My old passport has expired. It’s so sad. The Post Office staff cut the corners off it and all!

Never mind. With an electronic chip and a photo of me that looks like a hardened criminal, the all new passport arrived yesterday. I wonder what stamps I can collect this time… Where do you see yourself during the next 10 years?

Leaving Anhui after a week holiday, all full of love, was simply the greatest.

6 weeks later, leaving my wife at Jinan airport, I bawled my eyes out. My handkerchief soaked with tears and sniffles jerking my whole body. Nothing the airline staff could do, would comfort me in the least. I was grateful that my colleague and mate Ivan was there to drag my sulking corpse onto each of the flights.

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Amy is born in the year of the monkey. It was most auspicious to have recently discovered that my birth date falls in the year of the tiger where

• Their energy and love of life are stimulating.
• Tigers are romantic, passionate, and playful.
• They love life and want to live it to the fullest.

If you prefer the alternative low down on your Chinese zodiac, check out Snarling Tiger, Dirty Rat: A Short and Nasty Guide to Embracing Your Inner Beast (by Stella Hyde). The Mating Mistakes combination of a tiger and a monkey are :

Monkeys know how to ride you, and you love having your fur groomed. But then they tease you, and you lose your temper and roar and look foolish.

Amy’s visa came through so quick, it definitely smashed all the Olympic records. A much needed 40kg baggage allowance ticket was found and finally we are counting down the hours. I have arranged Monday off work and my dad has come to help with airport transfer bright and early on Monday morning!

Naturally I’ll be occupied, taking care of MY wife. To keep the rest of you entertained on Monday, don’t miss this once in a lifetime opportunity :

27^th August; the day the whole world is waiting for.
Planet Mars will be the brightest in the night sky, starting August. It will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye. This will cultivate on 27^th August when Mars comes within 34.65 million miles of Earth. Be sure to watch the sky on 27^th August at 10:30pm. It will look like Earth has 2 moons. The next time Mars may come this close is in 2287.

石首君 (shi shou jun) is my Chinese name – “Wow!”

After finishing the third week of our teaching English program in Jianzhu University, a little get together was organised by fellow teacher Chris Murphy. Thus far we hadn’t had much opportunity to meet our local counterparts. Amongst the throng of conversations between Australians, Germans, Americans, Chinese, I was entertaining with tales of encounters during my holiday in China 1 year ago. I was lucky to have met one amazing teacher named Amy. Her attentive listening and understanding certainly sparked my curiosity…

Two days later, Chris and Amy were going to visit a local tailor. To quench my curiosity, I decided to tag along. With patience, Amy was happy to teach me some important phrases in the Chinese language. Then our first date was on Thursday night, the 5th of April. A memorable evening spent in her cousin’s restaurant, we enjoyed the top 3 dishes chosen from the menu of the 10 most popular dishes! I was quickly starting to realise just how alluring and delightful a person Amy is. She walked me home afterward, our conversation filling the night air along the streets of her hometown.

Unfortunately Amy could not join us for the Easter weekend trip to Qingdao. Her work occupied her, so it wasn’t until the following Friday that we met again. A kind student named Jesse gave me his seat on the bus, making it my Good Friday. Saturday stirred so much romantic feeling between us as we strolled along the riverside walkways and bridges of the spring city. Our friendship more than flourished that weekend.

The following Friday was also a good one. I had to ask Valentin to directly invite Amy to his birthday party as she is a little shy to arrive at a party as a friend of another guest. This tactic worked wonderfully and I was so happy that we’d met again. In the ensuing week we started to get excited about the forthcoming May holiday and made plans to take a trip together.

A barbecue, beers and karaoke night with several friends singing together was a joyful evening after work on the Thursday.

Our holiday together was truly the making of us as a couple. Each day of the holiday brought us closer together. From sharing accommodation and fantastic meals together everyday, brilliant deep conversation, tests of trust, superb experiences in the World Heritage villages, hiking around the forests, mountains and valleys, abundant intimate moments, our faith in each other as the right combination grew and grew. We returned from our holiday, as boyfriend and girlfriend.

Thereafter, our relationship blossomed and we began to live together in Jinan.

On Sunday I took my boyfriend Vernon to the hospital, because he had some skin problems. We arranged to meet with Wang Yina, one of our friends, also a doctor in Jinan. My daddy went to see Wang Yina at the same time, and by luck that was the first time for daddy and my boyfriend to meet each other. Actually, at the very beginning, Vernon and I were a little worried about whether my daddy will love him or not, but when they saw each other, they met just like old friends, and love each other with beautiful smiles. One week later, we had a great lunch with daddy and his best friend, uncle Liu. Daddy chose a traditional Chinese restaurant for Vernon and he loved it. Although daddy and uncle’s English is really poor, with gesture, body language, a little Chinese spoken by Vernon and some translation by myself, we all communicated perfectly. Every one of us enjoyed the lunch and we received the blessing from daddy: “You are lucky to find each other. Best wishes to you two.”

