Hello everybody,

it's my 28th day in China and everything's fine. I had my first Tai Chi Chuan lessons and I've become a master mimer.

Chinese Food (II)

After the harsh impact of my first week and the crying for having tasted one tiny bit of Chinese chicken with chili, I didn’t attempt any particularly exotic dishes in the last two weeks. On the other hand, I witnessed the other guys eating scorpions and cicadas on sticks (as in the picture) and Marco drinking snake’s bile and blood.

  Cicadas and  Scorpions in sticks

Very brave. Will I dare the same after 9 months of China?

The Bicycle

Two weeks ago I decided to buy a bicycle. Alex had bought one the day before for 160 RMB (20 Euro), so I asked him to see it. It was already gone! So we bought 2 bicycles and 4 locks, which were half the value of a bike.

Now if it doesn’t rain I cycle to work. I readjust the mudguards (they’re made of very thin tin) and then I enter the chaos of Changzhou’s traffic. The cycling paths aren’t less dangerous than the streets, since Chinese cyclists are at least as undisciplined and abstracted as car drivers. Moreover, as a cyclist you’re more exposed to the Chinese national sport: spitting. When you hear it coming, you have to predict the trajectory and decide whether to pass from the right side or the left. My bike is losing screws and the saddle but I’m not worried, since there’s somebody that can repair it at nearly every corner of the street.

The Week-Ends

Thanks to the convenient location of Changzhou (and due to the absence of anything interesting to do here) I'm using all week-ends to visit some part of China.

Two weeks ago we went to Zhouzhuang, another one of the thousand “Venices of the East”. This time we weren’t disappointed: ZZ really is definitely picturesque.

On the way back, our bus drove the wrong way into a roundabout. Total anarchy.

      Zhouzhuang

Last week-end we went to Beijing. Even if it takes 13 hours by train to get there, you can do it by night, and the sleepers make it a smooth ride.

   The Great Wall at Simatai

I’ve been on the Great Wall…wow! (despite the cold). Other highlights of the week-end: Beijing Duck and the taxi driver singing “Bella Ciao”.

The Firefighting Event

Last week CBC organized a firefighting event. They asked some of us expatriates to participate, so at 2 o’clock Joyce, Michele and me went to the yard, where other people were preparing. The race was made of a quiz and a practical part. Without any knowledge of what we were supposed to do or the purpose of it we just did what they told us to do and... had a great time!

2:00 everybody is given a number and we are put into lines.

2:20 one line after the other we transfer from A to B (A-B=approx. 100 m)

2:25 we’re given a speech (Chinese only)

2:30 transfer from B to A

2:35 from A to B, this time with music in the background

2:40 second speech (????)

2:45 from B to A, still in a line

3:00 still waiting. After a while we realize that all that was only the rehearsal and that we’re waiting for the authorities and television to arrive.

3:10 the VIPs have arrived: time to start!

3:15 transfer from A to B (this time for good)

3:20 in line in front of the local authorities, who give little speeches.

The TV operator doesn’t care: he’s fully focused on zooming for one entire minute on me, moving to Michele right after. It’s really difficult not to laugh. We’re “lao wai” (foreigners) and therefore everyone is looking at us.

The quiz part consists in answering a question that is written on a board (e.g. “what would you use to extinguish a bamboo fire?”). The answers to choose from (“water”, “CO2”, “sand”, ...) are on small signs and the two participants have to choose the right one and run to the finishing line, approximately 60 m away from the starting line. Everything is obviously written in Chinese.

     The question board

Some referees register the numbers and the scores of the participants. No chronometer in sight, they measure seconds and decimals on the basis of their feeling. It doesn’t matter: we don’t even know how the teams are formed, whether there any teams at all, what the purpose is and how the rightness of the answer is valued.

The officials next to the answer-signs seem to know all answers and knock on the correct one just before the start signal. When it’s my turn, they’re so distracted by the sight of a “lao wai” that they forget to help me with the choice, so I pick up the first sign and run.I could have crawled and they would have let me win anyway: the foreigner always has to win.

  The Start

In the practical part the women have to extinguish a fire with a blanket, the men with a fire extinguisher.

At the end of the race Joyce (the blond laowai: wow!!!) was interviewed by the local tv and all of us received some scales as a present.