I finally had those dumplings everyone has been asking me about. For some reason, the question "Do you like Chinese food?" (which i hear a few times a day, and always answer with a big smile and a 'yeeees of course') seems to be always followed by "Have you tried dumplings?". So today after class I stayed on to help a student with his presentation, that I'm having the PhD students give (takes a couple of hours off me in terms of planning for lessons...), and he then took me out to dinner afterwords. We went to this little restaurant, famous for its dumplings, near the gate of the university. As usual, we had some cold starters that I could choose from a trolley, and then came the dumplings. And yes, now i can tell the students that I've tried them and yes, they are yummm-my. This particular restaurant has more than 30 kinds of dumplings, with meat, fish, vegetables, egg, mushrooms...you name it. Interestingly, they also had other interesting items on the menu, such as duck blood... Oh, and have i mentioned the famous donkey meat pastries?

This week I have been doing the evening classes every day from 7 to 9, and I have to say that it's tiring but I guess there's no other option but to stick with it and stop complaining. So far, I've just talked about myself and had the students introduce themselves and ask each other questions. The way they have done these introductions is interesting though, sometimes quite different to what i'd expect from European students. For example, today a girl launched into a long speech about the importance of studying and how they should all do it for the good of the country. Ummm, what happened to "my name is...?"

I'm trying to encourage the students to ask me all kinds of questions, and to comment on anything that is said. Too many students here just want to listen to the teacher and take his/her word as god's truth. Maybe it works for some other subjects, but for oral English, I really think they should just open their mouths and speak. What has made this more difficult in the evening class is that although i told then that they can ask me anything (though i will have the right to also disagree with the students), the teacher who is responsible for organising the class (and comes to observe every evening...) had told the students in the beginning of the first class that they should be very careful about what they say to me and what kind of questions they ask, so they would not offend me. One of the students came to tell me me this last night, saying that they were afraid of saying the wrong thing to me. The problem now is that as the other teacher is present in the classes, I can't contradict what she has been saying, at least I can't make it too obvious, or else she will lose face in front of the students. Oh dear.

After the class I don't get to come home straight, as the students will come up to me and ask me all sorts of questions. Sometimes I just haven't got a clue and wonder why they would think me an authority on these issues, but I try my best and answer their questions. Today I was asked for example: "What should I do with my life?", "Should I buy l'Oreal or Lancome moisturizer?", "Should I keep studying or get a job after I get my degree?", "Should I read classic novels?" So here I am, telling them what to do with their lives... I'm beginning to see that teachers here really have a special standing and are often considered to be all-knowing...I'm of course doing my best to maintain this image :p

Outside the classes, the life in the Ju Guang compound has been a little busier in the past few days. It seems that there is a wedding celebration going on in building no. 2 (I'm in no. 10): the little streets are filled with cars and mountains of flowers have appeared outside one flat. This has now been going on for some days. The old men who play Chinese chess just inside the gates are not too bothered, though. The scene remains undisturbed: two men playing and another ten standing around them. Of course, these ten others seem to always know much better how the two should be playing the game...

Weekend!! It's a lazy saturday morning, having woken up in my stone-hard bed (maybe this is a Chinese thing, maybe it's supposed to build character, or maybe the university was just being stingy when buying the mattresses...), the sun is still shining and i have a whole day ahead of me to spend as i choose. Not bad at all :)

The week went by quickly, I guess I am now getting used to the rhythm of things here. A typical day for me now would be like this: Morning classes, come home for lunch and a nap (yes, I'm even getting into the Chinese way of sleeping through most of the lunch break), afternoon classes, come home for a break, Chinese class/Taiji class, and to end it all, the evening English corner class. So my classes would typically begin at 8 or at 10, and finish at 9 p.m. The classes with the PhD group are going great, and I am actually looking forward to the classes and meeting everyone. It's a good bunch of people where everyone knows each other, so even personal things can be discussed. And people are used to joking about each other (sometimes going a bit far, but hey, if that's the way they do it here...) so there's a lot of laughter in the classroom.

