The Move

It was January 31^st 2010 and we were awake early that day, both my wife and I were filled with a mixture of excitement, wonder and trepidation. This was the day that we were leaving good ol’ blighty and heading for a new life in China.

After breakfast we checked out of the hotel and sat in the lobby waiting for our taxi, which was to take us to the airport. My mobile rung, it was the taxi driver informing us that he was running about 10-15 minutes late and would not be there at the scheduled time of 12 noon to pick us up. This was not a problem as we had allowed ourselves plenty of time to get to the airport for our flight that evening. At 11:50am a taxi pulled up outside the entrance of the hotel, the driver got out and came into the lobby looked around and went out again. Five minutes later another taxi pulled up, the driver came into the lobby and spoke to the reception desk. Is this our taxi? A small group of people stood up and left with him. No, it wasn’t ours. Out of curiosity I went outside and spoke to the first taxi driver and it transpired that he was our driver. Upon asking him how he had managed make up the time he was reluctant to tell me so I left it at that.

We got our bags and managed to remember our six-year son, avoiding any incidents such as in the Home Alone movies. It is normally a one-hour drive to the airport from where we stayed but our driver managed to shave a full fifteen minutes off my best time. My wife mentioned to him it normally takes us one hour to do that journey to which he replied “Not in my Cab!” Now my question was answered.

The few hours waiting for our flight soon past and we were on the plane to Beijing. The flight was uneventful and the food was up to the usual China Airways standard, non-descript! There was a choice between noodles and something or rice and something. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy noodles and rice, it was the something I wasn’t sure about.

On arrival at Beijing we had a couples of hours before our flight to ChongQing where we were to stay for a few days with friends before travelling to Urumqi to be with my father-in-law for the Chinese New Year and to sort out long-term visas.

It takes almost three days from ChongQing to Urumqi by train and I don’t know whether it is the movement of the train or the state of the toilets that I always find it difficult to maintain a regular bowel movement. Apparently, so I found out later, I wasn’t the only one. My wife had the same problem and told me that she had spoken to the conductress who had told her that herself and her colleagues all suffered the same problem. Maybe someone should publish a report on this syndrome?

I have been to China many times in the past, mainly to visit my in-laws in Urumqi, with whom we have travelled all over China with until my mother-in-law sadly passed away early in 2003. A couple of months later my wife told me that she was pregnant and on the 15^th December 2003 our son, Edward, was born. I am not particularly religious, but I do believe that he was a gift from my mother-in-law as we had being trying for a baby for some time, without success.

We arrived in Urumqi not knowing what to expect after the events of July last year. We felt lost without a connection to the outside world, no Internet, E-mail or International phone calls. How did people manage before the Internet I will never know!

Chinese New Year came and was greeted by the sound of fireworks as usual. We attended many banquets over this period, mainly to build up “Guanxi” which proved to be very useful in our forthcoming application for visas and hopefully Residence Permits. These banquets included Local Government Officers, multi-millionaires and the PSB. It was at one of these banquets that I attracted the attention of one particular gentleman. He spent the best part of the evening repeating to me the only sentence he knew in English, “Chinese Culture is very complicated”. At the same banquet someone kept saying to me “N.B.A.” and “Uncle Sam”. My wife explained that a lot of Chinese confuse England and America.

Personally, I think that it was more to do with the Chinese Spirit that was freely flowing at the time.

With the holiday period over, we were taken to see a Master Palm Reader. I have always sat on the fence regarding fortunetellers and palm readers but I was amazed at what he told us.

How did he know that we could see a river from our garden in the UK, and that we could see a church from our house? How did he know that I enjoyed fishing? I was the first Englishman he had met and he knew all this just by reading my palm? Scary stuff. Needless to say I no longer sit on the fence but now I am a firm believer.

Now it was time to get down to the serious matter of obtaining visas and ultimately Residence permits. As this was a long and drawn-out procedure it will be told in another “Letter From China”. All you need to remember until then is “Chinese Culture is very complicated”