hi all
a few random observations on beijing:
-there is no such thing as red or yellow lines to prohibit anyonefrom stopping or parking almost anywhere. So although most peopleare generally sensible, the typical reason for a traffic jam is ataxi blocking 2 lanes as it dashed across 3 lanes to pick up acustomer, and thus parked at an angle...causing chaos, especiallywith the long (bendy) buses trying to go around them!
-there are no trucks or lorries! there are a few..there are lots ofcoal trucks that appear after around 11pm, but during the day itsjust buses and cars mostly. Plus, of course, the many carts, cylesetc taht carry goods like vegetables, cardboard, TVs, doors..youname it!
-Having said this, all the bridges are really low in beijing, thedouble decker buses are kinda short, and only squeeze under thebridges by less than a metre (no kidding), so maybe this was a planto keep lorries away an reduce congestion/pollution?
-I've managed to read bus maps now since i know enough characers toknow where i am and where i am going. It helps no end! It also makesme realise what a superb invention the 'spider maps' are that areused in London, on each bus stop showing where the buses that stoptheir go, and their frequency.
-Noone in China uses deodarant. This is something i have known for awhile (since trying to buy it) but was reminded of again when packedvery, very, tightly onto a bus at rush hour..thankfully a fewwindows were open!
Anyway, moving on, we had our listening test today which waspointless because:
a) it was 50 times harder that what we practise in class, so we weretotally unprepared
b) nothing was repreated
c) everything was in chinese characters, including the answers..thusby the time i had understood the answers i had missed the actualconversation on the tape
d) the conversation was first, and then the question. so we had toremember the entire conversation in order to be able to answer thequestion, since we did not know which particular piece ofinformation to remember or look for in the conversation....and on and on. anyway everyone left wondering what the point ofthe test was. but since noone actually cares what the results are(its not like it matters what mark you get at the end of thecourse), it was a 'who cares' situation.
4 hours later i then had the oral test. it lasted approximately 3mintues since i was asked only 5 questions of such ease i could haveanswered most of them even before i started the course (and everyoneelse agreed). such the opposite of the listening test, everyone wasvery bewildered.
tomorrow is the written, therefore predcitably hard (but at least wehave been prepared with practise tests already)..so i'd better learnsome 'hanzi'.
just before i go, i'll mention that tomorrow night is flic andchris's leaving party :( i wont see flic again for a long time oncei go to inner mongolia (sunday) although i will see chris foranother week. kinda sad..the end of an era :( such a fun,interesting, chaotic time. even sadder than when i moved out of theoffice. oh well, better enjoy tomorrow night.
oh, and this is a great article on 'blogging'. If you dont know whatblogging is, you should know, and you should read this. and if youdo, you should read this anyway, cause its very interesting:
click here
will report back after the camping in a gurt in inner mongolia, andafter we take pictures of the north korean border from a lake on topof a (doramnt?) volcano...
adam
Thursday, April 28, 2005
Sunday, April 24, 2005
beautiful Beijing
Back from another trip to the outskirts of Beijing for a dose of non-polluted air, and it was very invigorating.
The area is called Shidu (10 (shi) ferries or crossings of the riveris the rough translation and there is 1du, 2du...etc along theriver), and we went to a 'village' called mujiakou, which is in factjust a recently built village designed to house goats and be ahotel. its nicely done, with the rooms in little stone rooms thatfit in well.
