Sent: Feb. 7 2008
Hello all,
It is New Years Day in China so I get to say this again: Xin Nian Kuai
Le
The Best Laid Plans…
We have become minor victims of the crazy winter weather that Southern
China has been hit with. Bad weather closed the Nanchang airport on
Friday and our flight was eventually cancelled. Absolutely no flights
were available to rebook on (until after Spring Festival) so we ended up
going back home to Wuxi. My David has already written about it on his
website (www.themaninchina.com).
First Class Wait
If we had to wait for hours in an airport though there are certainly
worse places to spend them than in the 1st class lounge. What a day, up
at 4am, on the road to the bus station just after 5am. 3 hours on a bus
to the Shanghai Hong Qiao airport, 5 hours in the above mentioned
lounge, another hour waiting for our luggage to be retrieved once the
flight was officially cancelled, another hour sorting out how to get our
tickets refunded (we've got the airline stamps, now we just have to take
them to the ticket office (in Wuxi) that issued them to us to get our
money back), then another 3 hours on a bus back to Wuxi and then a taxi
back home.
Daytripping
So our holiday turned into a daytrip to the airport. Life's like that
sometimes. We are disappointed at not getting to be with a Chinese
family for Spring Fest and not getting to meet our friend Jenny's
family. We are also disappointed that Yang Juanjuan, our dogsitter, is
not going to get the vacation with our GouGou and DVD player that she
was looking forward to. On the plus side, we are probably warmer here
than we would be in Ji'an, at least for now.
Snow Play
I took GouGou out for a run in the snow Saturday (Feb 2) and we had a
ball. The campus has very little traffic on it due to the sparse holiday
population and the half a foot of snow everywhere so I let her run loose
most of the way there and back. "There", my destination, being a
peninsula area on campus that has just one ten foot wide link to other
land and so is an ideal 'let the dog run loose' spot. GouGou got quite
the workout as much of the snow, especially on the peninsula, was up to
her chest. It was great watching her tear around in it. I got a bit of a
workout too, especially slogging through the snowed in streets to keep
GouGou away from even minimal traffic. And I got a chance to field test
the new winter boots I bought (in anticipation of the now aborted trip
to Jiangxi). I am very happy with them. My feet stayed dry and toasty
warm! There is a rub on one part of my right ankle though. I am hoping
that as the boots adjust to my feet that this rubbing goes away.
Home Plans
So here we are in Wuxi for the holiday week. More self-study in Chinese.
We are noticing improvements in our ability to communicate and are
heartened by these. Slowly, we are getting better.
Interesting News
In the interesting news department, I now have a picture being used on a
UN website (http://www.unisdr.org/). They just put it up today (Feb 7).
Somehow they found my flickr pic and asked if they could use it.
Interesting Times
We are having 'interesting' times to, though not in the life threatening
ways that many have during the winter storms here in China. On Monday
morning (Feb 4) our electricity ran out. The building people here put
100 more whatevers (probably kwh) on our meter and said it should last 3
or 4 days. Well after a couple of days of severe restricted power usage
in our place (we holed up in David's office to work so we were only
heating one room and didn't heat the rest of the place at all) we were
down to 50 whatevers and weren't sure what was going to happen when it
ran out which looked like it would be right at the height of the
holiday.
My Kingdom for a Horse
So we went back to the gate house and asked, pushed, cajoled etc. in
broken Chinese to their broken English. Initially they said they had
already broken the rules to give us 100 and couldn't afford to do more.
Then they said 100 more could be added but that would have to last til
the end of the holiday (still a couple of weeks away). It ended off with
them saying that they couldn't put any more power on right now as that
would overwrite the 50 in there now, but that when it runs out (no
matter when that happens, even if it is 3am) we can call (they gave us a
number) and they will get the workman out right away to add more power.
So we are choosing to believe that they were being truthful and not just
saying whatever they needed to to get the foreigners to go away.
Playing Telephone
It is all a bit of a challenge because of language differences, cultural
differences and even business practice differences. We do not know the
rules so it is hard to figure out and suggest ways around them. Normally
we just call one of our contacts at the International office and they
take care of whatever accommodations problem has come up. But we have
not been able to reach any of these contacts by either phone or email,
so we are on our own as far as working our these issues (though our
Chinese teacher has been helping with some translation work – we call
him and explain what we want to know, pass the phone to the person we
are talking to. They talk for much longer than we think Canadians would
in a similar situation. The phone gets passed back to us. We talk to
William and get a glimmer of information. We ask for clarification, or
we give clarification, and the phone gets passed again. It takes time
and patience and still ends up with much gray space information-wise,
though a more translucent gray).
Taking Them at Their Word
So last night we heated our place. We made jiaozi (as is traditional at
Spring Festival – Chinese New Years) and we watched some of the
Televised New Years Eve gala (also a tradition in many Chinese
households. David set off fireworks he had bought (I don't like to
handle things that explode), adding our bit to the cacophony that scares
the evil spirits (and our sweet dog). And we received and sent many New
Years greetings to friends and students. We even went for an evening
walk. It was a very pleasant and relaxed evening.
Happy Happy
So here it is on New Years day. We had 20 whatevers left as of 4 hours
ago. And we don't yet know if we will get more when it runs out, having
not tested the assurances we have been given. The story will have and
end eventually, but we are not there yet. I am expecting our power to
cut out at any time, so this may not get out before then.
Plans B and Z
There are backup plans though. There are also hotels. The more expensive
ones even heat their rooms. (We are south of the Yangtze River so there
is no central heating.) If we get really desperate we can always change
our return tickets and flee back to Winnipeg where it may not be warm
outside, but I know that my house is heated.
Reflections on Cold
When I am cold I fee like I am just surviving, but not really living. It
is hard to focus on learning Chinese or other things I want to do with
my time when half of my brain is trying to figure out how to get me
warmer. It is one of the big challenges of dealing with energy usage as
it relates to climate change. When I am cold NOW I don't really care
what heating my place now might do ten or twenty or a hundred years in
the future, I just want to be warm now. It is a quandary.
Keep warm (at least one of us should be warm :~))
Hugs,
RuthFor anyone who wants to send snail mail, I am told my address here is:
My mailing address here is:
Ruth Anderson
Rm. 202, No. 4, Teacher's Apartment
Lihu Campus, Southern Yangtze University
1800 Lihu Road, Wuxi, Jiangsu
China 214122
And yet another reminder that I have photos on the web. You can see them
at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/canadiandragon/
I love comments, so don’t be shy.
Ruth's China Report January/2007
Ruth's China Report April/2007
Ruth's China Report June/2007
Ruth's China Report July/2007
Ruth's China Report September/2007
Ruth's China Report November/2007
Ruth's China Report January/2008
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