CHINALAND: CHRISTMAS IN CHINA 2016

As I anticipate my second Christmas in China I feel that in the absence of my family I have to make my own family out here! Many things are happening which mean I feel the need to take responsibility for my own well-being, maybe more than I have to at home! I need to make some kind of plans for Christmas, which unfortunately is not a holiday in China but does happen to fall on a weekend, so I ask around to see what other people are planning this year. I feel it's important to try and create that Christmas feeling as much as possible! I recall last Christmas and what happened was a big duck banquet organised for Christmas Day. I had a hand in it myself but it was a bizarre experience, starting with an email exchange. Since I'd been in China before at Christmas I'd had Beijing Duck on Christmas Day as I recall so it seemed a good idea to do it again. Anyway the email exchange which started the ball rolling went something like this:

ME: Hi all, how about having a duck banquet for Christmas this year?

ALL: Errr....

Sounds ok.......

Maybe, there are other options.......

Not sure about that.........

All paraphrased obviously. At this stage I felt there was insufficient enthusiasm for this idea so I decided to wait and see what happened. But my boss seemed to like the idea. So the next exchange went something like this:

THE BOSS: Hi all, how about having a duck banquet for Christmas this year?

ALL: (In chorus) Cool!

So I guess maybe it depends on who you are whether you are able to bring things like this together!

So it came to pass that we went for roast duck, however the event seemed somewhat formal, with speeches and carol sheets being passed around: at this point I made my excuses, sloped off to the pub and felt much better when we all piled into the bar at Route 66 for some beers and a more relaxed atmosphere! Sadly I recall I may have had too much to drink, then again, it was Christmas! Although Christmas is not a Chinese festival the Chinese like a party, so you tend to find they like to observe it more and more. It's as if they feel they have missed out on a good thing!

Anyway I have no desire to repeat the formalities of the previous year so as I say I decide to cast around for alternatives. The University discusses organising a party but at this stage it's unclear what this is going to consist of! Sometimes I feel I am putting too much pressure on myself to have a good time. This month there is a Christmas quiz at the pub, at which I don't do too well as some of the questions are a bit too specific for me, then again, maybe I'm just getting old. A whole round of questions on Harry Potter? Now if you've got kids, or are under 30 and grew up with it, or are the sort of person who assiduously follows the adventures of a speccy kid with a zigzag on his forehead at a school for wizards maybe this is your thing, but it certainly isn't mine! However the crack is good and many laughs are had all round!

But my sense of isolation persists, the feeling of otherness, outsideness, of something missing. I''ve abandoned my artistic pursuits for the present, as with Christmas and assessments approaching, plus planning my hoped-for trip to Guangxi, there just isn't enough room in my life! Mounting pressure also makes everyone at work a bit fractious, myself included. You can feel it in the air.

As Sarah sent me a Birds Trifle I decide to make it as a Christmas treat: the custard turns out too thin however which is unusual, I wonder if it's the milk? The topping doesn't seem to go far enough so I finish it off with whipped cream made with a hand-whisk, a devil of a job to do!

I spend a bit of time planning my visit to Guangxi (South China) for the coming winter break. For a long time I've wanted to visit this area, and this is my only remaining opportunity! I'm looking to go to Beijing for a few nights, then on the overnight train to Guilin, staying over, from Guilin to Yangshuo and remaining for most of the break. There seems plenty to do on foot, bike and boat! I also cost it up and identify the most suitable hotels, but time is running out and the most important thing to do is to get the railway tickets.

http://www.yangshuo-travel-guide.com/xingping/

This turns out to be tricky as because of some anti-corruption drive the Chinese government is restricting ticket sales to 30 days before travel time instead of 60 as per last year, provoking a rush on ticket sales. I manage to persuade two of my students to help me go to the ticket office in Baoding to try and order the ones I need.

On the day we agree to go I get a message saying its too dangerous to go owing to the foggy weather (which is more or less constant at the moment) and plead with them not to cancel on me as I can't afford to miss out on this! So we catch a taxi to the office: beforehand I meet with the students at the campus and brief them on what I need. There are a limited number of options: I'm looking to book the sleeper train as I know it's less expensive than the fast train, plus you get the chance to sleep on board. The fast train takes about 10 hours to Guilin so it's like flying to China from England, and the slow one 22 hours so a day and a half, but it does arrive at a more convenient time. It's the biggest trip I've planned so far.

