I have been on a trip to Yunnan and back, and while there have been some great experiences, oddly enough it is the train trip about which I shall blog first. Later, I might put together a Yunnan post, probably collated from various emails that I sent about the trip.

If Ben said that he took the hard sleeper instead of the soft sleeper train to Dali just for the experience, then it was with much then same attitude that I took the hard seat in the train from Kunming back to Wuchang. That and various other circumstances, including my lack of money at that point in time, the absence of an atm at the train station where I bought my ticket, and the consciousness of having already overspent on the trip to Yunnan all led to my buying a cheap hard seat ticket for a journey that would last some 29 hours.

I told myself as I left the ticket counter that I probably would start regretting the rather rash decision at some point along the trip, but then realized that I could not care all that much, since the main point was to get back anyway. What discomforts there were would have to be borne out with as much fortitude as I could muster.

My fellow passengers
I staggered on board dripping rain from my umbrella and located my seat in middle of a coach packed with grim faced passengers and luggage. I realized that in designing the train seats, they had sacrificed privacy for increased leg room, resulting in little clusters of 4 or 6 passengers sitting on seats that faced each other and shared the same leg room. I looked around my own cluster of 6 people. A couple and another guy were opposite me, the woman sleeping on her husband's lap. A pair of younger guys, about my age, sat on the two seats to my left. The three of us would get very friendly on the trip and it would be with some regret that I would see them leave the train some three hours before I reached my stop.

One guy was egregious and enthusiastically over-friendly, offering me snacks that they opened, pressing more on me from time to time and almost insisted I share their meal of vacuum packed meat and bamboo shoot, which I refused on the pretext that I had a sore throat and could not eat spicy foods then. He flirted extensively with me. I was wary at first and replied very suspiciously and coldly, then as we got along and I saw that he was the playboy type just out to have a bit of fun, I replied in a facetious, dramatic way, mimicking the manner that he used. He turned out to be pretty decent actually, just an incurable flirt. When the journey was at its boringest, we could count on him to supply a wisecrack of some sort, or to blurt out something crappy which we could seize on and criticize thoroughly.

The other was more reserved and quiet, with an honest look about him. He did not say all that much to me at first until we found ourselves awake at the same time around 3am and started chatting about nothing in particular. While Playboy Guy snored with his head on the little table, Serious Guy started telling me about the girlfriend he left at home after I saw the neoprint on his card holder and we chatted in that manner for some hours even while the other passengers snored on in various uncomfortable poses, until the night faded into dawn. I listened with interest as he told of how the girl became interested in him and proposed a relationship, how she was working with a pharmaceutical company for a low salary which she splurged on clothes, how she had enough jeans at home to hold a warehouse sale, how she made herself agreeable to his family and got on excellent terms with them. It turns out the Serious Guy was working for some construction company and just applied for a transfer from Kunming to someplace nearer his hometown in Hunan so that he could visit his aging parents from time to time.

Both those young men at some point jokingly declared that they would stay on the train until we reached my stop, and it was with a twinge of regret that I saw them off when they reached their stop, not even retaining any means of contact, only proffering a hand to be shaken in farewell.

The second hand cigarette smoke
Smoking was technically not allowed in the coaches but there was no one to enforce this rule. Perhaps the people in the coaches were not educated enough to be civic-minded in this respect, perhaps it was the reassurance they got from the sheer number of smokers on board, perhaps it was the lack of censure from other passengers, but all the poison puffers had their cigarettes as and when they felt like it, lighting up and puffing away in total disregard of the other passengers packed closely around them.

It was worse when they were upwind and the smoke streamed toward me as the train moved. There were too few train officials to contain all the smoking hazards on board, and a reprimand when they caught the smoker red-handed was invariably not reinforced by a directive that they put out the cigarette there and then, so the supposedly chastened smoker was free to go on puffing the very moment the back of the official was turned on him. I thought this state of affairs very grim and resigned myself to covering my face and nose with my thick woolly jacket whenever I smelt smoke, inwardly wishing that the diseases that afflicted smokers had a more immediately crippling effect, to drop these smokers in their ashy tracks before the night grew older. Perhaps if they made the cigarettes more potent, and filled them with more tar and poison, more of those smokers would die tragically young, thus sparing this world the pain of having to put up with too many walking health hazards. I have nothing against smokers personally, but I think that if they choose to ruin their health they should not be allowed to jeopardize the well being of other people in the process.

