The ‘New’ Driving Student!

October 31^st Today I learned more about the perils of learning to drive in China. I took Huan to Changhao and back, a fairly quiet road, thinking it’s a reasonable route to start her on. Well I was right, and I was also wrong. It is a fairly quiet road but because of the way they learn here my nerves were on edge more than once. She will get there but it may take longer than I thought.

From Changhao we headed back to Baijiahui for our weekly shop. In the car park we saw a car from Harbin, with a rooftop storage box, probably driven down by snowbirds. However, the stickers don’t seem to match OAPs. The first one may have something to do with Kobe Bryant but the initials are KG, the second one is obvious.

The other two stickers seem to be anime related, maybe you youngsters will know better.

Tuesday is usually my day to cook so who am I to argue. Huan suggested chicken hearts again, no problem. Today I cooked them with the obligatory garlic and onion, one red capsicum which for some reason was seedless, button mushrooms and finally some leafy greens. I think it was rocket (arugula) but I can’t be sure. Here’s what it looked like, it tasted yummy.

November 1st It’s that time of the year again. Well for me it is more like Ramadan in that the date moves forward every year. Today entailed a visit to Sanya for my annual, (for annual read every eleven and something months), medical for my visa. Blood was first!

As you can see the fear never goes away. Following that it was doctor time, BP, height, weight ENT etc. From there Huan dragged me to the X-Ray room; soon I will be glowing green. From there I got the chance to lie down for a while.

And then again when they looked to see if I was ‘with child’!

Huan also took photographs of some of my results but no need for them methinks. Suffice to say that all my bits inside appear to be OK, most much better than last year. How that can be I am not so sure. Huan said that even my eyes had improved over last year’s test? Anyway, all done for today, I have to go back next week to collect the results. We were back in Wuzhishan in time for lunch and a much needed nap.

In the evening Huan was treated yet again, how lucky she is. Having said that, we were headed for a cheap buffet style restaurant that we had never been to before. On the way I had to take this photo. It seems that generational labelling in China is not quite the same as ours in the West. The English pages of Chinese media do talk about ‘Gen Z’ and such like but this is what it is usually like for Chinese people. 90後 just means post 90s, the English is just that, English words. Huan’s son is one of this generation, there are also post 50s, post 60s, post 70s, post 80s and post 00s. For each of these there is a logical reason, many internet articles explain in more detail.

Enough learning for the day, here is our dinner, mine first followed by the chief’s. We both had the obligatory bowls of rice and soup as well. Not bad for less than a fiver!

November 2^nd Today was an English day! Well the weather was very English and wet anyway. For the first half of the morning I prepared today’s dinner, chicken drumstick stew. For the second half I gave Huan another driving lesson and she gave me a couple of heart attacks! I get the feeling that she is driving now as I was in my first couple of driving lessons. We have paid over a thousand pounds to get through the tests, the result being that Huan, like everyone else, can’t really drive yet. I will need a lot of patience. However, to her credit, apart from the two ‘incidents’, she was better today than she was on Tuesday.

I left the lady sleeping after lunch while I went out for a solo walk, she needed the rest and I needed the relaxation. On the bridge I found today’s subject. I had to use quite a lot of fill light in Picasa so that you could more clearly see its face in the second photo.

I had only gone about two kilometres when my right sandal decided it wanted to part ways with its sole, at least at the front. I flapped away for another two kilometres before I found a shoe repair man who I thought would only do what I would do at home and that is glue the sole back on. He didn’t, he sewed it on and then just glued the seam. Still, it got me on my way again.

By sheer coincidence I found another post 90s car sticker today. This one had explanations in Chinese, translated here by Google for your delectation. 北上广 Běishàng guǎng - Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou / 不相信眼泪 bù xiāngxìn yǎnlèi - don't believe in tears / 90後闯荡社会 90 hòu chuǎngdàng shèhuì - Post-90s enter society / 不喝清晨的粥 只干最烈的酒 bù hē qīngchén de zhōu zhǐ gàn zuì liè de jiǔ - Don’t drink the morning porridge, just drink the strongest wine / 90後加油 90 hòu jiāyóu - Come on, those born in the 90s!

After my short walk was over it was back home to finish the stew, in other words to add the mushrooms and same leafy greens I had used on Tuesday. No photos, it was just a stew.

November 3^rd This morning I didn’t have as many heart attacks, just a little flutter now and then. The new driver is learning, still terrified but slowly, ever so slowly, improving. Today I took her through traffic lights and all the way to the Nansheng roundabout on the bypass and then back on the main road. She is not ready to try it alone yet but she will be before too long.

I had fancied a solo walk after lunch so that maybe I could have sneaked in a quick fag break along the way. SWMBO wanted to tag along so that plan failed. Almost immediately she found one of my little green friends and in her eager anticipation to plant it somewhere on my body she dropped it on my sandal. It doesn’t look too happy there does it. I’m not sure how it felt on Huan’s arm afterwards either!

