Tiger Tiger Water Water

The water crept in some time on Monday night. I thought they had taken a hose to the hallway and the water had somehow seeped under my front door; but the bathroom hadn't dried from my shower; the kitchen seemed far from dry too. My passport on the coffee table had its corners curling throughout Tuesday; before I realised that moisture had swamped this city. Today we stood around the staffroom telling each other of our various aquatic home disasters.

 

The weather in this topsy-turvy month has been the biggest feature of life. The day before my Chinese New Year break was bathed in brilliant sunshine; the dust smog had vanished; if one were to photograph Guangzhou for a tourist guide, this was the day. Then I went on holiday and the temperature crashed from the mid-twenties to below ten degrees. It remained that low for the whole holiday period and then the first week back. The classrooms cold, the teachers wearing beanies and coats, students remaining at home, and mice were even heard stirring. And now we're swimming and warm, the mid-to-late twenties. My energy has surged like the temperature. My last class I was absolutely wired.

 

The second biggest feature was the coming of the Year of the Tiger. It roared into action in the cold. In the day before New Year's Eve, I was at a loss with how I was going to spend the festival. In a supermarket queue, which was miles longer than it had ever been, I texted a friend, to ask, to be presumptious and beg, for a chance to share his family's new year. It was a big request but after consulting his family, he said yes. It was a great day. I'm eternally grateful. We had lunch at his grandmother's place where they accommodated my eating preferences well; his father is a keen drinker and seemed rather glad at my arrival. He'd raise his glass ready to clink at every opportunity. Thankfully that was lunch and he had to drive. Dinner, however, there was no restraint. We went to a restaurant and he brought cognac. Needless to say, his glass was often raised; and I was obliged to do what I needed to do for his arm to rest again.

 

The Flower Market is a Guangzhou tradition at New Year. In the lead-up, there are several streets that sell flowers, kumquat trees (tiny grape-sized oranges), peach flower trees and dahlias. The sign outside my apartment says they should eliminate superstitions, but the fact that the "quat" part of "kumquat" sounding similar to the cantonese sound for "auspicious" all means that they sell like hot cakes. Oddly though at an occasion called a Flower Market, the number one thing to buy on the night of new year's eve is a toy windmill. That is because the spinning of the windmill turns and pulls the luck in. My friend's cousin wanted bought one for me, which I gaily and drunkly ran down the street with.

 

The year turned but the weather didn't. I rested a day and then I walked the city exploring two mid-river islands. One thing that is useful to know about Guangzhou is that it sits amid the Pearl River Delta. The whole area is riven with many rivers and islands. My district is a large island although you'd never know it until you looked at a map. Another island was completely taken by the colonial powers after one of the Opium wars and has a large number of colonial buildings. Another was covered with mansions and tree lines roads. Walking them was wonderful.

 

But now in sweeps the work and the wonders of a busy life. My sister arrives in Guangdong shortly and more exploration awaits me at every week.

 

The walk home

There are some regular parts of life that are pretty much identical day-to-day. Your gnattering thoughts might differ; the weather might be different; but essentially the action is the same. Until, of course, some unexpected incident knocks you off your regular orbit.

 

I exited my school building for the second to last time of the lunar year and headed to the intersection to wait with the chattering pedestrians chomping at the bit to cross. One of the heads in front turned randomly, and then took a second take on spotting the tired white guy, me, standing jaded behind her.

"Welcome to Guangzhou," she said in correct but heavily accented English.

"谢谢" I thanked nonchalently in Mandarin. Her ears pricked up and immediately turned and launched into Cantonese, saying that my Mandarin was very good. I said in Cantonese that my Cantonese was not. She took a few misfiring sentences to switch her thought processes into Mandarin and then talked rapidly and clearly in Mandarin with the usual personal questions that traditional Chinese ask. I said I didn't have a wife or children to one question causing her to assume I'd left them in New Zealand, or Australia as she liked to refer to it despite my stating that they were two different countries.

"The milk in Australia is good and the air too."

"Yes," I said not bothering to halt her. She asked a lot about my educational background.

"I didn't complete my school; I gave up half way. Out of my group of students only I didn't finish school," she informed me.

"Oh," I said.

"Yes, I had a problem with my brain."

"No way ba," I said taking what she said as the usual phrase Chinese use to say they weren't predisposed to study.

"But then I saw a doctor and I was better again."

"Oh... that's good."

"I'm studying now again. I'm half-way through."

"Oh, that is good."

"After my husband died, I knew I wasn't going to marry again."

"Uhuh," I said not knowing how that fits in.

"He was a bit like you, open and happy."

"Is that so?"

Then she talked about cars and the Nobel Peace prize. I'm not sure how it was that she brought up the Nobel prize, but we arrived at a corner near my place. We'd walked in the same direction I was starting to worry that she would follow me as far as I was going to walk, to my apartment if necessary.  I was loaded with thoughts that this was some sort of trick to ask for money. Or some elaborate prostitution solicitation. Or a marriage offer. I stopped at the corner and she completed her thoughts about Obama and the Nobel Peace prize. She asked if I was going to the right; she said she was going straight. I said it was a pleasure to have met her and bid her farewell and she did the same. We parted and then after I had walked 10 metres, she released a loud "Bai bai!" I reciprocated with just a little less enthusiasm and kept walking.

 

So she was just kind-hearted. Or still marginally mental. Anyway, I can thank her for an interesting walk home.

 

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Xiaogang Park at 6:30am

Twisting and turning, bothered thoughts at the dawning, I rolled out of bed and put on the rain-pants I had mysteriously brought to China and onto the streets I went, searching for the apparent East Entrance to Xiaogang. The pavement renovation on Changgang East had been completed: I was free to break into a jog at will. Oncoming eyes were no less starey-starry at this time of the morning. I passed through the park gate: Khuuurrrk phut!

 

In a city of over ten million, the early risers number in the hundreds of thousands. The welcoming cheerleaders were the old and not-so frail, moving in synchronicity. I broke back into a jog and passed a back/front clapwalker. It was the second time I'd been to Xiaogang Park: the first was completely accidental even though the map I always use clearly shows there to be an extensive park barely 200 metres from my school. It is large enough to lose one's self: Khuuuuurk phut!

 

I walked a bit as I approached a bridge. My hope that that the torrential rain had cleansed, temporarily, the river of its stench was in vain. Above a bird was making a rough morning call. Or was it coughing? Have you ever heard a bird cough? If there should ever be a bird coughing, it'll be in Guangzhou with the air as it is. I charged back into a run and tailed a backward walker. His steady pace backwards meant that he could spend some time scrutinising me as I eventually pulled passed him: Khuuuuurk phut!

