2nd Semester Round-Up, And The Tale Of The Cheating Freeloader

After a long 14 week semester that started back in the cold and gloom of February, it was finally time to say 'zai jian' to our many students. The semester started out quite rough. The cold was really starting to get to us. You cannot imagine how cold it was. Our apartment doesn't have central heating, nor double glazing windows, and the wind was howling in the cracks and would create a draft. We'd retreated into hibernation in our bedroom, which we could just about keep warm with a small, yet immensely power hungry, radiator, which as soon as we'd turn it off its great efforts would disappear and the cold would descend upon us again. We basically lived under our duvets, and we were packed up with hot-gel cushions on our feet and tummies until the end of March. Taking showers was a logistical nightmare, as the radiator had to be positioned in the bathroom 45 mins before each shower, which in turn meant that the bedroom would be cold again. However, we managed it, which is more than some of our colleagues. A female colleague, who shall remain nameless, hardly showered at all during the winter. The office was 'heated' by the air-con, which circulated the air, so her overpowering odours would sometimes be so overwhelming in the office, that we would often prefer to stay in the classrooms, which 'just' smelled of normal student sweat!

One time in January, Anette walked in on one of the cleaners, who was using the near-outdoor teachers' toilets to clean up. She was 'showering' in the hand basin. Many poorly paid Chinese workers cannot afford a house with a bathroom, but we never thought as far this, when in the summer we saw workers washing themselves in the street. Our colleague, however, we assume does have access to a bathroom, she probably just didn't want to brave the cold, unlike the Viking and the Viking-in-training!

(NOTE; it's now summer, and we've got a mosquito tent over the bed, but you get the picture)

We lost a bit of love for this ‘great communist state’ during the winter, as little things started to grate on us. We were going through the ‘disintegration period’ that is so common in people who move to a new culture. We were told it would pass, and it did, so that was ok, but there were things that just annoyed us. All of a sudden the incessant hocking and spitting, the children excreting in the street, on the supermarket floors, over tables and on floors in restaurants and the unbelievably dangerous traffic was starting to get to us. We also knew that we were about to host Anette’s family for a week, and we were worried that we weren’t going to be able to show them a good time.

Thankfully our moods and our enjoyment of being here were much improved when Anette's family arrived. All of a sudden everything was fun and exciting again, as we saw how amazed they were at everything we showed them. We thoroughly enjoyed showing them around, and it served to remind us what we loved about Suzhou and our area in the first place. We juggled work and sightseeing/holidaying with them well, and the week ended with a fabulous trip to the amazing city of Shanghai, a city we are in love with! While showing them around, we stopped off in a park where we flew a kite, but we proceeded to have coffee at and exclusive 5* cafe on the 87th floor, do some shopping in the old district and took a neon-lit evening stroll by the Bund.

Shanghai, at this point, had not yet opened the Expo, but that did not stop the crowds. Anette’s family was somewhat overwhelmed by the huge crowds in Shanghai and especially on the subway trains. One thing we cannot forget, was a Chinese family trying to get on a train. Picture an already full train pulling into the station. The station was packed out, and there was this little family of about half a dozen people, including kids and grannies. The father was a bald, short yet very square and stocky man wearing a gold chain around his neck and a tight black t-shirt. As we could hear the train approaching, he was sizing up the crowd and appeared to be psyching himself up. The train pulled in. The doors opened, and what happened next was a display of raw macho-ism , which we will never forget. While people were pushing to get in, he was singlehandedly staving off the crowds with one hand, while throwing his family into the already full carriage one after another. We somehow managed to get on to the train too, and once the doors closed we were pressed up again him and his family. He looked incredibly pleased with his efforts, and let out very manly sigh of ‘job well done’. In China it really is ‘every man/woman for themselves’, and they have no regards and show no common courtesy for strangers. We sometimes find that infuriating, and somewhat of a paradox, seeing that as soon as you get to know them, they will literally give you their clothes off their backs to help you out! (once during the winter months, the Key Lady at the school berated Anette, in Chinese, for not dressing warm enough, and then proceeded to offer Anette her own jumper)

After Anette's family left, with lots of souvenirs and silk, it was time to continue with the last few weeks of teaching. In the second semester we had been given more classes to teach, and we were now teaching all 4 skills in ESL teaching, and we had been entrusted with an IELTS class, so we were quite busy. We loved our integrated classes, whom we had so much fun with, even during all the grammar and essay-writing sessions. Anette had taken over one of Joe's favourite classes from the previous semester, and they turned out to be such a joy to teach. The second semester also turned out to be more challenging, in terms of keeping the students focused. Some of our students showed obvious signs of not wanting to be there, and it was our job to motivate them and keep them in class! Many of the students at the college had been sent there by their parents, who expected them to graduate - no matter what - but the students were more interested in computer games and finding a boyfriend. This is the first time these students have had any kind of freedom from their parents and school, and in the second semester, they had somewhat lost the initial intimidation of the teachers and the college! And they did not always behave well. At the beginning of the first semester, remember that we told you that the new students were going through military training, we met a new student, in his camo-gear, who upon learning that we were teachers, launched into a bowing and near-worshipping procedure, repeating again and again ‘lao shi! lao shi!’ (‘teacher! teacher!’). Anette had this same student in one of her classes in the second semester, and by then he had lost all his respect for his teachers, and he was the rudest student she had had, so much so that the other students in the class were apologising to her for him.

