It’s always fucking chaos. They never listen to the announcements, they just go up when they want. It’s an absolute rabble. The first stage is to get on the bus and it’s always a shit fight getting off and on to the plane. But this is China. I act like a local when they start this kind of behaviour much to their surprise. I enjoy the looks I get and the expressions on their faces. It’s amazing how a carefully placed suitcase can stop them in their tracks.
Getting on the plane and finding your seat always seems so difficult for them and I’m not sure why this is because all they have to do is look for a number and a letter, it’s not like they have to learn fuckin’ English before flying. But as long as they have red wine I’ll be OK because to make matters worse I have a couple of nasally Australians behind me. Do the gods hate me, is this karma because I killed a few mosquitos this week?
I’ve sat at gate 16 for 2 hours and watching a video, drinking coffee and taking it easy. 30 mins before the gate opens I decide I will walk the short distance and find a comfy seat as me arse is getting a little sore. On arrival I discover the gate number has changed to 211. Thankfully I have plenty of time to get to the other gate but if I hadn’t checked when I did I could have been up shit creek without a paddle 😆
I was packing my case this morning when I got the news that my friend Ivor had passed away in his sleep last night, so sad but also relieved to hear that he is no longer suffering. I think he left this world for the next while sleeping which is not a bad way to go.
I was lucky to have a video call with him a week ago and he told me then that he was fed up hanging around the hospital because he could feel his body slowly shutting down. I asked him at the time if he could hang on till I arrived in just over a week and he said he would try but could not guarantee anything.
A few days after this call Shirley sent me a picture of Ivor and I was shocked to see the difference in him. The cancer was gaining momentum and it was getting the better of Ivor. The spark of life I had seen the week before was almost out and so when I got the message this morning I was not surprised.
Ivor will be laid to rest on Tuesday but I’m not sure of the details but I’m glad that I will be able to pay my respects to him and say goodbye.
Just now I’m sitting in Pudong Airport in Shanghai and my flight leaves in about 2 hours. This trip is for my visa run as I have spent another 3 months in China which is hard to believe. I decided to return to Australia to check up on my house and see some friends and just escape the chaos that is China. But I will return in a few weeks and I look forward to my next 3 months in China.
But for the moment I have to sit for 10 hours on a plane to Brisbane, I just hope there is some red wine I can sup on to help me sleep.
Didi is the Chinese version of Uber. Well in fact Uber were bought out by them last year. I finally used it the other day. I was running late for an appointment and so I took the plunge. Now I’ve never used any type of app like this before to order a taxi but how hard can it be? Well in China there is an extra challenge, the app is in Chinese, no English so there lies the challenge.
I have the address I’m going to saved on my phone so that’s easy enough because all I have to do is copy and paste it into the correct field. First step done and then I proceed to the payment area. Step 2 completed and then that’s me, ready to have my first Didi taxi. Now on the screen it should tell me the registration number and colour of the car but I can’t find it. Panic is setting in and I’m thinking of cancelling the whole thing and just be late for my meeting.
Then the worst thing happens, the phone rings…………Fuck Fuck. The driver is going to ask me where I am, what do I say, will he understand me, will I understand him Fuck Fuck.
A few words pass between us and I explain that I am a stupid foreigner and I’m next to the metro station, he can’t miss me and then he hangs up. Now all this time I am being watched it seems by a young lady and she comes up to me and asks me if I am ok and I tell her I am waiting for a taxi but not sure what’s happening because my Chinese is not good enough. She looks at my phone and scans the street and then points to a red car crawling along the road………this is my car woo hoo. I thank her and then go to my taxi. The driver and I exchange a few words and I tell him this is my first time I have used Didi. He smiles and seems friendly enough. I can relax and enjoy the ride. Better still his driving is actually quite good.
Now Didi was very convenient and quite cheap but it was a very stressful process, why? because I can’t read Chinese well and can’t speak it very well but I am chuffed that I have the skills to stumble my way through. Obviously the driver understood me on the phone so that was a bonus. Hopefully next time will be a little easier.
Now I like to wear my walking boots whether it’s hot or cold because they are very comfy. The weather is becoming warmer and I will still wear them for several reasons. They are light and comfortable, they protect my feet from the many uneven roads. I twisted my ankle a year ago and I still like to protect it. But the sun is strong when it comes out and I like to protect my feet. Anyway where am I going with this, well let me tell you.
