An Englishman In China

I woke up this morning to find that it had snowed during the night.  There was a ‘blanket’ (or ‘carpet’!) of snow everywhere.  The snow won’t last long (won’t remain .. it will soon go away) as spring is now dawning.  The snow was unexpected, too.

It was quite cold first thing (early) this morning.  Freezing cold actually.  Very cold.  Maybe you’ve heard the expression ‘cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey’?  Or ‘brass monkey weather’.. or even .. somebody might say ‘it’s brass monkeys’ … meaning that it’s very cold outside.

Now, in everyday English ‘balls’ (or ‘bollocks’) is used to describe a male’s testicles – his private parts.  Balls and bollocks aren’t rude words as such.  If you said  to someone ‘you’re talking ‘a load of balls/bollocks’’ .. all you mean is they are talking nonsense.

It’s a common misconception (misunderstanding) – if somebody says it’s cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey, they don’t actually mean it is cold enough to freeze the testicles off a monkey made from brass  ..

 A pile/heap of canon balls.  They used to put them on a brass tray called a 'monkey'

A brass monkey was a tray used to stack/pile/keep cannonballs on. A tray is something that you carry things on .. for example .. you can carry cups or food on a  tray.  A couple of hundred years ago they used to stack (pile-up/keep) cannonballs on brass trays which were called ‘brass monkey’s.

Brass contracts (becomes smaller/shrinks) more than iron does.  In cold weather the brass monkey – the tray – would contract-become smaller – and the iron cannonballs rolled off (fell off) .. Hence the expression ‘cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey’.

It was brass monkey weather first thing this morning.  Damn cold ..  Of course as the sun rose the snow and ice began to thaw (warm up) and turn to slush.  Slush is wet-melting snow and ice.  I could also say the ground was defrosting. You defrost –or thaw- frozen food before cooking it.  The ground thaws or defrosts, just like frozen food that becomes warmer.

 The defrosting/thawing snow and ice - turning to 'slush'

By mid morning the roads were ‘slushy’.  That’s when I went to the coast with my dog.  There’s not many people on the beach at this time of year-particularly where I live in the north east of England.  It’s the North Sea .. cold .. and cold winds blow.  There were a couple of people walking dogs along the coast and one guy fishing.  Nobody else.

A 'heavy swell' on the sea - waves breaking on the rocks and shoreline. The angler is patiently waiting .. and hoping .. to catch fish

There must have been a storm at sea last night.  Today the sea was ‘rough and angry’ and although the waves weren’t big, they still broke onto the rocks in a flurry of spray.  Big waves are called ‘breakers’ … just where the sea ‘breaks’ on the rocks and seashore.

The seashore was littered with flotsam and jetsam.  Littered . that just means pieces of things lying everywhere, ‘cast’ (thrown up) by the sea.  Flotsam is things like seaweed, pieces of wood, dead fish, shells ..  Jetsam, comes from the French word jette, which means to throw.  Jetsam are things that have purposely been cast (thrown) away – things like plastic bottles, old car tyres … thrown away by people.  Of course the sea casts up both flotsam and jetsam.  All that debris (sounds like ‘day-bree’ -trash/rubbish gets left behind when the tide goes out (the sea recedes).

The area is called Snab Point, Cresswell and Druridge bay (just names).  I think years ago I put other photos onto wikepidia.com

200,000,000 (two hundred million) years ago this part of England was much further south.  About 1500 km further south, below southern Spain. Tectonics (movement of the Earth’s ‘plates’) and time has brought it to where it is now.

Not too easy to see in the photo. Remnants of ancient trees, now fossilised.  There's tonnes of them here

Back then, the trees were 100 metres tall and it was a swampy/marshy area with broad (wide) rivers.  Now .. the area is littered (covered/has many) with the remnants of that ancient forest.  Everywhere in the rocks you can see pieces of fossilized tree.  Fossilized just means they have now become stone.  Like extinct ancient animals – the bones fossilise. They are fossils.  Beneath the sea and land there is a lot of coal, which of course used to be trees 200 million years ago.

 The dinosaurs 'died out' (became extinct) 65 million years ago.

Poo is a polite word for 'shit' or 'crap' (though you could also say 'shite' as well..). The correct word - dictionary word - is faeces (sounds like 'fee-sees')

If somebody is 'in the poo' - 'in the crap' .. in the shit/shite .. it just means they are in some sort of trouble.  Similarly, if you described a meal as being crap/shit/shite/poo .. you just mean that the meal wasn't very good.

