Partying it up China style

Sorry for the long delay in updating - my access to Internet has been pretty restricted and even now it is painfully slow to do anything. I have been busy since my last update - studying, exploring, partying, moving house... I was supposed to start teaching last Monday but that has been pushed back to October because my students are all first years and have a month's compulsory military training before they start classes. No complaints about that!

Despite the fact that I am doing no work for them yet, Henan University of Technology has moved me into a hotel and is paying me which is nice. I much prefer where I am living now, it is much closer to the centre of the city and the area is quite nice, a lot of students, restaurants and shops around. I am studying around 15 hours of formal Chinese lessons each week with my tutor, who was one of my teachers out at Zhengzhou University. She is excellent - very strict, and gives me a lot of homework. I also have a fairly steady stream of Zhengzhou University students coming to visit me to practise English and help me with Chinese so I am keeping busy. Most Friday or Saturday nights I head to one of the crazy nightclubs in Zhengzhou with some other foreigners - some of then studying Chinese at Zhengzhou University and some of them other teachers from Henan University of Technology. Our favourite club so far is called 'Babybody' - we are treated pretty well there - probably because we spend a lot of money, but it keeps us going back.

I could make a lot of money here as a model or DJ. I have been offered 1000 yuan for 2 hours modelling and 2500 yuan for a 3 hour DJ set - both I have declined because firstly I don't trust that they will pay me and secondly I came to China neither to DJ or model and I don't really feel like my photo showing up in random magazines or bus shelters in the city like some of the other foreigners here. But it is a lot of money - the average graduate wage here is around 500-1000 yuan per month, and most of the students seem to manage on close to 300 per month, A$50. It is possible - the food is very cheap and their accomodation while pretty uncomfortable (8 people to a room, no aircon or TV, shared bathrooms), is very cheap - around 600 yuan for a year. If you want to you can buy clothes at a market for 10-15 yuan for a t-shirt.

Having said all that there are a lot of people with a lot of money in this city. In the east part of the city, close to a lot of the nightclubs, there are some very swanky new apartments, and a lot of Audis, BMWs and Mercs driving around. The large department stores in downtown have prices similar to Myer/DJs and they are always swarming with people.

OK enough rambling, here are some photos:

Zhengzhou University - class, friends, food...

Anna with Lin laoshi who is now my tutor


After the Russians left it was just Anna and I in the class


John (from Cameroon), Anna and I with a couple of English major students - Lucy and Randy


In the Shitang with Lisa, Randy and Lucy


Lisa with her koala


We went to a Dan's house (a Chinese friend) for dinner - Anna trying to help out in the kitchen


Toasting with Chinese "bai jiu"- white alcohol - which tastes pretty bad!


With Anna, Dan and John at a restaurant near campus - eating our favourites gongbao jiding (Kungpao chicken), fanqie chaodan (tomatoes with fried egg) and tieban niurou (sizzling beef with vegetables)


Some of the more typical northern-chinese dishes in the Shitang


Whole bunch of Chinese students watching China get thrashed by Greece at the basketball championships


John playing soccer with some other foreigners (against Chinese - of course we won)


John at the campus store stocking up on 2yuan beers


One of the crazy Koreans smoking on the balcony

Babybody pics

John, Anna and I outside "Dennis"- one of the department stores we like because it has a restaurant inside where you can get real Spaghetti!


Dan, Anna and John at the restaurant


At Babybody - John and I with random Chinese guy


Anna & Dan's cousin (who actually lives in Adelaide, visiting China for the summer)


Two of our Korean friends Heather and Christie (I gave them those names because the Chinese names are too hard to remember)


Our hostess Sarah (We call her "cazy girl") who always gets us the best table and seems to be in a perpetual state of drunkness


Crazy girl with Toby (Aussie) and David (Scottish - can't understand a word he says ) - both English teachers


With one of the KTV (karaoke) managers and Paul, one of the Koreans - our nights often end up at KTV until the early (and sometimes late) hours of the morning


Sarah with Ullbech who is from Krygistan (sp?) - he is 16 years old, can't speak any Chinese and only came here because his mother wants him to learn (he hates most things about China!)


With Korean guy and crazy girl on the dancefloor


All of us foreign students at Zhengzhou University


Korean with John and random Chinese guy




Babybody inside - pretty swanky


Paul with one of the other managers we are friends with

Farewell to Anna
Anna, my Greek friend has left us for Beijing. We are hoping to go up there in the next couple of weeks to visit


John, Anna and Dan at the train platform


Anna with cute kid in her 'soft sleeper' (second class) train carriage

OK there ends another instalment. For the many people that have sent me emails, I am sorry that I haven't gotten back to you - I will try to in the next day or so. Bye for now.

Photos Instalment 1

I have been in Zhengzhou for almost 2 weeks now and am starting to get used to life here. There aren't too many other foreigners now that the Russians have left, though there are some Korean students who are also here studying Chinese that I have made friends with - they can't speak much English so we get by in broken Mandarin. At the moment I prefer it to hanging out with Chinese students who speak too fast for me to understand anything! The Koreans also like drinking which is an extremely cheap pastime here - a 750ml bottle of beer costs 2 yuan (about 30c). It is pretty tasteless but at that price nobody is complaining.

