Sarah's travelling blog

If there’s one thing that would improve the quality of my life, it’s more sleep. I envy those who can fall asleep within five minutes and not wake up until it’s time to actually get out of bed. My sleep pattern is at best erratic; occasionally I do fall asleep in a few minutes, even more occasionally I sleep all the way through, but it’s usual for it to take me half an hour or more to get to sleep, and recently I’ve been waking up at some odd hours. Half past three in the morning? Lovely! Siestas are very popular in Chen Jia Gou, and I’ve become addicted to my lunch-time nap (no idea how I will cope when I have to work in the afternoon, but I guess that’s why we have espresso). I can usually sleep for up to an hour after my noodles, but not last week. No, for some reason, last week was the week of No Sleep Whatsoever. After a few nights with an average sleep of four hours and no sleep after lunch, I was feeling rather tired and grumpy, and definitely not in the mood to be surrounded by a group of excitable children. This was unfortunate, because it’s exactly what happened. At about ten thirty, a photographer came into the school. He wanted to take photos of me and Benjamin Zephaniah , a regular visitor to Chen Jia Gou, at the local primary school. Anyone who’s even been loosely involved with ‘teaching’ kids in Asia will know what I’m talking about. “Oh, just play some games with them, teach them some English,” as though all Westerners travel the world with a catalogue of child-friendly EFL games securely stashed in their backpacks. I have done EFL with kids several years ago, but I have to say that I prefer the quiet learning of grammar points and Adrian Underhill’s amazing phonemic chart to the screaming enthusiasm of thirty twelve-year-olds. However, there was nothing to be done, and we all headed off to the school. It’s really not a bad school, about 450 kids, thirty or so in each class. The class we worked with were overflowing with excitement and giggles at the two foreigners with crazy hair. Benjamin loves kids and has done lots of work with them so I was happy to stand back and let him do some poetry. It was cool, he got them all to say “I love my mother, and my mother loves me!” while he was performing a poem. After that we did some tai chi with some of the kids, and I remembered a very silly, noisy EFL game called ‘elbow-to-elbow’ which always looks good in photos – VERY important¬ - as the kids are running about trying to find a partner before someone catches them. Over the last couple of weeks, a small group of Chinese guys have been coming in the afternoon for a class with Shifu. It turns of that they are local business-men. Last Saturday, a very happy-looking Grandmaster Chen told me that we were going out for dinner that evening. When Chinese people go out for dinner, it means, of course, that large quantities of alcohol will be consumed, hence the happy expression. It transpired that me, Benjamin and Andreas were being taken out by the business men because they wanted our advice on e-trading in Europe, not exactly my area of expertise. So at six, wearing the only clothes I have which are not for tai chi, we all set off. First they drove us to their factory where they make synthetic materials that are used in things like car seats and imitation Gucci handbags. It must be doing well because one of the business-men had a new Mercedes. It was a fairly surreal experience to be visiting a Chinese fabric factory. Lots of photos were taken (not by me as I forgot my camera) of the visiting foreigners. It was an interesting snapshot into something I guess most visitors to China don’t see, and I wondered about the incomes of the people I saw working at the machines and loading the lorry in comparison with the guy with the Merc. After looking round the factory and being presented with business cards and booklets of synthetic material samples, possibly the oddest souvenir I’ve ever had, we headed into Wen Xian for dinner. Wen Xian being in China, there is no shortage of things to eat and places to eat them in. On this particular occasion we were taken to what must be the best restaurant in town. It had soft pink seats, ashtrays (yep! No fag ends on the floor here!), and a slightly hushed, organised atmosphere, which in my experience of Chinese restaurants is quite rare. A room had been reserved for us, and while the waitresses were coming in and out with food and drinks, Benjamin and Andreas gave a few thoughts about e-commerce in Europe. I’m pretty sure that as a collective group of foreigners we were not particularly helpful, and we certainly didn’t give enough help to have earned the feast that had been ordered. I’ve never eaten such good Chinese food anywhere, and there was tons and tons of it. They must have ordered between twenty and thirty dishes; lots of vegetables, fish, beef, little crabs, stews, chicken knuckles…. It was all exquisitely presented too. There is definitely social pressure to drink in China. If people know from the start that you don’t drink, say for religious reasons, you’ll be alright, but once you have a reputation, it becomes impossible to say ‘no’. I still don’t fully understand Chinese drinking culture, but it’s very tied up with the idea of ‘face’ and showing friendship and respect by offering and accepting alcohol. Plus, I think Chinese guys (I’ve still to see a drunk Chinese lady) just like to get rat-arsed from time to time!