Yesterday morning I was listening, over the internet, to a Cape Town based radio station, KFM, and heard “Bodyrockers - I like the way”. Just what I needed as a pick-me up.

I downloaded the song and listened to it over and over again and it really lifted my spirits, like I had forgotten music can do. So the worries with Lara, although not out of my mind, were filed securely towards the back.

I was feeling so confident that I took the pants, which I bought a week or so ago, but was too long to wear, to the tailor I had discovered in Wuyan. I hadn’t had the guts to do this before, as it would require a level of Chinese which I do not poses.

Taking the trusty No.5 Bus I settled down and saw on the clock it was 13:20 and knew it would be time for Lara to take her break. I had barely finished this thought when my phone rang. It was someone phoning from The Restaurant’s phone and could really only be one person. I played it cool.

“Hi”, I said, chirpy as if nothing was wrong and I was unsure of who it was. “Hi”, she said, voice crackling as she has a bit of cold. I said “Oh, hi, how are you”, cool as Mr. Cucumber. She said “fine, and you? Where are you”. “On my way to Wuyan, on the bus”, I replied, offering no more than that. A brief pregnant pause followed. “Oh” she said. I offered nothing else. “You want come here?”, she asked after another few grating seconds. “Why?” I replied, not in the mood to make things easy.

“I want to see you.” And if my heart was a cookie, there would be crumbs all over the bus. Few things in life feel as good as knowing that someone wants you, even if it is only to see you. So I dropped the act and said sure, I’m on the bus already, I could be there in 10 minutes.

15 Minutes later I walked into the restaurant and it was great to see her. That smile of hers instantly disarming me.

I did frown a bit and asked her what the previous night was about. So she pointed out that my phone had no money, because she did try to phone me when she realised I had turned around, and then she did run outside to see where I was. By then my long legs and anger-fueled pace had already carried me across the busy road and out of sight.

So I felt better. I would like to say we embraced, kissed and made up, alas, we barely touch and thus the preceding is hardly likely. In light of what happened this year, I see this as an excellent test of my substance.

A question of ‘why are you with this woman’. Just of one thing? Am I really the dirty bastard that this year perhaps it might have looked like I am? Or am I the decent gentleman my mother raised who strayed a little bit off the path?

Anyway, it was good to spend a few hours with her. We had some lunch and afterwards we returned to The Restaurant and I thought her some more basic English. She likes to speak English, but her vocab is limited. She was quite sick and also a bit tired, so I watched her sleep for 15 minutes, which was great. People, when they sleep, are most peaceful and often most beautiful.

I went to a Pharmacy alone and managed to mime my way through getting her the correct medicine, which hopefully will help.

Afterwards I journeyed to the tailor in Wuyan, where communication was unnecessary, as when I walked up to the shop, bag in hand, they guessed what I wanted. The tailor swiftly measured my leg, flung the pants over the manually operated sewing machine, undid the previous seam with a few strokes of a blade and proceeded to stitch up the new measurements.

I haven’t tried it on yet, but I’m fairly confident it will be ok. It will be ok, like the rest of me.

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Well, there you have it. Stupid is as stupid does and tonight, stupid did just that.

My best intentions not to contact Lara lasted less than 24 hours. Although, I have to add, she SMS’ed me this afternoon. So I thought, “Ha! Now I have the power”.

I took my sweet time in replying, thinking of course, that she would be nervously on edge, watching her mobile phone the whole time, periodically checking if it was still working. All in anticipation of my all important reply.

Instead of my usual lightning fast, desperate-written-all-over-it reply of 5 seconds, taking my time I took a whole 15 seconds on this one, really working the suspense.

And then she didn’t reply. So I thought it warranted another SMS… and another. A victim of my own emotions, see?

In between my two classes this evening I fired off another SMS asking if she wanted me to go there (The Restaurant), but no reply. After class, sitting on the edge of my bed, pondering the perplexities that is woman, I thought screw this, I’m not Tom and she’s not Jerry, so I refuse to play these cat and mouse games any longer.

So I typed her a nice SMS saying, I don’t understand her, she doesn’t understand me, we should maybe just leave the whole thing alone, and then fired it off thinking what must be will be.

What was to be was that at that moment my phone indicated that I should check my service provider, because the message could not be sent. Checking revealed that I had run out of airtime. A sign?