 

I passed the barbeque area and approached the badminton courts when my ears snared the familiar hollow tap-tap-tap of a ping-pong ball. I've been hoping for a ping-pong table for a long time and shot up the stairs for a peek. Passing the tables, there was a man sternly standing straight, sword in hand, ready to swing; Cantonese opera screeched from a 80s tape deck somewhere yonder as his onslaught failed to eventuate. A bare-chested runner bounds past: Khuuuuurk phut!

 

Those buildings are on my left again. Full circle I must have come! It was not the last time I would see those buildings on my left either that morning: Khuuuuurk. I stopped for a moment. Something wasn't right. I turned around slowly to spot a hunchbacked woman on a park bench. Phut! she spat into the bush. I turned back on my course and ran towards where I hoped the way out would be. The sun had risen and my twilight muddle had nicely brought me to the day.

Down is the new Up

I should have known last Tuesday: the clapping girl outside the fashion shop had lost her mojo, and I was half-way to losing mine. She had been paid to clap all day long to create an atmosphere conducive to sales, but her listless, arrhythmic beat would only be able to scare away the pigeons, if there had been pigeons. Me? I'd sustained a packed working week before launching myself headlong to Fuzhou and back in a busy three days off to see a friend, and then I was back at work, bleary-eyed staring at the clapping girl staring at me. I marched on to get a hot chocolate at a rather neat cafe, but the writing was on the wall: My immune system had sustained a hit; I had a cold, sniffle; and I was going to be out of order for a wee while. I struggled through Tuesday, slept through Wednesday on my first sick leave; and the was launched down to Shenzhen for training, heavily drugged, for Thursday and Friday. That all didn't mean that I didn't ace the test at the end of the training but by the end of it all I was as sick as when I had started and back at work, without a semblance of working order. In such situations, the body is great; it secretes adrenalin; I act nuts; the students smile; class dismissed; let me collapse on my desk.

 

Now, I'm back on the verge of health and ahead of me is a nice period: Despite the sickness and the medication, the bootcamp in Shenzhen was rather inspiring: I've been given a boot (in the arse) forward. I think my teaching is already exhibiting a sharpness it didn't have before the training. Ahead of me is Chinese New Year, where not only will I have a chance to taste the sweet nectar of travel, but also do what I want to do: study! Since finishing my first novel in Chinese since arriving, I have got a third of the way through another. I have a colleague who is rather dedicated to teaching me Cantonese. (She plopped herself down to be last week and declared we were going to speak Cantonese and used the same methods she'd use to teacher her super-beginner students; for the first two students it was painful listening and then sudddenly I could understand, intuitively everything she said. Cantonese is fun.) Ah, sickness sucks, but life can be nice too.

 

All this should not miss what happened before the cold struck: I landed in the city of Fuzhou, home to a high school friend of mine. The nature of China, Chinese culture and the vicissitudes of life abroad came floating to the surface. It is interesting where your thoughts lead you. I'm yet to understand what I think of all that I heard and felt.

Not a way to die

You know when someone abroad is busy: silence prevails in most of their correspondence; blogs are not updated; e-mails cease. With the ray of sunshine that temporary Facebook access has given, a general busyness has consumed me. I've been rather in my stride at work. I've been on top of things, rollicking in my task but it is tiring me too. I've been slowly developing cold symptoms.

 

It has been wet and cold for a while now, but it is about the same as mild coldness we have in NZ in late Autumn. I'm thankful for my big umbrella. Christmas did go better after the last blog was sent. I had a nice Christmas Eve party (where a lot of institutional gossip was spilt) and the Christmas party wasn't bad either. I spent most of Christmas day at home calling home and when I bought myself some shoes as a gift.

 

New Year was quite well spent too with a rough and ready New Year party that doubled as a farewell for the fellow I'm replacing. I reverted back to my role as a teacher for a moment there when some "students" (from another school) started asking me questions that I couldn't refuse. They rewarded me with the Chinese phrase: "To receive a day of teaching, you must treat the person as your father for life." When I heard the phrase come up (I hadn't heard it before) I cringed. I was desperately thinking what the "fu" at the end could mean, other than father, but nothing came and then they clumsily translated it in its glory, with innocent smiles. Apparently as part of treating me as a father, I'm going to be treated to the divine korean cooking of one of them. That can't be all that bad.

 

Not everything has gone smoothly though, and last night's happening really took the (expensive) cake. Many of my friends have suggested I'm paying too much for my apartment; and though I find it comfortable, it has to be conceded that it is not the best. Late last night, for example, it tried to kill me. I entered my bathroom in the all together after midnight and shut the door, only to have the whole metal handle disintegrate in my hand. I was incredulous for a moment until it dawned on me that I'd arrived in a peculiar situation: apart from a narrow window, the door is the only way in; the remains of the handle provided no way to open the door; I was thus effectively locked, naked, in my own bathroom. The bathroom window only lead to my laundry and then out into the outside air, eleven floors above the ground. I tried to see if I could fit through the window, and without a reorientation of my skeleton it wasn't going to happen. I had few implements to work on screws and joints with and while evaluating and testing a few options, I was starting to consider the rather horrid situation I'd be in if I couldn't get myself out. It was cold. The only heat would be the shower and then as soon as the shower ended I'd be freezing without a towel; no-one was coming; no-one at work knew my landlord so without getting the attention of anyone in the building; I could yell out the window, but I'd never heard voices, ever, in my apartment. The sound pollution is pretty bad outside I could be yelling out the window for ever; but vibrations travel well within the building: I could bash the ceiling until someone who happens to be taking a midnight pee is motivated enough to notify the front desk staff of the noisy neighbour below, who'd have to figure out who it is, contact my landlord sometime to get into my apartment with a key sometime and set me free. Or, perhaps with a few tools I could bore my way through the door with a pair of nail scissors - at least the action would keep me warm. The remaining stub of the door handle had a square rut that if turned could set me free: I plugged a pen into the hole and turned it, only to have the unfortunate pen dismantle itself under the pressure. My next victim were the nail scissors: I put them into the rut, opened them as wide as I could and turned; the blades twisted inside, and though the inner axel turned a little it wasn't enough. I sat back down and thought through it again. There really wasn't anything else I could do; I was cold, tired and had been stuck in the bathroom for between ten and twenty minutes. I returned to nail scissors, the only technique that had shown any promise, and after a few more moments of twisting at different angles, I pulled and the door popped open. This strangely mirrors another bathroom experience I had about twelve years agoin Japan.

