Adam and his big gun between his legs.
hmm, look at Rachel's reaction!
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Rachel displays her tongue ring
A charming photo of Rachel. If you look closely, you can see she is displaying her tounge ring.
Don't look too closely though, otherwise you'll get nightmares ;)
Alcohol plus American plus piece of metal plus camera = what a great combination!
Don't look too closely though, otherwise you'll get nightmares ;)
Alcohol plus American plus piece of metal plus camera = what a great combination!
Sheila and Adam...forever!
Adam and Sheila in the 'garden with the wedding photo backgrounds'..in love :D
more adventures
Back from another 4 day holiday, and it was, of course, fantastic.
We saw Qufu -the place where Confucius lived and died (we saw his grave). Confuciun philosophy is the dominant philosophy that the Chinese live by, as an alternative to religion mostly. The place was not too tacky although very busy, and the cemetary was especially peaceful (although not too inspiring). Having taken an overnight seated train to get there, we quickly left for our trip to Tai Shan, the holiest of the 5 'holy mountains' in China.
This is the mountain that everyone climbs (its not easy taking 4 hours fo solid uphill step climbing to get there), and is beautiful with a famed sunrise. Rachel found a porter to help her for the first half (she has a very heavy way, but somehow managed the harder second half alone); we hid from everyone on the mountain in order to find a place to camp (not supposed to), and all 7 of us showered in the 1 hotel room that 3 people took (instead of camping). The walk up was tiring (as we had had no sleep the night before), the sunrise was great (we were lucky with the weather) and camping was fun (I just bought the tent). However the 'fantastic piece of flat land' that I had found at dusk, turned out to be the overgrown roof of a concrete sewerage tank for the nearby hotel...hmm, in the morning (4.30am) we woke up to a pungent smell before running to catch the sun.
A walk down the mountain was pleasent, off-the-beaten-track and long, but the vegetation smelt great. We then got a bus to Qingdao, one of the first cities opened up to foreign powers (Germany). It is a beatuful city with beaches and tree-lined promenades and is just like mediterranean Europe, with European style villas, houses, churches etc. We were kindly shown around by Rachel's friend's brother and saw the Chinese Naval museum, ate all kinds of seafood (some scary looking), drank lots of Qingdao (especially the first night, as it was Chris' brithday), turned off the power of the submarine whilst touring it, gathered large groups around us 'foreigners' especially when listening to an old sailor's life history....
Once again, the joys of travelling in a group, with people I have never met before has been fantastic, with lots of laughs and lots of crazy moments; great memories and great photos (uploaded, and a few key ones to be shown on weblog soon). When we bought 5 litres of baijiu (strong, horrible cheap, chinese spirit) and went down 8 carriages on a train wearing paper hats singing a song and giving out baijiu to very beweildered chinese people, it was truly a moment never to be forgotten (we were chanting: wo gei ni baijiu, mianfei/gambe -i give you baijiu, free/bottoms up)..I'll track down some of the other's photos too.
We're not quite sure why we did it (just for fun?), but i was concerned to start with about our maturity levels(!) and about stereotyping our culture, but once we started it was great, they all wanted pictures with us, we got rid of 4 litres of the horrible stuff (Chris was challenged to a 'gambe' and then had to spit the stuff out!), and we ensured their journey will never be forgotten!
Now, back in beijing, contemplating another weekend trip (wallet is getting thin and chinese knowledge even thinner!) and finished tutoring :( -Derrick is off to London this week for school. Tomorrow I start my internship at the British Chamber of Commerce in the afternoons (will let you know more once i know), have to catch up on 3 days of class missed (train was late this morning) and I have to celebrate France rejecting the EU constitution. Meanwhile the weather is great, I'm healthy and my camera is overused!
We saw Qufu -the place where Confucius lived and died (we saw his grave). Confuciun philosophy is the dominant philosophy that the Chinese live by, as an alternative to religion mostly. The place was not too tacky although very busy, and the cemetary was especially peaceful (although not too inspiring). Having taken an overnight seated train to get there, we quickly left for our trip to Tai Shan, the holiest of the 5 'holy mountains' in China.
This is the mountain that everyone climbs (its not easy taking 4 hours fo solid uphill step climbing to get there), and is beautiful with a famed sunrise. Rachel found a porter to help her for the first half (she has a very heavy way, but somehow managed the harder second half alone); we hid from everyone on the mountain in order to find a place to camp (not supposed to), and all 7 of us showered in the 1 hotel room that 3 people took (instead of camping). The walk up was tiring (as we had had no sleep the night before), the sunrise was great (we were lucky with the weather) and camping was fun (I just bought the tent). However the 'fantastic piece of flat land' that I had found at dusk, turned out to be the overgrown roof of a concrete sewerage tank for the nearby hotel...hmm, in the morning (4.30am) we woke up to a pungent smell before running to catch the sun.
