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!