MOVING IN

As I spend time going out with colleagues and meet more local people, I begin to feel more at home, although the feeling of isolation I experience sometimes becomes a little overwhelming. I sometimes feel depressed and at such times need to be among people. 

Due to an accommodation problem I walk into the hutong labyrinth and book myself into a small Chinese hotel: apparently something which is unusual. I begin to feel like a kind of effective traveller, but this is soon upgraded to executive as the powers that be intervene and I am able to spend the night in an international hotel.

 Following this I settle into my flat and begin to unpack, which takes longer than I had thought owing to not knowing where to put everything. I begin to make lists of things I need, but the best part of this is that I finally get to speak to Sarah and my parents. I miss them so much.

One unfortunate thing that happens is I manage to get locked out of my flat! One afternoon I go out and lock the door, on taking the key out it breaks in the lock leaving the shaft inside! I don't know what to do so run straight into the office at the university and explain what's happening. The ladies in there respond by saying "How did you do that?" I regard this as a ridiculous question that I can't answer. Either I don't know my own strength or it's a weak key! Anyway I have to wait in the office while they call a locksmith and I'm pacing up and own like a caged tiger, calling Eliot who offers me a crash in his pad for the night, with the Chinese ladies asking me to be patient. After an hour and a half, I get a call saying the locksmith has arrived. So i go over with one of the ladies who drives me, and he removes the shaft. I pay him 100 RMB and have no real choice but to leave the flat open while I try and get a new key cut. The only alternative to that is having the lock changes for 1000 RMB. So the locksmith and my colleague leave and I set off closing the door behind me.......which promptly self-locks!

Realising that I've locked myself out a second time I don't dare go back into the office as I fear they will either burst out laughing or think I'm insane. So I hurry out to a little key bar at the end of North Street where the new campus is situated,  and fortunately the lady there is able to make a new key from the shaft of the old one. I order two and hurrying back to the flat I can only pray that they work! Luckily this is indeed the case and I'm relieved to get back inside! I take care with Chinese locks and keys after this!

I am invited out with colleagues for beer and food, also a karaoke (KTV in China) session but can only make the meal owing to the exhaustion I feel from a disrupted sleep pattern. Shame as I would like to try KTV: it's where you have a group of friends and book a private room with a karaoke machine so you and your friends don't offend everyone else with your dreadful caterwauling!

I learn that patience is the ultimate virtue in China, as everything that happens to me creates a sense of being in opposition to an immovable force. The scale of everything is overwhelming and I quickly learn that walking around the town is simply not an option; the roads are all wider than motorways and it takes two or three minutes to drive past a block of flats. Everywhere there is the same colossal and monolithic architecture. I try to spend as much time as possible with others to counter the loneliness I feel, and sometimes feel as if I am on another planet as I walk alone, like a ghost, around the city. It's a strange feeling: sometimes I feel at home, at others, a stranger in a strange land. I manage to make the acquaintance of some local Chinese who always make me feel welcome, and the conversations we have often revolve around my learning a little Chinese as I teach them a little English.

Near the flats where I live there is a street of huts, shacks and tents all selling street food, fruit, vegetables and other goods. The most prevalent dishes are “hot-pot”, a Sichuan dish of hot broth in which you cook a mix of fish, meat, vegetables and noodles, and fried noodles. There are little places which have high stools around a conveyor belt carrying various foods that you cook in a hot pot. Some of it is very good but I feel a lack of variety. It certainly isn't Chinese food as I know it!

I encounter a Chinese teacher outside my flat and at the time I have problems with my computer. I know that in my situation being a shrinking violet doesn't help so I brazenly ask if he can help me. I'm glad I ask as he turns out to be a computer wizard with a PhD and this leads to my taking himself and his wife out to dinner: they turn out to be charming people and good neighbours. I hope we can become friends.

I find myself becoming addicted to chocolate, something which makes me curious as this never happened to me at home. When I go out I'm assailed by strange smells, lights and sounds that continue to echo the experience of watching the film “Blade Runner.” I go out with colleagues for pizza (of all things!) in a China version of an American Diner. 

I also obtain some cleaning products for my flat but am unsure of what these are: I get some toilet cleaner and floor cleaner from the local mini-market, which can be an odd experience to visit as the little shop girl follows me around like a ghost making me feel uncomfortable. At any rate by using gestures I make it clear what I'm looking for so she gives me two bottles. At home I'm cleaning the bathroom one day when I try to use two products at the same time in the sink as I'm unsure which is best. I pour them in and suddenly the mixture begins to fizz and generate a cloud of invisible gas which has a strong chlorine smell and  is choking me. Instantly I get out and open all the windows in the apartment, open the plug hole in the sink and turn on the tap. The smell of chlorine is everywhere and I  surmise I've created chlorine gas and nearly gassed myself! After about an hour the apartment is cleared and I resolve to be more careful in the future!