A walk down the mountain was pleasent, off-the-beaten-track and long, but the vegetation smelt great. We then got a bus to Qingdao, one of the first cities opened up to foreign powers (Germany). It is a beatuful city with beaches and tree-lined promenades and is just like mediterranean Europe, with European style villas, houses, churches etc. We were kindly shown around by Rachel's friend's brother and saw the Chinese Naval museum, ate all kinds of seafood (some scary looking), drank lots of Qingdao (especially the first night, as it was Chris' brithday), turned off the power of the submarine whilst touring it, gathered large groups around us 'foreigners' especially when listening to an old sailor's life history....
Once again, the joys of travelling in a group, with people I have never met before has been fantastic, with lots of laughs and lots of crazy moments; great memories and great photos (uploaded, and a few key ones to be shown on weblog soon). When we bought 5 litres of baijiu (strong, horrible cheap, chinese spirit) and went down 8 carriages on a train wearing paper hats singing a song and giving out baijiu to very beweildered chinese people, it was truly a moment never to be forgotten (we were chanting: wo gei ni baijiu, mianfei/gambe -i give you baijiu, free/bottoms up)..I'll track down some of the other's photos too.
We're not quite sure why we did it (just for fun?), but i was concerned to start with about our maturity levels(!) and about stereotyping our culture, but once we started it was great, they all wanted pictures with us, we got rid of 4 litres of the horrible stuff (Chris was challenged to a 'gambe' and then had to spit the stuff out!), and we ensured their journey will never be forgotten!
Now, back in beijing, contemplating another weekend trip (wallet is getting thin and chinese knowledge even thinner!) and finished tutoring :( -Derrick is off to London this week for school. Tomorrow I start my internship at the British Chamber of Commerce in the afternoons (will let you know more once i know), have to catch up on 3 days of class missed (train was late this morning) and I have to celebrate France rejecting the EU constitution. Meanwhile the weather is great, I'm healthy and my camera is overused!
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
censorship..(again!)
The Great Firewall of China provides an update on China's internet censorship situation, linking to a fascinating piece of research done about exactly what sites are and are not blocked etc.
Its amazing what joys you can find crawling the net. Actually its amazing I could download the report too! Find it here. Actually i agree with most of it, especially that commerical competition is encouraging people/companies to take more risks about crossing the (often, self inflicted) line.
Lots of interesting stuff about blocking of emails, weblogs, University BBSs etc. or at least i think so!
p.s. There certainly is a strong argument for protecting children from the internet, from violent games and from the general 'internet obsessed' culture that can be bad for them; i think one of the main reasons for closing down internet cafes in the past has been because of the movies, games etc which they were providing access for children.
Its amazing what joys you can find crawling the net. Actually its amazing I could download the report too! Find it here. Actually i agree with most of it, especially that commerical competition is encouraging people/companies to take more risks about crossing the (often, self inflicted) line.
Lots of interesting stuff about blocking of emails, weblogs, University BBSs etc. or at least i think so!
p.s. There certainly is a strong argument for protecting children from the internet, from violent games and from the general 'internet obsessed' culture that can be bad for them; i think one of the main reasons for closing down internet cafes in the past has been because of the movies, games etc which they were providing access for children.
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
Current favourite website
This is an interesting story which was linked from my favourite website right now which is this. The general idea is that we should stop worrying so much about donating aid to Africa (or other developing countries), since it hasn't made much difference and enough of it has already been 'wasted'), and we should not aim for 'fair trade' either, since this will make things worse.
The basic priciple is free-market economics, let countries trade openly, and let the market work to remove poverty, so countries can develop based on what they are good at. At the same time more aid and less debt (although welcome) will not have a lasting impact unless the trade imbalances are sorted out.
Unfortunately, aid is an easier topic to explain that trade, plus its much more marketable. Fair trade sounds better than free trade (which creates the automatic assumption that free trade is therefore unfair) too.
anyway, have a browse of the site and a read of the short article if its of interest!
The basic priciple is free-market economics, let countries trade openly, and let the market work to remove poverty, so countries can develop based on what they are good at. At the same time more aid and less debt (although welcome) will not have a lasting impact unless the trade imbalances are sorted out.
Unfortunately, aid is an easier topic to explain that trade, plus its much more marketable. Fair trade sounds better than free trade (which creates the automatic assumption that free trade is therefore unfair) too.
anyway, have a browse of the site and a read of the short article if its of interest!
democracy and media
not that i ever normally read CNN, but I did once since they did some 'special' on China (actually, just 3 or 4 articles!!) and this was interesting: here
It talks about a conference on democracy that was being co-held between a Chinese and American University, that was cancelled since it was near the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square masacre on June 4th. Once again it shows the sensitivity of the governement to the remote possibilities that something might happen, and I believe this paranoia (similar to the control exerted over the media when Zhao Ziyang died in January) is too extreme, and that the government should slowly open up the media rather than wait till some unfortunate moment when something big actually happens. But just a personal view, of course!
