Life in Huizhou

Well, I've been in Huizhou for a day and a half now. It is, in a word, warm. Unbelievably warm. Bordering on hot. Muggy. Sweaty. Rainy. All good words, but nothing really describes what it's like.

It is pretty great actually. I am in a digs with 6 other teachers, and there is another digs next door. Everybody seems pretty friendly so far. Learning a few phrases of Chinese, just enough really to ask what something is.

On food, it's an interesting one... I have heard, as I'm sure you all have, about stories of dogs and cats and whatnot being eaten. Well, look, I've only been here a day so far, but there's nothing of that. You definitely can't be squeemish when you walk around, because they are quite open about showing their food - dried fish, squid, some other stuff. But really, the food has been brilliant so far. Portions are pretty large, which isn't going to help me lose my spare tyre, but it's counteracted perhaps by the fact that walking to the corner invokes a dripping sweat.

Without doubt my best purchase in Hong Kong was a couple of hankies, that I use as sweat rags. For those of you thinking "Eeewww" right now, it's better than the alternative, which is to become a walking puddle.

Our digs is pretty cool, although like a real digs. That is, messy, dirty, and with cockroaches (not for dinner!). My room is definitely larger than the hotel room I was in, but my bed is clearly a little shorter than standard length, so I hang off the end.

That brings me to another quick point. The second most asked question before I left (behind - "So, are you coming back with a Chinese wife?") was "Won't you be much taller than everybody else?". I'm not. I don't feel any bigger than I did walking around Sandton or Melville. People here, and particularly younger people, are growing obviously.

I'm not going to go into too much more detail now - about to run off for my first drinking night here (of many, as I understand).

One quick little titbit - a few people know the word "Hello". And they LOVE it. Walking down the street today, three times we had people just shout out Hello and then laugh like drains. It's brilliant.

Thank you to everybody for the mails, I will answer them as time becomes more available, or I stop sleeping for 23.5 hours a day.