Yes

There is not a banana to be had, anywhere in Harbin.

Not since before Chinese New Year – about three or four weeks. Not in our usual large supermarket, not in the other smaller supermarket where I fought someone for the last bunch the other week, not in the corner-shop type place downstairs from our flat. Two weeks ago we even went for a meal in a posh hotel and I ordered banoffee pie for pudding (I know, I know), and was told apologetically that they couldn’t do it, and now I see why.

What’s all that about then?

I know they’ve got an extremely long way to come – not the most right-on of fruits from a food miles perspective, I grant you – but that’s never seemed to be a problem here before. Is there a worldwide shortage? Did we miss banana day or something?

It’s very distressing. I can’t think of more than about a day that’s elapsed in the last five years without me eating at least one banana. They’re a staple element of mine and Peter’s diets, so much so that we both tend to carry an EB (Emergency Banana) with us at all times.

We can get apples, pears, kiwi fruit, strawberries.

But yes, we have none.

I don’t feel like singing about it. But just in case you do…..

Traffic calming

You're going to love this one.

Tonight is the opening ceremony of the 24th Winter Universiade or student winter games (sort of like a mini winter Olympics for, obviously, students) which is being held in Harbin. China is keen to make a success of this in the hope that it will help them win the bid for the proper Winter Olympics in 2014. (They bid for 2010 and I think maybe 2002 as well but lost out.)

I'm quite excited about this as I love winter sports. Watching them, that is - daring to walk along an icy pavement is about as close as I'll ever come to actually doing any winter sports. I have no idea why I suddenly developed this interest, which began in January 1992 when I was an unemployed new graduate with nothing better to do than watch the Winter Olympics on TV. Prior to that my sport-watching had been pretty much confined to Wimbledon and occasionally as a child bonding with my Dad over cricket or snooker or some such thing. Oh and the infamous Seb Coe- and Imran Khan-fancying phases of 1983-4, but the least said about those, the better! Gimme a break, I was 15.

So anyway, I was hoping to go and see a few things, but a lot of it is actually happening at the ski resort a long way from Harbin, plus we have to go the Shanghai again next week so will miss most of it. Sadly my favourite event, the luge (the thing where someone slides head-first round a bobsleigh track very very fast on what looks like a tea-tray - utterly insane) doesn't seem to be included. So I might go and see some skating, which is possibly the least interesting but involves the least effort on my part.

Both the skating and the opening ceremony are taking place at the conference centre which happens to be about 10 minutes walk from our flat. Right next to the supermarket where we do our shopping, in fact. And like I said, the opening shenanigans is tonight. The authorities, no doubt rightly, anticipate a greatly increased volume of traffic on the roads.

Now stop a minute to think what would happen in the UK in this instance. They'd close a few roads for a few hours, wouldn't they? Inconvenient, possibly, but equally so for everyone, and largely avoidable if you know when and where not to go.

Here's what they've decided to do here.

Today, cars are only allowed onto the streets of Harbin if their registration ends in an even number. (Mr Li's ends in an odd number, hence he's unable to pick Peter up from the airport tonight.)

Can you imagine how that would go down in Edinburgh?

I'm weeping with mirth just thinking about it.

Grim up north

In the course of his work, Peter sometimes has to travel to see customers. Last week he made his second trip to Yi’an, which is about 180 miles north of Harbin and thus about 180 miles colder and grimmer. People in the villages nearby drive little three-wheelers and live in huts, each with its own pigsty attached. To give you an idea – and to satisfy those blog fans who crave pictures of the grittier aspects of modern China – here are a couple of photos. The temperature gauge one shows the temperature outside the car at about 10pm one night a few weeks ago, I hasten to point out, but I felt you needed to see it for the record!