It was on May 26th that I proposed to Amy. I could not get the flowers I really wanted to give her, but I knelt on one knee and declared my love to her. Yes! She said she would marry me and I became the happiest man on Earth.

Family, friends, colleagues, and even our students haven’t stopped congratulating us since. The registry of our marriage on the 5th of June was a steaming hot day in Jinan. It required ice-creams both before and after the registration was complete! We celebrated that evening over dinner with Amy’s best friend. I later surprised my wife with a 1-week married candle lit dinner.

I am completely over-the-moon happy that we have both found the right person to be with, and that we love each other. As husband and wife, we are now making the preparations to continue our life together, in love forever.

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Amy and 3 dragon fountains

Meeting Amy started a special something in my life.

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The test of whether I was a good guy began a few weeks later, without my knowledge whatsoever. For the May holiday week, the 2 of us jumped aboard a southbound train for a mountain retreat in Anhui province. Visiting locations of several gorgeous scenes from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon certainly excited us. Also the ancient villages we stayed in, were added to the UNESCO World Heritage list in late 2000, the same period when the film was released. I have to admit I was more than a little surprised to find the name of the first place we visited, is Lovers’ Valley.

Here, everyone is surrounded by it, drenched in it, soaked in it. Love is everywhere It’s not only written in the gardens but also painted on the rock floor – of course in red, the Chinese colour for love!

But wait, there’s more! Not only chock-a-block full of love, the valley also has gorgeous waterfalls, a sea of bamboo, and a free show of the sky high trapeze trio!

We’d spent such a long time in Lovers’ Valley that the third destination for the day had to be cancelled. Onto the second place we visited, The Phoenix Source. Since the main Chinese symbol of womanhood is the phoenix (whereas the dragon is the male counterpart) this relentless gushing could easily be thought of as an ongoing re-birth origin of water. A day in China inevitably involves that water turning to tea.
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Weifang 潍坊 International Kite Festival was a spectacular and colourful event that highlighted our weekend. With both foreign and local friends together, a day-trip to the festivities was just what I needed. Every year in the middle of April, competitors from all over the globe come to fly and fight against each other for the prestigious title of champion kite-flyer.

The military clad lads didn’t hang about much after we arrived.

The amazing kites aloft included a theme set of marine life with a giant sea-horse, squid, lobster and sting-ray aloft in the sky. Others floating around included the dragon kites, some hoop kites, a fat Winnie the Pooh, a pheonix, a Homer Simpson and the famous box kite.

The deluge of celebrity stardom treatment over us was far more than there ought to have been. We checked out the international competitors pavilions and met any folk we could say Hello to, in their native tongue. When strolling around with Ivan, it’s not too hard to cover most of the globe in this way. However the shear number of locals who would simply request a token photo with us foreigners, is sky-high. Never mind your name, nor any other interesting details, just shut-up and smile! It was quite hilarious and bizarre at the same time.

Unforgettable was the cute girl who must have been in training for how to pose. It was her reflex to do so when I asked for a photo of her and her Hello Kitty balloon. Check out the resulting photo!

On our return train ride to Jinan, the conductor? guy decided to meet the foreign crowd with a little more curiosity. First up, we must establish who is the stronger. A simple arm-wrestle will decide this. One by one, he tried on all the boys in this game of manhood. The conversation only came to a halt when the conductor? guy had to get off at his stop.

Some of our students used to think Australia Day is April Fool’s Day! Finishing work on Friday afternoon, we tasted a sizzlin’ lunch, tested the Blue Mountain coffee in the newly discovered campus cafe, and toasted to our survival of another week, (ignore that the bus driver nearly killed us, starting to drive away as we alighted!)

Easter was next on the calendar, and our crew were doubtful the bunny would find us here in the big smoke. More likely a dragon would. In true Aussie style, a little holiday was planned, and we headed for the seaside town of QingDao. Our train had obviously been updated with a wonderful TV and no volume control. The “find a hotel” project got derailed as our stomachs began to rumble.

Last Thursday night I enjoyed dinner with 1 of China’s top 5 people, a meal of the top 3 dishes ordered from the restaurant’s top 10 list. Time for a little variety, there’s only so much great Chinese food one can handle. The posh hotel buffet lunch certainly filled our bellies. Just one more choc-coated marshmallow stick for the road…

An evening stroll along the pier to walk off the lunch kilos. There are hints of St Kilda pier and for the first time in ages, I think of home…

With 3 Chinese kids, I played some hacky sack out front of the St Michael’s church on Easter Sunday morning. Mornings in China start from 6AM for me! Somehow it’s easy for others to get up and practise their tai-chi, a sword version, fan dancing, and similar physical activities at the crack of dawn. I spotted an elderly man practising his thrusting – use it or lose it, that’s his motto!