Welcome back to England.  My neighbours dog keeps crapping on the grass just outside my home.  There's dog shit everywhere and it's difficult getting out of the car without standing in a turd (a turd is a piece of crap..).  Dog turds everywhere.  I could say I'm pissed off with it .. fed up with it .. and so are some of my other elderly neighbours.

The dog is a border collie called Dell.  Border refers to the English- Scottish border. A 'collie' is  a hairy black and white dog that is actually a very intelligent sheepdog.  No .. not the dog's fault... The owners never take it for a walk.  In the morning and evening they let it out of the house .. and it goes onto the grass for a crap..

 dog crapped flicked onto car

..and everybody gets pissed off with accidentally stepping (standing) in dog shit.. And yes, the dog owners are stupid.  Thick as two short planks (very stupid ..).   And no, they never clean the dog shit off the grass.

A couple of days ago when I was trying to jump-start my old Volvo I stood in dog shit twice.  Fed up?  You bet!  So I got a trowel (a trowel is a small spade that a gardener will use)  and I 'flicked' every bit of dog crap that I could see towards my neighbours back yard.  Some crap went through the door and some 'splattered' over their car. 

I've got two old cars you see... old Volvo estates.  They're both about 20 years old.  The blue one was 'just left standing' from August to February while I was in China.  Of course the battery went 'flat' - that just means no power in it.

When I returned to England the blue car wouldn't start.  The battery was so discharged ('flat') that it wouldn't spin (turn) the engine.  So, I used the other car and a set (pair of) 'jump leads' - the cables you connect to one battery in a car... and the other end to the flat battery.  You 'jump start' the car with the flat battery.  That's what I was doing when I kept standing in dog crap... and got pissed off with it... 

Using booster cables ('jump leads') to 'jump start' a car with a 'flat' battery

Yes, the winter holiday and time to go back to England for a couple of weeks.

 A taxi to Qufu bus station, and then a  bus to Yanzhou railway station 14 kilometres away.  Followed by the high speed D train from Yanzhou to Shanghai: a six hour rail journey.  The high-speed train is more expensive but very comfortable. And at least I was able to get a seat.

The bus station at Qufu       Outside of Yanzhou railway station

 At this time of year in China rail tickets aren’t easy to come by (get) as everyone is travelling back to their home cities for the winter festival and Chinese new year.  The whole population seems to be on the move.  Six hours on an expensive train – with a seat – is far better (much better) than twelve hours on a cheaper, slower train that’s absolutely packed (full) .. and where you may not have a seat.  At 9.15pm, eight hours after setting off from Qufu I was standing in Shanghai railway station.

 Shanghai is a hell of a big city. It’s sprawling and immense.  It could swallow the likes of London and Paris quite easily (that just means it is much bigger..).  Shanghai railway station can only be described as immense (very big).  It’s also incredibly busy twenty four hours a day.  It’s always ‘teeming’ with people (busy) twenty four hours a day. The UK has nothing like it.

 So, 9.15pm on a Wednesday night at Shanghai railway station and your flight isn’t until 11pm the next night from Pu Dong international airport .. so what do you do?  The airport bus that runs from the railway station and takes 75 minutes to get there isn’t available at that time of night.  The bus costs about 18 Yuan.

 Get a more expensive hotel near the railway station – about 280 Yuan a night -  or ‘lug’ (carry) a heavy suitcase to a smaller, cheaper hotel somewhere, and then get the airport bus the next morning?  Or just get a  taxi up towards the airport and stay in the airport hotel for the night?

 The airport is long way from the railway station.  A long way indeed .. more than 200 Yuan by taxi (ten times the cost of the bus..).  Of course, there is time to get the Shanghai Metro (underground railway) to make part of the journey at least.  That’s what I did.  The No1 line to People’s Square and then change to the No2 line to Long Yang Road.

 There’s the ‘MagLev’ train that runs from Long Yang road to the airport.  It costs 50 Yuan to travel on it and takes just eight minutes to reach the airport.  Unfortunately the last maglev is at 9.40pm and I got to long Yang road at 10pm.

 MagLev stands for (means) MAGnetic LEVitation.  The train has no wheels – it ‘floats’ on magnets and is very high speed.  It’s a fabulous piece of engineering actually, if you’re interested in that sort of thing. Real world-class.

 We’re all human.  We look at costs and try to work things out to save money.  But, we’re all human.  I had intended to find a hotel in the Long Yang road area and then make my way to the airport the next day …but.. if you’ve ever spent hours travelling, lugging (carrying) a heavy suitcase with you .. well,  I guess you know how tired you become a few hours down the line (a few hours later).