 

I've been in this kind of queer dilemma situation before. It is weird: you aren't in imminent danger; there is no charging bull; but you are required to somehow "do something" to resolve it, because there is no going forward and no going back.

 

I'm on the verge of my second escapade outside of Guangzhou, heading up to see my high school friend in Fuzhou. My first trip out, to Shenzhen before Christmas, went like clockwork and I hope this one likewise is a piece of (quite expensive) cake. I'm looking forward to stepping into another world again; a place devoid of the Cantonese tongue.

Merry?

I descended the fire stairs with critical thoughts spiralling down with me. We had our school and work Christmas parties today and the latter, held after a long day, I was always going to be easily annoyed. I was rather exhausted, hungry and the backroom staff were too busy to start the staff party on time; so we waited a bit longer and then eventually they informed us they were ready. We proceeded into the party room and were greeted by a pile of food. The only foods I could eat were plum tomatoes and cake, neither of which were giving me any feeling for the dinner my stomach needed to keep me even slightly content. Then we did a secret Santa. We'd been told about this just days ago and I hadn't had time to get a gift so I grabbed the authentic DVD I bought a while ago (which was the same value as the maximum budget for the secret Santa). I got my gift, which was the equivalent of a $2 shop gift, little photo frame. The other foreign teacher left - it was his second to last day and he couldn't be bothered hanging around. The backroom staff made their own circle and were raucously laughing in Cantonese and Mandarin, and I decided to get out. I spoke to my "pick-me-up" students and then headed off to get something nourishing in my stomach.

 

It wasn't a bad day though, but needless to say, it was never going to have a spirit of any kind, let alone something lofty like the Christmas spirit. I worked from 9:30am with three classes and then switched to Christmas party mode. The organisation was less than optimal: the principal thought the opening would be in one place; I was directed to another, and I had to do the speech to open the event. Then once I'd finished the speech I marched to my room to teach two hours of continuous lessons for writing letters to Santa and New Year resolutions. It was revolving doors of groups: a group came in and once they were finished, they headed out and another lot came in.

 

And then finally that stage was over. I chatted to a few students but then suddenly got caught in a swirl of cameras: For a brief moment in the early evening, I became one of the most photographed figures on the planet. (I was lucky that Obama had already left Copenhagen.) In student crowds, photo fever is a fast-moving contagion; it just takes one teacher to surrender his likeness easily for the whole staff body to be open game; and once you pose one time, other meeker students raise the courage, and their cellphones, to yank you around with one arm and raise their peace sign fingers with the other; and besides, I'm a soft touch. Since the assembled mass included a lot of "friends of students" it was important to stay present with the attendees, talk to the unfamiliar faces and also do what management here would include as "customer service". (I don't want to criticise this cold way of talking about students because members of the teaching staff do neglect this side of things.)

 

Regarding the situation at the end of the party, being the noisy person I am, I'll probably mention, politely, a few of my concerns to the school manager. Politely because she is probably part of the problem. The real Christmas day is still six days away and I'm about to venture out of my city for the first time. I'm hoping to be refreshed!

One moon

If one week took a long time to pass, the last three weeks must have shot past because it doesn't feel like that long since I arrived. Time milestones often don't really amount to anything significant other than a number and the end of a first month is hardly any reason to crack open a bottle of Chinese whisky; so let this just be a title to a blog, and let it at least trigger some appropriate, although premature, circumspection.

 

One of my original goals was to get my Chinese on the tracks and, although it is not great as I would have wanted it, it is definitely on its way - I'm reading The Reader, in Chinese. My plan to establish myself a mandarin life external to my English school loop hasn't even set itself up in the starting blocks, which is rather disappointing, but I haven't even really tried. I'm far too comfortable and routine now. I've completely revived my classroom teaching and am leaving my own stamp on the school, slowly but surely. Teaching in itself is a joy, anyway.

 

Some of the students are truly energising. There are two young men who do nightshift at their jobs and come in bright-eyed and busy tailed at the surreal hour of 7pm to start their days with English lessons. One was a complete beginner when I arrived - I was there for his introductory interview - who has probably the best smile of any student. He chats in a basic way quite happily with me now (I haven't been teaching him - just talking to him from time to time); I've tried to buy his briefcase bag off him for the last few nights but he is only just figuring that out. The other exudes the greatest exuberance for learning of anyone in the school; he doesn't stop smiling, even when he told me he was assaulted on the way to the school! Both have only just made their first steps toward learning the language yet look forward without fear. Talking to each is a great way to end a day,  a shot of human delightfulness that, at the end of the day, is the best way to head home on.

Discovery 100

My discovery for the day was that a 100 yuan bill can survive a washing machine wash. This is good to know since I'd already spent  100 yuan having it fixed by two repairmen. I called one; he came; I put money in my chest pocket in preparation for payment; he pulled the machine apart; said it needed a controlling unit replaced; said that would cost 370 yuan plus; I called my landlord; was told to get a second opinion; the second one come; he turned the knob and it immediately worked. I believe the first one's dismantling incidentally fixed whatever problem it had. I had to pay both a 50 yuan door-service fee, something the landlord thought was high. So after a huge delay I washed my clothes, impulsively throwing in the shirt off my back, and today, ironing, I found my 100 yuan wrinkled but intact. They have paper money here so I'll take it as miracle.

 

But more significant a discovery was that my stamina is up to classroom teaching again. I did have a good day at the school with three near perfectly executed lessons in a four hour period. I enjoyed two of them immensely: one was a complete creation of my own and it fell into place perfectly on "the opening night". (I'll perform the same lesson two more times later this week.) Taking a lesson for the first time is a little scary and I did all three lessons for the first time today. The rest of the week will be easier now that I have a feel for those three which make up 50% of the rest of my lessons for the week. Every week should follow this rough pattern: Intense preparation on Sunday and Monday before teaching the first lessons for the first time on Monday and then having time to breath throughout the week.

 

The shrill whistle of the human traffic conductors is my alarm clock in the morning. The traffic, as chaotic as it is, can organise itself more or less with the subtle direction of the traffic lights. Pedestrians at major intersections, however, cannot manage themselves. (And I say this without any hint of irony.) Hwwwwweeeeeeeeeer! the whistle sonically torpedoes wayward walkers should they drift across the road without the green man as they usually do. They generally halt their steps in the face of the uniformed challenge. Four sunglassed conductors are required to hold the people-mass from seeping across the road. Of course, soon as they signal the non-cars to proceed across, the cyclists are unleashed rocketing like missiles through the churning intermesh of flesh and feet, often carrying twenty full water cooler bottles on the back of their bikes. At some time the conductors retire, the river banks are breached and chaos floods the streets once more until the evening falls and the conductors return to shoulder the burden of Sisyphus again.