So we arrive at the ticket office and there is a Chinese lady waiting at the window. I have all the train times printed in Chinese, so I show these to the students. We wait a few minutes, then a few more minutes, and as this Chinese woman is still standing there I begin to realise something's wrong: (I've developed a sense for this although at this point it's obvious) so I ask my students to find out what it is. They ask and it seems the computer system has broken down: it turns out that this Chinese lady speaks English and sounding a bit peeved she tells us she's been there an hour so far. Although this is hard to believe it's not impossible. As the students need to be back at the University by 12.30 and it's now 10:46, I decide to try the railway station. We order a taxi and arrive at the station about 20 minutes later, but to get to the ticket office there you have to join the queue as if you are travelling, which means chicanes, baggage checks, ID checks and so on, and while I have my passport which I need to buy the tickets, my students don't have their Chinese ID cards! Providence smiles on me however as the guards let one of them through with me; otherwise I would have had to abandon the attempt. There is a queue of about 12 people at the ticket window but this moves very quickly so we are not waiting long, about 2 minutes. We get to the window and I ask for the slow train on the 17^th January, no luck: the familiar expression “mei-you”, pronounced “mayo” as in “egg mayo” or “hold the mayo” arises repeatedly, meaning something like “have not” or “not available”. So I try the next two days without success. The only remaining option is the fast train at a horribly early time, 7.33 am, from Beijing West. By now some Chinese chap behind us is beginning to protest loudly, I suppose he is in danger of missing his train. My student says something like “Foreigner” and we smile and wave, which seems to mollify the guy somewhat. So I choose this last remaining option and pay up as fast as I can, plus my ticket to Beijing, all the time my student asking me to hurry up as she is becoming nervous. The whole lot so far costs around RMB 1430, or about £150. I suppose it's cheap when you consider it's first class and an equivalent journey to the Orient Express! Later I ask some friends' opinions about the fast and slow trains, and they all seem to agree that the slow train isn't all that good: you find it hard to sleep because of constant noise, eating, nuts being thrown around and you arrive pretty exhausted. I'll just have to wait and see.

So we leave the station with my students explaining that the Chinese will be tolerant with a foreigner but will protest at their fellow Chinese wasting time: they hate queues just as much as I do! I take them to lunch but they cannot stay long, so as a thank-you for their hard work particularly as it was so difficult, I treat them to a giant pizza at R66. They suggest doing this again next Friday as they have a good time, but I somehow feel this is unlikely to happen. I decide to have no particular expectation.

Having a beer in the shacks is losing its appeal due to the cold and the fog. Heavy smog permeates the area almost every day now, and any kind of journey has become a daunting experience to contemplate. So I have the odd meal out with one or two colleagues locally.

As I watch the everyday lives of the Chinese all around me I am poignantly reminded of the ordinariness of life for most people. They work, eat, play, go shopping, sleep and spend time with their families just as people do all over the world. Even though I'm on the other side of the globe from my own home, life here is much the same as it is there. For some time I've invested it with some extraordinary quality due to this. It is an ordinary life I lead.

My students are frantically preparing for assessment so they hand in their portfolios the next day after I get my rail tickets. They all rush around stuffing bits of paper into their portfolios: I have a hundred students and they all come and deliver their work at the same time, just as I have instructed: organised chaos but it works!

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are finally organised. On Christmas Eve I've arranged to see my friends Abby, Seven and Christine for lunch, and on Christmas Day to have dinner with some British friends at home. As one of them has an oven, he proposes making Christmas dinner, roast chicken or beef, depending on availability I suppose. I know you can get turkey in China but I've only seen it in Beijing. I'm asked if I can bring some sort of dish, so I decide to try and make my own stuffing. Casting around for recipes I find numerous ones online but all of these contain one or two ingredients I can't get in China (sage for instance) So I decide to make my own variation. I plump for a variety of Christmas stuffing with pork mince (the original uses sausages) apples, onion, garlic, coriander, ground roasted chestnuts, egg, flour and spices. The chestnuts I know I can get on the street ready roasted so I pick these up on my way home from work. The pork mince I buy from the nearest Chinese supermarket and everything else locally. I have a quiet night on Friday and feeling too lazy to cook I go out to Route 66 (otherwise referred to as “the pub” as it's the nearest we have,) for a light dinner, then come back early as I'm planning a busy weekend.

