When we returned from Mr Sen's apartment, having had a hot cup of green tea there, Mr Pan had us show him our photos. He then went through and pointed to every feature and showed us how to say it in Chinese.
During the conversation we spoke about the tea we had at Mr Sen's. It turns out this tea is VERY fine quality local tea and costs a whopping 1800rmb (about $300 AUS) for half a kilo. Which lead onto a quick discussion about wages.....to show how dear that tea was.
Mr Pan pointed out that our wage is 5000rmb a month - so it's obvious when you put 1800 beside 5000 how expensive it is. And then he revealed that his own wage was 2800.
.... Uncomfortable to the max.
He probably works 4 times more than us and infinitely harder, and makes way less than us. We knew that the local teachers were paid much less than foreign teachers, but that really does put things in perspective. It really made us feel uncomfortable. Mr Pan of course was completely normal about it - i meant, he didnt say it to make us feel uncomfortable nor did he think it strange, it was just general conversation. But to us, it made us feel very uncomfortable but I guess we just have to accept it. This is China afterall.
We are determined however to buy him a really nice gift to show how much we apprecate his help, and nowadays his company. He's such a lovely guy - oh and his name is Zili. We will start to call him Zili in person as we are effectively friends now. He introduces himself as Panzili - like it's one word. On this blog though, he shall remain as Mr Pan - as i feel the name Mr Pan is just far too cool ;)
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