As it turns out, today it snowed quite a lot here in Shiyan. In fact, if I can site my unscientific observations, I do believe it was about 6 cm (I swiped away a chunk of snow off one of the benches).

It was (and still is) beautiful. White everywhere, you couldn’t even see the green of the palm leaves. Of course, any green grass sprouts on the football field have by now been destroyed, but you gotta give up something.

After my classes, I was really keen to go out and play. This has officially been the most snow I’ve ever encountered. Sure, there was that time in Frankfurt, Germany. It snowed, but it was a bad year for snow (2002) and the weekend I was there, there was hardly enough for a decent snowball. And then when it snowed here during the Spring Festival (har har!), it was a bit more, but not much.

Today I stomped through the snow and lost sight of my shoes. That’s good snow. Initially, I was alone, as all the students still had class, so I made an attempt to build a snowman. This time I wanted to roll a round base, and I had the snow to do it. After an hour, and having a pretty big snowball, it started loosing shape and it all went south.

Half an hour later, with an even bigger ball of snow, it started to look more like a block. A bit square, chunks falling off, etc. So I gave it up for a bad job, I was sweating anyway.

Needless to say, after the next class was finished, students rushed out and dismantled the chunk of snow, like ants would a dead lizard, and soon it was gone.

It started innocently enough. I was on the balcony playing with the Nurse’s son. I saw the Gateman down stairs and he invited me down to play. So I went. We pelted each other with some choice artillery, before I turned my attention back to the balcony where the Nurse’s kid had remained. Hong Mei, one of the teachers, soon walked pass and was victimised by a snowball on her butt. She retaliated.

I misdirected various projectiles in the direction of other teachers and staff who had gathered. Soon they were scattered and fighting back. The spat became a one man war when the bell rang. Students poured out and wanted to be part of the fight. Lots of snow was shifted at high speeds, directed mostly at me.

The only weapon you have in a fight where there are thirty versus one, is speed. So I would run until I could clear most of the kids, turn around and fire at will at those in the front of the pack. Of course, only until the others caught up and started pummeling me. It was all good fun until one kid came up and placed a chunk of snow smack in my face. That was the end of any nicities.

I started running after the main culprits and gave them some of their own medicine. This did not deter them. At one point I ran past one of the senior female students, and planted a big chunk of snow right on her head. She was unimpressed. This was the start of advanced attacks as all the senior students now also got involved to avenge the attack on their kin.

I had little ankle biters coming up from behind and the sides smacking snow into me, distracting me from the big guys. I had my chips when 4 big students suddenly appeared in front of me, each baring chunks of snow which clearly took some crafting. I managed to dodge two, but the other two virtually covered me from head to toe. I had to laugh and give them their dues. After I had a brief breather, sweating and salty, gasping for air, I was ready to counter.

The big boys were playing, unaware of my advances. I had mutated my speed into a new, humiliating, high-speed weapon. The fist victim was the boy who dropped the biggest chunk of snow. He saw me coming and ran, but my shoes had better grip than his, so I could quickly gain on him. Instead of planting snow on him, I nudged his leg enough to knock his other leg, and he ploughed down in the snow. If this had not covered him enough, I quickly jumped in front of him, bent down, and shot back trough my legs more snow than a blizzard could produce.

The weapon was effective. He was on the ground, he was covered with snow, and best of all, all the other students (and there were many), where laughing at him. He took it in good spirits, but was pissed off. I ran to the outer reach of the field, where the snow was relatively undisturbed and very thick. 5 students followed, the one just nailed, leading them.

As I had paid him his dues, I had no further interest in him. I scattered the group with a few snowballs, and when they were some distance from each other, I ran at the next target. Of course, he turned around and tried to run, but he couldn’t gain enough speed in the thick snow. The same fate befell him, and before his friends could reach us to help him, I had applied the Weapon.

He didn’t take it so well. They came at me again, this time trying to approach me from behind. I chose the smallest target. Again I scattered the big guys with snowballs, which made the smaller one approach me for an attack. I snapped around, chased him down and dished out his fate. As I finished, the previous victim was on top of me. We fought a bit for balance and both landed in the snow. I wiggled a bit and gained the upper-hand, managed to pin him down and sprayed him with snow again. Boy was he pissed off. Snow got into his jacket, so much in his hair he looked like a greying, old man, and all his friends were laughing at him again.

Haha. But I was pooped, so under fire from the little kids I walked back to my apartment to wash my face and drink some water. I saw them plotting from my balcony, but by this time it was time for dinner.

Thankfully, because I was quite tired and fancied a nice hot shower.

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Shiyan is not unlike Cape Town. There is a certain expectancy of what the weather should do, but absolutely no guarantee that that is in fact what the weather will do.

This last week, for instance, I have been preparing myself of the onset of Summer. I mean, after all, the Spring Festival is past and forgotten, the football field has started blushing green, and I do believe I saw at least one blossom on a tree somewhere.

