The day started, as all days do, with our
ever more frustrating language lesson.
Nancy and I are using it not so much for the language, but for
increasing our awareness of how not to teach.
We find ourselves mucking up, getting on or phones, chattering etc when
it is all out of our depth – a sobering lesson to any teacher.
We were then taken by local bus to a
particular part of Deyang which was purported to sell all types of building
materials. We had been so looking
forward to it, but found it to be not anything like that. It was certainly tile shop after tile shop,
but absolutely nothing else. Venturing
into one of them, we found an enlightening display of bathrooms, kitchens and
living rooms, all heavily tiled in the Chinese version of western style. What an interesting experience that was! My favourite was a living room that had four
ornaments sitting next to each other on a tiled shelf: two mini versions of the
terracotta warriors , a bulldog and then an antelope! The furniture was Franco Cotzo on steroids
and the tiled floor included a tiled ‘mat’. The grouting for the high gloss
tiles was glossy gold with sparkles in it.
It is obvious that toilets are slowly
changing to western style, as all the display bathrooms had a western style one
in them. Later in the day we were in a
furniture shop and many of their beds had not the two-inch thick mattress that
are the norm, but what appears to be an innerspring mattress. Further investigation however, revealed not
soft beds, but just a thicker version of the rock hard ones that we have now
become used to. One quilted mattress had
literally only the quilting as any softness – it was laid right over a timber
plank!
In the afternoon we were free to wander
around the area close to our hotel. We
walked off the main roads and through the back streets where we passed hundreds
of little stores, very dilapidated apartment blocks, street markets, groups
playing Mah Jongg and even a women’s marching band that came past carrying some
sort of banner. Through the translator
app on my phone – what a handy gadget that is turning out to be – we asked a
group of people who were gathered around the gate of their apartment compound,
if we could look at their garden. They
were delighted at the request and so invited us in. That gave us the chance to see first hand the
very ordinary condition of their living conditions. It was intriguing to see
several quite flash cars parked in the compound, so obviously the people
themselves are not as impoverished as their housing makes them appear.
Nancy found a shop in which she was able to
have a dress made. The shop owner was so
delighted that we honoured her with a visit to her shop, that while Nancy was
being measured up, she presented me with a lovely pink and grey scarf – one
that I actually do like and will wear.
Everywhere we wandered, we had people
turning or stopping to stare at us, making us feel quite the celebrities! How
fortunate I am to be in a part of China that is still so closely aligned to how
things have been in the past.
I stopped to watch a group playing Mah
Jongg. What a wonderful
opportunity! Although we no doubt play a
very different version to the real thing, it was so great to see the wall built
in the same way and they were obviously making pungs and kongs as we do. Naturally I took a photograph, but soon found
a very angry woman accosting me.
Although her friends were obviously telling her to stop making a fuss,
she was not happy until I had deleted both the Mah Jongg photograph and also
one that I had taken of a lady with her sewing machine. Nancy and our four Interior Design girls were
standing around feeling helpless but they said later that they thought the
woman was about to hit me.
We took a tuk tuk back to the hotel and
stopped on the way at the city square where we were dancing last night. There we saw several men cracking whips to
make large spinning tops spin. It was
quite fascinating and obviously another daily public activity. We came across a young couple with a little
toddler who had a cute love heart Mohawk hair cut.
I am quite fascinated that absolutely all
advertising is western – all billboards, all shop signs, everything. Even signs on buses have western faces in
their graphics. The place is obviously
on the road to becoming westernized as fast as it can.
We finished the night with a hot pot, yet
another style of Chinese cuisine. It
involved us all gathered around a huge pot of boiling broth and dropping meat
and vegetables into it. Once cooked, they rose to the top and we then fished
them out, dipped them into a garlic and spring onion pesto. There were twelve of us at the table and it
was huge fun. Again the locals gathered
round, all wanting photos with us.
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