The other thing to note is the academic relevance. Since there is a general (but very slow) trend in China for people to be more daring (businesses, journalists, academics) in order to be 'the first' (to break the story, sell a product, write a paper etc) thus to create fame and/or money for themselves (a natural development I think). Thus there seems to be more people saying things critical of the government than you would normally expect (although it is normally carefully worded), and the government rightly encourages this (as a verison of democracy) since feedback is valuable to help the government improve.
However might there be a time when some people overstep the line? I recently read about a professor in Peking University who was fired/retired because of a posting on an internal online bulletin board. Remember, it is the communist party who run the Universities, not the professors or principals. Anyway, we'll see how it develops!
Its great to know that China thought about holding such a conference in the first place, and I know that it is sllwly encouraging democracy in certain levels of elections etc, and they are quite democratic (how democractic are most of those in the 'west', anyway?); although there is still the "1 party" issue. Anyway, there are elections of a kind within the party, and elections in localities.
I am not an expert on this at all, so I am just trying to identify some trends rather than specifics (which may be wrong), so apologies....and as always, I may be completely wrong!
It talks about a conference on democracy that was being co-held between a Chinese and American University, that was cancelled since it was near the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square masacre on June 4th. Once again it shows the sensitivity of the governement to the remote possibilities that something might happen, and I believe this paranoia (similar to the control exerted over the media when Zhao Ziyang died in January) is too extreme, and that the government should slowly open up the media rather than wait till some unfortunate moment when something big actually happens. But just a personal view, of course!
The other thing to note is the academic relevance. Since there is a general (but very slow) trend in China for people to be more daring (businesses, journalists, academics) in order to be 'the first' (to break the story, sell a product, write a paper etc) thus to create fame and/or money for themselves (a natural development I think). Thus there seems to be more people saying things critical of the government than you would normally expect (although it is normally carefully worded), and the government rightly encourages this (as a verison of democracy) since feedback is valuable to help the government improve.
However might there be a time when some people overstep the line? I recently read about a professor in Peking University who was fired/retired because of a posting on an internal online bulletin board. Remember, it is the communist party who run the Universities, not the professors or principals. Anyway, we'll see how it develops!
Its great to know that China thought about holding such a conference in the first place, and I know that it is sllwly encouraging democracy in certain levels of elections etc, and they are quite democratic (how democractic are most of those in the 'west', anyway?); although there is still the "1 party" issue. Anyway, there are elections of a kind within the party, and elections in localities.
I am not an expert on this at all, so I am just trying to identify some trends rather than specifics (which may be wrong), so apologies....and as always, I may be completely wrong!
Sunday, May 22, 2005
memories and photos...
After the Inner Mongolia trip, we collated 6/8 of our photos together (chris has a fancy 35mm camera and Keren doesn't have one), and put them on CD and dsitrbuted.
wow! its absoultely fantastic to see how other people have seen the same things as you, to see what they have taken, how they have taken the pictures and so on. Indeed its also interesting to see different styles, and to see what appeals to what people. Some of them even used the 'sepia' functions (etc) on the camera to tint the photos, and many of them look great.
Its very nice to see their photos, and some of them are very good, very different to me, and, well, you can tell how great an idea i think it was.
As I sit here looking at them, listening to Virgin Radio over the internet, severals songs have come on; 'time of your life' -greenday and 'its my life (...its now or never)' -Bon Jovi, ironically enough. So it has led me to think about memories..cause often is only through relection that you can think and realise the value of things. From realising how much fun I had this past weekend through to the fantastic, absoultely fantastic times we had in Mongolia, I realise how particular moments isolated mean so much, how when you put moments into a context they mean even more, and how different things combine to define that moment. From the tree that someone is leaning on, to the now flakes or reflection of the sun, to the smile or tears, to the strange person in the photo and the looks between people, from the arms over the shoulders to the sunglasses blocking out someone's eyes (read 'soul').
All of these and millions more elements make a photo, and the best photos are not the most carefully framed, they are just the ones that capture all of this -that you cannot plan, and cannot even see until you look back in hindsight. Not only is it so fufilling and often funny looking at these recent photos, its also exciting, thinking of the next adventure (this weekend up a holy mountain, to the birthplace of Confucius and to the origin of China's most fmaous beer).
Anyway, my thoughts are racing, and i'm still looking at the photos. In fact, its reminded me of some calssis moments from the trip:
-the girl in the 'club', since there is a picture of her epileptic-like dancing
-the authenticness of China, since there are pictures of china's street life, of average chinese people on teh train, in the grasslands and everywhere else
-the bizarre china moments...like the driver lifting up his seat (where the engine is) and just playing with the engine (like it is a casette player) whilst also using his fancy, slide-up mobile phone
-the classic moments, with picture of people in great poses (on 'hanging seats', skimming stones, sitting on stone lions, playing cards, sleeping on trains,
-Keren's phobia of being in photos -the onese she is in are fantastic, rare and special! (and the photos of her and Joe in together now have new meaning since they started dating!)
