The Year Of The Rat: Spring Festival 2020

January 2020: Being feeling ill since I got here

I remember back in early December one of the naughty boys I teach had a surgical mask on because he had a bug. It's very kind of him to wear it so he doesn't pass on his germs. I must've had four or five bugs and viruses in the eight weeks I'd been here. God only knows what they were. I asked him a question so I get down to his little chair and ask him, "How many boats are there?", while holding a card with four cartoon boats. He takes off his mask and sneezes in my face! I felt a splat then he says, "There are four". "Good job!" The next day I'm ill with another virus. A slightly different foggy tiredness and a constant dry throat, perhaps caused by the unusual dry winters here in Dalian. Unusual for me from humid and damp England. All of these sneezes I inhaled and sticky high-fives might have been better than any flu vaccine. From week one until we closed shop for Spring Break on the 22nd of January I'd felt ill in one way or another. This was the first time I'd been around kids since I was a kid myself and it must've shocked my immune system into high gear. There was a lot of new germs for me to process and resist, and it couldn't have come at a better time for my immune system considering what was to come.

The year of the rat was upon us. Spring Festival; the worlds biggest human migration. The thought of all those Chinese motorists trying to navigate a continent while pissing around with their phones and blindly changing five lines at once makes this a dangerous time in any year. Then COVID joined the roads and spread out of Wuhan. So one of many contradictory news fables from 2020 go. Another report said it started in Italy, who knows. COVID reached the shores of Dalian in the days after my school closed for Spring Festival. Multiple situations began to develop extremely fast in the days before the new moon and continued at pace for a fortnight into February. For me it was a time of solitude, crippling isolation, soul searching and good fortune. No different to any other time perhaps.

Spring Festival: Everything's quiet on New Years Day

There was a build up to spring festival and the Chinese New Year much the same as there's a build up to Christmas in the west. Shops were decked out with red decor and cartoon rats were seen in every shop window. As a foreigner with zero skills in the Chinese language I struggle to participate and remained in my bubble, away from news and city life. Spring festival is the biggest human migration on planet Earth by a long way. A fair bit more than a British Bank Holiday. The new city of Dalian becomes eerily quiet as millions of citizens begin long journeys back to their ancestral homes. Sounds mystical but in reality young families are just taking their kids to see grandpa and grandma for a few weeks. Dalian is a commuter town, young people move here to do business and make money. So the direction of traffic is out! Into the unknown wilds of Liaoning Provence and further. This direction of travel is fortunate for me and the remaining residents of Dalian as the mysterious COVID virus is on the loose and spreading fast.

Tuesday 21st January 2020: Lucky Charm

At Christmas one of my students give me a calendar. A big red scroll which is hanging on the side of my fridge. I never got gifts when I worked on the factory floor! How much thanks and praise am I suppose to give in return for a nice gift when I haven't brought them anything? In the weeks leading up to spring festival I had one on one classes teaching Trinity. He's one of my best students and knows all the English tenses I wasn't aware of at his age. I wasn't aware of present continuous, past perfect and the others until my mid thirties when I thought I'd become an English teacher. At Durham Johnston it's past, present, future; end of. After the lesson his mam offered me a New Years gift, my choice of lucky charms. I forget the Chinese name but she had made various sizes, colours and shapes for friends and family. I chose a small blue and yellow charm which looks something like a Celtic knot with tassels and a loop so I can hang it up. I've had it hanging on my bathroom door since and maybe it's helped me through the times ahead. The bathroom didn't particularly need luck more than any other spot in my flat, it was just the only hook free of winter coats to hang it. I believe I'm a lucky person, by choice. We can choose to be lucky or choose to be victims. Lucky charms help me focus on positivity and being lucky. As well as having a lucky charm I bought some new year lucky rat symbols from Metro. I stuck these on my windows and stuck a Mickey Mouse lucky red square on my front door. Chinese legend says these vivid red symbols ward off demons. In August the glue on one of my window stickers give up the ghost so I stuck it back on with tape, just to be safe.

