Bulgaria with Noodles

The end of the semester is not the easiest of times.  First I had three (yes, three) separate trips to the bank, in order to send a pile of cash to our account in Bulgaria. As readers of my previous post, Don’t Bank On It, will already know, a visit to a bank in China comes near the bottom of my “Fun Things To Do” list, just above going to the dentist or having brain surgery. Each little trip to the bank took at least an hour and the first two were unsuccessful. It was a case of third time lucky, after an epic hour-and-a-half, plus the obligatory question, “Where is your old passport?” (Well, I have now had my current passport for four and a half years. That makes my “new” passport quite old, doesn’t it?) The heart of the problem, when transferring money abroad from China, is that the bank wants to know that you have earned the money legitimately and paid tax on it. Then Irena had her most interesting modeling assignment to date. 2,000 RMB is more than two hundred ...

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...

Shorter than a visit to China Merchant Bank The process of transferring cash out of China can be a bit difficult sometimes. Sensible people do not even try to take wads of money onto the plane - that is just asking for trouble. No, you should go along to the bank and do a transfer. Yes, this can take a while, so bring your copy of  War and Peace.  In my branch of China Merchant Bank there is a machine. You press it somewhere and a small piece of paper comes out. Great! You now have a small piece of paper. Red means it's a ghost-free bank First of all, you have to wait for a long time. (This means that you will be able to read the first 297 pages, up to the bit about Austerlitz and Dolohov proposing to Sonya.) Roman Catholic churches have confessionals, those wooden cubicles where you tell the priest about all of your sins. In China, you go to the bank and tell the cashier your life story. This means that you have to wait a bit longer. Then a very pretty Chine...

 "We like to collect his picture." So here it is! Money, cash, dosh or RMB, as we say in the Middle Kingdom. RMB stands for “reminbi”, which in Mandarin means “the people’s money”. Here, on my desk is a 100RMB banknote, proudly displaying the portrait of Chairman Mao. (It is mostly printed in red ink, just in case there are any ghosts around.) Before coming to China, I heard lots of stories about all of the counterfeit 100RMB notes that are supposed to be in circulation here. You could tell if they were genuine because the red ink would either stay on or come off. I cannot remember which! Anyway, so far I have not come across any fakes. Well, maybe I did have some, but I did not know that they were fakes and so I must have given them to someone else. Of course lots of people in the West have heard of The Little Red Book , aka The Thoughts of Chairman Mao . But why do they still have Mao on their money? Yes, yes, in theory China is meant to be a Communist country, b...