Comings and Goings

On Wednesday morning, Andrew was all packed and ready to fly to Bangkok. From Bangkok, he was going to spend a few days in Chiang Mai progressing the building and distribution of the water purifiers, before returning to Bangkok for his flight back to England and on to Norway. And then the news broke that 3,000 demonstrators had stormed Bangkok airport and had taken over the control tower. All flights in and out of Bangkok were grounded! Andrew’s visa for China expired on Saturday, so he had to leave by then. But how? He spent hours on the phone (including to the travel agent who hadn’t heard about the problem) and the internet. He rebooked his flight for Saturday, plus a provisional booking to Hong Kong, just in case. And then, on Thursday morning came a call to say that there was a flight to Chiang Mai that afternoon and he was on it. So off he went, still not knowing whether he would be able to get to Bangkok for his flight to London on Monday.

On Wednesday evening, we went to an American Thanksgiving meal at the International Coffee Shop. A lot of Chinese young people were also present, so we were not the only ones who had never been to a Thanksgiving meal before. We enjoyed the roast turkey even though they couldn’t find any cranberry sauce. And we were intrigued by the choc chip cookies (or were they pumpkin cakes with chocolate?) which were on our plates with the other vegetables. After the meal, we heard all about Squantas, the native American who helped the Pilgrim Fathers find food. The evening finished with singing the doxology and Edelweiss - with actions. You didn’t know Edelweiss had actions? The Chinese do!

Christine Carver, a friend from Tewkesbury, is being sponsored by the European Union to study in Beijing. And this week they have sent her to Kunming. She stayed with us Saturday night before returning to Beijing on Sunday afternoon. It was great to catch up with her news, swap stories about flooding, etc. We hope to see her in Kunming again while we are here.

At last we have discovered how to receive mail from UK - have it sent to Judy’s school. Apparently this stems from the Chinese tradition that where you belong is your place of work rather than your home. But the good news is that in the past week two items of mails for us arrived successfully from UK. As the address is a mixture of Chinese and English, I’m going to try scanning it and including it in this blog in case anyone wants to print it out and stick it to an envelope!

A Different November

November is probably the month when we really notice the difference between England and China. How strange to look out of the window on November 5th and see and hear no fireworks or bonfires. Judy tried to explain about Guy Fawkes to her students, but it sounded pretty lame to say that we all gather around a bonfire and burn an effigy of someone who committed a crime several hundred years ago. Especially as he was unsuccessful!

And no two minutes silence on November 11th or remembrance gatherings at village memorials. We were probably the only two people in Kunming wearing poppies, although we did meet a visitor from New Zealand who thought we must be observing ANZAC Day. (Is that in November??) Next week is Thanksgiving, (apparently it’s always on the fourth Thursday in November in USA, but earlier in Canada) and we are looking forward to finding out about this celebration when we share a turkey meal with our American friends.

One of the bonuses of living in Kunming is that the shops here are not all urging us to buy, buy, buy ready for Christmas. In fact there is no mention of Christmas at all, except that some of the bigger supermarkets are selling Christmas decorations. Judy has invited some of her work colleagues to supper on Christmas Day, soit will be a different sort of festival this year, and we hope to find out more about the way Christmas is celebrated in the USA, Canada, France and the Philippines.

Judy has recovered from the e.coli infection which was making her feel so bad. Part of the problem was that she was resistant to nearly every form of antibiotic, so none of the pills were helping. However, at last a successful treatment was found and now she is feeling much more like her old self. She is also getting to know her classes at school and finding better ways to explain things in English. It is noticeable that children who have made good progress during the lessons suddenly misunderstand completely when homework is set (just like England really!)


