Creature Comforts

Day three proved to be no less eventful. I was taken by bus to the school in which I’ll be teaching, which is around 40 minutes away. Lianyungang is a city made up of several smaller cities. I live, along with most of the other westerners I’ve met, in Xinpu (pronounced Shin Poo). The main school is here and the one I’ll be working at is in Xugou (pronounced Shoe Go) which is nearer the coast. I will also be working at a Kindergarten which is around fifteen minutes from my apartment in the other direction. As most of my jobs have been peripatetic I am more than happy with this variety in my working week.

Xinpu on the left and Xugou, near the coast

 

Xinpu is the most Chinese place I have been to. There is little English and I have relied heavily on the help of the people I’ve met for even the most basic needs. It is very much a working city and not a place that a tourist would necessarily visit. There appear to be no museums or galleries, international restaurants, different districts like the Muslim Quarter in Xian or the French Concession in Shanghai and no subway, comprehensive bus system or indeed anything that would draw a casual visitor over any of the other cities. However, as much as it was clearly going to be challenging, it looked like precisely the kind of place I hoped to be and would enjoy living in, and I could not have had a warmer welcome from both the people associated with the school, my neighbours or the ex-pats.

Before visiting the school I was taken to a photo studio which was essentially a room in a nondescript building at the side of the road. In the room was a desk, a pile of logs, a toolbench, a central chimney with a fire and cooking pot, a shelving area full of oil and food and cloth and stuff and crap, a couple of chairs and a photography kit, complete with lights, backdrop and swanky Canon camera. I had my mugshot taken and waited while a man on a moped took away the memory card and returned with some passport style prints. I then went next door with my photos to a clinic where I underwent my medical, which is required to exchange my Visa for a Residents Permit. I went from room to room having eyes, teeth, heart rate etc. checked. I had my blood taken and an ultrasound to check my organs. I also had to take my top clothes off to have an ECG. Throughout all of the cursory examinations I had my new boss, Fish with me to do all of the talking. There is nothing like providing a pee sample and getting your baps out in front of your new boss to break the ice.

Anyway, medical done, food eaten, alcohol shop pointed out for future reference and onto the mobile phone shop to acquire a SIM card. It all looked like any other mobile phone shop apart from the marketing balloons that were written out in marker pen and the twenty five bottles of cooking oil lined up against the wall.

I caught the bus back to Xinpu and went home, starting to feel overwhelmed by everything. A new job is a pretty big deal when it comes alone. A new job, in a new field, in a new city, in a new country, with a new language and a new culture and a new set of people had suddenly boggled my mind. I returned to my apartment feeling like the culture shock had just crept up on me while I wasn’t looking. It’s also the little things that take you by surprise, like this headed notepaper that was on the reception desk at school:

Or seeing all of the pavements covered in snot instead of the chewing gum at home. Or not knowing how to buy simple things like a battery for your torch or thread for a ripped bag. Or suddenly realising you have no idea where you are or how to get to where you’re going as you cannot read anything and you haven’t mastered any more than a dozen words of Mandarin yet, most of which are of more use in a bar than in asking for directions. Or being woken up at 5:30 by a massive BANG that shook the foundations, as an apartment two blocks up from you was blown out by a gas explosion. Or the live tank of toads next to the frozen chicken feet in the supermarket. I attempted to process and digest the enormity of what I’d let myself in for and made a decisive decision to go to sleep.

I got up the next day with a survival plan. I decided that some home comforts were needed to balance out the über Chinese experience that I was having. If I was going to enjoy this, I needed to take the advice of one of the teachers and create some space for simplicity and calm. My apartment was going to be a home from home and my tranquil space away from the craziness, so I went to Walmart, which I’d been told about the previous day, and bought some home comfort essentials: pasta, olive oil, wine, slippers, store cupboard food and various other bits and bobs. With the help of Fish I ordered some good coffee and a coffee pot, some balsamic vinegar and some coconut oil. The internet was being installed so I could listen to Radio 4 and watch Netflix.

 

 

 

 

 In here will be easy. Out there is madness, and whatever comes my way I intend to be ready for it!