We were always on the lookout for cheating in essays and during class-tests, and one day Joe had to step up and show who is boss. We have been giving our students regular tests throughout both semesters during our time here, and while we have known that the Chinese students just LOVE to ‘share’ when it comes to homework and exams, we had never actually caught anyone red-handed. Until now. During one of Joe’s routine class tests, he noticed that one of his students was doing very little indeed. As he stepped closer, however, the student in question, hunched down over the piece of paper on her desk and pretended (badly) to be writing something. The only problem was, it was painfully blatant to Joe that the paper she was pretending to write on was obviously not the test paper. Where had her paper gone, Joe wondered. It didn’t take long to find it. As he glanced around the other students, he could see another of the students, one of the best in the class, actually, quickly switching between two papers as she worked. While one student did nothing at all, another was completing two different papers in double-quick time! Unbelievable. Well, Joe wasn’t quite sure what to do here. It would have been so much easier to look away, avert your eyes, you didn’t see nothing here, right? But this situation will surely come up some time in the future and Joe supposed it was probably best to start gaining experience on what it feels like to flex the muscles of authority and stamp out the disease of cheating wherever it may be found. A little strong? Yeah, ok, maybe. But Joe did what had to be done. By the time he had decided to come over to address the situation, the two girls had figured out that if they hadn’t been rumbled yet they probably soon would, and were midway through handing the paper back to the freeloader. Realising that they didn’t have time to pass the paper all the way back, it was left on a chair in-between them. Joe glanced at it, pretending to have noticed it only for the first time. “Oh, are you finished?” Joe asked, reaching out for the paper. “Ummm... No!” said freeloader. “Then why is the paper over there?” Joe pointed to the paper again. “Ummm... Yes, I’ve finished!” she answered. “Then why did you say you weren’t finished?” – Oh, this was becoming painful now – it had to end here. Joe took the paper, and asked if the girl had done the work herself, and she admitted that she hadn’t. He asked who had helped her, and the enabler owned up too. He then asked all the students around them if anyone else was involved, which they all predictably denied. Having now gotten himself into a situation, mid-test, where every student was looking at him, wondering what he was going to do, he took the papers from both girls and, possibly fuelled by adrenaline, dramatically ripped up both papers, announcing to the entire class that cheating would absolutely not be tolerated and both girls would get a zero for the test. Ooops, was he supposed to do that? After the test, the freeloader was surprisingly accepting of her fate, but the enabler was distraught, wailing and tears streaming down her face, inconsolable by her friends.

In May, the main television station for Jiangsu, the large province in which we live, came to our college to film this new type of university in China which was so focused on English and had such an international outlook. They wanted to film the foreign teachers, and Anette was chosen to be a front for the school, so with less than 5 mins notice before the start of one of her classes, a camera crew and the college director arrived in her class, in the middle of Anette teaching the part of the curriculum that was about ‘Vices’. She had organised the class into a semi-circle, and the camera-crew instructed her where to stand, and what to do. Don’t think that anything you see on Chinese telly is genuine! Anette continued with her ‘vices’ lesson, and of course the students clammed up, as they did not want to talk about drinking, smoking, drugs and ‘blue movies’ on camera. – something they had been quite keen on talking about before the camera’s arrived! It was a speaking class, and the main aim was to find something that they would talk about, as we were following a book, so it was not something Anette had chosen to talk about, also it would teach them about culture and make them look at their own lives, so it was actually a good lesson. But, if only she had had some warning, she could have planned something more suitable! A couple of weeks later the camera-crew returned, and Anette was chosen to be filmed again, but this time they came to a grammar/writing/reading class, so it was more sober and clean! The filming was to be used in a news-story about the school as well as for a promotional video to attract new students.

During the first week of June, it was finally time to wrap up the semester. Some classes were easier for us to say good-bye to than others, and for some classes saying good-bye to us, was harder than we had expected. We wanted to take pictures with the classes we had enjoyed teaching the most, and once the time came to end the last class, Anette was surprised to see an entire class, including the boys, reduced to tears. After a big group hug, the students would just not let go, and tears were streaming. We had not expected those kinds of emotions from our students, and we were deeply touched by it. A couple of days later, one of the students from that class came to our office, and gave Anette a white Chinese silk dress, and once again she was crying when she left. It was a tough week, but it also confirmed that we had indeed had an impact on these students, which was really nice to see after that semester with all its challenges. Joe’s students, too, found it tough to leave him. There was especially one, the ever-lovely giggly Karry, who had been bringing him breakfasts on Friday mornings, who was a big fan of Joe, and she did not want to let him go back to Europe. It really was an emotional week.