It was very beautiful (a bit like Yangshuo), and i promptly ledeveryone on a 2 and a half hour trek up the mountains...i managed toconvince them all to trust me, and my sense of direction.Fortunately everything worked out well and the exercise, views andanimals, plus the rarity of absolute silence was fantastic.
there are a bunch of photos on the wesbite(http://www.imagestation.com/member/?name=adamlane for those with abad memory).
other news is that we have midterms this week so i need to startdoing some work ASAP, the tickets for inner mongolia are bought andwe all went out for a class lunch last week (hot pot) which waspleasent (unlimited beer, shame i had to work afterwards).
this week i am hoping to get lots of big names (government etc) tocome to the next CSR conference I am organising..hoping they accept.Also this weekend will be the last time I see Flic until...? aww :(have to make the most of her till then, like by eating the xmaspudding at her leaving party!..since the weather is now a perfect 25degrees, why not?
nothing too much interesting in the news this week except theongoing demonstrations and japan issues...a good update is here:http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1581091,00.html. Althoughmore interesting is to read elsewhere about what China does not havein its textbooks, or distorts..(wars with India, Vietnam, TianenmanSquare amongst others...)
lets all keep our fingers crossed for the big derby game tomorrow!
Adam
The area is called Shidu (10 (shi) ferries or crossings of the riveris the rough translation and there is 1du, 2du...etc along theriver), and we went to a 'village' called mujiakou, which is in factjust a recently built village designed to house goats and be ahotel. its nicely done, with the rooms in little stone rooms thatfit in well.
It was very beautiful (a bit like Yangshuo), and i promptly ledeveryone on a 2 and a half hour trek up the mountains...i managed toconvince them all to trust me, and my sense of direction.Fortunately everything worked out well and the exercise, views andanimals, plus the rarity of absolute silence was fantastic.
there are a bunch of photos on the wesbite(http://www.imagestation.com/member/?name=adamlane for those with abad memory).
other news is that we have midterms this week so i need to startdoing some work ASAP, the tickets for inner mongolia are bought andwe all went out for a class lunch last week (hot pot) which waspleasent (unlimited beer, shame i had to work afterwards).
this week i am hoping to get lots of big names (government etc) tocome to the next CSR conference I am organising..hoping they accept.Also this weekend will be the last time I see Flic until...? aww :(have to make the most of her till then, like by eating the xmaspudding at her leaving party!..since the weather is now a perfect 25degrees, why not?
nothing too much interesting in the news this week except theongoing demonstrations and japan issues...a good update is here:http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1581091,00.html. Althoughmore interesting is to read elsewhere about what China does not havein its textbooks, or distorts..(wars with India, Vietnam, TianenmanSquare amongst others...)
lets all keep our fingers crossed for the big derby game tomorrow!
Adam
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
snowing in Beijing at 25 degrees?
Yep its snowing! well not really, its just these white flowers thatare flying absolutely everywhere and getting in all the rooms (pluseyes of cyclists!), so it looks like its snowing!
no-one wuite knows where the flowers are coming from though, but iguess they are spreading their wings for flower mating season!
recently i had my first accident on the road :) not a bad one, justsome idiot on a motorbike pulled out and looked right before lookingleft (the traffic was coming from the left in the closest lane)..soI hit him at about 10mph, missed his leg unfortunately and just wentinto the side of his motorbike. anyway, totally harmless, butexcitingly i was looking at him saying 'kan, kan' afterwards (kan =look)
I also noticed that the chinese are nothing if not clever, in thatsince its so dry in spring (but the trees need water), they dig bigholes around the trees (mini-lakes if you like) and then fill themwith water (from a truck driving along the road taking aim so as tospray into the wholes) so the trees get more water. I think it isjust for 'young' trees and don't know if its just my area or thewhole of Beijing!
most of you will have read about the anti-japanese demonstrations inchina -I havent seen any yet, but there has always been historicalissues between the 2 countries. I asked my tutee..he said: "thechinese not like the japanese" so there you go. anyway, itsinteresting that the government seems to be tacilty encouraging thedemonstrations on one hand (to make japan look bad, and maybe tofocus attention on an external issue), whilst being careful to makesure they don't get too bad that they encourage other demonstrations(ie. against the chinese government). its rpetty obvious they arebeing lax though, since normally they would crack down instantly,and last weekend cars were being wrecked, embassies attacked andjapanese shops ransacked in shanghai and elsewhere.
the other interesting thing i learned is about a wordcalled 'pingde'. Some of you may know that recently UK introduceda 'citizenship' class into the national curriculum, so students knowa bit more about stuff like the law, ethics, voting etc. I am sureother countries have this too. Well the chiense have 'pingde' fromage 5-18, and it literally translates as 'morals/ethics'. Thats alot of classes on that subject. apparently a lot of it is based onstories etc from old times, Mao or whoever with a moral to them(like the bible really!)
