A happy and a very snowy new year from Beijing. 2010 has kicked off with ever low temperatures and a fresh bout of beautiful, fine snow. Artificial powder had already been sprayed around the Birds' Nest (National Stadium) to create a 'winter wonderland' feel for the 2nd Snow Festival. However, on the night of the 1st/2nd, January some heavy white stuff fell on the capital once more and the snow machines were packed away for another year! Tonight (Sunday 3rd Jan) temperatures will reach as low as minus 18 degrees.
I went skiing for the first time in my life. Something that everyone seems to have done at least once, but not me. I quite enjoyed it and despite the odd fall, was soon up to 5 year old standards - they were overtaking me to begin with! Later, we threw each other around on rubber rings inside the nest itself. The inner child came out and I took the risks I wasn't prepared to as a kid myself, leading to me being 'told off' on a couple of occasions by security staff.
Yet more snow fell, even thicker, on the following day. It was made of the finest watery ingredients, delicate to the touch and it fell deep, deep, deep in the streets. Cue various website friends' groups, such as Tiang Tiang's Wangjingpd.com, innocently playing around and using the snow for photo opportunities. This was the 3rd day of the New Year holiday, so there was fortunately no English School today for Fu. Unlike back home, this is not because of a 'little bit of snow'.
My mood isn't fantastic, however. I am temporarily half-deaf. A visit to the hospital proved inconclusive, other than my hearing is below normal and that it is more likely to be due to a narrowed blood vessel than ear wax. I've tried nasal spray in vain, so I wait until it gets better. Maybe it is just the cold, but dirt it isn't!
I saw in the new year with Hannah, good friend and colleague from Bell, and we both agreed to be out but to have a relatively quiet one. In the end, Nanluoguxiang provided the right balance. Warm and chinese ambience, not drunken and foreign - which 798 or Sanlitun would have been.
After a well-earned lie-in on New Years' Day, I ventured back to Nanluoguxiang (my new favourite area) to meet Fang Liu (Laura) and her own work-colleague, Liu Xiaomeng (Mandy). This was a new year handover, with Laura passing the 'language exchange' role to Mandy. However, the latter appears to be more shy and may be harder to get to know. Anyway, I don't expect I will study any harder.. although it would be a perfectly reasonable new-years' resolution. Maybe if I had a month in a retreat and didn't have to teach! Talking of retreats, today is the day I fix up a meeting at Hai di lao (chaffing restaurant) between landlady and Laura. The aim - to be able to take Fu away for a few days, with Laura as interpreter and guide, to Zhengzhou, Henan and the Shaolin Temple.
I have twice been to KTV since I last wrote - once with my students and the CAFA staff. A bizarre affair in which I was warmly invited to perform. I duly bashed out The Eagles' 'Hotel California' whilst looking like Morrisey (from the Smiths). The same night I watched a singer-songwriting New Yorker performing her own stuff in a quiet little place called Luce off Golou. 2 nights later and I am at Melody - a KTV brand of choice struggling to find songs I wouldn't mind singing. My voice had deterioriated, however, and my company were embarrased by the references to New Zealand which kept appearing on screen. Too difficult/improper to explain why that should be embarrassing!
STOP PRESS: Before I go to bed to avoid the sub-zero temperatures (not before I have read about Man Utd being dumped out of the FA CUP), a quick note to say that the meeting went ahead and Hong Yan seems to have agreed to taking her son away in February for 2 nights. I still find it remarkable that she is prepared to do this, and that I am, frankly, prepared to have offered in the first place. I wouldn't have done it without Laura's backing, mind you. And she is more than happy to be interpreter/reassurer. I think I did the right thing in arranging the meal tonight. Laura returns home next weekend. It was also an opportunity to talk about my continued teaching of Fu and how we can improve things..
STOP STOP PRESS: Text came through earlier to say that the heavy snowfall today means that SCHOOL is CANCELLED tomorrow. So a small lie-in for Hong Yan and a slightly later rise for me! Shades of back home, at last! No such luck for me, although I suspect attendance will be as low as on Friday when I had just 2 students in my class and there were only 10 in total !
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