If I were a mad scientist, I should design a blight or some bug that would destroy tobacco plants and release it (yes, go directly to the root of all evil, or at least the leaf -_-"), cackling and hopping from one foot to another in glee at the thought of putting an end to the tobacco industry in the world. But I'm a law student and can only say that there should be stricter enforcement of no-smoking regulations aboard the trains and greater promotion of the awareness of the dangers of smoking amongst the Chinese people. Some crippling taxes on cigarettes would also be very helpful. Failing all these, it might be enough to just stick those poison puffers in their own coach and let them broil in each other's disgusting second hand smoke. That would certainly keep everyone happy.

The spitting and the spitters
It might be a little hard to change the mindset of 1.3 billion people and convince them that spitting, whether indoors or outdoors, and especially in public places such as coaches and buses is downright disgusting, repulsive and uncivilised. Some effort is being done on public buses, in the form of polite reminders not to spit in the buses, but no similar reminders were given on board that train, and the people literally mopped the floor with their spit and phlegm for the entire duration of that long, long journey. For those who have not seen a Chinese spitter, their modus operandi is to eject a liquid missile from between their lips and scrape one foot over the blob on the ground, presumably so that it will dry faster and release all its contained germs into the air. To the credit of no one, entire cities in China are pocked with the black blobs of dried dirt-and-phlegm wherever there are passing crowds. It is the scourge of the spitters, and China has it bad.

It not only when the spitter coughs up gobs of phlegm that he feels the need to spit. There was a disgusting ratty-looking passenger with an unfortunate penciling of a moustache on the upper lip who frequently let loose huge dollops of clear spit onto the floor. The two Chinese men sitting opposite me would just spit onto the floor for no apparent reason at all. One can only conclude that this is due something imbibed from their social environment, until the action, grossly uncivilized in foreign eyes, becomes as natural as breathing itself. 

The passengers with standing tickets
The train was full, yet at every stop, more people got on than off, until they overflowed onto the corridors, into the space outside the tiny washrooms, sitting on every available surface imaginable; suitcases, newspaper covered floors, even across the sink. It looked like refugee bedlam. I believe that if the washrooms had been a mite cleaner, some people would have found a way to settle in it too. Perhaps this is another reason why they do not have seating toilets – put the lid down and presto, you have for yourself a ready made seat. It would render the washrooms unusable due to the drifting passengers occupying it on an extended basis.

At one point on the journey, I had to excuse myself past several dozing people before I attained the threshold of the washroom, and when I was done, found that the only working sink was totally obstructed by a sleeping old man and his luggage. Returning to the coach, I had to tap the shoulder of another old man in my seat who was apparently also fast asleep, whereupon he shifted back to crouching on his huge, shapeless package in the aisle. I know that we are all taught to give up our seats to the elderly, but what of a train seat, on a journey for hours on end? At what point does this action cross over from being respectful and civilized to plain you’ve-gotta-be-crazy-to-do-it? I decided that I could not do it, yet when I awoke from a doze at the next station, I saw that another passenger had given up his seat to that old man, and was crouching on the package in said old man’s stead.

There was, apparently, no limit to the number of people they could allow on the train. Those passengers who boarded later held tickets on which were printed 'No seat' in place of the seat number. These passengers usually did not travel for terribly long distances, and would at most have to tough it out for four to eight hours until the next stop or so. It was worse during the Spring Festival and the Golden Weeks, I am told, when the standing passengers would overflow into the legroom of the seated passengers, and people would be sleeping under the seats on pieces of newspaper. I suppose even the train spitters would have been hard-pressed then to find an unoccupied bit of floor on which to discharge some of their copious secretions.