I buy some presents for Abby, (caviar from the export supermarket) Seven and Christine (Baoding balls, surprisingly hard to find) so on Christmas Eve morning I wrap these up. Oddly the wrapping paper has become somewhat brittle, possibly due to the quality of the air which has also affected my canvases? Being a bit short of bread and butter I can't make toast so have pancakes for breakfast, then make a short shopping trip for a few things I need. Anyway everything is ready for 12 noon so I meet Seven and Christine and we take a taxi to the restaurant where we meet Abby. (You may wonder why my friend is called Seven, it's because he considers it a lucky number. His students call him Mr. Ding.) We have a very pleasant lunch and we stay till long after closing time. I receive some very thoughtful gifts: incense holders from Seven and Christine and this very thoughtful card from Abby, plus a load of spices! We all have a very good time talking about what we want for next year and what is important to us: ( family life, friendship, new experiences.)

As it happens Iris, my Chinese neighbour, has the telephone number of a German fellow she met while out shopping. It seems he wants to make some local contacts so she passed it on to me and I've made contact, then corresponded by text. After everyone leaves following our long lunch I go to the retro bar nearby where I haven't been for a while, for a quick beer then catch the bus back to the campus.

On board I notice a Western guy and we nod to each other, but eventually the bus gets crowded so I move up and introduce myself to this chap, who of course turns out to be Iris' German friend. So we get chatting and go for a couple of beers followed by some local food. This rounds off Christmas Eve nicely. It seems he is planning to go all the way back to Germany overland by motorcycle! I wish him luck with his epic adventure.

I had intended to join the works Christmas party for an hour but as it is about 9pm by now I feel too tired to do so. As it turns out I'm glad I didn't. The story I later hear is something along these lines: the original party is to be held in a duck restaurant just the same as last year, however this gets cancelled for some reason I am not aware of. Following this it is to be held at the international hotel I stayed in on my arrival in China last year. However I'm too tired to attend but I hear later this is cancelled as well, so I hear no more regarding this. It seems I was better off making my own arrangements.

On Christmas morning I wake naturally at 7.30 and have some breakfast, then start preparing the stuffing. It takes me over an hour as I have to grind the nuts in my pestle and mortar, chop the herbs, onions etc and mix everything. The kitchen needs a good clean afterwards. I play some Christmas music to get the mood going and send some emails home. To my horror and anger someone in the building starts using a massive hammer drill and creating an ear-shattering noise! I try and find out where it's coming from but it never goes on long enough for me to do so: in resignation I put ear-plugs in my ears wondering if these people have any respect for anything, particularly as it's a Sunday! The noise eventually subsides, thankfully and I get directions to my friends' apartment via text and phone. At about 12pm I take a cab to the pub with my home-made stuffing, have a snack and a couple of beers. Disappointingly no-one else is around so I enjoy my own company for a while. There are many locals around with children as it's something of a family place.

Following this and having obtained some digestions I make my way to my friends' flat, Chloe waits for me outside which I'm grateful for as while I don't exactly get lost, I find myself walking around in circles looking for the gate! Finally I arrive, most of the food is ready, a large fillet of beef (heaven knows where from) vegies, Paxo stuffing, puddings, cheese, nuts, crackers etc. So I put the stuffing I've made in the oven, while Emma is in the kitchen trying to make Yorkshire pudding. There are some in the oven already but they won't rise: it looks as if the batter may be too heavy. So I make with the Gordon Ramsays, (Sarah would hate me for this!) a bit and whisk up the batter with a fork, and pour some oil into a large glass oven dish. We wait for it to get hot, at least as hot as we dare, pour in the batter, then place it in the oven and hope for the best! I must say the oven must be pretty hot as the stuffing is done in about 20 minutes, in fact it's the only thing everyone is waiting for! They even have mustard here, the first time I've seen it in China, normally I have to use wasabi as a substitute! Everything is fine, it's a very homely Christmas dinner and a cosy afternoon transpires. About 10 minutes after we sit down the stuffing is done, and the Yorkshire pud has risen perfectly so Emma and I can give ourselves a pat on the back!

I have another beer or two in the bar on my way back but to tell the truth am somewhat tired by now so have no desire to stay out too late!

Meanwhile Sarah seems to be having a good time at home: she spends Christmas with the family having dinners and buffets: I sometimes worry that she is working too hard as she does tend to at this time of year, what with shopping, cleaning and cooking! On Christmas Day she has breakfast with my parents and sees my mum the week before. Also she sends me some very pleasant photographs of the local countryside when she has been out for a walk.

Sadly I spend Boxing Day and the next week working on assessments: it seems the fun is over and everybody is back on the treadmill. I'm too tired to go out at the end of each day, so I cook spaghetti bolognaise and Thai-style prawn curry which keeps me going for three days.

Predictably enough my students call off the Friday evening we discussed before, but to do them justice they do bring it forward a day to Thursday, so a large group of them turn up to R66 which is very heart-warming,and we have a good time with some big pizzas!