Wednesday 22nd January 2020: Last day of school

Unknown to us this was the last last day of school for a long time. I was kind and stupid enough to cover for a colleague who was mysteriously ill on the last day of school then I spent an hour been told off for offending another colleague. I'm just not middle class enough for this job. Getting on the wrong side of colleagues is always a sure way to get fired in a hurry, judging by past experience. These sort of moments can put me into a depression, of which I'm prone to have from time to time. Maybe I'm a sensitive bitch and should have meditated on my new lucky charms, or reread The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A Fuck.

Jobs in the past have ended suddenly for me if I say a word out of place or get viewed negatively by the wrong person. Things can get very tribal back home with managers picking favourites. Some guys would be earmarked for promotion while others are heading for the exit. I was hoping to leave all of that bullshit behind in County Durham. I came to China after two CELTAs (another story) and a ton of credit card debt so relocating after only two months should this job end would be a real financial fucker, or at least a hassle to be dealt with. The thought of this job ending as the temporary jobs in England had with meaningless contracts been torn up was extremely stressful and the time spent in the managers office after covering a class didn't help. It felt a bit ridiculous and I was in mortal fear of losing my job. Fucking up another new start, but, 'Those who can't, teach', and the bar here is pretty low so I shouldn't worry! I retreat into the familiar safety of my shell and finish off my last lesson of the Chinese year to retreat to my fortress of solitude. The biggest challenge over my first year of teaching proved not to be teaching kids but the change from working class workplaces to middle class. Never thought I would miss the f-words and c-words from the factory floor, or the piss taking. There wasn't so much censorship back then, strangely the only censorship I feel here in China is from Americans.

It's funny how banking cash alleviates the intense stress of fearing a job might end. Real freedom is to have a skill that earns a living globally and in some parts of the world to be paid well for it. From past experience of money stresses getting a flat tyre when on the bones of my arse was a world ending and crippling catastrophe. If only I knew about Tyre Weld back in those dark days. To have money in the bank makes such an event a minor inconvenience. I assume I'll find out when I get some money in the bank. Right now I'm on the bones of my arse financially waiting and hoping for the first full pay check.

Thursday 23rd January 2020: Absent and alone

After yesterday a drink was required. Drink has been a comforter since 2016 when so called 'continental shifts' begun at the 3M Aycliffe factory I used to work in. Four 12 hour shifts then three and a half days off. Just enough time to recover from that miserable jet lag feeling and get ready for the first six a.m. start. Years before I survived the Washington Nissan factory with only a nightcap of whiskey after back shifts, but 3M sunk me into drinking heavier and drinking alone. It continued through my time in Budapest, back to Dodge City Durham, then Prague and now Dalian. Funny thing is I don't particularly enjoy drinking anymore; by myself at least. But nether do I enjoy the same political conversation. Sometimes, for me, I'm the best company around. Tsingtao was my beer of choice during these times and I can't recommend it. If American Budweiser is the king of piss then Tsingtao is the king of shit.

This was one of the most crushingly lonely days I've ever experienced. One of a few too many I've faced in my time in Dalian and I've had some long periods of loneliness and isolation in this life before. I was just walking around the familiar streets close to home and work in a state of depression. All of this before the fucking virus turned-up! There's no one back home to call, this was very much a one way escape. There aren't any local adults to strike up conversation with because I can't speak a word of Chinese. There's a work party at Blue Frog but I feel it's best if I don't go. Working-class English humour and modern day fragility are a dangerous mix, and not in a fun way with a job to keep. This moment of time was long before I bought a PS4 as a distraction; would've been fucking useful in the weeks ahead. So I did the only thing I could and spent a few hours in Starbucks reading the one book I brought from England and ponder what brought me here.