 By 10pm I was dead-beat (tired .. I could say ‘dog tired’ too) when I bumped into (met) an English speaking taxi driver.  I just told him to ‘get me to a hotel near the airport’.  I no longer cared about how much the taxi would cost. I just wanted to find a room, have a wash, and collapse into a bed..

 ‘Fair play’ (good for him..) he said he knew a cheap hotel near the airport.  I’ve forgotten his name but I have it written in my notebook along with his telephone number.  He was a football fanatic.  I’ll bring him a Newcastle United football top when I return to Shanghai in a couple of weeks.

 It was a cheap hotel.  About five minutes from the airport.  ‘Seedy’ would be a good word to use.  That just means ‘scruffy’ .. a bit dirty and ‘run-down’ (not too good).  Not the best of hotels … but it was cheap.

  sitting in a 'seedy' hotel

It must have been 11.30pm by the time I booked  in and got into my room.  Unbelievably, the girl on the reception desk, the security guard and somebody else argued loudly until 2a.m.  Ignorant people. They kept everybody awake.  I went out of my room at 2 a.m and asked them to shut up.  They did.  But at 6am they started arguing again.  The hotel is called Shanghai Xiangyuan Hotel.   If you ever visit Shanghai .. don’t bother staying there ..

 Next  morning  I dropped my suitcase off at the airport – leaving it at a baggage storage office, where you pay for them to look after it.  I had quite a few hours to spare before the 11pm flight and I didn’t want to haul (carry) the suitcase around Shanghai with me.

 I met up with ‘Babe’ a Chinese girl who is a member of an online English-speaking club.  I’d never actually met Babe before, though I had spoken with her many times online.  Babe works long hours and travels one and a half hours by bus every evening to get home.  Shanghai is a big city …

 I travelled to meet Babe using the ‘Maglev’ train.  The Great Wall of China and the Terracotta Warriors in Xi’an are iconic (represent China – famous) but .. a Maglev train is a modern icon.   At least I think so.  Just like the Great Wall and the terracotta warriors, it represents a human achievement.  A fabulous piece of engineering indeed.

Maglev train.  It travels at 300KM per hour

 Within a few hours we had visited a restaurant for lunch – spicy bullfrog – and then moved on to the Jingan temple.  It isn’t a temple as such now.  Maybe it was a temple a long time ago.  Now it is a tourist area with tourist type shops.  Well known in Shanghai.

 Then we moved on (went to) to the Oriental Pearl Tower .. a huge tower which I believe is the 3^rd largest tower in the world. It costs 100 yuan to take the elevator to the top, some 300 meters  above ground level. In British English an elevator is called a ‘lift’.  There’s actually a balcony with a  glass floor.  Walk on the glass floor and the ground can be seen a long way beneath your feet …. It’s a weird (strange) and ‘unnerving’ experience.  Part of your mind tells you that the glass might break and you’ll fall 300 metres to the ground (I think that would hurt ..)  and part of your mind tells you that the glass is safe to walk on .. but you’re ‘wary’ (nervous ..hesitant…) to walk on it.   Even if you see 8 year old Chinese girls dancing on the glass floor … yes, they were ‘showing off’.

The oriental pearl tower, Shanghai

 From the top of the tower there is a ‘panoramic’  view of the city.  Panorama just means ‘wide’ or ‘big’ view of landscape.  Just like if you went to the top of a mountain – you would see the ‘panorama’  - the countryside on all sides.

 Yes, you can see the city in all its glory.  It stretches as far as they eye can see in all directions.  Beneath you is the ‘bund’.  The Bund is famous in Shanghai.  Bund actually means a retaining wall – a wall that keeps something from spilling out or keeps something in.  For example … if you had a container with 10,000 litres of oil you might build a wall around it .. so if the oil leaked out (spilled) .. the wall would prevent the oil from ‘going everywhere’.  You would call that wall a ‘bund’.

 Most English speaking nations wouldn’t know what ‘bund’ meant.  The word  has almost disappeared from the English language now.  It isn’t used in everyday English.   That’s how English is… a ‘dynamic’ (changing/moving) language that absorbs (takes in .. accepts) words from other languages; constantly changing.

 But … the Bund in Shanghai …  it was a  wall that prevented the sea – the tidal Huangpu river – from ‘encroaching’ (going onto) the city.  The Bund was nothing more than a wall ..

                                   Shanghai River area - view from tower 

 Built 200 years ago by the British and other foreign ‘powers’ who invaded China.  Look at the buildings on the Bund and you will see European style buildings: tall columns .. ‘stately’ buildings made by empires at the height of  their powers.  Then, they were embassies and official buildings.  Now, they are banks and .. I believe.. airline flight offices.  History makes the present day.  It is what we came from; what we were.