ACC2A

FIN2A

After the last classes had finished, and just before the exams were about to begin, we went out with some friends to our favourite bar, Garbo's, which is down by a river. It's usually very nice and we always have a good time there. And we did, but... We noticed that there were an abundance of mosquitoes whizzing around us when we got there, but we didn't worry, because the bar-lady sprayed us with mozzie-repellent, so we didn't give them another thought. We enjoyed the night. The next morning Anette woke up and felt and eerie itching on her foot. She looked down and saw that both her feet were covered in over 40 mosquito bites but on ONE side of her feet ONLY. She hadn't noticed being bitten at all, so she is convinced the mosquitoes had had ninja-training... The bites got worse over the next couple of days, and she couldn't wear shoes, as that only aggravated the pulsating and angry bites, which had by now made her feet red and swollen and very painful to walk on. On the following Monday, after having sat incapacitated at an exam-invigilation, one of our colleagues, Lorna, took her to the doctor. She decided that Anette should not walk the 300 meters to the doctors office, so she borrowed a very dilapidated e-bike, which Anette sat on, while Joe was pulling it, and Lorna was helping Anette sit upright! After a bumpy trip to the doctors, Anette was given to fast acting anti-histamine and steroid cream, and was then sent home to rest. The next day Anette was supposed to do a 3 hour invigilation, but as it was about to start, someone from the office came down to relieve her of her duties - every cloud has a silverlining!

NOTE; the ninja-mozzies got her on BOTH feet...

After a couple of very busy weeks of marking, and nothing but marking, we reached the 18^th of June, and it was finally time to take the last remaining annual leave, and so we had our unofficial last day at work, this was only to be granted, mind you, if we had finished our huge pile of exam marking, and Joe finished his at lunchtime on ‘Leaving Day’, phew, so we could then start the leaving process, which was by no means an easy task. China and Chinese employers seem to have a bit of a love-affair with bureaucracy, and so a scavenger-hunt for signatures began around the whole school. – We actually haven’t finished yet, but as our colleagues wanted to take us out for leaving drinks, we let bureaucracy be, and left with our friends and colleagues.

We’ve been relaxing in the heat and extreme humidity for about a week now, and been watching the World Cup football, and given ourselves ‘jet-lag’ in the process. Being 6 hours ahead of South Africa takes its toll, because we wouldn’t want to miss the late games, now would we?! We were very upset to see Denmark getting knocked out by the Japanese, but it could’ve been worse, at least it wasn’t Germany...! Ummm, the less said about that, the better...

We have also started packing boxes, and should be ready to leave Suzhou on Sunday, 4^th of July, to go to Shanghai, where we will pick up some dear friends from Denmark, the lovely couple Louise and Dennis, with whom we will commence what is going to be an epically mammoth tour of China. More about that to follow shortly. While it will be sad to say good-bye to Suzhou and our friends here, we’re extremely excited about the future and cannot wait to move back to Europe and then make our big move to Denmark, where a challenging but exciting 4 years are waiting for us. We’re also very excited about the trip around China, which will serve as a great way to end this last remarkable year here.

The World Expo exposé!

On Wednesday the 9^th of June a group of teachers from our college, as part of the English Club, took 11 students to the Shanghai World Expo, which China has the pleasure of hosting this year.

We decided to go on a Wednesday, because we figured that Saturdays might just be too crowded, and this way we could get a day off work and marking. We had asked the president of the English Club Smile, a ditsy student with a heart of gold, to secure seating tickets for the trains. It was a struggle getting 16 tickets for the trains 5 days in advance, but she managed it, and once they were bought, she then thought to go to the China Communications Bank to get the Expo tickets. They had sold out for the entire province of Jiangsu! The Expo tickets, mind you, are not date specific. You can buy peak or off-peak tickets, and then use them as you see fit. It was therefore a shock that the entire allocation to this rather large province had already been sold out, only a month after the opening of the Expo! Ditsy Smile was devastated. The English Club committee had been organizing this trip to Shanghai for weeks, but just hadn’t thought of purchasing the tickets earlier. There is a lesson in there somewhere. Our American colleague, Lee, stepped in and saved the day. He had a friend in Shanghai who went to get 16 tickets from the Expo site, standing in a queue for hours, and sent them via Fed Ex, which arrived just in time on the Tuesday. Phew! The trip was saved!

Wednesday came, and we woke up at 5.30 am to rain and wind. This was unusual as everyday for weeks had been hot and sunny. We looked out of our living room window and were surprised to see a large fire burning in the distance, just behind a building that we used to live in! We later found out it was a factory that was burning down - probably a good day to get away from that particular pollution, then! We took a fast train to Shanghai, and arrived in the far more crowded than usual fabulous city of Shanghai at about 8am. It was then a logistical and physical nightmare getting from the train station to the Expo site, as we were a group of 16 and had to take two subway trains, which, because it was during rush hour, were all filled to breaking point. In the frenzy that was boarding the subway train many students were left behind on the platform. Total chaos. Our students are lovely, but they don't possess much common sense, so we were worried! So because of the crowds and the shell shocked students, it took longer than had been expected to get from the station to the Expo site, but at around 9 o’clock we were finally there, and ready to enter this wondrous mini world full of culture, flavours, and lots and lots of people!

Before the Expo started the organizers were estimating that upwards of 200,000 people would visit everyday for the 6 months it was open. We had silently hoped that by going on a mid-week day, and seeing it was cool and wet, we might escape the crowds, but no. On the wet, cool, mid-week day we were there, there were 401,000 visitors, and there were queues everywhere! - Even the queues had queues. It was crazy! The Expo site is divided up into 5 areas. Parts A-C contain the pavilions of the 192 countries that are represented, and parts D and E are city-planning and commercial pavilions. Parts A-C are the popular ones. Most countries have their own pavilion, in which they are displaying the very best of their culture, or at least that was the idea. Some countries, like most of the African, Polynesian and Central American countries shared a huge pavilion, in which they had a small stand to exhibit their countries.

