Our tenner bikes are just about dead. The metal guard on Fi’s catches on the pedal as it has been bent back and makes a really loud clicking, every time the pedal goes round. Both her tyres are flat. My stand just trails on the ground everywhere I go and makes a tuneful tinkling noise, ‘though I’ve cellotaped it to the side of my bike. Both my tyres are also flat! They still do the job ‘though ….. just.

Shanghai At Night

Hayden has come up with an interesting method of disciplining the kids. If they dont behave he threatens to kiss them! They all know it is just a joke but do respond positively. Fi, curious as to what effect this would have on the primary kids, also threatened them with a smooch, only to be told by one little boy … “come on baby"!! Coming from an 8 year old with not very good English. It’s so funny when they come out with random phrases ….. too much TV!!

Had a very crazy lesson this Thursday past. Last period I have grade 3, class 2. They are not a good class and I have 10 of them. Anyway, I turned my back for one minute and two boys were on top of one another, one tickling him or hurting him (couldn’t be sure) and I caught them and gave them a row. Then the boy being tickled, Michael, went berserk and started chasing the boy doing the tickling, Jimmy( or Jeemee as he puts it, he looks like a little thug), and was throwing chairs at him. I grabbed Michael and put my arms round him to stop him throwing stuff but he started to pull my fingers back and then grabbed my shirt. All my buttons came undone. I’ve no idea how, but I was standing in front of this naughty class with my bra on show and my shirt wide open! They all though it was hilarious, I did the buttons up, then Michael just went back to being berserk, and Jimmy continued fleeing from him. That class is going to be the end of me!

I’ve picked up, mostly, just useful phrases , what Fi and I call Taxi Chinese, and that does us fine. We haven’t watched any TV for the last two months as we have no ariel, we just watch our 40p DVD’s. Westerners are viewed in mixed ways, I dont really want to go into it too much for fear of treading on toes, but the feeling I have picked up is that they think we have a lot of money (in many cases, compared to most Chinese, we do) but, in Shanghai, foreigners and Chinese live very similarly as it is very cosmopolitan.

Im very sorry, Mad Uncle Paul, but our internet connection has been very dodgy of late and there’s not an awful lot to report on. Aileen, Fi and I went to the fabric market the other day. It was really good. So many beautiful silks, cotton and other stuff, really cheap, like 2 pounds a square metre. Fi and I got measured at one stall and we are getting a few shirts and T-shirts made for about 4.50 a go. And we can pick the style and material. You can get all sorts of stuff made, really cheaply. No idea how the clothes will hold together, just have to wait and see.

Education here…. the Chinese are very hard working. They start school at 7.00am and will finish around 5ish, but then usually study until late evening. But at this school the general feeling from the foreign teachers is that the kids are very lazy, not well behaved and not willing to do any work. The emphasis is definitely on academic skills i.e Maths, Physics, English etc. and almost little or no life skills and I’m not sure about sports or music, although at this school I think all the children get private lessons in one instrument or another and they have a huge arts centre. I dont think it’s a good idea to have young inexperienced teachers like Fi and I working as we are. We are not really allowed to discipline them in any way, and this can make it quite difficult. They tell us we are like big sisters to them, but you just can’t do that and be expected to teach them English. I think it’s one or the other.