We were on the little island route and Huan managed to find two lizards in very short order. Yesterday I didn’t even find one!

Because it was siesta time we went out we had a very lonely walk for the most part, not a snowbird in sight. Sometimes it is better that way.

At the last bridge we headed off along lizard walk, we had plenty of time. I did tell Huan that it would not be a problem if we didn’t find any so she found a grasshopper instead.

Of course she followed this in rapid succession with three more lizards!

I found the next one and then almost instantly Huan found another one. She had to take a photo of me taking a photo of the second one. They look very similar but they are two different lizards. They were so close though I guess they could be related!

 

Next up was a talking point, a dog in the distance. This is the part of the river where we often see cows but they were absent today. The pooch was having the time of his life, in this photo he was looking to see who was barking at him. “Guilty as charged your Honour!” I was explaining to Huan how they love to play in the dirt and in the water but then hate it when it’s bath time!

Huan did manage to find me another lizard but I didn’t manage to take a decent photograph of it. I found the cows, going the wrong way on a pedestrian crossing and then Huan found the farmer.

Just a few metres up the road, looking over the traffic lights, this view caught my attention. It’s nothing special but I thought it looked very pretty. What say you?

On our way home we had to make an unscheduled stop. Well, it was unscheduled for me but it seemed that the boss had received a call from the clinic yesterday asking her to go for a BP check, yet again. It doesn’t seem that long since her last visit. For her efforts today she received a shopping bad a tiny plastic bowl and here she is looking very pleased with herself.

November 4^th It’s only the second week and already we are missing our normal market. Huan decided that we should go the wrong way today and go around the road to somewhere first. The view was not so bad, just look at that blue sky.

Huan couldn’t see this next one at all and even I was struggling to see it through the EVF. Only when we got home could I see clearly what I had snapped. This is cropped to about 25%.

We bumped into an old neighbour, someone that we know quite well although we are ashamed to say that we don’t know her name. While she and Huan were having a good old catch up gossip I took a couple of local views.

We approached the temporary market from the street we call the upper shopping street; it’s actually the main road before it leaves the town going towards Haikou. Our requirements were minimal today, one carrot, one cabbage and some cherry tomatoes. None of them were available so we had to head for the ‘real’ market and the fruit shops. Tomatoes in hand we headed into the market and spotted these. I actually took a video, or thought I did. When I got home I had a wonderful video of me putting the lens cover back on and chatting away in the dark! So, what are these delicacies? They are bamboo worms and are very nice fried, or so they, and Google, tell us. Strangely, we have never seen any in the wild.

While Huan was in the local farmer’s section of the market, buying the cabbage and carrot, I was trying to understand what these were. I understood from the lady that they were peanuts but I couldn’t quite make her understand my question about why the nuts weren’t growing underneath. With Huan’s help, and Google again, I now understand that what looks like a nut on the top is just the flower before it blooms. Peanuts would normally grow beneath the ground but in this case they are harvesting peanut shoots. We’ll have to try them one day, just not today.

From food to clothing, we have a new shop here in Wuzhishan, Crocodile Vigour. Knowing the copyright wars around the world over the crocodile logo I took this photo and did some research. It is not fake, it is not a copy, it is a company founded in 1952 in Hong Kong. There was a long drawn out fight between Lacoste and Crocodile but in the end nobody won. All Crocodile had to do was slightly modify their crocodile, vertical tail, larger scales and bigger eyes.

Salad makings in hand we then decided on a fast food option to go with it. A whole chicken with a burger was on special offer today so we bought two. The chickens are small; one for today and one for tomorrow, and the burgers will do for lunch today. Cheap as chips too!

While we were waiting, these two characters piqued my curiosity. They were both attached together on one cup, and then also appeared separately on product bags. Huan had no idea who they were, perhaps children of today might know.

How did our fast food salad work out? Not bad at all, we had half a chicken each, the salad was sweet potatoes, carrots, onion, cabbage, cherry tomatoes and tinned sweet corn. Huan had hers ‘straight’, I added salad cream to mine. We will no doubt do it again in the future!

November 5th Happy bonfire night to one and all!

Do you know that the plot was the seed for the movie V for Vendetta? “Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished, as the once vital voice of the verisimilitude now venerates what they once vilified. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose vis-à-vis an introduction, and so it is my very good honour to meet you and you may call me

V.

I used to get my older students to see who could most ably read this aloud. Try it yourself, you will find it is not so easy. Now try it again with feeling!

These days of course we have Hallowe’en, but have you ever wondered why? This extract comes from research I did for a lesson in 2010. “The real treat is for retailers! Spending on Hallowe’en far outstrips Bonfire Night, mainly because government restrictions limit the sale of fireworks to a three-week window. Shops have cottoned on and push Hallowe’en instead. According to Woolworths, spending on costumes, props and sweets has risen tenfold in six years. In 2001, spending was £14 million; this year so far (2010), it is a record £140 million.”