 

People mountain; people sea. The population here, of course, can only boggle the mind of a Kiwi. The population density is double that of the densest part of Auckland, except maintained over an urban area three times greater. In my eleventh story room there is a telling view. Though I have great views from two of my windows, from two other windows I can get a scale of this large apartment building where I live: it is mostly occupied, a huge number of rooms; and it looks over a mass of old crowded buildings, all packed to the literal rafters; and in the not-so-distant distance, there are more apartment buildings, most of them labyrinthine, floor upon jaded floor, of identical floor plans, and doorways leading to rooms of the same or thereabout dimensions, accommodating a family with two parents and one point one rather overgrown children, who are usually in their mid-twenties. On an early Sunday morning I woke up and headed to the markets. Within my walk of barely five hundred metres, I passed close to five hundred people, all going somewhere on this beautiful Sunday morning. There is nowhere I can go apart from my apart-ment that I can part from the hustle-bustle of the neverending fanfare of life here.

Touch

It was after the scalp massage, hairwash and the shoulder rub that I thought that I might genuinely be late for work. It was hairdressing, you see, but not as I had known it. I'd spent about 20 minutes in there without the blades of a barber's scissors even getting close to my scalp. I was sitting there having a shoulder rub, chatting to the masked gentleman rubbing my shoulders about all manner of things. Of course the relaxation momentarily disappeared when I spotted the hugest cockroach started climbing the wall, but soon the rub again released the anxiety and the world, I and the cockroach became one again.

 

The hairdresser emerged from his grotto later and chatted with me while he removed my laterally surging hair. According to my friend, barbers never used to chat to customers; so perhaps, it's a pleasant cultural appropriation from western barber culture; perhaps, the barbers in NZ could learn from the nimble fingers of my masked friend too. Either way, the barber was a good chat, and he enjoyed testing out my cantonese.

 

I did in fact get to work on time. And that day built to be a stressful one: observed by the boss on a class I'd never taught, but it went well enough; I'll credit student enthusiasm as the element that made it a good lesson. To be honest, after rushing the planning on a hectic day, I -thought it'd be a disaster. I'm par excellence one-on-one but classroom teaching will take some getting used to again. "Why are you shaking?" my students often ask. They have always asked that and the answer is simple: that's the kind of person I am. I've always had what the doctor calls a benign tremor, and the tremor is more severe in moments of anxiety, and I feed on my own nerves.

 

I have around me two very good, professional teachers, who don't have a heart for the job. They are efficient, knowledgeable and in some respects, good models to follow the example of. They control themselves with ease in front of the class and generally deliver good lessons. But they carry an element of annoyance at students. Whether it be style or personality, they sometimes release a sneer which is quite astonishing. The only other teacher loves students and loves teaching. He has vowed to know the names of all 400 students of the school. His lack of pedagogical polish is made up for in his sheer gusto for people. He and I are the only people who circulate in the student iLab (the area where the students take online courses) to aid and to chat with students. He and I are the only people who'd linger after class to aid students. It is technically the responsibility of all the teachers to go to the iLab but it doesn't happen for the first two teachers. That responsibility was given by the boss for whom many staff have already expressed their dissatisfaction with the management of. I have no objections with ideas of the boss: most of the points that the staff have issue with are things I'd generally think are appropriate things; it is seems apparent though that it is a matter of how changes and policies were delivered; there was no buy-in at all; perhaps, no buy-in even sought; they were just stated and that was that. A simple policy of no Chinese in the classroom and in the staff room was delivered; but the Chinese-literate teachers still use Chinese in the classrooms (this is against my religion); and when the wolf's away, the sheep do indeed come out and chat in Maaaandarin in the staffroom. And Cantonese. Which is fine by me. Incidentally.

 

On Thursday, I finally got out and about to a scenic area: White Cloud Mountain. As all decent mountains in China, it was staired; but it was still a good walk. It was good to head up and up. Looking back at the city revealed that Guangzhou was just White Smog City. Interpretations of some photos suggest that there is in fact no Guangzhou at all.

 

My flat-warming is approaching on Tuesday and I'm already thinking about how to amuse all my colleagues. They're a good bunch but we've always got the problem that on every day of the week, there are people working. Tuesday, I and two others have day off but we're all on the next day. They are good people and I'm hoping that release from the mental shackles of the workplace is enough to allow us a chance to be just people.

 

An interesting phase.

Where it's at

Ah, time. In the scheme of things, this should have been the hardest week of all but it was pretty smooth. I agreed on and moved into an apartment; did my first lessons; had broadband installed; sat through endless bureaucracy and have settled into a nice routine.

 

Moving in was a little bit of a crisis in itself. Working late into the evening and then settling into my home without bedclothes nor crockery, I was a little bit panicked to get some of the necessities of life. Fortunately I have a massive supermarket close to my place that has everything.

 

Just 100 metres from my apartment is a daily food market with the freshest most wonderful vegetables. The long eggplant I had yesterday was as close to perfection as you can really get in life, art or the sciences; there were mushrooms galore; the choi-sam came with a gift: when I put it on the chopping board, in the corner of my eyes saw something dark moved under a leaf; lifting it found a creature that moved like a little like a worm, one end of it stretched into a pointy tentacle that reached out into the direction it wished to go, placing it and peristaltically creeped ahead. It was leech. The first I'd ever seen. The only drawback is what a colleague referred to as WAT (white-added tax); some of the prices sound dubiously high (by chinese standards) and usually I just refuse - they may expect bargaining but I'm hardly in the mood.

 

Tomorrow morning will be my first real chance to explore my unpolished gem of a neighbourhood. Tomorrow will also entail having a lesson observed by the boss. Since she grilled a senior teacher just yesterday, I'm hoping (a) that everything goes dreamily; (b) that if it doesn't she shows some leniency for someone finding their feet in our system.

 

It's nice to have proper home.

353

353: This number is one of the first things I see when I descend into the subway each morning; It is the number of days before the start of the Asian Games in Guangzhou. I arrived at 363 and thus it gives a me an in-your-face reminder every morning of the time as it passes. Ten days it has been and ten days that have been crawling by regardless of happiness and frustration.