Now, the English corner then... What I was told by Mrs Feng when I accepted to do it (2 hours in the evening from monday to thursday), I got the idea that it would just be students meeting for a chat en English, and I'd be there to chat with them. But, from what it seems now, in reality I should be giving a two-hour presentation every night to a group of about 60 students. Hummm... I wish I had never agreed to do the whole thing, but it's too late for that now, so I just need to think of a way of doing it which does not involve me writing a long speech for every evening. The students speak surprisingly good English though (even better than my PhDs), so I just need to somehow get them talking instead of me.

An interesting (and to me funny) thing here is how the girls come up to me with all these compliments and elaborate declarations of how they find me beautiful. In the English corner class a girl came to tell me during the break that I'm pretty like a Barbie doll and that my eyes are like beautiful blue lakes. What an earth are you supposed to even say to that?! I just kinda try not to laugh too much and say thanks. I wonder if I should do the same and start telling everyone how great I think they look? Lots of pretty girls around at the university!

This week I've dared to venture on shopping expeditions to new places, trying to use the few words of Chinese I know and my hands for the rest. So, I've left the impersonal comfort of the Home Club supermarket behind and taken a look at what else is around here. Practically all I need in everyday life I can get from the street, which runs past the Ju Guang gate and ends a hundred meters down the road at the west gate of the university. There are a number of small shops, selling cosmetics, shoes, clothes, and of course those chinese shops selling just about everything plastic. But the real fun is the street vendors on the sidewalks, selling all kinds of food, snacks, books, CDs etc. And there is a little bicycle repair man, whose shop is just a 2 meter strech of the street. And then, best of all, 50 m up the street is a covered market, where they sell fruit, veg, fish, meat, spices, ready-made dishes... you name it. Great stuff!! And cheaper than the supermarket. So far I think they've been giving me a fair price and I've had none of that "let's rip the white person off" -nonsense that I was expecting. And how do I know this? I once went there with some students who helped me out the first time to buy some fruit, and when I've gone back on my own, the prices have been the same.

Last night we went out with Griselle and two blokes who work at the No. 17 Middle School in Baoding, which is where she used to work last year. Bob is in his late 50s or early 60s (I'd say...) and is one of the most political and radically leftist people I've met. He hates the USA with passion (and he is American...) and couldn't wait to get out of the country. He is envisioning a revolution in the US, which would follow a stock market crash, but for now he thinks he'll just keep dreaming of it from a safe distance, i.e. China. Juan, on the other hand, is a 22-year-old Puerto Rican who's been studying International Relations and Development and will be here until January before going to do an internship in Washington and is also hoping to find a way to do another one in Senegal or elsewhere in French-speaking Africa next year. These two make an interesting duo, as they live next to each other and see a lot of each other, but keep snapping at each other, especially whenever Bob brings politics into conversation (which is about every 2 minutes before someone tells him to drop it).

Anyway, we went to a really nice Chinese (surprise!!) restaurant, where the food was excellent. We ordered a few dishes (Juan speaks fluent Chinese, which helps...): fish, chicken and peanuts in chili sauce, eggplant in some yummy sauce, and mushrooms and these funny green vegetables. Mmmm. Afterwards, we thought we'd find a bar or somewhere to sit down for a drink, and ended up going to 'Rolling Stones', which is a bar/nightclub in the centre of the town. The place is so cheesy it's almost great. So, we sat there for a while, having a drink and watching the Chinese do their bizarre dance rituals (the other option was to be on the side of the bar, where a singer was putting on a show of whingy Chinese lovesongs...which is why we opted for the techno-club side), which i have to say was pretty amusing. But, as we have curfews here, nights out aren't ever too long I guess, and Juan and Bob had to head back before their gate closed at 11. Not a bad night, anyway :)

Today I'm meeting up with the trio of girls from my class (Jenna, Sophia and Alexis) who still live on campus and are therefore around on weekends, too. They're going to show me another kind of dancing at the 'Student activity centre', where they have a dance hall and have waltzing and such almost every night. So, this afternoon we're taking a look, which might be either really bad, or a good laugh. We'll see. In the evening, we'll probably hook up with Malcolm and Fritha and go out for dinner.