In addition, since Monday last I have not used my heater, and since Wednesday I also have not had my electric blanket on, not even for a start-up. I’ve been wearing less clothing, trying to brainwash myself into thinking it really feels like cool spring weather. And it was working.

This morning I woke up at 9am. Usually by this time the bright of day is awash in my room. However, I had to check the time of a second source, as my room was so dark that I had to switch on the light. After reassuring myself that it was in fact the time my alarm claimed it was, I knew the weather was holding no promise of a sunny day.

And so it was. By the time I ventured out I was padded ala winter, plus wearing a beany. My ears have been aching recently and only heat seems to cure it. The themometor at the gate guessed that it could be 3 degrees Celcius. I wouldn’t exactly set my watch by that gadget.

After I finished my lesson with my private student, their home nice and toasty courtesy of their central heating, he enquired if it was cold outside (after seeing my apparel). “Yes”, I said, “it even snowed a little”. “No!”, exclaimed his mother in Chinese, rushing to the window to prove me a liar. “Yes”, I explained, “it was raining, which stopped, and was followed by tiny flakes of snow”.

I wasn’t so much convinced myself, because the flakes were really tiny, and they could have been rain drops, because I couldn’t actually catch a flake to prove it. But they didn’t fall like raindrops would have. By the time I got back to school, for some reason much colder than 1 km down the road, I could catch a few and prove myself sane.

I was doing some lesson planning just now and felt I needed to pen my thoughts. So as I emerged from my apartment, I was greeted by a white blanket of snow on the football field. Not a very thick blanket. Probably just enough to kill the new green sprouts and be melted by morning. But proof nevertheless.

After inviting King, the King of contradictions, for coffee on several occasions this weekends, being denied by him, only for him to go off gallivanting on his own, I realised I need to give him some air. He’s not my anything, so I shouldn’t really be upset.

One thing is clear though, I need friends. But paradoxically I am now scared of both men and women.

The women seem to want to be friends, more than friends, or not friends at all and will play games so that you will never have a clue anyway. Either that, or they turn out to be clingy, psychotic bunny boilers who think you’re ready to propose, because you invited them for coffee.

The few boys I’ve met have also been clingy, psychotic bunny boilers who want to take up all your time, show you off to their friends and ask as many times and as loudly as possible “What’s that in English?”.

The few sane people I’ve met are too busy, too introverted, or too bound to their homes and families to want to go out. Dancing, coffee, eating. Sane people always find a reason to not do any of it.

In retrospect, this is perhaps just the exaggeration of my lonely mind. I walk down the road, surrounded by tens of people, really wanting to talk to them. But I look down, avoid eye contact, and now only occasionally hear somebody say “heeeeellllooo”, usually followed by lots of laughter. I never knew the word ‘Hello’ was so funny.

Do I have a plan? No. What will I do? Er… probably hit on the teachers here at school. Is that a good idea? No, but what else can I do.

Tomorrow is my self-proclaimed coffee night. King obviously isn’t keen on coffee, or the associated social connection with me, so I need to find myself another coffee buddy or two.

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My TEFL Course is paying off, because I am able to plan my lessons a lot better and they are much more interesting. The acid test will be what they will do (or won’t do) to my salary.

The downside of my fabulously colourful (mostly) lessons, is that I permanently feel like I was run over by a truck. It’s damn hard work coming up with creative ideas for your classes (and I have 18 classes a week, of which 10 are unique). The limits imposed on me by my employers make for a further challenge.

But let’s not get into that, shall we. I have other things to moan about.

“Go out and have some fun”, says a friend of mine not realising what a black hole I find myself in. “English is not the language of love”, she adds wisely. Clever girl, this friend of mine.

But between having to maintain a wholesome image in this relatively small city where everyone knows someone that knows you, and dodging the minefield created by the language barrier, which stands between you and relationships and friendships and sex of any kind, I just can’t see it happening.

I’ve started to look at this year in Shiyan as my year of abstinance. From sex with another person at least. The only state my mind can seem to make sense of this lack of close contact and affection from a woman.

Not for lack of trying; I have. I have the burnt fingers to prove it. But the strings that tie me (the image of a teacher, work schedule, lack of language competancy, small cirle of friends) all pull in different directions at the same time, leaving me quite stationary in the middle.

And between being tired of fighting these forces and planning my lessons, I barely have enough fight left to tear the wrappers off my rice cakes.

I’ve counted the days. There are 126 days left until the end of my contract.

Beyond that? Infinity?

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I’m not sure what it is about sitting down, casually chatting to somebody, a cuppa in hand, watching other busy people’s lives pass you by. It’s facinating.

Perhaps it’s my genetic programming, perhaps it’s my fondness of watching others, the voyeur in me studying the habbits of the my fellow creatures. It’s theraputic, like bonding without connecting, blending in without mixing, feeling like part of something bigger than just me whilst being all about me.

