Beijing banquets

We ate really well in China. The food is healthy, and came to us in great abundance and diversity. 

We were treated to numerous official banquets in our honour, and all kinds of vegetable and animal treats were served up - some very recognisable and some not so. We clearly recognised the fried cicadas for example, and one of us (N) got stuck into them and pronounced them delicious. The other of us (F) was more circumspect about the exotic offerings, but did admit that the prawns she was eating were, by any objective standard, at least as insect like as cicadas.

We were taken by some of the English menu translations in some of the restaurants too. Pictured is the 'Quack-bone' dish we ordered in one place, thinking it was duck. It turned out to be cracked bone, but was nevertheless delicious.

In Xuzhou as well as Beijing, the food is mainly Beijing style, and one interesting feature of this seemed to be that once you've gorged yourself trying to do a respectable job on the dozens of dishes piled up, sometimes on top of each other when table space runs out, someone then announces that the 'main course' is coming, and that the main course is either plain rice or plain noodles! We did our best, honestly.

N & F

'Imperialism and all reactionaries are paper tigers'

This is everyone's favourite chapter heading in Mao's little red book, so we felt we had to use it, despite not quite finding a subject to go with it. What we'll write about though is smog, or how we held our breath for two weeks.

We knew that China would be smoggy, but were incredibly shocked at how bad it really was.  Our throats felt constricted almost as soon as we arrived in Beijing and simply got worse as time went on.  Nick succumbed first and became quite unwell, and when we got to Xuzhou it was my turn. Sick with a sore throat and mentally unable to face the smog outside.

Visibility was so poor we could barely see across the street.  It seems that farmers were adding to the problem by burning off the stubble in their fields. Locals however, were quite oblivious to the problem and were simply carrying on as normal, while we foreigners could think of nothing else!  We soon stopped mentioning the smog, as to the locals it was simply a bit of mist and nothing to get too excited about.

Aside from our health we were also worried about whether the airport would close and whether we'd make our international connection in Beijing. We were scared our flight wouldn't fly and scared that it would! In the end, we got to Beijing and thankfully, caught our flight out. 

We do marvel at how sturdy and tough the local people are.

F

'Building our country through diligence and frugality'

'Education and the training of troops'

This fierce looking Sydney based assessor was preparing herself for another day in the Beijing classroom, as scores of students lined up to be assessed for their English speaking skills.

English is taught from about age 8 in China, and students are eager to be proficient in it. Some were indeed proficient, others had a long march ahead of them.

We were there to oversee the end of year assessments of the English foundation course for the Australian managed vocational courses run in several Chinese universities. It was quite an experience.

F & N

'The correct handling of contradictions among the people'

We saw this rather self-conscious and uncomfortable looking group in Tian'anmen Square, cleaning the pavers one at a time with small brushes, with police vehicles and minders nearby. Wonder what their crime was?

N & F

Grand imperial capital (then and now)

Beijing's a grand old place and it's transformed itself into a grand new place too in recent years.

There's the wide open spaces of Tian'anmen Square and the Forbidden City.  Now there are huge, wide streets, monumental modern buildings and expressways, bullet trains, concert halls and skyscrapers (sometimes visible through the smog). Beijing manages to immediately convey an impression of being the city of the century.

And there are the Olympic sites, including the 'Bird's Nest' Olympic Stadium and the 'Water Cube' Aquatic Centre, which make for very interesting tourist destinations these days.

N & F

A great little wall

We chose the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall for our day trip exploration. It's one of the rebuilt sections, and it makes for an excellent leg stretch. We had about three hours on the wall before our scheduled lunch and bus ride back to Beijing, and I was determined to walk as much as possible of it of course in the time available.

I made it past the signs at Gatepost 20, that told you not to go any further and on to the unrebuilt bits, but not quite to the hill top and Gatepost 23, where our guide had told us was where we really couldn't go any further. "One tourist did once, and he's still missing", she said. 

The distance wasn't huge, but the ups and downs were far more challenging than expected, and my fast sweaty walk would have rated a Grade 3, or maybe Grade 4, I decided, in the All Nations grading scheme. I'll check the calculation one day. While I was doing this, Fenella was doing her Grade 1 amble.

After taking the chairlift up onto the wall, we opted for the toboggan ride descent. It looked like an 'extreme tourism' experience, but actually was pretty slow and sedate. With Fenella, it was "steady as she goes", because after all someone had to control the impatient hoons banked up behind her.

N & F

The accidental assessor

Now, where are these places we're going to? Beijing's easy enough, but where's this Xuzhou place? It's a city of two million people, but even the Chinese people we talk to here don't know it. They all know Suzhou, with all the famous gardens, and think we've just got our pronunciation wrong. Hang on, there it is, up the top of Jiangsu province, half way between Beijing and Shanghai.

Nick's the accidental assessor, Fenella's a more natural choice. She's been compiling the tests for a couple of years, after all. Our role now is to administer them on site and assess the students in their speaking, reading, writing, and listening skills. The tests are end-of-year tests for English language students at three Chinese tertiary institutions. They go on to study subjects in which English is the teaching medium.

It's going to be a hectic and interesting time. The accidental assessor has been receiving a crash course from the master. Travel and accommodation arrangements are all made. It's time to get this show on the road.

- N & F