2014: New Year Resolution

It was Friday 7th February 2014 when I finished my last shift at HMP Nissan with a half baked idea for a career change. Career start more like. I don't consider breaking my neck (which is still fucked to this day) in 'Paint Shop Check and Repair, line 1' a career of any sorts. I heard it was a good job before Renault bought Nissan back in the 90s but for what it had become they should have had 'Arbeit Macht Frei' above the turnstiles to welcome our desperate souls, and this was considered an easy area to work in. After seeing how they graft in 'sealing', where they squirt sealant onto bulkheads in baking hot conditions, I tend to agree. It was this weekend in February 2014 when a new Starbucks opened two miles from where I lived in County Durham at Thinford. Despite making good money at Nissan I was still living with my parents into my early thirties, and for a few more years to come, embarrassingly. Got to save for that mortgage deposit haven't we. This new drive-thru Starbucks became my base of operation, and friendly motivation. I planned out my new career here as I moved from temp dead end job to another dead end job, from stamping forms at the Visa Office to pressing a button on a welder at Senstronics, promising myself each one was the last before I win some meaningful future position. I enrolled in several courses to uncover my path in life and eventually chose to be, an engineer. This was after I decided to get back into marketing (a la Chandler Bing) because my degree is in marketing only to rediscover marketing is all about bullshit, and I hate bullshit. I mistook marketing for a creative industry. As for engineering I can strip a car with three spanners and two screwdrivers, the 1980s Ford's I stripped with my dad at least. But the basic numeracy required for any engineering is beyond my dyslexia and education. £2,000 wasted on courses, some might say, but I've narrowed my focus. Starbucks was my base to work out all of this over the long five and a half years it took me to get here in China, for better or worse, from the British gulags of the mind such as, Husqvarna, 3M and Lear to the Hotel California of teaching English in middle class China. Starbucks is like a beacon of ambition. One of few places where I could get away from the banging of hammers at my dads' eternal building site of a home or get away from myself at my Newton Aycliffe flat, when I eventually fled the nest, and study. Or just read for pleasure. The prices they charge are ridiculous but it's my safe haven and base of operations. Even so here in China, where I need my Starbucks more than ever at a time of grave peril like this! Although people here insist on watching TikTok videos very loudly without earphones, so I'm the wanker at Starbucks trying to read an Ian Fleming novel wearing industrial ear defenders. There was however an all too familiar problem in the air, as Dustin Hoffman in a hazmat suit gazes up at an air vent and gasps in fear, "My god, it's airborne". COVID was now knocking on the gates of Dalian to put us to the test. So more Tsingtao was required for another evening full of downloaded movies.

Friday 24th January 2020: The last mask in Dalian

I woke up with another hangover and the sound of fireworks ringing in my ears. I went to the local Lawsons shop beside the block I live in and the woman who works there said, out of concern not an order, that I need to get a mask. Despite my lack of local news I was fully aware of a big problem in Wuhan and the likelihood of the virus spreading. I had a TV package with some western news channels to remind myself there's a world out there. Sky News and the BBC had an image of a woman face down in the streets of Wuhan, allegedly a victim of this mystery virus. Maybe you remember these images before the virus reached the west? Months later the truth came out that the terrifying images were of a woman who'd been ran over by a hit-and-run driver. Unfortunately she died of her injuries but it was fuck all to do with an virus. More bullshit in the western media. There was lots of fear mongering in the western news, as always regarding China and also Russia. Probably they saw a great opportunity in the virus to bash China with the usual negative narrative, just to scare the shit out of the English people and their government when it came their way.

From the vibe of the city it looks like it's arrived. Funny how the atmosphere of a city can change in an instant. I've felt the atmosphere of Newcastle change depending on the fortunes of the football team. The excitement of spring festival has gone along with a large chunk of Dalian's population leaving the streets eerily quiet. There's a chemist round the corner from where I live so I head straight for it. Mask wearing isn't uncommon here but I see more masks than before on the faces of Dalian's citizens. The climate is almost Siberian cold and dry as a bone. I'm wearing a thick black coat from Decathlon which zips down past my knees, Alpinestars gloves from my karting days and a good pair of North Face boots. The only place the cold bites is on my shins and with most people dressed for artic survival and masked all I can see are eyes!

