(Lack of) heating

We feel guilty for complaining about the cold after having spoken to some of our students. When we asked them how they keep warm, they replied:"We get everybody in the room (eight students per room!), close all the windows, and put our computer on!" When I half-jokingly replied:"You could also put the shower on!" they just gave me a puzzled look and asked why they would want to do that for? "For the steam from the hot water, of course!". That's when they bursted out laughing (the first genuine laugh I got out of them for a long time!) and explained that there was no such thing as hot water. I quickly changed topic before they could enquire about our three radiators and permanent hot water supply... We learned that day that even cold is relative!

很冷 - Hen leng – Very Cold!

Winter has officially arrived. Although it’s not very cold (around 15 degrees Celsius), the humidity makes you get cold from the inside. The fact that the classrooms are not heated (seriously!) or double glazed doesn’t help much, so our students are quivering in front of us not only because we are too sexy for them (as we initially thought). Luckily, we can move while teaching, which keeps us a bit warmer. During our Chinese lessons, however, we start cuddling up even with the ones we don’t like. That must be the survival instinct kicking in!

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Local waterfalls

The International Office took us out again, and informed us already on Thursday about our daytrip to the local waterfalls. Despite the rain and nippy weather, we had a great time climbing up the falls in Straw “Security shoes” and being fed local food. We have to admit, we are getting into the sheep behaviour, it is nice just to follow and not having to worry about a thing!

The pictures of this day can be found on Flickr!

Weekend out with “the others”

The International office had organized a weekend for the foreign teachers and students. Organization was splendid! Friday night we got a call asking what we were doing tomorrow and telling us to come to the university gate at 9.00 a.m. the next morning… no further information was given, so we played sheep (which seems to be a popular Chinese game) and just followed. Surprisingly, it turned out to be a lovely weekend, also thanks to the warm weather and nice company. For photos from that weekend please click the following flickr link.

The place was surreal and beautiful. It’s a big reservoir lake that they use to feed the Li River (“local Schelde”) that the tourist boats run on. This year has been very dry here, and the reservoir now looks more like a desert than a lake. But the walk around and the boat were both beautiful, as the pictures will hopefully show.