The trip takes 4 hours by car on a good day, seven on a bad one when roads are closed by snow or suchlike. Potholes, and other hazards such as the occasional very large pig in the road, abound. Luckily we are blessed with Mr Li who is so besotted with his people-carrier with its fur-lined seats that you can see him physically wince every time he drives over the slightest bump. I swear if it weren’t for Mr Li I would be a nervous wreck by now. He is without doubt or exception the best driver in China, by about a million miles.

Of course on occasion we do have to endure less comfortable modes of transport such as the infamous Shanghai Van (or the Sciatica-Mobile, as I’ve decided to christen it) which not only lacks seatbelts or suspension but also reeks of farm produce. This is the vehicle which they sent to pick us up from Shanghai airport the very first time we visited China to see if we wanted to live here, and so were presumably attempting to impress us! Lovely. But after having my bones rattled one time too many, I think I’ve managed to put a stop to that one by saying if it ever shows up there to collect us again I’ll let its tyres down and wait at the airport until they send something else. Big Boss now says if we phone his secretary she’ll make sure they send a nice car for us. Job done.

But anyway, to return to the singing farmers of Heilongjiang. By a grave oversight I omitted to tell you about these in my account of the CCTV New Year’s Eve Gala the other week. I’ve no idea how they can have slipped my mind as, being our local boys, they were definitely the highlight of the show for us – so much so that we considered voting for them as our favourite act, as we were continually exhorted to do by the presenters. We could even have won a golden statuette of an ox, I think it was – but in the end we decided this prize should go to someone more deserving.

The Singing Farmers of Heilongjiang appeared courtesy of the Chinese equivalent of Pop Idol or those Graham Norton ‘Let’s-find-a-nobody-who’s-never-been-to-drama-school-or-anything-and-make-them-the-star-of-an-outdated-West-End-musical-thereby-really-pissing-off-proper-hardworking-actors-who’ve-been-desperate-for-a-break-like-that-for-years’ shows. (Sorry, had to get my gripe in there; working in the theatre I have serious issues with this type of programme!).

However I don’t think China’s professional singers need worry too much about the Singing Farmers. One, a chap with a large bouffant and the ubiquitous gold jacket, did a reasonable Pavarotti (when helped out by a proper singer), but then he did train, we were told, by lying with a giant rock on his stomach and repeatedly lifting it using only his diaphragm muscles. The other guy, who had a craggy face and appeared to be still wearing his original Mao suit – and who had actually pulled out of the final of the talent show due to an unexpectedly good harvest - really shouldn’t give up the day job, but he got a good cheer anyway.

So when Peter made his foray into the wilder parts of northern Heilongjiang to meet farmers, I was hopeful that he might run into at least one of these celebs. I told him to listen out for the strains of ‘Nessun Dorma’ rising from the cowsheds and get the autograph of anyone in a Mao suit and/or with a rock balanced on their stomach, just to be on the safe side. But sadly it wasn’t to be.

Instead, he met a man who had a bedroom and en-suite bathroom attached to his office, both decorated from floor to ceiling in baby pink with lace frills all over everything, including the toilet seat. Something tells me if this guy does any singing it’s likely to be less ‘Nessun Dorma’ and more lip-synching to ‘I am what I am’ – but you didn’t hear that from me.

But it’s the food and accommodation on these trips that’s the high point - if measured on an oddness or a ‘let’s experience the real China’ scale, anyway. At one ‘motorway services’ café, on each table there was a dish of whole, raw garlic cloves. Peter (a garlic lover) asked his colleague what these were for. ‘Am I meant to just eat one?’, he said. ‘Oh yes,’ came the reply. ‘If the food is bad, they will help to fight off infection’. Ah. So it’s like that.

The hotel he had to stay in is apparently the best in Yi’an, but would barely merit one star by our standards. Its price list read:

Suite: 260 RMB [approx £26]
Room rate: 100 RMB
O’clock rate: 50 RMB

‘What’s “o’clock rate”?’ Peter asked another colleague, innocently.

‘Ah’, said colleague. ‘This is for when people want to have sex in the afternoons so they get room for an hour.’ Peter must have looked shocked because his pal added, with a twinkle in his eye, ‘Or perhaps they are just sleepy.’