And I *really* need to practice my Chinese pronunciation before monday's class...

First Chinese class yesterday. I feel like a kid just starting first grade, trying to learn to pronounce sounds the correct way (with very varying success...). The class is just two people, Griselle and me, with Feng Ying teaching us twice a week. The book we are using is quite ambitious, with homework in written Chinese (i.e. not pinyin) from the first lesson. But I'm really glad to have started proper classes, which is a great compliment to the everyday language i'm learning all the time...survival skills! My students are being great and helping me, writing lists of words and patiently correcting my pronunciation and pretending that they understand what i'm trying to say when i mumble one of the ten words i know.

But back to the same old issue of my classes and the timetable debate. Yesterday after the Chinese class I went with Mrs Feng to meet Mrs Liu to discuss the possibility of teaching more groups, or at least splitting my current group into two smaller groups, to halve the amount of lessons i need to prepare. After a long discussion i think i'm not a great favourite of the post.grad. office people, all i could understand was ching chong wao (or some such thing)...bishi...yao chong...griselle...ping hong...flexible, and a lot of tut-tut and unhappy faces. But in the end, we agreed that i can slit the group on the days we have 4 classes, which would mean 10 lessons to prepare instead of 16. So i said ok, hurray for small victories.

And as a peace offering I agreed to take on 6 extra hours of "English Corner" for BA-students who major in English. This means talking with them four evening a week.

Of course, this particular small victory lasted only until this morning. Coming to class this morning Herbert, who acts as the spokesperson for the class, met me and said that they had discussed the news of being split into two groups and decided that they don't want to do this. I, of course, tried to argue my case and say that in small groups everyone would have the chance to talk more and we could have better conversations with a smaller group. But they said nooooo we all want to be here with you 16 hrs a week. So what can i say. They suggested that we'd use the two afternoon classes on tuesday, wednesday and thursday for more free conversation, and that i wouldn't have to prepare anything so it wouldn't be so much work. "You only talk for 30-40 minutes first and then we can all discuss". Of course I had to point out that a 40 minute presentation every day would indeed take some preparation. So i told them we'd give it a go for a couple of weeks on the condition that the in the afternoon classes they really have to be active and not leave the leading of the conversation to me alone. So here we go, all thus fuss and I'm in square one again. But the students are great, and obviously very motivated, so I'm just gonna go with it and see if we can establish some sort of routine. No more stressing about this now :)

I'm still stuck with the English Corner though...

Speaking of classes, the topic today is 'small talk', i'm trying to teach them the art of it even if it's not necessarily one my own strong points either. We spent the two morning classes learning about how to start a conversation, what to talk about, what NOT to talk about, non-verbal communication...etc. I've noticed that the Chinese have no idea how to do this in English in an informal way so I want to try to get my students used to small talk so that when i ask them 'how are you', they don't go into a long description of their previous evening's activities. And of course all that weather talk...
This afternoon (will only start the new afternoon arrangement from tomorrow) we'll practice this by doing a simulation of a cocktail party (minus the cocktails, unfortunately...), for which i've created characters for each of the students with all kinds of details. Then the point is to let them mingle and chat with each other, let's see how it goes... (thanks Steve for the idea!!)

All in all, I'm beginning to feel really happy here. The sun is shining, people are friendly, I'm learning Chinese, will start taiji today... everything is going well. I guess I'm in the classic 'honeymoon stage' of my cultural adaptation process. Of course, as a perceptive ICC student, I'm already dreading the next stage (culture shock!!), which is bound to hit sooner or later. But right now, after the first week of getting used to my surroundings, I'm happy being right here in Baoding on this sunny October day :)

It's Sunday evening, the 4-day weekend is about to be over and tomorrow I'll start my first full week of teaching. After panicking about the amount of hours for a few days, I've now decided to give it a go. I'm hoping that I can negotiate a different timetable for the next term, and maybe have some different groups. Until then, maybe I can somehow keep entertaining my PhD group, without them or me getting too bored or frustrated. Tomorrow afternoon I'll go with Mrs. Feng to see Mrs. Liu in the postgraduate office and we'll talk about it. By the sound of it, the plan is to keep the timetable as it is for the whole year, but let's see if my stubborn complaining will make them change the plan. Probably not.