 

Yesterday, I would have begged for euthanasia to escape from the bureaucratic hoops to be leaped through to become a resident worker. It all seems so needless really but then I'm obviously oblivious to the benefits of the system of forms, of going from one small office to another, of photocopying and of Chinese triplicate (not real triplicate, because you have to do the same form more than three times).

 

But now with most of the process done, I'm on the verge of moving into my new apartment and settling down properly. Once there I can buy a pantry worth of food and spices; I can invite people over (my current room is no good for guests); and I can walk to work in 10 minutes. I can't wait to get over that line. My landlord seems a good man (that being said, I thought my last landlord in NZ would be decent when I first met her) and has been very patient and helpful as we went through the steps.

 

I've got a Cantonese teacher now and after one lesson, boy does my head hurt. I think I'll have a ferocious learning curve ahead of me but will hopefully get the hang of it soon. By the end of it, a reasonably spoken sentence would half stick and half go astray. The most peculiar thing is that after chatting in Cantonese, Mandarin seems so, so easy. It is as if the brain turbo-charges to cope with the Cantonese so that when the Mandarin comes it is even easier than usual.

 

Real work is about to begin! My flurry of blogs may be about to cease. While I was dropping some documents into my school's head office in the north, one of the teacher liaisons came up to me and suggested I be head of the social committee for my school and around for Guangzhou. I suddenly thought of the shock of a full schedule, my obsession with language, my move and suddenly I felt I was rather not feeling like it. But we'll see...

Red, white and green

 

As someone with a rather experimental tendency when it comes to food, it is a delight to have such an excellent variety here in Guangzhou. I live near a very average small-scale supermarket, and yet I can get the most delicious things: mangosteens, dragon fruit and chinese mountain yams. They have plentiful beans and mushrooms; nuts and grains. Cooking dinner (and leaving some for lunch) is never a problem.

 

And you need to keep healthy in the city. Pressures push us everywhere, and sometimes it surges us places faster than we could ever imagine. Well, that is the case on the subway at rush hour. My lord! When everyone needs to catch the train at the same time, you'll catch it whether you like it or not, and if you don't catch it, you won't be catching anything for half an hour. There is a logic there that can be understood after close study of the physics of sunspots, solar flares and the solar wind. Fortunately, on Tuesday when we did go at rush hour the surge was strong enough for both me and my orientation friend to squash onto the train.

 

And even when you're not at peak the pressure remains: Beep; beep; beep; SHRIEK! That was the sounds transcribed in Jiangnanxi station on Tuesday night as a girl did a feet-first long-jump style leap to make the train before the fourth beep announcing the rapid shutting of the doors. She and her trailing shoulder bag made it by millimetres before the jaws of the doors drew shut. Fortunately the door on the other side was shut for she would have passed right through at that speed.

 

The general foreigners here are a strange bunch. I noticed this in the past too. As a person who makes eye contact with pretty much anyone with their eyes up coming the other way, I reckon that foreigners avoid my eyes much more than the locals. I think only one pedestrian foreigner has done anymore than dash their eyes away. I gave him a polynesian chin-raise with a polite smile; he smiled back.

But then, apart from my colleagues (who seem like a good bunch), I think I'll try and give foreigners a polite distance anyway. I went to meet a relation of a friend last night and fell right into a pocket of westernism, swedes, germans and a British-born chinese playing a game of Risk with beer; it was strangely uninteresting.

 

A week has passed since I arrived and it feels like at least a month. I'm on the verge of agreeing on an apartment; my work is falling into place (I'm chomping at the bit to begin, in all honesty); the weather is still rather agreeable; and I'm watching a horror movie on public TV: Awesome.

After the early faze

Last night I got home and struggled to sleep for the first time. It was nothing to do with jet-lag or unfamiliarity; it was excitement and anxiety after my first day on site at my school. And I should have slept because I was knackered. I haven't worked in so many weeks that to sustain concentration, to constantly deal with people and absorb copious acronyms and institutional knowledge was rather taxing. On the subway last night I felt too tired to do anything. I could have fallen asleep so heavy were my eyelids. This morning, though, I woke after the sun for the first time since arriving, meaning that I'm not far from running on Chinese time.

 

My workplace has been an enjoyable discovery. My workmates, both foreign and local, have been very easy to get along with. The school already had one Canadian, one Brit and one American so I add another flavour of English. In the two branches I've visited this week, I'm the only antipodean. The majority of foreign teachers are Americans. The students are cute. I'm still about two weeks away from my actual teaching but it has been good to be amongst it all. I do feel part of the team.

 

I'd like to officially retract that dreadful title that I bestowed upon Guangzhou: Guangzhou is not the arsehole of China. On Tuesday I went to a similar place to that which I visited in 2000 (can't be sure it was the same) and what a change has occurred: The people are probably less foreigner-struck than when I was in Shanghai two years ago; It is a great deal cleaner; Beggars are not on every corner; The people, aside from the service, have been great to chat with. Last night while I was waiting for my food at a local eatery, a young man (Lin Huangjie) sat down on the neighbouring table also waiting, we started a nice conversation and though he had some interesting thoughts about the difficulties of learning English, he refused to speak with me using English.

 

Yesterday may also mark the time that my Chinese study was reignited. Ever since my birthday the heat and fire of my study have been weak; even being here I didn't feel interested in pushing myself to learn. Two colleagues and I enjoyed a lesson with the visiting teacher. It was better than I had imagined although my demands of a lesson will probably see me seeking another teacher to supplement my studey. There seems to be a slight issue inherent in the class. When it was just my two colleagues in the lesson, the less proficient of the two was quite inhibited by his more fluent classmate (the Canadian is a very unrestrained speaker). And now there is a newer, more fluent fish in the pond; apparently he was even more affected. The teacher took me aside at the end of the lesson to let me know about this and we discussed teaching methods to deal with it.

 

I managed to make my first vendetta though as part of my quest to bring a good service culture to China. A colleague that I went apartment hunting with and I went to a "korean" restaurant. We ordered and within ten minutes my dish came - I didn't start waiting for the other order to come through. Ten more minutes passed and I grabbed a waiter and he grunted that he'd check. We chatted and after another ten minutes I grabbed the same waiter and asked him again where the dish was; he grunted again and headed to the kitchen. Then suddenly all the waiters swarmed over to our order sheet and then to the table next to ours where a lady was eating a certain Chicken Curry Rice that we'd also ordered. The orders were somehow confused and became the one. After about ten minutes the dish arrived. I told my companion that I'd like to raise hell / a complaint on payment, but mainly for the purposes of language practice and making a not-to-subtle point. But it didn't end there: after finally starting our meal, I asked for some tissues; they came but when the same waiter delivered them he added a charge that was even more of a red rag to a bull. When we went up to pay, I camped us at the till and explained how dissatisfied we were and how it was completely unacceptable. The staff scurried around; signals came back and forth from the kitchen; and even when they refused to recognise any obligation on their part to show any goodwill, I stayed camped at the till. The boss came out and said: "We're very busy here and these things happen, sir." I continued telling him that this was not good enough. He appeared to be starting to crack. But we decided just to pay the bill and tell him that we'd mention the service here to our friends in our language school. After leaving the restaurant, I felt myself rather untactful and suddenly much better ways to reason them into the ground appeared to me. God save the next restaurateur who crosses me.

