Ear Wax and Bumpy Roads

Hefei, the capital of Anhui Province.

I've spent the past two days in this grimy city, nothing particular about it, rather it's an ugly and dirty place with nothing interesting to it (nothing that i've seen, anyway). But I'm just passing through, so no use to write more about this place.

But let me tell you a little more about the joys of travelling in China. Taking a bus from Jiuhua Mountain to Hefei was another of those worse kind of Chinese trips. To me it seems that pretty much I'm either travelling in perfect comfort if not even luxury, or I'm cramped in some smelly box...

This time it was closer to the latter. There were way too many of us crammed into this bus, so many that there were people standing and sitting on little plastic stools in the isle. My lot was to be sitting on the back seat, which could have quite nicely fit 5 people. But of course the 6th one had to push in, too, so that all of us just about had our knees in our mouths. And next to me just had to be sitting this Chinese gorilla, with a huge body and huge head. When he was dozing off, with his head hanging in front of him, I'd be terrified every time the bus would steer left, as his sweatty body would crush onto mine. And to give the trip a final touch, the road was really bumpy, which was magnified by sitting at the back of the bus -- and of course I had to go to the toilet really bad!

But as for something else, remember I told you about having my ears cleaned at the hairdressers? Well, half an hour ago passing by a park I saw a professional ear-cleaner! He was there with all his instruments, in the process of giving another guy a full cleaning, I suppose. Just imagine the scenario in a Chinese primary school: The teacher asks, 'so, litte Dong Ming, what does your dad do?' '-he's a bus driver' 'What about you, little Mei Hua?' ' -Oh, my dad is an ear-cleaner.'

Hmmm.