Tis the season to be merry!

Well its over, Christmas has come and gone in Shijiazhuang (that rhymes if pronounced correctly!). My lesson this week has been to compare my Christmas in China to a normal Christmas in England and I’m happy to report that with a few exceptions it has been relatively similar.

I have spent most of the last week or so either drunk or hung-over. I have eaten like a pig at numerous restaurants, coffee shops and hotels. Christmas day involved opening presents around the Christmas tree we had in Charlie’s living room, then continuing to drink while we watched the West Wing. Nothing much has changed there really.

The highlight has to our Christmas meal. A six course extravaganza, including lobster, smoked salmon, turkey, mashed potatoes, gammon and lots besides that. We had the entire restaurant to ourselves, something I must say I have never experienced in England before.

For Boxing Day, we had organised a 9-a-side football match against some of the students from one of my classes. Fed on nothing but carbohydrates, these nine 17 year olds were a tough opposition. Add to this the obscene amount of alcohol we two larger louts had consumed the day before and I think we did very well to finish the game 5 a piece. My inability to play football was never an issue. I spent the best part of the time trying my hardest to stay well clear of the action, only to accidentally get involved towards the end of the game, thus losing us our two goal lead. It has now snowballed into a weekly fixture, something my beer belly is not happy to hear!

I thought I might miss being in England far more than I have done these past few weeks. But the fact that teaching resumed on Boxing Day made it feel like any other week, rather than making us feel that we were missing Christmas at home.