I strated snowing again! In fact it has snowed on and off for the lastfew days making Beijing look pretty again. I noticed a downside lastnight is that it means 'night-time' is much brighter wiht more lightreflecting off the snow...this affects me because i don't have anycurtains :) Actually it doesn't really affect me at all, cause i stillsleep well, but its a random observation to start the the email with!
We went to Tianjin on Wednesday, which is one of the fast growingcities 90 minutes from Beijing. Its very nice; it was also (likeShanghai) one of the early port cities opened up for foreignconcessions after the british and other colonial powers kept beatingChina in the opium wars in the 19th century. Actually mostly thebritish were to blame -they were making lots of money selling opium(the drug) to China, which was grown in the Indian sub-continent). TheChinese realised it was having some negative effects, and bannedit..hence the British attacked! It led to several port cities beingopened up for trade, and different countries had different 'concessionareas' in those cities. Thats a brief history lesson for you (therewas actually 2 opium wars!).
Anyway its nice -not as built up as Beijing or Shanghai, but muchbetter planned, less tall buildings and lots of nice old colonialbuildings (thankfully they are protected by the city). There was anamazing street which was traditional chinese selling traditionalchinese things (I'll upload the photos eventually), and we had Tianjindumplings (kind of a speciality, but dumplings are eaten all overChina!) from the most famous place in Tianjin. Amusingly we ate themin a cheap place opposite the road, but they went and bought thedumplings from the fancy restaurant as take-away (for a special request)!!
On Monday, it was Valentines Day, so me and Flic made a little bit ofeffort; splashed out on Dominos pizza, drank some wine left lyingaround, had some fancy Marks & Spencers chocolates (left over from myparents visiting) and watched friends all night! there's no love thereof course, but it was still fun, and less depresing being single ;) hehe. (ok, i'll admit it was all my idea, flic doesn't mind being single).
China celebrate Valentines Day in quite a big way, but this year itwas during the week-long new year holiday, so actually it was quitesubdued, but still there were hearts everywhere, and special deals atthe hotels etc. I read an article about western festivals beingcelebrated in china...are they affecting chinese culture? Anyway,seeing as china has so much culture and history and all the westernfestivals are basically just based on pure commericalism, i dont thinktherei s much to worry about. Remember, christmas here is of noreligious significance, apart from about 10 million christians in thewhole country, so people celebrate it just for an excuse to see theirfamily and buy decorations etc!
Other things of note...I ate at a Hakka restaurant (a minority group)which was nice...downloaded the new MSN messenger (v.7 beta) so i canhave fun winking and nudging people (so sad!)...bought 4 fantastic CDsfor 1 Euro equivalent (a bargain, even for China!) -counting crows,norah jones, alfie and bond...haven't been running because of the iceand thus feel unfit...got depressed reading about how bad england areat rugby now...bought a Union Jack (well 2 actually, a small one toleave in the office and a big one for special occasions!)...woke uplast night with a shock as the A0 world map on the wall by my bedcollapsed on me.
For now, ta-ta
adam
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