The train food
Is probably not as terrible as it is rumoured to be, but it is certainly expensive, as the sellers there have a monopoly on the market, and their customers are quite literally, sitting ducks. Every so often, one of them would trundle a specially designed narrow trolley down the aisle declaring their wares in singsong voices, each phrase with a rhyme and rhythm of its own: '麻辣豆腐麻辣鱼' '香烟扑克牌' '牛奶泡泡糖' '西瓜哈蜜瓜'. I noted that most of these phrases had 5 or 7 words, and could be declaimed in the 4/3 or 2/3 manner as classic poems are, thus contributing to the overall melodic effect. That, and the trundling back and forth of the carts were very effective advertisement techniques, and passengers who did not buy the items the first time round had plenty of time to think about what they would have liked until the cart came back again. Most of the prices were double the market price, or at least a good few yen more than was sold off the train but people bought them anyway, in part because of the sheer boredom of having nothing much else to do, in part because of the effect of seeing other people purchase and consume said food items.

The food packets went for 15 yen at first call and got steadily cheaper, dropping to 10 yen on the next few trips and then to 5 yen at odder hours in between mealtimes. It made me laugh when I first heard the lady say on one of her trips: "5 yen 5 yen.. Get your food NOW... in half an hour's time it will be 15 yen again..."

The other food they ate
Most of the passengers equipped themselves with instant noodles in disposable bowls, and supplemented their food with vacuum packed meat and vegetables which generally came highly spiced and flavoured in attractively coloured reddish brown oily sauce. I was worried about nausea and stomach upsets on the train and contented myself with bread instead, which was also good and very enjoyable in its own way, neat and clean and highly nibblable, excellent with a good book, which I also had.

I watched in fascination as one of the middle-aged men sitting opposite me consumed one snack after another, even managing to neatly dispose of very messy food items. His wife was lying in his lap sleeping, but this did not seem to hinder his efforts and from time to time he even fed her bits of the food if she happened to be awake. He bought a packaged pork trotter which came complete with all its bones and tendons and proceeded to partially unwrap it and gnaw off chunks of meat, spitting the bones into his hand as he did so. Then he produced a mango. Holding one end of it, he peeled half of it with a small knife and sliced off pieces of meat, spearing them with the point of the knife and lifting them to his mouth, until half the mango was completely bare of flesh. Presumably he then turned the mango around and repeated the process with the other end, although come to think of it, I never saw what he did with the other end. Then there were peanuts, the kind that came still in the shell and he would grab a handful in one hand, crack the shell and tip the nuts out into the other palm then roll the nuts deftly between the fingers of that hand to rub off the skin before popping them into his mouth. The shells and skin he would let fall into a trash bag at his feet. It was a fascinating process to watch and kept me mesmerized for ages. He seemed to have great expertise in dealing with all manner of foods. He ate continually, yet he was not fat, but looked an active, vigorous man. I saw that the nails of two of his fingers were malformed in some manner, as if they had been grievously wounded and healed and wondered if he had been in fights and if he was involved in gangsterish dealings of any sort. He had the sort of worldly wise and tough guy look that such a person might have had.

The aisle sweeping
What with all the kuaci, peanuts and various other messy food items being consumed on a continuous basis, it was not surprising that massive amounts of waste were being produced throughout the journey. In the absence of handy trash bins and trash bags the most obvious receptacle for all waste was the floor. To keep the passengers from being buried alive in their own refuse, the train was regularly swept by a cleaning lady, who would come down the aisle pushing all the trash she collected in front of her with a broom. Most times when she came, everyone would make an effort to move their feet out of the way and perhaps some passengers would obligingly take the broom and clear out the hard-to-reach bits of trash from under their own seats.

At the worst of times, when the snackers have been particularly active, the pile would be huge and messy, with stray newspapers floating before her and kuaci shells running around looking for new nooks and crannies to hide in. Then she would chase the chaotic pile away with her broom as she moved down the aisle, leaving the floor in a relatively cleaner condition that it had been, the passengers watching the progress of that imposing amount of garbage with something akin to awed fascination, and maintaining a respectful silence in its wake.

The end of the journey
I alighted with some relief and took a bus back to the hostel, after convincing many, many people who asked that no, I did not need a cab, thank you.

Feel like howling with sheer frustration.

