an ordinary day in Xiamen

We don't know how many times people have asked us how we teach those 'chineesjes' how to sail. So it's about time we offer you an impression of our daily work.

Every day (except on sundays) we get out of our Asian Gulf Hotel -beds at 8 o'clock and have (a lavish) breakfast.

We take a taxi to the club (and it's always a miracle when we get there alive).

We welcome the kids. Pictures: Tom, Kennedy, Joe (the result of a chinese mother and a brittish father)

Yesterday we had a day off due to heavy rains, but today we could rig the boats right out in the sun ( in the picture: the children are pouring the water out of the boats). We let the children sail around two marks, which they did quite succesfully (hurray for us).

At 12 o'clock we have lunch in a local cantine nearby. On the menu today: rice, egg soup, fish heads, tofu, porc and soya beans: finger-lickin' good!

In the pictures: Mathieu showing off his chopsticks-skills and Barbara with the chefs.

After the break, which we spend most of the time on explaining Chinese and European differences, we teached them today how to beat upwind (which, amazingly, some of them understood).

And for those who think that this is the end of our day, we usually accompany the children to the centre of Xiamen, have dinner (with or without translators), rummage around, write blogs, go jogging, or, like this evening, organise a drink on the beach.

Any question unanswered, any remark,

one adress: http://www.nocsp-xiamen.blogspot.com/

with kind regards,

Barbara & Mathieu

Sex and China

Today, august 19, it is chinese valentine's day, wich gives us, except for a couple of hours extra rest (the roomservice comes later due to this special day), a perfect opportunity to talk about relationships, love and sex in China.

Untill the age of 18, you can't talk about it, you can't date, it's forbidden to fall in love!

Of course, this rule results in a very ambiguous attitude: the youngsters are forced to do everything secretly, behind the back of teachers and parents. You will see very few couples, and you will never see somebody kissing. On the other hand, the parking lots next to the beach are crowded at night, and people prefer to watch the splendid view from their cars.

An alternative might be to book a hotel for one night, as pointed out by Tony, one of the translators, who has a girl friend but doesn't want his three roommates to enjoy her company too. Luckily, the hotels are well prepared, see the picture of what we found in our room.

Once they're finally 18, the girls will start looking for a future husband, and once married things only get more complicated. You'd beter like your mother-in-law, because the parents of the bride are as important as the bride hereself: problems are fixed between families, not between the bride and groom.

The mariage has to be planned on a lucky date, which means there must be an eight involved. That's why the start of the olympic games (08-08-'08) will also be the start of a lot of happy, everlasting marriages. Organising your marriage is quite simple here: you step into one of the marriage bureaus and you can choose everything you want on the big computer screens, from the dress to the pie.

You might go to a hairdresser to look as handsome as possible for your marriage, but choose your hairdresser carefully. Prostitution is forbidden, so the brothels need a cover. The former are the lowest level, masseuses are more expensive (recource: Martin, from the sailing club, we wonder why he knows).

In case you wonder why we know, chinese talk a lot.

your reporters on spot,

Barbara & Mathieu

happy birthday!!

Specially for our beloved mom ( and our shape) a photo-reportage of our morning exercises.

three kisses from your lithe children,

Barbara & Mathieu

We realised we didn't tell much about all our other most interesting activities, so here's an adjust.

Today it's sunday, which means our first training week is over and that we'll have new kids tomorrow. Due to the tyfoon we could only spend to days on the water, so the children didn't sail very wel, but on the other hand they adored games like 'fat berta', 'stoelendans' (on Mathieu's finest electro) and 'tussen twee vuren'. We hope for better weather conditions next week.

We wasted our only day off on the Gulangyu island. We did worse than Pauline and Evelien, we couldn't stand it more than three hours: it was too touristic and too crowded.

The only good thing was the very tasty looking mango we brought with us (it's now almost healed from Mathieu's incision)

We'll be back with very, very funny stories tomorrow!

yours truly,

Barbara & Mathieu

how I learned to stop worrying and love public transport

The first days we travelled through Xiamen by taxi, like non-chinese tourists (very exceptional) or rich people (not so exceptional). However, we don't like taxis for several reasons. First, they can fall apart every moment. Secondly, you see your money vanish into thin air on the counter and finally we don't like the taxi drivers: they smell, they're blind and they make detours (and even when you know it, you can't tell them (language problem) or not pay it (even wreckedly taxis have intact locks)).
Although we saw a lot of busses passing al through the city, our translators and coaches maintained that it would be impossible for foreigners to take a bus. The two biggest obstacles were the timetables written in chinese only and the absence of maps (not common in china).
After a few days of busspotting, we wrote down the numbers of the busses that stopped at some key stations, we are able to travel from the hotel to the centre of the city by bus.

The third means of transport is the bicycle. It is widely used in China, except for Xiamen, where the government doesn't support it (note: motorcycles are forbidden). Nevertheless, more and more people start to ride the bike. We wanted to be one of them.
So Mathieu took two translators in tow to buy a second handed bike (a new one is stolen immediatly) on the street, while it was Barbara's turn to stay in bed (being sick).
Mathieu was told to wait untill dusk was falling on a specific corner in town (thanks to some inside information). In the meanwhile, he tried a delicious meal with pig's blood on the recommendation of the translators.
Suddenly more than thirty shady characters appeared with all kinds of bikes, even a professional racebike (for 30 euro). After an hour of negotiation with several "salesmen" we had a bike but it turned out the hotel was kind of far (3 hours)! Solution: we put the bike in the bus.

We travelled by bus, we have a bike, mission accomplished!!
At your service,
Barbara & Mathieu