Summer time in Zhengzhou

After coming back to Zhengzhou from my travels, I experienced the holiday blues for a good week or two. Returning to the dust, dirt and pollution of this city after the beautiful sun, sea and sand of Thailand was very difficult.

Most of the foreigners left Zhengzhou for the summer, either to return to their home for a quick break, to go travelling or to leave the city for good and move on to the next chapter in their lives. In my contract it says that I could not have any time off during the summer holidays because it would be the busiest time for the school. Every time I told my foreign friends that I was staying here for the summer, they would either laugh and wish me good luck or say that it will be hard and quiet for me.

But I survived! J

Despite some final goodbyes to good friends, I wasn’t completely alone because I still had a few friends who stayed behind!

Here are some funny events that have happened to me and friends during my summer in Zhengzhou…

I was brave and decided to buy a bike from an American girl who was leaving ZZ for good. I bought it for 300RMB (just under £30). As soon as I bought it, I realised I must be crazy. As I have mentioned before, driving, cycling and even walking can be dangerous because there are basically no rules here. Still, the traffic has been getting worse and worse, the buses more unreliable and the taxis are still…well…unpredictable. I am glad to say that I am still alive after using it. I used it a lot for about five weeks but then it got far too hot to ride and now it is too wet to ride. (It’s rained a lot over the past two weeks. The drainage system in the city isn’t very good so all the roads are flooded!) I currently don’t know if I still have my bike…I haven’t checked to see if it’s ok for a long time. Like many cities, bikes are stolen all the time…I should really check to see if I still have it…

Me and a friend of mine were riding our bikes to a bar one evening and cycled past a man on his bike with his ipad resting on a jacket in his basket. He was watching a Chinese TV episode while cycling. We almost fell off our bikes laughing. This is an example of one of a million things that I would never see at home in the UK.

An American girl I know had me laughing when she said that she had been on a new bus and realised that chunks of pineapple had been attached to walls inside the bus. When she asked what was going on, people replied that the smell of a new bus was not very nice. This is an example of how dirty things and places are here! People aren’t used to the smell of ‘new’ things and prefer smelly, old and rotting things!!

There is often a strange smell near where I live and I was walking recently with another friend when I asked her if she had noticed it. I thought that it reminded me of a farm. She laughed and replied that it was the smell of tofu being cooked from the street stalls. Good thing I haven’t tried them! I hope they don’t taste like they smell!

I had a naughty teenage class for a month during July. They were at that awkward age where they didn’t care much about anything. This was the naughtiest class I’ve had here! I shouted at them many times and had to ask them to leave many times (although they never did). The boys in the class would always ask racist questions (that I can’t write here for obvious reasons). Therefore, I had to tell them off for being racist as well as naughty! The boys would always buy so many packaged chicken feet and eat them during break time in my class. They told me how they could buy one chicken foot for 1RMB (about 10p). Probably the grossest things a person could eat?

 Many of us went to a restaurant for a friend’s leaving do. I had eaten at this restaurant before and liked it very much, However, I got food poisoning from there and spent a week not being able to eat or drink anything. It was horrible!! My friend had broken her foot (by dropping a heavy table on it during class) and went to the doctor’s surgery across the road from our living area with me. The place was strangely empty but despite the empty rooms that I could see, the doctor chose to examine me in the entrance hallway. Inevitably a small crowd had gathered to watch and listen to the foreigners! The doctor asked if I would like to get better with pills or an injection. I went for the pills of course!! My friend went to have her bandage changed and while I waited in reception, I saw a boy of about four years old have a gigantic needle put up his bum.

I spent a week at a horse riding school teaching English at the beginning of August. The place was very posh and had horses who had won competitions during the Beijing Olympics there! Very impressive! I was basically the children’s babysitter for a week. It was so strange being in the countryside and seeing green. However it was strange to still see the towering buildings and building work not far away. It was annoying hearing the never ending noises of construction all the time.

                                                (If it rains in China, use a giant leaf!)

                                               (mmmmm...Chicken head and feet....yummy!)

    (Not the most appetising thing to see in your bowl I have to admit).

Babies and young children still waddle around in public with bare bottoms. I don’t think I will ever get used to seeing half naked children everywhere! A friend and I were discussing how we would like to go around giving nappies to the babies of China. Saying that though, if the babies of China did wear nappies, I’m pretty sure China would become a wasteland of nappies very soon because of the amount of people in the country!

Coming from a country that fines people for dropping litter in public, seeing people casually drop rubbish on the floor is always something odd to see. I don’t know if it’s because people have become lazy since every street has street sweepers who clean up dust and rubbish with long wooden brushes? It can also be annoying during classes, having to repeatedly ask children to put their rubbish in the bin and not leave it on the floor!

I think these are enough summer stories for now…

I will tell you about some more soon…