Resume

There is a time in life when everything is about to happen. A few moments when it does. And then a time shortly after when it resumes. And now it is resuming.

Looking backwards through the smoke and rubble of the past was a four week long holiday; a helter-skelter technology-hamstrung four weeks in the office; the hustle and/or bustle of the Christmas period travels and feasting; the marathon and its anticipation; the struggle for fitness and confidence in my own health; work stretching me to the limit while I still focussed mainly on running... that backward glance was a busy 6-7 months. And now I can look ahead to a comparatively anodyne and relaxed "start to the year".

It does feel like a beginning, a reset. There is nothing on the horizon. There's just life, routine and simplicity.

Today was the first Friday since I came back. Everything has fit together. It started at 5am in the morning with a 10km run. This was the longest run since late December. In the 2.5 months before this run, I'd run a mere 52.7km, and it's been a challenge of restraint, stupidity and desire. My left knee which had been a nuisance since August 2017 got really stroppy with me after bouncing on a trampoline on New Year's Eve, and I struggle to run more than 3km in a single sitting. I strengthened and waited but it still bothered me till eventually I went back to the physio, who redirected me onto a specialist. With him I had my first MRI of my life. Regrettably that was just a few days before our trip to China. Less than 48 hours before departing the result came out was interpreted by my physio and said onto me: Keep strengthening, don't stop running.

So I did. I ran in the village for the first time ever. It was a thrill. But I was thwarted twice over: while sitting feasting and drinking I suddenly turned to my left and felt a pinch around my ribs; anesthetised by the drink I didn't notice for long; the next day I noticed my ankle was a bit sore pre-run. This is relatively normal for me. I have flat feet and they are never 100% happy to be feet, let alone running. As this was a feeling similar to what I had had before, I ran despite it. But the run after it though feeling OK at the time had a huge effect. My ribs ached and my ankle twinged. My ribs were sore with any movement so my plan of exercise went out the window. That alone would have precluded running but even if it hadn't, my swollen ankle was going to be an obstacle. And then in this pain, we travelled to Chengdu with heavy suitcases... After which it felt marginally better. Then we went to Guangzhou last week where I ran again but regretted it afterwards, feeling beaten up and miserable.

My specialist had booked me this morning so I decided that I had to know how my knee was and chose to run 3km. My knee was fine it appeared, but concern for my ribs and ankle cut the run short. The next day however I didn't have any after effects, which led me to today.

My alarm rang out at 5am. I didn't like it. I got up nonetheless. I could still feel the discomfort in my ankle but after a walk down the hall it wasn't obvious. I kitted up and went for a run. I pushed it - 10km is a reasonable morning effort. I felt the same as I had after 3km. My knee didn't irk me at all, but my ribs and ankle were clearly urging me to finish. I showered and went to the specialist who showed me the MRI scans: I'd split my tendinosus (a tendon). But he was taken aback that I ran 10km without discomfort and said I should still do strengthening work (which I will do). And now I have the challenging choice. I was silly enough to book a half marathon for Sunday. I might try it and try only to get to the end. I'll rest well, strengthen and think about it.

But that was all sorted at 7:25am. The day was still yet to get on with itself! I headed home, picked up the wife, headed to work and observed a teacher. He's a nice fellow who was introduced to our school while I was away. He's an awesome teacher and even more awesome because he likes our place and thinks I'm an OK kinda guy, and is best friends with our senior teacher. Good teachers set us up for stability. Then out the door I met my boss, who had the talk I'd hoped for. And she gave me the answers I wanted. So I feel happy staying where I am. We had a nice staff lunch and after a korean dinner with soju, I feel a nice calm with the year ahead.

It's time to resume and I like where this is going.

To health: Credit where due

I can't recall how many times I've recounted experiences with the Chinese medical system, either on this blog or real-time. Whether it's the upstairs-downstairs healthcare, or playing medical tag, with an audience of gawkers, poor Hippocratic attitudes, pushing in, and pushing away, it had always been a ride. I remember warning teachers: you just need to get a medical cert for your sick leave; the rest is a story to tell your folks.

But credit where credit is due to the humble Chinese hospital: it's better now by a long way. It's all about using its obvious strength while ameliorating its weakness with technology. China already had economies of scale. A single hospital has everything - but previously it was a Byzantine bureaucracy of paper and payments: register here, diagnosis there, payments here, treatment there, pay for your medicine/treatment here, collect it there, curl up in a ball and cry/die here.

Now there are payment terminals everywhere, scanning a QR code allows you to pay everything cashlessly. Now you can be treated and tracked simply. Technology serves the masses. Treatment are a salve rather than a rack.

It is a disaster that I've had contact with the medical system thrice on this trip. My sidestrain from eating. My wife's digestive distress. But travel should be about experiencing and in that area I can't complain.

Since I'm often with a glass on this trip: Here's to health.

Post-script: the strange picture is a plastic bag in a ball. They're sold from a vending machine with a QR code. There is no complimentary bag when you collect your meds. It's part of that move to reduce plastic waste.

City Review: Chengdu

We had a window of time to travel out of Guangdong and despite my having been there twice already we decided to go to Chengdu. Not that I was disappointed. My previous two visits impressed me and this visit was not any different. In my previous trips, I'd done some of the "key experiences" like seeing pandas, going to teahouses and eating spicy food. But had also done two specific out-of-town experiences Emei Mountain and Leshan's big Buddha. This time we spent it all inside the city and still found a lot to do.

Hotel review: Buddhazen (near Wenshu Yuan (Manjushri Monastery): 4 stars out of 5

A beautiful classical building right next to a large monastery? It's as good as it sounds. Everything is old wood, perpendicular corridors and spiritual. The emphasise the connection with Zen Buddhism. The service was humble and quick. We would stay there again without hesitation. The only drawbacks were a slight odour from the plumping, a seemingly non-live TV broadcast and an average quality foot massage. But those are minor compared to the enjoyment of living in and returning to such a comfortable place.

Favourite places: Du Fu's Thatched Cottage: 4 stars out of 5; Shujing Fang Baijiu Museum: 5 stars out of 5

These were two places I went to for the first time on this trip and both would be high recommendations, although most appropriate to people with a bit of a knowledge of Chinese and Chinese culture. Du Fu was never one of my favourite Chinese poets. (For the record, I loved the alcoholic poets more, even when I was teetotal, namely: Tao Yuanming and Li Bai.) But after going to his recreated thatched cottage and the grounds around it I may finally have gained an appreciation. The poems I liked best were his war-time poems. During his life there was a large-scale rebellion against the Tang Dynasty and a lot of his works focus on the pains of war that any modern reader could see are just as true today. One non-war poem that took pride of place on the cottage grounds was a dedication to Spring in Chengdu:

好雨知时节，
Good rain knows its time,
当春乃发生。
It falls when it becomes Spring,
随风潜入夜，
It follows the wind and enters by night,
润物细无声。
It moistens all with fine, silent drops,
野径云俱黑，
Its mists cloak the rural paths.
江船火独明。
All that can be seen through it are the lights on riverboats,
晓看红湿处，
And when it dawns the red of the sun can be seen through the moist fog,
花重锦官城
The damp, heavy flowers decorate this city of Chengdu.

The poems were great but the grounds themselves are beautiful. Highly recommended.

Now an alkie like myself has to love Sichuan province. Of the top 4 baijiu brands by market share, 3 are made in Sichuan. Number three is Shuijing Fang which is made in Chengdu. And a few years ago when they were expanding the factory, the diggers revealed that the same site had been used since the Tang Dynasty. (Which incidentally could mean that Du Fu might have drunk wine from there!) It's one of the oldest proven places of Chinese wine production. Archaeologists have even shown that the bacteria that was present at the time is the same as is used now.

The museum itself takes you through the production process and even gives you a sample of the first drawn spirits, at about 68% alcohol. Wooooo! One sip is enough. They show you the art of their bottles. (And in fact Chinese wine bottles are far more artistic than the simple elegance of western wine and spirit bottles.)