-Chris's money belt; in that he keeps it around his waist, so unzips his trousers to take out more money
-meeting chinese people..in fields, on trains etc...with guitars, babies, 'v for victory' signs,
and so on .....
wow, memories. so great, so fleeting, so many of them. And yet talking on line to my friends from home (and i dont do this enough unfortunately), I remember that life is about people, and some of them aren't in China :(
thoughts and reflections. but on the whole, fantastic photos, and I'll upload the best of them soon, since some are classics.
wow! its absoultely fantastic to see how other people have seen the same things as you, to see what they have taken, how they have taken the pictures and so on. Indeed its also interesting to see different styles, and to see what appeals to what people. Some of them even used the 'sepia' functions (etc) on the camera to tint the photos, and many of them look great.
Its very nice to see their photos, and some of them are very good, very different to me, and, well, you can tell how great an idea i think it was.
As I sit here looking at them, listening to Virgin Radio over the internet, severals songs have come on; 'time of your life' -greenday and 'its my life (...its now or never)' -Bon Jovi, ironically enough. So it has led me to think about memories..cause often is only through relection that you can think and realise the value of things. From realising how much fun I had this past weekend through to the fantastic, absoultely fantastic times we had in Mongolia, I realise how particular moments isolated mean so much, how when you put moments into a context they mean even more, and how different things combine to define that moment. From the tree that someone is leaning on, to the now flakes or reflection of the sun, to the smile or tears, to the strange person in the photo and the looks between people, from the arms over the shoulders to the sunglasses blocking out someone's eyes (read 'soul').
All of these and millions more elements make a photo, and the best photos are not the most carefully framed, they are just the ones that capture all of this -that you cannot plan, and cannot even see until you look back in hindsight. Not only is it so fufilling and often funny looking at these recent photos, its also exciting, thinking of the next adventure (this weekend up a holy mountain, to the birthplace of Confucius and to the origin of China's most fmaous beer).
Anyway, my thoughts are racing, and i'm still looking at the photos. In fact, its reminded me of some calssis moments from the trip:
-the girl in the 'club', since there is a picture of her epileptic-like dancing
-the authenticness of China, since there are pictures of china's street life, of average chinese people on teh train, in the grasslands and everywhere else
-the bizarre china moments...like the driver lifting up his seat (where the engine is) and just playing with the engine (like it is a casette player) whilst also using his fancy, slide-up mobile phone
-the classic moments, with picture of people in great poses (on 'hanging seats', skimming stones, sitting on stone lions, playing cards, sleeping on trains,
-Keren's phobia of being in photos -the onese she is in are fantastic, rare and special! (and the photos of her and Joe in together now have new meaning since they started dating!)
-Chris's money belt; in that he keeps it around his waist, so unzips his trousers to take out more money
-meeting chinese people..in fields, on trains etc...with guitars, babies, 'v for victory' signs,
and so on .....
wow, memories. so great, so fleeting, so many of them. And yet talking on line to my friends from home (and i dont do this enough unfortunately), I remember that life is about people, and some of them aren't in China :(
thoughts and reflections. but on the whole, fantastic photos, and I'll upload the best of them soon, since some are classics.
'Sheila'..oh dear!
Disclaimer..Sheila did intentionally pull a stupid face.
having said that, she's done a damn good job in looking like a freak, and its kinda funny. There are normal pictures of her on my website, but for those to lazy to go there, you can just remember Shelia as looking like this.
i promised her I would put this on my blog, and I await her comment... ;)
having said that, she's done a damn good job in looking like a freak, and its kinda funny. There are normal pictures of her on my website, but for those to lazy to go there, you can just remember Shelia as looking like this.
i promised her I would put this on my blog, and I await her comment... ;)
YEN, Chengde...
I'm now back in Beijing, having spent Saturday and Sunday in Chengde, which is the old 'Imperial Summer Palace' - a mountain retreat for the Emperors back in the 18th and 18th centuries. In fact, I was reminded by the plaque and the museum inside the palace that it is also the place where the Beijing Treaty was signed in 1860; which was 'the treaty of national humiliation' ceding hong kong etc to Britain (remember there was another museum dedicated to this in Yuanmingyuan in Beijing!)
Saturday, when we arrived, it was raining heavily, so we chose to visit 2 of the temples; 1 that is a miniature of the Potala Palace in Tibet, the other with a big carved goddess in it. Potala was interesting, the other one not so, and both charged a fortune to get it.
This morning we woke to beautiful sunshine and spent 3 hours hiking around the Imperial Palace which was fantastic; its huge with lots of green, forests and other stuff (the emperors built things that represented other chinese minorities as a sign of resepct). Lots of nice pictures on the website.
Random events in Chengde:
-found a hotel for 30rmb each...saw the rooms and promptly left!
-Chris being unprepared for rain, and thus walking around in shorts, t-shirts and a pink umbrella which he bought for 5rmb!
-cheap taxis (5 or 10 rmb maximum)
-fantastic train journey there and back with beatuficul countryisde, rivers, villages, cliffs etc. I LOVE China's scenery!
