Trips to Venice

It never takes long for a toilet story to emerge when you are overseas....

 

I have to share the loos in my classroom with you. There are two tiled troughs that run along either side of the room, partitions divide the troughs into individual cubicles but becuase the troughs are deep the partition stops around a foot before the ground. This means that you can see (and other fellow pee-ers) can see you go about your business. Some of the girls in my class have taken to calling the toilets the canal, so my Swedish friend and I have taken it one step further "I'm off to Venice".

 

Two weeks ago I was happily straddling the grand canal when I heard someone shout my Chinese name - I looked down to find my teacher excitedly waving at me in the reflection of our combined pee. An odd experience. Wang Laoshi (teacher Wang) told me that she had been looking for me....I didn't expect her to look for me that hard! She wanted me to take part in a competition - I could understand this much - but couldn't understand the sport she was describing. It turned out to be tug-of-war! Yes, if I were putting together a team of tuggers, I'd be my first choice too with my superb balance, exra strong muscles, and sporting reputation!

 

I could not refuse Wang Laoshi...so I dutifully donned my sports kit and went to lead the ladies' foreign students' tug team. We were told to meet at one of the uni's sports grounds, and arrived to quite large crowds of people - each team was allowed 4 women (and around 16 men) and thankfully our team had 16 REALLY big men in it so we won! Photographs of my first Chinese sporting achievement will be posted shortly - I couldn't take any as I was too busy pulling on a rope!