There are times in life when I wonder if there's someone looking over me, perhaps my grandad or uncle John. Believers would say a guardian angel or Jesus I guess. When I get to the chemist there's a queue for surgical masks and a half empty stand with packs of ten pink surgical masks. It's unusual to see Chinese people form an orderly queue so the situation must be dire. I forget if we were rationed three packs or if it seemed like a reasonable number to take, to leave enough for other people. Three packs would give me a months supply if I used one a day but in the end I made these thirty masks last until May. I was certainly extremely lucky to get these as there wasn't many left and it would've been a major problem in the coming weeks if I didn't have any. Maybe I would've had to rap a scarf around my head to make do. If I arrived five minutes later I would've been fucked! Hence why I feel like someone is looking over me sometimes, I get lucky breaks like this quite often. The sort of luck which keeps me out of car wrecks on occasion or makes sure heavy objects fall to the ground beside me rather than on me. I didn't see masks for sale for a long time after this and they were sold out across town within hours of my visit to the chemist. Supermarkets and everywhere else sell them now but not back in January. Must've been March before I got my hands on anymore when I finally got Taobao working. If COVID was as contagious and fatal as it seemed on the BBC this would've surely been the end of me.

I'd been stocking up on bits of food over the past week as the rumour of potential quarantines grew and the virus went on the move. As I write I still have enough toilet paper from January to last until the year of the ox. Now, as a seasoned survivor, I see the stupidity in panic buying toilet paper like our lives depend on it when there's 1001 things we can wipe our arses on. That said I saw no panic buying here, people just seemed to buy a little more. Maybe everyone was stocked up for Spring Festival like us westerners do for Christmas. I stocked up on pasta, bought some big bags of rice and bought a load of instant noodles. Most of it is still in my kitchen and under the bed months later.

Saturday 25th January 2020: The last customer in Starbucks and the new moon

The new moon marks New Years Day. The year of the rat. I'm drinking every day at this time due to the feeling of intense isolation but also boredom. That awful Tsingtao was just starting to rot my guts. When I figured out what was poisoning me I could've chosen to go tea-total but elected for good old Heineken and Carlsberg instead. I can handle the isolation here like it's a normal way of life, I've spent my adult life in a withdrawn state socially after realising in my early teens the only person I can fully trust is myself. But boredom is hard to bare and I was never bored before I came here, not since I was a kid. I would always fill my time with thinking about doing something or go for a long drive. There's always something to do when we speak the same language. A place to go or a random conversation to have.

This time of year is a national holiday in China for family to meet up and tell tales about what's happened since last year but I have no-one here to see and no close family in England to call. So I wonder about the city in the snow and the cold and go to my usual haunt, Starbucks. The city is quieter than usual as I order my usual Venti Latte from Lancelot the barista, a name he has chosen for himself with no hint of irony but good luck to him anyway. Incidentally Starbucks is even more expense here than in England and with the crashing Pound against Renminbi continues to get more so. After I sat down with my book and took the first sip it was a welcome change to hear that fucking awful Woody Allen movie jazz abruptly stop like the needle had been pulled off the record with a loud scratch. Lancelot then starts pulling in the signs and ashtrays from outside to close the shop. The time is 10:30 a.m. Clearly Starbucks is closing in a hurry. Unknown to me a government order has been given to close every shop, bar and restaurant. So without fuss all such places lock their doors and I finish my coffee on the bench outside. I was the last to leave and missed this place for the four weeks until it reopened, it's remained open since. The city was locking down, following orders. The government orders were clear and people were following them. The SARS epidemic in the 2000s must've had everyone well versed and prepared in what to do. Burger King next door are locking up too. Music off, everyone out and padlock the doors. I'm such a fucking foreigner to be frequenting such restaurants! All restaurants in the mall and vicinity of my flat are closing apart from McDonald's which seems to have a monopoly now. God only knows how I passed the time looking back. There's no-one to see and nothing to do. Ever limited distractions. The supermarket is open so I continue to stock up on the sort of shite people might have in a nuclear bunker and to try Asahi beer for a change of diet from Tsingtao.