Being a group of British, Americans, Chinese and the token Dane we of course had to go and see the pavilions that represented the people in our groups. We quickly changed this goal, as we found out that there was a 4-5 hour queue for the China pavilion. As the China pavilion is, unlike all the others, a permanent building, the students agreed that they could visit that at a later date, on their own, if they wished to do so. We then set out to find the British Pavilion.

The British Pavilion is called the Seed Cathedral, and is intended to be Britain’s gift to China with a hope and a wish for greener cities. The pavilion itself looks like a giant dandelion parachute ball - you know, when their seeds are about to blow away in the wind and it’s all fluffy and white. The British Pavilion was much smaller than all the others, but it was awesome. It has got 60,600 acrylic rods coming out of a cube-shaped construction, and these rods make the pavilion look alive, as it sways in the wind. Inside the pavilion the ends of the rods operate as tiny windows, and let the light in. Furthermore every single rod has 1 of 6000 different seeds set into it. It cost £25m to build.

Now, you may think, how is that reflecting British culture?! It wasn’t. You may know that most British cities are not known for being particularly green and full of plants and parks, although compared to the Chinese, largely industrial, cities even British cities could claim green superiority!

If you looked hard enough, however, the keen observer would find a touch of British culture, as there were small transparent plastic models of British terrace and semi-detached houses hanging from the ceiling on the way into the Seed Cathedral, and on the way out there was a herb garden growing on the underside of the pavilion. And finally you could have your picture taken with a Madame Tussauds wax figure of the ever ‘British’ icon Wayne Rooney. We bet the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish visitors will be thrilled!

As an idea coupled with the execution of the Seed Cathedral, it was a fantastic pavilion. It was artistic and abstract, and very interesting to visit. It did not, however, convey very much of British culture.

We visited the African and the South African pavilions, where the latter was a huge disappointment – we queued for over an hour to get inside, where there was, ummm… nothing. After we had our pictures taken with a giant Jabulani World Cup football and Zakumi, the World Cup mascot, we looked around at the empty South African Wine Bar with no staff, a TV showing some Rugby and a touch screen computer giving fixture information for the 2010 World Cup (where a Union Jack was used to represent England), and then we left.

After that let down, we proceeded to the American Pavilion, and oh, how we wish we hadn’t. Again we queued for over an hour in the rain, only to enter a hall, where were treated to the usual over the top commercial, capitalistic culture we know so well from American television, and there was a video running of average Americans attempting to greet the visitors in Chinese. This was topped off by one of the summer-helpers, a proud graduate from the University of Kansas, singing, very badly, in Chinese (is there any other way to sing in Chinese?). This, however, it turned out, was only the waiting area. There was more to come behind some mysteriously closed doors. When they opened, hundreds of people rushed through and found a seat in front of three big cinema screens. It was very much like the ‘cinemas’ in Disney Resort Paris, if you have ever been there. What followed was an address by Hilary Clinton, more Americans learning to say ‘ni hao’ messages from their sponsors and finally President Obama greeting the Chinese people. We were feeling nauseous, but this was not the end. Now another set of mystical doors opened into a – wow – 4D cinema, where a story of a little girl who wanted to plant a garden was played on 5 screens of varying size and shape. Once that that finished we could finally leave the pavilion, but not before we’d been led past a gift shop and large displays from their – many – sponsors. Oh dear. We felt dirty and abused after that.

Somewhat down-beaten and disgusted we started making our way towards the Danish Pavilion. Anette was worried that the Danish Pavilion would be a major let down as well, and nervously we approached the white spiral shaped pavilion, which had queues extending far away from the designated queuing area. The Danish Pavilion committee had managed to get the iconic Little Mermaid shipped from her stone in Copenhagen, where she delights visitors from all over the world and represents a country so fond of fairytales. The Chinese all know about her from the fairytales by H.C. Andersen, and it turned out to be a rather shrewd and clever move to attract a large Chinese audience. In the first month they have had in excess of 1 million visitors (which Joe figured is approx. 1 visitor per second for a 10 hour day), double their monthly target. Because of Anette’s Danish passport, we were able to walk past the ridiculously long queue, and enter the pavilion via a blue bike lane. The Danish Pavilion is a large, spiral shaped building, in which there is a lake in the middle, where The Little Mermaid serenely sits and is adored by the many visitors from many different angles.

(NOTE: Joe is here pointing at a camera, which broadcasts a live feed of the mermaid back to a large screen at the site in Copenhagen in Denmark where she normally receives her admirers. You can also visit her at www.mermaidexchange.com)

As you walk up the spiral to the top, you will see videos displaying her journey from Copenhagen to China, and at the same time subtly showing Danish culture, nature and the people. At the top there was a rooftop café with the Danish cookies that are so famous here in China, and of course Carlsberg served on tap.

