Fuddland
I can’t quite believe I’ve been here for two weeks already — everything has been both entirely vivid and a complete blur — and because I’ve not really said so explicitly yet, I should clear up precisely where “here” is: I am not, as I previously thought I was going to be, living near the Russian border, but instead am residing farther south [but still blooming cold] in the larger city of — population 1.5 million [approx.] — as there was a greater need for my services here than up north.
This is a heavily industrial region and the city is dreadfully polluted; soon after I arrived a blanket of fresh snow covered up the worst of it for a couple of days, but this quickly turned into black sludge and confirmed the extent of the filth — i.e. it’s everywhere. This is not a place to come for sightseeing [unless plumes of smoke billowing out of factory chimneys is your idea of a gorgeous vista], but perhaps I am writing it off a little too soon, and am willing to be pleasantly surprised.
Thankfully I have met some very nice people to take my mind off the environmental hazzards — my flatmate is an American called Susannah who has been here since the beginning of July and works in the same school as me, and the other foreign teacher at my school is a Scot named Alan who arrived just two weeks before myself. Through them I have met a few other foreigners [all English teachers] and my lovely Chinese teacher Emma.
As one might have expected, learning Chinese is proving to be the most challenging aspect of my stay so far, although I have had only two lessons and might be being a little too hard on myself — I’ll say more about learning the language at a later date.
