Danwei Day 8 -

The last 5 working days have spent doing nothing much more than extensive reading of online newspapers and looking at funny pictures of George Bush pulling those faces only he (and monkeys) can do. My assigned task is boning up on power stations. I've got a basic grasp of things - boiler connected to the turbine, turbine connected to the generator, etc, etc - but beyond this, getting into the nitty gritty of the chemical composition of water leaving the hotwell of the condenser and the mathematical equations used to determine the correct position of the superheater has proved not only difficult but also extremely, extremely dull. Thus, I have been paying close to the 'controversy' (brouhaha, if you will) with Russell Brand and Jonathon Ross, and marvelling at how such a civilised, advanced and educated society such as our own can put a story about 3 fantastically unimportant people above a new report about the rapid and intensifying depletion of the planet's natural resources. British media, I salute you!

My internet activities have not gone unnoticed, however. This afternoon, the big boss, Chairman Qu, and his wife (head of HR), took me to a coffee house to discuss a few things. He praised my diligent attitude. If he was talking about my diligent newspaper reading, then he was spot on. He also wants me to arrange events with my foreign friends to get the staff used to dealing with foreigners, to revamp the English version of the website, and to explore possiblities of establishing links with foreign companies. No idea how to do any of this, but it sounds like what they like to call here 'opportunity for personal development'. He also wants me, next month, to move into to an office next to his, so opportunities for newspaper reading may diminish faster than you can say 'Drill, baby, drill'.

(Ed., enough with the newspaper comments.)

Earlier in the conversation, his wife was picking my brains about English education, because they want to send her daughter to England ('best country for education') to attend university. They said English people are nice and conservative, and don't carry guns around 'like those fat Americans'. I tried to introduce the idea that not everyone walks around in bowler hats opening doors for ladies. We didn't have time to get into the difference between a chav and a townie, which is probably best, I don't want to scare them. They want their daughter to be somewhere safe (' a walled university is best'), and somewhere where she won't live with boys, 'because boys will distract her from her studies'. I've been assigned the task of picking a good university and helping her with the application.

Apart from this, the last few days have been, as mentioned, dull. And not just for me. The other translators have an engineering exam on Friday. The guy in front of me spends most of his time somewhere between sleep mode and awake mode, and the guy next to him even started snoring yesterday, much to everyone's amusement. When not vaguely flicking through a book on turbines, time is whittled away by looking at photos of celebrities, chatting on QQ (Chinese instant messenger), and stretching, as well as, of course, napping.

There was an article in the newspaper today (Chinese newspaper) about 9 Chinese engineers who have been kidnapped in Sudan. I love the timing - today, the company sent out the second batch of engineers to their project in, yes, you guessed it, Sudan. And with even better timing, management sent out a request for translators to go to Sudan next year. Number of takers? Zero.