A sad post today, I’m afraid.

As much as I love China, the only downside to this wonderful country is the sheer distance from England. If something happens in Blighty, it’s extremely difficult to return home. Unfortunately, such a situation happened with my Grandma, Freda Southall, who I was unable to be with when she passed away on September 21st, the day before her 77th birthday.

Her funeral was was the reason behind my recent break back to England.

Rather than concentrate on the sad emotions that follow her sudden passing, I feel it is instead nicer to focus on some of the special memories I have of my lovely Nana, the wonderful woman who bought me a Disney video every Christmas until I was fourteen-years-old and probably would have last year if I hadn’t told her I was getting a bit old for them.

I think my love of all things vintage stems from my grandparents, who, as a child I remember enough Murano glass and vintage 1960s mass-produced prints to fill a car boot sale. I always remember her Shabner print hanging above the stairs that I absolutely adored. My grandma also introduced me to the concept of kitsch, by making me watch Wonder Woman with her every Sunday morning when it re-ran on cable television – back in the day when cable television was still a luxury and most people made do with four TV channels.

My grandma is perhaps one of the reasons why I enjoy story-telling – and writing on my blog – so much. She was the kind of lady that would spend fifteen minutes telling you a story that somebody else could tell you in two, but she would sidetrack with other titbits of knowledge and wisdom along the way before reaching her eventual point.

As good as she was at story-telling, listening was not one of her strong points. She would often fall asleep during conversations and re-join the chatter twenty minutes later talking about the same thing as when she fell asleep - when everyone else moved on from that about eighteen minutes prior. Watching a film was even worse; I remember once trying to watch Profondo Rosso with her (an admittedly odd choice) – the normal running time of which is about two hours. Around three hours later, we were just coming into the last reel as I had to keep rewinding the tape.

The term power-nap was probably invented for her.

Like all grandmas everywhere, she had that very distinct aroma - when she gave you one of her big grandma hugs, the kind you got when you just arrived or were going home, you could bank on spending the rest of the day smelling of Estee Lauder with a smattering of pastel pink kiss marks all over your face. My poor cousin, who wore glasses as we were growing up, probably lost a few sets of frames due to our vice-gripping, face-hugging Grandma.

My Grandma lost her leg in the 1990s due to complications from heart surgery. Even after that terrible event, which must be literally crushing for anyone it happens to, she always had a smile for her grandchildren and her big grin whenever you went to visit her. Her strong will was best summed up by the vicar who gave the service at her funeral - she really was a tough old bird.

Sometimes, even though I adore living here in China, I wonder if I have chosen the right life path, as whilst I am here, I am missing out on precious family moments that can’t be re-captured later; such as spending more time with my lovely Nana. That said, I know she was proud of me for achieving what I have here, and that wherever she is now, she’ll be looking down on me - when she isn’t betting on the horses.

Goodbye, Nanny. I will miss you so much; you rest in peace now. If you see Gemar wherever you are now, please don’t make him watch too much Wonder Woman with you.

Gosh, it’s really been a while since I’ve been here on Tumblr, as I didn’t post anything for three weeks. I have so many posts to upload, about holidays and parcels and all sorts of new discoveries in Wuhan. I did intend to do it earlier, however I found out some heartbreaking news last week that made updating the blog seem unimportant.

Since I started using the internet, I have always had internet friends. Just like real life, some of them remain friends, some of them disappear, and some of them make a lasting impression upon you. 

Some people argue that someone that you never meet, that you never actually have physical contact with, cannot touch you. become a part of your life and become a true friend. This week, I know that I can argue this is definitely untrue.

It is with the heaviest of hearts I have to write about the untimely passing of my special friend, Gemar Castaneda. It was only on May 20th that I last spoke to him, a wonderful Filipino young man with the warmest outlook on life.

Touching wood and appreciating my good fortune, my encounters with death have been limited to just great-grandparents and an uncle. Although my Uncle’s death was tragic, the passing of great-grandparents is difficult but nonetheless to an extent easier to deal with, as it isn’t completely unexpected when someone reaches ninety years old. With Gemar, that isn’t the case. It seems like just five minutes since I was complaining to him about a naughty child in my class and he was telling me about his plans to go and hang out with his friends for the evening.

