I’m sorry for my lack of blog
posts lately!
So, the Spring festival finally came
to an end! The fireworks calmed down after about a month and all the stores,
bars and restaurants finally opened again!
Since my last post, a bouncy ball
craze arrived amongst the kids of Zhengzhou ,
the weather has become much hotter and I finally feel a bit more at home here
in this city!
Just when I was ready to be social again, I got ill and I
was unwell for two weeks. I continued to go to my classes so that’s probably
why I was ill for so long, I didn’t give myself time to recover properly!
As soon as I was better I realised I hadn’t had much of a
social life so I decided to do something about that! So I have been exploring
ZZ more and meeting new people all the time, foreigners and Chinese alike. I
have been to many restaurants and been out to the Western bars a lot more
recently. Old lady Becca is no more! (I got called that by a few friends here
because I had the habit of changing into my pyjamas as soon as I was back at my
flat after teaching and then refused to go out). I find that I am enjoying the
teaching even more now because I have things to look forward to after I finish
work!
Seeing my family in four weeks is something I’m really
looking forward to!! They are coming to visit me and I will finally get to see
other parts of China
that I’m sure are much more beautiful than ZZ! I haven’t done any travelling
yet and I really can’t wait to have a look around China ! Zhengzhou
is under so much reconstruction and in comparison to Bologna , (the Italian city I lived in two
years ago), it’s not a pretty city at all!
In the past couple of weeks I have been to Chinese
restaurants with Chinese people, I have been to the famous Hot Pot (finally), a
Korean restaurant and a Muslim restaurant in the Muslim district of the city
that I didn’t know existed! (I thought China was a complete non religious
country but it seems there are Muslims and Christians here and there). Some
food I encountered when eating with the Chinese was Chicken feet and turtle.
I’m afraid I didn’t try either of them!
Turtle anyone?....
In recent weeks, China
has been in the news more than usual due to the knife attacks in a train
station in southern China
and for the missing plane that flew from Malaysia
and was due to land in Beijing .
There were six people on the plane from the Henan province. They were three young
couples. Very sad!
I have been very sociable in recent weeks! Many people have
asked why they haven’t seen me before despite the fact that I have been here
four months now! When I have introduced my self, people have replied saying,
‘ah, so you’re Rebecca! It’s nice to finally meet you.’ So people haven’t been
talking about me at all! Haha! The foreign community in this city is fairly
small so I imagine people get to know people or hear of people pretty quickly! A
group of students have recently arrived from Edinburgh and even they are meeting people
for the first time the same time as me and I have been here longer! They have
even seen far more locations in China
than I have!
That will change in four weeks! I can’t wait!!
Teaching is still going well. Some of the children are so
cheeky! I had one group of 12 year old boys chat away to each other and I
didn’t need to understand what they were saying because their eyes were giving
it away. Their eyes were staring at my boobs! (Bearing in mind I was wearing a
woolly jumper and my bust is quite small). I also finally met a student with
the same name as me! When I said to the class that my name was Rebecca, they
shouted out in surprise and pointed at the other girl called Rebecca. She was
my best friend for the rest of the lesson! The kids often don’t use their
common sense (if they have any) and sometimes guess what my instructions are.
They then end up playing a game that makes no sense and I have no idea what
they are doing!
The buses are still driving me crazy and I’m still stared at
all the time, but I am finally feeling a bit more relaxed here and making a
life for myself here that involves more than just work!
Here is an example of how busy it can be in this city...
My friend took the picture near where she lives. This is the result of lots of construction near her apartment!
That’s all for now! I promise I will write more frequent
from now on! It has been a very busy few weeks!
