April 30th - I apologise for being so slack

May has always been my favourite month - the weather and my birthday help with that - and I really need it to get off to a flyer this time. I was on a bit of a high for most of April (most of the year come to think of it) but the last week of April, at work at least, really felt like a kick in the teeth.

You ever get the feeling that no matter what you do and how hard you try, some people will never be satisfied with what you do? Well I have/had that feeling. Sometimes it feels like some people have no idea how much effort you ar eputting in and show you no respect for anything you might be trying to do - even when you are trying to help them.

As I think about it all, I realise that going into detail would probably make it all seem a little petty - and I guess it is. If it was anyone else telling me what had happened, I would tell them to take it as a 'bad day at the office', forget about it all and get on with what's important in life. So I guess that's exactly what I am going to have to do.

So here goes with the optimists part:

It's Labour Day, which means 5 days off work for me. Doing any type of tourist travel is insane at this time of year (as all public holidays are the only holidays that people get in China, people travel like crazy so everywhere is like rush hour on the underground) so my girlfriend is taking me back to her hometown, where we will help her family celebrate and move into their new home.

The girlfriend will also be staying on after the holiday (for a few days) to catch up with family and some old friends, so I'll get a bit of 'my-time' at the end of it all aswell.

5 days off work and 3 days on my own - looks like May is going to be a good month again.

What was I complaining about.......? ;)

April 24th

4 days without a chance to write anything. A combination of nice weather and the girlfriend quitting her job, meaning she has mornings free with me, have meant I've had absolutley no time to get writing on The Blog.So what's happening in my life? Oh yeah...contract negotiations!

We've all been in them - trying ot push for the best deal; trying no to be uner-rewared for our hard work. We know we deserve so much more! And this is the time we are going to get it! Well, at least that's what I've been saying to myself for the last week!

I keep getting told how good I am by the boss, how important I am for the school and how well I have done over the last year. Ego massage or the truth? I think a bit of both.

You see, I know I am in a good situation. I know they won't find anyone as good to replace me. I also know they REALLY want to keep me and are aware that there are plenty of other opportunites elsewhere. I've got all the cards - but no balls!

I give myself this great pep talk, get all wound up, then go to see them and after a few 'we're such great friends and getting on so well' words, I lose that nasty streak and smile at the shite I get offered.

So tomorrow, it's al going to change. I'm goign to go in, make my demands and give them a 'take it or leave it' situation.

Then I'll probably, laugh a bit, bend my demands and end up without a job!

April 22nd - There goes another species...

It's one of those things that should induce sadness, but the irony of it all, and I guess a sense of hopelessness with the workd, caused laughter insetad if sorrow.

Many things in life contradict each other. So contradictions in China should come as no suprise. Like the inevitable conflict between its demand for economic progress and environmental preservation, for example.

Everyone is fully aware of Chinas continual and seeminlgy unstopable march towards economic domination. And everyone who lives here is also fully aware of its equally unstopable destruction of anythign remotely related to nature. Although, credit where credits due, they do seem to be doing their bit from time to time. Making occasional gestures to 'be green' by replanting the odd forest and protecting the odd species.

Take the little known and less living 'red-nose' (a bat like bird) for example.

In a small town, belonging to a small county, in Hubei province the local government tirelessly and proudly protected these exrtemely rare birds. Officialy recognised as an endangered species, they were loved, nurtured and completely taken care of. And I do mean completely 'taken care of'.

The local governem,ent were so happy with how they'd helped their little feathered friends that they decided to put on a bit of a show and let the townsfolk know about it all. And a Chinese local government show involves a lot of speeches, back slapping, a stage and some very, very loud speakers to make sure that anyone and everyone in the local vacinity is sure to know exactly what is going on.

During the preperation of thei littel soire the organisers kind of forgot to think about the little red noses - particularly that they use a kind of 'sonar' to navigate when they are flying. SO when the show was in full swing and all the locals were gathered around listening to the music and the loud speeches, the little red noses decided that the noise was too much and needed to get away.

Unfortunately the decibels were turned up a ilttle too hig and were interfering with the poor birds 'radar' meaning they couldn't 'see' what was in front of them when tey were flying. It also confused them on which way was up and which way was down.

So when a local passerby felt something hit them on the head, they looked ot the sky and were greeted to a light shower of red noses.