 

Cantonese has been on the menu too this week and it has been good to be in the environment to hear it and learn it. When I walked with an agent to help me find an apartment, he'd always talk to the landlords in cantonese and I caught quite a bit of it. And the basics comments are all immediately understood. But, boy, I've got a long way to go (and a year to do it).

 

I've got a well-timed day off today. Whoever designed the schedule for new teachers had it pretty much right. I'll have another two days of "work" and then another day off on Sunday.

Settle down now!

 

I've had a day here now: I've been approached by hawkers; eaten my first street food; smelt that funny "Please let that be anything other than sewage?" odour that wafts out of drains in the city; and been pushed in front of by little old ladies. Yes, if the sign after customs hadn't said it already, I'm indeed in China.

 

The hotel was almost a joke the moment I arrived. The internet didn't work; the TV was misconnected; the clock is perpetually 11:40; the bathroom light blew within minutes; and though the room had a kitchen, it was short of almost everything. An intercom call brought a worker up to attend to all of the problems. Before I left New Zealand, I had been pleased to see that I had a breakfast provided with the room, and had a picture in my mind of a small scale buffet with some nice warm Chinese breakfast food, rice porridge, perhaps. In the morning, I descended to the lobby, hungry since about 4am and was faced with an unattended reception, so I asked the doorman who dialed a staff member. A sleepy-eyed receptionist came down and informed me that breakfast would come with the room cleaning people at around this time. So I headed back to the room to find two processed, packaged cakes and a bottle of orange juice: A let down of sorts. But it is a room and now that I've done some shopping, figured out how things work, slept well and had a wander around, I'm at least comfortable.

 

My neighbourhood is reasonably uninspiring, but it has a good supermarket nearby (with some organic products!) and it looks like it has a reasonable cafe opposite (stocks wine too, NZ labels only, buy them by the bottle at ridiculous prices!). The trees are pleasingly verdant; a big difference from the limp, grey "greenery" of Shanghai and Beijing when I visited. I haven't yet had to take any evasive action while crossing roads. My new shoes have now really met Chinese pavements, too, which really is the fastest way to depreciate an asset ever.

 

I headed out at noon on my first tentative journey into the subway network, emerging at the famous Guangxiao temple and then heading over to the shopping strip of Beijing Road.

"May I ask you a question?" I was asked in English by a young woman as I waited at an intersection.

I thought that there was no harm in allowing her the pleasure of a single question with me: "Hăo!" I assented. Her face collapsed: "Oh. You speak Chinese. Nevermind. I was going to ask you if wanted a guide," she replied in Chinese, disappointed and walked away.

 

Oh and the most unbelieveable sight of the day? Definitely the men selling tiger paws on the footpath. Actually, that might be the most extraordinary thing ever. I'll have to think back to all the wackiest things I've ever seen in this country. I also found a rather outstanding spelling mistake on a sign ("STSRBUCKA").

 

From tomorrow onward my world will become a bit more routine with work beginning. But not real work, just starting the settling in process and visa requirements etc. It should be fun!

Final daze

And so I'm amid the slow process of airport transits – definitely away from where I started from, but still a seeming eternity from Guangzhou and my welcoming party there. It is only eight in the morning and I have four hours to kill till my connecting flight. And I'm in Starbucks, which of all places will be home for this time, drinking an Americano. And though they claim to have free wireless broadband, it seems not to be accessible anywhere in the terminal space I'm confined to; this'll probably be sent once I'm in Guanzhou.

It was a long day on Friday, day of the flight, which could have gone smoother, but I can thank my lucky stars that, so far, I don't seem to have forgotten anything. Both Thursday and Friday proved that even with plentiful time to prepare, my brain still managed to leave many tricky tasks till the last moment; but still leave just enough time to complete everything before a rush to the airport. It is always the way.

The pre-big trip anxiety only hit me on the drive to the airport in fact, showing that this drawn out lead-in really did rob me of the nervous energy it would have otherwise provided for at least a week preceding departure. This meant that I slept well the night before I left. But now, it has dawned on me properly: I'm starting a long adventure from which the relaxation of home is as further away as it will ever be; my feet will always feel in the air till they're back on home soil; I'll have curious eyes on me every day; and I'll have a long time to adapt to my new city and to connect myself in with the Chinese world.

Airports always play on my nerves as I subconsciously think about all the things that can go wrong, wrong entrances I could go through, forms that could be filled out incorrectly and wrong places to go and fruit and pocket knives I could accidentally stow in the wrong bag. I may have done something wrong already: I'd packed a bottle of Ginger Liquour in my check-in luggage to act as a gift or, if no recipient becomes obvious, for my own consumption in Guangzhou. Last night I went to duty-free where I took forever to make the decision of buying a NZ-made gin (gin being another spirit I seem to enjoy). However, the man at the desk told me I could only bring a litre of alcohol into Hong Kong. I didn't even think of the combined volume of the gin and the liquour in my bag; that puts me up to 1450mls of drink, and a bottle of the size in my check-in does show up on the scan of luggage meaning that I should declare or face a potential fine. Fortunately it wasn't the most expensive bottle, should it be taken off me later.

The flight to Hong Kong, from whence I write this, was very smooth. (500) Days of Summer was the best movie in the entertainment book and it was worth the watch (I do like everything Gordon Joseph-Levitt, if that is his name, is in though).  The Last King of Scotland was probably good except for being constantly obscured by my ever lowering eyelids; Forest Whitaker makes you forget that he really isn't Idi Amin; I didn't see the end though – the curtains came down. I had a few short patches of sleep but otherwise cruised through the flight peacefully half-awake/half-asleep. The Other Man was my movie of the dozy morning, clunking its plot along but getting at peace with itself by the end.