The weekend has been really good, I'm glad I had this break to make the first week and my adaptation to the place a little easier. On Friday I went shopping with three of my students, Jenna, Alexis and Sophia, who helped me out in buying speakers for my computer and a couple of English-Chinese-English dictionaries (I’ve decided to seriously try to learn some Chinese…). We went by bike to one of the main shopping streets, which is only a few minutes’ ride from the university. I'm still quite enjoying the whole Chinese bike thing, there's something about being in a flow of hundreds of bikes, trying to dodge the ones riding on the wrong side of the road and every now and then making a rather suicidal attempt to cross the road or turn a corner. Apparently, stealing bikes is a favourite pastime of quite a few Chinese, which is why outside of every major shop there is a closed area for bikes, guarded by an old woman who will give you a ticket on your arrival and place another ticket with the same number in the basket of your bike. You can then later get your bike by presenting the ticket and paying the woman 2 jiao, which is 2/10 (1 euro being about 9 yuan). A great system, says I!

On Friday afternoon I went to see the university's sports' day at the sports stadium with Alan and his friends from the College of Foreign Languages. All in all a pretty boring do, but I guess worth checking out, as it only takes place once a year. After an afternoon of track & field competitions, we had to all stand in the middle of the field and listen to endless speeches and the results of all the events in Chinese… by the end of all this I was quite happy to go home to cook some noodles like a good little Chinese girl…

Saturday morning came round with the luxury of sleeping in until noon, after which I hopped on my bike and rode to Home Club, which is the nearest big supermarket from here. Later, I explored the city centre on my bike, and walking when my bum started to hurt too much (the bikes here aren't too bad, except for the seats… I can't imagine anyone doing long distances on these bikes!!). Baoding is quite a big city according to my standards (then again, what wouldn't be, coming from Palokka & Jyvaskyla…). The big shopping street nearby is full of shops of all kind, selling just about anything. The buildings lining the streets are covered in big banners and billboards featuring colourful adverts, even many of the beautiful old traditional Chinese style buildings in the centre have been converted into shops and covered with these billboards. The biggest difference to any European high street is definitely the amazing amount of people EVERYWHERE. This includes the thousands of people on their bikes and in their cars, as well as the street vendors of every kind, the random cool people loitering around looking…well…cool, pedestrians walking up and down and in and out of the shops, beggars trying to catch someone’s attention, the bike ladies handing out their worn pieces of cardboard, and so on. And of course this isn't just the high street, the same thing goes on right outside the gate of our residential compound.

Speaking of which, I live just up the street from the university, in a compound called the Ju Guang, which translates as candlelight. In Chinese, teachers are compared to candles as they spread out education like light (Finnish speakers: notice the comparison with the similar idea in Finnish, “kansankynttila”!!). So here we are, a majority of the university's teachers, packed into apartment buildings, some of which are completely new and spotless, while others look like they have been caught in several showers of acid rain. My building is somewhere in between, and I really have nothing to complain about, as my flat is huge and fairly clean. Of course the toilet stinks, but I've come to accept that as a part of the...ehhh…character of this country and added incense sticks on my shopping list.