Had my first KTV experience last friday night (karaoke), but not tooamazing since I slept through most of it (started at 1am, finishedat 5am)...I have to get up at 7am every morning and had not had abreak since conference, so i have an excuse (plus the room was toohot, and we had to wait an hour to get it)...maybe the next timewill be better. It was weird though that for the beatles songe,there were some 'imitation' videos involving a chinese 'lookalikeband' -classic! Sadly Ralph has now left; maybe I'll see him inIndia at International Congress...although I need to find a reasonto go! maybe an AIESEC CSR job could be the excuse...
tomorrow the whole class is going out for lunch, woohoo. we'll seeif I'll throttle the annoying old german lady (she wasted 45 mins ofmy revision time when she collared me on cmapus trying torevise!)..she is very nice and intelligent and quite a character,but sometimes...grrr
rightyo, better do some more revision, before teaching, dinnermeetings and then sorting out my tickets (and sleeping bag) to innermongolia (ooooh).
au revoir!
Adam
no-one wuite knows where the flowers are coming from though, but iguess they are spreading their wings for flower mating season!
recently i had my first accident on the road :) not a bad one, justsome idiot on a motorbike pulled out and looked right before lookingleft (the traffic was coming from the left in the closest lane)..soI hit him at about 10mph, missed his leg unfortunately and just wentinto the side of his motorbike. anyway, totally harmless, butexcitingly i was looking at him saying 'kan, kan' afterwards (kan =look)
I also noticed that the chinese are nothing if not clever, in thatsince its so dry in spring (but the trees need water), they dig bigholes around the trees (mini-lakes if you like) and then fill themwith water (from a truck driving along the road taking aim so as tospray into the wholes) so the trees get more water. I think it isjust for 'young' trees and don't know if its just my area or thewhole of Beijing!
most of you will have read about the anti-japanese demonstrations inchina -I havent seen any yet, but there has always been historicalissues between the 2 countries. I asked my tutee..he said: "thechinese not like the japanese" so there you go. anyway, itsinteresting that the government seems to be tacilty encouraging thedemonstrations on one hand (to make japan look bad, and maybe tofocus attention on an external issue), whilst being careful to makesure they don't get too bad that they encourage other demonstrations(ie. against the chinese government). its rpetty obvious they arebeing lax though, since normally they would crack down instantly,and last weekend cars were being wrecked, embassies attacked andjapanese shops ransacked in shanghai and elsewhere.
the other interesting thing i learned is about a wordcalled 'pingde'. Some of you may know that recently UK introduceda 'citizenship' class into the national curriculum, so students knowa bit more about stuff like the law, ethics, voting etc. I am sureother countries have this too. Well the chiense have 'pingde' fromage 5-18, and it literally translates as 'morals/ethics'. Thats alot of classes on that subject. apparently a lot of it is based onstories etc from old times, Mao or whoever with a moral to them(like the bible really!)
Had my first KTV experience last friday night (karaoke), but not tooamazing since I slept through most of it (started at 1am, finishedat 5am)...I have to get up at 7am every morning and had not had abreak since conference, so i have an excuse (plus the room was toohot, and we had to wait an hour to get it)...maybe the next timewill be better. It was weird though that for the beatles songe,there were some 'imitation' videos involving a chinese 'lookalikeband' -classic! Sadly Ralph has now left; maybe I'll see him inIndia at International Congress...although I need to find a reasonto go! maybe an AIESEC CSR job could be the excuse...
tomorrow the whole class is going out for lunch, woohoo. we'll seeif I'll throttle the annoying old german lady (she wasted 45 mins ofmy revision time when she collared me on cmapus trying torevise!)..she is very nice and intelligent and quite a character,but sometimes...grrr
rightyo, better do some more revision, before teaching, dinnermeetings and then sorting out my tickets (and sleeping bag) to innermongolia (ooooh).
au revoir!
