First Post

I write this on my second night at the Zhengzhou Number 1 Middle School. My journey here was long but uneventful, this despite Mum's fears of the potential of an air disaster over Siberia, with little sleep and many frustratingly tiny plastic cups of semi-flat russian mineral water. Moscow airport was unashamedly Soviet and I only wish I had had a companion with me to play spot the Lada.

I was met by William Wang, my contact with the SSA Trust, in Beijing and then by Ms Shi, my contact at the school, in Zhengzhou. After being shown my impressively large but amazingly cold appartment I went to dinner at the 'Village Restaurant', a novelty old style Chinese restaurant built, somewhat incongruously, under a motorway bridge. The meal consisted of a variety of brightly coloured, similar tasting dishes that we all shared (we being Ms Shi, the head of English [who's name I forget], Mr Li the driver, another teacher and a recently student who had recently graduated from the school). I wish I had followed the advice of my Aunt Hermione and avoided the rice wine, however this did lead to the introduction of a drinking game similar to Rock, Paper, Scissors but instead Stick, Tiger, Chicken, Worm. Stick beats Tiger, Tiger eats Chicken, Chicken eats Worm and Worm eats Stick.

A combination of fretting (I feel for you Mum) and jet-lag led to a sleepless night.

Today I visited the City with Mr Yang (English name Felix, which reminds me that at some point I will get to choose a Chinese name, I was thinking perhaps 'ying jewn' [handsome] or 'yoong gun' [brave] would be suitable) which is sprawling and mental, the traffic appear to follow no rules and use their horns to represent any kind of message ranging from 'I am about to overtake you ' to 'I don't care if it is the pavement, my bus is big and made of metal'. In the supermarket I bought some fetching brown slippers which are wonderful when walking on the cold stone floor of the apartment. I was then given a grimy upright washing machine for my apartment by the very nice 'Caretaker' type bloke, who made his daughter ride thirty minutes to the school to translate 'be careful the edge is sharp' for him (I really must learn some useful Mandarin). Tomorrow I am meeting the head to discuss my schedule and contract. Bring on the fretting!