Ever the optimist, I thought that’s why I haven’t had a reply from her earlier and that she probably did SMS me to say “come here”, but without airtime I couldn’t receive it.

So I scarfed and gloved myself and set off on my quest, as so many times before, to Liuyan. On the way I thought to myself what am I thinking, why am I doing this, obsessing like this, making such an ass of myself. The thoughts were impaled by Cupid’s arrow as I arrived at the bus stop near The Restaurant and walked my way in.

From the street level there are maybe 15 steps down to The Restaurant, so you can see who’s coming before they actually arrive. Lara usually cover’s the front desk as I think officially she’s the hostess. Anyway, as expected she was near the door with a colleague, but I saw her before she saw me.

I looked down to find my footing on the steps, but as I looked up again a moment later, I saw her running away into the Restaurant. I froze… shocked at first, confused a second later. Then I caught the eye of two of her colleagues, felt myself going red, turned around and left.

I decided to walk home. It took me 40 minutes which is the pace of a brisk walk. For the first few blocks I was fuming. Angry, humiliated, defeated in my quest for love.

After another few blocks I realised that her actions tonight is what I wanted - a clear communication. I can handle rejection, what I can’t handle is being kept in the dark and being non the wiser either way. Of course, my ego hopes that she would have tried to phone as soon as she realised I had turned around. My ego would be laughing thinking that she would hear the message that says my phone had no credit and would feel sorry for what she did and would spend the night lying awake, perhaps shedding a tear for the hurt she caused me.

My ego is mean and self-centered.

So here sits stupid, having over-played his hand, having made the classic primary-school mistake of being too eager. Putting too much paper shreds on the fire at one time can kill the fire.

And of course now there will probably also be no friendship. In fact, I have now veiled the whole restaurant in awkwardness and even the dynamics with Uncle W and T will maybe have changed.

What says the old adage - don’t piss where you eat… or sleep, or work.

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Oh, I forgot to mention…

Yesterday I arrived for my early classes. The ones I hate, because I have to get up really early which is really difficult because it’s really cold.

So there I stand, 500 layers of clothing at 8am, and what do they tell me? Oh, you don’t have the Secondary School classes anymore, because they’re preparing for the exams and Oral English has been canceled.

Colourful expletives shot through my mind and thankfully didn’t reach my mouth - the gist of it was, why the hell didn’t somebody tell me before I dragged my 37 degree body into this 0 degree temperature?

In bounces the Money Man’s Right Hand and says, oh, didn’t you know? And by the way, from the next week you will not have any classes at all. But don’t worry, we will still calculate your salary.

You’re damn right you will.

So down swoops the double edged sword. Chinese New Year is 29 January, and the school starts like 10 days after that which means I will have almost a month and a half holiday. Great.

So I have all this time in which they will pay me the basic of my salary, no overtime and won’t feed me, which means my expenses will shoot through the roof and my salary comes down. PLUS, I will probably have to go somewhere to entertain myself which means I will spend even more money.

I hate holidays.

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Christmas in Shiyan, the Hubei Province of China, was big. Huge. Massive. Saturday and Sunday, apart from being weekend days and sunny, which in itself is reason enough to bring anything with a cell-count of more than 2 to the streets, were double as popular because of Christmas; houses all over Shiyan were empty.

I doubt whether there was a single establishment here which did not have a decoration, a Santa Clause or some sort of other Chirstmas paraphernalia stuck up somewhere to celebrate the fact.

The basics of Christmas are well known here - put up a tree and buy stuff. Little kids just want, want, want and, did I realise, so do adults. The giving part of Christmas, I think, got muddled up in the translation and is known to a few only.

It was an early start for me on Saturday at 11.30am. I was ready, costume laid out, for action. I donned the black mask and and cape… er, sorry, wrong Blog. I donned the Red Suit and Hat and whilst The Restaurant was still empty I was ushered outside to “Ho ho ho”, “Merry Christmas” and “Sheng4 dan4 kuai4 le4″ ( 圣诞快乐 ) random passers-by. It was rather chilli, but underneath The Red Suit I wore only a t-shirt and track-suit bottoms and were nice and toasty. What do they make that suit off anyway?

By lunch time there were no available seats in the 120 odd seater restaurant and young and old, fat and thin, were all stuffing themselves with Christmas cheer, presented buffet style at a very reasonable price.

