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!
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