There were bike lanes running up and down the spiral, displaying a nation who is fond of their bikes. On a dry day visitors can ride the bikes up and down the blue lanes. The entire pavilion was a very classic and clean display of Danish architecture and it left members of our group wanting to actually live or visit the country. This, we believe, was probably the real intention of the World Expo, that countries would a) show the world their culture, and b) attract tourists. And the Danish Pavilion did just that. Compared to USA’s Pavilion, which we had just come from, this restored our good mood and we felt much happier upon waiving good bye to the Little Mermaid, who was busy being photographed by the many eager and hungry visitors, who marveled at her.

In high spirits we continued to the Latvian Pavilion, which looked very much like an Eastern European Techno Dome. Once inside a fun, but perhaps not very culturally relevant, air-show began. Two guys were flying up and down in a large airodium doing stunts and showing off their incredible skills inside this vertical wind tunnel. It was pretty cool, and our students were astounded and amazed!

After that we were all ready for a large Barcardi daiquiri, and so we went to Latvia’s bar and vegged out until it was time to leave the Expo. After a final group picture in front of the China Pavilion for the website, we made our way to the subway station, and then to the train station and then finally home, where we collapsed in bed after a long day.

Although we didn’t visit many pavilions, which was practically impossible due to the massive queues, we did enjoy seeing many of the pavilions from the outside. Most were elaborately done, and it was a great experience being there. It did, however, feel like queuing for hours for a fantastic ride at Disney World, only then to gain access to a museum… and this was repeated over and over all day long. It was also interesting to experience the Chinese on a day out. Many had brought little foldable chairs to sit on when queuing, and the ever present culture of ‘Me First’ was hugely displayed throughout the day. The Chinese cannot queue. It is not part of their culture. Anette had a couple of run-ins with queue jumpers, where she sternly but politely maneuvered said-queue-jumpers to the back of the line. Once, on board a bus, she got to feel the full wrath of a lady, who came from nowhere and violently pushed her way past Anette, only then to launch a tirade of insults and fist-wavings in her direction. Anette had not done anything other than exclaim surprise at the sudden violent push in her back, in an already very crowded bus. Yes, it was indeed an interesting day.

We'll Be Coming Down The Mountain

Time is such a strange thing. In one sense it seems to stand still, especially during the winter months when you are waiting for the return of the sun and warmer weather, and in another sense it seems to fly by very quickly, this is especially true when it comes to holidays and the end of them! We returned to China from our 2 week holiday in the Philippines nearly three weeks ago. Classes have started again, and it is full on with almost entirely new students (approx. 200 each) and a range of new subjects like IELTS, Academic English and all 4 skills in College English level 2. It is still cold and wet everywhere, for a few days though it seemed as though spring was on its way, but a couple of inches of snow are being promised over the weekend, and when you live in a concrete shell with leaky single glazed windows and no central heating that is a promise you do not want to be delivered! This, however, gives us all the more reason then, to recount the last few days of our holiday and travels through the Philippines.

Our diving adventure ended at the beautiful resort of Aqua Venture Reef Club after a day full of diving and relaxing with style! The next day we jumped on a Jeepney and then a bus to Manila where we were met by our colleague Rudy’s brother, who then took us to his family’s farm a few hours north of Manila. Seeing Manila again brought us quickly back to reality. On the way into the city we passed one slum after another and we saw little children scavenging in scrapyards and in landfills for anything they could use or sell. While travelling on a bus, Anette saw this little boy who was hardly more than 5 years old rummaging around in a load of rubbish that was strewn over some train tracks and the last thing she saw was a train coming towards the little boy. She just hopes he heard the train coming.

We spent the night at Rudy’s family farm, where we became instant local celebrities among the children in the area. While perusing the family’s rice fields a group of children were inching their way towards us in a shy 2 steps forward and 1 step back kind of game. They were really lovely, and begged us to take a picture of them!

The next day we got up very early and jumped on a bus to the beautiful 100 Islands National Park, where we would rent a boat and sail between some of the islands for the day. It was a stunning place. The water was clear blue and the beaches were beautifully white and clean with palm trees. Missing diving already, we rented some snorkeling equipment, and while it is nowhere near the same, we made do with that. We went snorkeling in really deep waters where we patiently allowed a large school of big swordfish pass before we entered an area with some pretty shallow reef with both soft and hard coral. There we were horrified to see the damage people were doing to this reef. People, who obviously had no regard for marine life, were standing on both hard and soft coral destroying many years of life and some even broke branches off the coral before simply tossing it away. This really saddened us, as this area was otherwise perfect for people to experience reef life without having to dive, but it was being destroyed by ignorance and stupidity! Luckily for us, we had just been snorkeling somewhere else before going to this place, and at that island we had the most amazing experience. We were swimming around enjoying being back in the water, but wishing we could descend when suddenly we both discovered a shark right in front of us. We looked at each other and motioned to follow it, but cautiously. It was over a meter in length and had a black tip on its top fin. It was a Black Tip Shark, and it was awesome. We followed it at, what we believed to be, a safe distance for 10 – 15 minutes. Occasionally we popped our heads out of the water to warn other swimmers of the shark, but they laughed and didn’t believe us, so we shrugged our shoulders and continued our pursuit. Its slender body and elegance was mesmerizing, and we just ignored the fact that sharks can be dangerous… After 10-15 minutes, one of the other swimmers, who wasn’t snorkeling and clearly didn’t know about the shark, came a little bit too close to him and she nearly kicked it. This scared the shark who then turned around and, having been frightened, arched his back and swam straight towards us what seemed very fast. In an effort to stop ourselves Joe made a sudden movement with his hands, when the shark seemed to be very close to us, and thankfully this scared the shark once more and he quickly turned around and like a sped into the open sea. With our hearts pounding in our chests we ascended from the water, and we didn’t see the shark again. It was scary, but totally awesome, and something we never thought we’d get to experience.