I see many people staring at them when I’m out and about and I’m never too sure whether they want them or they think I’m a fucking nutter, possibly the latter I would think. Sometimes it’s a sly look from the corner of their eye if I’m on the Metro. Walking along the street they glance quickly as we pass each other. But then sometimes I know it’s just shoe envy😆
It’s raining cats and dogs, it’s pissin doon, the rain is stoatin aff the flair and so I decide to go and get some culture and there is no better place than the Suzhou True Colour Museum on a wet and driech day like today. Now if you decide to do a Google on this you will have to use the American spelling “color” Yes their language permeates every part of the globe reducing the IQ levels of all that have the misfortune of coming across it. The Chinese of course like it because it’s easier to understand, but when they want to understand English properly they will call on the services of a qualified native speaker such as myself. Now what I find amusing is that I have more trouble being understood in Australia than I do in China and that‘s when I’m speaking English of course.
The True Colour Museum is tucked away off the beaten track in Suzhou, but it’s not too hard to find. It seems to be in the middle of an industrial area and of course when you get inside of it becomes apparent why they have picked such a location. The rooms are vast and there are many. But the strange thing is that you don’t feel dwarfed in any way and the art is so large that everything looks to be in perspective.
At one time this old building might have been filled with noise and machines, but today it’s filled with some wonderful art. I’ve never been one to analyse art or start to pretend I know what the artist was thinking or what the underlying metaphor was in his last piece, no I just enjoy it or loathe it on its presence in the here and now.
And I thought that the art here on show was very good. We had one room that seemed to be dedicated to Tea. We had Tea Pots and plenty of tables set up for what looked like a tea ceremony.
Both Tea Pots are valued at 23,000 RMB
Now this is where it can be difficult of course. I can’t read Chinese and so maybe I miss out a little by not understanding the explanations, but another way to look at it is that I have the freedom to make up my own mind rather than having it polluted by some arty farty guru.
I went up to the second floor and for me this is where it got a lot more interesting. There are many bold pieces of art; there are many large pieces of art, but then again when you look at them you could be easily fooled into thinking that you could take one home and hang it on your wall and then you realise that you don’t have a wall big enough, or maybe I could hang it on the outside of the house. Or maybe my house is not big enough. These large rooms accommodate this art really well and the scale of the room and the art seems to be in sync.
One of the young folk working took the opportunity to chat with me, I guess just to get away from looking at her phone for a while. It must be a terrible place to work. To go in to work in the morning with the prospect of counting the hours till you finish, how dreadful. So along came me and she told me that the featured artist on this floor likes cats and travel and this kind of strange art. It does look quite different and it’s very pleasing to look at. I have no idea where artists find their inspiration but every now and again you can connect with what they are trying to say, although you don’t know what they are trying to say ‘cause you are just normal and not an arty farty person. I cannot remember the artist name but I think if you see his work somewhere else you would recognise it.
Maybe the weather kept many people away from here today or maybe it’s because it’s a Tuesday. You have to be careful about Tuesday’s, just ask Baldrick.
I saw four other visitors today and a few staff wandering around this vast interior and it was wonderful because I think having the place almost to myself made the experience that much better. It was my private viewing; I could wander around in complete silence and appreciate what was on offer. Although, there was one pesky mosquito that wanted to take a chunk out of my leg when I was trying to take a few pictures. I felt this thing stick its huge fangs into me, I went in for the kill and in a blink of an eye I missed it and smacked my own leg quite hard, much to the amusement of the mosquito no doubt.
So all in all I think that a few hours wandering about here was very enjoyable and it was great to escape the chaos of life for a few hours, oh and the rain 🙂
Almost every day, if I’m home that is. the smell of chilly wafts into my room, although at different time of the day. Now I like chilly and can take a fair bit of it but whoever the culprit is that is to blame for this slight inconvenience must have a cast iron gut and an arse that must be lined with asbestos.
My breathing just comes to a halt when I get a whiff of it, it is overpowering. My eyes begin to water, I begin to cough and it just stops you in your tracks. There is a restaurant downstairs but I’m on the 11th floor and so I know it’s not them. But this morning, at 7.30 am just after the birds got up, because it’s raining again and they were having a long lie, the smell of chilly being cooked came flooding through my window and it hovered in my room and would just not leave. There is not a lot of wind today and so it got trapped in my room. I went outside onto the balcony but it was no better there. Death by chilly is not a good way to go.
