Cleaning

Where do I start?

The Chinese people always seem to be cleaning - sweeping, mopping, sweeping and mopping, but things seldom get clean. Let me explain. The pollution here is really visible some days and it is as if the air is "thick" with something, and I think it is. Maybe dust - but certainly fine fibres from the many textile factories here.

There is little carpet - which is a good idea - but acres of tiles. Mostly polished tiles. At the college the cleaners are continually mopping the corridors, but we get the sense that they are really just moving the dust around. They don't use buckets very much - so the mop (made of fabric) is moved back and forth along the tiles. Cleaning? I think not.

The "cleaners" in the classroom are students who do little more than "tidy" and remove large items of rubbish (students tend to leave a lot of debris in each class),
They sweep using a pretty ineffective little broom, and mostly move the dust particles around.

I tend to think that better quality brooms and mops might help! It seems a lot of time and effort is wasted.

I have a cleaner to clean my apartment. A lovely lady whose English is zilch, but who comes most Thursdays and sweeps with these funny little ineffective brooms, and then mops with my squeegee mop, but often scrapes it along the floor using the metal edge. I'm not sure what she is trying to achieve. If I could speak Chinese well, we might make some changes, but as she is also one of the college cleaners, I reckon she is doing the best that she can.

Perhaps cleaning lessons would be good. I guess all our Aussie brooms, and rakes are made in China, but they don't use the same style that we do. Even the streets and gardens are raked with what looks like a rake make of twigs. They are actually twigs, fashioned in a particular style.

Everywhere we go we see men and women sweeping parks and streets with this strange rakes or brooms. Just rearranging the dust.

Cleaning in China

I've tried NOT to be critical of anything I see in China - but this issue has been important to me. I don't like working in a "dirty" classroom, but that is the reality for me. There are no paid cleaners of classrooms like we have in Oz, and worse, students eat and drink during class. Even if I stop them - other teachers allow it apparently. So there is allways food debris, papers, packaging etc left in the class room.

During the mid day break some students come in to the class room and take away the obvious rubbish, but the room is never properly cleaned. The chalk dust build up is annoying - piles high on the chalk ledge of the blackboard and spilled over to the floor. This remains day after day, even if I am polite and ask for it to be cleaned.

It seems to be the same with much cleaning - it is as if dust/dirt is moved around rather than removed. If I had a vacuum cleaner I'd do it myself. Now that's a thought.

Will I go or won't I?

Funny, I didn't think there was any discussion. Of course I plan to go - all things being equal. My granddaughter on hearing that I might be going to China, laughed, and said "DeeDee won't be going", and her father is convinced I won't go. Mmmmmm

Someone who has completed the reference for me, is also not sure I will go. He'd rather expected that when I spoke with the other lady who had been to the same school, that I would change my mind. She said nothing to worry me.

I am having a big clean out though - stuff I should have gotten rid of before, but never had done so. I am hoping that maybe while I am away MM will put the house on the market. I don't want to live here any more. In any case I'm making it easy to move on.

Folk ask me about MM - how is he going to manage on his own. I recall when he went away - in fact on one occasion was sent to Melbourn for over 3 months, I don't recall anyone being worried about me. I also know that there have been occasions when I had been away on business for short period, he managed to get a "free meal" with friends. Something that never happened with me.