Lara was at the door looking cute in her Mrs. Claus outfit and I couldn’t help but stare when I had a moment. Moments, however, were few and far between as Santa was a soft target for being poked by little kids and harassed by kids little and not so litte, for Li3 wu4’s ( 礼物 ). One thing is painfully obvious in any language: Santa carries presents.

The tide of people had subsided by about 14.30 and Uncle W was nice enough to give myself and Lara a break together. We first attempted some window shopping, but were swept away by the crowds too many times and settled on soaking up some sun in Liuyan Square instead. There were thousands of people every where and in my Chinese lessons today I learned a nifty phrase meant for such masses, which translates literally to “People Mountain People Ocean” and is clear and accurate in it’s description.

At 17.00 we were back at The Restaurant, ready for round two. Little did I know…

At around 17.30 the first guests started to arrive. The restaurant filled up quickly and queues formed and I eventually left when there were only a few tables left at 23.30. Santa diligently did his rounds, wishing each table a Merry Christmas or a Sheng Dan Kuai Le and passing presents and Christmas hats to those who liked them. Several kids came up and hung on and around me, but that was expected as Uncle W did ask me earlier the evening to ‘entertain’ the kids, should they require entertaining… and did they require entertaining. They can only eat so much.

Eventually I had to beat them down with my sack of presents as they started getting just a tad annoying. What was helpful though was being able to practice my Chinese on them. The kids speak nice and slow, plus they articulate, very propperly, the sounds of the Chinese words and thus is an invaluable source of brushing up and practising my pronunciation. Plus I expanded my vocabulary with all sorts of handy phrases and words like “No, I don’t have any more presents” and “sorry, I only have one of those” and “I already gave you 3 types of presents, that’s all I have” and lastly “go and sit down for a while, I’m tired now”.

I divided my time between being inside the restaurant and by the door. At one point a group of 10 school kids from the No. 12 Middle School arrived and wanted to enjoy the buffet, but the restaurant was packed and the only seats able to accommodate 10 people were taken. So they were told to come back in half an hour, but such is the nature of a buffet that people will sit and wait until they are hungry again so that they can have a second round. Thus half an hour later they were disappointed again.

I felt bad for them, so I thought I’d give them each a hat to spread a bit of Christmas cheer. There is a flight of stairs leading down to The Restaurant from the road level and I bounced up a few to catch up with them to hand them the hats. However, as I reached into my bag I was suddenly overwhelmed from all corners by hands outstretched and voices screaming “li wu! Li wu!”. I got pushed back down the stairs and pinned against the glass door and had to fight my way through back into the safety of The Restaurant in order to avoid a potentially dangerous situation.

At the height of the buffet, The Restaurant packed, with several more tables and chairs added from sources on which I am not exactly clear, it was time for the night’s entertainment (as if I had not been entertaining enough). King was asked to come and sing, but he specialises in Gospel. So I was requested to sing a more upbeat song. Thus, on came Rudolph The Red-nosed Reindeer and I felt thankful for the previous week at school - as this and “Santa Claus is coming to town” where the only songs that I taught the kids.

Microphone in hand, waitresses and kids lined-up behind Santa Claus, we hopped, skipped and jumped around the restaurant, me singing the song with great enthusiasm.

As the music was loud and had a high pitched artist singing, it complemented my super-bass voice nicely. After skipping through this and the neighbouring restaurant, conga-line in tow, the song had repeated 4 times and I “ho ho ho”‘ed over the microphone and said “mei ge ren sheng dan kuai le” ( 每个人圣诞快乐 ), which I hopes means “everybody, a Merry Christmas” and everyone gave us a standing ovation. That was nice.

Afterwards King and I belted out “Silent Night” before he gave “Noel” a solo go and received more applause. We had some food and eventually King left to go home whilst I waited for Lara.

She had to eat and I took the opportunity to present her with the chocolate my mom had sent me from South Africa. Not a huge gift, but sentimentally very valuable and, in my opinion, pretty thoughtful.

We were seated to the back of a couple, the man a foreigner, who had taken full advantage of the wine with the buffet and were well pickeled by this stage. They were loud and boisterous, like drunk people are, and I was tired and agro, like tired people are. Needles to say, they rubbed me up the wrong way and spoiled my mood and then as they left as the same time Lara and I attempted too, they insisted we join them to go dance.