Back to the present, I suggested the Rendishan walk today and the Prime Minister agreed. I did also suggest that we don’t go over the mountain until he ground has dried a little more. Luckily for me she agreed with that too!

One thing in our favour today was the weather, although it wasn’t so good for me. Despite reminding myself to wear my hat, while I was putting my boots on, I successfully managed to forget that before we got out of the door. You can see here that the weather was a little on the warm side, fortunately there was also some shade now and then.

In the village Huan managed to find a lizard, not in an easy spot mind you.

Through the village and under the highway, Huan took the easy but sunny way while I took the shaded and slightly more difficult way. My path petered out but we both met the other side at the beginning of the valley.

We walked along the valley side to get to the top.

Once there, as previously decided, we turned back to go along the valley floor rather than going ‘up and over’. As you can see it is quite boggy there, maybe even more so in the trees on the other side. This ‘boggy’ though was caused by someone we had to follow down.

This is the view down the valley and if you look closely you may see the farmer trying to get the three or four leaders back to where the others had stopped off. The second picture is me of course trying not to frighten the calf into going the wrong way for the farmer!

As you can see, walking along the valley floor is a lot easier than going up along the side, Maybe you can also tell, as my head could, that it is a great deal warmer!

Heading back into the village we met a couple of young boys who were convinced that I was a foreigner no matter how hard I tried to explain that I was a local. Huan took a video of the encounter but where children are concerned I prefer not to share. Instead I’ll show you another lizard that she found, this time not on the wrong side of a tree!

At the village shop it was time for a break and some lovely water. What happened to me? Breaks used to involve tea, coffee or even the odd nice cool beer or soft drink. Now I love H₂O! All the village children appeared so Huan got busy with her phone and made another video.

Back in town the little lady was as happy as (insert your own simile here) due to finding and directing me to yet another lizard, the last of the day.

Ever since the first time I got a lizard to give me a ‘high five’ Huan has been trying to get one to do it again. I sometimes try; one must keep the boss happy after all. I did try today and as is usually the case the little creature did a runner. What was unusual is that it only ran a short distance away and stopped again so I got another snap.

Having spent some time in the village by the time we reached home it was too late for lunch, for me anyway, so I had some more of that magic water and an OAP nap. Huan joined me a after her lunch, she can’t miss meals the same way that I can.

November 6^th Here we are, the last day of the week again; well the last day for us. Why did we choose Monday? Because that is the day when we know we will not usually have any wonderful walks because it is our shopping day. Today’s shopping day started with a wait for someone to come and let me out of the car park.

Once at the supermarket I found another subject. You may know of this, but I didn’t.

There was one of these stickers on the filler cap and another one mirroring it on the other side of the car. The sides were a glorious mess of colour!

Once home I had to Google to find out what it was all about. There appear to be more characters in the TV series than are shown here. Ask your children to help you out! If you don’t want to seem like a dummy to then, then go here first - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAW_Patrol

After lunch I offered the new driver the chance for another practice run, she declined which I have to admit surprised me a little. Maybe she was in need of a little rest. I had to go out anyway, to the ‘little’ Baijiahui, to try and find stuff that was missing from the ‘big’ Baijiahui this morning. Snowbirds return and stocks go haywire. My mission was unsuccessful; the items were not available in the smaller store either. However, my other project was successful, I needed a replacement hair trimmer, and my beard had become too long for just a wet shave. It took me a few shops but I eventually found one, probably got ripped off, but bought it anyway. I then gave myself a well earned coffee break.

Walking back home along the main street I spotted something that I don’t think we have seen before. Are they coming back into use? Are they just here as street ornamentation? Why haven’t we seen them before? They were definitely not working today; we’ll keep an eye on them.

Arriving home the car park was inaccessible. We had planned ahead though and parked down below, we have to go to Sanya again tomorrow. Of course the car was blocked in down there too, by a snowbird; there is a phone number on the dashboard though.

Unpacking my shopping I found that the razor I had bought, while having the same name and looking similar to my old one was in fact different. Not only that, the old one had half the manual in Chinese, half in English, this one is all Chinese. It may take a while!

So the end of the new driver’s first week has come, she is realising that it won’t be as easy as she thought it would. I am realising that she will need help and reassurance for quite some time to come. She did teach me something else today, not that it makes much sense to me. Like many countries we have points on our licences which, if we are bad, we can lose. We start off with twelve points. Huan told me that if she goes back to study for a couple of hours and answers another course of safety questions correctly her total will go up to eighteen. I have never heard of this before, does it happen anywhere else that you know of?

Wherever you may be take care, it looks like many places have streets that are very worrying at the moment. Yet again I find myself being thankful that I live here, even if I do sometimes have a bit of a grumble about it. See you next time!