Years of protection nullifed as the 'protectors' had to make sure that everyone could hear their lod and proud voices.

Yep. Those red noses really were 'taken care of'.

April 20th - Google Searches

Being (relatively) new to this Blogging and web-hosting lark, I still get immense pleasure from looking at my visitor stats.

I can see how many people have visited, what people have looked at, how long they visited for, which country they are from (thanks to the guy/girl from Iran who keeps coming back, by the way), what time of day (GMT) they visit and, very often, where they visited from. As geeky as it may sound, its really quite interesting.

one of my favourite things is seeing which search engines are used to find my site and, much mroe intruigingly, what words they used in their search.

"Why do Chinese people clean thier houses before Spring Festival?" seemed like a perfectly reasonable search to put that might lead to my site.

"Chinese people spitting" also seems to be a legitimate search and one that may well put my site quite high on a Google search.

"Is Jade Goody and Ryan Amoo still together" seems completely irrelevant, but apparently whatsjamesdoing.com appears in the results list of that search. On a side ntoe, as an English teacher I should point out that "Are they (Jade and Ryan) an item" would be a grammatically correct question. This makes me think that someone with a not quite perfect grasp of the English language has performed this search. And as Jade and Ryan are only (barely)famous in the UK, I have a strong suspicion that it is one of them and that they should really know the answer to that already.

"Jade Goody tits out" is a horrible thought, but also a search that can lead here. At tthe risk of dissapointing you, I am afraid I have no pitucres of Jade with her breasts exposed. Sorry.

However, the most frequent search that leads to my site is "Wee Jimmy Crankie Photo" (because of a previous Blog where I mentioned Wee Jimmys name). So far this month, 15 people have come to my site looking for a "Wee Jimmy Crankie" photo.

Doing this kind of search in Google Images would probably be mroe productive, but in case there are still people out there, tirelessly looking for a photo of the aforementioned, here 'he' (yes, 'he' is actually a very small and old 'she') is.

I'm sorry the photo is so small....but what would you expect for some called "wee" Jimmy. Thinking about it, it may actually be lifesize.....

April 19th - Tales from the classroom (part 1 of 3)

Following on from all the recent talk of anti-Japanese sentiment in China, something typically Chinese happened in a class o fmine the other day.

I was holding an 'English Corner' where the main aim is to get students talking about something - no teaching as such, just get them talking. I came up with an idea called 'Leading a Conversation' where students get into groups and each writes down a few topics which they would like to talk about. They then take it in turns (for about 10 minutes) to 'lead' the conversation and get all the other students talking about whicever topic they had written down.

Being a 'hot' topic, many people had written something along the lines of 'China and Japans relationship' as a topic. There was also a Japanese student in the class - a stereotypically quiet, polite girl.

So I was walking around the room listening to the different groups and as I got to the group with the Japanese student I overheard them asking her about the 'average' Japanese persons thoughts on the situation. She enlightened them and a very well mannered, productive discussion followed.

I walked to the next group, who were blissfully unaware fo the presence fo a Japanese person in the room, who were also talking about the same topic. There was much less English being spoken and much more laughter. Why the laughter? Well....

In the middle of the table of these 30 somethign males wa a piece of paper. One person had drawn a picture of the Japanese flag on it. The laughter came each time oen of the guys wrote a word like 'Kill' or 'Death' on the flag.

Chinese humour, male bonding or a definitive show of ignorance in all situations? I don't know, but it made an impression on me.

April 19th - More tales from the classroom (part 2 of 3)

My friend Jonny...

He's a funny guy. His English is OK, but hes one of thsoe that always wants to make a joke and have fun and however language mistakes he makes, thei enthusisasm always comes across.

In class the other day we were talking about pets. He was telling me that a friend of his had an old dog. As the dog was old, his friend decided to kill it and eat it. He gave his friends, including Jonny, a leg each (this is a true story by the way).

Jonny and his friends cooked the leg and ate the meat. Quie delicious, according to Jonny.

Another girl in the class had just told us that she has a dog. I told her to keep it away from Jonny, as he might eat it. She told us her dog was too expensive to eat - cost about 10,000rmb.

"10,000rmb?" said Jonny "thats a good dog!" he continued "Thats about 2,000rmb for one leg then!"

April 19th - Even more tales from the classroom (part 3 of 3)

This one lacks the humour of the last one, but gives an insight into the Chinese way of thinking.

