Safety Tips

Readers and readettes, I wanted to follow on from yesterday's post with an update that has just been brought to me by the kind staff here at the university. In case you didn't already know:

"In the early hours of March 10th, 2012, a fire broke out in one of the dorm rooms on the 6th floor of the building."

Ah, so that was what all the smoke was about! Wow, I thought someone was just making some toast! The wonderfully informative letter continues:

"Thanks to timely measures there was no casualty."

Ah, see, now tell me. What was timely? The slow fire engine? The NON EXISTENT fire alarm, or the phone call from my friend telling me to get out of the building? This sentence so so delightfully belief, the words cheerful and...almost...self-congratulatory. 

"The fire broke out when the South Korean lit a candle."

This is frankly bizarre. Firstly, as my other friend pointed out (yes, I know! I have two! One saves me from fire; the other makes jokes. An excellent team.): what is the relevance of the nationality here? Do Koreans have a penchant for candles? Is that their woo-ing technique when they want to get cosy with a partner? Is the fact that the person was South Korean meant to be self-explanatory. Well that's great, at least I'll be able to identify the felon; the nasty, candle-lighting South Korean felon...at least I know to look out for a black haired Asian carrying tea lights. I wont even begin to question how one candle started the fire (must have been a bad date.....)

The letter advises me to look after my "fire-fighting facilities". These are non-existent. And how exactly do I "take care" of a fire fighting facility? Jeeze, mr alarm, did I not treat you right? Did I always ignore you when I sat in my room? Should I polish you from now onwards, and everyday hereafter?

Finally, the letter ends on some excellent health and safety tips, so everyone pay attention!

- "DO NOT use fire of any kind in your room." (Beijing Uni fire council to accomodation staff: "after careful consideration, we have decided to add the words 'of any kind'. This, we feel, will clear up any previous misunderstandings, and prevent further fires of any kind." Even candle-lighting Koreans will need to pay attention to this one. PHEW, I'm glad someone told us not to light fires in our room.)

- "DO NOT smoke on your bed or litter cigarette butts." (YES, That's right, you can smoke anywhere you want, just not your bed! Ah poor little candle-lighting Korean: no longer can he woo his lover by candle light; no longer can he light up in bed.)

Well everyone, my confidence has been completely restored in the team here at University. Thank God I've got this Fire committee onto the case of fire health and safety tips! 

I'll end my post on a slightly cheerier note, and that is that, when I escaped my toxic fumed and sooty bedroom yesterday (only to return to it last night in the same state) me, my two friends, and some more friends went to a famous food market in Wangfujin. Wan is situated just to the East of Tian'an men Sq and the famous night market is down a small side alley that is colourfully lit by hundreds of lanterns (FIRE HAZARD).  The food, however, is probably famous for the wrong reasons. On each stall you can sample the following:

- Seahorse on a stick. Yes friends, these beautiful, cute little creatures that are treasured by the UK are served on sticks to literally any man on the street. 

-Snake on a stick. These poor fellows have had a stick pushed down their entire length.

- Starfish on a stick. HUGE starfish on a stick. You know the ones: people like to display them on their bathroom shelves, to bring a superficial taste of the sea side to their suburban hutches. These ones were rather limp and very sad looking.

- Bat on a stick. mmm, and they splay out his wings to make him look extra tasty.

- Grubs and centipedes, by the stick or for variety, in a pot!

- Scorpions, real live scorpions on sticks. These poor little critters were flexing their claws and tails as if to say "To be or not to be, that is the question?" Well one man's meat is another man's poison. 

This was, at least, a welcome break from the surreal morning we all had yesterday.