I was told yesterday that Suzhou has a wet season. The humidity has been really high in the last week and so the mosquitoes are coming out to play at night. And they seem to like my blood quite a lot which is a bit of bad news. Funny thing they sound the same as any other mosquito I have encountered around the world. I have resorted to using mosquito repellent. You plug it into the wall and put in a small pad that then begins to burn slowly and the wonderful mix of chemicals keep the mosquitoes at bay. However I do not like to use such things because you have no idea what carcinogenics you are sucking into your lungs. So I usually put it on for a few hours with the room shut and then I open the windows when I go in and hopefully the mosquito nets will keep these ravenous beasts at bay.
A few nights ago I had a terrible sleep, the heat, the mosquitoes, but last night it was the rain, oh and the accompanying thunder storm. No idea what time it was but it was kinda light outside and the rain was pissin doon, it wus stoatin’ aff the road and it woke me up.
So it’s only the start of June and it’s going to be like this for some time. If I had access to a car then I really wouldn’t care because I can put on the aircon and be cocooned in my bubble, but when you have to go everywhere by public transport and then you start to feel that first bead of sweat starting to make its way down to the shuch o’ yer erse, well it is not a pleasant feeling ah tell you.
And you could cut the air with a knife, party due to the high humidity but also the high level of pollution. A blue sky is a rare thing in Suzhou at the moment. As I write this it is very overcast obviously but sometimes it’s a haze. The buildings in the distance don’t seem to be in focus.
I live on the top floor of an apartment block and so if there is any wind then I will get it. I’m on the eleventh floor, so how the fuck do these mosquitoes get up here. They do call Suzhou the Venice of the East and so there are plenty of canals around, in fact there is a lovely green one outside my apartment. I don’t like to use the air conditioning and so I will lie in bed and seek out the faintest breath of wind coming in through the window and what a pleasure it is when it finally reaches you. If you are lucky for it to land on a pressure point then your whole body will fell the benefit. So when you are sitting in the car for instance, all you have to do is place one of your wrists over a vent and your whole body will begin to cool down. There is no need to have the air conditioning belting out.
This time next week I should be back in Australia and one thing I’m looking forward to is driving my wee car again, just hope that she will start after sitting for nearly 12 months. I will keep you posted. But in Australia it is also winter and so I will have a couple of weeks of relief from this miserable Suzhou weather.
Well they say it never rains but it pours. I seem to be in demand at the moment from several sources. I’m currently running about Suzhou between some international companies enhancing their English. Apparently they find me quite easy to understand and they commented that my English was quite good. Mind you I’ve always thought that.
Each time I go to one German company we just discuss a topic. Yesterday we spoke about managing stress and tomorrow we will talk about movies and who knows what we will discuss after that. But I was so keen to discuss the 28th anniversary of Tienanmen Square which was on the 4th June. But I never saw anything here on any news or media about what might be going on in Hong Kong, because they usually celebrate it. I spoke to one Taiwanese girl, who is the owner of a coffee shop and even she lowered are voice quite a lot when we discussed it. I did too of course because you are not quite sure of the reaction of the locals.
The conversation started because she was telling me that she had spent many years in London and felt so sad about the 3 fucking religious nutters that attacked many innocent people. So happy the police took them out, at least the UK government won’t have to pay for their upkeep. These folk are just a waste of fucking space. They should do what they do in Cambodia, which is to send the families a bill for the bullets used.
The west will often comment on the lack of human rights in China, but you know something………..it’s a safe country. You can walk the streets at night in most places and you will feel safe. Male or female. Of course there are no go areas in certain parts of town, but that’s the same in any country, but on the whole you feel safe and it is safe. Many people in China accept the fact that they can’t do this or they can’t do that, but they feel safe. They also think that the government is protecting it’s people. When they see these kind of atrocities taking place around the world they feel happy to be living in China. And yes I know there will be a few out there getting on their high horse reading this, but I say “come and live here for a while and see the world through Chinese eyes”
Many countries have had their Tienanmen moments in the past. I always find it amusing that one of the biggest hypocrites is America, it doesn’t seem to remember any further back than last week and even then it will be classed as Fake News.
