In Memoriam

A blank laptop screen blinks back at me as I flounder for words. A friend, former colleague and travel buddy of mine has died. The matter of fact nature of that word makes it no easier to comprehend.

Jon was an unlikely travel buddy. Four months into being colleagues who mumble pre-coffee hellos in the corridor, we made the rash decision to do a five-week trek to Thailand together. The conversation went as far as me saying: ‘Hey want to go to Thailand?’ and Jon replying: ‘Sure. Want to book it now?’

We knew very little about each other but before we knew it, we were zipping through Bangkok in tuk-tuks, rearranging items in the Princess Caves (dubbed ‘Penis Cave’ for all the wooden phalluses that fishermen left as offerings) and diving with the fishes in Koh Tao. His idea of fun was all-night dancing, drinking, dishing with new friends and crawling into bed at the crack of dawn. Mine was more muted—massages, beer and beautiful sunsets.

And still it worked. He held my puke bag on a speedboat ride to Phi Phi; we danced with the Lady Boys to ABBA; we smirked as we were offered a free upgrade to the honeymoon suite at a hilltop resort in Koh Samui; our friendship survived a full moon party that we vowed never to speak of again.

When I left Hornsey nearly two years ago, I quipped that we’d always have Thailand--travel bonds people in an inexplicable way. We kept in touch the way people do these days, via social media, and I saw Jon at Christmas. We complained the same complaints that teachers do: workload, marking, ridiculous expectations; only now I get the impression he was only scratching the surface. We gave each other a big farewell hug as he vowed to come visit me in China ‘very soon!’ 

As the news spreads this week, the ripple widens. Friends, other travel buddies, colleagues, students, come out of the woodwork. Some post trite comments on Facebook. Some post trite comments on blogs. I guess we’re all trying to comprehend his pain and make amends for our inability to do so soon enough.

The right words do not exist, they cannot.

Jon, we're left with the memories of better times. We miss you. Rest in peace, my friend. 

Bills, Bills, Bills

This week (it's Monday), it appears I suck at adulting. Washing dishes, paying bills, it's all got the better of me and I just don't want to do it. Instead, I want to throw my fists in the air and scream NO at the top of my lungs and then kick my legs back and forth in a frenzied rage. Then I want people to walk past me without paying me any mind.

I got to the end of today after a big whole-school event that I've run and realized two things: 1. Is it really only still Monday?  2. NO! The event went well but the gallons of adrenaline coursing through my veins stay with me hours later.

So upon arriving home, I wanted to quaff wine in a darkened room with the dulcet tones of Sade soothing me into a semi-comatose state of forget. Instead, for the second time in the last seven days, I arrived home to an A4-sized overdue bill pasted to my door. With myriad characters, numbers and a sign that resembles a gas flame, I can only hope it's my gas bill and not a BBQ someone ordered to my address and expects me to pay for.

There are multiple kickers to this situation. Most importantly, I cannot read this gas bill. The website I am directed to has an English site that reads 'error' when I try to navigate. Slightly lower on the totem pole is that  I never received a bill in the first place. This is not the first time. With no key to open it, the door to my little postbox flutters open and I suspect one of my neighbors is playing a mean trick on laowai me. Or perhaps, it's the fact that I will receive a bill for next month that makes no mention of this month's unpaid bill. Because that's not how Chinese bills roll. But that won't stop them from shutting off my gas unless I pay online with the AliPay account I can't set up because I can't read Mandarin. Or go to the office by Friday at 4pm which is impossible because I have a job that takes over every waking moment of my life. And on and on and on.

I have no right to be angry. I can't read (or speak) Chinese with any level of efficiency and I'm living in China. And yet. Right now, it all fills me with uncontrollable, screaming at the top of my lungs, rage. Which is, of course, the cue for my upstairs neighbour to start practising his violin.

Taipei

Taiwan. Tibet. Tiananmen. Somewhere in my youth, I remember my not particularly political father reciting this phrase as the three Ts you don't talk about in the company of Chinese diplomats. As if that were a situation I would encounter on a regular basis. But even typing this phrase has set my internet connection aquiver. I'm not kidding; my access to Western internet via quasi-legal means seems to have shaken the roots of the Great Firewall.

As such, Taiwan becomes my first contentious country listing. It's a country that's not a country. Unrecognised by the UN and claimed under the umbrella body of The Republic of China, Taiwan is a very large island with its own governing body and free elections, its own passports and its own unique heritage. It's China except polite. And clean. With a lot less spitting. It's greener and foggier with a lot of lazily falling drizzly rain--think the British isles (isle?) but with chopsticks, night markets and a sea of dark-haired people.