-being told not to walk on the path by 'officials' in the park in case we started forest fires (hmmm)
Earlier in the week I had attended a UN Youth Employment Network meeting people from the ILO (International Labour Office) and other 'experts' on youth. It was interesting, and came with nice food etc. We also had an opportunity to talk to John Elkington -the 'god' of CSR (the area of businesses being more responsible that I am interested in), which was great. Its official...the new 'buzzword' for CSR is 'blended value', since that is what the man himself has said. Actually his company(consultancy) has used that word in their reports before, but John created the phrase 'triple bottom line' over 11 years ago and its still the most used term.
We also had a reunion (from the inner mongolia trip) where we all went out to beautiful hou hai (my favourite place to hang out in the evenings, over a lake, in couches, wearing shorts) and I am now a twice weekly regular football player at lunchtimes (so unfut, especially playing in 25/30 degree heat).
We got a negative from Swiss Re on sponsoring AIESEC for CSR, so have to look for alternatives for that (hoping to get a powerful international business organsiation's chinese branch to endorse us and reccommend us to their members to sponsor us! -will meet them in about 10 days). This week I'm emailing all my contacts looking for (paid preferably) internships or long-term job opportunities. Depending on the replies I'll decide in a couple of weeks when/if I am travelling or working this summer, and also what kind of studying I will do next semester.
I'll end this now and post again with less 'personal' stuff soon!
Adam
Saturday, when we arrived, it was raining heavily, so we chose to visit 2 of the temples; 1 that is a miniature of the Potala Palace in Tibet, the other with a big carved goddess in it. Potala was interesting, the other one not so, and both charged a fortune to get it.
This morning we woke to beautiful sunshine and spent 3 hours hiking around the Imperial Palace which was fantastic; its huge with lots of green, forests and other stuff (the emperors built things that represented other chinese minorities as a sign of resepct). Lots of nice pictures on the website.
Random events in Chengde:
-found a hotel for 30rmb each...saw the rooms and promptly left!
-Chris being unprepared for rain, and thus walking around in shorts, t-shirts and a pink umbrella which he bought for 5rmb!
-cheap taxis (5 or 10 rmb maximum)
-fantastic train journey there and back with beatuficul countryisde, rivers, villages, cliffs etc. I LOVE China's scenery!
-being told not to walk on the path by 'officials' in the park in case we started forest fires (hmmm)
Earlier in the week I had attended a UN Youth Employment Network meeting people from the ILO (International Labour Office) and other 'experts' on youth. It was interesting, and came with nice food etc. We also had an opportunity to talk to John Elkington -the 'god' of CSR (the area of businesses being more responsible that I am interested in), which was great. Its official...the new 'buzzword' for CSR is 'blended value', since that is what the man himself has said. Actually his company(consultancy) has used that word in their reports before, but John created the phrase 'triple bottom line' over 11 years ago and its still the most used term.
We also had a reunion (from the inner mongolia trip) where we all went out to beautiful hou hai (my favourite place to hang out in the evenings, over a lake, in couches, wearing shorts) and I am now a twice weekly regular football player at lunchtimes (so unfut, especially playing in 25/30 degree heat).
We got a negative from Swiss Re on sponsoring AIESEC for CSR, so have to look for alternatives for that (hoping to get a powerful international business organsiation's chinese branch to endorse us and reccommend us to their members to sponsor us! -will meet them in about 10 days). This week I'm emailing all my contacts looking for (paid preferably) internships or long-term job opportunities. Depending on the replies I'll decide in a couple of weeks when/if I am travelling or working this summer, and also what kind of studying I will do next semester.
I'll end this now and post again with less 'personal' stuff soon!
Adam
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Arty picture of Dalia Hu and me
This will hopefully be the new 'me' picture. You can't see me very well, so its very complimentary ;)
Actually its designed to show off my photographic talent!
Actually its designed to show off my photographic talent!
Monday, May 16, 2005
rain...nomadlife....deep thoughts
bikes in Beijing...its raining. but its t-shirt weather at the sametime, so i'm happy (although my student was mystified: "it rains and is cold at the same time in SUMMER in UK?") The umbrellas are out...yep those on bikes without (and many, with) the weird bike raincoats all cyle with umbrellas -whilst their brakes have turned into nothing more than a screeching bell. not so safe (ever got an umbrella in the eye?)
my 'new' bike (2nd hand, bought for me by my student's auntie) has gears, is almost adult size, has real breaks and, well, seems more like a bike (sorry, flic!). Anyway my old piece of metal is now in Delphy's hands (good luck, but the bell on that one is better than on mine!)
this week i got ok test results, had some fun at a house party(where we got kicked out cause of the neighbours complaining), ate some japanese (and today ate some pigs trotters for the 1st time -probably not kosher! and not got much flavour either), saw Chris off at the airport, ran another successful CSR conference and got confirmation of Spurs being SO F***ING AVERAGE, its depressing :(
Since I was transferring my old yahoo posts over to nomadlife...It was weird going back through my old postings and copy-paste to nomadlife. I think back how much i have learnt about such a strange and previously unknown country, how many friends have come (and some have since gone) through beijing, how much like home this place has become, with routines and regulars (like my breakfast guy). How I knowBeijing better than London, since I am forced to travel around it all the time, and central beijing is smaller than london (plus i live closer to the centre relatively)...and how weird it was yesterday when my mum told my granny (before putting her onto me, by phone) 'its adam, he's in china'.