I found out this sad news by Facebook. It had been a few weeks since I last spoke to him, and I was a little concerned as to where he was. Planning to leave a “where are you” type message; it was only when I logged onto his profile that I found a wall of condolences. After contacting his friend, I found out my poor Flower, as his nickname was (a term of endearment in British English that he never really understood and thus gave me the nickname Bee) had died of meningitis the week before. 

Meningitis is an illness that we, as babies, are immunised against in The UK, so it almost seems madness that a young, fit, healthy young boy with the thickest mop of black hair I have ever seen and hopes and dreams of his upcoming university career should die from it. 

The past few days have been very emotional, with many tears shed. It is true that we never met, but for the short period we knew each other we became very close friends, planning to visit each other when we had time and money to. Unfortunately, that visit can never take place now. An element that fills me with sadness is that one of his friends, who did not have access to Facebook at the time, was lucky enough to speak to to him before he died, at which Gemar mentioned me to him. His friend didn’t know how to contact me so I never got to say goodbye. This is difficult, as although it means I can now remember him as the smiling, sunny-natured guy he was, it fills me with regrets and what-if’s if I had had chance to speak to him.

Looking back now, I feel like I should have said more, told him more, seized every chance to talk to him rather than be busy with other things, and this makes me sad. I know, however, that he would not want me, or his other friends who miss him dearly, to cry. Instead, he would want us to remember the good times and best memories we shared. Although our friendship was short, I have enough memories of him to last a lifetime, and I’ll forever keep him in my heart.

His funeral was last Sunday, and it really hurts me to say that I was unable attend. Instead, I sent a letter to his Mama in The Philippines telling her how much I will remember her son, and also enclosed a letter to Gemar that I have asked someone to read to him when they visit his place of interment. The reason behind doing this was to act as a closure. Not a closure of our friendship, which I will remember forever, but rather a closure of my grief and the start of focusing on remembering the good memories and grasping every chance that life throws me. Not only because, as Gemar’s story shows, we don’t know what’s around the corner, but also that this is what Gemar would have wanted me to do.

One thing that Gemar’s death has taught me is to appreciate what you have today and the people that are part of your life. Never take them for granted, because you never know how long they will be around. We never know what tomorrow will bring, and Gemar lived his life being warm, considerate and caring to all of his friends. If everyone took a leaf from his book, the world would be a better place.

I read in an article from a Filipino newspaper, eerily dated just six weeks before his death, regarding a free vaccination session at a hospital against meningitis. The article stated that only one in one million Filipinos die from meningitis. I know that God chose one in a million when he took Gemar from us.

Goodnight Flower. Your Bee is going to miss you every day.

I was going to start this post with another apology about not updating the blog for a week, but I think it’s better just to say that I’m probably only going to write here on a weekly basis, as when I sign in I always have so much to write! I’ve noticed a few people have started to follow me here on Tumblr now, so thanks for that - I hope you find my posts about living here in China interesting!

The past week has been busy as usual, this time with a visit to the local aquarium and a trip to Shanghai.

Let’s start with the aquarium, which isn’t too far from East Lake and the Hubei Provincial Museum. The funny thing is that I was here in Wuhan for almost a year without realizing that half of these places actually existed. The aquarium is a little expensive with an 80RMB admission fee, but is definitely one of the better tourist attractions in Wuhan. Sadly, almost no effort has been made with the approach to the aquarium – when you pay the admission fee and walk up, you have to walk through an old dinosaur-themed playground which is completely overgrown and looks like something out of Jurassic Park.

When you reach the venue, however, it’s a different story, and there are plenty of fish to look at up close. There was even a very dodgy performance by two girls dressed as mermaids in one of the aquariums, and a diver dancing with a shark – or rather, feeding it treats in an effort to keep it sweet whilst he grabbed hold of its fins and spun it around.

