement.

Scattered around the rest of the park are oldies doing tai chi, oldies dancing with fans, and groups of oldies clapping or massaging their knees together. Younger ones, if around, walk or jog - forwards AND backwards. I've seen them pounding pavement in every possible kind of attire from sleek tracksuits and fur-lined jackets to the guy today wearing jeans and what appeared to be a lab coat.
There's men splitting the air with huge whips, men playing trumpets, women singing opera, choirs singing anything.

My favourites, though, are the ones who simply walk around and yell. Wrinkled little old women, casually sauntering by with a bag of veges under one arm, will suddenly and inexplicably shriek out some unintelligible syllable. The more practised ones will let loose with a long, mournful trill that lasts a good ten seconds or so.
On good days, someone will answer back with an equally impressive holler from across the pond.
Perhaps there's some deep and meaningful message in whatever my fellow park users are calling; perhaps some cathartic release from their heart/soul/lungs/gastronomic reflexes. I haven't figured it out yet. For now, I am content with being ignorant.

At least, however, I can suppress my giggles.

the plumbing sucks.

So, tonight, the WC has shat itself and is refusing to flush. Again.

As previously mentioned, I've already encountered, endured and [more or less] overcome a few hiccups in this apartment. I've even managed to laugh sometimes.

Broken toilets, however, I do not take kindly to.

Less bearable is the constant tinkling of water in the blocked pipes.

So, short of drowning my sorrows in baijiu [apparently it's not healthy to drink alone], have turned to my growing collection of googlemusic-pillaged Kings of Leon and Morrissey in order to distract myself.

But, really, it's not all bad. Have a few things to look forward to; none more than our first payday on Friday. Will be appropriately celebrated with a tipple or two and a meal that isn't la mian.

And, despite latest apartment-related crisis, have had a few laughs lately. Like, trying to elicit 'the pig is sitting on my shirt' from a class of eight-year-olds [hey, I was just following the textbook] and failed, with brilliant results. Similar thing happened when showing boisterous five-year-olds [whose parents are glued to the classroom door] a picture of a horse. Turns out the letter 's' isn't one of their strong points.

On Sunday I made my nine-year-old students write a list of class rules. One little charmer came up with, "You have to drink WC water".

Have fallen in love with a four-year-old called Milly; a kid once too terrified of her big ugly waigouren teacher to speak but now chases me around the staffroom crooning, "Katie-maow, Katie-maow!" [something to do with Katie-kitty-cat-miaw, apparently].

And tonight, had a few "awww..." moments when a couple of amorous six-year-olds kept planting kisses on one another during English Corner class.
Separated them when a third kid joined in.

Ah, you have to laugh.

Can still hear that damn toilet.

waiguorens, Bicardi and horse wine

Have had a crash course in Hohhot's very separate Chinese and Western cultures within the same week.

The Chinese part was meeting Yinghong today and seeing Hohhot through a native's eyes; that is, the way a native wanted me to [note to self: Tibet is not a good dinner table topic]

The Western part was last week. It was messy and bewildering and strangely comforting all at the same time.

I was invited out to a 'party' on the other side of the city by J. Navigating the taxi driver with my abhorrently limited Chinese required three phone calls to three different people before I finally deposited myself on J's doorstep. It was worth the hour of girls-getting-ready that followed; wine, hair-straightening, eyeliner, gossip. Something I've missed.

Taxi to party accompanied by paper cups of vodka-laced Miranda in the backseat. Arrive at huge apartment complex on outskirts of city and am suddenly confronted by a roomful of fifty or more loud, boozed foreigners crammed around food, alcohol and, oddly, electric guitars.

Considering I'd seen maybe three other foreigners in six weeks, this was a bit of a shock to the system.

A bit more vodka and some incomprehensibly foul Mongolian horse-milk wine (?!) later, I was fairly comfortable with the situation. Talked rubbish to an endless stream of people from all corners of the earth - England, America, Denmark, Greece, China. Mostly guys. Mostly thoroughly enjoying life here in Hohhot.

