Parties and Conferences...

Hello everyone, from warm Shanghai

The heating is on! We had our First Appartment party before it did,so we had to reply on people's bodies warming the place up -it did,along with smashing bottles of beer and mine/Flic's little plasticchair -it was a disaster, but it did get me washing the floor thenext day (a rare sight!)

I had blagged my way into a couple of nice, swanky, importantconferences last week -one involving the WTO, and the other with theWorld Business Council for Sustainable Development. My networkingdiary has dried up a bit, but its ok, because its a busy couple ofweeks. It was a tough comparison of these conference -5 star hotels,lots of free food, alcohol and translation devices (even a USB flashdisks!), compared to the AIESEC Beijing conference last weekend in akind of an army camp 90 minutes from town.

It was fun, an insight into Chinese 'parties' -still very littledrinking and very little unplanned dances (although this is anAIESEC-specific problem), but scarily, the amount of effort thatwent into the sex-change party: most of the chinese men look likegirls already, so with some effort it was scary. Not me though; iwas one hairy woman! Also an insight into how spoiled chinesestudents are -they were complaining about the quality of the food -which i know in the UK we'd do, but then we don't have 200millionpeople living in poverty...

Which brings me to how little many chinese people know about theircountry (and the World), partly due to their education system (theyprobably spent 5 solid years just learning their own language! hehe) and partly due to the size of the country. I think they learn alot once they get to University. There is a huge problem in Chinawith getting poor students into Universities -because most of Chinacannot afford to go to University, and it seems that their is hugediscrepancies in the level of edcuation given in different cities,as well as in the countryside, but bearing in mind 800 million on1.2 billion people still live in the countryside with poor educationand infrastructure, it really puts everything into perspective.

I went to the Ethnic Minority Culture Park as well; it showcasesaround 25 of China's 55(I think?) offical minorities in addition tothe 'Han' (Chinese). It was very impressive physically -lots ofbuildings that were designed as if you were in this or that part ofChina (by the minorities, using orgiginal materials too!), but Ifelt that it was not being used to its potential -the impression isof that it opened to much fanfare and expense 10 years ago and nownoone knows about it, although there is a timetable of 'events' atthe park. Maybe its busier on weekdays or during the Summer? So,lots of minorities exist in China; many speaking different dialectsand being small populations in comparison to Han (who are 95%, Ibelive), but that still gives you a million or 3 here and there inlittle pockets living different lives! There is a theory taught inthe West (according to some students I have met) about the Chinesegovernment's dealings with the Minorities (I'm interested in hearingmore about this theory).

Theory: Minorities tend to be in economically underdeveloped areas,so as part of the Policy to develop these areas, Han are shipped outto work there and help with development. They are the ones with thejobs, thus they are the ones that attract the women, marry the womenand thus breed mixed race kids, slowly reducing the numbers ofminorities -why? Because there are a lot of tensions betweenminorities and Han -Tibet is an extreme example, but note the 25deaths in riots in China about 3 weeks ago. (search for 'chinariots' on google and you'll find many examples, Note: I cannotaccess most of the pages that come up)

I also had a wonderfully interesting chat with one of the studentshere about what she knew about Tiananmen Square (she actually livednearby, and heard the gun shots) -she started by asking me about apicture she heard existed that was taken on that day in 1989. Ipresumed she meant the famous one of the boy standing in the square,with a tank about to run him over. She asked if I was sure it wasnot made up by the West. I was pretty sure it was not. Thediscussions went on, and were very interesting about what she doesand doesn't know about various things, but more about that someother time.

moving swiftly on (I'll have to come back to more history andculture another time), I'll just report that Work is going well,preparations are being made for an exciting fmaily holiday in theSouth of China for the end of December, I went clubbing for thefirst time with JUST chinese people (no germans or australians oramericans involved!), and that will be repeated, and its my birthdaycoming up soon, so more parties to be planned!

China is such an interesting place! Hope to hear more from you all!
hugs
Adam