Sunday 26th January 2020: The Mandalorian

That Asahi beer has dried me out and the hangover is worse than usual! I check the John Hopkins graph when I get up every day at this point. Seems to have a big update mid morning here when results come in from more and more places around the world. Feels a bit like the Eurovision Song Contest when the votes come in. Do you remember when it consisted of just one line representing China instead of every country on planet Earth apart from some remote Pacific islands? It reached France on the 24th and cruise ships were doing their best to help the virus spread over the past week. I can do nothing but watch the wheels begin to fall off civilisation. I was actually done with prepping at this point. It's hard to find western ingredients here. I'm sure I could find some but in the short time I've been here I don't know the lay of the land or where I can find Yorkshire Tea or some good biscuits. I can only eat so much pasta and rice.

Supermarkets were still open and some restaurants reopened for take out only. McDonalds and Pizza Hut kept me on my feet during this time. This week was meant to be a holiday so there's no work to do and with most places closed there's nowhere to go. There isn't much point in studying because maybe the school won't reopen. If my school goes out of business others will too so which jobs do I waste my time applying for. Maybe Dubai is still recruiting but the virus is surely headed there too. With no one to turn to even for conversation I turned inwards to the safety of my introvert shell and sunk into watching downloaded movies. All too often I'm less alone when I'm alone. Some of the best nights I've had in my time here have been watching movies with some beer and pizza. Better nights than that night a while from now when I met that fucking Geordie.

The necessity of using distractions to not go insane drove me to start downloading movies. It was Christmas week when I got bit-torrents working. Firstly collections of Fast and Furious and James Bond; favourites I've already seen 1,000 times but comforting and familiar. Over the long evenings I would pick out the best parts of the James Bond movies after a few beers. The submarine Lotus and the speedboat chase on The Thames. Doing what was required to stay sane, switching off and passing time. The opening scene of Top Gun then fast forward to Maverick going supersonic to join the battle. I can watch that movie in twenty minutes. Most of the new to me movies I added to my collection were virus related, Contagion been the best of the bunch. On this night The Mandalorian was perfect for my state of mind. The story of a lone bounty hunter in the outer reaches of the galaxy. It struck a cord with me. I'm only here in the farthest reaches for the bounty too. I watched the whole series over two nights and with a lot of that nasty Tsingtao for company. The theme song was half the show. It stuck in my mind while tramping through the snow drifts to scavenge breakfast from McDonalds fully wrapped and masked up. I love the old cowboy movies of the strong independent loner surviving against the odds with nothing more than his wits and strength. It's pretty much the role I've chosen for myself just without the horse or the Baby Yoda, although I have plenty of Baby Yoda's at school. As the series progressed the Mandalorian let people in, to complete his missions, win battles and save his life from the murderous Gus Fring. There's a lesson in there for me, to let people in, and I fully intend to. When I feel free to. I'm missing the gang I met in Budapest during teacher training a year and some months before. I could say and do dumb shit and it would never be used against me at a later, opportunistic date.

The sun was coming up over the snow blasted cityscape, punching through the smog from the central heating burning night and day, keeping us alive in the bleak mid winter. It's been a long night and I drink so often I'm not feeling drunk. Always a sign to ease off for a while. As tragic as it is to be up all night watching a great TV show with some beers alone I've had nights worse than this. Nights alone in nightclubs surrounded by good friends. Good thing I'm confidently independent. Might just keep me alive longer.

