Not having a good day, in fact I wish I could board a plane today and get the hell out of this place. Being stuck in the house most of the time is driving me a bit crazy and to compound those feelings I have Sissi’s mother to contend with. As Sissi told me herself, her mother is like many other Chinese of her generation, they only consider what they are doing and not how it will affect others.

The kitchen is an absolute bomb site. She cooks and prepares food and there is not one surface that is clear. There are many containers half filled with food and it can lie there for days before it is finally eaten. I don’t understand this at all. The phone will ring and she will answer it and talk extremely loud, instead of what most people will do which is to retreat to another room as to not disturb others. And of course I have mentioned that she will use her mobile and play it loud even when I am watching the TV or reading a book and she is literally 6 feet away.

It’s taken some time to get her to clean her teeth in the bathroom rather than do it in the kitchen morning and evening which I really find quite disgusting. The mornings and evenings have the same routine. The teeth are cleaned and then the water is used to rinse the mouth and spat out and this is still happening in the kitchen sometimes, which I really fucking hate and can’t get her to stop. She sees no problem with it.  And then there is the god awful noise that’s made when she tries to eject a piece of phlegm the size of a pinhead, the noises made are disgusting and stomach turning and quite frankly make me want to vomit. This morning I counted a dozen such attempts.

She can’t sit on her arse for a minute and is constantly walking in and out of the house to the balcony where she will often fetch a basin of water which she will then take into the bathroom to use to flush the loo, this is saving water apparently but she has no qualms letting the kitchen tap run like Niagara Falls when washing a cup or plate. This is a common trait with many Chinese and it gets on my tits. So the door is left open and the cold air fills the house once more.

Having to stay home most of the time because of this bloody epidemic is highlighting the many behaviours that she has because normally I would be out and about and I would only come in contact with her in a limited way because I would deliberately style my day as much as possible to avoid her but alas at the moment it is almost impossible. My room is not very big and I can only sit on my bed with the computer or to read a book and so I will go out to the living room but unfortunately it can get busy at times………I miss my privacy which is something that often happens in China.

I really don’t want to be rude and to cause friction and make my last month in China an unpleasant one but I am finding it hard to be civil when she repeats something that I have asked her not to do or at least made her aware of what happens if she does something. She walks around in her own wee world oblivious to others reality. She is younger than me but she shuffles around like an old woman that is in her 70’s.

But I think one of the most difficult things to cope with is the eating. She will eat all through the day at random time’s sooking in air and chewing with the mouth open and it’s really fucking disgusting. Picking at her teeth and making all sorts of noises to dislodge said piece of flotsam. Lunch is at 12 noon and dinner at 6 pm, these are pretty constant although there are times in the past when I have stayed out so that I will miss feeding time at the zoo only to discover to my horror that she is just sitting down to the trough.

You might have gathered by now that I have a very low tolerance for these kinds of noises, other noises I can live with. I love to hear the birds sing, cat’s fighting can be OK too and the steady rumble of a large diesel engine is very comforting but this kind of noise is stomach turning. I wear ear plugs and then I put my headphones on and turn the music up but after a while this is uncomfortable and I just want to be able to sit with my naked ears listening to the tick of the clock, the hum of the fridge or the noise of the wind and rain blowing outside as the cold air descends from the north to fly through Suzhou.

If I could hibernate for the next month I would. I am already sleeping way more than I should be because I’m stuck in the house and now that the vpn is no longer working I have no access to BBC sounds where I can download books, music and podcasts. The last few days have got me thinking of the future and what to do and where to go and I haven’t got an answer yet, however I’m thinking that to return here to continue this life in China may no longer be on the cards. When I go to the UK later in the year I will still apply for the visa but at this moment in time I am also thinking that I may return to civilisation, I might return to my home because as much as I have had many good times in China I don’t have the resources to live the way I would like to live and this may ultimately make my mind up to leave China behind.

I love the food, I really love the food and it’s cheap so I don’t have to cook. The convenience of using my phone to buy online or in the shops or from anywhere really is marvellous. The integration of technology in China is just great. Being anonymous is good although I get recognised quite often now in Suzhou. I like to try to speak Chinese with the locals and this can be quite funny at times and I feel pretty chuffed when I am able to hold a bit of a conversation. As I’ve said before just going to buy bread can be a challenge. But what has happened over the course of the last few weeks with the draconian measures that have been put in place, some of them are really stupid I may add. The whole of China is being treated as if they are children by Mr Xi and his henchmen, of course many of them are but I have seen a taste of what this country can do to enforce law and order. The crackdown maybe necessary but it also shows me what they are capable of and it does not sit well with me, my freedom has been curtailed and I don’t like that one bit. And more importantly I am unable to use the internet; to go where I want…….this is really driving me crazy. It’s that bad that I am forced to use “Bing” as my search engine, I mean how sad and pathetic is that……………………!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And so my rant for this evening is coming to an end and I’m sure that tomorrow will bring me some more ammunition which I can transpose into words, to have a vent, to keep me sane, to give me something to do. Four weeks today I will hopefully be at the airport boarding a plane to Australia and to escape this madness.