The Halloween weekend activities at Robert’s School were a great success from their point of view, with over 1,500 visitors attending taster lessons and many of them signing up to join regular classes. Judy didn’t want to dress up as a witch or a ghost, so decided that the blue bathroom curtains could be taken down and transformed into the cloak worn by the Fairy Godmother in Cinderella. She asked one of the Chinese staff to write ‘Fairy Godmother’ in Chinese on her name badge. It was only on Sunday that she discovered that he didn’t know what a fairy godmother was, so he had written ‘Old Witch’ instead! Judy was not best pleased!

Today we joined a number of Judy’s work colleagues to celebrate PJ’s birthday. We went to a picturesque town on the outskirts of Kunming (9p on the local bus) explored the town and had lunch together in a local restaurant. The weather changed from cool and cloudy to glorious sunshine and it was lovely to get to know some of Judy’s Chinese colleagues better. We managed to carry a birthday cake around with us and then produced it at lunch, complete with a mechanical lotus flower candle which played ‘Happy Birthday’ in a rather sad minor key!

Beekeeping Conference

Peter has been in Hangzhou for 5 days attending the Ninth Asian Apicultural Association Conference. Why? He is trying to learn more about Asian Cerana bees and the best way to keep them here in Yunnan.

Peter was the only UK representative, apart from Nicola Bradbear from Bees for Development who was one of the speakers and attended part-time. There were over 1,000 delegates, 700 of whom were Chinese. Peter made friends with Rashid, the Royal Beekeeper to the Sultan of Muscat and Oman - actually he’s head of the relevant government department - and with the one delegate from Albania. But he had good conversations with experts in various fields of beekeeping, bee biology, etc., from many different countries.




Peter & Rashid with a Miao (?) lady






Probably the most exciting contact was with the team from Nagaland, an Indian state very similar to Yunnan but whose people speak English. They are actively developing Cerana beekeeping and largely share our aims and values. If you have read any books about the history of Nagaland, you will know what we mean. It could be that a visit to Nagaland will be necessary before too long! The capital, Kohima is not very far from Kunming as the crow flies, but we as are not crows we would need to go via Calcutta, but still quite a short journey. (The Kohima epitaph from the Commonwealth War Memorial there is often quoted on Remembrance Day.)
The foreign delegates were looked after by a team of English language students from local universities, including one girl who made it clear that she was definitely on the same wavelength as us. So we shall have friends in Hangzhou if we go there as tourists as we hope to do next summer.

The conference had its lighter moments, like when two Chinese gentlemen of similar age to Peter asked if they could have a talk with him. After about 15 minutes of rather mystifying conversation, it became clear that they had mistaken him for the European expert on Colony Collapse Disorder. Peter had to explain that the only thing he knew about CCD was that his colonies collapsed!

And there was the New Zealand expert whose government has banned the use of antibiotics to treat bee diseases. He explained other methods of treatment which are actually more effective. But he was followed by a Chinese speaker who felt that stringent EU standards for antibiotic levels in imported honey were unfair and were really intended to keep out Chinese imports! The closest things got to a political disagreement.


There were visits to a honey production factory and to apiaries with plenty of flying bees, but no-one got stung. The journey back to the hotel took about an hour in a fleet of 11 or 12 buses led by two police cars with flashing blue and red lights and an unmarked government car. There were policemen at every intersection stopping the traffic to allow the important visitors (!) to speed through unhindered. Peter said it felt like when we were stopped by a policeman near Windsor Castle and Mr Gorbachev went past right in front of us. The journey was made more interesting by the group from Bangalore who each insisted on singing a solo over the bus tannoy.





Gentle Cerana bees with Bangalore beekeeper






Apart from the apiary visit when the sun came out, it rained solidly in Hangzhou and Kunming all the time Peter was away. A very worthwhile conference but he is very glad to back in Kunming in spite of more torrential rain.

We are now in a period of warm sunny days, although with clear skies the temperature drops rapidly after sunset. A lovely time to be in Kunming. The water in the swimming pool is now really cold but Peter has found a Olympic size indoor pool heated to over 30 degrees Celsius. Luxury at £2 a visit!