Fortunately - unlike the 5-star hotels of Harbin - they didn’t actually attempt to provide Peter with an, erm, companion. Instead he was given a room which appeared to have no light-switch. Even the landlady didn’t seem to know where it was and spent ten minutes looking for it in the pitch blackness until Mr Li found it, concealed under a shelf. On seeing what the room was actually like, Peter asked to move. The second one wasn’t much of an improvement (only one working light and a quilt of dubious cleanliness), but did come with a fascinating range of freebies. I thought the things which normal hotels habitually give away were weird enough but these take some beating.

Guests were provided with the following [all sic, naturally!]:

- Tissues
- Ashtray
- Two cups and a teabag, but no means of heating water
- Wrigley’s gum and a ‘compressed towel’, displayed together on a little presentation stand
- A packet labelled ‘Men’s underwear’ on one side, and on the other ‘Panties – Comfortable Consideration New Vogue and New Character’
- And best of all: a sachet of ‘Uncomplimentary’ Yibashi High-Grade Bathing Lotion (‘Exclusive sale in high standard hotes’). The instructions suggested that if you ‘pour the liquid into the location where water pours’ and then ‘drench the inside bathtub wet and spread the plastics on it’, then ‘The degrakable plastics inside can be used to prevent your ksin from being direstly contacted bathtub’. Now it’s not often you can say that!! ‘Original Lotion Is Imported From Holland!’ the packaging proudly proclaimed, as if this would inspire you to use it.

And all this for a tenner.

This week he has a meeting with a man called Dr Dung Pan Boo (“but you can call me Dung Pan”). The mind can only boggle.

Bliss

I hardly dare say this, but after three weeks, the firecrackers have finally - whisper it - stopped.

There was one final night of sheer deafening bombardment on Monday, which was 'Lantern Festival', the last official night of the lunar new year celebrations, which falls on the first full moon following the first new moon (hope you're following this). This was complete with not only the biggest full moon in 52 years or something, but also proper fireworks - pretty ones, not just those that go bang. Of course they set them off dangerously near to buildings, as before. In Beijing the staff of CCTV apparently even managed to set fire to their own brand-new building, which would be amusing if it wasn't for the fact that a firefighter got killed in the ensuing blaze.

The noise here went on until about 2am and we thought, 'Oh thank God, from tomorrow it's illegal for them to set these bloody things off for another whole year'. But of course, there were one or two chancers who set some more off on Tuesday, either because they had a few left and just wanted to get one in under the wire, or because they were terminally stupid and didn't know what day it was, I presume.

But by yesterday there was blissful, beautiful, wonderful, heavenly, SILENCE, and the men with brooms who sweep up snow are busy sweeping vast quantities of ash onto the snow so that there are piles of grey stuff everywhere. Not that there's much snow left now since, as of last week some time, it's officially 'spring' and even made it to - wait for it - zero degrees one day!! We nearly got our bikinis out.

It's a shame though; I used to like fireworks - when you only ever got to see (and hear) them TWO NIGHTS A YEAR at the most. But after three whole weeks of being woken up by huge explosions at 8am every day - especially Sundays - and often having them either go on all evening, or else lull us into a false sense of security by being quiet until midnight and THEN starting, I have to say I shall miss them like a hole in the head.

Which is what it felt like sometimes.

Flying me crazy

Domestic flight. It sounds so cosy, doesn’t it, as though they might bring you a pair of slippers and a cup of cocoa? But I tell you I have yet to get off a plane after the two or three hours it takes to fly from Harbin to Shanghai (or back again) without feeling the need to do some serious harm to myself or others. The most patient of saints would find the experience ‘trying’, as Flora Poste (ooh, a literary reference!) would say.

I can only assume that Chinese airlines issue their passengers with a different set of ‘Do’s and Don’ts’ instructions from everyone else in the world. Here’s how it might read.