Ended the night on a slightly harrowing note. I'd turned down the offer of drinking the wee hours away on imported Bicardi and coke [and winding up on someone's floor] and left my original company to attempt flagging down a taxi. By this time it was 2am and, despite slurred advice that it was nigh on impossible to get a taxi in this place at this hour, I set off. I'm stubborn like that.
Arrived at locked gates outside apartment grounds to be ushered into guard's headquarters and barked at in Chinese. A phone call to T and some rapid Chinese later, a button was pushed and I was directed through the gates. Mad gestures towards the highway either meant "Go this way and you'll be able to flag down a taxi," or "P*** off, then".

And so it came to be that, at two o'clock on a Saturday morning, I was walking down an empty road in a barely-familiar Chinese city in almost utter darkness, numbed by fear and rum and with no f***ing idea where I was or how to get home.

Strange, how your head copes in these times.
I'm not ashamed to say I did the only thing I could think of doing. I prayed.

Lights ahead. Lights became car. Car became taxi. Taxi stopped. I got in. Driver confused by address on business card. I attempt pronounciation of the only road I know. Driver nods. We drive.

Fifteen minutes and fifteen kuai later, I am yanking my coat off and yahooing at being home, sweet home, in my manky apartment.

Harrowing, yes. Stupid, yeah, that too. But I survived. And I learned some things:

- Foreign teachers in Hohhot are generally those who have found they can live in near-luxury here and do. Hence the market for crazily-priced imported Australian wine and Fisherman's Friend.
- Foreign teachers tend to stick together. And party together. And not much else.
- It is possible for one to live in Hohhot with all their home comforts and hang out with people who have the same eye colour and same shaped nose.
- Hohhot is a bloody nightmare to navigate if you don't speak Chinese.
- Miracles do happen. Or, there is really is Someone looking out for me up there.

Anyway. Everything's an experience.

the begrudging tourist

I was brushing my teeth tonight when a chunk of plaster fell out of the ceiling and smashed onto the washing machine. Next to my head.

Aiiyaa, I thought. That's not good.

Yesterday morning, I stumbled into the bathroom for urgent business with the can and was welcomed by a twitching cockroach on the seat.

Aiiyaa, indeed.

Cockroaches and crumbling ceilings aside, I feel like I'm starting to really settle into this mad city. Today I was treated to a few of the city's meagre - but elaborate - tourist attractions. I met Yinghong through couchsurfing, and it was her idea to go to Zhaojun's Tomb. Normally I hate anything that requires the handing over of money in order to wander around some over-dressed monument but, considering I've been here six weeks and not paid for anything other than food and booze and clothes, I figured I could justify sixty kuai to see a bit of history. Just a bit. And, while I found Zhaojun's Tomb rather stark (grey concrete, grey sky, grey trees), the view of the surrounding farmlands made for a nice change from urban sprawl. And I felt like I'd done something good. Even took photos.

As it turned out, leaving was probably the best part; a minute down the highway we were pulled over by the Chinese police. Apparently they didn't like the sticker on Yinghong's license plate [blatantly obscuring one of the numbers]. And the fact that we weren't wearing seatbelts.
Somewhere between surly grunts from the chain-smoking cops and Yinghong's nervous giggles, we were let off with a warning and sent on our way. I still don't really know what happened; all I got from Yinghong regarding the number plate was that 'someone naughty' had put the sticker there.

Back in snap-happy tourist mode, I got camera out again to capture the bleak wilderness of the mountains beyond the city. Apparently their Chinese name translates as 'big green mountains'. Rubbish. Big, yes; green, no. Still, the desolation was eerily beautiful; so too were the villages of misshapen brick huts in between.

Can now say I've 'seen' Hohhot. Well, seen beyond school and the strip of road between my place and Holiland's. Feel like an accomplished tourist. Have the photos to prove it.

Now, excuse me whilst I dump the camera, kick off my tourist shoes and slip into something more comfortable. Like, my pyjamas.

more la mian?