Yep, I'm in China. A very long way from home;with a strange language, a culture i will never understand, but like every foreigner here, think that i do.Since the american in my class says how much he loves america, but right now feels more comfortable outside of america (he really does love america), I was wondering, what about me. I'm not in the UK, although I spend 30 minutes a day reading the news from Times, Independent and other random sources (more time than i ever spent reading about my country when i was actually in it!). I also think the UK is great, despite lots and lots of flaws (undemocratic,overtaxed,wasteful, environmentally unfriendly ....). And its much better than China, but its not as fun as china. It seems like I 'know' the UK and its boring (although how many brits ever backpack around their own country to see it?). but china -well i don't know it, i don't know the language, and noone quite knows whats going to happen here next -witness the frequent topics of conversation about social unrest,inequality, communism, media control etc etc.
so what will i do? stay here, cause its now the 'sensible' option (its CHINA, says the media everywhere), where I feel like i am losing myfriends from back home, and never mentally said -lets leave thecoutry, and where i don't get to see my parents (for another 7 months when i go home hopefully). And i don't have a career sorted out yet.
moving to end this strange post, i think i am so unbelievably lucky.my past, my present, my future. I can't complain. I am happy, I've realised lots about my self that i didn't know -and thats a strange thought. I've realised that there are some good times that you don'twant to end, but when they do (uni in Manchester, MC in London,living in AIESEC China office) the next time will be even more fun.I've always known life is about people and about experiences(witness the signature in my yahoo account email account that hasnt changed for over 5years); and I've realised some new things will start happening inthenext few months. Some more decision need to be made. Some morepeopleare leaving (sadly), and more will be arriving.
Live's about people...people like you, reading this.
writing it has made me think; and its hopefully given you some food for thought (go on, chew on it) too...
Adam
my 'new' bike (2nd hand, bought for me by my student's auntie) has gears, is almost adult size, has real breaks and, well, seems more like a bike (sorry, flic!). Anyway my old piece of metal is now in Delphy's hands (good luck, but the bell on that one is better than on mine!)
this week i got ok test results, had some fun at a house party(where we got kicked out cause of the neighbours complaining), ate some japanese (and today ate some pigs trotters for the 1st time -probably not kosher! and not got much flavour either), saw Chris off at the airport, ran another successful CSR conference and got confirmation of Spurs being SO F***ING AVERAGE, its depressing :(
Since I was transferring my old yahoo posts over to nomadlife...It was weird going back through my old postings and copy-paste to nomadlife. I think back how much i have learnt about such a strange and previously unknown country, how many friends have come (and some have since gone) through beijing, how much like home this place has become, with routines and regulars (like my breakfast guy). How I knowBeijing better than London, since I am forced to travel around it all the time, and central beijing is smaller than london (plus i live closer to the centre relatively)...and how weird it was yesterday when my mum told my granny (before putting her onto me, by phone) 'its adam, he's in china'.
Yep, I'm in China. A very long way from home;with a strange language, a culture i will never understand, but like every foreigner here, think that i do.Since the american in my class says how much he loves america, but right now feels more comfortable outside of america (he really does love america), I was wondering, what about me. I'm not in the UK, although I spend 30 minutes a day reading the news from Times, Independent and other random sources (more time than i ever spent reading about my country when i was actually in it!). I also think the UK is great, despite lots and lots of flaws (undemocratic,overtaxed,wasteful, environmentally unfriendly ....). And its much better than China, but its not as fun as china. It seems like I 'know' the UK and its boring (although how many brits ever backpack around their own country to see it?). but china -well i don't know it, i don't know the language, and noone quite knows whats going to happen here next -witness the frequent topics of conversation about social unrest,inequality, communism, media control etc etc.
so what will i do? stay here, cause its now the 'sensible' option (its CHINA, says the media everywhere), where I feel like i am losing myfriends from back home, and never mentally said -lets leave thecoutry, and where i don't get to see my parents (for another 7 months when i go home hopefully). And i don't have a career sorted out yet.
moving to end this strange post, i think i am so unbelievably lucky.my past, my present, my future. I can't complain. I am happy, I've realised lots about my self that i didn't know -and thats a strange thought. I've realised that there are some good times that you don'twant to end, but when they do (uni in Manchester, MC in London,living in AIESEC China office) the next time will be even more fun.I've always known life is about people and about experiences(witness the signature in my yahoo account email account that hasnt changed for over 5years); and I've realised some new things will start happening inthenext few months. Some more decision need to be made. Some morepeopleare leaving (sadly), and more will be arriving.