Restaurant review: Bashu Dazhaimen Hotpot (Caishi Street, Qingyang district, Chengdu): 5 stars out of 5.

I'll throw in a restaurant review because simply it really shows service mind, which had been a rare thing in China. Every trip to Chengdu requires a trip to a hotpot restaurant. At first I baulked about walking far to one with a good review arguing that we weren't connoisseurs, and there were places on every street. But I was persuaded and we went to this one. My arguing and the required persuasion had probably delayed us to the point that we had to wait for a table. This was the first impressive point though. If you have to wait, they give you a voucher that takes 15 yuan off your bill, provide you with cordial, sunflower seeds and another snack. We didn't have to wait long and the waiter was very attentive. In fact there was one moment that I thought nailed attentiveness. A staff member gave us our cutlery and I thought I noticed a small smear of chili oil on my cup. I checked with my finger and no sooner than I did the waiter switched it without a word. The food was great, too. Overall, there are lessons even a New Zealand restaurant could learn from them, which is rare.

City review: 5 stars out of 5.

Chengdu. Three visits and three pleasant times spent. But there are so many small things which make you feel good. Whether it be the main at the guokui shop who used tongs to handle money and plastic gloves with food. The general cleanness of the surrounds. The proliferation of bicycles. The unobtrusiveness of people and service in general.

If a tree falls in the forest...

China is an interesting place to be. Armed police and army troops march obviously. Tourists march on.

A friend mentions that something with knives happened in Beijing. Not in the news. Tourists march on.

We go from a station to a station. The blood goes from a city to a city. We march on.

A slice of life

I'm standing on the second floor of my family-in-law's home looking out the window. I happen to be peeing into a Chinese toilet, a detail which you might think I should omit but it took more skill at that moment because I was mildly inebriated (more about that later). As I look, I spot my grandfather-in-law, A-Gung, feeding the chickens. He's 95 years old but is still the perfection of how old people should live, keeping active and in routine. Just ten minutes before, I'd completed a near one hour conversation with him, which is lengthy by my standards. I tire at that length in Cantonese. He's really tough to understand, not just because he speaks even Qingyuan dialect as his second language (he actually speaks dialect Hakka as his mother tongue) and has missing teeth etc. but also because he's old and grew up in a hugely different cultural context.

We talked about of all things: sport, and then golf which is a prestige, expensive sport in China but is much more accessible in New Zealand. From there the conversation gravitated to the Chinese obsessive topic of money, who has it and who doesn't, before talking about houses. First the family over the road, then my younger brother-in-law's new home and then back to history with Chairman Mao. I can follow Waangleng accent of my family-in-law well, even when drunk, but that isn't the reason why I'm mildly inebriated talking in the yard. The reason lies in Saamgok accented Cantonese. (NB: Waangleng, Saamgok and Gwongtau are all villages in Qingyuan.)

An hour previous I'd been drinking and eating with my wife's Saamgok cousins. These are not the cousins who featured earlier in this blog. I still remember my first encounters with the cousins: It was at my younger brother-in-law's banquet; I'd had one round of food and drink; happily drunk, I went downstairs again to be sociable and caught another round of food and sat down at a table. Fourth uncle and two of the cousins were there and keen to meet me. They immediately asked me to drink and I gleefully agreed. They finished their cups in one go and I, as an afterthought after a first sip, finished mine. Then a wife from another branch of the family swooped around with a two litre mineral water bottle filled with her old man's homebrew and liberally poured everyone at the table with it. They drank and I drank, and I wisely took some time out after that to recover from the sudden dose of strong alcohol. Apart from some time-outs, I managed than banquet well.

These were the same cousins who I was sitting with one hour previous to now. Perhaps I should talk about what happened just four days previous. We went to their mother's hometown of Gwongtau. Gwongtau is a special place for me because I really enjoy the company of Fourth Uncle, my mother-in-law's brother, though I struggle with his Gwongtau accent. We get along because he doesn't hold my struggle against me. Anyway, at this visit four days ago it was his first time back from the hospital. He'd been really sick. And not just rather sick, but very sick and not just one kind of sick, but many kinds of sick. When I heard that news in New Zealand, it was rather upsetting and I was really glad to be seeing him again at my table in Gwongtau, even with the cousins.

The three cousins are individually lovely. Caan-wing, perhaps because of his likeness to Joe Pesci, has always seemed kind and funny. I remember him the most clearly from that first wipe-out at the banquet. Caan-tong has been village chief for many years, all bluster yet with feeling. And then Caan-gan who played with his grandchildren with so much affection that it almost blindsides you to his sneakiness with drink.

It was these three cousins I drank with four days ago and the same that I drank with an hour ago. Four days ago still ranks as an embarrassment. When we went to Gwongtau I first went to Third Uncle's home and was immediately invited to drink. Did I mention he brewed his own spirits? Either way, I enjoyed, sip-by-sip, his masterpiece of brewing, about two shots in total. Then went over to Fourth Uncle's to eat. They gave me the big cup and I didn't fight it. I should have. I drank and enjoyed and there was a little bit of to-and-fro, not helped by the fact that I don't quite understand Saamgok accent and why I had to drink particular rounds. To cut a long story short, I later got into a car to see my brother-in-law-in-law with his head hanging out the window. He was more trolleyed than me. I thought it strange until he started throwing up down the side of the car. It may have been in sympathy, or may have been because I'd drunk as much, if not more than he, that I too started throwing up, at first inside the car, then with my head out of my window with my brother-in-law-in-law. Hence the embarrassment.

That had been four days ago, and unfortunately, bad gossips spreads fast, so on this day everyone was asking me in a sarcastic tone about my desire to drink today. (My brother-in-law-in-law was at work today. Lucky thing, he got to avoid this inquisition!) Anyway, today I faced my bullies. Caan-tong in particular was full of tactics to get me back under the table. To put it simply, he's village chief for a reason. He's drunk more and had more battles (and scars) than I could ever wish. And he positioned himself well. I had control of the bottles early and he had the control later. When I wanted to switch to white wine (made of grapes, lower alcohol) he insisted I drank brandy. Now that brandy happened to be one I bought at Auckland Airport thus not a fake product and had been quite the hit on both occasions it was drunk. But I wanted to vary my alcohol as well as take it easier. He wasn't going to have a bar of it. Twice we comically fought physically to fill my glass. On one occasion he won. Another time I won. Either way, I can be glad to say I got to the end standing proud and able to talk to my grandfather-in-law in a coherent way an hour later.

These kind of battles can be eschewed if you avoid the drinks table altogether. I just wish the drinks table didn't entail Sun-Tzu's Art of War. I like to drink and do not need help getting drunk. But for others it's a game.

Which brings me back to my conversation with A-Gung. I asked him about his knees and he said his right knee needs a rub every morning just to get going. I'm reading Being Mortal right now which talks a lot about the secrets to an enjoyable last phase to life and I must say he really has it. I hope I can see him again.

Doing it for the kids

The cousins came over. Not the direct cousins, but the cousins of the same generation yet a few branches over, perhaps 3rd or 4th cousins in the western terms. It's a rowdy visit. All three, three men, seem quite astonishingly self-confident and haughty in their postures. I can only talk about their postures because they so speak quickly in dialect with references and irony that I follow little of what they're going on about. They come over to the home one by one, number 1 comes in a sits as if he owns the place, smokes and offers me a cigarette, which I refuse. He's the largest of the three and has a gravelly voice. Number 2 strides in afterwards and loudly jokes before sitting, offering me a cigarette, which I refuse. As they are drinkers and the place they're actually meant to be visiting next door has no drinkers at all, our family begin lunch preparations. My father and I and are the most regular drinkers within the 100m radius of the home. Number 3 comes in quietly and offers me a cigarette, which I refuse. He has a few discreet words with my father-in-law, and then the food comes in and the St Remy XO brandy, which I'd brought in Auckland duty free, is poured.