Two weeks til payday and I have failed spectacularly to stick to my budget.

To be fair, I've done okay to go nearly seven months without a drop in the bank tank [I refuse to acknowledge the $230 the government gave me for being nothing more than unemployed as 'pay']. Indeed, it'll be my first wages since September.

Can't say it's been all that bad either - living (or, trying to) like a pauper, eating off the street, surviving from one day to the next hand-to-mouth.

Ah, not entirely true... at least, not the bit about the poor diet. True, I couldn't afford to buy floor cleaner today; nor could my remaining three kuai stretch to tonight's dinner of vegetable jiatzu (dumplings). And I've made the crippling decision to abstain from alcohol for the next two weeks.

But starve? No.

I'm lucky that people are nice to me. Let's just say I could probably line my kitchen floor with IOU's.

And even so, I admit I managed to scrape together enough for a tiny bar of chocolate.

(Paul, I'm getting lunch tomorrow, I promise [la mian, right?])

Actually, the cost of food is probably the least of my worries. When it comes to forking out for a feed, even the fussiest foodie can dine mightily on noodles, vegetables and green tea for less than ten kuai (about $NZ2). The boys' standard fare of la mian is about six or seven kuai; street-made omelette is around three.

Drinking is another story. A chain-restaurant cup of tea can cost anything from four to 30 kuai. Beer (depending on the brand) is between 13 and 20; a vodka and coke will set you back about 25 kuai.
A tiny bottle of baijiu (the gloriously sweet and potent Chinese rice alcohol) starts at 2.5 kuai. There's slightly better stuff for 10; and, if we're feeling frivilous, 15. Anything above that I've not tried.

It's a matter of sorting out your priorities. Basically, the filthiest Scrooge could live here quite happily.

And, just to put things in perspective... we ventured into a poncey import store today purely for educational purposes (Ali misses his Haribo). Incredibly, this place has Western products you'd expect people to miss and ones you'd never even think about. Between the Toblerone and Cocoa Pops were things like Fisherman's Friend and Pantene shampoo. Everything has been slapped with extortionate price tags; 56 kuai (around $NZ11) for a block of Whittaker's chocolate, 120 kuai for a bottle of less-than-impressive Queen Adelaide merlot.

Think I can manage another two weeks on the noodles, thanks.

[looking forward to the care package, Mum]

the sh*t, the fan and everything in between

Some days, it's the little things that really bust your ass.

Stumbled in the door tonight cold, dirty, smelly yet satisfyingly shattered after eight hours of Old Macdonald Had a Farm and 'What are THEY doing? THEY are listen-ING to music!' only to turn the bathroom tap and be welcomed by a dry hiss... and nothing more.
No water.
No ****ing water. Not a drop. Zilch. Nothing. Nada.

During those first few horrifying minutes in which I stood in my grimy little bathroom, wrenched helplessly at the tap and shrieked 'No... not again... not tonight...' I would have thought nothing of sticking a needle in my eye if someone had told me it would make hot water burst from that damn shower head.

It didn't matter that last year I went for six weeks without even knowing a drop of hot water whilst teaching at a school in India; it didn't matter that my hot water cylinder once broke down in the middle of winter back home; it didn't matter that it was only a two-minute walk to Paul and Ali's, my dearest friends in China, who would no doubt spare me a splash or two in their own bathroom.

No. I just wanted a ***king shower in my own ***king bathroom and I wanted it right there and then. Was that too much to ask?

Apparently so.

Unfortunately, China doesn't always deliver. So I'm learning, anyway. This is the second time I've been left high and dry (whilst in stinking need of a bathe). I've also grappled with a blocked toilet, cockroaches (both of which I may have already mentioned), black dust, chokingly dry air and - more my fault than China's - a sprained/strained ankle, chapped hands and recurring insomnia.

I'm looking and feeling less than healthy. And, if I'm honest, whinging a bit.

From the outset, it probably seems like I'm not enjoying myself. And yeah, I'm going to admit outright that there are some things that really ***king suck.