Adam
Thursday, April 14, 2005
hm..
Back from conference!
I had a great time chairing the AIESEC conference over a 3 dayweekend; including the rather emotional closing plenary, since Chrisand Flic were leaving China before the next month, and by the nextconference, there will be a new national team. Ralph is also leavingsoon (party tomorrow though!), but I'm not :)
Our mid-term examination is in 2 weeks spread over 3 weeks. Then thefollowing day I'll hopefully be heading off to Inner Mongolia for aweek holiday (no uni for a week) once i sort out the train vs. planeticket options.
This week the weather has warmed up again to around 20 degrees, soit is very pleasent and we'll be picnicing in the park on saturday!Maybe even the shorts will come out!! The meeting we had to ask formoney went quite well; more info in a couple of weeks, and I haveanother tutoring job paying lots :) (equivalent of 20 Euros perhour!!) for 6 hours, which will mean i might even be able to startsaving some money to travel in the summer.
I noticed that Tony Blair has released his own little red book,which has been compared to Mao's. what an honour! I have a copy ofMao's but have not got around to reading it yet. Not much excitingnews I am afraid, but hopefully there will be more soon.
My bike looks quite amsuing now half of it is tied on with a straw(the chain guard) or pieces of wire (the padlock). Got to dash.
Adam
I had a great time chairing the AIESEC conference over a 3 dayweekend; including the rather emotional closing plenary, since Chrisand Flic were leaving China before the next month, and by the nextconference, there will be a new national team. Ralph is also leavingsoon (party tomorrow though!), but I'm not :)
Our mid-term examination is in 2 weeks spread over 3 weeks. Then thefollowing day I'll hopefully be heading off to Inner Mongolia for aweek holiday (no uni for a week) once i sort out the train vs. planeticket options.
This week the weather has warmed up again to around 20 degrees, soit is very pleasent and we'll be picnicing in the park on saturday!Maybe even the shorts will come out!! The meeting we had to ask formoney went quite well; more info in a couple of weeks, and I haveanother tutoring job paying lots :) (equivalent of 20 Euros perhour!!) for 6 hours, which will mean i might even be able to startsaving some money to travel in the summer.
I noticed that Tony Blair has released his own little red book,which has been compared to Mao's. what an honour! I have a copy ofMao's but have not got around to reading it yet. Not much excitingnews I am afraid, but hopefully there will be more soon.
My bike looks quite amsuing now half of it is tied on with a straw(the chain guard) or pieces of wire (the padlock). Got to dash.
Adam
Thursday, April 07, 2005
busy times....
Wow, its exciting to be me right now :)
This week I have been meeting all the AIESEC students in thedifferent Universities to finalise all their lectures andconferences they are organising on campus related to CSR, so I havebeen eating at all the different 'shitang' (canteens), and I cansafely say the food at my Unis is one of the worse (but thats causeall the foreigners eat at the restaurants on campus instead).
I'm thus chairing the event tonight, as well as organising all theevents, speakers, and coaching the students with their events, plusplanning the other activities. Its great, and very rewarding to seethem come along, be innovative and confident and so on (quite rare Ithink in china). I am also chairing the National Conference thisweekend. So 3 days of no sleep! But I am looking forward to it, asits a challenge; especially as it is essentially 2 conferences (1for new AIESECers, 1 for experienced AIESECers).
Noone knows I am chairing yet, so it should be a fun surprise forthem all. After 25 or so AIESEC conferences, now I am the one incharge of making this one go smoothly! woo hoo. I'll report backnext week. Anyway, I have to skip class friday morning and when Ireturn late sunday night, will have 8am class on monday as usual :(Then the important videoconference with Swiss Re in Zurich! andhaving to deliver a speech or 2 on CSR apparently next week, as wellas trying to teach some more.
