Daily life

It wouldn't be in a post from Our Man In China without a comment on the weather. Hot, hot and hot is the best way to describe it - 38 bog ones today, and you can feel everyone of them. Last week was actually wet and cold, but I think the trousers have been firmly put into hibernation for the next few months.

Daily life is pretty relaxing and stress-free. The only stress is to ensure I continue to speak lots, listen lots and read lots. Weekday mornings from 8-12 is lessons, then afterwards I can do what I want. I don't need a job yet, so I have tonnes of free time. I see a tutor on Monday and Thursday afternoon, some friends on Monday, Tuesday and Friday to speak Chinese, but nothing much else pre-arranged. There is a tendency for random things to happen all the time, so I often end up speaking quite a lot. With the teaching being so awful, I often don't go to lessons, which doesn't really make much difference. I find its often more helpful talking to the lady in charge of the reference room.

The pace of life in Xian is pretty slow. Its funny, on the surface, it looks manic, with all the crazy drivers and hordes of people everywhere all the time. But in fact, everything happens quite slowly. People walk so slowly, its quite frustrating when you're behind a line of 3 or more. The traffic is so slow because its a bit of a free-for-all. Offices and the like are shut for a couple of hours around lunch.

I think I've been quite good in avoiding speaking English, I can often go a couple of days without speaking it. I don't go to any of the foreigner places, partly because it won't help the Chinese, and partly because it's too expensive. Although I often speak to a couple of Australian friends, and my German flatmate as well. Sometimes its good to talk English over a beer and some barbequed meat-on-a-stick on the pavement outside our flat.

I eat in small, cheap resturants every meal. I haven't really found a place I can go to everyday to speak the people who run it, as I had hoped, but I sometimes end up talking to the owners or other customers. There's quite a few other foreigners around, so I'm not really as interesting as I would be somewhere else in China.

The summer break is approaching, but it will mostly be more of the same - sweating, studying, speaking and sweating some more. Good times to roll on!