In my next class with Jonny (and the girl with the 10,000rmb dog) we got to talking about strange food they had eaten.

I asked if they had ever eaten mouse. Some of the girld squeamed and said no. The boys - being much more manly - answered not yet.

What about cat? Or monkey? Some had eaten cat, none monkey, although they assured em they knew people who had.

What about horse? "Have you eaten horse?" I asked.

Literally, as one, all the students nodded their heads and said yes. They had all eaten horse.

"You see," started Jonny, as he began to explain his horse eating experience "when Chairman Mao went on the Long March, it was very difficult, so they had to eat some of his horses"

"So thats when Chairman Mao ate horse - what about you?" I said "when did you eat horse"

"When Chairman Mao ate horse on the Long March"

....

"OK" I replied, after a moment of bewildered silence "moving on swiftly....."

Either Jonny is not the 23 yeard old man he looks like and did actually eat horse with Chairman Mao on the Long March (making Jonny about 85 years old), or he actually thinks that what the Chairman ate is what he ate aswell.

Interesting

April 17th - Everything went well

So Saturday was a big day after all. It was beautiful, sunny and everything went as well as could be expected. There was a good turn out and, as far as I know, no one was injured or even slightly food poisoned.

Protest? What protest? Oh....'THE' Shanghai protest that 20,000 people participated in (according to most newspaper accounts of the day and up to 100,000 if you go by Shanghaidiaries estimate).

Well, as slack as it may sound, my girlfriend and I woke up late on a beautiful morning and decdied a BBQ would be a much better day to spend the only day of the week together.

So whilst my friend Phil Roy got some nice shots of the day and many others took part in a truly historic event in Shanghai (that, incidentally, is not allowed to be reported on from within China) I sat on my balcony enjoying perfectly cooked vegetarian suasages and hamburgers.

While certain parts of the city were pretty exciting, my little patch was pretty damn chilled.

Next time, though. Next time (which apparently is tomorrow, although I've got to work).

April 15th - More protets and riots

So the China/Japan thing is still running along. Internaitonal press is still following it aswell. The validity, the hypocrisy and the value (as well as many other things) of the protests in China are all being bought into question by many people, including myself. The International press is still following the story with interest. I get the feeling that there is an expectation of 'something big' - be it the social/political change thta many outside of China expect, or another 'Tianamen Square' type incident. Perhaps it will come on Saturday morning.

Shanghaines people generally consider themselves as being better than most other Chinese. Maybe a little more sophisticated and modern, due to its historical links with the rest of the world.

However, at 9am on Saturday (tomorrow morning) in Peoples Square, Shanghainese people are going to show their solidarity with the rest of the Chinese population when they stage their own anti-Japanese protest. This is not a secretive, quietly organised event. Everyone knows about it. Even if they didn't, the blanket SMS message that was sent to all mobile phones in the week, from the police, warning that violence at the protest was not a good idea, would have let them know what was happening.

Some of my Chinese friends have questioned if it will actually take place, although the sms from the police suggests, to me at least, that it is set to go.

My experience in China has told me that its veyr hard to get Chines epeople excited or motivated to do anything, unless it invloves money or food of course. So apathy may well effect the turnout ("I've got to work" and "its a little early for my day off" are the most common reasons I have heard so far).

As for me, I am trying to persuade my girlfried to get up early and come with me (ironic: the foreign guy trying to persuade the Chinese girl to protest in support of her country!). I'll just have ot remember to leave the Japanese made camera at home!

Leaving the Shanghai protests for now, it appears that the accolades for most successful show of anti-government feeling has already gone to a less glamorous countryside town - Huankantou village in Zhejiang province.

The origins of the 'riot' are a little blurry (seems to stem from a vigil outside a local chemical plant, where some people have said that 2 old villagers were run over by police trying to move the protesters), but the outcome of about 1000 riot police being driven from the village by the locals, is not in question.

It seems the power fo the protest is being realised in China at present - which must be causing concern for the men at the top.

According to government statistics, protests increased by 15% last year to 58,000, with more than 3 million people taking part. In many provincial capitals, roadblocks occur more than once a week (from the Guardian. Go here for the full story).

For now I will leave you with the words of one of the victorious protesters from Huankantou village, whose feelings of euphoria may well be turning to fear as they aniticipate reprisals from the authorities.