It doesn't take long for it to become apparent that number 3 can't hold his liquor. After the first glass he gets quite emotional especially about the help my father-in-law gave to him in Guangzhou in tough times. He was starving at a point was given food. Hearing about my father-in-law's Guangzhou time is jarring because I only got to know him once he was already in the village, where he was clearly in his element. He worked in construction in Guangzhou for a time and later failed as a paint shop owner in central Qingyuan before returning back to the countryside with debts. But he is a genuinely kind man and I'll reiterate what I have hopefully said many times: I'm very lucky to have such an open-hearted, accepting person as my father-in-law. Number 3 can't keep his voice, arms or tone down. My father-in-law has to almost bring his arms down physically and asks him repeatedly to keep these things in the past. When another cousin from another branch comes in, number 3 still in heightened emotion dresses him down for his lack of support for his father and family (being "unfilial"). This is quite an animated but not atypical new year scene in China. Through all this drama there is a mini-scene that I'd like to focus on which is almost a distraction from this scene of drunken sentimentality.

As number 3 gets into his stride of gratitude, the child of number 2 charge into the room, grab his father's bowl from in front of him and run away. He's tailed by his cousin, the son of number 1. I was shocked by this brazen food robbery, but number 2 puffs his cigarette and his son brings back the bowl. The two children notice me and then get into a pushing match toward me to say something to me. What they would like the other to say is lost on me and likely lost on them, too. I entertain them trying to get them to tell me their names by first teaching them how to say "My name is.." but they run away. I ignore them but later get up to talk to them. One runs into the bathroom to hide so I hold the door shut. He eventually tries to get out but has to say "My name is..." to get out. I'm such an evil teacher. Both run away after that but it is just another refraction of a social trend in China that we see in our classes in Auckland, namely, undisciplined, unfocussed youth.

They're everywhere. There was probably an evolution where the Cultural Revolution did a bit of a moral reset, the One Child policy warped all the attention to a single child who grew up in unprecedented wealth and then that overindulged child was then expected to produce and raise a child, if not two. Any of these "links" in the procreative chain could give birth to a rather uncontrollable child. I went to the number 2 and said that his son was quite bright, and he shook his head and said he was "lazy".

Another tale was an anecdote shared during the "visiting of relatives" yesterday. A young auntie of ours told us how a similar situation brewed. Third Uncle's son had gotten married and had recently had a child. But the son had the best of the good life as an only son and had always had his parents do everything for him. After the child was born, both he and his wife did very little to do any of the hard work care of the child, preferring to play computer games till late, not waking in the morning and getting lunch from KFC. They were there to play with children of course.

These stories travel far over new year as all the people return to home town and each round of "visiting relatives" is a whirlpool of gossip. Children are China's future. It's going to be an interesting ride.

 

Development

When I was self-employed between 2005 to 2008, most of my students were learning English, but incredibly three were with me to learn Mandarin Chinese. When the possibility of teaching them first was proposed by one of my clients, it seemed rather bizarre. My Chinese, though useful, wasn't anywhere close to fluent. But I had teaching technique, a firm understanding of the basics and nothing better to do with my time (and I fancied giving it a lash). Two were marketing people who had to go to China or Taiwan, while the other, an older gentleman, went to China on occasion but I believe he took the lessons as a benefit of his job to help him fight the ageing process, rather than for work. He wanted to learn to read and write which were the most difficult skills of all.

Two of them had had a long connection with China, both having visited in the 80's. I remember being jealous of them and that they had really gotten to see the speed of development by visiting at different times since. China, to be clear, has been one of the fastest developing societies in the history of the world. At that stage I'd been to the Mainland twice, in 2000 and 2003 and would be going in 2007 and felt I had only a snapshot of this change. One of my students had gone to China exactly in 1980 just a few years after China re-opened its economy. Now I'm the one with a bit of scope especially with my access to the back stories and better understanding of official and unofficial history. My association with the Mainland is almost 18 years old. It does spin the head to reflect on the changes.

Guangzhou was one of the greatest point of references in that. It was my first steps into China from Taiwan in August 2000. Back then, there were no direct flights between Taiwan and the Mainland. We had to fly to Hong Kong to apply for a visa and then cross the border. We disembarked in a dusty, unattractive area. A dirty child approached me with a flower, which I assumed was a "gimmick" for beggars and moved quickly away from her. It didn't really appeal at all as a city. Jump forward ten years and I was living happily in it.

Qingyuan, just 70km up the road, is also developing at breakneck speed. It was a backwater to the metropolis of Guangzhou but is surging, now a third tier city. (China categorises its cities in tiers.) I spent time here in 2015 before we left and had a brief visit in 2016, and now in 2018. In these few years there is a noticeable change. I almost fell over as cars gave way to pedestrians on a huge crossing in the central city. (It was written in big letters but the fact that they actually stopped confused and then moved me.) Bus stops now have detailed information. The bus announcements come in English as well as Mandarin and Cantonese. All priority seats on the bus were filled by priority people (e.g. the elderly, children or the unwell). There are road signs that are helpful in finding places you want to go to. There is another bridge is crossing the Bei River. The dimsum we ate yesterday was almost at Guangzhou's standard. The traffic just felt a little less chaotic. (I almost would feel comfortable driving here.) Some of the small "feeling" changes are the most significant because it reflects an improvement in attitudes and habits.

The villages are where there is the littlest change. The villages themselves get moved around by development after all. My in-laws home, the only home I have known them in is about 10 years old. The previous home, which was apparently much more basic, was moved by a motorway development (which makes getting here all the so much easier). We visited my brother-in-law's abandoned old village which still has most of its buildings still remaining despite all the residents moved to the "new village". The homes are beautiful. But due to a dam project which would make the ground water undrinkable they were moved about 500 metres and rebuild the homes, but in a much more modern way. 

These new homes may be moved too. Two new modern roads have been built either side of the "block" of land that my parents-in-law live in and when the urban area expands again, they'll be moved, either into apartments or have the village move over one more time. That's why things don't change. Why improve the infrastructure to a constantly moving or disappearing village system which mainly is where they old people stay to keep the home fires burning (a bit like ahi kaa). I hope my grandfather-in-law will never have to move again and can keep feeding the chickens till the day he doesn't.

As a result in the villages, the rubbish is still collectively dumped. Roads are narrow and concrete. And the water and power can be iffy. But as nostalgic as we can be about it, it's not the most comfortable place to live for modern people. It's a way of life that might have done it's dash.

I remember watching the movie Dragon Boat which had villagers in Guangzhou being moved out of their villages to make way for the High Education Megacentre (aka University Island). The elderly even when moved to the comfort of air conditioned apartments were often sadder and depressed. It uprooted them from their purpose, habits and rituals.

I hope my in-laws when the day comes can adjust to a new life. I feel lucky to have been able to see and experience it.

Longevity

(Quick note: Blogger.com is banned in China as a result, the blogs I write here are "wired" in by a less than ideal method. I believe it went awry last night so I've reposted this in the belief the first one didn't "get out". If there are two copies or a blank in the previous post of the same name, many apologies.)

 I type this from a sofa sitting next to my 94 year old grandfather-in-law. I've mentioned him before on this blog and I must say it's one of the most special things about our return to be able to sit next to him, who I call A-Gung.

He made it through a very turbulent time with a Japanese invasion, civil war, the Cultural Revolution and modernization. He's pretty sharp too even at his age, still discussing and inquiring deeply, still having an active life raising the family's chickens. In his late 80s he had a fall but the fact he bounced back is a tribute to his good habits and general resilience.

He restricts his own diet, wakes early, tries new things (he took up coffee when I started bringing it and had been a coffee drinker ever since). He talks about every speck of news with an NZ tie-in. He's probably more aware than our whole student body...

