How do you say watch in Chinese?!

After living in another country for a few months, you start to become acclimatised and even immune to the differences in culture. For example, spitting in the street, taking the food they don’t want out of their mouths, and children using the steps of the supermarket to have a quick toilet break rarely bother me now. The only two things which I cannot get used to is 1) the toilet situation; I really like sitting down for the toilet because with squatting comes a risk of falling in and 2) staring – yes I am a foreigner and once you have had a quick look at me, there is no need to stare at me until I pass. What I like to do in this situation is have a stare out and I always win because they usually walk into something! That’s another thing, the Chinese have no inbuilt sense of direction so someone walking down the street will literally zigzag or somebody coming from a side street will walk into you. Even better, they often like to stop for no apparent reason, which is fine until they do this whilst crossing a road with 8 lanes of traffic.

A couple of things I have also noticed that are so different to England. The first is the lack of frost anywhere. Even on a freezing cold morning I never see frost on the ground or cars – you probably can’t even buy a de-icer in Wuhan! Another difference is the sunrise and sunset times. When I arrived in September and still now, in December, the sun rises at 6.30am and sets at 5.30pm without fail. This is really strange as normally in England, you enjoy lighter nights in Summer and dark nights in Winter.

This week in my lectures, I have been teaching the students about Christmas, from the nativity to house decorations. I showed them a picture of my house and they were so shocked by it. In Wuhan, NOBODY owns a house; in fact I have only seen houses for people who work for the government. It was very difficult to explain that living in a house was normal in England.

On Wednesday, I finally made it to my first Ladies night, at a bar called Helen’s. It is a popular bar with foreigners and I met some French girls and an English girl there. Ladies night consists of paying 30 RMB (£3) and getting unlimited cocktails for 3 hours! The guys all bought one bucket each and then Mel and I kept pouring our drinks in these buckets for everyone to enjoy. It was an extremely cheap night – for a tenner, I got a taxi there and back, a burger and chips, one mint chocolate mojito and unlimited cocktails! I also managed to lose my hair bow, and take a piece of the interior slate wall home. Ooooops.

Helen's food!

The infamous 'buckets' - contents unknown

My favourite cocktail - Blue Hawaiian

Mel was very jealous of my mint chocolate mojito

RIP hair bow - sadly lost during a dance off to Cotton Eye Joe

My 8am class on Thursday morning was so hard to get up for, but once I had walked to the faculty building, I felt fine. After my class, I nipped to the vegetable market, stocked up on fresh veg, and then came home to make a chicken dinner with GRAVY! (thanks mum). It was a rehearsal for my Christmas dinner next week because cooking with one pan at a time is difficult! In the afternoon, I decided to learn a few Chinese phrases and here are the results:

Coca cola – Kĕkŏu Kĕlè

Excuse me – duì buqĭ

Too expensive – hu bu suan

Straight ahead – zhào zhí

Friday was a brilliant day mainly because I get to start celebrating the weekend at 9.35am! After my last class of the week, I headed on the subway to Huquan market. My major issue was leaving Huquan subway station, as my travel card wouldn’t swipe. After being marched to customer service and reassuring them that I had plenty of money on there, I was let free. I was in search of a watch after mine broke but for some reason, the Chinese only have words for watch strap or watch face and not one that’s combined. After a great miming performance of me telling the time, a local stallholder took pity on me and led me to the watch man. He couldn’t speak any English apart from the number 5 so I had to bargain in fives! A watch, necklace, bracelet and xmas socks later I was done and so headed back home.

Part of Huquan market - much quieter than the weekend!

On the way home, I stopped for a late breakfast and got a steamed baozi (meatball in bread) and a steamed soy bread which was lovely as the soy sauce had become almost sweet. After a quick food shop on the way home where I FINALLY found salt in the sugar aisle (who thinks of these things) and white vinegar, handily named ‘9 degrees of separation’ vinegar, I got back home and had a longggg nap before the evening.

Friday evening was probably one of the most random nights I’ve had in China. We were invited to a Christmas gala for foreigners, organised by Hubei province and so Brendan, Dean and I decided to get a taxi to the venue, Wuhan Conservatory of Music. However, we attempted to get a taxi at 5.45pm, which is when one shift ends and the other begins for taxi drivers. By 6.05pm we still had no taxi and time was getting short. Then, a random man obviously on his way home from work pulled up and said that he would give us a lift for a slightly higher price. We jumped in and then got stuck in the worst traffic jam ever! 50 minutes later, he dropped us off at an unknown location and we then had to find the right place and eat dinner in the 30 minutes before the show began. A quick bowl of noodles later in a Chinese diner and we made it to the show with seconds to spare!

Our diner on Jianghan Road

Making my noodles

Drinking soy milk - bleurgh

The show was fantastic, they played a mixture of Chinese and western music using a full orchestra, although at one point a man came on to do a piano solo and when everyone started cheering after his piece, I was surprised. It sounded like he was still doing the warm-up! After the show finished, we met up with Olivi and proceeded to take a few ‘souvenirs’ from the concert. The boys were tame with their Santa hats, whilst I managed to come away with a Santa hat, a mini tree and a reindeer. What a success.

Amazing view from our seats

I think he was improvising

Far too excited bless her

Post-show picture

Me with my 'souvenirs'...

We ended up walking for at least 45 minutes because of the lack of taxis and made a stop off so the boys could buy skittles (a rare sweet in China). We finally got a taxi and on our walk home, got some yummy street food (pork and pak choi egg fried rice for me) and a warm milk tea. A great festive yet random and typically Chinese night!

Trying out my new Santa hat ready for Christmas!

On Saturday, I went to do my volunteering at the kid’s club and it was very relaxed with a few less children. We learnt the song ’12 days of Christmas’ with both hand actions and Chinese numbers so my brain hurt by 5pm! Saturday night was my first evening in for a while so after tidying round my apartment, I snuggled in bed with a hot chocolate – bliss. I also spoke to a few people from home because the 8 hour time difference makes it difficult to speak to everyone! My sister, Lozzy, ended up Skyping me in her lesson the other day! I also woke up at 3am last night to find out that Adele is coming to see me at the end of March and I’m soooo excited! That’s two visits from home now yayyy.

Ready to volunteer

Today is the last Sunday before Christmas but I don’t really feel very Christmassy yet. I have put all my Christmas food out on the coffee table (a tradition we ALWAYS do at home) and I’m planning to sit and watch ‘Miracle on 34^th Street’ before I go for a late afternoon coffee. I’m going to meet an English girl that I met in Helen’s the other night so that will be nice! But first, time to pamper myself ready for Christmas. Now, where did I put my facemask.....