Fruitless shopping is a popular past-time for many locals. I have to admit, I’ve joined in, but like most males, my shopping is exclusively results oriented. The latest success was an incense burner and a few sticks. At long last, my days of showering with drains stinking of sewer stench are over!
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I honestly didn’t believe extreme culture shock was possible on one’s second visit… How utterly foolish of me! In fact so bizarre and amazingly different to my first visit, so distant to the clichés of Shanghai shoppers and Beijing bush-hankies, this little part of China shall be henceforth known as the twilight zone.

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Sorry, in fact the bush-hankies are popular, even here in the zone. The haark-and-spit is not exactly rampant in the streets, but to my horror I witnessed a female student spitting in the hallway on her way to class!

Should I mention my lack of fire-fighting training? It was after all, only a small fire we had in class last week.

In order to survive here, you’ll need a truck load of tools, including the house engineer gear. I’m not kidding! Be prepared to fix your own domestic disasters, ranging from electric failures and carpentry cock-ups to plumbing problems.

To help you out, I’ll give you a few handy bits. 菜鸟 Newbie Mandarin can be learnt from Ken Carrol and Jenny via some lessons on chinesepod.com So be sure to study up on:

• 菜鸟151 Don’t Drink the Water
• 菜鸟157 Power Outage
• 菜鸟158 Trip to the Supermarket

Here’s a couple of additions, thanks to one of my students and one of the Chinese English teachers. To solve the problem of bastardly shopkeepers reluctant to give a lot of small change, you could buy something worth 1 yuan and slap a fiver down on the counter. A bit of a pain if you can’t be arsed going shopping everyday. So here’s your Pin yin phrase to ask for change of a fiver:

ke yi gei wo huan wu ge yi kuai de ling qian ma?

Okay so the wu part is the 5, but don’t bother trying for 10 because you won’t get it. Next I have a variant of the “Can I take a photo of you?” question on every polite photographer’s mind, (despite the fact that politeness has a completely different meaning in the zone!)

wo neng gei ni zhao xiang ma?

Need this in another language? Check the forum at “May I take your picture” – add translations for as many languages as possible! Speaking of languages, if you’re into gaining some ability to read the written lingo while in the zone, try to learn Chinese characters, 中文.

Now reward yourself. There’s plenty of great food and you can afford to splash out as often as you want. Carnivores beware, just remember the 6 to 66 rule, ie. food should be kept below 6 or above 66 degrees or the devil will sting you in the ring. Beer is cheap, about 42 cents (Australian) for a 600ml bottle. We’re off to Qingdao this weekend to see what’s left after the Germans departed, 1914 – thankfully the beer factory remains.

I have to pack now, and try not to forget anything important. T-shirt, check. Shorts, check. Camera, check. Smile, check. Seems like I have everything!

A few plane rides later I am a little south of Beijing, in a freezing dust-bowl called Jinan. The city is the capital of the province of Shandong and the population could be anywhere between 4 and 6+ million people. The welcome hoo-ha includes a banquet with the big-wigs. Great food is a great way to interrupt great work.

The accommodation we are in is part of the old campus and it’s prime real estate. Hence the reason the university has sold it off and isn’t really interested in maintaining anything. The short version of the list includes several electrical power problems. On the plus side, we have some internet access and no-one has died yet of electrocution from the wiring and water mix!

So anyway, we go to work at the new campus. It’s a half hour bus ride that costs Y2 and one cannot get change, we must have the exact amount. Fine apart from the fact that everyone hoards their Y1 coins and notes. Roads in China are, as you might expect. There’s a brave driver or two out there.
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Running Bull Productions proudly presents 2 nights of back-to-back screenings of the digital impressions slide-show trilogy, including the première of a Tibetan travel tale. Following on from where we left off in chunks of China, the third part of the trilogy takes on altitude, a different culture in far flung lands, and concludes the story.

I hope you can make it on either night, Friday the 9th of March or Saturday the 10th of March, from 6pm at my house . The program plan for each evening is :

• 6pm Japan – a year in the life
• 7pm chunks of China
• 8pm a Tibetan travel tale

Please enjoy the poster and YouTube preview (1 minute and 11 seconds) before you see the main feature!

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In my job, the office isn’t always the office. Sometimes its a cinema, a cafe, a sound studio, a winery, a news printer, a gallery, a museum, a bowling alley… I have to admit, teaching English rocks! Check this out for just a few reasons to like work:

• with my previous class, we went out for coffee and yacked about soccer and watched Bend it like Beckham
• in my class at Victoria University we are studying films, so we get to watch movies as part of the course! (Last Friday we saw Gorillas in the mist)
• sometimes we listen to music, like Cat Stevens (unfortunately not his best song)

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• at Melbourne University our class excursion ended up with wine tasting at the Rochford winery
• students brought a rich chocolate cake to class for my birthday last Monday

  

To top it all off, next month I will be taking up an invitation to work in China! Nothing has been confirmed yet but the details so far sound pretty good to me: a free return flight, free travel insurance, free accommodation, 1 week of holidays between the two blocks of 6 weeks. So stay tuned and catch me hanging out in Shandong province . I wonder if I can wear Chacos on hot days…

And whatever you do, don’t work too hard!