I'm not sure how long my genes have me likely departing this mortal coil, but I've probably increased the predicted time of death in the last couple of years, running, quitting sugar and adopting a few random habits. I've been pleasantly surprised that my immune system has withstood a series of very stern tests in the last two years. In fact having only one day of sick leave in the last two years is a source of pride. In China I had periods of rather poor health.

One habit with a Chinese tie-in is my consumption of LSA. Though sounding like a drug, this poorly marketed product is just ground Linseed, Sunflower seeds and Almonds, which happens to have omega oils, minerals and protein. I add a tablespoon of it to any cereal I eat in the morning. Chinese people have many habits that influence their health for better or worse, but one of their more obvious habits is eating sunflower seeds. They buy them unhulled but learn the process of hulling them with their teeth at a young age. The whole seed goes in the mouth and only the shell comes out in a simple action. Any traveler on the trains or office reception areas will be familiar with the files if sunflower seed shells. It is certainly a nutritious snack.

Other positives are their preference of fruit, whole food habits and love of tea. Their elderly are also far more active than those in NZ. (There are of course negative habits that are generally held but let's not talk about those.)

On the fitness front, I'm glad to say I'm back running. After my worries after New Year, I had an MRI and X-ray on my knee. The result? No problem with bone or cartilage. Just a strained tendon. Phew! It all happened just days before leaving for China and I got the one piece of advice I needed to hear: Don't stop running! Niggles get so much in your head that sometimes you think it's the end. This problem almost had disappeared for a time last year despite my regular running. It's come back was in spite of my training too. It might have been caused by the level and intensity of the training but training was still the best way out. I've done two gentle runs in China, while doing daily exercise and my knee feels so much better for it. Tomorrow will be another run.

I've taken advantage of this lull by donating blood. I initially intended to donate in Auckland but got turned back until my MRI result came back. But that meant I'd be in China. So I donated in China instead and got a transport card for my contribution.

With that out of the way, I'll build up my running hopefully to run 10km+ on consecutive days. I have a half marathon 2 weeks after returning to NZ, and a marathon 6 weeks after that.

Running will be the way to burn off all the goose and chicken I've been eating and get me back down from the 68kg I'm now.

Treating the Treaty

Part of my job is to make a presentation about something confidently in simplistic language, in a way that should be as engaging as possible to a wide range of people. Usually these things happen at our school assemblies but can also be a celebration. And most usually these things happen with almost no preparation. Oh, what a luxury some preparation time would be! I think I do pretty well, though. 

Last Friday at an assembly, I spoke to students about the Waitangi Day for their awareness (basic information: don't come to school on Tuesday) and also for their education (basic information: New Zealand came about through the Treaty, with Maori chiefs and representatives of the Queen coming together to sign an agreement). I got into it forgetting we did actually have someone with Māori heritage on the team on site. She was leading the preparation for a group-wide event on the following Monday (yesterday) and had been intending to describe the Treaty's significance at that event. She didn't mention anything at the time but on Monday morning asked me to do the same at her event on account of my ability to simplify language. 

My presentation yesterday went something like this: "Welcome, everyone, to our Waitangi Day event. I would like to tell you about what Waitangi Day is and why it is special. I asked a student today if he knew what Waitangi Day is. He said that it is a Māori festival. Many people think this, but actually it isn't. It's a special day for all New Zealand. Waitangi is a place in New Zealand. Does anyone know where it is? (There were guesses.) It's up North, in a place called "The Bay of Islands", a very beautiful place. In 1840, something special happened there. A lot of Māori chiefs went there to meet with a man from England called Captain Hobson. They signed an agreement which made this land become New Zealand and part of the British Empire. It made Māori people British citizens and equal with them. It promised to protect their lands and treasures. Every year many people go to Waitangi to celebrate. Today, Jacinda Ardern went there to speak. Do you know who Jacinda Ardern is? (No-one knew, which was rather disappointing.) She's the Prime Minister, the leader of New Zealand. She's been in the news recently because she has had some good news: She's going to have a baby soon. So Waitangi Day is a special day to remember when Māori and the people from Britain became one people by coming together. Thank you again for coming. There are some fun activities for you to learn about the Māori side of New Zealand culture. I hope you enjoy it."

This isn't going to win any speech competitions, but it's very much fit-for-purpose: Lots of short sentences. Repetition. Simplistic language. Few idioms. Checking understanding of key reference terms. Even the gossip magazine Jacinda news, which I wouldn't usually raise, has a purpose with this kind of audience as it engages as well as informs. The audience also meant that I wasn't going to go into any of the complexities of chopping flagpoles, land wars, injustice, disease, protest, settlements and revitalisation. 

Being said rather extemporaneously, I'm still kicking myself for a few things, such as not starting with a Māori like "Kia ora, koutou!" and ending with "kia ora". But the number one kick was that I really didn't connect the Treaty to them, visitors and immigrants to NZ. Since I've been back I've heard the standard, multiculturalism on the basis of biculturalism many times, and it has always sounded a bit "forced" and not really explained well. I regard myself as being relatively advanced in my understanding of the implications of the Treaty. I also feel so many immigrants feel that the Treaty isn't relevant to them, or perhaps have a touch of the conservative white view of it as something for Māori people to get money and complain about things that don't really matter. And I wanted to think there was a simple sentence or two that might give a chance to understand its relevance.

I guess I would like to have said, and maybe will say on the coming Friday:

"Treaty is the foundation of New Zealand in the past, but also it's the foundation of New Zealand today: After setting up a fair and equal, respectful relationship between Māori people and people from Britain, all people from other countries who come to New Zealand to live also become a person under the Treaty. New Zealand welcomes people here and we do everything to make sure everyone can be treated fairly and with respect." 

I'm not sure if that would have got through but we need something to include all. I believe, even considering the historical injustices since the signing, New Zealanders should be proud of the Treaty and the sincerity since the 80s to try to realise the hope that was in it. The latter came about only after a protest movement. Even today the proportion of New Zealanders who have an understanding of our history and of the Treaty itself is not as high as it should be, for various reasons. I hope I can improve my communication of it both in words and actions.  

The uncultured, classless revolution

Reading White Swans, despite its riveting narration, felt like torture when the part of the book dedicated to the Cultural Revolution of China started. Every tale, a misery, an injustice, a travesty. As a reader, I couldn't wait to finish off those 300 pages that describe the ordeal endured by the family of the author, Jung Chang (Zhang Rong) during that period of time. You turn the pages just wanting her to cut a long story short and say: "And a few years after that, Mao died; sanity resumed; everyone apologised, hugged and moved on.' It didn't. Every time I picked it up was with some intrepidation. Of course, reading is nothing compared to being there. The actual length of the "revolution" was over 10 years, between 1966 and 1976 and I could not imagine how people bore it in real time.

Any description of it is required reading for anyone interested in human nature under pressure, politics, China or philosophy. A lot of the people I've spoken to with an interest in China often have no idea. Sometimes they know the misleading name, without really getting to grips with the substance.

It wasn't much of a revolution. It was a tool for the top leader, Mao, to get rid of his enemies, with the whole population in the cross-fire. Revolutions by definition is the population, or a group of people, successfully deposing their leaders or the authorities, usually by force. China has had revolutions. Many dynasties started with one, including the Han and Ming. The last dynasty, the Qing, ended with the Xinhai Revolution in 1911, (famously with "the last emperor", Puyi). And then the communists won the Chinese civil war in 1949, which was the Chinese Communist Revolution, when they removed the corrupt capitalists of the KMT (Guomin Dang) from power over the mainland of China.

The Cultural Revolution wasn't very cultural either. It exhorted people to destroy cultural things, stop independent, individual thought and embrace ignorance. While there is still a degree of this lingering even in the China of today in the fields of politics.