I got hit by the virus after all, and my computer manifested symptoms by replaying the loading sequence over and over again. The only way the shop could get rid of it (and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the service was for free) was to reformat my C Drive. Alright, I'm grateful that my computer works, and all that, but the whole freaking system now operates in Chinese, because I did not bring my system CD over and they had to install using their own CD, which could be in no other language but Chinese.

It was bad enough trying to navigate ANY computer system in English; now I've even got to Translate all the Chinese commands into English before I can do anything with them. Worse, the system even links me to all the Chinese websites when I try Googling any websites to download programs from. I'm not really sure how to change my system to automatically loading English websites instead. Worse, all my antivirus is gone (not that it worked to begin with), and I will need to get it from elsewhere. Loads of other not-so-important yet not-quite-useless files are gone too, such as *pout* my msn smileys, my Tor proxy, Yawle, Mirc etc. Sucks big time.

So yeah, didn't mean to vent all my spleen on this post; still it's a huge change, and I'm not taking it very well. Perhaps I should just leave off now and come back when my mood is a little brighter. Still, I can't wait to be back, if only because this would mean that I can finally have my comp system reinstalled in English again.

I note, with some amusement that some people, not excluding myself, are proud of their individual culinary adventures and would not mind boasting about them or at least mentioning them in passing from time to time, in blogs or otherwise.

On my msn display I saw two totally unrelated people, who probably do not know each other, mention respectively 'cooking nasi lemak (coconut rice)' and 'sarawak laksa, yummy'. Sounds real good.

I get the feeling that I had better blog before this blogger’s block/ blogger’s apathy gets chronic, and leaves my china blog saddled some weird top post about non-smoking that is way too outdated anyway.

Virus

I just had a minor scare with some computer virus. A friend got a virus recently, which caused her computer to shut down and destroyed a couple of her files. I had been using the same internet connection on a router with that girl so if she were to give it to anyone there was a good chance I might get it too. This very afternoon, when I met her again, she mentioned that her computer problem was fixed, and they had gotten rid of the virus, whose name was ‘Rose’.

Suddenly I realised that this was a very familiar name. I had been seeing it repeatedly, in pop-ups on my screen – “Windows could not open the file ‘rose.exe’. The extension was not found” – whenever I tried opening ‘My Computer’ from the startup menu. I would end up not being able to open ‘My Computer’ and there would be an array of said pop-ups filling my screen. Rose.exe was so familiar that I was alarmed, although my computer had been fine, so far.

A scan showed that there were no threatening ‘Rose’ files on my computer, and assuaged my worry somewhat. I have antivirus installed on my computer, courtesy of the excellent computer support services provided by NUS, and at that point I silently thanked them from the bottom of my heart, because that was probably what stood between my computer and the virus. Even far away in remote, virus-riddled Wuhan, the support of my home university reaches out like a comforting arm around the shoulders (aww…), to protect one’s computer from the worst ravages of what malicious elements are floating around China’s closely supervised yet altogether insecure internet space. However, I still have the peculiar pop-up on my computer, and I have no idea what is to be done about it. Perhaps the initializing program was not viewed as threatening by the antivirus and was not deleted, although the main file was. Still, I’d like to get rid of it. Suggestions anyone?

Having obtained a quantity of buckwheat flour and found it unsuitable for the original purpose that I intended it for, I decided that I would make it into pancakes, having obtained the idea from surfing one or two cookery websites. However, and perhaps it was due to the fact that buckwheat flour is different from wheat flour, the pancakes came out rather soft and squishy and kinda like tore when I tried turning them. Worse, my housemate’s skillet was not of the best quality; while it was sturdy and thick based, the non-stick coating was already eroded from the middle of the pan, a condition which did not make things easier. Also, I did not have a proper spatula, but some ladle-like implement. All the circumstances combined to make the pancake-making process a less-than-effortless task. Still, the taste was pretty good, as might be expected from batter made with flour, eggs, milk, sugar, although there certainly is room for improvement. Now I’ve a proper spatula, perhaps next time I’ll make the batter thicker, and use fresh milk instead of powdered milk. Perhaps some honey drizzled onto the pancakes would be nice too.