Actually one of the speakers tonight is an important person from theUK FCO (Foreign and Commonwealth Office), who is the head of theGlobal Business Group (ooo, sounds good, doesn't it!)...hopefully ifshe is impressed she will convince her colleague based in Beijing togive us money too (as the colleague is waivering!)
Whats been up? Well Ralph (the Aussie CEEDer) has signed a superbpartnership with the Australian Chamber of Commerce for lots oftraineeships, Flic has returned from Bangladesh; Beijing had 3 daysof pollution so bad that the government warned everyone to stayinside, as it was actually 'at dangerous levels', the weather issupposed to go through a cold patch soon (boohoo), and the test waskinda pointless since we could finish it at home.
Otherwise I've been listening to the new Sterophonics album(downloaded most of it illegally, but it seems impossible toactually buy western CDs here legally, as they are not in shops, sowhat can I do? buy it online and get it shipped over? or pay todownload it legally? well, since I'd have to pay western prices forit, then no way!) and Coldplay release their new one in the Summer.I highly reccommend Counting Crows to everyone since I becameaddicted to their stuff recently.
Last Saturday me and Karen went on a trip to BJ;s suburbs with someunderwater great wall, a big lake, clean air and quiet countrysideto revise. It was great to get a way. If it wasn't for conference,I'd do the same again (over 20 excursions listed in the guide book!)
wooh, this email is tooo long. Anyway, the latest China-news isabout Japan's recent attempts to 'rewrite history' (or so thechinese and south koreans claim) by covering up their militaristichistory and downplaying it in a popular school text book. For thosewho are unaware, there are pretty big Chinese-Japanese tensions,since Japan invaded China a few times, raped lots of people andkilled lots too (not just in the 2nd World War, also inother 'invasions')....last year there were riots after the Asia CupFinal (Japan vs. China).
so better dash, I am busy you know ;)
Adam
This week I have been meeting all the AIESEC students in thedifferent Universities to finalise all their lectures andconferences they are organising on campus related to CSR, so I havebeen eating at all the different 'shitang' (canteens), and I cansafely say the food at my Unis is one of the worse (but thats causeall the foreigners eat at the restaurants on campus instead).
I'm thus chairing the event tonight, as well as organising all theevents, speakers, and coaching the students with their events, plusplanning the other activities. Its great, and very rewarding to seethem come along, be innovative and confident and so on (quite rare Ithink in china). I am also chairing the National Conference thisweekend. So 3 days of no sleep! But I am looking forward to it, asits a challenge; especially as it is essentially 2 conferences (1for new AIESECers, 1 for experienced AIESECers).
Noone knows I am chairing yet, so it should be a fun surprise forthem all. After 25 or so AIESEC conferences, now I am the one incharge of making this one go smoothly! woo hoo. I'll report backnext week. Anyway, I have to skip class friday morning and when Ireturn late sunday night, will have 8am class on monday as usual :(Then the important videoconference with Swiss Re in Zurich! andhaving to deliver a speech or 2 on CSR apparently next week, as wellas trying to teach some more.
Actually one of the speakers tonight is an important person from theUK FCO (Foreign and Commonwealth Office), who is the head of theGlobal Business Group (ooo, sounds good, doesn't it!)...hopefully ifshe is impressed she will convince her colleague based in Beijing togive us money too (as the colleague is waivering!)
Whats been up? Well Ralph (the Aussie CEEDer) has signed a superbpartnership with the Australian Chamber of Commerce for lots oftraineeships, Flic has returned from Bangladesh; Beijing had 3 daysof pollution so bad that the government warned everyone to stayinside, as it was actually 'at dangerous levels', the weather issupposed to go through a cold patch soon (boohoo), and the test waskinda pointless since we could finish it at home.