If you don't know about this period of history, I'd recommend you reading about it. In China it is talked about with the abbreviation wenge, but it isn't a popular topic. Wild Swans incidentally is a banned book in China. Prior to this I'd read only a couple of pages of hers, the Chinese version of Mao: The Unknown Story, which was part of one of my favourite anecdotes from China. I bought it in a train station book store in China and carried it in my shoulder bag. When I arrived back in Guangzhou, they scanned all of my luggage and I was called over by the customs officer who pointed at my shoulder bag and asked to open it. My heart was in my mouth. He pulled out the book without checking any of my other possessions flicked through it, said: "Bu keyi" (not acceptable), tossed it into a contraband bin. He asked for my passport, flicked through it, gave it back to me and wave me onwards. I was anxious about any "implications" for me but clearly he didn't want to make that kind of trouble.

I've finished Wild Swans now and I'll probably need a "break" from heavy reading for a while. Still not running, I'll pick my travel books carefully.

Fortnight in, fortnight out, four weeks away

Many parts of the New Zealand is in the grip of a heatwave, which is apparently defined as when you have 5 consecutive days over the average maximum temperature. This morning had a touch of Guangzhou to it. Waking up in sweat. The outside temperature was already 20 degrees at 6am, which wasn't so bad when you're outside with a breeze but isn't so nice inside. Fortunately I got out early, to walk not to run.

Running has been off the agenda as my left knee isn't keen on running. It's disappointing but I have had plenty to pre-occupy myself with. Would I have been able to survive this busy period while also getting up at 5am to run? Probably not. In this "inter-fitness" period I've also launched myself into books. After finishing The Deer and the Cauldron, I read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, which was an interesting little tale. I head back to Chinese literature with a short Louis Cha story, The White Horse Neighs in the West Wind. Now I'm reading Wild Swans, which is probably the pick of all that I've read recently. It chronicles the life of a woman's grandmother's life, mother's life and eventually her own life in China throughout the 20th century. To say that China's twentieth century was rather topsy-turvy is an understatement and to read a personal perspective of it is extraordinary.

After a busy first two weeks of the school year, the third was a bit of a relief. I only had one big day of work, yesterday, 13 hours... but it was a good cause. I fixed a lot of things. My senior teachers are both on board; we're looking at the projects ahead and they're soon going to be ready for my absence, which is just two weeks away now. Thank goodness there are only 8 more work days to go before our flight. And then it's almost a month in China. And then it's eating, drinking and sweating some more.

Back to the future

It might have been exceedingly optimistic to move our school over new year to a new, though slightly rundown, location. On the Monday, the first day of classes, we had computers in each classroom that couldn't access neither the shared network nor the internet. They were essentially glorified CD players. In my office I had a laptop but no way to print documents. We had a dodgy copier that was left by the last company. We stuck room-names on with bluetac; we didn't have cleaner contracted till this weekend. The air-conditioning was even more marginal than it had been in the past and we had about ten fans humming throughout the centre to keep things as cool as possible. All in all, teachers and staff were very much back to how we started in teaching, with just a whiteboard and markers. Pen and paper. Most of the support staff were kept in connected places so most of the work of running a large school fell on me and it quickly became the longest week ever. But the hours of the week were not my biggest problem, it was just the sheer range of different issues to hold in my mind at the same time. I was not the best sleeper. But I survived, leaving on Friday night a tick before 9pm. And by Friday, though, we had the internet and the ability to print and copy, induction ready for the new senior teacher and a plan for the future.  

This weekend is something of a pivoting point I hope. The good news is that in a mere three weeks I'll be flying to China. Next week the new senior teacher begins and it is he who will pick up most of the "slack" when I go. His arrival, as well as the nomination of another senior teacher, will finally mark the moment when we truly have a school leadership team and have the time and resource to do far more. Our school is in a state that could be a launchpad for much greater things. Despite the huge number of year-end graduations before the move, we covered that loss of students completely with our intake in this week alone. Next week will take us back to the record books. 

It has to be a good thing. This first week back has also blessed the school with a cohesive, positive team. The two teachers who left I'm so glad were not here to cast shade. For all the struggle of the last two years, and the last six days, I look forward to stepping onward. And unlike 2016, I don't think I'll have the same trepidation stepping onto an international flight and leaving the school in the hands of others.

The Secret Ingredient(s)

We often speak about the magic of childhood, of having an unlimited imagination and unrestricted ability to believe in what is and could be, to be able to play and enjoy a world well beyond the mundane reality. Later, whether it is the development of the brain or the evils of the education system, this magic is slowly dispelled until we become cynical adults. But there is a much different mundane magic that seems to start in childhood that often lingers far into one's adult years.

Take mealtimes, for example. When I was young, evening meals turned up on the table and family banter naturally blossomed. Of course, I knew my mother usually made it, but that was just a function of her being a mother. Take a book: they were there by the hundred in the bookstore or library ready to read. How did they get there? Take any institution, object, person or concept that has been with us for some time and you have something overlooked in its beginning, its development, its refinement and its possible end. These can all be put into a common box of phenomena, "taking things for granted", "ignoring in plain sight" or "the effortlessness of others to do what is a strain to oneself". It's as if there is a secret ingredient or ingredients in almost everything - that proportion of something's being or doing that is not seen or understood.

I thought about this several times recently. Once was when our school moved premises and we got the teachers over to help with creating the new arrangement. The teachers however thought the school would be mostly "prepared" for them. But there are a thousand decisions to make for a school, not all made for by some "moving people". What makes a school feel like a school? When they arrived, the conclusion was "it's a dump" and there was surprise at the need to move around tables. Even to try different tables in different rooms requiring us to set and reset. Perhaps they always had been to schools that were already set up, the "magic" was already there. Or they thought all the decisions and effort would be done by "someone" like it always had been. In this case, I'm not sure by whom or when they expected it to happen. To sustain the magic in something else, just don't ask questions and believe and hope for the best. 

One of the difficult decisions sometimes is deciding if and when "the magician" wants people to know what the secret ingredient is, or how much they are throwing in. During childhood, parents generally keep children from most of that mundane magic of maintaining a happy marriage, keeping the gutter clear as part of a showering routine and keeping your inventory of food in the fridge and pantry just right, just as only in certain circumstances do we talk about sex, birth and death with children.

As a manager I sometimes don't know how much of the magic I should dispel from my position. Magic is a good thing and people don't need to know all the nuts and bolts. But by the same token, a lot of the decisions can appear arbitrary or efforts unappreciated. 

WeSheep

When it comes to brave new worlds, China is a cut ahead of the rest right now. Now that cash is almost a thing of the past and the complete integration of life to a mobile device is almost complete, it is definitely a world newer than most modern western societies. The bravery, however, is as ironic as ever. The decision to enter this new world would seem to be driven simply by the desire to combine and simplify. And when you look at how complicated life has been in this modern age and how the technology of today could make it sweep away so many of the hassles, who wouldn't? Think about the following hassles:

- remembering passwords

- different loyalty programs

- payments for all the different utilities

- deposits

- security checks at airports

- entering competitions

- investing 

- visas

- queuing at checkouts and for medical care

- paying at petrol stations

- filling in applications

- changing currency

- paying tolls

- splitting restaurant bills

- renewing subscriptions or memberships

- different apps for services such as uber, expedia, etc.

And you take them all and make them simple decisions in one place. Wouldn't that be lovely! In China this has been done or is being done with WeChat and, to a degree, Alipay. I had a taste of this in China before I left but it has leaped ahead even further. Before I left, it was easy to find restaurants in the area with a promotion, buy a voucher ("Pay 80 yuan for a 100 yuan voucher") go there with friends and split the bill without much effort at all. We'd just flick our money with WeChat wallet. No awkward breaking of dollar bills at the counter. No exchanging of account numbers. We were pretty "slow adopters" and there were already things we were missing out on. Now apparently you can navigate most days without cash or cards. If only it could do the washing up.

