travels with tess

BURIED UNDER 2 MILLION YUAN (THATS 135,500 POUNDS TO THE REST OF YOU)!!!!!!!!!

Thursday started better than most days in the 6 weeks i've been back at school. i woke up ok and actually managed to get out of bed on time - very unusually!! unfortunately i do not take after my father who springs out of bed around 7am after pleasantly reading for an hour, does tai chi, feed the dogs, puts the kettle on and then attempts to get the rest of us up. i take after my mum - the one with her head under the pillow until the last possible minute and then a mad dash out the door.
this i believe is genetics and try as i have, i can not change it!! now of course i have to get up at 6.30am and its dark - not helping !!
but on this wonderful morning, i DID get up and was able to enjoy a very relaxed breakfast before a pleasant cycle to work. normally its hell for leather, weaving in and out of cars, people and all the bicycles on the wrong side of the road going in the opposite direction while my arse is burning more than it ever did for Jane Fonda !!! saying that though i am enjoying being able to cycle to work with music - i am now 30mins from school and i think this totally justifys the IPOD -its a NECESSITY !!! i;ve found that the Good Morning Vietnam Soundtrack works particulary well - super blast from the past and if you're into reliving moments you never thought you would again - i'm currently riding to work to Dirty Dancing soundtrack. i get to sing really loudly and totally out of key and in gasping breaths all the way and i'm loving it!!

so this sidetrack gets us to work - it went smoothly
on arriving at work i realised i had forgotten my swim kit which i need for after school swimming lessons TOTALLY PANIC !!! cold sweat ! some people's greatest fear is going to work naked - mine if forgetting my cossie on swim days - don't ask, i guess its just too many years in the pool with too many days of arriving at the last possible second.
after freaking out i realised that i did have time to go home after school and before the pool -aaahhhhhh - LARGE sigh, release shoulders, followed by a very pleasant day.

kids left and i cycled like mad back home, ran up 6 flights of stairs, grabbed the cossie, jumped back on the bike and pedalled like mad. (we're getting close now folks, don't leave me just cause its getting boring!)
i get to a giant roundabout on the other side of which is the pool. i'm cycling on the wrong side of the road but thats normal although many cyclist believe the pavement is theirs too
in front of me the traffic has been stopped my soldiers with guns to let an important looking car and a boring looking truck come out onto the road. i keep going but over to the far side of the road away from the truck. as i reach the truck, actually a second before because i saw it happening, the truck is making its turn and the weight of the load inside while being pushed against one side of the truck, pops the door - its a side loading door, had to be didn't it!, the door, which is actually the whole side of the truck opens up and all the boxes and the metal pallets they are on come sliding out - yes you guessed it folks - onto yours truelly.
the boxes, small but heavy (like a shoe box cut in half) hit me and the bike, we hit the curb and then the rest of the boxes and their pallets slide on top of us (me and the bike).
thankfully rather quickly a helpful and strong man with a gun runs over and manages to lift the metal pallet up enough for me to wriggle out from underneath and then i squirm my way out of the rest of it and stand up. People come flooding (the truck is still RIGHT outside its own biulding which it was just leaving). everyone is a hive of activity, supervising people to pick up all the boxes, talking into mobiles and wondering how they are going to deal with a foreigner when none of them speak english !!!
i'm freaking out because i know i have a bus of 5-7yr olds waiting for me at the pool with no superviser - i get them sorted, you know the kind of phone call:
"Hi Rach, its tess, can you get over to the pool and look after the kids cause i've just been hit by a truck, i'll be there as soon as i can" !!!

