Another Life in the Day

Mobike
5.30am. Yes, it’s the alarm. After my usual slow-motion ablutions, dressing and breakfast, I walk through the park. It takes me about twenty-five minutes. Sometimes I am feeling lazy or else I am in a hurry, so I hire an orange and silver Mobike. You scan the bike’s code into your smartphone and the five-minute cycle ride costs 1RMB. Actually, I have to type the number of the bike, as the scanning does not work on my stupidphone.




After a few skyscrapers glanced through the palm trees, I arrive at my school. Green Oasis School, aka GOS. My school does not seem to be too interested in the Chinese government’s plans to abolish Christmas. (As students of English History will know well, scrapping the festive season has been tried before, of course, after King Charles lost his head, the UK had a Republican government and Christmas was abolished by Act of Parliament.)
Not the Yellow Brick Road



Sign in
Each morning, “signing in” takes the form of standing in front of a video camera that eventually recognizes me and says my name. Up the stairs, open the classroom door, switch on the computer, read e-mails and messages. Yes, auto pilot is switched on at this stage, but eventually I wake up when Miss Yanee arrives and I have to start thinking about my lessons for the day.
Christmas in the Middle Kingdom
The students in my class, 5G, start to arrive at about 8.10. There are 23 of them and they are adorable. Chinese children are sweet, polite and hard-working – most of the time. Well, they are not angels and it just before the Christmas holiday, so yes, they do get a bit excited and silly. Fortunately, today is Friday, so that means assembly for the first lesson, followed by Mandarin and then break-time. After break, there are no serious lessons, as we break up for the holiday this afternoon, so we watch the classic Christmassy BBC series, The Box of Delights. But after school I have something less delightful - a trip to the bank, to pay the rent for our apartment. It only takes an hour, for once, but hey, the holidays have started!
Where's my copy of "War and Peace"?
    

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

On the Cards, Part 1

Image
Getting our new Bulgarian residency cards from the Microwave Oven Woman Rejoice! Let's celebrate. Hallelujah! At long last, the Microwave Woman has given us our new Bulgarian residency cards (BRCs). As a special treat, just in case you do not know what a BRC looks like, here is my old one.  My dear wife suggested that I should "black out" certain bits, as there are lots of evil people out there on the Internet, all gathering my personal and financial details in order to swindle me or involve me in some dreadful scandal or some such nonsense. Of course, no one who reads my blog could ever do such a nasty thing!   Getting our new BRCs means that we can go ahead with our applications for our Russian visas. Then, maybe two or three weeks later, our passports will be returned to us, with new Russian visas stuck into them. The other good news is that the insurance agent in Dragoman did not lose my car registration document. When she had finished giving me my new car
Read more

Hello once again, Peter

Image
. Yes, he was supposed to be on holiday, but while Peter was with us he fixed the lights in two bathrooms, mowed all three lawns and repaired the hob of the cooker in our apartment in VT.  Now he is back in the UK, having a rest.
Read more

Educaring, Part 2

Image
Not so long ago, I wrote a post for my blog called Educaring . Please do not misunderstand me. I really do believe that teachers, youth workers, parents (and indeed anyone involved with young people) all have a duty to protect children and teenagers, to keep them safe. As I argued in my previous posting, I also believe that the task of protecting children is becoming more and more difficult - almost impossible, in fact. Yes, the Internet has a lot to do with it, I am sure, but there is another problem that is hardly ever discussed.  In a nutshell, anyone who genuinely cares about children finds it very hard to imagine how evil and how subtle child molesters and pedophiles really are. I think that is probably why many teachers and parents just do not know when a pedophile is "grooming" a child and why they often do not believe it, even when confronted with the unpleasant truth. Michael Green at Windlesham House School I knew Michael Green when I was teaching at Windlesh
Read more