Arrival and Check-in

1. On first arriving at the airport, we recommend the person giving you a lift parks at a crazy angle at the set-down point. This will make it as difficult as possible for other passengers to get out of their cars and get into the terminal ahead of you.

2. On entering the airport, your luggage may be scanned at the door. This is of course pointless as we are going to give it a full x-ray later but we do like to keep our staff occupied, so please do co-operate with this.

3. Next identify your correct check-in desk from the screens. This will not be easy due to the fact that we will not display your actual flight time, merely the check-in time, and also that several flight numbers, belonging to several different airlines, will in reality all correspond to the same plane.

4. Having found your desk, the trick is to remember that there is really no such thing as a check-in queue. I mean, what is a queue anyway? Something dreamt up by the British, so we heard. Anyway, you can pretty much approach the desk as and when you feel like it. Some passengers do choose to wait in line and this is their prerogative, but should they happen to leave more than a centimetre of space between them and the person in front, the non-queuers have the right to intercept. Do please bear this in mind if you are foolish enough to opt for the waiting strategy.

5. When you are eventually served, please do not expect the check-in staff to listen to your requests with regard to seating arrangements. This is NOT their job, unless of course you are interrupting the customer currently being served. If you are travelling with four generations of your extended family (as you obviously will be), it is best to get seats as far apart as possible. This will allow you maximum shouting potential during the course of the flight, as well as an excuse for wandering up and down whenever the fasten seatbelt signs are illuminated, both of which are crucial to your enjoyment of the flight.

6. Please note the minimum checked baggage requirement is one box of vegetables tied up with string, per person. Other foodstuffs such as bags of sausages may be carried as hand luggage. Please do NOT check in oversize suitcases. These should be retained as hand luggage and stored in the overhead lockers for the maximum inconvenience of others.

Security, passport control and boarding

1. Here in China we pride ourselves on having the fastest and most efficient airport security staff in the world. Please remember though that we are duty-bound to appear scary. Such behaviour as smiling at passport control staff, or saying ‘Ni hao’ or other such potentially subversive remarks, is therefore strictly prohibited, and will be viewed as evidence that you are Up To Something.

2. When passing through the security gates, please try to ensure you have NO metal anywhere on your person. We are quite unable to adjust our metal detectors to distinguish between a zip or a bra fastening and a howitzer. Seriously, those bra fastenings can be lethal in the wrong hands. Of course the fact that everyone therefore sets off the alarm gives us a good excuse to grope you. We guarantee that you will always be groped by someone of the opposite sex to avoid embarrassment boredom. If you wish us to feel your boobs a little more, or stick our hands a little further down your trousers, please ask. We aim to please our customers.

3. On arrival at the boarding gate, please remember the rule is at least two seats per person. You may sleep here if you wish. In fact we recommend it; you will have a long wait, as your flight will not board until a minimum of half an hour later than the time announced. As this is now standard practice, no explanation or apology will be offered. We may however call your flight two or three times before the real boarding time. We find this helps to keep our passengers alert and to weed out the weaker ones who didn’t really want to fly that much anyway.

4. About ten minutes before the plane is due to board, you may start to queue. Please see ‘Arrival and Check-in’ point 4, above, for rules governing queueing. Since you will now be less hampered by luggage, you are free to use your elbows to secure your place. If you choose to wait until the flight is actually boarding, you will of course be last onto the plane and have nowhere to store your hand luggage. Some customers enjoy this, however, at it provides greater potential for arguments with their fellow travellers, which is all part of the package.

5. At the gate, your boarding pass will be checked and scanned. Three seconds later it will be checked again by a teenage trainee who watched it being scanned, but needs to check again in case you defaced it or accidentally ran to a different gate in the interim. He or she will then point in the direction of the plane. We find this is necessary as some of our customers have not seen an aircraft before and become easily confused.