As usual, there was more stupidity from some of the patrons, include one idiot blatantly ignoring signs telling you not to piss off the fish put your hands in the tanks. I love the way in the photo it looks like they are seriously swarming like someone from Joe Dante’s Piranha. If they had attacked, that would have actually justified the 80RMB admission fee.

All in all, a nice day that definitely deserves a place in the recommended category.

So – moving onto Shanghai. I’d never been there before. In fact, my only real familiarity with Shanghai was with that Madonna romantic-adventure-comedy movie Shanghai Surprise where she plays a missionary. Madonna playing a missionary is pretty much the funniest thing about the whole movie. It’s no wonder she got away with those burning crosses; if God didn’t strike her down for this movie, she’s got to be pretty much indestructible.

Anyway, back on topic, I’d heard a lot of things - both positive and negative - about Shanghai - some people seem to fall in love with it, but some friends, who have similar opinions about Beijing, think it is too westernized. The friend I saw whilst I was in there told me when I arrived; “Welcome, you’re not in China anymore!” And to a certain extent, she was right. I’ll explain why in the rest of this post.

The reason for going to Shanghai was that my school asked me to go to take part in a teaching competition run by Sina, which is kind of like a Chinese equivalent to Twitter. A few weeks ago, I was asked to film one of my classes and post it online, and I didn’t expect to hear anything else about it, until my school director told me I was being sent to Shanghai for the quarter-final.

As usual in China, the communication was absolutely dreadful; nobody seemed to know what the procedure would be until I arrived. When I got to the venue, I was given a little sticker, my photo was taken, I stood around for around twenty minutes, introduced myself to the judges and then had to perform a six minute class… and that was it.

This meant I had the rest of the three day trip to do whatever I wanted.

The main thing I noticed about Shanghai is that, like I mentioned earlier, it is very westernized, at least in comparison to Wuhan. One of the reasons why I chose to live in Wuhan was that the idea of an overtly-westernized city didn’t really appeal to me, but after visiting Shanghai, I was pleasantly surprised and would actually seriously consider relocating there at some point during my Chinese adventure. I always thought that Wuhan had quite a large expat situation, but this is nothing compared to Shanghai, where it seems a foreigner is on every street corner. Most people in the centre of the city speak English too - which led to some embarrassment when I - speaking my best Mandarin Chinese - asked a store assistant in H&M where his T-shirt was from, only for him to respond in perfect American English that he’d picked it up whilst he lived in The States.

Whilst we’re on the topic of H&M; the branch in the Shanghai city centre also stocks shoes right up to size 45, not out of the ordinary for your Average Joe but a good three sizes bigger than most Chinese men. I bought some snazzy espadrille-style pumps that will probably last two weeks, but for 95RMB, who’s complaining?

Shanghai is also pretty easy to navigate due to its impressive metro system, which links the whole city via over 400km of tracks. This made it very easy for me to complete one of the main tasks I wanted to whilst I was in Shanghai - the shopping. The first thing I did was check out a record shop. Wuhan, as far as I’ve discovered, doesn’t have any vinyl stores, aside from one CD store on the university campus that has one box of tatty 80s power-pop LPs that are unworthy of a place in my collection. Anyway, I searched on the internet for some addresses and managed to find this apparently small store on the second floor of an electronics mall. Not really where you’d expect to find the Mecca of Chinese vinyl collecting, but looks can be deceiving.

At least, I thought the shop was small. After I looked through the stock, the boss, one of the only people I met in Shanghai that didn’t speak English, approached me and told me he had some more Japanese stock in some boxes outside the store. I found some gems in here, including some Yuzo Kayama and Hiromi Go LPs. By this point, I’d been in the store for around an hour, and was ready to leave. Whilst paying for my purchases, the boss this time round asked me if I wanted to look in the store room, by which point I gave up all hope of seeing anything else in Shanghai that day as there was about a hundred boxes of completely unsorted vinyl from all over the globe.