Monday 27th January 2020: The Wuhan Airlift

The infinite wisdom of the British government is without equal. Wether red or blue those Eton educated girls and boys sure know their arses from their elbows when it comes to life and death decision making with the well being of The United Kingdom and it's subjects at stake. I wrote that sentence at the time in question in a first draft and things only went from bad to worse. Mediocre to tragic to the inevitable fury and anger of 2021 and not to mention the Brexit fiasco. At this time Wuhan had the virus worse than anywhere else in the world and was home to UK citizens and other foreigners from around the world. The British nationals, many of whom were teachers like me, were offered a free flight back to the land of tea and crumpets and a lot of them took the offer. Schools are now having a rough time recruiting foreigners due to the high numbers who've left China and lingering visa restrictions. I had no intention of going back to Dodge City once more whether I had the option of a free flight or not. I'll always remember on BBC News the images of coaches arriving for two weeks of quarantine, 'On the Wirral', which is basically the Liverpool area if you aren't local enough to pick fault with that generalisation. I remember seeing the arrivals all masked up through the big front windows of the coaches. They had some medics or quarantine camp officials in complete Hazmat attire onboard safe from any of this new deadly plague that might be in the air. They surely burnt out the coaches after arrival just to make sure. As for the coach drivers; face shields to save them from sneezes? Hazmat suits? Nope. Sweet fuck all! Just the usual coach driver shirt and tie. Seemingly all the protection required to save them from a bus full of potential COVID cases is a fucking seat belt. It's been a cock-up from start to finish as far as England is concerned and I fear how it all might end for my home world in the coming months.

Tuesday 28th January 2020: Writing my own obituary at the end of the world

The numbers were continuing to multiply exponentially and first cases were being declared around the world. At least I'd made it out of Dodge at long last. All of that time wasted in dead end jobs in County Durham just dreaming of getting out of those factories, warehouses and offices, getting out of the country all together. England can be the greatest place on Earth to live if you have money in the bank, but the amount of income required for a good life keeps getting higher. Taxes keep getting higher too while pay falls as inflation rises. I've finally found something worthwhile in teaching English after years of headache and pain. Just in time for the end of the world. I could've been doing this twelve years ago after uni if I knew back then.

Things are looking grim at this point. The figures are still doubling every few days in China and now it's spread throughout Asia and to the west. The west can't lockdown cities like the Chinese can when cases start doubling. There's nowhere left to run! At this point in time I wasn't fearful of catching COVID. Since this time it's been called a disease, virus, and SARS-2 but at this point of time it seemed to be an extreme strain of flu as contagious at the common cold. I wish someone would decide what it is. Maybe next week it will be a STD. I felt very calm but with this feeling of foreboding doom. World War 2 might've had a similar feeling of doom when whose on the southern coast of England were expecting a German invasion. The feeling that a terrible event is imminent and you have no control over it. It's going to run it's course and we can only react. The choice of one last stand or compliance. The city is under attack from the virus and we can't do a thing to stop it other than work together. An attempt at preparation has been done, a years supply of dry pasta, instant noodles and toilet paper. Now all I can do to help the situation is to continue to remain calm, with only the occasional full lunged scream at 2 a.m. to clear that build up of anxiety.

One thing on my mind is the growing likelihood of my death sooner than later, and the understanding that I'm very much alone here. This wasn't a cheerful time in my bright and breezy new Chinese life. I'm not in touch with my dad or sister and with my mam it's one line emails once in a while. So if this situation had gone like the movie Contagion with mass graves, who would know if I'm down there rotting? Come to think of it, who knows I'm alive? Apart from my employer who sees me in the office or on Zoom on time and a few friends I keep in contact with?

