Gongcheng - the real O.C.

We have left our beautiful little Fengyan for the small but busy Yangshuo, a very touisty town on the Li River. Here you will find more Western people than anywhere else except Beijing, Shanghai, Xi'an or Hong Kong. On the down side it means we don't feel much like the first intrepid explorers to step foot in this area anymore; on the plus side you can get pizza, burgers and chips in every restaurant!
On wednesday, thursday and friday we each had one 45 min lesson at the primary school in the next village along. Each morning we spent hours thinking of what we could teach them and songs we could sing for them, but when we took our first lesson we found the students already knew everything we had planned on teaching them! My first class was 3rd grade, which is our year 3 and they were very naughty! Their teacher didn't stay for the lesson so I was completely on my own trying to get them to listen and not sway seats when I wasn't looking! On thursday I had the 4th grade, who were very well behaved and enthusiastic so I really enjoyed that lesson. On friday I had the 5th grade and they were just as naughty as my first class and even less interested in learning english! But I enjoyed the three days and gave me a little headstart on what I need to prepare for next month in Cambodia where I'll be working at an orphanage for 4 weeks.
On thursday evening we took a walk around the village and found courtyard where a group of teenagers were playing ping pong, and who invited us to join in. After a few hours we tried to leave but they insisted we came inside where they had loaded their kitchen table with biscuits and nuts and other snacks for us! We couldn't refuse so spent another couple of hours having half conversations with the families who lived in the houses around the courtyard and drinking tea and beer with them. They were so friendly that when it came to about 10pm and we really didn't want to leave we proimised we'd come again the next night. The following morning, Leah and I went back to the market in Lianhua and bought a great big bag of biscuits for them. That evening we went back to their house but there was no one in the kitchen except two old ladies who hadn't been there the previous night! We felt a little bit awkward handing over these biscuits to two strange ladies, but they had obviously heard about us and called the boys who we had been playing with and they came home pretty quickly! We played more ping pong and then again were invited in for snacks and oil tea, which is pretty much the most disgusting thing I've ever drunk - oil, tea, ginger and garlic, all squished up and boiled. Yuk! But very good for you aparently. We drank what we were given, but the grandmother kept pouring everyone else more of the stuff, and they obviously didn't like it much either because anytime the person sitting next to someone's back was turned, the first person would pour their tea into their neighbours bowl! We felt really lucky to have spent the two evenings with our new friends, every once in a while I'd look around and think wow, I'm on the other side of the world from home, sitting in a stranger's kitchen being given food like they'd known me for years! When else would I get this kind of experience again! And they were so nice, the ring leader, Gu Shi was telling us about his job making mobile phones in Shenzhen near Hong Kong, and his brother was proudly showing us pictures of his new baby son. They had a chinese/english phrase book and we were teaching each other how to say random phrases and laughing at our respective terrible pronountiations!
It was sad to leave Fengyan, it had started to feel like home. I should probably explain about the title of this entry - there are oranges everywhere! They grow them all around the village and all across Gongcheng county so you see them on the trees, in every shop and on every stall, in trucks, great piles of them stacked up in garages, and littered all over the floor! They get wrapped in little plastic bags, and whenever they are thrown away because t\hey are too old, the bags get tossed too! There are great big rubbish heaps covered in oranges and if they get into streams or rivers you see them bobbing along in their little bags.
Yesterday we were driven to Yangshuo, were we are staying in rooms in an enormous boarding school. The bathrooms are pretty nasty but on the whole it's OK, and only a short walk to the centre of town. Last night we went out for dinner and then on to a couple of bars. The last one we went to was playing very strange dance music - 'I am the music man' set to a really fast beat for example. There was a little dance floor and I'm very happy to say we did England proud! There were quite a few chinese people in the bar (mostly tourists rather than locals I think) and eventually everyone was on the dance floor having a really good time. At one point we all formed a circle and one by one we all took a turn in the middle, everyone cheering everyone else on, and then we all did the conga together. It was a fantastic night of mixing with non-europeans, plus the head barman Wan Wei gave us free drinks all night!
And hooray! The weather is hot here! It's still pretty cloudy and humid, but we're wearing tee-shirts not 6 jumpers! Tonight I'm even going to crack out the skirt!
This afternoon we have 3 new people arriving from england to spend the week with us, so I'd better head back to the school to meet them. Again, no pictures, sorry! I showed the man in the internet cafe my camera's memory card but the computer won't read it. I'll try somewhere else later in the week, this is getting really frustrating!!!!

Gongcheng - the real O.C.

Gongcheng, China