One of the exciting things about all of these records is that they were all Japanese imports, who really excelled themselves with packaging design for vinyl. Buying a record in the 1970s and 1980s must have been a real experience, as not only did you get the music, you got the obi-strip on the sleeve, teasing you with the audible delights contained therein, the lyric sheet (or sometimes even a lyric booklet with photographs) and even a poster for your bedroom wall. My copy of Laura Branigan’s Self Control even came with a brochure all about her back catalogue. 

Anyway, thankfully, the teenage girl who bought my Hiromi Go records had managed to resist temptation, and so my records came complete with vintage posters. Hey, Go-San, those sunglasses are pretty rad.

Three hours later and fifteen records later, I decided to call it a day and head over to Ikea, one of my favorite stores in England. Now, Ikea is always a better experience when you go with someone, as you can take photos pretending that the rooms are your house. I didn’t do any of that this time round, but I bought some cute bits and pieces for my house, and some great toys from their childrens’ section to use at school. I’ve actually started to come to realize that I’ll probably never leave China, not by choice but for the simple fact I have so much crap here now leaving would cost a small fortune.

After the competition, I saw my old boss Cathy, who moved to Shanghai last year to work with the headquarters of EF. Cathy’s nickname when she worked at our school was “The Facilitator”, as many evenings with her were spent with her feeding everyone else in her vicinity with booze. She was determined to make sure I didn’t leave Shanghai without a party. Which she did, to the extent of which I don’t really remember the evening; the kind of evening you try to piece back together with photographs - and you know it must have been bad when you have photos outside the Iranian Embassy…

Because of this, I didn’t really get to do half of the things I planned to do on my last day in Shanghai, instead spending most of the day in post-night-out-with-Cathy recovery mode. Despite this, I did manage to check out The Bund, and the nearby skyline, on either sides of the Huangpu River.

The skyline is home to some great architecture such as The Imperial Pearl Tower. The area of the skyline isn’t very vast - and because of that, impressive - as Hong Kong; the skyline length is quite small, almost looks like someone has scooped the buildings together. Where the skyline is more impressive than Hong Kong is that the architecture is so varied - the Pearl Tower, finished in 1994, is fascinating, and The Shanghai World Finance Centre is the fourth tallest building in the world.

The Bund, on the other hand - or rather, side; is the complete opposite, with the architecture dating from the early 20th century, largely in art-deco style. In the 1940s, this was the home of the major banks and European trading houses, but is now one of Shanghai’s major tourist destinations. I was most impressed by the Customs House, which reminded me of the Liver Building back in Blighty.

I imagine this is a great place to hang out when the weather is warmer, as it was pretty cool and a little bit rainy whilst I was there.

And that pretty much concluded my Shanghai adventure. If I get through to the quarter final of the competition, I will have to go again, so maybe I’ll be able to see some more sights - and inevitably buy more records, soon. Either way, I’m sure I will see more of Shanghai in the near future.

Last night was a quiet night in for me, Steven, and my best friend here in Wuhan, Philip. Whilst we’re on topic, and because he will undoubetdly crop up in future posts, I’ve known Philip since almost my arrival in Wuhan. I first met him through my school when he studied as a VIP student, which meant we had one-to-one classes twice a week. From this, we became very good friends, and now he spends a lot of time staying at my house to watch movies and drink beer improve his English.

After another trip to the DVD shop of Guang Ba Lu to buy some more movies, we decided to actually start watching some of them, owing to the fact so far we only watched one of the fifteen that we bought - a very obscure English movie called Deep End, starring Jane Asher and responsible for teaching Steven the phrase piss off. We decided to start with Halloween, John Carpenter’s 1978 slasher movie that all but started the genre as we know it today. Playing in China under the literally translated - and far less snappy - title The Moon is Shining, Panic!, and long time a personal favorite of mine, I thought it was time to initiate the two boys to the horrors of Michael Myers’ bloody quest pursuing Jamie Lee Curtis, so we settled down with around a million different snacks, turned the lights off and let the terror begin… which opened my eyes to some interesting points that I want to write about today. 