I have to tangent a little here and explain about traffic accidents in china. NO ONE HAS INSURANCE !!! no car insurance and much more importantly, no health insurance. a hospital will not let you see a doctor until they see money - NO EXCEPTIONS !!!
this means that in most accidents, especially those involving bikes, neither party wants to look like they are ok - just by standing up you loose money in the settlement, so people who are hit tend to lie on the road where it happened and converse from there. if the partys involved can not sort it out themselves - basically agree on a fee, then the police are called. the police look at the situation, they listen to the statements of the people involved and then those of the 50 people who have gathered to watch and give opinions (even though they didn't see it happen) since the accident happened and then they give the verdict. THEY proportion the blame: 30% here, 70% there and then THEY decide on the money to be exchanged - 30, 70; 300,700 whatever. the police are the judges.
add to this that EVERYONE belives that foreigners are rich, super rich, even though you're are riding a bike and they're in a benz, so everyone will try to tell a story that makes us pay the money - you wouldn't believe the problems my friends have had when they've been hit!!!!
so in a lot of cases leaving the scene is a lot more painful than what caused the scene- to your wallet at least

which brings us back to me! shock is kicking in, i don't think i'm badly injured but i do have a cut ankle and it hurts. i'm trying to get through to the school and the chinese office staff but they're all on the phone. luckily everyone is happy to leave me freaking out because it puts off having to try to talk to me. i finally get someone from school on the phone and then walk around thrusting the phone at people who i hope are involved with the truck and not just smartly dressed onlookers, no one wants the phone because for some reason they seem to think that the person on the other end will also not speak chinese. finally with my bad and presently very jumbled up chinese i persuade them its a chinese person on the phone and they find the person in charge of dealing with the foreigner. i pass the phone and start to breath again - followed rather quickly by breathing in a ciggarrette and then i start to look at what happened.

there are loads and loads of small boxes and pretty heavy by the way poeple are picking them up, and they're being stacked back onto the metal pallets they fell off which are now in the middle of the road. more soldiers have come out and they now completely surround the truck. some poeple are scrambling on the floor because some of the boxes have split and they're trying to collect up whatever has fallen out and thats when i realise that the boxes are full of tightly packed wraps of 1 yuan coins. now theres about 14 yuan to the pound so thats not much to you but here 1 yuan can buy you breakfast or a bus ride anywhere in town.
with later reflection we figure that maybe theres 20 coins to a wrap but i haven't had 20 to stack up and see so it maybe more but its not less. and lets say theres 20 wraps to a box, well each pallet must hold at least 40 boxes and there are quite a few pallets so even without the math - ITS A LOT OF MONEY !!!!!

the phone comes back to me and i know/think i'm ok and want to get to class but the front wheel of the bike is bent in half and the basket is smashed up - i say the bike cost 300-400yuan it did cost 300, my collegue says it costs 400-500 and they hand over 500yuan. but they want to take me to the hospital. i insist on going to class but promise to come back afterwards and ask them to look after the bike til then. everyones happy with this arrangement and i hobble off.

i teach my classes, hobble back and some poeple from the office which turns out to be a bank (surprise, surprise) even though its doesn't look like a bank, it looks like offices! we head over to the hospital to have me checked out. now this is not england, so the check up consists of looking at the cut on my ankle, having two x-rays of the ankle and the doctor telling me to go home, rest and put ice on it.
the bank staff say i can't collect my bike that night and i agree to come back the next day.
so today after work, i got a lift to the bank and there is my bike, new front wheel, new basket and there are the bank staff saying if i have any discomfort over the next few days i should call them!!!

can you bloody believe it !!!!!!!!! you can't get a better accident than that !!!
and i am fine - really mum, i'm fine !!

sorry i haven't got any photos, it would have been a good one but thinking about it they probably would have confiscated photos!

so thats me.
now i'm off to Taiwan !!
yep its national holidays here for a week and i'm off to visit a friend in taiwan, i leave too early tomorrow morning!

i'll tell you all about it when i get back.
check out bryonys blog - its great as always but especially good this week because she's singing !!! if you can't get there through my link just type bryonyberry on google, she comes up first - mememe

lots of love, money and bruises
tess xx
ps. thursday night, i came home, put ice on my foot, drank a glass of baileys and then when my mates arrived i won all their money off them at majong !!!