On Saturday night, Griselle, the American teacher we have at the university asked me to go out for a drink with her and a couple from New Zealand, Fritha and Malcolm, who are teaching at the Baoding Teachers’ College, and have been here for about two months. So on our bikes again, to town, and after looking for a bar that someone had heard might exist, we headed for the one bar they knew for sure *does* exist. So this was Saturday night in Baoding, time to let my hair down, yeah! Of course there was nobody else in this “bar”, but I really enjoyed having a proper conversation which consisted of more than the “what's your favourite colour” or “Do you like Chinese food” type of questions. We even had a little booth all to ourselves, with closed doors and everything. The point of which kinda slipped me, as there were not other customers there anyway. Oh well, a bit of privacy is nice I guess, after all the millions of people looking at me in the street. A slight minus was the way kept playing the same tape over and over again with Celine Dion, Mariah Carey and the like, and the all time favourite song “I'm a big, big girl in a big, big world…” (Christine, you know what I'm talking about!) After hearing the aforementioned song for the 5th time, we decided it was time to head home, and made it back after 10, well in time for our curfew of 10:30 pm. Yes, indeed, we have a curfew, which is written down in the “rules for foreign teachers”. In any case, the gates of the compound are closed around midnight, I guess, so coming back after that would mean climbing the gates (which should not be too hard anyway...)

This morning , I met up with Alan and four girls who are fresher English students. We then took a bus across town and met up with another girl from Hebei University, and went to the biggest park in Baoding. The place was a combination of a park, an exercise ground, a theme park etc, with singing groups practicing their music, silly looking plastic pedal boats going around the little lake, old people doing taiji and exercising, kids riding on the merry-go-round, families having picnics and the six of us taking a full roll of film worth of photos posing in front of every possible bush and rock.

All in all, I'm beginning to feel more and more like I really AM here, for the first few days it all just seemed dream-like. But now, slowly it's beginning to feel like a real place and real life. Still, the fact that I don't speak any Chinese feels like a wall that separates me from the world around me, I walk in the street but somehow am outside of everything that happens. But tomorrow I'll have my first Chinese class with Griselle (who has actually been here for over a year and so knows a fair bit more to start with than I do) and Mrs. Feng as our teacher. With that, I'll try to break that wall down, brick by brick.

My luggage is here!! So finally I'm sitting here in a warm jumper, sipping some Chinese flower tea (ummm...suspicious) and feeling quite happy. Besides, no more classes this week, as the students have tomorrow and friday off for sports. Actually, my students ask me if we could have classes anyway and they would skip the sports, but THANK GOD I was told by the postgraduate office that we shouldn't have any. Now I can take four days off to have a little breather...phhewww.

Nonetheless, today's class was really good. Yesterday I gave the students this text on the first Chinese manned spaceflight (which was launched today - big news over here! a real boost to the national pride and propaganda, this is all that my one TV channel that is in English is showing) and the space programme in general. We first went over the text, picking out difficult and new words and making sure everyone understood it. Then, we had a debate on the importance of the space programme over other areas of development. And what I had imagined would be a forced 30-minute conversation turned into a lively 2-hour debate, with the students getting really into it. I think this might be a format that I'll use again, trying to find some good topics to discuss.

This morning I also got one more student in class, who came to me after the first session to announce that the director of the international department (i.e. my boss) is one of his best friends. This, I assume, will mean that he will report my doings and teachings to Mr. Li. Ughh, I wasn't too thrilled. But after the afternoon session and the debate, the guy (Alex) came to me and said that this was the best English class he had had and that I was the best foreign teacher he had seen. So I wasn't feeling all that bad after that ;)

But no matter how well the classes have gone in the first two days, I'm still anxious about having so many hours with the one group. Yesterday I mentioned this to Mrs. Feng, who had a chat with the people in the post.grad. office, who of course said it would be very difficult to change it, as the students need to have that many classes. But I'll keep on gently pushing, don't want to upset everyone in the beginning so I can't be too forward, but I'll keep on mentioning it and see what will happen. Maybe they could at least chahnge it for the next term (which starts in January)?

After work today I went for a little walk around the neihgbourhood, and I have to say that Baoding looks like exactly the kind of place I was hoping for. Just about the best thing is that nobody harrasses me in the street (no resemblance to Senegal in that..)! So I can just wonder around, watch everything that's going on, the people selling just about everything from little carts and street stalls, the old people sitting around chatting and people on their bicycles dodging the spit launched by the rickshaw men.

