That’s what it was, a weekend of excess. But relative of course. My excess is far removed from the hard core Excessers out there, but my frail system is not prone to excessness and does’t handle it too well.
On Friday the Money Man’s Right Hand told me, casually over lunch, that she’s sorry to tell me, but a third of my classes will be cut. Not sure why, she said, but there’s some sort of English festival this month, several classes will be axed and King will be moved to my classes in Number 12 Middle School, and I will be left with 16 here at the Foreign Language School.
I was a bit miffed and I was unsure of the reason. Maybe because of the way she said it, or where she said it, or just the fact that she said it. Often the school don’t say anything at all and you find out when you stand there with no classes. Maybe I got used to it that way. That night I went out with Linda and Dorris, an adventure on it’s own, and it was ‘leaked’ that the reason they axed my classes at the other school, was because those kids complained I didn’t play enough games with them, and they wanted King. The King of Games.
I’m resenting being hired as a clown, but I guess if that’s what they want to pay me for, then that is what I will have to do, otherwise they will fire me. I would have felt so much better if the application stated “Clown” to start with. But, I guess, they wouldn’t be able to get a work permit for me then.
Anyway, so had some din-din with the two, both Chinese English teachers, both young, both pretty. The night out with them was like baby-sitting two teenage-girls, because the one kept trying to out-do the other with their knowledge of English. Luckily that outing was short. Dorris disembarked from the bus at the stop nearest to her home, which, thankfully, is not at school. Linda and I carried on.
Back at the school she came over to my apartment to watch some TV (and only that) as she doesn’t have one in her dorm. So we then managed some decent conversation and happened upon the movie Shrek (somehow), so I suggested renting some movies. We ducked out, briefly, and returned with two movies (amongst other things a half decent pirate copy of Harry Potter’s latest) and sat watching that until too late. She left and I went to bed.
The next morning I was up early, because the previous night the two invited me to a teacher’s outing which was covert up until they exposed it. At first I was reluctant, because I wasn’t formally invited, but then thought “stuff it”, I’ll go anyway – free food, etc. Plus, they said, it was an outing to the ‘country side’.
What I’ve seen before of the ‘country side’ had been less populated parts of the city, but hardly country, but I was up for anything. After standing around forever waiting for some missing members, and then having to deal with a temper tantrum of the impatient bus driver (the same Rocket Pilot featured in a previous post), we eventually set off for a part of the city I had previously not been to.
What would have been a meandering mountain pass, ended up as a cliff-hanger, roller coaster ride by our esteemed bus driver. We go there in one piece. ‘There’ turned out to be what I would describe as a small holding some distance from the busy city. “Let’s go eat peasant food”, said somebody as we got off the bus. The air was clean, in fact, fresh even. Crisp, like a just-ironed shirt fresh from the wash.
Shiyan is often described as a city with clean air, but the pollution has made those descriptors delusional. A dirty rag can only be considered clean when you compare it with an even dirtier rag.
So, there we were, in the mountains, a clean river flowing past, trees, rocks, beautiful. The oldest and youngest of the group headed for the warmth of the peasant house (these are verbatim descriptions) whilst the more able bodied of us headed up the mountain path along the river, to explore the freshness, a first for me in China. Freshness, that is.
The path winded along the river with rocks roughly converted into stairs with the ugliest plaster jobs I have ever seen, with no attempt made to integrate it with the environment. Higher up the path evidence of previous tourist groups were littered about. A pity, I thought, that they don’t clean such a beautiful spot.
We spent a good hour and a half on the slope of the mountain, going up much higher than the path actually led, but everyone was eager. We had to scramble up some seriously slippery slopes, and when we had reached as high as we went, I noticed in our party one gent in a dress suit complete with dress shoes, as well as two ladies sporting rather high high-heels. Photos were taken, I will see if I can get them e-mailed here to post.
Following our descent, in time for lunch, we indulged in some delicious peasant food. As per usual, the Bai Guo, or white wine (which, as I may or may not have mentioned, is actually not wine, but engine degreaser) were ever present and loads of toasts were made to and between people I can’t remember. Bai Guo is great, as long as you sit down, but when you get up… bai-bye!
In the moments preceding lunch, I also learned to play Majong, and did not-to-bad for my first try. Before lunch I had won our first game, and after lunch I won another. In fact, I impressed the Bai Guo out of my opponents. So we had some more.
Following another hair-raising drive back home, we arrived at 5 pm. By this time the greasy food had been eaten away by the Bai Guo, which started to eat away at me. I needed to take a cat-nap. My cat-nap turned into a full-length Catwoman feature film. I woke up with a start at 8.30pm. A pounding headache awoke at about the same time. My day was not over.
Earlier, and after postponing twice (once following my first Bai Guo and once following my Majong victories), I had promised to meet up with Tina at The Restaurant. So after a quick shower, attempting to rid myself of the pong of Bai Guo, and dressing for the 6 degrees (Celcius) it was outside, I headed down the Shiyan main road.
It had been a good day at The Restaurant, and I arrived slightly before Tina. Wang took me under his wing and popped the cork on the most expensive bottle of wine I had ever had, to celebrate the day’s good business. We chatted away the bottle of wine until eleven o’clock when I headed home.
On my way up the stairs to my apartment, I noticed Linda’s bedroom light was still on, so I SMS her and invited her to watch the movie we hadn’t finished. Not sure what she was expecting, but it seemed (or the wine made it seem) as if she was expecting perhaps something more than what I was offering.
So, I watched with her, until too late again, a Thai movie with Chinese subtitles. Luckily she was in a chatty mood and I followed most of the movie. Then, we parted our ways.
I went through the motions of warming up with a hot shower, before braving my icy room and bed. Sleep came easier than I thought.
My dreams, disappointingly, were quiet.