Merry Christmas from Snowy Beijing!

It's snowing here in Beijing, a fine light sparkly snow that makes your coat and hat all wet, but is settling into a lovely crunchy white ground cover. But don't worry, a small army of workers will be out early in the morning to remove any traces of the white stuff from main roads and pavements before I've even woken up. Can't leave snow lying on the ground! Oh no! My second Christmas in Beijing has been a lot of fun. I helped out with Christmas music for my church Christmas Eve Eve service. I graded papers 'til midnight on Christmas Eve. Gave my students a practice writing exam (about Christmas) on Christmas morning. And had some friends over on Christmas Night for dinner, music and games. It's kind of weird living in a place where Christmas is just a regular workday. When I ask my students about it, most of them know it's a western holiday, and they mostly know about Santa and presents. But not so many of them know that the main reason for Christmas is to celebrate the birth of Jesus. We westerners are exporting consumerism very successfully, but the Jesus message is a little harder to get through! The reason for the season is alive and kicking among my bible study group though. We are all away from our families so we came together to eat special food (Thai Red Beef Curry and Coca Cola Chicken and Purple Mashed potatoes) – if not actual Christmas food. My excuse is I don't have an oven! This was topped off with very traditional desserts including Chocolate cake, cream puffs and roasted chestnuts. No fruitcake. Ah well. Some traditions just don't really translate well to China. What a shame... Then we had music and a Christmas story bible quiz. We probably took this 'fun' activity a little too seriously. I guess we are a bible study group. Every question got debated for 10 minutes. What is Ruth's relationship to David resulted in a discussion of how genealogies were written in Hebrew to reflect symmetry rather than accuracy. How many times did angels appear in dreams in the New testament before Jesus was 2 years old resulted in a 10 minute discussion of what constituted a dream, and what constituted a vision. Our non believer guest looked on in fascination at our passionate arguments! It's hard to believe another year has passed. I have just signed another contract and will be here until January 2014. So if you happen to be around for Christmas 2013, brush up your bible knowledge, you can join my team for the Christmas Day Quiz! Next year, we're going to win. Do you hear that Mr P? :) Merry Christmas and God Bless you all!

Happy New Year! 祝你过节快乐！

[Photo: Christmas Day with friends]

I like this phrase in China. You can say it all the way through from 31^st December to mid February, and you could be referring to either Western or Chinese New Year, making you equally polite in both cultures. So, Happy New Year! Wherever you are, whatever you're doing!

I am on an aeroplane, on my way to Hainan Island (海南岛), a tropical paradise in the South of China. Yesterday in class I was teaching conditionals: 'What would you do if you didn't have to visit your relatives over Chinese New Year? Where would you go?' Everyone said 'Hainan!'. Lucky me.

My university takes the foreign teachers on two trips a year, depending on where the Directors' wife wants to go. Conveniently, she has a friend in Hainan. Last semester we went to Beidaihe (北戴河), a seaside resort East of Beijing, full of Russians. Hainan is also full of Russians, but it's warmer and cheaper.

I'm travelling with the Director, his wife and an American colleague. The Director has a 'gold card' which is totally awesome! It means you jump the queue at all the airport check-in stuff, and you get to hang out in the first class lounge. It's been a while. Free drinks, whatever you like, snacks of the peanut, crisp and instant noodle variety, or fresh dim sum and noodles. For us 外国人 (foreigners) they also had sandwiches and bread rolls. I tried both. The dim sum was much better. It's hard to find a decent sandwich in China.

I got to practice my 普通话 (Chinese) on the Director – he was very kind and spoke slowly and clearly so I could understand more or less everything he said. Not sure he could understand everything I said. These tones are tricky lah! He wanted to know where my 老家 (hometown) was. This generally requires a very long explanation, but I'm quite good at it by now.

On board, my colleague and I laughed at the aeroplanes' safety video. Apparently it's 'really dangerous' to smoke in the toilets. I've never seen this emphasised before. My theory, based on observations from the building where my Chinese school is located, is that people (girls in particular) like to hang out in the bathrooms to smoke and chat on the phone. Smoking is supposed to be bad for a girls reputation so they do it secretly. On the plus side, you don't have to wade through a crowd of smokers when you want to enter a building here. Maybe there's something in it? Architects, take note!