Tom had something of a brainwave shortly before my first class of the new week’s lesson cycle: Design Your Own Country. What could possibly go wrong? Well. Explaining that by ‘your country’ I did not mean ‘China’ took a little bit of doing. ‘New Country’ wasn’t much better from the looks on some of their faces (‘Is teacher trying to organise a revolution?’), but eventually I managed to get across that I wanted them to invent imaginary countries. By asking a fairly open question about what every country has (name, languages, land, …one class prioritised ‘wi-fi’ above all of these) I introduced what I wanted them to do: create fantasy lands in groups and draw a map of it.

They mostly took to the challenge with a great amount of enthusiasm. We had predictable results: ‘No-Homework-Island’ and ‘Love-Heart-Land’; but also some delightfully unexpected creations. I was especially thrilled to see ‘Superwomen Island’ with a strictly matriarchal society based on gender equality.

One morning I went to the bank to top up the credit on our bus passes. Buses generally have a 10p flat-rate fair, but thanks to Karamay’s oil-rich government, if you use a pass this can be subsidised to about half of that. On this occasion I was ushered right to the front of the queue. Incredibly awkward, but thankfully it doesn’t happen much.

Friday was April Fool’s Day. Tom provoked a prank-war with some early-morning skulduggery (drawing smiley faces over my lesson prep and up-ending most of my office) so at lunch, while he was at home, I printed out a photo of Cameron Diaz and stuck it onto his classroom whiteboard with the caption, ‘Teacher’s Girlfriend’. Sounds lame, but we are constantly being asked if we have girlfriends so I’m trusting that his class won’t let him forget about it for a long time. My classes, meanwhile, were set a surprise test, the answers to which spelled out the word ‘joke’. My hilarious prank was universally unappreciated, met instead with grumbling and looks that said, ‘I’m done with this guy.’

The Tomb-Sweeping Holiday meant we had Monday off school, so I used the long weekend to visit Fukang. Despite not doing any sweeping myself, from the train I did see families gathering on the grassy downs near Ürümqi to sweep their relatives’ tombs. Ben was away to visit Turpan with Courtney, and Calum was teaching, so I joined Sharon at her apartment and made some Butternut-Squash Soup, which Stephen and Calum arrived later to enjoy with us. The next day we popped over to drop off a few bits and ended up staying all day (they’d just baked banana loaves; what were we meant to do?). No Fukang visit would be complete without Falaishi’s whole braised chicken and chips, and we rounded off the evening with Bridget Jones’s Diary and custard.

During Tuesday’s journey to school I was glad to see the return of water to Karamay River. Tom, who can’t have gone more than 100 metres away from the house while I was gone, hadn’t noticed, and the kids in my subsequent lessons seemed underwhelmed as well, but to me the fact that a river gets ‘switched off’ for half of the year is still hilarious and brilliant. Summer is fast approaching; where even three weeks ago there was snow and ice on the ground, now we’re approaching 20 degrees in the late-afternoon heat (the sun is two hours later than official time here, remember). If the buds are anything to go by, blossom in the next few weeks will be spectacular.

—TJC

Featured image: Tom learning calligraphy from our waiban, Josh.