17. Teaching in China
My Spring Festival holiday has begun. I took an overnight train from Xiangfan to
Xi’an, the home of the entombed warriors. A friend helped me obtain a last minute ticket by taking me into the presence of the Manageress of the station and asking her to give official permission for me to buy a ticket. As it is the season when all Chinese want to be with their parents the trains were full. Sometimes it’s nice to be treated as a cross between a celebrity and a kindergarten kid! The sale will be written up in the Railway Magazine as an example of good relations with foreign experts. My journey was enjoyable. I took the best class, soft sleeper, which has six bunks to a section and reasonable mattresses. My inflatable neck pillow was a boon. My companions were friendly and I spoke a lot with a Senior English student and later met another English teacher. It began to snow as I approached the station. This was my first snow since 1980 so I was very happy! I have so many pleasant memories of snow in my childhood in
Scotland. In the morning I woke up on a train moving through a white countryside. Many Australians have never seen snow and would not understand how beautiful that can be. As it was, this was not a full snowfall so the coating was light but at least I caught a glimpse of what I have missed so much for many years.
I was met at the station by a friendly guy from Xian Shuyuan Youth Hostel which saved me from having to choose between the numerous people touting accommodation. We went by bus to the Youth Hostel. The Hostel is next to the
South Gate of the old wall which still surrounds the inner city area. The wall is fourteen kilometres long. Shuyuan Hostel is a member of the Youth Hostels Association. It is housed in an old Chinese residence with two inner courtyards and many rooms. There is an internet room and a travel agency office next to the front reception area and at the back there is a dining room and bar where meals, most of which are Western meals, can be bought. It seemed to me that the cost was reasonable for the standard of accommodation provided. There was one glitch in the advertising where “meals provided” turned out to mean “meals available (for purchase)” but that’s ok. My room had four bunks and a locker and was heated by a radiant heater. The building seemed to retain heat well so cold was not a problem as long as I didn’t sit around with light clothing on. The bed was hard by Australian standards and could be a problem for people with back problems. This is standard in
China, however. There was a pot-bellied stove in the dining/recreation room which kept that really pleasant. This time I was unable to avoid using a Chinese toilet but that wasn’t such a bad experience. I would have liked it to be cleaned a little more often though. Some people have a bad aim!
My train had arrived at ten thirty so after a rest and lunch I set out touristing. The Hostel is close to buses and within easy walking distance of some of the central city tourist attractions. I passed along a street full of art shops and street sellers of art. I was amazed by the size of some of the paint brushes on sale, from very fine to about six feet long with a tip eight inches wide! The only shop I went into was a shop selling local art. Some of this surprised me and attracted me into the shop. As I found with the stoneworker in Xiangfan the proprietor and salesperson was the artist himself. The bonus this time was that Zhao Jianlong spoke English. The first works that attracted me were paintings in a naïve style. These are known as farmer’s paintings as they are traditionally painted by members of local farming communities. Mr. Zhao also produces traditional cut-outs, complex scissor work on bright paper. Traditionally, they are stuck on windows at Spring Festival time. They can be geometric but more often depict scenes from traditional stories. They range from scrapbook size to wall panel size and are always very detailed. He has won many awards for his work and if they were not so delicate I would have bought one.
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, June 27th, 2007 at 12:30 am and is filed under Teaching in China, Uncategorized.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.