In my passport the 'next of kin' page is blank. Whose name to write? I can imagine my dad's first reaction to an official sounding strangers' phone call, 'It's about your son sir...', being, 'How much will it cost me?' I've seen my parents act a bit too happy when hearing the news of a death. I remember a man called Trevor who was a friend of my dads I'm my youth. A typical Northern 80s dad. A bit of a loud arsehole. Saab 90 Turbo. Three or so ex-wifes. We went on family holidays to Pontins a few summers and I got to know his step son Daley. My mam got the bad got the news of his death from his second or third ex-wife after bumping into her at Tesco. It was disgusting how pleased they were at the news of an old friend dying. Someone who sent work my dad's way when his car part shop was struggling. So distant has my relationship with my parents become I can foresee a similar reaction to my popping-off as Trevor's. It's the same fate for my auntie Sandra who is also ex-communicado. Got to wonder who the arseholes are sometimes. I find it's usually the nice and needy guys. I put my sister's name on my passport, although it must have been over five years since I last saw her. I haven't met my two nephews and I haven't heard much news about them. I know I'd get on well with Dylan, the youngest. He doesn't seem to trust his grandma, when I would hear her on the phone with him. He doesn't play along with her bullshit! Refuses to play dumb to please her. It's like he's wised up already. Another reason we'd get on is he weighed in at nearly 10 pounds. A unit, straight off the bat and my sister isn't the biggest woman!

It weighed heavy on me for a long time to have such distance from my family. A heavy, unnecessary weight on my shoulders from an early age, until I shrugged it off. But here at the end of the world I'm considering writing the three of them some meaningful, from the heart, letters. An obituary of the good times but I can't remember too many through the fragments of forgotten memories of close to forty years. With my sister I remember playing Banjo-Kazooie with her on her Nintendo 64, which was fun but shouldn't be my best memory of my sister. As for my dad my love for Formula 1 is from watching the late 80s races with him. We agreed while watching it live that Senna was too hot headed and took out Prost in that famous incident in Japan to decide the championship. There was the time when he taped on VHS for me the Steve McQueen movie Bullitt and left out all the boring bits, for a ten year old at least, and just taped the Mustang vs Charger car chase. I respect that most about him. My mam made the best cupcakes, and I must confess it wasn't my sister's fault when she opened the fridge door aged 7 and a baking tray fell out and splattered on the floor. My 9 year old arse was half way out the door when the crime happened and the booming echo of my sister getting slapped until she cried her eyes out didn't entice me to run back inside and confess. She kept the family together through some shit while dad's business failed though the 1990s. That recession in 1993 when Soros made a fortune out of the Bank Of England is when the business and the family really started falling apart. Then the 2000s came and we all gave up the ghost. In the 2010s I checked out for good.

In the end I never wrote the letters. They would've felt too much like obituaries or the sort of thing people write before catching a train with their neck, or jump from a window. My family situation is what happens when little problems and grievances aren't addressed, when blame gets thrown around like bottles of piss, when scapegoating becomes second nature and when people start resenting each other being around. Does nothing for anyones confidence and self-belief. I'm a big believer that we should own our own mistakes and I've made plenty in my family situation, only problem is owning mistakes in my family went something like this. 'I'm sorry I left the heating on mam. It was my honest mistake, I'll be more careful next time'. The response goes something like, 'Aye, and I'll tel ya summit else ya fooked up ya little cunt. If ya'd care ta rememma, back in 1993...', and so on. People wonder why I fucked off to China. My life is exponentially better here despite it's eminent end! This urge to write in an autobiographical style is a sort of obituary I guess. A good way to put things to sleep.

Wednesday 29th January 2020: Brave New Guy

This was meant to be the first day back after Spring Festival and the start of an intensive phonics course I was due to be teaching. The lengths people go to to get out of extra work. In all of this calm chaos and doom and thoughts of obituaries there was a new teacher joining the school from Scotland. This took some serious balls. Sort of like sailing into Dunkirk while every guy who considered himself smart was getting the fuck out. Like running into a burning house with a big axe without a clue about fire fighting. A manager asked if I wouldn’t mind if he, a complete stranger and obvious nut job, stays in my flat for a while if the hotel is closed due to the virus. I didn’t hesitate to say no.

Thursday 30th January 2020: Zoom Test

The outbreak is now of international concern according to The Who. They must have the same Kinder Surprise foreign expert cards us teachers have. It's been eight days since school closed for Spring Festival and as the COVID cases continue to rise there is little hope of reopening on schedule. We reopen whenever the government allows, which could be months from now if ever again.

