一，二，三，死，五

My new, disimproved teaching timetable has afforded me the opportunity (i.e. forces me to be awake in time to) witness the students' daily exercise routine. It's something I've wanted to see for a long time, and what teacher wouldn't be attracted by the sight of his young charges being forced to march in unison for the glory of country and good posture?

The bell at ten past nine signals the two thousand or so kids to stream from their classrooms like a colony of shell-suited lemmings towards their daily constitutional, accompanied by music that sounds bizarrely similar to Liberty Bell – better known as the Monty Python theme music. Within minutes, every available square foot of space outside is covered by files and ranks of kids.

We've all seen it on television from various communist regimes across the world; the propensity for, and proficiency in, marching. Communism may have failed in its Leninist ideals, but one thing it can be relied upon for is some synchronised stamping of the first order. I think North Korea leads the world on this one, but with China a close second, so I was expecting a military style drill from the kids. No tanks though, eh?

So it was pleasant to see a display not of a well-oiled auxilliary fighting force to be, but exactly the kind of listless efforts you'd expect from a group of sixteen to eighteen year olds forced to go through the motions of the ridiculous routine they've probably had to endure since the age of four. Some put in even less effort on seeing me trying my hardest to twist my mocking grin into a big smile of encouragement.

Yes, the entire thing is pointless as a workout. It only lasts for ten minutes, and I've seen more strenuous moves enacted by the ninety-year-old tai chi practitioners. But its value to me was as a display in collective realisation of the practice's own inherent ridiculous, and an insight into the at times refreshingly cynical perspective some of these kids have. No zealous exercising for good of the nation here; just the kind of half-arsed effort you'd see in a UK comp.

Not that being anything like a British school is a good thing; just that there are far more parallels than one sometimes realises. Ask any of the kids, or even the teachers, for their thoughts on the value of the collective exercise periods, and they will probably laugh and tell you not much.
Which gives me the suspicion that the whole thing is part of the Chinese sense of humour - one big joke, endured by the kids, who in turn will have the pleasure years from now sagaciously witnessing their own offspring going through the whole rigmarole.

While taking over the world.

Temper or temperance?

While cycling along my street today, I was cut up by a middle-aged woman on her overladen electric bike. The load on the back of her bike was at least three feet wide, and struck the front of my bike as she crossed my own unerringly straight path. I maintained control very easily, though the woman continued to cycle away as if nothing had happened, though it had been a noticeable impact. More eager to demonstrate my dire Chinese than anything else, I shouted “xiao xin” (careful) after her as she wobbled across the junction and up the road to my right. She immediately turned her head towards me (ignoring the oncoming stream of traffic that she was riding into) and launched into a tirade of what I assume was abuse, the potency of which demonstrated she knew exactly the reason why I was shouting at her, and knew she had hit me.

She cycled off still yelling, and though I was angered and slightly surprised by her reaction, it wasn't long before I started wondering what I had hoped to achieve by shouting at her, albeit a single and not impolite suggestion that she should watch where she was going.

It's not as if I was expecting her to stop and apologise, and I'm lucky that she carried on her way – a few weeks ago a friend of mine was struck in a similar situation, except the lady decided to fall over and try to claim damages, despite being undeniably in the wrong, resulting in a long and not exactly pleasant experience with the police. I have heard of other similar, and more harrowing, situations that foreigners find themselves in. If for some reason we had both stopped, we would have been completely incapable of carrying on any kind of argument, a throng of people would have inevitably gathered and I could quickly have found myself out of my depth. This later lead me to my usual violent revenge fantasies of being chased through the streets of Pudong by this mad fishy harridan until, cornered in an alleyway of her choosing, her trap is sprung, and I am advanced upon by her gang of drug-addled vagrant hags whom I have to beat to death with my saddle in a virtuoso display of my non-existent street-smarts and pit fighting skills.

Anyway, my own passive-aggressive pathology aside, was it anger that drove me to shout? I wasn't even that bothered by the incident, it was just her complete lack of acknowledgment, let alone a small sign of an apology on her part, that slightly annoyed me.

