Consumers of the World - Unite!

May 1st is International Labour Day and as such is a public holiday in China. Falling on a Friday this year, it meant a three day weekend (although it used to be a whole week holiday). And what better way to show your solidarity with tea pickers in Kenya and steel workers in America than to go shopping, surely number 1 pastime of Chinese, way ahead of table tennis in terms of overall participants. Xiao Zhai is a favourite place of my girlfriend, and most other females under 35 in fact. I think the best adjective to describe it is 'swarming'. In one place, there was literally a traffic jam of people, the pavement too narrow to accommodate the herds of consumers. The ancient Chinese had a phrase apt for most situations, and here is no exception. 心静自然凉 (xin jing zi ran liang), which roughly translated means a calm heart (or state of mind) will cool yourself down, regardless of external conditions. Although back then the Chinese were much to sophisticated and cultured as to engage in anything like consumerism, it is extremely true. Having faced the hoards of people on hot, crowded, dusty shopping streets so many times now, I have developed a certain patience that did not previously exist. Also I ended up spending no money, which helped my mood.

Afterwards, at my behest, we went to a bar street, which was like sitting in a nice hot bath after a hard day at work on a Friday or snuggling under the warm duvet when outside its raining and horrible (also on a Friday). Empty chairs on tables lined the narrow street, cars were few, no shops selling rubbish, natural greenery provided shade, and an absolute fantastic blueberry smoothie thing made it my idea of a day off. And despite the lack of retail therapy opportunities, I think even my opposite number felt a degree of relaxation.

Last week at work, I've been in the simulator centre of the Xian Electrical College, which is a short walk from our company and the location for the next stage of the training we are giving Indonesian power station operators. The lying that goes on here is hilarious. We told them before that we had our own simulator centre, so the last few days everyone has been asking me if all these students on campus belong to our company. Hmmm, not quite. Displaying our company's almost inability to prepare anything properly, half of the simulator screens are in Chinese, i.e., useless for an Indonesian. But our translators have done a sterling job in providing hand written translations (tres professionel), and generally they've done the extremely difficult interpretation well. I sit at the back taking notes about their performance, as befits my title of 'translation consultant'. If I ever have to do it myself, the illusion will be revealed.

In other news, Saturday afternoon was spent doing the twice annual 'Wardrobe Switch'. It's spring, so the trousers, jumpers, jackets and anything remotely thick have been bagged and stored, and the shorts and flip flops reappeared after 6 months in hibernation. There's two types of people in Xian, those who are 怕冷(literally, scared of the cold) and those who are 怕热 (scared of the heat), and I definitely belong to the latter. The first year here I got sick, couldn't eat anything for 5 days and turned into a skeleton. Last year was better, but it's still going to be sleepness nights, drowsiness, decreased calorie intake and potential for flared tempers. All I have to do is remember the ancient Chinese - 心静自然凉.