Live's about people...people like you, reading this.
writing it has made me think; and its hopefully given you some food for thought (go on, chew on it) too...
Adam
Friday, May 13, 2005
The Nomadlife
All previous posts to this one were dopied/pasted from my yahoogroup which is what I had been using for the previous 8 months (posts were given orignial dates too). Thus those who were not on that, can now catch up with my past adventures (however some of the formatting did not copy and paste so well, so where a new line started before, there is now no space between 2 words -apologies).
From now on I'll dual post on this site and in my yahoogroup -since i think a lot of people still have not grasped blogging, and receiving an email is just plain easy (xanga allows people to get an email notice when a blog is updated interestingly!)
So now I am a nomader. Strange since I feel so settled in China...
From now on I'll dual post on this site and in my yahoogroup -since i think a lot of people still have not grasped blogging, and receiving an email is just plain easy (xanga allows people to get an email notice when a blog is updated interestingly!)
So now I am a nomader. Strange since I feel so settled in China...
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
back in Beijing
hey all
I'll apologise now for what will be a long (but hopefully a littleamusing) email.
Chris and Flic's leaving party was great. I had Guiness (since itwas in the expat area), and discovered noone in China has ever heardof it, which led me to turn Irish and promote tasting of it allnight (I don't like it that much, but its a nice change from theChinese beers which all taste the same).
Subsequently I left with 7 others by plane to north-east China,where we arrived at the world's smallest airport (probably), to begreeted by some lovely chinese girls with flowers etc. well,truthfully, the welcoming party was for some 'famous' guy who was onthe same plane. Anyway, we crashed his photos and chatted to him(see my photos: http://www.imagestation.com/member/?name=adamlane).
We stayed in crappy old Hailaer, keeping alive through going toKaraoke, having been ripped off by some local taxi drivers and thenext day hired taxis for a 3 hour ride through barren grasslands. Wevisited one of Asia's biggest lakes (and were the only people there,which was typical of the trip), stayed in a relatively authenticMongolian Hut and certianly got authentic food. It involvedintestines, stomachs, muscle and other bits of animal best not tomention..mmmm
Subsequently we visited the Russian/Chinese border, explored thelocal hills (including pillboxes, for military lookouts and tunnelsunder the hills) and the rest of Manzhouli (lots of Russian people,architecture etc) -its weird hearing russian speaking chinesetalking to us in russian (presuming we are russian of course).
Then a 13 hour overnight train journey, 5 hour bus journey andanother 3 hours by minibus took us to 'mirror lake'. The journey wasnotable since we held an open auction at the city inbetween the 2bus journeys to get the cheapest ride onwards, resulting in somefights and an arrest (oops). Fortunately the taxi driver arrestedpromptly reappeared, and we presumed it was just the policemanhaving fun and demonstrating some of his power. The 'official' busthat we then were shepherded onto tried to charge us too much ASWELL as make us swith buses afer 10 minutes (from 4 star to 1 star!).
The lake was kind of average, and only interesting since we got acrap, cheap hotel without any hot water, argued LOTS, in BAD chineseabout this and lit a fire on the beach (stamped out by mad hotelpeople). the whole area was being rebuilt for the summer season andthe waterfall had no water in it :(
we then got yet another minibus 7 hours past fantastic scenery to aplace at the bottom of the Changbai Shan mountain range on theborder with North Korea. So we climbed to the lake at the top (whichwas frozen, and we were walking at -10 degrees through a blizzard,and in prepration for we had bought $2 army waterproofs), saw aspectaculr waterfall, laughed about the supposed nuclear test thatmight take place nearby anytime, met some koreans (who were wavingsome knives at us worryingly after our brazen comments) who wereliving in a tent there for a whole year (mad), and slid down the iceon the stairs going down the mountain (aoh, bum still hurts).
Finally we ate some dog in a local korean restaurant (easy to eat,not too much flavour, but quite nice), experienced the localnightlife (oh, dear! one of the girls danced like she was having afit!) argued with more hotel people (they are mostly nice, but wejust had some communication issues sometimes), visited theTiger 'sanctuary'(felt kinda weird when bus driver threw a livechicken out the window so we could see the tiger eat it), went for ahike and got up early to leave.
Thus after another 7 hour train journey, a KFC (well, why not?), arun up to a temple and yet another 17 hour train journey (we neverhad any beds), we returned to Beijing having missed 2 days of classand bonded tightly.
So a summary:
-8 day trip....2 and a half days spent travelling (exculding shorttrips)
-Met mad american, ex-marines 'teaching' (we think that translatesas 'hiding out') by the russian border
-Realised most chinese are nice, once both sides manage to handlecommunication issues, but some are still trying to take foreignersfor a ride
-Learnt new words (like deposit), made new friends and got littlesleep
there is lots more to say, but i guess this will do for now. oh, igot 43% in the listening test, but they added some % to it, since itwas so hard, so officially i got 63% (average ish) and got a 91% inthe writing/reading (yay, in top 5 of the class). Now you can allstop worrying about me being kicked out of Uni!
no update yet on job stuff, will update that later. still teaching,still organising aiesec stuff (conferences etc) etc. Also, theflatmate's sister has left, since she is apparently mentally ill andthus in hospital after destroying the flatmate's computer (no wonderafter sitting in a small room for 1 month solid with no job orfriends...)