The rest of the day was spent picnicking on a beach from Paradise, but we could not stop thinking about the shark and how exhilarating it was to swim with it!

In the evening we returned to Manila after a freezing and bumpy 6 hour bus journey. The roads in the Philippines are rough, and it takes a long time to go anywhere. Coming back from Anilao (where we took our diving certifications) took over 3 hours and we only covered 85 km! After a night in Manila we again travelled by bus to this magnificent old Spanish self-contained estate-turned-resort and cultural heritage site called Villa Escudera. We only meant to see the place as day-trippers, but were so taken with the place that we decided to stay the night in one of the luxury huts on a gorgeous river. When we arrived we were taken to lunch in a cart driven by a big buffalo. Lunch was a lovely coconut inspired buffet, which was eaten at tables that were placed in the river and right next to a massive waterfall. This meant that you were sat with your feet in the river, and it didn’t matter if you dropped your food on the floor… After lunch we were treated to a very good cultural show, displaying the history of the Philippines and we even saw a cock-fight live on stage, something of a national sport in that country. We then checked into our room, and enjoyed an evening of shear serenity. It happened to be Valentines weekend as well, and there was no better place to spend it!

Villa Escudera with all its luxury and romance was to become a stark contrast to the next place where we were to spend the night. Rudy wanted to take us to, what he said was a very beautiful mountain. The Philippinos know it as a holy mountain, and many different religious cults live there. Both being keen mountain-hikers we thought this was a great idea. We could see the mountain from our balcony at Villa Escudera, and we were looking forward to it. Another buffalo took us out of the estate and we made our way into town and from there took a Jeepney up the mountain. On the way people started talking to Rudy. This was entirely normal, as we attracted a lot of curiosity wherever we went in the Philippines, so we thought nothing of it and generally just ignored it. Suddenly Rudy turned to us and said that this lady had insisted that we should stay with her and her family that night. She said that she was a mountain guide, and would be very honoured if we would stay with her. Rudy, knowing that many strange cults inhabit this mountain, asked if she was Catholic and she assured us that she was indeed a good Catholic woman, and that she had made a promise to God to take in travelers and guide them up the mountain. We agreed to staying the night, partly because Rudy wasn’t sure if we would find any decent inns, partly because we needed a good guide and partly because it would be rude to turn this kind offer down and of course it might be interesting to experience a Philippino household. If only we had found an inn…

We arrived at her house where lunch was waiting for us. As we arrived there we found out that the real reason for her taking in strangers and guiding them up mountains was that she had been sick and had moved from Manila to this holy mountain where she was healed, somehow, and she had pledged to the ‘Mountain God’ that if she would be healed she would open up her home to travelers and pilgrims! Oh if only we had known this beforehand. The family that met us was truly an odd mix. Their house was a small concrete shed, which had two rooms – 1 bedroom and a living room/kitchen. The roof was made of corrugated iron and the place was a mess. It was full of religious paraphernalia and posters and sparsely furnished with a couple of shabby looking benches with cushions, a garden table and some chairs. One of their daughters lived with them with her 4 year old son and along with them there were two girls, of whom we learned had been street kids in Manila before they were ‘adopted’ by this family and relocated with them to the mountain. Both girls were very skinny and their hair was cut short and they both looked to be in their late teens (we were told that one of them was 31, but there was no way she was more than 18, the other looked much younger, and we were told that her mother had tried to sell her into prostitution… but that she had run away and into this family instead.) It was these two girls who had prepared lunch, and later on dinner and generally took care of all the housework. The girls did not eat with the rest of the family. Instead they were attending everyone’s needs and only once everyone had finished their meal, did they sit down to the left-overs, which they ate with their hands, as they did not seem to be afforded a fork.

After we had had our lunch the lady thought it was time for us to visit the mountain, and truthfully so did we, as we still, perhaps naively, thought we would go mountain hiking and were looking forward to the fresh mountain air and a trek through the semi-jungle.

As we were getting ready to go, the lady and her eerie husband started praying before an altar and then the lady disappeared into their room and emerged dressed in a big long skirt and oversized t-shirt. She then took one look at Anette, who was wearing a summer dress, as it was a hot day, and proceeded to instruct her to put on something that would cover her legs and shoulders. ‘The Mountain’ had to be respected and one could not enter looking like that. Reluctantly and rather confused Anette covered herself a bit, and then thinking we would be on our way, the lady asked Joe if he had remembered to bring soap with us, or if he needed to borrow theirs. Utterly bewildered, Joe replied that no, we had not brought soap, and why would we need to? Now it was their turn to look confused. They looked at Joe as though he had suddenly grown an extra head, with an expression that asked ‘we’re going to the mountain – why wouldn’t we need soap?!’.They politely responded ‘because you must go through the waterfall’ and we both started to suspect that this may not be a simple hike after all. We didn’t bring soap however, only pretended to, and we were not allowed to bring bikinis or trunks either, oh no, the waterfall had to be entered wearing all our clothes in order to be cleansed and thus ready to enter this holy cave that we were apparently going to…