I was, however, hell-bent on not joining them, but Lara seemed keen, which also pissed me off, as she has on all previous occasions rejected my invitations to go dancing. So I fumed for a minute like a child (which I realised in hind-sight). After wanting to throw my toys and saying I want to go home she said we should go to another place.

We ended up going to the place we had gone to before. Alas, on the way there I moaned again about being unsure as to what she wanted.

But, it was Christmas, the music was thumping, the club was busy and the floor was bouncing. We spent maybe an hour and half dancing before the tiredness got the better of both of us. At one point I leaned over, she thought I wanted to say something in her ear, but I kissed her cheek instead. She seemed pissed off, but I didn’t care, it felt good.

After a few more songs and seeing a stuffed Santa Claus flung into the crowds only to have it’s head ripped off and torn to bits, we departed.

On Sunday I again attended The Restaurant, but this time in the evening only. It was more of the same, although slightly more sedate as it wasn’t THAT busy. I had some fabulous fun as there were more children and they seemed less mob-like (maybe less sugar than yesterday). I also had some fun with Lara and again I sang “Rudolph the red-nose reindeer” and we had a longer conga-line going, waitresses, children and a birthday party of about 8 teenagers all joined the line.

I departed at about 10 o’clock and unceremoniously said bye to Lara and left. I went to Tina’s restaurant to say goodbye when Lara phoned me to ask what time I was going home. I was confused and after chatting to Tina for a bit, went back to The Restaurant again, but then she seemed different and said I should go home.

Women in general are strange creatures that are difficult to understand, but with the language barrier strange becomes weird and difficult becomes nearly impossible. This morning I SMS’ed her to say hi and to ask if I could see her today. She hasn’t replied. That was my last SMS to her and I am not sure when I will see her again. Sigh.

Last night I first phoned Jarrod, but by the time I got home he was already asleep. I also phoned my mom and sister and bantered with them for a while before I finally went to bed.

Christmas has come and gone with a mixed bag of emotions. Whatever will happen next…

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As if to try and blow away the heavy layer of dust I have on my mind, the wind is blowing in Shiyan today. In fact, in the nearly 3 months I have been here in Shiyan, this is the first time there has been wind at all.

The reward for this bone-chilling wind is, of course, clean air. It does seem, however, as if our friendly neighbourhood coal-based power plant has stepped up production. The smoke stack is pumping even thicker, browner smoke today. But still, the wind is taking it up and away over the mountains, so no harm to us Shiyanians today. Pity those cute forest creatures.

Also, for the first time in a while, my nose is not blocked, running or both and I can breathe the clean fresh air with glee.

Along with all the air pollution, the dust on my mind has also been blown away (or maybe just temporarily kicked up). I visited Lara at The Restaurant this afternoon and we managed a slight variation on our normal, limited conversation. My problem is that often I can’t articulate, whilst her problem is that (sometimes) she doesn’t want to articulate.

When you don’t really understand each other that much, it’s always very convenient to say ‘I don’t understand’ when you actually just don’t want to answer. I use that excuse quite often myself. But anyway, so now we have an understanding and I will just wait and see. At least I have put my mind to ease.

Oh, btw - in this school, Christmas has been canceled.

I planned the whole toot. Christmas trees, decorations, Santa Claus outfit… but this week in particular, the kids have demonstrated that they will go into a frenzy and rip apart anything remotely foreign. On Monday, already in my first class, my reindeer antlers got snapped. Sure, they were flimsy, 4 quai pieces of rubbish, what did I expect, but they had sentimental value. Oh ok, not really, but I have to dramatize to illustrate the gravity of the situation.

Yesterday the little piranhas nearly tore apart King’s Christmas hat and last night in class, two little sh… piranhas nearly did the same to me. So I dare not bring any more props to school, fearing to never see it whole or working or at all again (and I was going to borrow the Santa suit - I’d have lost my security deposit for sure). Tonight, it’s back to the good old English curriculum. Merry Chrizzzzzzz.

That said, that’s it. I’m posting a picture in addition to a post of 2 weeks back. I got some pictures emailed to me. In most of them I look like the mongrel I am, but in this one I just look a bit freaky. And freaky is better than mongrel (in my book).

Sorry, picture got lost when my blog went down and I had to repost from Google cache leftovers.

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