The tension and politics are wide-ranging and rooted in the power struggle of a Chinese civil war and pre-WWII imperialism on the part of several nations. There's nothing outwardly tense about Taiwan but I'm not the holder of a Taiwanese passport trying to enter or travel through the Chinese mainland. Because that causes some drama. As part of a school trip, a student of mine tried to leave Shanghai to enter another part of China on her Taiwanese passport. A forty minute pantomime and scolding later, she was sent on her way.

My friends and I experienced none of these dramas on a weekend hop from Shanghai. Flying with China Air, we were wheels up, wheels down and into the city centre in about three and a half hours. Our two taxis weaved down tiny lanes of lit up signs and around market vendors selling noodles, coffee, obscene-sized Taiwanese sausages.

 Over the course of the weekend we took a leisurely (and cheap!) pace at exploring the sights. A trip to Taipei 101, briefly the world's tallest tower punctuated our need to eat dumplings in the original Din Tai Fun, a Taiwanese restaurant chain with the best tiny parcels of steamed vegetables, fish and meat.

In our quest for dumplings, we found more lanes, restaurants and quirky shops you'd associate with Asian culture. Thinking back on it, many of our missions revolved around food. Hours later, we took to the streets to find Taipei's favourite pastime, the Night Market. Weaving through throngs of bodies at Shilin Night Market, we encountered oyster pancakes, pineapple products and myriad unidentified deep fried dishes.

We washed it all down with a trip to what's promoted as Taipei's diviest dive bar, That Fucking Place. As we weaved our way up a non-descript set of wooden stairs and into a hot box of smoke, gangster rap and tattooed Taiwanese trendies, I realised that I'm far too old to accept buzzfeed article recommendations. The 'bar' resembled house parties of my college days with vinegary wine also resembling the finer tastes of my college days. From our perch on a set of sofas, we witnessed the emotional meltdown of a bear-sized man as he tripped his way through the emotions of: rage (trying to rip the teeth out of his mouth); abject self-loathing (trying to put his cigarette out on his hands); remorse (dry heaving onto the table); anger (bursting into tears and wailing when his friends refused to let him leave); and finally, resignation (passing out on the couch with a resounding snore). He illustrated Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's stages of dying perfectly. When he eventually left the bar, we took it as our cue to leave too. Besides, the rap off between us and a group of trendies was getting out of hand; they were hardly alive when Biggie and Tupac were busting their tunes and we were clearly going to have to battle.

The next morning we regrouped for a wander through the flower market and a taste of the city's famous beef noodles on Yongkang Street, a leafy lined area boasting antiques (which we saw none of) and boutiques (which we spent too much money in). In far too short a time, we made our way back to the airport for the wheels-up, wheels-down game.

So as far as contentious country listings go, be afraid of Taiwan. You might eat yourself to death in a fug of noodle soup and oyster pancakes whilst a trendy dances over to you wanting to take your picture whilst practising his best gangsta English.

Camping in Yaolin

The Duke of Edinburgh Award is a pretty fabulous school programme. Its basis: promoting leadership, service and challenge to British School students worldwide. I've been involved with DofE since the start of my teaching career and find particular value in the expedition part of the award.

This year, I accompanied a group of Bronze students on their three-day expedition to Yaolin, a four-hour bus ride from Shanghai.

Upon arrival, my group of seven students was appointed a guide from the tour company, Insight. Past guides have generally been 19-year-old untrained gap year students wanting to travel on the cheap so i was skeptical. We, however, were gifted with Mattijs, a dishy Dutch vegetarian with a taste for reading Dostoyevsky in the English because he found the Dutch translations 'a bit too tricky to deal with.' Besides being in literary heaven, Mattijs became the students' rock as they trudged their way through trails (a term I use loosely in the Chinese context), over mountains and across streams. My kids learned how to use a compass, how to triangulate a location if you're lost, how to set up camp and leave no trace. 

We, again, witnessed the beauty of the Chinese countryside and the paradoxical fear of its future. Logging trails dotted the landscape that didn't exist the year before and we had to wonder what this place would be like in ten years' time. 

For me, I wild camped for the first time in my life and impressed the group with my Promethean fire making ability (thank you summer camp). More importantly, I had one of those i'm-so-happy-with-life moments that come and go far too quickly. 

Returning to school on Monday was a supreme let down. Something about being in the woods makes data, deadlines and school agendas seem inconsequential. I spent the ensuing week in a haze of woodland cheer, a confusing feeling in the middle of an increasingly hectic school term.

I debated career changes. In fact, I still am.