Tomorrow morning I need to have a physical for my resident permit, and in the afternoon three of my students have asked if they could "play with me", ehhmm. I said I would but I hope it's not quite what it sounds... Will report later.

Now I only need to figure out what's wrong with the water heater in the bathroom, or have an ice-cold shower. Thankfully I managed to unblock the toilet (a rather grim operation...i think i'll leave the details out) and don't now have to contemplate looking for some toilets at the university, guided by the unmistakable stench.

ugghh, first day of teaching over. I'm teaching one group of students, 22 of them officially but I have a couple of extra people who want to come to classes, too, though they won't be taking the exams and won't get any credits for the class. The students are all doing their PhDs and are from 25 to 38 years old. It's a good group of people, their English is quite good and there are a few students who are really active, and somehow I managed to force all of them to talk today. Even if there is one man who really finds it difficult and when i ask him something he'll just look around unconfortably and say "next". But hey, that's English, right...

What I do find REALLY difficult though is that I'm only teaching this one group, 16 hours every week. Yikes! The other two foreign teachers here teach four groups each, which means they only have to plan a few lessons per week, while I'll have to somehow come up with 16 hrs worth of meaningful things to do every week. This really freaks me out, as I already had enough work trying to think of ways to keep the students active for 4 hours today. Any ideas???

What's more, many of my students have jobs, families, and other classes, and I'd hate to waste so much of their time every week if the classes aren't meaningful for them. Personally, I think that 16 hours of conversational English is waaaay too much anyway, and that they could use the time better doing other stuff, if even just for half of it. But the decision, of course, isn't mine, so all I can do is try to keep racking my brain to fill the classes.

On a more positive note, the students seem like a good bunch, willing to learn and as friendly as any smiling Chinese. Interestingly enough, when I asked them to write down a few things they would like me to include in the future classes, most of them mentioned that they would like to learn about the Finnish culture, education system, history and so on. And here's one for the ICC students: one of them especially wanted me to deal with "taboos in communication with foreigners". Any good ideas how I might do this as a useful activity? Steve?

In the beginning, I let the students pick 'English names' for themselves, as this seems to be the way things are done here. I had printed out a list of the 100 most popular names for both men & women in the US, and let them choose what they wanted. Still, I ended up having a girl called Martin (I tried to suggest that maybe she should spell it 'Marty', but she insisted on the '-in', so I let her have her way) and another girl called Windy (which I wrote down as Wendy, but later noticed that was actually spelled with an 'I'). Another girl showed up for the afternoon class, who sat herself next to Windy and insisted that her English name is Wendy. So there we go.

My whole day was basically spent thinking of what on earth to do in class, and then doing it, and now i should do the same for tomorrow (another 4 hours!!)... I gave the students a text on the Chinese space mission to read, and will now try to think of how we can build a conversation on that.

In between my classes I was hanging out on campus waiting for the photocopy people to show up so I could photocopy that article, and there I met a student, Alan (this of course being his 'English name'), who is an English major. After my classes, Alan took me for a tour of the campus and a dinner at the student cafeteria, which is a big 3-storey building in the middle of the main campus. There with a dinner card, which works like a credit card that you stick into one of the machines they have at the stalls, you can get all sorts of chinese dishes for just a couple of yuan. Will have to get one of those cards soon!

Speaking of dinners, last night's one was pretty good, it was my official welsome dinner with the members of the Department of International Cooperation, which has 5 employees, including Feng Ying, all the other 4 are men. The dinner was of course begun with some Chinese 'wine', which was 38% alcohol. We had to first toast together for three rounds ('bottom up', was what they kept saying...hehe) and then came endless toasts in pairs and threes and whatnot. Feng Ying only ever had a sip of her drink, but the men were quite impressed by my ability to down the shots but still not start giggling out of control. Needless to say, that's exactly what they were doing after the first ten minutes. I had fun watching them get drunk and point at each other and shout "OHHH, Mr. Ma is SOO drunk!!" etc. In the end I offered to walk them home, but they assured that they'd make it themselves. All in all quite entertaining :)