On the plane

1. Boarding an aircraft poses a challenge for the Chinese traveller, as it entails a certain amount of waiting for the person in front of you to finish stowing their luggage and sit down, with minimum pushing-past space available. Please accept our apologies while we do what we can to rectify this situation, but in the meantime we suggest you look for opportunities to shove people into the backs of seats, kick them, and of course shout at them wherever you can.

2. We assume that at least three members of your party will never have flown previously, so there will be time before we take off for them to take photographs of the cabin staff, the overhead lockers, the exits, etc. We positively encourage excited shouting at all times.

3. Please explain to your relatives that the safety instructions are there to be disregarded. In particular, the rules pertaining to the wearing of seatbelts are simply quite irrelevant to all Chinese passengers. Small children should be prompted to sit on the floor between seats during take-off, or in the aisle during the at-seat trolley service. Keeping as much luggage on your lap as possible will help to make things dangerous for everyone, so we recommend this.

4. Food will be served during your flight, in the form of the standard ‘Box of Strangeness’. This will consist of: a hot meal (either chicken or beef with either rice or noodles), some pickled stuff, some ‘mixed fruit’ (which, being a packet of peanuts, is neither fruit nor mixed), a sweet roll of some description, cough drops, and another random odd fruit or vegetable-based product. Hot towels (or ‘turbans’ as we prefer to call them) will be provided. However, please feel free to consume your own snacks, especially if they a) smell overpoweringly of fish or b) are swimming in soy sauce which may leak all over your tray table and run off into the lap of your neighbour. If this happens, it is essential that you avoid all verbal or eye contact with the neighbour in question, even when he or she summons the flight attendant to mop up your mess for you.

5. Very important. You have the right to recline your seat at any time except during take-off and landing. However, the person sitting in front of you does not. Should they disregard this rule please adopt the following procedure: first shout at them; then, if they do not immediately straighten up, grasp their headrest firmly with both hands and shake their seat vigorously. Repeat, with shouting, until they either relent or pretend to fall asleep.

Landing and disembarkation

1. The announcement that the plane is about to land is your cue to get up to use the lavatory. Correct practice is to wait until the person who has been waiting the longest is about to go in, and then push in front of them.

2. Upon touchdown, please leap immediately from your seat and start retrieving your luggage from the overhead compartments. Any suggestion that you should ‘remain in your seat until the aircraft has come to a complete standstill’ is clearly preposterous and is just said to test you. In fact, it’s a little game we like to play in order to train our cabin staff in the vital skill of shouting. On noticing half the passengers on their feet while the plane is still moving very fast along the runway, they will charge down the aisle yelling at you to sit down and close the lockers. Your job is to sit down while they are looking at you, and then immediately get up again the instant their back is turned. Several repetitions of this sequence will help to pass those boring minutes while you are waiting to reach the terminal building.

3. The retrieval of luggage from lockers and getting off the plane presents some of the same problems as boarding. Here, however, you have the advantage of being able to drop large items onto your fellow passengers’ heads or toes. If disembarking in a cold climate, this is also the moment to try to don your winter wardrobe while everyone else is doing the same in a very tight, warm and enclosed space.

4. On finding yourself at the Baggage Reclaim point inside the terminal, it is best to position yourself a maximum of six inches from the opening through which the cases will emerge. This will enable you to grab the first item you see which resembles yours without allowing anyone else to get a look at it. If you are unlucky enough not to be one of the dozen people occupying this same spot at any one time, you can stake your territory by using your trolley as an offensive weapon and simply push others, and their trolleys, aside. Please don’t forget to shout loudly to the other members of your party while doing this; it really does relieve tension.

5. Another member of staff will be positioned at the exit from the Baggage Reclaim hall to scan the bar code on your suitcase and that on your boarding pass, to check that they match and that you have therefore got the right luggage. We are however considering abandoning this last policy as it is just too damn sensible and we are unable to see any potential problems which might arise from it.

For a slightly preferable form of air travel, please see here.