The talking clock

I had a couple of days in Xiamen before going to Putian. I had to visit the Xiamen University Press about getting my book published in China.  

It sounds like it might come off. I left them a copy to read and they will come back to me with any changes. They didn’t like the name, doesn’t mean anything to Chinese people…I had to try and explain the ‘bust’ bit, somewhat tricky.

After some more chatting they found out I wrote short stories. They got very excited about that, and want to read them. They think it might be worth publishing them too. So will see how things go. Fortunately I had Alex on hand to translate. They both could speak English but very limited so needed a translator.  The funniest thing is that they will get their editor to look at my book and see what changes need to be made. The formatting is different in Chinese books, much more densely packed pages, but it will be a bit odd if a Chinese editor wants me to change the grammar or ‘Englishness’ of the book. I will wait and see.

The hotel was close to the harbour and had a lovely view over the harbour.

Next to the hotel, which was not expensive, but a bit tatty round the edges, was a  government building with a big clock on top. At 9am, noon, 3pm and 6pm it played music and chimed and then a voice told you want the time was. Here is a video. The quality is not good, but it will give you an idea.

Next to the hotel I stayed at was the Lujiang Hotel. http://www.lujiang-hotel.com/en/brand.asp  Definitely a flasher looking establishment. I decided to have a foot massage there. Having a good foot massage is so relaxing, but in this case it was a rip off extraordinaire. I was supposed to get 70 minutes, and by my timing I got 45 minutes. I asked the man at the desk as I left what time my massage started and he had written down 5pm. Well I’d swear on a stack of Bibles that it was around 5.20pm. So I was not pleased. Also, I have lots of dry skin in my heels. Normally a foot massage will include cleaning that away, or maybe a small charge extra. He wanted another 50% on top of the charge to do that, so I turned him down flat. So if anyone is ever going to Xiamen don’t bother with a foot massage there, it’s a rip off.