"The communists are even worse than the Japanese"

(full article at the Guardian)

April 12th 2005- my 'serious' thoughts on the recent protests

Protests and mass marches in China are very, very rare and pretty much illegal. So the recent events in Beijing (10,000 march on the Japanese embassy) are significant for a number of reasons.

To say that you hate an entire race of people is, frankly, racism. But on a daily basis I will speak to people here in Shanghai who will tell me that they "hate the Japanese" (usually whilst listening to thier Sony MP3). A few with the breater oral English ability will continue to explain that it is actually the Japanese governement that hey "hate", not the ordinary Japanese people. I believe this is the case for th emajority of Chinese people. many other of my foreign friends take what is said to them literally and will argue that the Chinese do in fact hate all Japanese people.

So when the Japanese ministry for education recently approved a revised school text book, further 'hiding' the true attrocities of the Japnese army during their occupation of China in World War 2 (24 million Chinese killed in 14 years; about 300,000 slaughtered in weeks in Nanjing) Chinese people (and South Koreans) were outraged at what they saw as yet another failure of the Japanese to atone for their crimes. There has never been a formal apology for what happened and many pepole feel that successive Japnaese administrations have tried to dismiss this part of their history, some even denying that it ever happened.

Another fact which, rightly, riles the Chinese is the fact that leading figures in Japan (the Prime Minister and his cabinet, for example) will annually visit the shrine of Empereor Hirohito, who had absolute power in Japan during this periond and the person who instigated the invasion and subsequent occupation of China. In my mind I can only only begin to understand how this would anger Chinese people if I imagine the outrage that would be caused if a German administration were to annually visit a shrine dedicated to Hitler. There have also been moves to introduce a national 'Hirhito Day' to honour the man (go here for more).

The events of the war, the conituing admiration shown to the emporer of the time, the apparent white washing of history and the failure to account for its wrong doings have created this deeply engrained resentment of the Japanese by the Chinese. Now the Japanese are making moves, with the backing of the USA, to obtain a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. This has also added fuel to the fire.

I have read many reports regarding this in the last few days and most seem to suggest that China opposes this move because it does not want to share its representation of Asia on the Security Council with Japan. This may well be true.

My personal opinion, and one which I have yet to read in any other report, is that a country which cannot take responsibilities for its previous aggression and brutallity in war should never be put in a position where it can have such great influence on conflicts in the modern day. How can a country which refuses to admit its own past and who continuously tries to hide its past from its children, be deemed responsible enough to take care of the rest of the world?

Non-Chinese seem obsessed with focusing on Chinas attempts to gain control and power in the world. The 'PR machine' of the democratic west and its Japanese ally is working overtime against the 'propoganda' of Red China.

Perhaps this time Chinese people are just after what they perceive as justice. For the avergae person and the avergae protester in Beijing this is not about politics or economics. This is about a long overdue closure of a chapter of imense suffering in their past.

Many Chinese shops have stopped stocking Japanese products and are urging people to follow their lead and boycott anything Japanese. I have started to do the same.

Violent protests and random acts of aggression against innocent Japanese citizens (in Shanghai, 2 students were beaten up for being Japanese) can't help. But in a world where money talks, perhaps the shere volume of people in this country can send an economic message loud enough for the Japanese authorities to cleraly hear and understand.

Read more at Reuters, The Japan Times, Swissinfo, Salt Lake Tribune

April 12th 2005- a slightly more 'light hearted' view of the protests

In my previous post (above) I tried to express my view on the current situation of anti-Japanese protests in China. I am sure Chinese people won't be too happy with my seeing humour in this story, but I couldn't help but laugh when I was reading about the aggression of the protesters.

As mass marches/protests are pretty much non-existent here, it seems that the locals have not had a great deal of practice at them. As such, they appear to be not entirely organised and the power of the mob seems to have taken control, for short periods at least.

First I read that stones and bottles (Chinese papers reported them to be plastic, Japanese reported them to be glass) were thrown at the Japanese embassy in Beijing. Now I never agree with protests turning violent, but the logic of venting your anger directly at the diplomats and politicians who are part of the administration who wo'nt say sorry, seems to make sense.

I then read that a Japanese restaurant had been attacked. Hmmm....this is where I started to wonder. It turns out that the restaurant was Chinese owned and managed, with Chinese staff working their and Chinese patrons eating there.

