Chinese National Day

The National Day of the People's Republic of China is held on October 1st each year. The PRC had its beginnings on October 1st, 1949 and is celebrated with a holiday of one week. Consequently our college is on holiday for this period. Many of the 8,000 or so students will go to their homes, but some will remain at the college.

Often this is a time for foreign teachers to travel too, but it is always so busy. People everywhere at all the transport hubs, and the tourist spots that many of us have decided to "rest" - stay at the college for the duration of the holidays.

Tomorrow some of us are going to Hangzhou - again to the Silk Markets and Foreign Bookshop, but we will go early in the morning and return late afternoon. We have our train tickets, so will not have to stand in line waitig to get tickets and should only have a short time getting onto the train.

National Day is celebrated throughout mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau with a number of government sponsored festivities. There willbe lots of fireworks!

Our college has given us little or no information about it - in fact have not even advised us this time what canteens are operating during this holiday period, but I am sure we will find plenty of places to eat during the holidays.

I still do quite a bit of cooking for myself - but do enjoy eating out at the college and restaurants around Shaoxing.

Ladies toilets

Strange the world over that architects who design buildings put in the same number of toilet cubicles for the men as for the women in buildings. Regardless of the use of the building.

How many of the fairer sex have had to queue to "go" at the theatre, events and so on. The men folk do not take the same amount of time as the ladies do, and they seldom have to face a queue.

The other day in the college, I pondered just this dilemma again. Here is a college with some nearly 8 thousand students and on each floor there is a toilet block. At any break time there is a long line snaking from the Female WC, and the boys block has no queue.

It is so annoying. I was surprised to see theis scenario played out here in China. I hadn't thought about it before.

Oh, I just wish the planners could be more thoughtful.

Day Trip to Wuzhen and Haining (3)

It was a short bus journey to Haining, which is known for its leather goods. We seem to be taken to only one place - a huge mall with all leather goods. I had decided that I did not need to buy anything, but in the end bought another back pack. It was quite cheap.

The place is amazing though. So many shops selling leather goods. The main centre is huge, and with leather bags, luggage on the first floor (ground if you are an Aussie.) and the next floor up trades jackets, dresses, pants etc - all in leather. Up the next floor again is more upmarket (and more expensive of course.

It is a shopaholic's paradise. So much to choose from and the "joy" of haggling adds to the excitement.

Outside of this building are more buildings - one of which was the "Shoe Plaza" - with a huge array of men and women's shoes. We wandered around there, but I did not see anything that would fit me. Chinese feet are smaller than mine, and they do focus on the Chinese market there.

Day Tour to Wuzhen and Haining (2)

One place that we visited at Wuzhen this time was the Rice Wine Factory. The Rice wine is made in the same way as it has been for centuries and there were many pottery barrels on display.

There was a man filling tiny china cups with the brew and we could all have a taste. It was powerful stuff. Cleared the head! Fascinating to see it all.

I don't think anyone bought any of their packs of wine - I didn't want to as it mean I had to carry it for the rest of the day. I quite like Rice wine - in small doses. It is cheap. Less than $AU1 a bottle.

Day tour to Wuzhen and Haining (1)

Once a month the college takes foreign teachers on a tour. There is always an element of confusion with these tours - we are given only a few days notice, just the names of the cities or town we will visit, and the day before we are given the starting time. This one was an early one.

7 am we groaned!!! But the trip had promise so around 20 folk arrived at the West Gate to catch the bus. A nice airconditioned bus - it is still pretty hot here, so that was a necessity. We set off for the drive of 2 hours to Wuzhen.

This is an ancient water village - with a long and intersting history. People still live in the village - though it seems to be only the older ones, as the young ones have moved on. Too much for them! I guess having thousands of people tramp through the place, especially at weekends.

And they leave the doors open of their little old homes, and it is intersting to peep inside. Some of them have been updated with tiled floors and modern kitchen, most seem to have television and even computers.

Others seem to be dark and dingy and some have Chairman Mao's picture on the wall. Not in a frame, but just stuck on. I guess there are many who still remember the past well. The village has many narrow alleyways, stone bridges over the canals, and mostly timber buildings that are on either side of the narrow main alley, which winds its way through the village.

There are interesting places all along - the ancient medicine shop (all restored), the Bed Museum (a must - very fascinating), The Rice Wine factory, the fabric place, the home of MaoDun, the Wood Carving Museum, and so much more.

When you come out of the laneway, there are shops everywhere, and as we were there on a Saturday, crowds and crowds of people and lots of noise and smoke. (It seems that so many of the men wer puffing away at their cigarettes!)

We had lunch at a restaurant nearby, but three of our group were missing. There was confusing information given when we set out. First we were told that we had to meet back at the entrance, and then later told that we had to meet at the other gate. Not all got the message it appears. One of the students with us was sent back to find the three missing Aussie teachers and bring them to the restaurant and he got a taxi. But the taxi too them somewhere else, and it was all a bit of an adventure for them. They all missed out on a lovely lunch!

Eventually we caught up with them again. In time to board the bus to Haining. Wuzhen is very interesting, but we always regret that we travelto these places on a weekend - it is so noisy and crowded. But for us, there is little choice.

Mid Autumn Festival

This weekend in China it is the celebration of the Mid Autumn Festival, with a public holiday on Monday September 15th. It is sometimes referred to as the Mooncake Festival as wonderful packages of moon cakes are given as gifts at this time of year.

Yesterday I was a speaker at the Shaoxing Government's function to celebrate the mid Autumn Festival at the Shaoxing International Hotel. Many guest spoke about the development of this city. There were many foreign guests as well as leaders from the Shaoxing community.

After the speaking we enjoyed a great luncheon banquet with fantastic food and Shaoxing Wine.

Afterwards the guests were presented with a package that contained an exquisite presentation of Mooncakes in a fantastic box. Too good to eat I think.

Today the foreign teachers were given a gift to celebrate this occasion. I gift voucher for mooncakes or other delicacies from one of the bakeries here in Shaoxing.

Please explain

Some things in China we just never get to understand. While walking in the city of Shaoxing, close to one of the canals and a shopping complex were two Chinese pavilions and this one had this interesting sign.

"Brain Storm Cultural Diffusion." What does it mean? I shall endeavour to find this out, but I think it is a community meeting hall. Somewhere that the locals can congregate to discuss issues. It is quite small, so not a lot of people can fit into the room, but interesting.

This is in an area where folk meet informally in the morning and at night. People might do Tai Chi, or similar in such places.