China: First Impressions

I’m writing this on Sunday night. It won’t be posted until tomorrow morning though because I’ve not got the internet hooked up in my flat yet. It’s proving quite hard to communicate with people without it – luckily, cheap, knock-off DVDs only cost a pound here so I’m not just sat staring at the wall.

I’ve not really had a lot of chance to explore Kunming outside of the little neighbourhood that I’m living in yet; partly because I’ve been busy sorting things out and hunting down my suitcase and partly because the roads here are bat-shit crazy. I’ve already seen one minor crash and although there are traffic lights and zebra crossings I’m yet to see anyone pay any attention to them. Get public transport instead you say? Of the few busses I’ve seen most have been packed tighter than Matt’s wallet and even if I could get on a bus, I have no idea where to get off yet!

I did manage to venture to the supermarket the other day and discovered that pretty much everything I’d heard about prices in China was true. Almost everything is dirt cheap, even Western brands. A bottle of Coke will set you back 25 Yuan (equivalent to 25p) and Rola Cola is even cheaper. I managed to buy a load of new appliances, towels, a mop, pans, cutlery, stationary, food and drink and countless other things for less that 1,000 Yuan (£100). Surprisingly the fact that I can speak about 10 words of Chinese didn’t help me much when I knocked a plate off a shelf. The arm waving and pointing stopped when they were given the money for it. Money talks, eh?

The people I’m working with are all very friendly, but I think the locals need some time to adjust to the sight of another foreigner every day; most of them stare, I’ve even had some pointing and giggling from a group of teenage girls. Thankfully I’m used to it from my time as a teenage heart-throb at school…

Apart from my apartment, I’ve been spending a fair bit of time at work. The school caters for kids whose parents want them to learn English after school or at the weekend so I’ll have a lot of free time during weekdays. The average class size is about 5 which is tiny, especially when compared to the average Chinese class size of about 50 (say what you want about the Chinese, they sure know how to reproduce). The school moved into new premises this year so everything’s relatively new (pictures below).

Oh and I was reunited with my suitcase this morning after a long wait. Its contents weren’t quite as exciting as I’d built them up to be, I had to take most of the cool stuff out to get the weight down, but still, I now have more than 1 t-shirt and more underwear than you can shake a stick at. Why you’d shake a stick at underwear I’m don’t know… I need sleep.