In the west, we have too many quite justified scruples around this kind of integration. Even with the current range of apps, we are unnerved by the sharing of information and the accumulation of Big Data. What happens if the credit card company knows about my personal life? What about the insurance company? Governments have a problem with it regarding antitrust and competition. In the article I linked at the top, it shows that in China even further integration into life to cover almost all of the things above and more. People have chosen to take the lazy leap of faith to surrendering their entirety to be relieved in part of the hassle of everyday complicated life. As for antitrust and competition, the Chinese state has always been happy with being the only "party" in town.  

WeChat has been since 2011 but Blogger.com where I publish has been around since 1999, with my use of it as my primary place for posting thoughts starting in 2004. So last year made the end of my fourteenth year describing my life and thoughts. I'm quite proud of this because I was a terribly inconsistent diary user. During a clean-up of old possessions I probably found about 20 different books which I'd used like diaries, where notes were written if only I could decipher them or relate them back to a context. Blogs are good because unlike twitter and texts, they have body and lure you into elaboration. The nature of my blogs has changed markedly. I Last year I published 34 posts which was my highest since 2009. Although being in China and being cut off from the blogger.com website probably lowered my rate of publishing (blogger.com is blocked by the Great Firewall but I could still post via e-mail) I generally published as things came to me. 2017 was big because of running and also because of more work-related issues and thoughts.

I may as well double purpose this blog to record in the beginning of 2018 how I use technology on a daily basis for future reference. As for most people, I use on my mobile device:

- Text-based and audio-based messaging (WeChat/Messenger/WhatsApp/Line)

- Maps to calculate best routes based on traffic conditions (Maps)

- A running app to work out how far and fast I run (Strava)

- Currency checking (xe.com)

- Sports results and text commentary (cricinfo.com)

- Audio and video entertainment (Youtube, iHeartRadio and Podcasts)

- Weather forecasts (MetService)

- Health (HeartRateFree, Pacer)

- Banking (ASB)

- Petrol price checking (Gaspy)

- Dictionary (Pleco)

- Hotels and flights (Expedia)

- Paying for gas (BPMe)

A touchy subject

As mentioned in my last blog, I'm reading the book The Deer and the Cauldron, which is famous for its protagonist's way with words, his seven wives and, unique for a Louis Cha kungfu novel, his complete inadequacy in kungfu. (Kungfu panda would squash him.) I don't know how much of a stir it created when it was first published in serial form in a Hong Kong newspaper between 1969 and 1972, but reading it now does make one fee a little uncomfortable. The "now" being a world where women rightly have the protection of their bodies from molestation and invasion, not just in law but also increasingly in fact. Last year will be remembered as the year where sexual harassment cases involving prominent men hit something of a critical mass in what has been called the Harvey Weinstein effect. That was in October, but I blogged a similar situation in my own world in June, which is almost certainly under the same umbrella. Reading this book makes me think about these cases as well as a more recent event in Gisborne.

The discomfort in reading it comes from the antics/crimes of Wei Xiaobao, the protagonist, which I'll list below. (I'll write these from memory; anyone disputing them, please make a comment and I'll double-check; definitely not an exhaustive list.) He:
- Threatened a girl (Mu Jianping) in order to touch her inappropriately
- Touched and kissed her and her older sect-sister, Fang Yi, without consent
- Touched another girl's breasts in combat (Chen Ke)
- Groped a girl in a haysack and claimed it was another man.
- Used terror to force a girl to submit to marriage.
- Stripped a girl naked and whipped her (Princess Jianning)
- Had sexual relations with the girl who had been engaged to another man.
- Temporarily paralysed seven women, stripped them naked, and raped them under a duvet in the dark, resulting in at least two pregnancies.
- Used threats in an attempt to get women to spend the night with him, only relenting when shamed.
And in the book, all though who were assaulted, felt compelled to marry him.

Pretty damning, eh, even if just fictional. Context doesn't help much but let's be fair: He was born in brothel; he was a minor by our standards when doing most of the acts above, and he was even young by the standards of China; it was the Qing Dynasty, which though having a high degree of etiquette and typically conservative attitudes towards intimacy and the relationships of the two sexes, had very few rights for women, except through their relation to other men, such as a father, husband or parentage.

Yet Wei is a hero to many Chinese (men). When the novel was given to me, my brother-in-law said that he is the model of how he'd like to be, although he was probably emphasising Wei's gift of the gab. Of course, Wei Xiaobao is a fictional character. There may be characters in the western canon who incidentally did similar. Of course, there are thousands of scenes in even recent movies, which in the light of things reportedly done to the women in the #metoo. Over my wife's shoulder, I saw in The Princess Diaries, a male character who'd secretly fancied a workmate for a long time, inspired by the female protagonist's words, went over and attempt a french kiss on this girl. Film and literature, by their fictional nature, are good to explore these things, and are reflections of the values at the time in their unexplained conventions. One of those conventions in many movies is the shy antihero grabbing the girl and forcing himself on her in what could be called "romantic", but most often these actions are in fact longed for by the other party so consent was assumed perhaps subtly given, which in the movies is usually the case. The same actions would be quite clearly upsetting if the feelings were not quite reciprocated - but that isn't usually the case in most mainstream movies.

Taking it back to real life, I believe a lot of men would have the idea that the "romantic expression" of chancing their arm and kissing or hugging a girl who they like is fine. Equally, doing something lewd while drunk for a bit of fun wouldn't be unexpected, which was the case in a recent "big NZ news" item, of the girl at the Rhythm n' Vines festival in Gisborne over the new year. Summing up: A girl covers her chest with glitter and walks bra-less and top-less through the festival. She generally receives a degree of verbal harassment (and support) and during her time there has her breast momentarily grabbed by another festival-goer, who runs away quickly. She goes over and hits him. In a later interview she says the obvious fact that can't be repeated more that she has every right to not be subjected to that physical harassment, and should have legal recourse. (And it might be said that so should he have protection against physical violence.)

To be completely honest I think everyone should have the right to wear as much or as little as they want in public, without threat of state interference, and with the right not to be subjected to physical interference from others, as the saying goes: "Your liberty ends where my nose begins." But that is my ideal and not this world. Glory to she who feels so comfortable to do so. I also believe in the free speech of those who might say horrendous things to her as she walks confidently in the East Coast heat.

But, I equally think there is a social realpolitik in this world of ideals and "rights" and I say this with more than an ounce of dread: she should have expected some response, even possible a possible violation of her person, walking around like that. If she were an activist for these freedoms, good on her and I encourage her to steel herself. If she were naive, I pity her but am glad it hasn't done her apparent damage. I wrote about something similar at the start of 2015 after the Charlie Hebdo massacre. Namely, laws and rights are what the Leviathan of the state will ensure on its part and uphold for you legally. But society, the wild, wild world, will always have its own rules that evolve and develop, in different microcosms and macrocosms. Even if the rights are given by the state, you may still need to take on a tough activist mindset to make sure you can truly enjoy those rights. A similar example might be that the Homosexual Law Reform act was passed over 30 years ago, but in New Zealand, you'll rarely see open intimacy between homosexual male or female to the same extent that heterosexual couples may exhibit in this day and age. I'd say that is because still the social norms have not changed along with the laws to allow for that equality between sexual orientations. Those brave enough to do so are rare and almost need to don an "activist mindset" being ready to cop "flak" and potentially have the risk of physical violence in some spaces.

The action of our glitter-girl could be said to be provocative but most of those who are part of the #metoo movement were merely trying to be themselves. But I'd say the norms that lead to both the "boob-grabbing" at Gisborne and the workplace harassment were pretty much the same. It's the one where no-one felt a cheeky smart-talker in Qing dynasty essentially raping girls who later became his wives can be a hero, where drunkenness excuses excesses towards women (whether it is he or she that has drunk too much), or where workplace power differences can be instrumental in getting sexual favours. Social  norms change in their own time, whether through time or through that constant evolution of minds. The conservative minds will still growl and whine that political correctness means that no-one can take a joke and the good old days have ended. But that's the groan of progress towards a better way of being for all, and not just a historically privileged subset.