Similar situations happen to me and, I guess, everyone, all over the world. Sometimes it is better to let things go. Like with the guy in the supermarket queue yesterday who kept knocking his trolley into me, running over my foot at one point, no matter how close towards the checkout I moved. After putting up with this slight but annoying inconvenience three or four times, I was about to say something when I found myself at the front of the line. I'm glad I didn't as, when I looked back, instead of the vendetta-setting glare I expected to receive from him, he was unconcernedly staring into space. Obviously unaware that he had even impacted upon my consciousness, I could see that saying something would have just been counter-productive.

Most of the time we know this. But we still can't help ourselves. What is this drive to tell people what they should do, or point out people's errors, when we know it will probably only inflame a situation, and won't serve to make the world a better place at all?

I often find myself thinking about this when driving in the UK, wanting to teach the guy who is riding my rear bumper a lesson by slamming on my breaks, sacrificing myself and my no claims bonus to the greater glory of knowing I've taken at least one highway code-abusing dick out of comission; or fantasising that, when some sales and marketing dicklord speeds past me on a blind bend at 90mph, I'll turn the corner to see his hideously mutilated body trying to drag itself from the snarled wreckage of his SAAB, stretching his fractured arm out while gargling the word 'help' through his blood-filled mouth as I stand over him, laughing at his foolhardiness and the justice that centrifugal force and wet road surfacing have dealt him.

The point, if any, is that (especially in China) it is usually far more sensible to swallow your pride, or whatever force it is that drives us to tell people off when they infringe some unwritten law that we may consider to be universal, and only bother saying something if you've been seriously affected by their actions.

Though whether we can, or should do this, if we want the at least partially fictional and ethereal concept of society to be maintained, is another point.

And I know there's little more annoying than some interfering bastard pointing your minor infringements of the social contract out to you.

Xiao xin!

Noodles in ambrosia

There is a cuisine available across China that is one of the finest in the world. Fortunately for me, this cuisine is also available across my street. And fortunately, it involves little or no bones, entrails, gizzards or scrotums, as far as I can tell.

It is the food of the mid-Asian Muslims, though it may as well be the food of the gods. If Mohammad, Jesus, Siddharthra and Elvis were fixing up a place to dine, it would be no great surprise if they settled on one of these joints. Mohammad would be pleased by the ban on alcohol, Jesus would be relieved by the kosher menu, Siddharthra would dig the spartan surroundings, and there'd be enough fatty acids for Elvis to maintain his holy girth.

Yep, it's the damned finest and danged heartiest food you can ever hope to eat on a lymph-chillingly damp Shanghai winter's day. And it's cheap.

The scene is pretty much the same in the tiny and reassuringly tatty restaurants that dot most of the residential streets in my locality. Outside you will find a couple of huge, steaming steel pots, one filled with a cholesterol-laden stock, the other a receptacle for the fresh noodles that you can see being stretched before your very eyes in an eternally magical dance between man and flour.

Step through the permanently open sliding doors to be greeted by the sight of people hunched over steaming bowls of noodles, eagerly slurping the boiling goodness into their faces. The noodles are the selling point – presented in a soupy broth with chunks of beef, corriander and spring onions. The broth also comes by itself as an entree and, full of starch and msg, possibly has the highest good taste to unhealthiness ratio of anything you'll put in your mouth. I have just recently come off a fairly long-term addiction to the stuff.

But if you're not in the mood for oodles of noodles, there is still plenty on offer, conveniently presented in a pictorial 'point and say "那个" (that one)' format. Nearly all involve stupidly tasty bits of mutton or beef (again the msg), and there's even an approximation of spaghetti bolognese. With noodles, of course.

Do not be put off if the cleanliness of your chosen restaurant leaves something to be desired – this just shows that the family who run it are one hundred per cent focused on your taste experience. But if you're a germaphobe, try not to sit facing the kitchen.

If they haven't already, then someone should bring this cuisine to the UK. But then it'd probably be ten thousand times times more hygienic, ten thousand times more expensive, and the thousand times worse than the proper ones.

Health & safety is such a drag.