Inspired by my attempt at making pancakes, or perhaps galvanized by its semi-failure, my friend Steve decided to make tacos, using his mother’s recipe. I had no idea what tacos were, but he was confident that, having assisted his mother several times while she made her famously delicious tacos, he would be able to make a reasonable attempt at producing some decent tacos. We had some difficulty obtaining the requisite items, and dubiously made substitutions left and right, eg: baking powder enriched flour instead of separate packets of baking powder and wheat flour, butter instead of Crisco vegetable shortening, minced pork instead of minced beef, and Steve got more and more worried that the tacos would turn out to be nothing like the kind his mom makes. My quip that we were definitely lacking one vital ingredient – his mom – did not reassure him at all.

Still, after a long distance phone call to his mom in Florida, who reassured him that the baking powder need not be accurately measured to the hundredth of a gram, that butter would do just fine and was not particularly necessary anyway, and that yes, while we needed a rolling pin that we did not have, a bottle would do as well, we embarked on said cooking venture – producing some quaintly shaped taco shells, sans salt, (oops, Steve said) but nonetheless edible and were in fact not too bad at all. I fried the minced meat, adding in the chopped tomatoes which were actually meant to be the toppings on the tacos (oops, I said), but they worked out pretty well, lending a rounder, sweeter flavour to the meat filling. Having no idea how the meat filling for tacos was supposed to taste, I improvised, adding oyster sauce and garlic (that’s totally Chinese cooking, Steve said). Hmm, this gives me an idea for dealing with the rest of the buckwheat flour that I have – how do buckwheat tacos sound? Mightn’t be a bad idea at all.

I’ve just recently discovered, after directing a chance question at Chad, another American student also learning Chinese in Wuhan Uni (Wuda), but who is a professional computer software designer or something, that the Great Firewall of China could be bypassed by installing Mozilla Firefox and Tor  Proxy. So now I’m once again able to access blogger blogspots and the BBC Homepage. It’s an accomplishment of a certain degree of importance to me, and with a certain indescribable feeling I once again laid eyes on my old blog of more than two years but more than three months ignored, and read the familiar entries about some events which I had almost forgotten.

From the mid-March nightmare week in icy hell when the temperature dropped sharply after they turned off the central heating to the pleasantest of spring days akin to mild equatorial mornings now, I have seen rather a lot of the unfriendly, changeable climate of Wuhan. On several different occasions, just when I was making up my mind that the weather would turn warm for good and was preparing to put away the padded winter jacket and thick fluffy sweaters, a day of hard unending rain and a stiff wind would put the impending spring a few paces back. I would wake up in the morning, note that it was still raining or blowing hard and feel the window pane with the palm of my hand – my rough and ready method of determining how warmly I would dress – before breaking out the sweaters and skin moisturizers prior to venturing out-of-doors.

But it is a warm sunny day today, and we are seeing more and more such sunny days as spring progresses. The days get longer (just as I’ve always read about in books describing temperate climates) and the sun dawns earlier and sets later. They tell me that very soon the summer months will be upon us, the dreaded Wuhan summer months with temperatures reaching 40 degrees Celsius, where the asphalt roads may get soft and squishy with the heat and sink beneath your foot. They have serviced the air-conditioning, and Sifu (our gardener cum odd-job-man) tells me that very soon they will be turning it on. Perhaps I will miss the worst of the dreaded summer months; perhaps I will be back before the summer enters its hottest periods, but I know not exactly when, because they have not as yet released the exam timetable. It is my one enduring grouch, after the initial indignation at the lackadaisical attitude of the administrative officials has passed, that I probably will not know my exam timetable until probably a week before.

There are various seasonal fruits which vendors hawk along the streets, carrying them in shallow baskets balanced across the shoulders and selling mangoes, jambus, 枇杷 for so much per 斤or cherries, mulberries or 杨梅for so much per两. There used to be a revival of strawberries at one time but they are gone again, leaving a disconsolate me to pine in remembrance. Then there are the ubiquitous local red apples, sold at a steadily rising price, however, the sturdy cherry tomatoes, the bananas, and coconuts – vendors hawk all manner of fruits; it seems to suffice for their daily living.