China is beautiful, fun, developing and developed, both efficientand useless at the same time and very endearing.
ta-ta
Adam
I'll apologise now for what will be a long (but hopefully a littleamusing) email.
Chris and Flic's leaving party was great. I had Guiness (since itwas in the expat area), and discovered noone in China has ever heardof it, which led me to turn Irish and promote tasting of it allnight (I don't like it that much, but its a nice change from theChinese beers which all taste the same).
Subsequently I left with 7 others by plane to north-east China,where we arrived at the world's smallest airport (probably), to begreeted by some lovely chinese girls with flowers etc. well,truthfully, the welcoming party was for some 'famous' guy who was onthe same plane. Anyway, we crashed his photos and chatted to him(see my photos: http://www.imagestation.com/member/?name=adamlane).
We stayed in crappy old Hailaer, keeping alive through going toKaraoke, having been ripped off by some local taxi drivers and thenext day hired taxis for a 3 hour ride through barren grasslands. Wevisited one of Asia's biggest lakes (and were the only people there,which was typical of the trip), stayed in a relatively authenticMongolian Hut and certianly got authentic food. It involvedintestines, stomachs, muscle and other bits of animal best not tomention..mmmm
Subsequently we visited the Russian/Chinese border, explored thelocal hills (including pillboxes, for military lookouts and tunnelsunder the hills) and the rest of Manzhouli (lots of Russian people,architecture etc) -its weird hearing russian speaking chinesetalking to us in russian (presuming we are russian of course).
Then a 13 hour overnight train journey, 5 hour bus journey andanother 3 hours by minibus took us to 'mirror lake'. The journey wasnotable since we held an open auction at the city inbetween the 2bus journeys to get the cheapest ride onwards, resulting in somefights and an arrest (oops). Fortunately the taxi driver arrestedpromptly reappeared, and we presumed it was just the policemanhaving fun and demonstrating some of his power. The 'official' busthat we then were shepherded onto tried to charge us too much ASWELL as make us swith buses afer 10 minutes (from 4 star to 1 star!).
The lake was kind of average, and only interesting since we got acrap, cheap hotel without any hot water, argued LOTS, in BAD chineseabout this and lit a fire on the beach (stamped out by mad hotelpeople). the whole area was being rebuilt for the summer season andthe waterfall had no water in it :(
we then got yet another minibus 7 hours past fantastic scenery to aplace at the bottom of the Changbai Shan mountain range on theborder with North Korea. So we climbed to the lake at the top (whichwas frozen, and we were walking at -10 degrees through a blizzard,and in prepration for we had bought $2 army waterproofs), saw aspectaculr waterfall, laughed about the supposed nuclear test thatmight take place nearby anytime, met some koreans (who were wavingsome knives at us worryingly after our brazen comments) who wereliving in a tent there for a whole year (mad), and slid down the iceon the stairs going down the mountain (aoh, bum still hurts).
Finally we ate some dog in a local korean restaurant (easy to eat,not too much flavour, but quite nice), experienced the localnightlife (oh, dear! one of the girls danced like she was having afit!) argued with more hotel people (they are mostly nice, but wejust had some communication issues sometimes), visited theTiger 'sanctuary'(felt kinda weird when bus driver threw a livechicken out the window so we could see the tiger eat it), went for ahike and got up early to leave.
Thus after another 7 hour train journey, a KFC (well, why not?), arun up to a temple and yet another 17 hour train journey (we neverhad any beds), we returned to Beijing having missed 2 days of classand bonded tightly.
So a summary:
-8 day trip....2 and a half days spent travelling (exculding shorttrips)
-Met mad american, ex-marines 'teaching' (we think that translatesas 'hiding out') by the russian border
-Realised most chinese are nice, once both sides manage to handlecommunication issues, but some are still trying to take foreignersfor a ride
-Learnt new words (like deposit), made new friends and got littlesleep
there is lots more to say, but i guess this will do for now. oh, igot 43% in the listening test, but they added some % to it, since itwas so hard, so officially i got 63% (average ish) and got a 91% inthe writing/reading (yay, in top 5 of the class). Now you can allstop worrying about me being kicked out of Uni!
no update yet on job stuff, will update that later. still teaching,still organising aiesec stuff (conferences etc) etc. Also, theflatmate's sister has left, since she is apparently mentally ill andthus in hospital after destroying the flatmate's computer (no wonderafter sitting in a small room for 1 month solid with no job orfriends...)
China is beautiful, fun, developing and developed, both efficientand useless at the same time and very endearing.
ta-ta
Adam
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