Otherwise I've been listening to the new Sterophonics album(downloaded most of it illegally, but it seems impossible toactually buy western CDs here legally, as they are not in shops, sowhat can I do? buy it online and get it shipped over? or pay todownload it legally? well, since I'd have to pay western prices forit, then no way!) and Coldplay release their new one in the Summer.I highly reccommend Counting Crows to everyone since I becameaddicted to their stuff recently.
Last Saturday me and Karen went on a trip to BJ;s suburbs with someunderwater great wall, a big lake, clean air and quiet countrysideto revise. It was great to get a way. If it wasn't for conference,I'd do the same again (over 20 excursions listed in the guide book!)
wooh, this email is tooo long. Anyway, the latest China-news isabout Japan's recent attempts to 'rewrite history' (or so thechinese and south koreans claim) by covering up their militaristichistory and downplaying it in a popular school text book. For thosewho are unaware, there are pretty big Chinese-Japanese tensions,since Japan invaded China a few times, raped lots of people andkilled lots too (not just in the 2nd World War, also inother 'invasions')....last year there were riots after the Asia CupFinal (Japan vs. China).
so better dash, I am busy you know ;)
Adam
Friday, April 01, 2005
testing times
Hey
Monday marks the first time we have a proper test; aarggh. It wil befor all the stuff we have studied so far. In preparation, tomorrow Iam going into the countryside with some tongxue (classmates) tostudy (hopefully); I'll report back on how much of the Great Wall wesee (its supposed to be underwater, where we are going!)
Not much news this week; things are going as usual. However I justwanted to post a quick update on Zimbabwe, since if you read thisarticlehttp://english.people.com.cn/200503/31/eng20050331_178858.html fromthe government's official paper, you get a very different view fromthe Western view of the elections.
There is a few comical lines, including a quote from the Namibianpresident that: "I think the situation there in Zimbabwe is movingnow towards a goal that the government of Zimbabwe has worked outfor the common benefit of all the people of Zimbabwe. There isreally no serious problem there, no problem there," despite the 80%uneployment, 400% inflation..hmmmm
Anyway, read the article to see how it is phrased; and how differenta perspective you would get if you were chinese reading thatcompared to a westerner reading what is in the western press. Maybeits the western press that is all lying? hmm, anyway, today 2British journalists were arrested; whilst the biggest reason to votefor Mugabe was nothing to do with jobs or food, but because 'Blairis a liar'. quite how Blair lying impacts upon starving africans,I'm not sure, but hey...
enjoy your weekend. Its supposed to hit the mid 80s in the middle ofnext week; although we had the first rain in Beijing for 4 monthstoday (a shame it only lasted an hour, and was very light)
Adam
Monday marks the first time we have a proper test; aarggh. It wil befor all the stuff we have studied so far. In preparation, tomorrow Iam going into the countryside with some tongxue (classmates) tostudy (hopefully); I'll report back on how much of the Great Wall wesee (its supposed to be underwater, where we are going!)
Not much news this week; things are going as usual. However I justwanted to post a quick update on Zimbabwe, since if you read thisarticlehttp://english.people.com.cn/200503/31/eng20050331_178858.html fromthe government's official paper, you get a very different view fromthe Western view of the elections.
There is a few comical lines, including a quote from the Namibianpresident that: "I think the situation there in Zimbabwe is movingnow towards a goal that the government of Zimbabwe has worked outfor the common benefit of all the people of Zimbabwe. There isreally no serious problem there, no problem there," despite the 80%uneployment, 400% inflation..hmmmm
Anyway, read the article to see how it is phrased; and how differenta perspective you would get if you were chinese reading thatcompared to a westerner reading what is in the western press. Maybeits the western press that is all lying? hmm, anyway, today 2British journalists were arrested; whilst the biggest reason to votefor Mugabe was nothing to do with jobs or food, but because 'Blairis a liar'. quite how Blair lying impacts upon starving africans,I'm not sure, but hey...
enjoy your weekend. Its supposed to hit the mid 80s in the middle ofnext week; although we had the first rain in Beijing for 4 monthstoday (a shame it only lasted an hour, and was very light)
Adam
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