The first thing that amazed me about watching Halloween was how scary the two boys found it. Philip spent most of the second half of the movie covering his eyes and jumping around the sofa every time Michael Myers emerged from the shadows. Maybe I have been de-sensitized to the movie, having seen it so many times, but it seems fair to say Halloween - in terms of gore, musical stingers and jump-out-your-seat moments, plays very tame in comparison to the countless number of clones that followed it. Similarly, when watching Brian de Palma’s Carrie with Steven last week, it is fair to say the shock ending had the desired effect upon Steven.

This made me curious about the attitudes towards horror films, and moreso censorship, in China. Horror films are, from the people I have spoken to, somewhat frowned upon within Chinese culture, which seems strange considering the country’s history of popular ghost stories. Indeed, all of my Chinese friends, when they saw the cover artwork for the Halloween movies - and even Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho - highly regarded in the Western world and featuring a DVD sleeve with the image of Janet Leigh screaming in the shower - said that the movies looked horrible and they wouldn’t want to watch them.

In 2008 it was reported that China’s General Administration of Press and Publications would not allow the exhibition of movies containing “wronged spirits and violent ghosts, monsters, demons, and other inhuman portrayals, strange and supernatural storytelling for the sole purpose of seeking terror and horror.”

Which means a re-release of Halloween at the cinema is highly unlikely.

The government’s attitude to horror films - and in fact, films with adult-themed stories, is similarly rebuking. Chinese government only allows around 20 western productions to be released every year. These films must be suitable for all audiences as China does not have a rating system at the cinema, meaning the content of the movie must be suitable for cinema patrons of all ages. As mentioned in an earlier post, even the recent 3D re-release of Titanic played either cut or optically-censored in the scene where Leonardo diCaprio’s hand-double Leonardo diCaprio draws Kate Winslet, and the much-celebrated production of Farewell, My Concubine, starring the tragic Leslie Cheung, was banned due to its portrayal of homosexuality.

Whilst researching these facts, I found some interesting facts about domestic films too. According to the Taipei Times, whereas foreign films are merely screened to the government for approval, Chinese productions must submit the plot and the finished movie in order for release.

The thing that makes all of this seem so old-fashioned is the fact that, for those living close to Hong Kong, a day-trip there can be rounded of by seeing the latest horror movie at the cinema. When I last visited, the subway was festooned by billboards for Scream 4 - playing just about everywhere, with an adult certificate from Hong Kong’s classification board.

But, is such strong censorship still relevant in Chinese society, a country where counterfeit DVDs can be bought for even the most disgusting of Italian splatter movies for next to nothing in every city? Maybe not, but it definitely seems fair to say that the ideology of the government with regard to horror movies reflects - or influences -  the attitudes of Chinese people’s movie-going tastes. Either way, I’m going to enjoy showing Steven and Philip the scariest and most vile films I can think of.

Last time I was in the DVD store I saw a copy of Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead. Now, that could be a cracker to pick up for the next movie marathon…

The other night, me and Steven decided to make the most of China’s equivalent to Orange Wednesdays and go and see Titanic 3D in rip-roaring, iceberg-crashing 3D, for 50RMB rather than the usual 100RMB. We were going to go last week, but that was the day before Steven’s birthday, so we spent most of the night tidying the house - the kind of tidying that involves shoving ugly things in cupboards where nobody can see them.

Anyway, this was the third time I’ve been to the cinema here in China. In England, I used to go a lot more, but in China it’s pretty difficult to a) find English movies playing, b) find English movies playing in English, and c) find anything actually worth watching. See, China has the some of the strongest censorship laws in the world (which is utterly ridiculous as DVD is almost completely copyright and thus censorship-free), so there’s very little for someone who owns all the Friday the 13th movies to go and enjoy. Apparently, daytime showings of Titanic even omit the scene where Kate Winslet gets naked, which is a bit extreme as there isn’t even a bumcrack in sight.

