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Hi,Everyone
It is still quite hot here,although we now have had the official 5 seperate days of rain which makes it officially autumn.
I started teaching 3 young women english the other week it was a good class and I enjoyed it,but they did not come back for another lesson, the school said they couldn,t all agree the same day and time as they shared the cost of the lesson. I am sure it is quite expensive for them although when it comes to their children money is no object and getting their children into the best nurseries is all down to bribes/backhanders etc.Anyway I have another class today with a young man so I will see how that goes.
We went away over night the other thursday to the mountains north of Beijing about 3 hours drive spent a night in a guest house in the mountains had an evening meal at a farmers/smallholding house very basic but lovely food and very nice people.Up early the next morning got the motorboat across the lake then went for a hike then continued the car journey for another 30 minutes to a white water rafting centre and had a go on the river, got soaked of course haha.
Jun had been told the other day at work that she might have to go on a 2 week training course down in Shanghai, that would have been a test for me living alone here for 2 weeks, or I was going to go down there and just see her some nights and the weekends and stay in another hotel but thankfully she got out of it but they said next year she will have to do it.
Another company got in touch with us the other week and wanted me to travel to other areas of China and give talks in English about their pharmaceutical products which were either genuine american products or copies, not sure which. But what they wanted from me was to pretend I represented the american company and they said they would pay all my expenses,travel, hotels and 10 pound an hour, I said no to which they then said ok we will pay you 15 as if it was only a case of paying enough,they really couldn,t understand why someone would refuse.
Jun is busy these days she has started to make soaps,lipstick,hand and body creams at home and already a lot of people at her workplace have tried some and placed orders with her.
We went out the other sunday afternoon for a meal as it was the moon festival it was a lovely place we went to, we were driving in a really run down area then did a right turn and went through a security gate into these huge grounds of hotels, restaraunts, parks,lake,streams, you just wouldn,t believe it could be in that area, thats the land of contrasts for you.While we were sat in the waiting area for a table there was 2 young boys in the restaraunt really misbehaving and the parents were only making half hearted attemts to stop them then they started throwing the cushions about and one hit Jun I jumped up and shouted really loud "Bu, Gola" (No, Enough) you should have seen their faces they froze haha ,the parents ran out of the cubicle they were in and I let them know what they had done then they took them away , they just don,t seem to discipline their children at all and as it is one child policy they tend to be quite spoilt and are growing up to be very self centred as are a lot of 20/30 year olds now who are the result of this same policy which came into effect in the1980,s.Having said that in general the children here are the most polite of anywhere in the world.
The company which manages our complex introduced a new waste collection system the other week, previously each apartment block had a large brick built bin and all the rubbish went into it.Now we have had them removed and have 3 different wheelie bins for each apartment block each for different items, but I have yet to see anyone using them correctly they just continue to throw their rubbish in any bin,the company now have staff that go around each evening sorting the bins out before the morning collection,very strange, a lot of them dont seem to grasp the idea of (or care) about the environment,but I am sure it will all eventually change.
We have a milkman who delivers to us now he fitted a small metal box on the wall outside the apartment for the bottles I call him the midnight milkman as he doesn,t deliver till anywhere between 4-6pm haha.
Oh here,s a good joke going about Beijing now,There was a chinese politician driving his car and with him was an american politician and they came to a fork in the road with a signpost saying left to communism and right to capitalism the american turned to the chinese and said " well which way do you want to go" to which the chinese man replied "we will go right,but I will keep my left indicator on".
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