Rather confused we started walking after them. It dawned on us that this lady wasn’t a mountain guide in the sense we had originally believed, but rather she liked to think of herself as a spiritual guide leading people to the inner sanctuary of the Mountain. We started a steep descent down 260 steps until we reached a river. On the way we made several stops where the lady knelt, lit candles and prayed at various rocks, and every time we felt more and more uncomfortable. Not wanting to cause offence or disrespect anybody’s religious views however, we proceeded and generally remained in the background. Once we got to the river, the lady and her husband started an elaborate cleansing ritual – with their clothes on – and were fully expecting us to take part. This, however, we did not want to do, as we did not understand nor believe in its significance. In our opinion one thing is to respect other religions at a distance, another is to take part with no understanding or belief or regard for its potential ramifications. They did not seem to understand this, and kept insisting that we would both be healed by the holy water, which was said to be magnetically charged and especially good for healing skin-diseases, which they believed Joe was suffering from, when in reality he just had a mild sunburn from the snorkeling a couple of day before. A long stand off took place, which resulted in them refusing to take us to this holy cave, as we were not ‘spiritually clean’. We were at a point where, frankly this did not matter to us, and we really just wanted to bolt and get out of there. They finally gave up, and took us back to their house. One of the girls took us on a walk to some other caves later in the afternoon, and when we got back we had dinner and soon after we went to sleep on their floor in the main room. Anette was rather uneasy about sleeping there as lizards were crawling all over the walls and who knew what would be crawling on the floor during the night, as the door wasn’t sealed and the walls and the roof did not connect. We were given a mattress and a sheet, and the girls, who were also sleeping on the floor, pulled out a cardboard box and a sheet. We had noticed that the girls never sat on the furniture in the living area, but rather always sat on the floor, but it still surprised us to see them sleeping on a cardboard box.

Unsurprisingly we did not sleep well. The light was on all night, this was to prevent ghosts from entering the house, and it was cold as we were on a mountain! The next morning the two of us and Rudy went down to the river by ourselves to have a shower in the waterfall – in a strictly non-religious context – and we both covered our bikinis under a large t-shirt and shorts. There was no running water in the house, and showering in a waterfall was somewhat refreshing and cool! Soon after we thanked our hosts, snuck some money into the hands of one of the girls and got out of there. It was an experience we think we won’t forget any time soon.

We made it back to Manila, where we did some shopping and then got on an early flight back to Shanghai, where we were to meet up with Joe’s family who had all gathered in a big flat. It was quite a shock returning to 2 degrees, but it was lovely to see our family and we took them to Suzhou and showed them around in our little world. All too soon – after 33 days of holidaying – it was finally time to return to work and teaching. We returned to what some might describe as chaos, as we discovered we are severely understaffed in the English department, and now 4 days into the semester this has still not been sorted, so we have been welcomed back with a big workload and then some. The next 14 weeks are definitely going to be challenging, but we hope this semester will turn out to be as enjoyable as the last one, we have certainly enjoyed seeing some of our old students again – and discovered that we’ve really started to care about them!

Oh, and just before we leave you for now, allow us to tell you a short story about little boys in China. Toddlers and babies in China rarely wear nappies. Now this may seem strange to you, and it is, and you might look a couple of times when you see kids running around with slits (or small ‘trapdoors’) in their trousers. These slits are designed so that they can squat, whenever the need arrives, and do what comes naturally to us all. A couple of times we have seen pooh on the ground and on floors in supermarkets – disgusting, but as long as you don’t step in it, you are ok and can forget about it. Now, today we decided to have lunch at the local KFC. Anette is getting a bit sick of the local cuisine, and at such times even American fast food seems to be a better alternative. Finishing our meal and getting ready to leave, Anette, out of the corner of her eye, sees a father, at the next table opening the front of his 1 year old son’s trousers. While diverting her attention, Anette makes a passing comment about this to Joe, who then tells her that the boy is now peeing into a KFC cup over the table, where all their food is still at – uneaten. We then quickly depart and will probably never go there again. This is China – things are a bit different here.

I tought I taw a turtle!

This entry comes to you from the beautiful AquaVenture Reef Club (ARC) resort in Mabini, Batangas. The sun has sunk into the sea, and lizards are coo-cooing in competition with the crickets in the bushes.

We have been very busy diving over the last 5 days straight. After our first day of diving we were just so excited to return the next day to continue with our Confined Water Dive 3 and our very first Open Water dive, and we were not disappointed. Usually the confined dives are done in a swimming pool, but we have been so incredibly lucky with our dive-resort that they do all the diving in the sea. – it does make it more hardcore, but we got used to the sea and the salt water very quickly that way! Also, it means that we did all our exercises with the fish, which just added to the fun! On the Confined Water Dive 3 we did a number of exercises. For example we had to learn to tow a tired diver, remove our masks under water, fin-pivoting and breathing air from each other’s tanks (simulating an “out-of-air situation”) and finally surfacing safely on one last breath (to name but a few – it’s a really extensive course). And then we could swim around and practice our buoyancy control – and before we knew it we were down to 10 meters and playing with a little family of anemone fish – something that definitely doesn’t happen when learning in a pool! The fish came right up to our masks and played in our hands.

