haonowshaokao

I hate birthdays. Every year I push this thought to the back of my mind in the hope that I’ll stop caring, but with little success. It’s not to do with being older – I can deal with that just fine. It’s not the feeling of having achieved nothing in the previous year either – in fact I’ve done quite a lot in the last 12 months – toured Europe, moved to China, got a proper adult job, etc, etc. This year it has more to do with the underlying feeling that I’m not a fit centrepiece for a celebration, being the miserable non-gregarious cunt I am. Every celebratory failure reminds me of this and I get into my annual funny mood I can’t shake off.
Still, this year’s gathering wasn’t without fun. The fact that so few people turned up turned out to be due to confusing text-messaging on my part, rather than any personal animosity. “Pool party tomorrow for my birthday on Sunday” means Sunday (not tomorrow) to Chinese readers, apparently. And also to me, now I look at it.
Lying by the pool with a calimoxo is never a grudge, though, and the Indian restaurant we went to afterwards was excellent. Met up with some more people in the evening for drinks at a barbeque, which was good too, but I still ended up sitting there at 1am drinking with middle-aged German and Malaysian men, listening to bad jokes and interminable stories. I could have gone to a club but didn’t really feel into it by then, so I just went home to bed.
Today, my actual birthday, has been less of a strain as I have spent it generally on my own, lying by the pool again. For the first time in my life I’m getting a tan, in a country where tans are immensely unfashionable. It was a good day. Tomorrow’s teaching starts at 8am.

Some old people in China walk along the street clapping in turns in front of them and behind their backs. Nobody knows why.

I’ve finally had to move out of the amazing flat I was temporarily staying in, and back (for a month and a half or so) into a school-provided apartment. These are always fairly spartan living environments, furnished in a basic fashion with exactly the minimal amount of unpadded wooden furniture. I have no problem with this as such. I’ve even got used to the standard Chinese mattress, which is much like its western counterpart but with an additional sheet of rock-hard wood on top. It’s good for your back, once you manage to get to sleep on it. The whole bathroom being “the shower” is also not a problem; it just makes cleaning the place a lot easier. It’s not a luxury pad but I plan spend fairly little time there anyway.
There is one little thing that has wound me up beyond expectation, though – and that is the TV. It seems to have been built in the later years of the cultural revolution, and works only in the sense that it picks up and displays local channels after warming up for five minutes or so. What it fundamentally lacks is a socket for me to plug my DVD player into. I don’t want to watch Chinese TV as it is generally in Chinese. If I’m staying in of a night I have nothing to do but watch the pile of DVDs I’ve bought, and I can’t do this.
I’ve spent the last few days going round electrical equipment shops trying to get a cable to fix this problem, to no avail whatsoever. Further investigation reveals an expensive box is needed to convert the signal, worth more than the television itself. The relevant authorities at the school refuse to replace it. This is a bit annoying.

My diet for the last month has been roughly 50% lychee. This is the season, they are everywhere and generally hen hao chi.

Apparently all the varieties grow around here, not to mention the few other fruits which are similar but not exactly the same. These are also hen hao chi.
Yesterday we were taken on a school trip to go and pick some from an orchard with the local press in tow. I climbed up a tree and got some juicy ones, ate many and remembered what people say about “too much of a good thing.” Fortunately the season is ending and I’ll have another ten months to get prepared for the next crop.

Next week; papayas.