If the delays and my fall at Cathedral Cove were some sort of karmic stop-signs telling me I had made the wrong decision to come to China, there have been plenty of other interesting personal coincidences telling me that this enterprise is right. As I boarded the plane, walking through Business class, I looked over at a passenger at the same time as he looked over at me. We both recognised each other immediately. He had been one of my students six years ago. Although he was a native of Qingdao (on the northern coast) and had been staying in New Zealand for most of the time since, he had started a company near Guangzhou in the last two years with a family friend. He visited me later in Economy with his business card and said we should meet later.  It is always nice to have these lucky meetings.

And of coincidences and decisions, back in Auckland Airport waiting an hour to leave, I bought a hot chocolate and read in my freshly delivered Forest & Bird magazine about the degradation of waterways due to dairy farming. I pondered an interesting resolution: to be dairy-free for this whole Chinese endeavour, where realistically possible. My flight meal was already vegan (the airlines smartly give a vegan meal to all who have moral qualms about food), which brings me back to the huge Americano to my right (a really, really long black). I've been popping Raw Cacao beans as if they were candy. Such a principle would gladly avoid the generally horrid milk in China and keep me away from foreign temptations. But we'll see. I'll probably be offered a slice of cheesecake somewhere and scoff it without any moral restraint at all, and probably have my expectations let down with a tremendous clatter (in terms of western food here, things that look like a duck, don't necessarily quack or taste like a duck).

And so as I sit in the bastion of capitalism and epitome of a soulless café, I sit and ponder whether I'll find a cheap voltage adaptor soon before my cyber enjoyment runs out. And wonder how softly I'll land into Guangzhou, the erstwhile "Arsehole of China", and my home for the next year.

Gourmet

In the lead up to my departure, I've been enjoying food and drink. I doubt whether this is the best strategy: indulging in all the things I enjoy could lead to the feeling of deprivation once on Chinese shores. But not mind that, I've had fun.

Avocados so plentiful and creamy; yoghurt so smooth and rich; cheeses: gouda, blue and brie; chocolate from mid-dark to the darkest night; coffee brewed and prepared to its astringent best; breads light and pure; raw cacao beans; macadamia crunch; dainty ports drunk at the wrong part of the meal; manuka honey spread on beautiful toast bread; gin and tonic, hitting the spot; crepes thin and well filled with the sweetest filling; falafels and tabbouleh so morish and satisfying; milk so white and full; pure organic juice from any fruit; sandwiches with gherkins, beetroot and egg; hummus with garlic and golden kiwifruit scooped with a yellow plastic spoon.

Blogger is one of the websites that are not necessarily accessible in China. This blog was sent via e-mail, the only way I'll be able to continue on this site. And perhaps with such wonderful foods mentioned, I'm best if I don't see the foods listed once I'm in a place where they are no longer obtainable.

The long and winding road

In June I got the news that triggered thoughts of flying away, and now, five months later, here I am with less than a week left before departure. It has been a rather trying time. I'd thought I be gone long before this time - I've been unemployed for six weeks - but there can always be reasons for such things.

Though I've been denied time with my sister in the UK and travel in Europe with my friends, I've gained in terms of time spent with my mother and friends here and the new connections I've made with my extended family. I've had time to contemplate, as well as explore my country and prepare for my trip.

This being a rather large endeavour for me, it has been nice to have time to adjust to the idea too and think about what goals I have and how I'll carry them out.

To the root

With my new life postponed temporarily, there was plenty of time for distraction. My zeal for Chinese study ebbed once the immediacy of my departure faded, so where was I to go?

I happened to accompany my mother to a family get-together and was immediately struck by the need to have my lineage down on paper. This may not be an issue for many people but my immediate family, excluding my father's recent lateral extension, is rather tiny - I have no living cousins; but beyond that there are thickets of relatives most of whom were vague to me. I've also not been diligent in the past to follow the exact in's and out's of our family; and for whatever reason, our family has always seemed to do its own thing.


Despite us already being a long way into the information age, I believe I might be the first person to put the full power of the world wide web into the search for ancestors and relatives. And there have been more than a few surprising discoveries: the Auckland museum had a photocopy of my great-great-great grandfather's diary; his grave was a mere fifteen minute drive from home, but he was born on Jersey of the Channel Islands c.1823, coming over on a boat, the Merchantman in 1855. And our family history on that island goes back almost to the Norman Conquest!


I visited my only uncle last week on a trip to Waihi. I'd only met him once before in my memory (due to distance and a family disagreement I never really got to know him). It was a fascinating meeting. He naturally looks quite similar to my father but in terms of interests and attitudes, he is very different; we talked widely on all manner of topics. I'm tempted to go on a Coromandel genealogical jaunt to meet people and visit the dead. In fact, a Dunedin visit may well be due too.

Due to our patrilineal system of surnames, there is a strange tendency toward of fascination. I'm as much a Willstead, Holt, Brown, Harris or Hipkins as I am Goudie, but the search for the origin of Goudie, Denize and McNarey seizes me as more interesting.
Oral history presents its own difficulties. Speaking to my father or uncle about their relatives brings up a plethora of nicknames, and that side of the family has a large number of people who use their middle-name as their main name.

Other than banal facts (like that I'm 1/16 "german" and I'm not as "scottish" as I thought I was), it does give one a feeling a fitting in the world; My sisters and I are the last descendents of the McNarey family in New Zealand. It seems two brothers came over in 1910, got married but all their genes now rest in our hands. Location, location, location was crucial for many of the meetings of ancestors, like a cosmic dance which only can only be appreciated in retrospect. And I now know the Goudie name may not have originated as I first thought, and have always said.

One of the problems with delving into the past though is the relegation of once living, breathing people to mere names. And in the mist of time, people are reduced to names and numbers. They are only proved by their source documents, not by the memory of them. The Goudie name is indeed an issue where my line becomes fuzzy after the last definite ancestor, a William Goudie in the town of Maybole in Ayrshire, Scotland. The only way forth another generation back is through his record of birth, but there is no record of a William Goudie born 54-56 years before the 1841. Are all the records there? There was a well-documented William Goudie (he obviously had a dedicated genealogist - it goes back far!), but his birthdate would make him a very young father if he were the father of my great grandfather! Then I was struck by the ages on the census: the older people have ages of a multiple of five. They were only estimates! I found a likely William Goudie, born at approximately the right time, but is it really him? And that is as far as the internet could take me. But in all honesty, William Goudies were a dime a dozen in Ayrshire in the late 1700s, early 1800s, without distinguishing middle names, and apart from going to Maybole and having a chat over a tea with my distant relatives and non-relatives, there isn't much to do. But the William Goudies are all people who presumably lived lives, had children and died to become a mere number.