Finally I saw that part of the crowd had started to attack a car which happened to be passing. The car was being driven by a Chinese man. Unfortunately it was a Toyota (Japanese) and so the crowd decided it was fair game.

What next? Maybe a 'Hello Kitty' pencil case will be savagely beaten, or perhaps a Japanese manga comic book will be symbolically burned in the middle of Tianamen Square.

Emotions run high and peoples self control runs low.

It reminds me a famous piece of hysterical sporting commentary, made by Bjørge Lillelien (a Norwegian) following his sides defeat of England in a World Cup Qualifier at Wembley in 1981.

"Lord Nelson! Lord Beaverbrook! Sir Winston Churchill! Sir Anthony Eden! Clement Attlee! Henry Cooper! Lady Diana! Maggie Thatcher - can you hear me, Maggie Thatcher! Your boys took one hell of a beating! Your boys took one hell of a beating!"

The irrational, illogical, hysterical, emotionally charged ramblings of a genius at work.

Incidentally, this piece of classic commentary made it to numebr one on The Guardians 'top ten bits of sports commentary ever' list.

April 11th 2005

"I miss you"

Imagine getting that sms from a girl (or guy) that you haven't seen in a while and one that you don't really know all that well (someone who's more of an acquaitance than a friend). What would you think? Just a friend? Someone suggesting that they would like to see you soon as a friend or maybe a little more?

I've got a colleague at work - an American guy, the same age as me, likes to drink, is suspected of being a bit of a womaniser and has been told to be less flirtatious with the female students - and he was saying that the only way to getr a guaranteed response to an sms from someone of the opposite sex is to say "I miss you". He says he sometimes does it just for fun when hes a little bored (gives him an afternoon of suggestive and flirty sms-ing).

He was also telling me about how an ex-student of his (one whom he suspected was suffering from 'lonley wife syndrome', as many do here) had sent him an sms after not seeing him for almost a year, saying how much she missed him. He also mentioned a friend of his who had been trying to read between the lines of his very ownb "I miss you" sms from an old friend.

Were they really being missed so much, or was it just another case of inappropriate/bad English? Their conclusion - probably a bit of both, which I think is fair. I said that a lot of time it might be suggestive, but is probably as much to do with the fact that the friendliness of the meaning has been slightly lost (or confused) in translation.

So at midnight last night, when I got an sms from an ex-student of mine that I haven't seen for about 8 months, saying that she had just come back from a long trip and had "missed me all the time" I didn't read too much into it.

Should I respond with a "long time no see" and "good to hear from you sms? I thought that was probably ok.

Then I remembered that this was the girl who, after having been in her first class with me for no more than 5 minutes, told me that she thought that maybe I "wanted" her.

Maybe that was just bad English too. And maybe I should just forget about a reply!

April 11th 2005

Following on my from my list of advice to newbies coming to China, I stumbled across a long list of "You might be in China if....." statements.

Slightly critical of all things China than my attempt at advice, but humorous in parts nevertheless.

See them all here.

April 8th 2005

27 degrees, shorts and T-Shirt today. It's my day off and I've got no intention of spending all of it in front of a computer, so I've put a few new photos on site to keep you amused whilst I am amusing myself somewhere else

Hope you like them. They are all from my recent 4 day trip to WuYi in Zhejiang. Click here to see the rest

April 5th 2005

I just can't take the arguments anymore. They're driving me crazy!

Every morning I wake up and the first thing.....argument! Most of the time I'm not even sure what they're about - probably something really trivial. I'm not sure how much more I can take.

So I.....sorry? What? My girlfriend? Leave her? Why? Ohh!!!No, no, no - not MY arguments! I mean the arguments I hear OUTSIDE my house - not INSIDE!

Every morning I wake up and I can hear, outside, s tyrade of Chinese abuse being hurled at someone. I live 3 floors up, on a failry major street right in the heart of the city and next door to a childrens hospital. And I guess thats where it all stems from.

You can imagine that if a young chlid needs to go to hospital but not in such an emergency so as to deserve an ambulance, the family will probably take a taxi. And then take one home. The real problem starts when they try to catch this taxi home and the Chinese habit of nto queuing rears its ugly head.

There are entire families going toe-to-toe over whose taxi it really is. And when Chinese people argue - they really argue.