But one doesn't grow from lying back on silken pillows and being spoon-fed sugared almonds (though, right now, I wouldn't say no to it).

It's the shit hitting that fan that makes us strong; the what-doesn't-kill-you stuff. The grit in your tea bag, the squashed bug in your trainers, the worm in your last apple.

Or so they say anyway.

That's enough of my being noble about this shit. I'm going to bed.

one month.

So, the boys are out getting better acquainted with Chinese women whilst I sit at home indulging in google music.
I could bemoan my solitude, but it’s the first night in a month that I’ve ended up on my own. And, comforted with a little lychee and baijiu, it’s not so bad.
This week calls for celebration, anyway. We (myself, Paul and Ali) marked our first month in Hohhot on Tuesday with an opulent meal and beer at Hawkers, a local restaurant whose menu offers something more than our daily staple of la mien (noodles in broth). The place is expensive (by Chinese standards) but delicious. And Ali was happy to walk away with the waitress’ phone number.
Can’t believe it’s actually been a month. A month since I got off that plane; since I first entered Aston English, since I met Paul, tasted greasy roadside tofu, drank nine-percent Chinese beer, slurped noodles, dodged high-speed electric bicycles, spied the first cockroach in my apartment… how can so much happen in four weeks? It seems like much longer.
How will six months feel?
We’ve splurged a couple of times in the past week, actually. Last Thursday we (rather, Paul) made an impulse decision to check out a Chinese massage joint. The three of us ended up flat on our backs being rubbed and mauled and pinched by three Chinese women for an hour. Going by their incessant giggling and chatter, I think the women enjoyed themselves as much as we did. We finished the night off with a boozy stint at White Castle hanging out with a bunch of teachers from English First, the other major language school here. A decent bunch of people. Pity about the Americans.
Paul and I also ventured in Coco Mood for the first time. Ever-generous Paul left 60 qi lighter; 32 qi (about six dollars) for his Irish coffee, 28 qi for my red bean smoothie. We sighted a couple of waigourens (who ignored us), met an Aussie guy travelling around China (who actually came over to chat) and the waitress zoned in on Paul to ask for English lessons. He left with her phone number.
I’m beginning to think that China offers more (at least, in the way of romance) for Western men than women. When it comes to waigourens, the majority of men we’ve met over here have – or have had – Chinese girlfriends. Not so the case for foreign women; I’m yet to see any even hanging out with Chinese men.

Hmm. Wonders will never cease.

It does, however, mean that I face the prospect of sitting at home listening to ripped music whilst the boys are entertained by hoardes of doll-faced Chinese women over green tea and beef hotpot.

Time to join a chess club, maybe.

turning Chinese

Footloose was still pounding in my ears when I woke up this morning. And I'd told myself I wasn't going to have a big night.
KTV - karaoke TV - is the glorified night in. You and your buddies shut yourselves up in a dark little room with sofas, disco lights, a big screen TV and a microphone and sing your hearts out. To cringe-worthy Chinese music videos. Throw in a few beers, a smuggled bottle of vodka, a heap of food and you've got a party.
Singing is not my forte, but, fuelled with the aforementioned goodies, I was quite content to believe otherwise. And everyone else was either too nice or too drunk to complain.

Here's to many more nights of karaoke with our otherwise reserved teaching staff.

That said, I'm not yet sure if the nights out are worth being completely naff the next day. I struggled to keep my patience with the child genius who told me she wasn't going to read out her essay (in between nibbling on garlic peas and talking about some shit called i-Carly). Deep breaths, Katie. She's only nine.

Struggled again in English Corner when insanely hyperactive eight-year-olds kept inexplicably snatching flashcards out of my hands or, when I tried to evade them, crawling on the floor to see which card was the 'monster'. Monster they nearly got, too; my patience was fairly worn through by the time they started hitting me around the head with a stuffed tiger.

I do like them, really. And besides, one can only get away with being too young to know better for so long.