But now I need to think of something for tomorrow's class....*yaawwnn*

Baoding, China

So here I am, sitting in my new flat in Baoding. Finally. I took me no less than 3 1/2 days to get here, and instead of arriving on friday before noon as planned, I got to Beijing on unday afternoon. I got as far as Vienna just ok, but when the flight to Beijing was supposed to leave, we were told that Austrian Airlines had not managed to get an permission to fly over Russia and that the flight would be postponed to the afternoon the following day. After a couple of hours of following chaos and queueing and arguing, we were all put on taxis and sent to hotels in Vienna. Earlier I had met a Danish girl, Stine, who was on her way to spend 10 days with her boyfriend in Inner Mongolia, and we decided to get a room together so at least we wouldn't have to be hungry and miserable alone. So, as the promised dinner never came since the hotel kitchen was closed by the time we made it there, we raided the minibar for some peanuts and drinks and hit the bed. In the morning we walked around the centre of Vienna for a couple of hours, before heading back to the airport for another try.

But surprise, surprise... no flight to Beijing. This time the explanation was that the Austrian Airlines pilots had gone on strike. No wonder, I would go on strike if I had to work for them. The next thing offered was that I would wait until the next day and catch a flight to London and then get an Air China flight from there on saturday evening. As this was the best they could do, and I had to get to Beijing, I grumbled and took it. At this point, Stine had had enough, as her holiday was getting shorter and shorter, and she decided to head back home instead and try again later (hopefully with some other airline). But a few of us all decided to go for the London route, and so our brave little Austrian Airlines group headed back to hotels. The sights of Vienna did not feel too attractive at this point, when all I wanted was to get out of the city, so I spent my time sleeping, reading, and watching crappy TV at the hotel.

28 hours later I was on a plane to London with the others and finally left Vienna, although travelling in the wrong direction. In London, we had to run through the airport, get out boarding passes, and run again, but we made it...off to Beijing, yeah!

...however, our luggage did not. The only one from our group who got their luggage, was this French guy, whose bag had initially been sent to Zurich for some reason, but now it had founf its way to Beijing. The rest of us were left there, identifying our suitcases on the lovely airline chart while having the airport staff tell us that we might never see our luggage again.

But after all that, here I am in Baoding, in my huge new flat that I have all to myself. The place is great, except for the fact that it's really cold and the heating will only be turned on on 15 November (!!!) and that the toilet was pretty gross, but that was to be expected. I've spent quite a while scrubbing it today, but all that seems to have happened is that now the toilet is both gross and blocked. Oh well.

Other than that, the most exciting thing so far is that I went shopping with Feng Ying, who is working at the Department of International Cooperation and takes care of the foreign teachers. So now I have something to wear (chinese fashion, ummm...) and to eat, while I'm still praying that my luggage will show up and that it will miraculously be even taken here to Baoding and that in a couple of days I might be wearing my warm jumper and woollen socks.

I'll start teaching tomorrow, which I'm not at all prepared for, but not stressing about it, it will be nice to have something to do. I'll have both thursday and friday off as my students have some sports day thing, so I'll have a long weekend to explore the city, which looks great by the way.

And this is it for now.

Tourula ToB computer lab, Jyväskylä, Finland.

Here I am, in the beautiful Finnish autumn, taking a break from everything else by spending a couple of weeks here, in a life that seems unchanged in many ways. It's good to have some constants in life, when everything else keeps changing, and this is where I can find mine.

One week to go and then I'm off to China. I've just sent off the last email to confirm my arrival in Beijing on 10 October, where someone will hopefully be to meet me.

In the past few weeks, I've met lots of people who have been to China or who somehow have experience of the Chinese culture or at least know someone else who does. So I'll be leaving with heaps of advice for just about everything that I might be facing in China, while at the same time I know that I'll have to go trough everything by myself, and that no matter how good the advice is, it won't change that fact. I still feel like I could use some teaching tips, though!! At times it sort of hits me that I have just accepted a job that I have no qualifications for or experience of. What was I thinking?!?

Well, too late for that now. One week and I'm off.