We have a friend, Bob. He was an English teacher at the school but left shortly after our arrival. He returns fairly regularly to Qingtian to catch up with his mates, and Trev and him have become friends over the year.

A few weeks back he asked us about exporting Tibetan goods to Australia and yesterday he showed us the photo's of things he wants to sell. They range from prayer wheels, to jewellery, to rugs and some very weird looking wine pots. We aren't sure how he wants to go about exporting them, but we had to forewarn him about the huge knives he wanted to sell.

He invited us to a farewell banquet and we went along with his 4 friends. Bob's English is good but strange. I think he is the first Chinese person I know who swears, at least swearing I can understand. But when he toasted me with "Come F@*# You" I was a little taken aback.

Trev then went into a conversation of explaining the different levels of swear words. And then 5 Chinese men were toasting indescribable vulgarities to each other.