Anyway, in lieu of a thorough account of the past three weeks, here's a brief outline..

I have:

- eaten noodles nearly every day
- become addicted to Holilands black tea
- been run over by a motorbike
- discovered the delights (and horrors) of baijiu
- started learning Chinese pinyin
- survived 24 hours with a blocked toilet (apparently the plumbing system is not designed to cope with toilet paper)
- destroyed my foot through excessive walking in bad shoes
- landed inelegantly on my arse after slipping on black ice
- eaten McDonalds. At 2am. For shame.
- danced badly to bad house music
- amused restaurant owners all over Hohhot with my crap Chinese pronounciation (wo bo chi rou - I don't eat meat - does NOT sound how it looks written down)
- battled through some thirty-plus hours of teaching without any children crying/screaming/spontaneously combusting.

There's more, but that's all my sleep-deprived brain can handle for now. Details to follow. Maybe.

they call me Teacher.

Saturday and Sunday were, without a doubt, the most intense and draining and overwhelming days of my life. Well, of the last few years, at least.
We've pretty much been thrown in at the deep end. The training we were promised this week hasn't happened; apparently we'll go to Erdos next week for it. So: last weekend it was sink or swim. Here's your schedule, there's a book, and oh, your class starts in five minutes.
We each have between six and eight hours of classes each day on Saturday and Sunday. I'm teaching kids as young as four and adults in their twenties, with mostly 8-12-year-olds in between. The kids are pretty entertaining; either incredibly hyperactive and eager to learn, or shy and withdrawn. The parents that follow them to their classroom doors often don't speak any English at all. God knows what they think of these great clumsy waiguorens that lead their children in rounds of Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.
Anyway, I survived the weekend. I was almost catatonic with fear on Saturday morning; I didn't feel ready at all. But, apart from one painfully slow and awkward class in which the Chinese teacher pretty much ignored me (they're supposed to be available to help with translation and instruction), the weekend went ... okay. Sure, there were a few crap moments, but there were lots of good moments as well. Seeing the kids smiling and laughing is a fantastic feeling, even if it meant leaping around the classroom like a kangaroo on crack cocaine.

Outside of school has been no less hectic. We've undertaken the very serious task of sampling as many restaurants and bars as our wallets can handle; in most cases, more than our brain cells can handle. Yesterday was a very slow day... we'd had dinner the night before at a sushi restaurant (where the sake was as excellent as the sashimi and shrimp) and then headed out to a few clubs. Many beers and vodkas and rounds of drinking games later, it was 2.30am and we were chewing our way through McDonald's burgers. Yes, Katie ate McDonalds. And it was disgusting. How does anybody stomach it??

Otherwise, we've been touring Hohhot on foot, exploring the endless streets and cafes and vast, opulent shopping malls. There's always something to eat, something to drink, something to point at and exclaim, "What the hell is THAT?" (shrink-wrapped chicken's feet, deep-fried pig's head, moisturiser called 'Snake Oil Sod').

I still have so much to think about, write about; I'm only just getting a handle on everything that's happened in the last few weeks. Like, going through a bunch of medical tests in a Chinese hospital (required for the medical certificate), our 'welcome party' banquet with all the teaching staff, my getting run over by a motorbike, buying hair straighteners for the equivalent of $NZ5.00, eating at street stalls, drinking baijiu (Chinese rice alcohol), trying to order non-meat dishes at restaurants with our very limited vocabulary...

I guess I'll have to cover each experience when time (and motivation) allows. For my own record, at least; I'm not bothered if nobody reads this.

My first one-on-one lesson tomorrow morning. A clear head required.

a week in.

