Well it’s been an eventful few days. After the school closed for the Spring Festival, we lost the sense of security and familiarity gained from the friendly smiles from the students and helpful advice of our colleagues.

This, combined with the constant stares from passersby and everyone from shopkeepers to taxi drivers to post office workers trying to get us to pay over the odds or giving us faulty goods, meant we were feeling a little out of sorts, having been prepared for a very different kind of culture shock.

We headed downtown with Blanche, Ali’s host sister, to search for some English language books and to buy train tickets for our trip to Xi’an, hoping that we’d feel a little bit more anonymous surrounded by hoards of people in the busy shopping streets.

Unfortunately, though, as I was paying for some noodles from a street vendor, my purse was snatched. I had stupidly left my bank card in it because I’d just withdrawn money from the bank, although luckily I’d separated the cash so didn’t lose much.

Going to the police station was an experience I am keen never to repeat, and we encountered the infamous Chinese bureaucracy at first hand.

The officers were fascinated by the stamps and photo in my passport and spent an hour chain smoking and asking questions about Manchester United as more and more officers squeezed in the tiny office to come and meet the two English girls.

It’s fair to say that sympathy is an emotion which doesn’t translate very well in China, and the officers kept telling me that ‘you should have been more careful, you know’ and ‘we won’t ever find your purse’.

How hindsight’s a wonderful thing.

When my statement was eventually typed up it was littered with mistakes, the biggest being that I was of Han Chinese descent, so the officer in charge hen took a black marker to it and started scribbling over the errors.

The final document had to be covered in my fingerprints eighteen times at various points, and I am now in possession of a rather dog-eared copy which I luckily don’t have to send to the insurance company, as somehow I don’t think they’d accept it as a valid document.

At first I was angry, both with myself and whoever stole my purse, and my dealings with the police had left me incredibly frustrated, but I guess it’s just a learning experience, and it made me think about how desperate someone’s situation would have to be to resort to stealing.

Phoning my local bank branch over Skype was rather surreal, and luckily as I’d already withdrawn money I’ll have more than enough to tide me over until my new card arrives.

The main upshot of the whole experience is that I’m now determined to get to grips with the language, and even though our skin colour means we’ll always be outsiders, I’m refusing to give up.

Alicia and I are now drilling new phrases each night, and trying to integrate the Mandarin we know into regular conversation, so hopefully should come home at least semi-fluent.

Anyway, I have to get going, I have a date with the Chinese police to sort out the final bits of paperwork- they’d somehow managed to misplace the stamp with the official seal on it yesterday, so couldn’t process any crime reports.

Will update again once in Xi’an, hopefully with some more positive news!