The Deer and the Cauldron

As you get older, you notice more generational differences, and the more you start to feel the world isn't yours, and a bit of culture shock sets in. When I started teaching, the Chinese students were quite similar to me in age and there was a lot more I could relate to, even though we were born in different countries. But as China has transformed had record pace, the generational differences are even greater. The students of today are vastly different in their values and priorities from those I first taught. When I do encounter a student I can relate with as a person, it's a moment of excitement, but that is becoming very rare. It used to be that I could motivate students by telling them how I learned language but very few of these suit the modern students who know that there are ways to "get by" without doing the hard work. Two ways that I believe are best to learn are listening to the radio (for passive exposure to comprehensible input) and reading (for time with a wide variety of non-spoken language and ideas; exposure to grammar). Recently I told a group that I was reading a book myself in Chinese, even though study isn't the focus of my life. I said I was reading to enjoy, and learning was a nice side-effect. This probably had little effect. The only effect was that when I alluded to the book title, all of them said: "Oooh, a book about sex." Regrettably even these "adults" want to be children forever. And though it does have a few adult themes, it is not a book about sex. Sigh. The cover of the fourth volume of five says it all, and the protagonist, Wei Xiaobao, is said to have seven wives. I have almost finished and he is barely out of his teens with only one wife (and that at a stretch - she was tricked and compelled into it; and she wants to kill him).

For most of this year though, reading fell off my priority list in favour of running, but I still read in oft moments and times when I wanted distractions; two books took focus both Louis Cha (金庸) novels, Fox Volant of Snowy Mountain (which I finished), and The Deer and the Cauldron, the "book about sex", which as of 31 December I'm on chapter 41 of 50. Both I'd brought from China to read and keep my Mandarin up as well as to read all of Louis Cha's body of work; The Deer and the Cauldron is my seventh, roughly halfway through his body of work. His work is always interesting in terms of creative and elaborate stories, which boggle the mind in their intricacies, as well as tying everything into real historical events and figures. 

Although I chose one of the two novels because of a recommendation, and the other one was a gift, their background timeframes were very similar. Fox Volant of Snowy Mountain was set in the mid-Qing Dynasty but whose back-story focusses on a period when the Ming Dynasty has just fallen, followed by a brief reign from usurper, Li Zicheng, and then the Manchus steaming in to push him out with the help of a Han general, Wu Sangui. The Deer and the Cauldron is set just after the early Qing dynasty while Wu Sangui is still alive and the Qing Emperor Kangxi was on the throne. I'm glad to read it just because the more I do, the more history is being given flesh and I can understand how things happen. Previous books have had the characters interacting with Genghis Khan during his rise. The latter book has the character, through various circumstances, taken to Moscow where he sees how a young Peter the Great (before he was great) became a tsar. If there was one distraction while reading it is that the books are quite unhistorical in their portrayal of male and female relationships, suiting a soap opera/TV series generation. But it definitely enriches the plots.

 
Along with the relationships comes probably the best thing about Louis Cha novels, the emotional entanglement through circumstances. I have nine more chapters to read in The Deer and the Cauldron to find out how Wei Xiaobao resolves his conflicting loyalties which are very much coming to a head. His closest friend is Kangxi the emperor, yet he leads a branch of an organisation that is aiming to overthrow him. He has creatively found a way to keep these two worlds of his life consistent. Spoiler is that history already tells me what the ending may be. I can't wait to find out how he does it... and how he gets the other six wives!

Running records and goals

I ran my last run for 2017 in Whitianga on 28 December. It was a pleasant run, along the Mercury Bay shoreline, up a hill, around the neighbourhood, with a 3.5km section of pace, 16.5km in all. It felt good. I felt compelled to run because (a) it was a great place to run, like Piha and Taupo earlier; and (b) to break 2000km for the year. I probably should have been giving my left knee niggle a rest but it was a symbolic number and I do get itchy feet. I'm now not going to run until I know that the knee niggle that has been with me in various forms is no longer apparent, unless running is part of the treatment for it. The niggle itself has not been an issue for my marathon nor my most recent "get lost" half marathon at Omaha.

In the meantime, one's best times are always good to keep a track of for posterity, so here are my achievements of 2017. All my best are from this year, needless to say:

Estimated Best Efforts according to Strava measurements
1k	3:35
1 mile	6:06
5k	19:49
10k	42:28
Half-Marathon	1:34:59
Marathon	3:42:26

My best official race times are:

- 5km - 21:18 (Western Springs Run Auckland, Jul 2017)

- 10km - 43:58 (Botany Run Auckland, May 2017)

- Half marathon - 1:36:53 (North Shore Marathon, Sep 2017)

- Full marathon - 3:46:35 (Auckland Marathon, Oct 2017)

My goals for 2018:

- Consistent uninjured running

- 2500km/year (i.e. over 200km most months)

- 5km - 20:00

- 10km - 41:30

- Half marathon - 1:32:00

- Full marathon - 3:20:00

I've already entered several events:

- Coatesville Half in March 2018

- Rotorua Marathon in May 2018

- North Shore Marathon in Sep 2018

The main complication will be the four weeks I spend in China Feb/Mar but I'll try to run where possible. 

How am I going to achieve those? Well, I am unsure whether I've mentioned it but I intend to do it by following the common wisdom that has proven itself to be true. Firstly:

- higher mileage, especially of lower speeds - probably one of my issues in both years was my tendency to try to push every run

- running long runs with fast finishes - never done it before but make a lot of sense

- strengthening exercises - I started doing this this year and it does seem to work

- hill sprints - I only did my first session of this a couple of weeks before the Omaha half in December. I felt better for it.

- focussing on high cadence - I didn't really get cadence till I discovered it for myself. It's the number of strides per minute. I realised half way through the year that I could literally "change gear" by making my stride shorter but put more strides in. Intervals helped refine this.

 I'd like to thank my wife for her patience with my running and not complaining about a hobby that has an alarm going off at 5am, disturbs her sleep, makes for stinky laundry and regular trips to the shoe store. I'm also thankful to live in a place that allows easy running 12 months a year. I'll no doubt understand new things about myself and running and mould these along the way. I hope this coming year has as many discoveries as this has, 2017. Let's go!

Merry Christmas

We spent a few post-Christmas days on the Coromandel Peninsula and stayed in a great apartment while there. It was, as you expect, a place you could live quite happily and forget it was acting like a hotel. They had all the mod-cons such as a dishwasher, washing machine and stove, and supplied the powders etc. for each of these so you could be fully independent of hotel staff, if you chose. All of this served to allow us more freedom to eat in, having all of our breakfasts and two of our dinners comfortably in our room.

Whitianga, where we stayed, is a great little town, too, and developing ever faster. For our first grocery-shop we went to one of the big supermarkets, buying a poddle of oysters to eat at the beach, breakfast cereal, oil for the pan etc. I was relaxed and happy because I'd slipped into holiday mode and ready to take time as it came. After paying at check-out, the cashier wished me "happy holidays" and I wished her back "Merry Christmas" and she looked awkward. And suddenly I thought about the very interesting culture war in the States.

Eight years had been a long time for conservatives over there in the Obama years. For them, it was a constant assault on what they thought was the American way of doing things, including celebrating Christmas. One of the things was the trend for companies and organisations asking service people to stop using "Merry Christmas" and adopt culturally and religiously neutral phrases such as "Happy holidays" and "Seasons greetings". These changes caused backlash. 

The funny thing was that my "Merry Christmas" at the supermarket was reflexive and I certainly support the trend toward saying "Happy holidays" to those the speaker is not familiar with, which is especially the case for those in the service industry. For me, and I believe for most New Zealanders, "Merry Christmas" isn't a religious saying - it's a cultural phrase, even merely a linguistic idiom. It's as religious as Santa and reindeer. 