Day 6 (March 2)
I am never eating capsicum again. Or anything with chilli. I have the most horrendous heartburn.
Lots has happened; it’s hard to get my head around it all.
On Saturday night we had a leaving party for the three guys who had finished their contracts and were setting off elsewhere. It was a good night; the team of foreign teachers and Chinese teachers all gathered together before a huge spread of Chinese food (and KFC, god knows why) and copious amounts of beer and baiju. We played a few drinking games and got a bit silly, although the Chinese girls drank little, if at all. Everyone - bar Paul and I - had classes the next morning, so they headed off home at about 10pm. Paul, John and I decided to try for another pub, but Joe’s directions proved fruitless and John was no help, being utterly boozed, so we ended up heading home after all. We did, however, stop in at a general store and pick up another tiny bottle of baijou and some munchies… one last tipple couldn’t hurt, I thought. I thought differently when my alarm went off at 6.30am so we could sit through a day of classes.
I was pretty knackered by Sunday night, but Paul and I ended up going out for dinner at a slightly upmarket restaurant about 10 minutes’ walk from our apartment. Nice food, although my ‘rib fish and vegetable’ bore little resemblance to the menu picture: it was more bok choy than anything else, and oily stuff at that. What fish I could find was mostly spiney, boney stuff. Still, every experience counts.
Today – Monday – has been rather hectic. I got up early and headed to the gym, only to find it was locked up like Fort Knox and showing no sign of opening by 8am. Frustrated, I resorted to running around the park again. The snow has more or less melted now, but the paths are still slippery with ice in places. Bloody freezing today as well.
We had another roam around the streets before collecting the key for my ‘new’ apartment from Sally at lunchtime. Ventured into a restaurant we hadn’t tried before, and – luckily – a Chinese woman came to our aid when we were trying to figure out the menu. Tofu for me again, absolutely drowning in orange oil.
Paul taught a demo class this afternoon, his first. I sat in and watched, and although he shook and sweated like a demon, he did really well. That feeling of intimidation has started to set in now, especially now that Alistair’s arrived. Alistair is English as well, around 22, and has just come from four days’ training in Xi An. I kinda wish I’d done the same training – he seems quite confident about teaching now, whereas I’m still having nightmares.
I did teach my first English Corner class today, and I feel okay about it. It’s the first time I’ve ever dealt with three-year-olds, so I can’t be too harsh on myself about it. The only hiccup was when the Chinese teacher left the room to get me a marker pen; about six kids decided class must be over and ran out after her. Still, I got most of them shouting and pretending to be pigs or elephants or rabbits for most of my 22.5 minutes as teacher.
We took Alistair out to one of the popular alleyway restaurants tonight and spent about an hour picking our way through fried potato, capsicum, egg, tomato and various meats. It’s very easy to just eat and eat and eat when there’s several dishes in front of you. One can be full and still feel obliged to keep digging away.
I’m now in my silent, smelly, scummy ‘new’ apartment. The boys left it looking exactly how I feared they would. Grease and dirt and stains everywhere. The kitchen is abysmal. The bathroom is thoroughly caked in black scum, although the cleaning lady did her best. I can smell unwashed boy everywhere.
I’ve got a job ahead of me.

my new posse.

the people thus far...

I’d already ‘met’ Paul via email; he’d picked out my address from a bulk email and taken the liberty of introducing himself. He’s my flatmate for the next six days – until I move into a different flat on my own – and he’s a damn decent guy. A dad himself, he’s sort of taken me under his wing. In fact, he’s already shared quite a bit of personal stuff with me about his former life… his two marriages (and divorces), his kids, his thoughts on life… and he’s put up with my initial zombie state and my utter inability to make decisions about EVERYthing – food, clothes, which street to turn down… and all in good humour. A gentleman; if he’s faking it then he’s doing it bloody well.
Luke is the manager in charge of the foreign teachers here. Again, I’d met him via email first, and then he picked me up with Sally at the airport on that first bitterly cold morning. He’s been here a year and just been promoted to manager. Also studied journalism back in the UK but gave it up and came here to teach English instead. From the sounds of it, he’s thoroughly enjoyed living like a king on his teacher’s salary. Most of his money goes on boozing at the nightclubs (where he seems to know all the staff) and on expensive gadgets like mobile phones, a number of which have been lost on drunken escapades. Incredibly laid-back, dry-witted guy, very easy to talk to and brilliant with the kids.