As for more exotic and unusual fare, I’ve had pig brains at a steamboat restaurant – perhaps a squeamish notion for some people who have not gotten used to the idea that every part of the animal is more or less edible, depending on how it is prepared. So at this restaurant, they gave us nice little portions of brain in little dishes, which I poured into my boiling soup and fished it out after a while. The flimsy white matter was surprisingly good: smooth, creamy and flavoured by the soup. I took second and third helpings. It helped that it was nutritious, probably low-fat and devoid of unusual odours that might accompany other parts of the pig, such as the intestine. Yes, I’ve had intestine too, which had an interestingly chewy texture, being made entirely of muscle and membrane, but despite the liberal addition of spices, it still carried a rather rank odour. Also consumed have been bullfrog, eel, mudskipper and the tiniest of tiny baby quails (my conscience still haunts me a little). Dog is available, but everyone says that it is a winter food, so I have not had it yet. Turtle is offered at restaurants, but at an exorbitant price, so I believe I might try to procure a live one (from the supermarkets) and do the cooking myself. Not the killing, of course. I mean, I wouldn’t hurt a fly, but perhaps I could enlist the services of someone who wouldn’t mind wielding The Knife. The other day, I did actually see a boy toting a very large, live turtle, unconcernedly carrying it by the neck, around which he had wrapped a slip of plastic, probably to keep its horny skin from scratching him. Presumably that was destined for the cooking pot as well.

Wuhan is not particularly famed for its culinary delights, unlike Guangzhou, where attempts have probably been made to eat most parts of everything that shows any sign of life. Still, I have myself had modest gastrointestinal adventures of my own, some perhaps worth a passing mention. I would nonetheless draw the line at monkey brains, considering the cruel and inhumane manner it is prepared (not that I’ve seen it offered here), but aside from that, I should say, everything else goes. Mmm. Oh yes.

It’s just before 8 am and the wind is howling like the very devil after pouring rain on us throughout most of last night. I have class at 8 am, so what am I doing sitting here calmly observing how violent the wind is? Well the fact is, I tried to step out of doors just 20 minutes ago, washed and dressed for class, with my hair tied back in defiance of the wind and armed with a borrowed umbrella after mine gave up the ghost, broken in several places from its many battles with the diabolical winter winds. Spring winds are no better. The stiff icy wind sweeping in from the East Lake was not in the least considerate, even though I might be late for class and was not dressed in the thickest of clothing, just jeans, sweater and jacket, as befits a spring morning, which should be mild and temperate, but isn’t. I considered going back for a change of clothing, but then I would be really late, and anyway the walk should warm me up. I would not have wanted to use the umbrella in this wind, but the sky was raining slanting, icy needles and it was that or be soaked. The umbrella did not last two minutes and neither did I. I got as far as down the walkway in front of my apartment, with the umbrella braced at an angle pointed into the wind, a technique to keep it from being blown inside out. This still did not prevent the wind from collapsing the umbrella with its sheer brute force, and bereft of my only protector from the elements, I beat a hasty retreat and decided that I would return to study in the warmth and stillness of my own room. The only other soul brave enough to venture out into these perilous winds was the school janitor, who was dressed in a raincoat with a hood he had difficulty keeping on while he swept the yard clean of debris. I knew that he saw my disorderly retreat, and felt a little embarrassed at the fact that retreating indoors was an option open to me but not to him.

It is 20 minutes after 8am and the wind is still howling like the very devil, like a beast chained up and starved for many days and then turned loose upon the world on this harsh and bitter morning. Class has probably started but like the other pampered brats in this foreign students’ dormitory that is luxurious, even extravagant by the standards of the local Chinese students, I am shirking my lessons in the face of the minor hardship that nature has chosen to throw my way. I remember an article I read in one of the local magazines, a digest of essays and short stories, about some village children who braved heavy snows, and practically dug their way through to school, just because they were worried about missing lessons, and I compare it with my current lackadaisical attitude. Of course, in my defence, it must be said that not all the students here have the same exemplary approach to schooling that those village children had. For the past 3 weeks, this particular lecture that I would have heard this morning was poorly attended because our lecturer was away on business and the classes were taken by relief teachers. The lessons were not too bad, but the turnout was miserable and scant. Presumably they were studying at home, and actually they do study hard when they get down to it.

