This evening, Guangxi Early Warning Centre, sent a text message to all cell phones in the area. It reads: 【广西预警中心】炎热暑假，未成年人溺水易发，请您监护好孩子。如您发现有小孩在危险水域游泳、戏水，请主动劝告制止，防止溺水事故发生。 Roughly translated it means In the hot summer vacation, minors are prone to be attracted to water. Please monitor your child. If you find that children are swimming in dangerous waters and or playing in […]
I have recently become aware of this group which has been organised to allow Liuzhou ex-pats and locals to meet and share experience etc. Called “Liuzhou Meet and Learn” it organises weekly meetings on Saturday evenings. They have a new blog which describes their aims thus: For various reasons, they do not openly publish their […]
Twice in the last few days, I’ve been informed that people here have been told that I am about to leave Liuzhou and return permanently to England. The people spreading this rumour appear to be people I don’t even know and who certainly don’t know me. For the record it is total nonsense. I have […]
I’ve muttered about this before, but it’s getting worse. Here I give you but two examples from a local supermarket. It could have been from any Liuzhou supermarket. Exhibit A 270 g of Granulated Chicken Bouillon at ¥21.30. Seems reasonable. ¥0.08 per gram. Exhibit B Right next to the above, on the same shelf, […]
Yesterday at noon, I noticed that my cell phone was no longer working as nature intended. I had no service. Attempting to call anyone resulted in a voice message telling me that my service had been suspended but gave no reason. I headed to the China Mobile office where I was told I needed to […]
I am fairly certain the owners of this shop in the underground mall beneath the city centre have no idea what this means. Supreme! I am especially glad the designer was too stoned to spell “Every Day” correctly. Still, I’ve seen worse over the years. The girl walking along the street with the T-shirt proclaiming […]
For as long as I’ve been in Liuzhou, and probably far longer, there has been a public convenience at the northern end of what is now the city centre pedestrian street. Years ago it was a notorious “cottage“, but it was demolished and rebuilt a few years back. Over the last month or so, they […]
This sign has just appeared very near my home. It is an advertisement for a leech shop. Not a medically qualified clinic or anything. Just a leech cure quackery. The “medicinal” use of leeches, which usually did more harm than good, all but died out in the west in the 19th century. It was revived […]
Things are bad. My local supermarket has taken to playing the deliberately awful version of “Love is All Around” sung by Bill Nighy as the character Billy Mack in the movie “Love, Actually“. I’m boycotting the place until they realise Christmas is over, which may be around next August, if things go as usual. Just […]
Having alluded to this in my last post, I suppose I ought to explain more. I guessed a local had set it up. A few weeks back, as I was returning home from work (the curse of the drinking classes*) I spotted this at the entrance to the neighbourhood semi-compound where I live. I guessed […]