National Day Celebrations

Last night the foreign teachers were invited to a banquet by the Chongqing Department of Foreign Affairs. Turns out dinner was buffet style, and it was like going to the Mandarin but not having any tables to sit at. It was the most non-Chinese people I’d seen in Chongqing. At one point a trade commissioner from the Canadian consulate introduced himself, and in typically Canadian fashion was telling me and Jesse that there is an ice rink on the 6th floor of some building downtown where we can rent skates and hockey sticks. He said he was from Saskatchewan and looked to be about 6’5”, and also considering I don’t play hockey, so I’m not sure if I’ll be going to this ice rink anytime soon.

On a different note, the ladies who come to clean my room always seem to get a good laugh at my expense. Foreigners are still are a great source of amusement for people in this area of China. I am very good at hearing when someone is asking me if I understood （听懂了吗）, unfortunately at this point I don’t actually understand much more than that. I did understand that the cleaning ladies wanted me to open the windows of my room, which I’m not a huge fan of doing since there are no screens on windows anywhere… I’ve been told that mosquitoes survive year long here.

Gele Mountain

It seems I was lulled into a false sense of security by my first week in Chongqing. This week there will be highs between 34-37 degrees C, the warmest it’s been since I arrived. Today I went with a group of PhD students to climb Gele mountain, which is very close to the campus. Little did I know when I accepted the invitation a few days ago that the high for today would be 35. While walking up the mountain it was quite a bit cooler because of the forest, but I was still dripping buckets. One other good thing about being in the forest was that I was breathing the cleanest air one can get in the area. Spend a reasonable time breathing Chinese air and you appreciate why people are spitting all over the place.

When we finished climbing the mountain we arrived at what is called a nong jia le 农家乐. It was basically a huge house that some big shot in Sichuan lived in. It’s now been converted into a strange country style retreat, where city people with money go to on the weekends to eat, play mahjong/cards, and generally lounge around. They play a simplified version of mahjong in the area, where they win with hands that I’ve been taught aren’t worth anything, so it took me a little while to adjust strategies. They were quite impressed that I knew how to play, and they altered the rules a bit after I joked that their winning hands were so ugly.

Finally Teaching

Yesterday I began teaching the Oral Legal English class. It went fairly well considering that it was the first class and I had no idea what level the students would be at. There were about 40 people in the class, most of whom should just be in a regular English class. My students are lawyers, teachers, at least one judge, and post-graduate students. I may just be the youngest person in the room. They were all friendly, but it will be a challenge to get them to talk during class.

Mmm....

The foreign teachers and students were invited by the university for a mid-autumn festival lunch. The restaurant was very high class and quite the change from the whole-in-the-wall places which I’ve been frequenting with the other teachers. As a gift from the university we also all got about a months supply of moon cake.

Chongqing hills

The nickname for Chongqing is Mountain city. This is the view from the top of the Hotel for Foreign Guests, where I live.

Shapingba

Yesterday, the Laowai brigade took the bus to the centre of the Shapingba district of Chongqing. For a Wednesday afternoon there were a crazy amount of people just walking around like us. The mall had what seemed like hundreds of tiny clothing and shoe stores. At one point we came across a crowd of people only to realize they were watching a naked man bathing in fountain/waterfall, and then the ensuing capture by firefighters. We then had hotpot for the first time since arriving, which was very tasty and tolerably spicy when the non-spicy pot was ordered. We got a little lost trying to find the bus to take back to the university, but why bother traveling if you aren’t going to get lost once in a while?

Some pics

Here is a pic of Hong Kong, a pic of my gigantic bed, and the "kitchen" area.