So now I’m in China! Despite a lovely little 2 hour delay at Heathrow I made my connecting flight and was able to meet Bob on time in Changsha Wednesday evening. First impression of China – hazy. This is apparently the effects of the coastal typhoons (and possibly a bit of pollution I reckon) and is unfortunate as there is basically no sunshine. When we landed in Hong Kong it was too hazy to see anything in front of the plane and as the airport is right on the coast it really looked like we were landing in the sea. Of course, at Changsha it felt like we were landing in a paddy field. All good fun.
After dinner we went back to a hotel for me to get a good night’s rest which was a great plan in theory, but thanks to some crazy alarm siren that went off at least 11 times (I stopped counting after that and tried to focus on how it sounded a little like 2 baby sirens playing together), electrics that kept turning the air conditioning off and the kind people next door who turned the tv on full blast at 3am, the plan failed.
I was up the next day for an 8am medical at the conveniently hotel-adjacent hospital. It was quite exciting and a little odd; amongst other things it included a chest ultrasound, x-rays, and an ECG. Later on the other foreign teachers arrived. Terry is new and hasn’t been to China either but he knows Chrissy and Javid who both taught at Pingxiang last year. It’s comforting to know the place is somewhere you can return to; apparently a legendary man called Rick once stayed 5 whole years and got a medal.
The others had to stay in Changsha for a medical this morning so I travelled to Pingxiang on my own last night with a driver who didn’t speak English but was really good at smoking and getting vehicles out of our way. Chinese driving tip no.1: If you want somebody to move over, just flash your full beam, a lot. 30 or 40 times will do it. If they still aren’t moving, pull out a little so you’re taking up both lanes and then they will probably get the hint and move.
My first impression of the college was that it was huge, but looking at it in broad daylight today (or slightly blurry drizzle) it doesn’t seem that big at all. The foreign teachers live in our own building but it’s right next to the other teachers’ apartments and one of the blocks of student accommodation. I technically have my own floor with my bedroom, bathroom, living room and kitchen area one end and a washing-machine room (laundry room is definitely an overstatement) at the other end. There is only one air-conditioning unit and unfortunately it wasn’t in my bedroom. I didn’t think this was a problem but my co-teacher Juliet and Bob’s assistant Agouti who helped me out today seemed to think it was. Cue a team of 6 freshman students to carry out a fairly complex operation in which they swapped all the furniture in the bedroom and the living room, with 2 of the girls cleaning up as they went along. This was extremely welcome as the apartment was really dirty, but I felt somewhat guilty watching my team of workers shuffle around asking me if there was anything more they could do for me (and then collapsing into giggles) whilst I performed such tasks as pointing out other things that were broken and rearranging my shoes.
After several attempts at explaining my ingenious plan as to how to move the wardrobe into my bedroom through doors either too low or too thin, we discovered that it was actually falling apart, so I get a new one tomorrow. That’s one of the things I’ve noticed already in China – quite a few things go wrong but they are fixed without a fuss.
I’ll hopefully be able to upload some pictures soon but am having a bit of a fail trying to get them off my camera. I am also using Javid and Chrissy’s internet as the college forgot to give me a computer. But other than that, so far, so good!