One problem for me which persisted throughout the months of Zoom and Zhumu and the cursed Dingding was getting comfortable. At this point in time I had zero savings and zero cash, also minimal furnishings. No desk but there's a huge window sill which would work as a desk if it wasn't too high. The coffee table is too low, the couch too uncomfortable. The only neck support I have is to lie down on the bed. To get set up for the Zoom test with my colleagues I sat on a stack of text books upon a cheap little Ikea stool. I taught in this and other uncomfortable positions for a few months until I got a desk from Taobao and a better Ikea chair. I see a chiropractor once a week.

This Zoom test would be the first time I've seen my colleagues since the last day before Spring Festival. I have plenty of beer in the fridge should I need it afterwards. We pop up on screen in squares one by one like the fucking Brady Bunch. Ask your grandpa. God only knows if we are all fully dressed. My old MacBook is making plenty of heat and fan noise but was still going strong.

Over the coming months we moved from Zoom to Dingding, which was hell on earth. Dingding has no mute function I'm aware of so the racket of 10 student's homes and a teaching assistant included the noise of at least one grandpa with a hammer drill and a relative shouting down the phone nearby. In time we moved to Zhumu, a Chinese tribute to the US Zoom and the best of the three!

Friday 31st January 2020: Happy Birthday

The thirty-first of January was the start of my thirty-eighth year on planet Earth. I'm sure sometime I'll start enjoying it a bit. I share my birthday with Jonny Rotten, Justin Timberlake and Bret 'The Hitman' Hart, all of which is vitally important I'm sure. Back in my home world of Britain it was Brexit Day; one of many. The day of the vote in 2016 was also Brexit Day and there's been a few more since. I think the 31st of January marked the start of some transition period until we leave the European Union a bit more on 31st of December. Must be the fifth date on which we've been going to leave, like when a kid keeps threatening to run away from home and eventually does. The 31st of January was also the day of the first COVID case in Britain.

February 2020: In The Bleak Mid-Winter

This is the coldest period, if I remember correctly. It's still the depths of winter but after spring festival; so figure that one out. I heard it was a mild winter by Dalian standards. I remember snow drifts and snowmen as the month begins.

Wednesday 5th February 2020: We start teaching online

I would finish my first year of teaching with about fifty percent classroom experience and fifty percent online. I already had Skype teaching experience with some Russian adult students and by the time we were allowed to reopen the school on the 4th of July I'd made some decent lesson resources on Google Slides, after Microsoft's Powerpoint nearly destroyed my MacBook. The first class of the week was seven six year olds, my youngest class and the first class I ever taught back in November. Good to see them all well. Every kid I've taught has been in great health throughout this pandemic, as far as the bug is concerned, and I'm fortunate enough to have never met anyone who's been knowingly ill with it.

I had limited resources, so I bought a pack of A4 printer paper and made slides and flashcards with marker pen to hold up to the webcam. I asked the kids questions, I asked them to ask each other questions. That's all there is to it! I used to work for a living, this isn't work! The hardest part of teaching online for me was thinking of good games. I've only recently found a good connect 4 style game where I put the board on the screen and draw circles around their chosen number after a correct answer. As I skilled up my presentations from paper to Google Slides I would share appropriate clips from movies in lieu of sticky ball games. For the sightseeing in London unit from the textbook, the James Bond movie The World is Not Enough with the speed boat chase on the Thames and London landmarks in the scenery. For the, 'Who do you think will win?', lesson I used YouTube videos from the Beijing olympics.

I missed the kids during the online months but we had some fun online. Apart from when we used Dingding. All I could hear was noise! Shouting and banging from other rooms. I could hear everything apart from the student in front of the computer.

Online lessons were the start of the best time I had in my first year in China. Zero office politics. Shorter work hours without a pay cut is always a positive. Aside from the summer hikes with Jackie and Hallie god only knows what I did with the rest of my time. The gyms didn't reopen for a while yet and I can't speak a word of Chinese but I seemed to have survived Spring Festival, all without experiencing the festivities due to an unwelcome guest named COVID.