- It was so much fun! (and these were the ones we played with) After lunch we did our first Open Water dive to 12 meters in the Basura area right outside the dive-centre. We saw lots of colourful fish and squids that changed colour when we approached them. A couple of times we both felt like this was really unnatural, and Anette liked to hold on to her regulator – just in case – but the interesting new sights quickly made us forget about the fact that there was 12 meters of water above us.

The next day we continued with the confined dives 4 and 5 and in the afternoon we did our 2nd Open Water dive. These confined dives were particularly challenging for Anette, who had to overcome her fear of water in her nose, as we had to do a 15 meter no-mask-swim underwater. She managed it after the 2nd try, and she felt really relieved that she didn’t have to do it again! We then had to learn to navigate under water using a compass and demonstrate that we could remove our entire scuba gear under water and replace it correctly. During the lunch break we finished our last quizzes, and were then ready to take the big exam. Under the midday sun on a decked terrace we were sweating over the 50 questions. The questions were a mix of theory, practical, physics and maths – calculating bottom-times and no-decompression limits. It was quite hard, but we were both taught really well and so we passed! In the afternoon we celebrated the pass with our Open Water Dive 2.

Yesterday it was finally time for Open Water Dives 3 and 4. And this time we were going out on a boat! This meant that we had to learn new skills, such as the back-roll entry and removing and replacing the gear at the surface, actually harder than doing it underwater, as you have little balance. We went to a reef in front of a resort called Dive ‘n’ Trek where the first dive of the day was at a big wall (where you just can’t see the bottom, it’s that deep) and the second dive was in a coral ‘garden’. On our first dive we had to demonstrate competency in removing our masks at depth (another milestone for Anette) as well as compass navigation. Then it was time to have some fun. Albert, our instructor, handed us some bread and we started to feed the fish. Before we knew it fish of all shapes, sizes and colours were swarming around us nibbling at our hands and snapping up the bread right in front of our masks.

Joe teased the fish a little more than Anette, but got his come-uppance - several bites on his hands, which are now his “fish-feeding battle-scars”. Afterwards we swam out to the wall. The feeling in your stomach when swimming over the edge and down the wall to 18 meters is exhilarating. A wall is usually on a cliff, so the bottom is very far away. It kind of felt like we were flying over the edge! The corals and the life on the wall were immense. It was mainly hard corals, and it was everywhere. After about 43 minutes we returned to the boat for a break before the final dive.

During the break we went snorkeling around the boat and continued to feed the fish. We (and the fish!) just couldn’t get enough! Then on our final dive we went to a ‘garden’ where we were so lucky to see a large sea turtle! When we resurfaced Albert congratulated us, because we had passed the course and we were now certified divers! We both felt a real sense of achievement. We had conquered many fears during the course, and we found that we are so comfortable in the water – we never thought that would be the case! After we finished and got back to the dive-centre, we decided that we still hadn’t had enough of diving, so we booked a day of fun-dives for today.

We got up really early and went with Albert and Kiko (another instructor) to this really beautiful resort. We have stayed here all day getting pampered and looked after, true Philippino style! We feel we have deserved it though! The really cool thing about diving in the Philippines is that when hiring a boat, the boat crew carry and assemble everything for you – we have been told this is not the case in virtually all other dive locations. You can just relax and enjoy everything! It’s awesome. We went on one of these Philippino outriggers (the really slim boats with the two bamboo-stabilizers on either side) to two really cool dive-sites, Twin Rocks and Arthur’s Rock. The current was stronger there than we had experienced during our training, but we weren’t fazed. We did our back-roll entries, which Anette was less scared of this time, and down we went to 19 meters and some nice clear water and a magnificent underwater world! During our two dives today we were playing with nudibrachs (slugs – but really, really cool slugs!), we found Nemo and other anemone fish (Nemo’s dad bit Anette!) and had large schools of barracudas and snappers swimming around us. It was amazing to see how these fish seem to move in waves like a single entity. At some point during our second dive Anette lost her buddy Joe, and Albert and Anette went of a bit of a search for him. Suddenly we saw him finning away with a face full of focus and urgency. We then saw why he was finning. He had found a large Green Sea turtle, and he was trying to keep up with it. Albert and Anette followed Joe and the turtle for a while and it was awesome! While Anette swam behind the turtle, Joe and Albert flanked it on either side, and Albert snapped a great couple of shots of the turtle with Joe on the other side. Turtles are usually not happy with divers, but this one didn’t mind at all, and was just swimming in his own little world. You’re considered quite lucky if you see a turtle – and we have now seen two (different kinds as well) – so we feel very lucky indeed!

When we got back to the resort, we had a big lunch with the guys and while Joe was resting, Anette treated herself to a full body massage in these beautiful and serene surroundings. Tonight we will have dinner with Albert and Kiko and celebrate a fantastic few days of diving and reaching new heights (or depths…)

Tomorrow we will leave Mabini after having been here for 8 nights. We will return to Manila to meet up with a friend there, and then we will head for a national park where we will do some island hopping and undoubtedly find some wonderful beaches. But we can't wait until our next diving adventure :-)