Occasional Tales

Wrong number. I don't know what it is about people in this country, but they seem completely unable to conceive that they've dialled a wrong number even although they've phoned you several times. I've just had a succession of phone calls in the past twenty minutes, all obviously from the same person or people. No matter how many times Uncle Angel is on the other end sounding slightly like the most total laowai in the country, they don't seem to grasp that they're calling the wrong number. There was a delay between the latest call and the preceding one because, it'd appear, that if you wait, the number magically becomes correct. Or I turn into the person they really want. I guess it's like when the coach becomes a pumpkin in Cinderella. (Yes, I really do mean it that way round.) This isn't the first time this sort of thing has happened to me here, although it's the first time it's happened since I got the mobile.

Experts claim that years still last 365 days on average. I set the alarm for 7am, but shut my eyes for the ten minutes between then and 7.35am. There was no rush to get to the school concert. We were the 14th act. The rest was the usual thing you expect to see at Chinese school concerts, which meant bunches of skinny girls doing sexy dances (I mean, dances expressing the love of the people for the ancient culture of Cathay); Canto-pop songs that are wetter than a pair of knickers hung out to dry during a typhoon; and more make-up than a caberet act performed by a troupe of drag queens – apart from the foreign teachers who had more sense to daub on anything for so little reason. Our playlet was about scaring away the devils who would turn up each year to disrupt the Spring Festival. To say that our performance must've been incomprehensible is to put it mildly. I was asked to be the narrator at the start, but because I had a hand-held mic, I needed Glen to hold the mic for me. On the...

Eventually. I thought I'd try getting a VGA cable so that I could connect the laptop to the new TV. I found what I was looking for in Metro, but I wasn't absolutely certain I should be buying a male-male cable. I returned home and found that I was right, but I'd also noticed that the cable at Metro had a damaged end. I decided to try Yonghui Supermarket, but they didn't have any. I knew that there was another branch of Gome in the vicinity which I found by luck rather than certain knowledge. Once I managed to convey to them what I wanted (I had the manual with me, but they still seemed unable to grasp initially that I wanted a VGA cable), I was informed that they didn't have any. Huh? This is Gome. It's an electronics shop. I returned home and then headed to the branch of Gome on the mainland where the same thing happened, but with none of the what-the-hell-does-the- laowai -want-in-spite-of-a-Chinese-manual routine. They sent me to 大利 which turned out to be op...

Could I be more humiliated? I can now watch the DVD player through the TV. I could've fixed the problem myself as I discovered when I looked at the manual again, but I relied on the diagram for information. I can read enough of the Chinese to know exactly which lead should've been plugged in to which socket. Actually, I should be able to wire up the external speakers as well. Right now, I'm feeling dumber than Class 13. I'm going to be charitable and suppose that this is due to being woken up early on a few too many occasions this week, and feeling flustered by various events that have happened this week and are yet to come. Thus I'm tired, and when I get tired my concentration flies out the window. It's either this excuse or the other one. The one I'd rather not contemplate. The one where I'm descending into the Slough of Stupidity which, I've observed, seems to affect middle-aged people. Not that I'm middle-aged yet. [ Keep telling yourself th...

Getting carried away. 提 ( tí ) is another character that seems to have sailed into view quite a few times recently. It can mean carry (in hand with arm hanging down) move upward; raise; promote move up (a date); advance speak of; mention; put forward draw; take out; withdraw bring or take out from prison under escort; summon dipper; ladle It's also pronounced dī , but my big dictionary gives it in the words 提防 ( dīfang ) "be on guard against" and 提溜 ( dīliu ) "hold in hand". 提 ( tí ) is used in words such as 提出 ( tíchū ) "put forward; raise"; 提法 ( tífa ) "the way something is put; formulation; wording"; 提高 ( tígāo ) "raise; lift; improve"; 提名 ( tímíng ) "nominate". (Can I make a bad pun about nomination depending on timing? [ Not bloody likely . –ed.]) 提 is also used in the word 提琴 ( tíqín ) "any instrument of the violin family". The violin is the 小提琴 ( xiǎo tíqín ) "little tíqín "; the viola the 中提琴 ( ...

And accelerating into oblivion. Today began so well. At about 6am, I was woken by the band (Naval School?) playing that incessant piece of music over and over again for about four hours. The symphony of the early morning was accompanied by the plinkety-plink music from the school, some traditional Chinese music in the form of those annoyingly high-pitched pipes, and then Happy Birthday which, like Jingle Bells , has ended up as kind of general purpose public music in this country. Both are typically played in the plinkety-plink style just to make them that extra bit annoying. I ended up sitting around here all afternoon waiting for a technician to turn up to get the DVD working, but waited in vain. I just heard a few moments ago that he went to the wrong place. The latest plan is that someone will come tomorrow morning some time before class at 11am. We'll see. I was having another look at the menu options to see whether there was anything that might hint at what needs to be set. ...

Never lie at a right angle. Today started strangely. I woke up some time after dawn and found that I turned myself 90° during the night so that my head was now pointing towards the window. Logical conclusion: it was the earthquake disrupting the earth's magnetic field. [ Hark at Mr Compass . –ed.] I got to school just before 9am, but with time for the delivery of the TV running out before I had to go to class, I got Tracy to phone Gome. I learnt that they don't start work until 9am, which meant a 9am delivery was never going to happen. Then while I was pretending to teach Class 13, there was a knock at the door. It was Tracy who needed to get the delivery receipt. Then during the next class I got a text message saying that the TV was in the gatehouse. I got it home and plugged everything in. Could I get the DVD player to run through it? No. I got some message saying "No sync detected", which means as much to me as the same message in Chinese. I went back to Gome with...