There aren’t any coffee shops as such in Shiyan. Oh, sure, you can find places that has flashy neon-signs, beaming into the night things like Coffee & KTV, or Jazz Coffee (whateverthehell that is), or places that just plainly say… coffee. But often, these establishments have a door, but no windows. Who wants to sit and drink coffee in a dusky, little room with no view of the world outside?

Not me.

And that is not even commenting on the coffee. The Restaurant I so often wrote about before, offers expensive, imported (allegedly) coffees for 25 quai a pop (and a pop is a very small cup). In my peak, when I visited there frequently, they would just give me a cup of good old 3-in-1 Nescafe, which was heavenly compared with the donkey piss they try to pass as imported coffee.

But thank goodness for KFC. Yes, KFC. But aren’t they famous for Chicken? Sure. Shiyan has two, both with ceiling-to-floor windows, great views of busy sidewalks and even busier streets and… wait for it … BOTTOMLESS coffee.

The coffee is also Nescafe; the green label. Not sure what’s special about the green label, but it’s strong and a very decent cup of coffee. Add to it the little thingy of what I think (hope) is cream and a sachet of sugar, and you’ve got yourself a good 15 minutes of comfort.

But it isn’t really about the coffee.

I could do what I do even with a cup of donkey piss. As long as the donkey piss is hot and at least smells like coffee. It’s more about the act. The act of pondering life’s little mysteries. Discussing something of universal unimportance with a friend, a potential love interest, or somebody you’ve never met before sitting at the table behind you doing the same thing you are.

It’s about people. Those who sit close to you, those who pass by the window, those who drive their fancy cars to their fancy houses. It’s about pondering where you are, where you could have been, where you should have been and why you’re not.

It’s a stress reliever; a time-out; me-time. Slowing down the pace, stepping back, seeing the big picture. And realising that I am just a little dot in the 400 gazzillion dots-per-inch Big Picture after all.

Recently my cravings have been strong for ‘going for a coffee’. King gave up on me after getting the shakes following one of our 4-hour, 6-cups-of-coffee chat sessions. So I’ve been going it alone. Fine by me.

Tonight I met up with Linda. Ahhhh, Linda. Beautiful Linda. She used to teach here at my school, but she did the sane thing and as of this term she is no longer working here. She’s not sure about her future, but I’m sure the coffee we shared tonight has given her insight; a glimps of direction; a hint of purpose.

Coffee will do that to you. Too much coffee will also make you philosophical and cause you to ramble on uncontrolably. Like being pissed actually, except instead of wanting to sleep, coffee makes you want to not sleep.

Coffee will do that to you too. Beware the bean.

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The person who said “Money isn’t everything” was probably stinking rich. Our lives, our very existance revolves around money. We spend a third at least, some of us even more, of our lives working to get money. But that is a deep philosophical discussion for which, at this moment, I do not have the mental capacity.

Anyway, the adventure count for my blog entries have dwindled to near extinction, but I have met some new people.

I thought school, and my classes, would start on Monday. It didn’t. I thought I would get my teaching schedule by Tuesday. I didn’t. I thought surely I would be teaching by Wednesday. I wasn’t.

So after some serious discusions and being on the verge of absconding to another contract in another province, they finally gave me my schedule. On Thursday I started teaching again. Yah.

Now, several things surfaced in this week about the conduct of my employers. My salary was deducted for the last 3 months of last year, which I didn’t notice, only because I don’t actually know how they calculate my salary. Anyway, the thing that pissed me off was that I found out there was a departmental meeting, during which it was specifically decided to withhold these facts from me. Why not tell me? Your guess is as good as mine.

They deducted my salary because according to their Mickey Mouse review system my lessons were boring, not helpful and a whole list of other adjectives. Fine. Great. Thanks for the feedback and giving me the opportunity to improve my lessons for at least the sake of your students, if nothing else.

But oh no, no feedback, no opportunity to improve my lessons. Just a deducted salary. All part of the big plan if you ask me, because I think they think they pay me too much money. While as we speak the Rand is strengthening against the Dollar and my Yuan-based salary is getting less and less. Lucky for me I have very few bills to pay back home, but as it is, it’s nearing almost a third of my salary. Sigh.

So I’m gritting it and baring it, because I see it as part of the experience. During this past holiday, I signed up for, completed and qualified for a TEFL Certification through the good people at i-to-i. At least now I can claim to know what I’m doing. It has helped me a lot, especially concerning lesson planning, which is so vital and which I’ve not been too good at doing before.

It was also nice to know that I actually know a little about English grammar. In fact, more now than I did in school. I scored 96% on that module. I nearly fell off my seat when I saw the score.

All this, plus my year in China, is of course for the greater good. The Greater Good being wanting to get as close to my son as possible. Preferrably the same part of the country he’s in (Malaysia), but at the very least just in the same country.

So, I am a hollow reed; I am a hollow reed; the wind blows through me. Kids cannot anger me, unscrupulous employers cannot offend me. I will concentrate on my work and effectively, in a lively and interesting manner, transfer my English knowledge.

Hummmmm.

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