Not so the foreign students, who come up with new things to do every day. Last night while it poured and blew I heard a commotion of sorts somewhere in the hostel grounds, sounds of partying and merrymaking. Later my friend Steve told me that a bunch of students in our hostel were drinking and hanging out in the sundry shop near the sole entrance of the hostel. That in itself is pretty harmless, but for the fact that their mode of entertainment was to seize on everyone, everyone, all and sundry, from good friends to mere strangers, guys and girls alike, howsoever dressed and to hold the hapless soul under a current of rainwater falling from a corner of the roof for ten seconds, counting aloud. He was caught and soaked when he innocently went to the sundry shop for a drink and right after him there was an Asian-looking girl, coming back from outside all dressed up and holding a purse, who was likewise subjected to the same treatment, who screamed and clutched when they tried to take the purse away prior to soaking her and who finally cried at the end of that prank that had gone a little too far.

It was a prank that had gone a little too far indeed, but who could say that it was anything other than clean (oh yes, real clean), innocent fun? No permanent harm was done for the soakees would be able to return quickly to their rooms and change before they caught a chill. But the thing is, you do not just lie in wait for passers-by and grab them to soak them when you feel like it. A really offended person with the resources to do it could sue you for battery if he felt like it. What if you caught someone important, like a relation of one of the administrative staff who would be able to lodge a proper complaint with the school authorities? Also, just up the stairs at the very entrance was the security office (or what may be considered a security office of sorts which doubles as the reception, mail office and lounge for some staff) and why did not anybody come forward to stop them? I watched them from the safety of my friend’s window, and even until midnight I heard raucous counting, laughing and cheering. I have no idea how well considered was that prank, whether the pranksters even considered if they would get into trouble over this, whether anyone would be able to lodge an effective complaint, whether any disciplinary action would be taken at all. Nor do I know how well connected are those students with the staff, nor how the staff would view the shenanigans of the foreign students if any such complaint were lodged. But I do believe that for all their outrageous actions last night, those students may well get off scot free, with not even a harsh word to dampen their arrogance, and this just feels wrong. I know one of the students whom my friend named as being involved in the ragging last night, or masterminding it, rather; he’s not a bad guy, and I don’t believe it was done with any malice. But the fact is, he should not have been allowed to do this, much less to continue in this manner for the rest of that cold, rainy night. What is the world coming to? Or has it always been this way here?

Every outing is a shopping spree. Today I just blew another 200 yuan on a pretty bag, a much needed thumb drive, and various other miscellaneous  odds and end and snacks. Turned back regretfully only when  my wallet was becoming very skimpy and dropped by at the internet cafe to spend my last 10 yuan note on some internet time.

It Snowed a few days ago and I was so happy that I typed out a blogpost that I was planning to publish along with some nice pics when I got my internet connection. But a whole load of screwed up shit happened and the room internet connection is still a pretty dream, so unfortunately the pics and the blogpost about snow will have to wait. But I was so happy, so Happy to see and step on and play with snow! The white, snow-covered world was so beautiful that it took my breath away and it was all I could do to exclaim every now and then how lovely every aspect of the snow-covered world was. I feel blessed because not only was this snowfall particularly heavy this time (it snowed for about 20 hours and left heavy drifts of snow that took some 3 days to completely melt away), it fel particularly late and nobody was expecting snow to fall at that time of the year already, because the weather was only supposed to get warmer and warmer.

I needed a cable and a thumb drive and needed something installed in my laptop, so armed with 200 hundred yuan I went out today and started combing the electronics city a few blocks down from the school. The various shops and sights in that area provided for endless amusement and I kept thinking of how nice it would be to blog about all of the things I saw.