The other teachers – John, Owen and Joe – are all British and all about to leave Hohhot to teach elsewhere, which is a shame because they’re pretty cool guys. I’ll be taking over John and Owen’s apartment when they leave. I’ve told them it had better be clean.
The past two days have mostly been spent exploring Hohhot and getting settled in. Yesterday, Paul and I spent hours walking the streets, sampling food and shops and sights. Today was more or less the same; after we’d sorted out sim cards for our mobile phones and memberships at the local gym, we went wandering again… eating things, buying things, drinking things. I bought boots. We ended up back at the school by late afternoon, and Luke suggested we have a go at taking an English Corner class for five minutes each. I didn’t actually get to play the ‘game’ I’d prepared, but I did get to stand in front of the class and hiff a ball at each of the students in a sort of question-and-answer routine. The kids are cute, actually – hyper, eager, smart. I can see how we’d get to know them pretty well over a few months.
Tonight I met my first one-on-one student, a precocious nine-year-old called Amy. Her mother took me and another Chinese teacher, Arena, out for dinner at a pizza buffet restaurant (a slight improvement on the one I went to with the guys last night) as a means of introducing me (and no doubt scrutinizing my adequacy). Amy is unlike any other nine-year-old girl I’ve ever met. For a start, she doesn’t look like a girl at all. She is short-haired, round and terribly plain-faced. Apparently she’s had some fairly serious health problems and spent most of last year on a special diet of cabbage and potatoes, which probably explains her obsession with KFC and McDonalds now. She’d already had her dinner before we arrived; only the remnants of a custard-and-pineapple pizza and chicken nuggets remained. She was playing with her (own) iPad and iTouch mobile phone. Her first conversation with me was about the number of Chinese casualties in the Christchurch earthquake. Later, she dragged out an exercise book and made me read her essays. Most made me laugh – she’d covered her dislike of certain English tutors (Luke), her love of McDonalds, her future plans (to be either Santa or the owner of KFC, McDonalds, and all the cafes and shops in the world) and a stream of other creative thoughts and fantasies. I picked up pretty quickly that she’s thoroughly spoiled and doted upon. She’s also had a few run-ins with previous teachers and apparently needs a firm hand.
Hmm. Could be a challenge.

Hello, Hohhot

Minus twelve degrees centigrade, sang the air hostess. Please dress in warm coat before exiting the plane.
I, in long shorts and thin cardigan, had just left a scorching Kiwi summer. I was not prepared for the ice and wind and frost of a Chinese winter.
It is only now, 30 hours after landing in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, I am wrapped up in thermal pants, thick socks and a long-sleeved vest. It wasn’t so bad when I arrived, actually – only minus five. And it’s getting warmer by the week, apparently. We could hit double figures by March.
The sudden about-face in my daily dress only compounded to my utter panic about what the hell I’d gotten myself into. I can’t teach! What am I doing? I’ve never imparted knowledge on anybody about anything, let alone led a classroomful of eager Chinese kids in rounds of “Now I know my ABC’s” and how to use the past continuous tense.
Nevertheless, I got off the plane. A prim Chinese girl slammed a stamp in my passport and I hauled my bag (abhorrently lacking in thermal clothing) off the conveyor belt. I presented my rumpled, jet-lagged face to the Exit and was warmly gathered up by Sally Jia, Aston School’s manager, and Luke, the new foreign manager.
Driving into Hohhot for the first time was thrilling and terrifying. I hadn’t slept for 36 hours, I was bloated with an aeroplane diet of beans and over-stewed vegetables, and I was nervous as hell about my new employees discovering my inadequacy as a teacher. I was also freezing.
But, after a stiff-legged stomp around the city park, a hot shower and a meal of unidentifiable street food, I was feeling somewhat human again. In a matter of hours, I’d met most of the staff at Aston English – all of whom are wonderfully friendly and laid-back – and had a ‘taste’ of the English lessons I would be taking myself in a short time.
Too much to cover just yet; details will follow.