hughmacdougall.com

One more speech was given by the head of the Foreign Affairs Bureau and the entertainment began. The main performers were a group of dancer/acrobat/singer/lip-synchers(?) who performed

Using the instructions Bob gave me in Chinese I took a taxi to

The next day I set out to find my way to a Foreign Language Bookshop Bob mentioned. The first task was to get out of the University grounds. It really is huge. I found one exit which was padlocked and retraced my steps a bit then started asking the way out. I approached a couple and the girl, Lily, a journalism student who spoke English, said they would walk with me. She then told me which bus went to the bookshop and even came onto the bus to instruct the driver where to put me off. Lily also gave me the number of a bus which goes from the University to the station I arrived at on the far side of the city. The bookshop was not easy to find even then, being a fair way from the bus stop, and my search was delayed by the irresistible pull of a place called “Coffee Language” where I had a Cappuccino which proved to be a Café au Crème, but who’s complaining? I managed to find an English/Pinyin Dictionary but none of the novels I hoped to buy and no learning tapes. 

In the evening I took a taxi to “The Blue Sky” which is one of the favourite hang-outs of expats in

The next day I left the University in the morning to catch the train back to Xiangfan. All rail tickets in

I went back to the restaurant. After a while I began to feel bored and had just sent up a plea for company when I looked up to see a young man walking towards me. I actually thought this was a High School student. Zhang is a 28 year old PhD student in

The lack of internet access led to another nice experience. My agent, Bob, e-mailed me some directions in Chinese so I could present them to taxi drivers in

The shop was actually a computer sales shop, I discovered later, but when I said “Internet?” one of the staff got up from the computer he was using and I was ushered into his place. I accessed the mail I needed to copy and asked if it could be printed. My friend the manageress understood and told the staff of the shop what I wanted. One of them appeared with a miniature USB memory device, copied the two documents, and went off to print them. The lady, whose name I don’t know, sat with me and began trying to decipher the letter I was reading! Privacy is not strictly observed in

I have not commented before on how beautifully some Chinese women dress. There are many gorgeous clothes for sale and women with the means to do so take full advantage of this. The prices may seem cheap to us by currency conversion arithmetic but I think some women save hard to buy what they want. If some of these clothes were sold on the Australian market they would fetch a small fortune. My ‘friend’ from the restaurant was wearing a wonderful deep purple jacket in a velvet-like finish with subtly imprinted roses around its skirt. Her trousers were a tone different and probably not made to go with the jacket but matched perfectly. I would guess that she saved hard to buy such beautiful clothes. (Later I was to find out exactly what that jacket cost. There was no way she could ever have afforded it but the person who gave it to her was wealthy.) 

It is very hard for me to tell the age of a Chinese woman. If they are under thirty they often look to me as if they are in their late teens. 

I went to another restaurant. When I walked in everyone became really excited. The supervisor and another woman sent out an urgent calls on the mobile phone. A woman came rushing in first and joined in everybody’s attempts to find out what I wanted to eat. Then the first woman’s son came rushing in to help. He was in High School, sort of, and his English wasn’t bad at all. He wanted to keep up the acquaintance and is another person who has offered to help me any time. He was aiming to go to

I played with ideas about making some extra money but never got them off the ground. One idea was to buy Chinese artworks and sell them through E-bay. Wycliffe, another Aussie, just had some luck in that area because the parents of one of his students own an art shop and gave him a painting by a recognized artist. 

After my classes one day I went out shopping with a first-year teacher, Ruth. We first bought the simcard I have mentioned then went to the old city where I wanted to go back to the shop with the stone carvings to find out more about them. The shopkeeper, who is also the craftsman who made many of the goods in his shop, and Rose, were surprised at my ability to recognize Bhuddha and Kuan Yin figures (KY the goddess who hears people’s cries, or goddess of mercy) and that I knew at least a little about Zhuge Liang, an intellectual who was recruited by a ruler to be a General during the Three Kingdoms Period. There is a vast historical novel about this period in

We looked at other art and craft shops and returned to a market near the school where I bought a string of Christmas flags and two “Chinese Knot” good luck decorations which I will hang outside my room a day or two before Christmas. I’ll wear a Santa hat to class on Christmas Day for fun. 

The others went bowling and I walked back to the school. I wanted to rest for my Sunday excursion and have tired of the heavy drinking of some of my companions. They are happy in their cups but it is not my scene. I am determined to widen my circle of friends and acquaintances. 

I am experimenting with listening to Chinese music. There are a lot of bad Western crossovers around but there are plenty of CDs of traditional instruments in traditional arrangements. I think I am not too far off the mark in calling this Chinese classical music. It is not homespun folk. This is very beautiful music and we ought to hear more of it in the Anglo world.…….Today I went to a large arcade of shops selling electrical and electronic goods. Two shops have a large selection of DVDs. I went into one of the smaller shops that sell DVD players and the person who came over to help me was the wife of the shop’s owner, and an English teacher. She wants to keep in touch and ask my advice on problems which arise in her understanding of English. 

I tried to get a cab to the old city but they must have very defined territories as he looked bewildered by my request and eventually pulled over and ushered me to a bus stop where he pointed at a sign. I didn’t understand his gestures so gave up and just walked around the inner city area. This time I ventured into People’s Park, the central park and square of the city. Many people were strolling around, including a lot of parents and their brightly clad toddlers. There are three or four different children’s play attractions on the park, a thing like a “bouncy castle”, dodgems where they probably train for driving in Chinese traffic, and other things. A number of parents and children were using cloth whips to spin tops, something I haven’t seen in the Western world since my childhood.As I often do, I am writing this in an eating place. It has the surprising name of “The NIEC Joss Stick Becomes the Steak House”. It is next to the park and advertises a variety of cuisines including Western, and the magic word ‘coffee’ enticed me in. I am seated overlooking the park. I expected the prices to be high but they are good. I had a ‘steak’ (tenderised till it resembles a rissole) and egg, two rolls, soup, coffee, a thimble of something like Port, and a glass of sweet flavoured tea for under $6.00AU.