The roly-poly kids

Although the weather was starting to grow warmer after the cold spell the parents were not taking any chances with their precious kids so everywhere I saw a kid it would be dressed in ridiculously bulky clothing until it resembled an overstuffed doll, too plump and encumbered to move much and with a tendency to keel over to one side whereby it would lie there like a upturned turtle until the mother rescued it and set it upright again. The kids were literally just bundles of fabric with more cloth than there was kid. They looked like miniature Dudley Dursleys, or Humpty Dumpty with a smaller head. I couldn't help thinking that it was a very good way of ensuring that your toddler would have to remain more or less in the place you set it down in; too bad this was not a practical application where the weather was warmer.

The smelly tofu

Stinks like something indescribable. Pee-yew! I held my nose whenever I passed the stalls deep-frying those aromatic little chunks of curd. Was rather tempted to try it out but was deterred, not by the smell, but by the deep-frying. What a pity it was not prepared in any other manner! From the queues of people outside the stall, I really wondered what I was missing.

The pet vendors

Are all over the roads and I am so tempted to get a little puppy (~ 45 yuan), to have and to hold. Or a bunny. Or a hamster. I linger longingly around those vendors and touch one or two cold wet noses and ask the price. But I knew that I could Never bring a pet out of China into Singapore and at the end of my 5-month stay I would have to find another home for it. It would break my heart, and how would I know if the new owner would treat it well? So it was always with a very noble sense of self-denial that I turned my back time and again on the bundle of puppies/ cages of bunnies and hamsters. I still want a dog, but maybe next time.

The snack vendors

Sell the most interesting items. I bought, in quick succession, 5 little pieces of steamed rice cakes with brown sugar in it and 5 little pieces of pan fried tofu something-or-the-other, eaten with sauce, chilli and celery leaves (just the thing for my brother!). The vendors are unlicensed, so every now and then they would have to grab the handles of their pushcarts and hurry off when the faintest scent of trouble was on the air. I had paid for my tofu and she had not yet given it to me when she heard something that made her scurry off with her pushcart, leaving me to scamper after her faintly protesting that I had not yet received my tofu.

So ends my day out. More updates next time. Miss everyone over there lots and lots and leave me plenty of comments so that I know you guys miss me too. Heehee.

Finally, I am online and able to blog. I stare at the screen somewhat flabbergasted, not knowing which of my woes/ adventures/ unusual sights observed I should pour out first. So instead of starting at the beginning, going to the end and stopping as per some very good advice once given Alice in Wonderland, I shall jump in at the middle, ramble along until my fingers get tired of this stiff and faded keyboard and then stop.

It will be a long time before I get online connection in my room, not for want of trying. The officials are very unhelpful and the system in a moderate mess, such that if a student wishes to apply for internet connection he or she will have to pass a veritable obstacle course first, trotting over half the campus in search of that one and only office in which registration can be made. Imagine setting off with only a name of the place you are looking for, with everyone you ask either vague or unhelpful in directing you. The office is deliberately designed to be hidden, situated at the outermost parts of the campus in a nondescript locale. When I finally thought that I found it, I wondered from where I could access it, since there seemed to be no doors that I could see. I wandered into the compound until I finally came upon a Door at the side and from there I made my way to the office.  Anyway it is an achievement to have found it, ans it is half the task completed already.

Next task on hand was to find out which books I was supposed to buy for my courses. The bookshop was inconveniently out of stock and one of the recommended books is not carried by the external bookstores.  This is an uncanny phantom edition and does not seem to exist in the records of any bookstores anywhere. When I went to the law school office to ask, I discovered that the administrative staff here spend their days playing computer games because they are so efficient and finish their work so fast. Or maybe they do not have to bother about checking their work for possible mistakes since students will invariably approach them if there is any discrepancy. With so many pairs of eyes, nothing can possibly go wrong, right? Wrong. Anyway I approached this lady, who only stopped clicking on a screen filled with brightly coloured bubbles long enough to glance up and see who was addressing her. The whole of the following conversation was addressed to the side of her head while she busily clicked away at her game. On the next computer, a colleague was playing mahjong with the computer, and seemed not to notice anything at all. I did get my doubts clarified regarding one of those texts but when I mentioned the phantom book, she directed me to another store to try my luck. Well that was that.

Anyway, I spent half the afternoon browsing the DVD collection in one of the bookstores. As for the phantom book, I have decided that I shall wait until class the next monday and ask one of the students.