But many people see it as a religious phrase and religion always brings a degree of discomfort when pressed onto others. It's everyone right to say what they'd like as individuals but it doesn't mean that it won't have consequences, and I wouldn't want to discomfort others for no reason, when it was just the desire to wish someone well or to provide a turn in a social interaction that needed to be filled. 

The strange thing in the culture war is that the fact that it's a wish for another and such a wish shouldn't really be a basis for conflict. There is a distinct problem for the religious who would like to show their sincerity but their idiom is religiously rooted. When a religious person says they'll pray for someone, it is meant as a kindness. To an atheist it may come as a wish, but may often come as something different. We now live in a gloriously pluralistic world - the formally alternative are now accepted in the main. It is an emotional issue for those who are finding that they've floated out of the mainstream and sometimes the cognitive dissonance is awkward. (Check out this amusing interview after 2:00, where the satirical interviewer points out that there is no difference between before and after Trump.)

In my habitual phraseology, I clearly hold onto some unobserved relics of a bygone time. It's still something that I wish to reform my habits about in the new year.

2017

The time is 11:12pm on 22/12/2017. I was exhausted at 8pm, went to bed at 9:40pm, got up at 10:10pm to read my book after I struggled to sleep, felt dozy and went back to the bedroom at 10:40pm only to again feel too mentally agitated to sleep and came out to write this now. I hope a little writing of my thoughts will exile them to the page.

Today was the last working day of the year. It was a "half day" but it was always going to be a full day for me. Our school is moving. We've lost some staff and I needed to notify people on the results of the interviews. 

It was a tough day with a burst of frustration from a departing teacher. He was a little bit of an enigma: He came mid-year and had an excellent CV: He'd been a teacher trainer, taught all over the place and had written his own textbook. But also clear from the get go, he had a bit of fire about him. He'd had a frustrated previous employment that ended unpleasantly. We had a common friend though and he assured me that he was a good guy. And he was clearly the pick of the bunch and we took him on. 

And perhaps in some situation, with a different or better manager he'd be a productive member of the team still. Or not. He started class and immediately struck trouble. He told me the class was "dead". There was one student, "D", who wasn't responding, refusing to cooperate and he couldn't figure out why. He told me about her and I told him that D hadn't been a problem in other classes. I spoke to her when I had time on the fourth day he was teaching her. She said she was under stress because her accommodation had been a problem. He reported another student, "U", not responding to him and students were using their phones in class. On the Friday, two students including "D" came to my office to complain about his teaching. 

I got as much evidence as I could to find out what it was that he was doing wrong. He was following the departure of a popular teacher and it's not uncommon for classes to give a following teacher a hard-time. But this was pretty extreme - and it is my responsibility to evaluate the cases early on, because if there is a problem it needs to be dealt with. I spoke to him on the Friday afternoon of his first week. I believed the problem was he hadn't really created a good rapport from the start. He expected students to give him respect from the get-go, which is not a bad expectation but is not a given. He had a set of habits and idiosyncrasies (whispering), humour (sarcastic; sometimes mocking) and style (lots of his own materials, though often too varied) which wouldn't be a problem in themselves, but without rapport most of these would become annoying or distracting. I suggested toning down these distractors and upping the rapport side of things. 

Monday came round, he taught and at the end of the day, he came energetically into the office and declared either D was removed from his class or he wouldn't be teaching it. I was stunned. He described how she showed utter contempt for him and he couldn't bear it. He mimed her throwing a piece of paper back at him. I spoke with the student after and told her that all people deserve respect. She denied throwing the paper back at him. (Later he admitted that she hadn't thrown it back at him, but "she had the smug contempt as if she had.") I felt I was sufficiently hard on her in a meeting. 

But it wasn't much of a fix. In the end I decided to move him and another teacher around. He did better in this class but still drew complaints right up to the end of his probation. We put him on another three month contract, and switched his class around again. The class I moved him to was one that was the most difficult to teach, a monoculture beginner class, that my most reliable teachers had already taught and driven to their wits' end. And that was when he started to do well. The students enjoyed him. And that's when he gave notice. And soon as he gave notice, he lost the sense of professionalism. There are a good portion of people that once the end is near, they can't really "turn up". His classes were still fine as but soon as he was out of the classroom, he was out. And started getting ruder and sharper.

Today was his last day. And actually it was a half-day but paid as full, and without classes just packing and a last Christmas meal with colleagues at 1pm. But he couldn't wait to get out. Eventually he just came into my office, said that one of my early e-mails had said the half day ends 12:30pm and he had to go, then gave me a verbal serve, saying I was wrong in not telling him about the maturity level of our students when he joined, that it's a huge problem in the school and that I deny it; that I say they're good students. I challenged a few things but generally just let him get it off his chest. He said such things "mess with people's lives". For him one of the parts of this story had: he was looking to buy a boat but because he was only on short contracts while he was with us. He'd struggled long to buy one and it was obviously quite a frustration. He held it together to say goodbye to others and I shook his hand before he left.

The irony for that last bit was that if he hadn't given notice, we'd have probably given him a permanent contract. 

That is one of the many threads threading my brain at a time that I should be able to let it all unwind.

Back on the road

After the completion of my big goal of running a full marathon, it was interesting to get my mind back to other interesting running goals. I generally wanted to develop a better "aerobic base" for my running next year - this is to make the body more efficient and enduring for any kind of running. I had a few particular goals, too, I wanted to do more social running and also make breakthroughs in my running of particular distances.

For 5km running, my plan is to take part in "parkruns" from time to time to push for improvements in my 5km running. Parkruns are free, timed 5km runs in parks around the world. Auckland has about four different parkruns, and I've already been to Cornwall Park's and enjoyed it enough to go back. My goal is to be able to reliably break 20 minutes on most courses. As it is, I've only broken 20 minutes once on the waterfront.

For half marathons, I'll take part in some of the half marathon series that are around every month or two. My goal here is to slowly bring my time down closer and closer to 1:30, with my first goal being to reliably run a half marathon under 1:35. My last big race of the year was the Omaha Half Marathon, which I did this morning. I'd committed to it once I felt my recovery from Auckland Marathon had gotten to the point that I could train again. It was an interesting race.

I'm not sure if my pacing problems are any bigger than anyone else's. Pacing is thorny. Individual to races and individuals. I blew my chances of a good time at the Auckland Marathon through my over-optimistic pacing. Several other 5km/10km races this year failed too for similar reasons. To get to the intermediate target of a 1:35 finishing time, I had to average 4 mins 29 seconds per km over the whole race (4:29). But this race, I thought was the best most strategic pacing I've ever done. After the 5km, I wasn't overtaken; I overtook a lot of good runners. It went something like this: The race starts with small tracks near Omaha beach and near a reservoir. I was conservative, just using little bursts to get in front of people, keeping around 4:30 pace and then it was onto the beach. Sand-running is generally slower than track running and this section went for 2kms and my pace was about 4:55 for the duration. I was overtaken by some on the beach and I chose to not mind slipping back. From my recent training runs, I knew I could sustain 4:20-4:30 pace for the middle sections if I'm not too tired. My overall pace once I left the beach was 4:36 but then I relied on moving from one bunch of runners to the next making sure that I was cruising with a group before moving onto the next one to keep my desired pace. For the 14km after the beach, I maintained an average of 4:26 which dragged my overall pace to 4:29. Right on!

But that's when disaster struck. The route of the half marathon crosses many other race routes and somehow I got confused and went down the wrong road. I realised it pretty quickly but wasn't sure where I'd gotten it wrong and I managed to link up with some other runners. Unfortunately they weren't runners from my event. After 21km came up on my app, I knew I was nowhere near the finish line. I asked a few marshalls but they were unclear how I could get back. Instead, I decided just to run this second race path and get to the end... I ran 27.5km with a terrible half marathon time in the end.

It was embarrassing but I proved my theory and my fitness. I wish I could run it all over again.