first week

To Xuzhou

Things are going very well so far, my flight was very good, a nice Chinese style dinner and full English breakfast. Finding the train station was not so easy, it turns out that there are 4 train stations in Beijing, and I didn’t know which had the train that goes to Xuzhou. After a few phone calls my taxi driver assured me that Beijing south train station was the one I need, and that there was a fast train that would take an hour and a half. Much better than the seven hours I was expecting. Xuzhou conveniently lies in the middle of China’s ultra modern high speed rail network, with the fastest trains in the world stopping here between Beijing and Shanghai. This sounded great. I arrived at the train station that could have been mistaken for a major airport, and went to the counter and asked for a train to Xuzhou. I was told ‘sleeper’ and shown the times, thirteen hours overnight. When I asked for a fast train she shook her head and told me ‘subway’, so not only had I missed the fast train, I was in the wrong train station. So I got back in a taxi and after getting stuck in traffic left the car on the side of the road and got taken on the subway with the taxi driver. When I finally arrived at the train station I had a couple of hours to wait until my train departed so I sat down against a wall and had a rest. Until a curious old Chinese man in about six jackets decided to have a chat, which was very one sided because I could not understand a single word the guy was saying, and responded to everything he said with ‘ting bu dong’, I don’t understand. But he didn’t give up and spent a good half an hour talking to me about I don’t know what. I though that with Beijing being a big international city it would have a lot of westerners and people who can speak/understand a bit of English. But from the moment I left the airport I didn’t see a single non Chinese person or anyone who could speak English.
When the gates opened there was a mad dash to the train that involved lots of pushing, squeezing and haste as if if you weren’t quick enough you’d end up on the floor sitting on your luggage for thirteen hours. However, when I reached the train I realised I had a bed booked, and so did everybody else. I then slept straight through for pretty much thirteen hours. I was only awoken by a group of old Chinese boys who were having some beers and though I might like to be woken up and included in the party.

Xuzhou

I arrived at Xuzhou at 6 am and was met by a few people from the school and taken to my apartment, I was bought a fried egg sandwich thing for breakfast that was delicious, and has since become my most favourite thing in the world. The food sellers are right outside my house every day from morning until evening and I barely walk past without buying one, and with them only costing 25p I can afford to.
My apartment was a lot bigger than I expected, being told is was small I did not expect a big bedroom, double bed, living room, corner group sofa, kitchen and dining area. But the best thing is that it’s right in the centre of town and about 5 minutes from school. I then had a seven hour nap and got up to go to dinner and meet a couple of the other teachers. Two other English guys the same age as me, funnily enough one of them had just studied at Winchester uni, so we had a good chat about Winchester. This was quite surprising for both of us, to be in the middle of China and having a chat about the bars and nightlife back in Winchester.

After dinner we stayed to have a few beers and watch the band perform in the bar area, I was given lots of advice and warnings about living in Xuzhou, Dan was half way through telling me how everyday brings something funny and unexpected when Jane butted in saying ‘Hey, monkey guy’s got two new monkeys’. I am still yet to meet monkey guy.

The next day I was taken in to school and introduced to everyone, showed around, given some training and a desk. We went out for Japanese food for lunch, one of the places where they cook the food in front of you and put it straight on your plate, which was very tasty. And then for dinner we went to a little Chinese restaurant next to the school for some more good food. That night I got sick, but was alright to go back in to school for training the next day. After a couple more days training I started to observe classes, from three year olds up to fifteen year olds, and did this for the rest of the week.

On my first day off the other English guys and I had a walk around the city, to the lake, and up the mountain. Which was more like a big hill but everyone calls it a mountain. The weather was glorious and Xuzhou looked beautiful from the top, with a 2 mile wide man made lake glistening in the sun. The city itself stretches out as far as you can see and looks giant, lots of tall buildings and development. Amazing considering this huge city is the only the 37th largest in china, and about one ninth the size of Shanghai. So after gazing over Xuzhou for a while we decided to get back down the mountain, which turned out to be a lot easier than the hour walk up. A metal slide has been built that resembles a bob sleigh track, but rather than a bob sleigh you get a tray with what looked like shopping trolley wheels and a lever to slow yourself down. Hurtling down was hilarious, the little tray could pick up quite a lot of speed and would raise up the sides on corners, a shame that it was over in about a minute. We then went on to happy hour at a lake side bar, had some drinks and played lots of pool with Chinese people. After this we decided to hit a nightclub for some more drinks, I was taken to bar 99, a pretty swanky looking place with chandeliers and security guards in SWAT uniforms. It had an atmosphere similar to that of a wedding, everyone was drunk and dancing their hearts out. The dance floor is scattered with standing tables that you can put your very expensive drinks on and pick at a fruit selection. And there is a little stage that you occasionally get dragged up on to by a random Chinese person for a dance in front of the whole crowd. Everything calms down at 2am and you go and get some food, MacDonald’s or dumplings, as these are the only 24hour places. Everything else is closed, and everyone seems to be asleep, after about midnight all 2 million people apparently go indoors and call it a night. There are barely any cars on the road apart from the big trucks that wash the roads so that they can get nice and dirty again the next day.