                          Top of tower                The glass floor

 Shanghai .. yes .. everybody has heard of that city .. but did you know ‘Shanghai’d’ is in the English language?  That’s Shangai’D not Shanghai.  Shanghai’d means kidnapped or forced to do something against your will .. something you wouldn’t normally do ..

 A couple of hundred years ago in the time of wooden sailing ships ‘press gangs’ would go ashore in Shanghai to find crew members to serve on the ships.  The press gangs ( a few men) would go to the bars along the Shanghai waterfront and buy drinks for locals .. who got drunk and fell asleep .. and when they woke up, they were on a  ship and had to work there, whether they wanted to or not…  Or they were simply kidnapped by the ‘press gangs’.

Shanghai riverside area

 They had been ‘Shanghai’d’ ..  forced to work on a ship against their will.  Today, the expression ‘Shanghai’d is still used in a similar context.  Linwei didn’t want to visit the temple on the mountain … but he was ‘Shanghai’d by his friends …. Persuaded to go there even though he didn’t want to go …

 And the hours passed very quickly.  Time to get the metro (underground railway) back to Long Yang Road and then the maglev to the airport.  That’s Pu Dong international airport.  Shanghai has two airports. Pu Dong is big and ‘space age’ .. new and modern.  Big … it’s easy to get lost … and a bowl of noodles with beef will cost you 80 yuan.  Expensive.  Like all international airports are.

 So, book in and wait … go through security and passport checks and wait ..

 Then it’s time to board the flight to Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates.  It’s the longest way back to England, but the cheapest.  A ten hour flight to Dubai, followed by a 2 hour wait at Dubai and then an 8 hour flight to England.

 If you have never travelled on an international flight you haven’t missed much .. it’s boring!  It really is.   Fly at night and you can’t see anything out of the small aircraft windows .. and everybody is trying to sleep anyway.  Your legs become stiff and cramped with sitting in a seat with not much legroom.  Some people can sleep in an aircraft … I’m not one of them.

 Ten hours to Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates.  Ten cramped, boring hours in a darkened aircraft.  Followed by a couple of hours in Dubai airport, which is ‘bustling’ (busy) and modern.  Shanghai airport is modern and ‘fairly relaxed’ but Dubai has a different ‘atmosphere’.  In contrast, I hate Beijing airport.  Modern and impressive yes .. but Beijing airport has a ‘cold and impersonal’ atmosphere.  No disrespect to China or the Chinese, but Beijing airport is full of grim-faced, cold and impersonal police and security officials.  Beijing airport isn’t a pleasant experience.  Shanghai airport is better.

Shanghai airport                  Dubai airport

 You could describe Dubai airport as a ‘melting pot’ of nationalities.  It is here that you will see the white Europeans, the black Africans, the swarthy Arabs and Asians.  All waiting to get a  connecting flight to wherever ..

 Dubai is a wealthy place.  That much is obvious from the buildings they have.  Dubai also has a lot of ex-pats (means ex-patriots .. people from other countries who now live and work in Dubai.  Just like Shanghai has a large ex-pat community).

 It was daylight when my flight to England took off from Dubai.  I also had a window seat in the aircraft and had a good view of the ground as the plane took off.  Sand and desert everywhere…  It would be too easy to say ‘I’m glad I don’t live here’ when you look down at the houses surrounded by sand and desert.  But the truth is, humans create a living environment wherever they need to do so.  The human race is very adaptable and Dubai is one shining (good) example that reflects (shows the abilities and skill)  what humans can do.

 Usually when flying ‘long haul’ (long distance) you travel at night.  Don’t ask me why, but that’s just my experience.  Of course at night the aircraft have the window-blinds pulled down and the passengers are either asleep or watching in-flight movies. If you fly during the day the odds are (the likelihood .. the probability/chances) are that you won’t see anything beneath you except the continual expanse of white clouds.  You don’t know if you are above land or sea.  The only way of knowing where you are is the aircraft position that is marked on a small computer screen in the back of the seat in front of you.  The same computer screen you can use to watch movies or listen to music through headphones.

 Sleeping on the aircraft

 When flying over a desert it is different.  There’s no water vapour to create clouds that obscure (hide) the ground beneath the aircraft.

 It was the first time I had seen the deserts of Iran/Iraq.  It also made me realise just how vast (big) they were.  Bleak, empty …. And from the height of an international aircraft you can see the occasional settlement (town) huddled in the protection of a valley.  It also makes you realise just how scarce – and precious – water is in many parts of the world.

Flying abvove the Iran-Iraq desert.  Even mountains look small

 And in another week I'll be making the return journey to China