But when the number is fleshed, a picture emerges: In the 1841 census, William Goudie was "55" years old, a widower for the second time and looking after two sons to two different wives, with the help of two female servants. His first four children had all died young. His youngest surviving son, Thomas Cuthbert Goudie, at the age of 22, came to New Zealand with his wife, Sarah Ann, on a boat, War Spirit in 1863. (I don't know why.) After the death of Sarah Ann on the North Shore, he went over to the Coromandel, remarried and up to the age of 68, he had 6 more children. The youngest, Andrew Joseph Goudie, had two children; and the youngest of those two children, had three kids, the youngest which is I.

The end of the end - 寿终正寝

At 6:05pm today I ushered my last student out the classroom door and ended my teaching enterprise that began 2:30pm Friday 22 July 2005.

I still remember that first day rather well: A week after my successful marketing meeting, I went to the client's office and then received each of my seven new corporate students for a fifteen minute Needs Analysis. The true scale of what I had gotten myself into became apparent: there were a wide variety of accents, issues and backgrounds and I had claimed that I could help them all effectively. Looking back, I can't say that I would have had the ability at that time to justify those claims; and still with the experience and knowledge that you can only get through teaching over three thousand hours of one-on-one teaching, it is hard to sustain. The lesson early is that you cannot fix; you instruct, support, motivate and facilitate the changing of habits, the learning of knowledge and the understanding and application of skills. And at first, some were quite happy with their English, but appreciated the amusement of a company-supplied teacher. Such encounters taught me the need to actively find out the motivations of the students and even be confident enough to confront students or get their managers involved. Another student had significant "fossilised" pronunciation issues (this means that the influence of his mother tongue is almost impossible to be removed). I learnt a lot about such conditions and recent students from Malaysia benefited greatly from the lessons learnt there.

At the end of that year, I was already positioning myself to jump back into the common pot of "employment" but missed out on my dream job with the Government security agency. That was a blow but the reason for me even looking was the conditions of my self-employment: I was struggling with the scale of the task; I'd failed to lure any other company into a contract; and I was only supporting myself financially with two full days of work a week. That finally changed in my second year almost a year to the day after I began: I found a new client. This was just incredible. After my second or third round of intensive cold-calling, I followed a name I had snared in a research call, and after my spiel I heard the most musical words for a cold caller: "You're exactly what we are looking for!" Apparently some Swiss employee was making noises about that company's responsibilities to seconded employees and that English support should be provided. And I came knocking at that time. With him came more.

This was the beginning of a rather magical period when I'd not only created myself a fulfilling full-time enterprise, but also had a juggernaut that threatened to drive me to my own expiration. My trip to China at the end of 2007 carried with it the dream and nightmare of weekly trips to Wellington, an excess of 30 hours of weekly tuition and no-one with me to handle that teaching burden. The Wellington lessons were a possibility that came from nowhere. My second client was just the Auckland office of an international company with offices throughout New Zealand. Two seconded Croatian workers in Wellington heard from their compatriot up in Auckland that English lessons were provided to them and they made some noise to have access to the same. And after a six month struggle to find a comparable tutor in the capital, they turned to their tutor up in Auckland. The suggestion sent me to cloud nine.

I was light with delight, but heavy with dread. As it turned out the dread was unwarranted: 2008 was a magical year, if only from a professional point of view. It was also the year that I finally felt fully in control of my powers, shaking off one of my perpetual self-doubts that I was not up to the job.

I would send one student out with a handshake and heartily welcome another one into the student's seat like a doctor would to patients. My mind would grasp a sentence and isolate the fascinating issue with it, scrawling it on paper for a graphical explanation. I had students explain the reason things are so with a perfect rendition of what I had taught. Naturally, a teacher's ego can easily go to far and take ownership of their student's learning when, in fact, it is the fruit of the student's talent and work that they have learnt. But I felt immense pride in these things I saw. And the friendships I made doing it were extraordinary: What other jobs can you help and chat with friends and get paid for it?

The decline when it came was not a surprise. Over the last New Year, I made plans in its anticipation. My industry, workplace training, is the kind that prospers in the good time and struggles in the bad. My income halved between 20 February and the 10 March this year. The dying phase has been an enjoyable time in that I've been able to travel, write and learn. While it was alive, this enterprise of mine, I hoped to breathe it back into life; and now, partly on a whim, I've set it aside, asleep, perhaps forever.

Naturally, this is just the ending of one phase of life. Another one is forming for me. But it is a time to look back on the passing of this entity. It was sad to leave both rooms that for quite some time have been mine. I could literally walk in and kick out those inside irrespective of title because I had it booked! I had my own cupboard with tea-cups, tea and books. They are now forbidden ground. I'll have the chance to see some of my students again first in my farewell and some in their home countries.

This has been a special four years and I will cherish it greatly.

Forum rules

These are the rules to a Chinese newsite's tennis forum I look at to read about the US Open:

请您注意
Please note:
自觉遵守：爱国、守法、自律、真实、文明的原则
Consciously follow the principles of patriotism, lawfulness, self-control, truth and civilisation.
尊重网上道德，遵守《全国人大常委会关于维护互联网安全的决定》及中华人民共和国其他各项有关法律法规
Observe online morality and follow the government's decision regarding internet safety and other relevant laws and regulations of the Peoples Republic of China.
严禁发表危害国家安全，破坏民族团结、国家宗教政策和社会稳定，含侮辱、诽谤、教唆、淫秽等内容的作品
It is strictly forbidden to jeopardise national safety, harm racial unity, national religious policies and social stability, including content with abuse, slander, ___ and ____ etc.
承担一切因您的行为而直接或间接导致的民事或刑事法律责任
You accept all the direct and indirect responsibility for civil and criminal acts caused by any of your behaviour.
您在新浪新闻评论发表的作品，新浪网有权在网站内保留、转载、引用或者删除
New Wave Net has the right to retain, republish, quote or delete the opinions you express here on New Wave News .
参与本评论即表明您已经阅读并接受上述条款
Participating in this discussion indicates that you have read and accepted the above conditions.

Considering the recent crackdown on Internet in China, especially Facebook and Twitter, some of these are clearly not window dressing. Some are humorous such as patriotism given as the first principle to adhere to. Civilised behaviour should really be more strictly enforced considering that on this particular site comments calling Selena Williams an orangutan (or gorilla) have been abounding for this whole tournament and probably every other tournament, without moderation.