There is an old (Chinese) saying that one woman talks as much as 500 ducks. So when there are 8 or 9 of them screaming at each other, I can't understand a word but I can hear a noise something similar to 4000 plus ducks. Its incredible.

Maybe its about time I had a chat with the landlord about getting some double glazing!

April 2nd 2005

I met a guy a couple of weeks ago who was in town to see what life in China was like, in anticipation of a move here in the future. I told him a bit about how I feel living in Shanghai, but I don't think anything I said was all that helpful. Completely out of the blue, I remembered this previous meeting today and got to thinking about what advice I, after nearly 3 years in China, could give to someone before they came here.

So, in no particular order, here is what I would say:

*Look at me! - Learn to be a goldfish in someone elses bowl - people will stare at you all the time. In Shanghai it happens a lot, outside of the major cities you will be more like a monkey in a zoo than a goldfish in a bowl.

*Jonny foreigner - Lao wei means foreigner - and that means YOU! Thats what people say as their finger poits at you

*Hairy moments - If you're not in a major city you will be like in a cage. If you are male and a 'Lao wei' people will think you are a monkey anyway, because all 'Lao wei' men are hairy beasts, apparently.

*Ego smasher number 1 - If people comment on how 'strong' you are, realise they think you're fat.

*You are good - not a God!(Ego smasher number 2) - Even the ugliest foreign, most repulsive and undersexed man will be considered 'handsome' by a huge number of Chinese women - PLEASE DON'T LET IT GO TO YOUR HEAD like too many of my fellow expatriates, who walk around like they own the place.

*Mix with the locals - they are great people. Everyone will have their 'anti-everything-Chinese' days, but there are so many more good days than bad and whats the point of being in China if you're only going to hang out with people from your own country and do exactly what you did at home?

*Eating etiquette - of course chopstick skills are a must but, more importantly, try not to be repulsed by the amount of food whic is spat on to table tops (and sometimes the floor) during a casual dinner.

*Mind your feet - On the subject of spitting, that hacking of the throat sound, followed by an almighty spit and splat on the floor/pavement/anywhere is a daily occurence and is gender non-specific.

*Mind your back - Crossing the road is a nightmare, as traffic rules exist purely for decoration. But thats not the dangerous part - walking on the sidewalk is. I look like a MI6 spy when I walk down the street, as I have perfected the 'out-the-corner-of-my-eye' look to check for stealth bikes, motorcycles, rubbish carts etc. as they wing their way along internationally recognised pedestrian areas.

*Learn to like Mcdonalds, KFC and Pizza Hut - they are all here in abundance and Chinese food in China is nothing like what you get from your local take away at home. 'Real' Chinese food is great, but takes a while to get used to. MCdonalds is crap, but you can eat it straight away.

*Whips and Delights - sorry, no bondage, just talking about food again. Don't eat anything called 'whip', 'delight', 'treasure', 'pearl', 'jewel' etc. as invariably it will mean eating a poor animals penis.

*Meat and veg - if, like me, you're a vegetarian, be very specific that youd don't eat meat. Vegetarianism as a cincept is thoroughly alien here (even to a country so attached to Buddhism). Even once explained, people will offer you chicken ('it's not meat') seafood (cunningly changing its name to 'sea-vegetables') and dishes with pork floss or ground beef (it's only a tiny little meat, so why should it matter?). It's not meant to be rude, but sure is a test of patience.

*Don't be fooled by the bright lights - the entire Chinese population will tell you that China is a developing country, and despite the fact that it will soon be the 3rd biggest economy in the world, it really is really under-developed. Escape the bright lights every now and then and go to the countryside (not just a Shanghai suburb) and see how the rich got richer and the poor styed poor.

*QQ - like MSN messenger, QQ is a way to chat to people all over the place and especially popular in China. Get one and be prepared to give complete strangers on the bus your e-mail address and contact details and get a 'friends' list like you never imagined.

*QQ2 - Queing (as in standing behind one other people waiting for something - e.g. a bus) is, like vegetarianism, an alien concept. If you arrive first, don't be suprised to be served last. If, like me, you feel that it is important to remain polite and dignified wherever you are, expect a long wait and enjoy the elbows of grannies in your ribs.

