Jun 2008

It is amazing as you walk through the streets and you see people young and old doing their washing in a small bucket. They then hang it on hangers up onto trees, over hedges, on gates and anything else that might hold their washing. To us it is quite unusual to see peoples underwear drying on the side of the road for the whole neighborhood to see.

For me though it is a little different. In my bathroom I have the luxury of a washing machine. The washing machine dial is all in Chinese so I have no idea what I'm doing. I just turn it on and let it do it's thing. The washing machine is extremely vicious on your clothes. I wash all my clothes in wash bags now to stop the washing machine from ripping them!

Most apartments have a balcony. The main purpose of the balcony is to dry your laundry. However our apartments do not have balconies. We do have a steel rod which we can hang our washing to dry on. Which of course is quite nice that the whole neighborhood is not peering at what the foreigners wear underneath!

You really need to wash every day though as the washing machine is not that big that you could do a week of washing and then you have the problem of where to hang it. It takes me 3 days to wash my sheets, pillow cases and doonah cover!

My clothes I hang on hangers to dry. My underwear I use a contraption that is round and has pegs hanging off it. Great for space saving!

I was very excited to see I had a western toilet in my apartment. There is one huge problem though - it never flushes. Firstly I need to explain that the toilet doesn't have water in the bowl like ours do. But when you flush there is water. Obviously this is not enough pressure to flush the toilet.

Successful flushing comes from a plastic bucket! Fill it up and put it down the toilet bowl. Works every time!

I have become obsessed with toilets. I try not to go unless I'm at home. The other occasion I go to a toilet is when I eat in a nice restaurant. Of course, I have to check out the toilets. The Ramada has the most beautiful bathrooms with western toilets. Other restaurants have squats but clean squats. Knowing this I am still keen to visit.

Recently I was at school and had drunk too much water for my bladder. In order to make it home safely without any embarrassing situations, given the bus drivers do not know the purpose of speed bumps, I had no other option but to use the toilets on the new campus. Much to my surprise although they were squats they were clean.

I will store this in the back of my mind for any other future requirements but not make a habit of it. I know later in life I will curse my time in China or any other Asian country for the state of my bladder!

It is so difficult to keep things clean. OK I am a clean freak I know that, but I'm not overly keen on dusting. The house cleaner did that!

The dust here though it gets into everything I need to dust every couple of days. All I seem to do is make mud. The others think I am obsessed by cleaning!

Having a clean environment is important to me. I don't like living in a dirty apartment or working in a dirty classroom. There are no paid cleaners for the classrooms. Tthe students have their own roster to clean after each class. It's not so bad at the new campus, but almost unbearable at the old campus.

At the new campus all classrooms have water coolers. The students poor the water out of their water bottles directly on the floor. One day someone is going to slip and hurt themselves.

The students tend to eat and drink in class as well. They just throw their food scraps on the floor. This is common all over China. They also spit on the floor! Sometimes you need to watch where you stand.

Saying this though the Chinese always seem to be cleaning. They sweep and mop time and time again, however some things just never get cleaned.

The pollution is really visible some days. The new campus there is no carpet but lots of tiles. Whilst the students look after the classrooms there are cleaners who are continually mopping the corridors, cleaning the windows, cleaning the window runner but all that seems to happen is the movement of dust.

When they mop there are no buckets. They simply put some water on the floor and move the mop over it. The mops are made of fabric, so I'm unsure what value there is in moving the mop back and forth along the tiles.

Every day I take my rubbish downstairs and put it in the bin.

Today I did just this, however when I came back from the gym I saw the 'girls' going through my rubbish. Astonished by this I asked them what where they doing. They speak about the same amount of English as I do Chinese. Another foreign teacher came out to find out what all the commotion was. I explained that they were going through my rubbish and I wanted to know why.

This foreigner told me that they were supplementing their income. They actually go through your rubbish and collect things to recycle. They were quite amazed by my curiosity and couldn't believe that we didn't do the same in Australia.

I somehow tried to explain to them that we did recycle, but it is collected once a week by the council. The council takes it to a recycling station where it is sorted.

I then further explained to them that I would sort my recycling and put it in the store room for them. Saving them from a filthy job of having to go through my rubbish. I also told them that I would ask the other foreigners to do the same. I hope other are of the same opinion as me, ie that the 'girls' should not have to do something that is so degrading just to make an income.

It is not uncommon to see people on a bicycle with a tray attached with a huge load containing plastic bottles or cardboard. The load in most instances is that high we would be booked in Australia for overloading. I have no idea where they take the loads and can now only assume they get paid for it.

You really need to experience the traffic to believe it. Today I walked to the gym which is a 20 minute walk. After the gym I went to the supermarket and because I had cold stuff I caught a taxi home.

Taxi's are very easy to find and catch. You simply walk out onto the main road and look for a taxi with a red light on the windscreen and stick your hand out.

In the taxi I get with a friendly, "Ni hao" and tell the driver where I want to go in Chinese. After 4 attempts I hand over the school business card. He repeats exactly what I said. Well I thought it sounded the same anyway.

I have caught many a taxi in China. Today's driver I think would have been in his early 20's and started talking Chinese to me and I start talking back to him in English. I think this made him nervous. A foreigner in the front seat speaking English.

He took me on the fast route home! Beeping his horn as we swerved in and out of cars, buses, pedestrians, cyclists, donkeys you name it is was on the road. We get to this roundabout that I don't particular like at any time as you have all forms of transport coming at you from all different directions and he decides to take on a bus. I hold my breath and close my eyes!

OK so the bus didn't hit us, however as we got to the middle of the roundabout there were 4 men on a Sunday stroll. I thought we were going to take them out. Fortunately they are still alive and unaware of my heart palpation's!

We are now on the main stretch home and he drove like a maniac onto the wrong side of the road over the double lines with his hand on the horn into oncoming traffic. As we approached the school he swung across two lanes of traffic in to the school gate.

I wasn't sure if my legs were shaking from the ride or whether it was lactic acid build up from the gym. I walked up to my apartment and had a lie down. Thinking to myself I was lucky to be alive!

But after all this is China!