Priceless
- THE DIARY OF TRISH
First time in China, first time as a teacher of English as a 2nd Language.
A mature Australian lady from Central Queensland, her experiences and thoughts. Another day Thursday, March 23rd, 2006Seem to spend a lot of time sitting around waiting for things to happen! Might be a lesson in patience I need. Waiting for the police to
come and check my security alarm at the moment – fingers are frozen from playing solitaire while I wait! In the meantime, I got a phone call from my interpreter saying the landlady had
invited me to the evening meal on Sunday night and that her son (who speaks broken English) would pick me up in a car at 2pm to escort me to the Metro (the Western supermarket). I was
relieved to thank her but say I was going to the Metro tomorrow with a couple of Aussies – can't imagine trying to shop with someone who doesn't understand me, and I don't understand him!
Have yet to hear if the dinner invite is still on! I may have offended him too much!  Then Tulip, the English teacher from upstairs, dropped in to tell me I have to give a 1.5
hour lecture in a fortnight's time – subject of my choosing. I said I'd already been asked to give one on Australia so I don't know if this is the same one or different. Apparently
my contract includes giving several lectures to teachers and any students who choose to come. (I didn't see that in the small print, but I'm doing fewer teaching hours than I
expected, so can't complain!) She also invited me to dinner on Friday night with her and a friend of hers who has a foreign trade company – apparently he likes to talk to
foreigners! There goes any intended diet for another week! With a bit of luck, they won't eat as much at home as they do at restaurants!
This morning's class went pretty well. They were the class I gave the demo with so some of the faces were familiar. For all that there's supposed to be an acute shortage of
women in China, all the classes are either predominantly, if not wholly, female. Well I've had the visit from a Senior policeman (by the number of pips on his shoulder!),
a technician who set up my security alarm, and the head of security from the Uni. They really mean business! I've got an alarm that goes directly to the police station in
case of problems, and I probably won't use the system for fear I'll set the darned thing off myself! Had to hand over a photo of myself, and they want one of Don when he
arrives as well. The head of security (a male!) was the latest in the line to comment on how handsome Matt is!! And they all think I have a beautiful daughter and are
surprised that she is so young to have 3 children! I told Mao I was heading for the bus station and she offered to come with me. Good
thing she did! I hit the traffic big-time on this trip, and the bus station is a mini-Roma Street. It will cost about $7.50 to go to Suzhou and about $8.50 to go to Shanghai
(one-way). It's 144k and about 4 hours to Shanghai, so there must be a lot of stops between the two! I guess that includes the ferry ride so that would slow things down.
Well that's my exercise for the day and enough excitement to send me off to sleep tonight. My body-clock is still on Queensland time unfortunately so they're long days!
Friday - Big day! Friday, March 24th, 2006
I should sleep well tonight – went into down-town early this morning to get orientated before meeting Amon and
walked for miles. Couldn't believe how many mobile phone shops there are – about the same number as the banks!
Beautiful jewellery stores – lots of jade for sale but at prices that made me balk big time! I didn't see any yellow
gold jewellery – al either white gold or silver. All the big stores are 5 or 6 stories, and I had trouble finding my way
out of most of them! You have to pay a cashier and take the receipt back before being given an item (except for the supermarkets) – might cut down on shoplifting and till pilfering.
Lots of beggar women on the street. One little girl was very persistent, hanging on to my leg and walking half a block with me! Amon said most of them are richer than the workers!  We met outside McDonalds (yep McDonalds in China!) as there's only one of them and it's a good landmark. (KFC has
multiple outlets!) Walked down to the area where Amon and another Aussie are teaching and found a dog dress for you Chantelle – or should I say for Ebbie!
Only one of them looked remotely Chinese – it has black lace on it!!!! We went to a teahouse for a drink – I had watermelon juice again which is really
good over here. I have photos of both Amon and me there. We met up with Cecilia, another Aussie, and headed to the Metro. It's almost like Bunnings
with food! Got a slab of Coke cans and a bottle of Nescafe ready for Don's arrival, 2 dinner plates, some Milo, tinned and frozen vegies and some dry
spaghetti amongst other things, but the BIG find was butter – the real stuff from Oz! Blew the budget big time, but I
don't think I'll be going out there too often. You have to get an ID card and the girl filling out the forms obviously didn't understand English because I'm "Patricia Mary" on my card!  Got a taxi home because it's quite a hike out there, and it was a struggle to get the gear up to my flat! Just got home in time to get ready to go out with Tulip
and her friend, Michael. We went to a lovely restaurant (private room again) and had another banquet. Fortunately, they'd asked me on the way what I liked to
eat, so we had mainly vegetables, with goose soup, shrimps (they need to call them shrimps because we'd only use them for bait!), and the usual meat which
is like corned silverside. Sandi, the speciality of the place is eggplant done in lemon and however they do it, it's delicious. It seems to have just a small
amount of a thick lemony coating and is fried in thin slices. They don't give out the recipe unfortunately! And they use a green eggplant as opposed to a purple one!
I managed to get a Chinese sim card for my mobile down town – have no idea of what plan I've signed up for
because they didn't speak English! I'm hoping it's the one Amon is on where she pays about $5 a month not to pay
for incoming calls as well as outgoing, and gets a bundle of free texts! I can text Oz but don't seem to be able to get
messages from over there! (Amon's mum has the same problem apparently.) At least I can let you know if my
computer blows up! Now have a map of Nantong with English names on it so I'll get a bit more adventurous on my bike.
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