*As cute as a Chinese baby - Chinese babies really are cute. Except when you learn exactly why every young child has a pair of trousers with a huge hole in their backside - its the cheap alternative to a nappy. I have, in the past, witnessed a 3 year old crapping into drain.

*Cheap country, cheap beer - in the supermarkets yes, in the bars, generally, no. Even in Shanghais cut-throat entertainment scene where |Carlsberg give away free beer to bars to gain a foot in the market, the barman will ask you for 40rmb (about £3.20) a pint.

*Learn to sing - China is music and karaoke (KTV) crazy. Chinese pop music is quite possibly the most horrendous thing I have ever heard, but there is no escape. Unless you like Celine Dion (think that tosh from Titanic), The Carpenters (Yesterday Once More (if I hear it 'once more' I am likely to kill someone)) and any other sentimental, lovey-dovey shite top 40 chart 'classic' you thought had been confined to the local HMV bargain bin. Post 'Neighbours' many an Australian soap 'actor' has failed with a pop career in the UK. After failing in the UK/USA, many a washed up singer will be a big hit in China

*Drunken shrimp - unless you like to see live shrimp have boiling oil poured on top of them at your table and then you like to catch them with chopsticks, as they flip and jump about in agony, before eating them (still live, if you're quick enough!), you won't like this dish.

*What a rip off - outside of a supermarket or large department store, realise that your status as a rich foreigner has earned you the pleasure of being charged 3 times mroe than a local for everything. And remember that whatever brand of whatever you are buying, is fake.

*Take it easy - if you want something done, do it yourself. If you don't, then don't get annoyed when it doesn't get done. Things here are labour intensive (i.e. too many cooks, and all that) and, at best, lethargic. People will tell you to your face that it is getting done now, and then not do anything about it for a week.

*Chinese hospitality is great - if invited to dinner, to a bar or to do anything, don't even try to 'go Dutch' - you won't be allowed. Chinese people will put on a great show for you and make sure everything is as good as it can be, pretty much with no expense spared. Eat as much as you can (you're not supposed to eat everything and with the amount they will buy, you won't be able to) and be prepared for a spot of Karaoke in return.

*Chinese hospitals are scary - You pay before you play here. No cash, no doctor (credit cards will probably not be accepted). After the entrance fee, don't expect the BUPA care you're used to. Hospitals are generally not the nicest places in the world and with a Chinese hospital, anywhere else in the world would probably be nicer.

*Appreciate where you are - don't compare it to life in another place because it isn't. It's life in China. It's a great experience, a great chance, great fun and a truly great place to be.

*When in Rome - of course, live in whatever way makes you feel comforatble, but don't be shy to do what the locals do. Eat in the same places, take a walk, get on a bike,the bus and out of the taxi like most of the penny pinchers in Shanghai do. It might not always be the nicest way, but, again, it all adds up to the experience.

*Be flexible - not just in your daily life, but also physically. If McDonalds is not in sight, but you get a call of nature, you're knees are going to have to bend, bend, bend to get in position above the infamous 'squat' toilets.

*Take tissues - you'll need them all the time....especially after a 'squat-toilet- experience.

OK, OK I'll stop (for now at least). Far too much to read, I know.

Hope they are helpful/humourous/whatever.

Please feel free to add to them or tell me what you think - just click on 'Comment' below.

April 1st 2005

So it's THAT day again - hilarious pranks and side spiltting humour in abundance. No tricks played by me this year, but I hope to have instigated a few by encouraging a classful of students to feed wasabi covered sweets to my teaching colleagues who aren't as fortunate as me to have the day off. I am sure karma will come round a bite me in the butt, but I thought it was worth the effort

I've been a bit of a hermit today, so I haven't seen any evidence of 'Left-handed Whoppers' or 'UFO's landing in Hyde Park' which 'Museumofhoaxes' have put in a list of the top 100 April Fools gags of all time.

On the subject of laughs, I have managed to buy the entire collection of Monty Python episodes (cost about £8.00 for the set) and its been keeping me thoroughly entertained for the past few days. British comedy truly at its best. My favourite 'laugh-out-loud' line so far:/p>

Vet and Pet Owner talking to each other

Pet Owner: We're so worried about him. Have you found out what's wrong with him?

Vet: Well....he's suffering from, what we professionals, haven't got a name for yet!

Not so funny as you read it, I'm sure. But trust me - when you see it, you'll laugh.