Last weekend was busy - on Saturday I was taken to lunch by my Sydney Mandarin tutor's mum and her friends. Before some of the other guests arrived, nobody there could speak English so I made use of the waitress' limited translating abilities for a while. She ended up giving me a tour of the (massive) restaurant much to the amusement and giggling of the other waitresses. With the rest of the guests came a 19 year old girl that could speak English quite well and was very keen to practice with me. The food was sensational and despite having some difficulties with communicating I had a great time - my hosts have been extremely welcoming and tolerant in my limited language abilities!

Mayhem is the best word to describe the roads here. There variety of vehicles is vast - bicycles, mopeds, motorbikes, tuk-tuks, cars, tractors, buses and trucks all sharing the same limited space. Often they don't stick to lane markings, and usually all drive pretty slow which is a good thing because at any moment another vehicle could lunge at you from any direction. There is not much respect for any of the rules - cars will cut you off, turn right in front of you and red lights are frequently ignored. It's great fun to watch and every taxi trip so far has been a thrill!!

The state of the environment here is quite poor and most of the Chinese are willing to admit it. I haven't seen blue sky and there is a smell in the air that is inescapable. My dormitory window is permanently shut and the air conditioner hasn't been turned off since I arrived - in a way I am contributing to the environmental problems that much China are experiencing, but the one night I tried to open the window I woke up in a sweat and not being able to breathe, so air conditioning is back on for good. Having said this I am impressed with the cleanliness of the streets both at the university and downtown. Many of the roads are wide boulevards with trees stretched over them, and there is a lot of life below - the sidewalks aren't too littered and there is no graffiti at all. There are people and vehicles everywhere and in many ways it is less depressing than the car-ridden lifeless highways of Sydney.

I have been watching a bit of TV in my spare time. The 1 English channel is fairly boring - they repeat the same 5 shows every day and it's pretty much just news and business shows ("attracting foreign investment to China" type stuff). Some of the Chinese channels are great - there are numerous Idol style competitions, my favourite is a "family idol" show where a whole family (usually 3 people!) get up and sing and dance together - the kids are usually really young and put in a lot of effort - and its hilarious to watch. At the end of each show only 1 family progresses through so inevitably there are a lot of tears from parents and child when they get kicked off.

The advertisements are also fun to watch - there is a huge amount of Olympics propoganda (ads that say "just 730 days to go" and TV shows that test student's English abilities to become international ambassadors) - I am worried they may be getting excited a little too early. Then there are the many many commercials for products that apparently can shrink your waist line, boost your height or grow your clevage just by taking a pill or attaching a bizzare vibrating machine to your body. Many of these ads show a Western doctor in a white labcoat to legitimise the products' scientific effectiveness - hilarious to watch. I'm told that the government has banned these ads but they still are shown pretty frequently!

I have finally got around to taking some photos. I haven't been very selective with what I uploaded so apologies in advance for it taking a while to load.

University


Outside the Shitang (cafeteria) where I eat every day


One of the other Shitangs - apparently cheaper than mine (30c a meal instead of 50c??) but the food is apparently not as good


Bicycle parking outside the Shitang


Ladies hand weeding the grass


One of the roads through campus


Some of the apartments the Chinese students live in


More apartments...


More apartments...


Apartments with clothes hanging out - there are no dryers!


One of the main roads through campus


Can anyone can enlighten me about these troops of red-hat wearing youths?


An old biycle dumping ground


Basketball courts - always packed


The man made lake separating the student accommodation with some teaching buildings


Another shot of the lake


Campus scenary - they have put a lot of effort into landscaping


Chinglish everywhere - one of the 'don't step on the grass' signs


The administrative building that greets you at the main entrance - everything here is on a massive scale


The gates of the university (you can see the administrative building in the background)

Campus surrounds


The tuk-tuks waiting outside the university


The road running by the university - it is in the middle of a hi-tech development zone


One of the large office buildings in the around surrounding campus


Aside from office buildings the area is quite rural - plantations like this are dotted between the university and office buildings


Just down the road from campus - a few shops with a heap of people just mulling outside


Down the road from campus




This market is also close to campus




This is what they call a bar - a bunch of outdoor seating with some BBQ outlets scattered around - gets pretty busy most nights and is a pretty cool place to hang out


The hi-tech development zone has some pretty nifty, and underutilised, infrastructure - I have never seen more than 1 or 2 cars on this road

Views from the cab going downtown






Gas power plant fairly close to campus


























Not unusual to see a pedestrian walking casually along the freeway!

Goodbye Russians


Outside of class I didn't spend much time with the Russians - they all much prefer to talk in Russian and it's pretty intimidating! This is Anna (Greek) on the left, with 2 of the Russian girls and I.


All the Russian students with Huang laoshi our teacher in the middle


The bus taking them to the train station where they had to endure a 20-something hour train trip to Beijing and on to Irkusk where they live (north of Mongolia in Siberia)

OK - that's it for now. I hope you are all well!