Anyway, things I discovered/that were reconfirmed whilst watching Titanic:

1) Chinese people have no cinema etiquette. Chatting to your mates about how sad the movie is is perfectly acceptable, as is calling your friends and telling them that the scene where Kate Winslet gets her kit off is still in the movie if you go to a late showing.

2) 3D glasses are gold-dust in Chinese cinemas. Unlike in England, where you pay your £27 for your cinema ticket and get to keep your specs for subsequent Where’s Wally-themed parties, you have to pay the equivalent of a tenner deposit and return them after the movie, where they are subject to examination.

3) Chinese people - or rather Wuhanese people, as this hasn’t happened anywhere else, don’t like to watch the end of the movie. Before the old lady had even chucked the necklace in the ocean at the end of the movie, the lights were on and people were getting up to leave. Maybe that’s because they talked all through the rest of the film and didn’t have any idea what was going on. 

4) Chinese people have the oddest sense of humour - that bit at the end of Titanic where the boat turns up and that poor passenger plummets to his death and smashes into every possible part of the deck on the way got the best response of the entire movie, with everyone in the auditorium heckling the screen.

Maybe they didn’t know it was based on a true story?

The most annoying - and embarrassing - thing about seeing Titanic, however, was the fact that Steven didn’t even cry, and I’d worked my way through a pack of tissues by the end of the movie after spending the last half-hour of it snivelling as quietly as possible.

How do you start the first post of a new blog? I guess with a hello and an introduction?

So, hello everyone. For those of you that don’t know me, my name is Antony, and I’m currently living in Wuhan, China, working as an English teacher for EF, which is so far working out quite nicely. I started working here in February 2011 and have just signed a new contract for another year at the school. I live with a very lovely Chinese gentleman called Steven who is attempting to teach me Chinese, but I’m not a very good student. I think I’m hardworking, but I know how to have a good time, and you can usually find me in a bar on a Wednesday and Friday night. I’ve been told I’m pretty good with children, and you’ll probably see a few photos of them on this blog in the upcoming months.

I am interested in fashion and spend most of my wages on Taobao, which, for those of you that aren’t Chinese, is kind of like an equivalent to eBay and Amazon rolled into one but with ridiculously cheap prices. In England I used to collect all sorts of junk and every weekend would be spent traipsing around car boot sales looking for more crap antiques of the future to bring home - I’m especially interesting in vintage textiles and wallpaper, 1960s/1970s mass-produced prints, West German pottery, Japanese records and old Star Wars toys. That said, if anything else caught my eye in said venues, I’d probably have bought that too, so my Mama’s house back in Blighty is full of all sorts of rubbish.

I have always been tempted to start a blog of my own, and have a few times in the past; but what tends to happen is that I post every half hour when I first start, and slowly get distracted by all sorts of rubbish over the next few months that I post less and less and eventually give up. 

That said, all through my first year in China I often thought that some of the things that happened during every day life would be really interesting - to someone. I’m not exactly sure who that target audience is, but maybe if I tell you about the blogs I read, that will give you an idea what to expect.

Things I do know about blogs is that they can be really interesting - especially when they’re well written. Three blogs I regularly follow are Junkaholique, ran by a jewelry maker based in London who has a real knack for taking great photos of England; Yard Sale Bloodbath, written by an American girl who frequents multiple tat sales around Seattle every Sunday and is therefore instantly excellent, and Giallo Fever, a wonderful website with fascinating reviews about the demented genre of movies that were popular in Italy in the 1960-1980s.

Hopefully, I will be able to be just a little as interesting as these three aforementioned blogs - the content of mine will probably be a bit of a combination of all three with some extra - things I do in my flat to give it that ‘vintage’ look that nobody else in China seems to want; shopping, Taobao, eBay, and second hand tat finds (and renovation jobs on said junk I complete on my days off); the odd movie review - especially if Steven finds a film particularly entertaining (he seems to find utter dreck the most entertaining - last night he wouldn’t go to bed until we watched the end of Sybil Danning’s breast-fest They’re Playing with Fire); and finally general rants, observations and stories from working and living in this wonderful city that is Wuhan, China.

I hope you find it interesting!