The conference went well and now i am half way through a 2 week lull in activity. So I can do the things I want to do -rather than always doing the things I have to do!
Actually we have finally had some rain.. I almost celebrated by running into the streets to get wet. Its only rained properly 2 or 3 times, but it has rained for several hours -and enough to clock all the drains in Beijing and leave puddles everywhere. Well, if it rains so rarely, there is not much of a need to invest in good drains i suppose!
Susan (one of the chinese girls who is on the new head office team) got her hair done recently for 25 USD... Chinese girls care a lot about their hair -they often pay lots of money to get it changed -straightened, curled, short, frizzed or whatever. During the graduate interviews last semester we noticed lots of girls getting their hair done -apparently to make themselves look older, more professional and I suppose to just generally stop looking like cute 14 year olds!
There does not seem to be that much happening in China, by normal standards. I'm thinking back to what has been in the news.. in Beijing there was a rock festival, and the great wall marathon (crazy people), the recent crack down on illegal additions to bars etc (like roof-top seating and the installation of automatic subway gates and machines on buses (I've not taken the subway recently so I can't say what it is like not having to buy tickets from one person and ask another person to take the ticket from you -but I presume its like Shanghai where you top up your card occasionally and just use it to get through the gates 'Oyster-card style in London').
Last week they removed all the scaffolding by a building nearby. They started almost exactly as we moved in 10 or 11 months ago, and now the outside is done and they're working on the insides... this seems to take a long time going by the experiences of other big buildings; but it was nice to see a little bit less of the oft-seen green curtains of scaffolding everywhere. Actually really looking at Beijing there are a lot of fancy buildings already up and a lot more going up. Supposedly most buildings need to be finished by next summer (1 year before the olympics), so everyone is in a hurry. I can imagine there will be big business opportunities to move the thousands of cranes off to the 2nd and 3rd tier cities where construction is taking off. China will really be a country full of cities soon.
Currently 40% of China's population is in the cities but in the next 25 years, it will become 60% meaning another 300 million people will move to the cities from the countryside in China (and India will experience the same, moving from 29-40% urbanised). That is equal to the ENTIRE population of the USA. Although interestingly, the USA is also expected to increase its total population from 300m (now) to 380m in the next 25 years. Some other interesting statistics: the USA is currently 80% Urban where as the UK is currently 90% urban (and in 25 yrs our population will only increase by 4 million).
Other interesting statistics.... In 1950 average life expectancy in China was 40, in 2005 -70! (the UK has gone from 70 to 78). In 1950 the World population was 2.5 billion (30% urban), by 2020 it will be 9 billion (60% urban)! more here (http://esa.un.org/unpp/index.asp?panel=1).
-In 1970, 30% of the World's poor people were in South Asia, 56% in East Asia and 11% in Africa. In 2000, 28% were in South Asia, 32% in East Asia and 35% in Africa. By 2015 it is expected it will be 13% South Asia, 14% East Asia and 68% in Africa!!
-The richest 20% of people in the World own 74% of the Wealth and the poorest 20% have only 2% of the wealth! In 1970, 1.4 billion people were extremely poor -38% of the World's population. In 1990, the number was still 1.4 billion (but this is now only 26% of the world's population). In 2000 it went down to 1.2 billion (19% of the World's population). By 2015 it might go down to only 0.7 billion (10% of the world's population) (http://www.gapminder.org/)
Friday, May 26, 2006
Thursday, May 11, 2006
its 2am...
its 2am, i have only 2 more critical emails to send, there are only 3 more gaps in the agenda for the CSR conference on 21st may (hopefully will be filled, thanks to my excellent helpers!), and i am waking up at 5.30am....
i just need to take a few minutes to explain my situation, to save retelling it every 5 minutes to people asking me where i am, what i am doing etc! well i left beijing on sunday night on a soft sleeper train (nothing else available) and enjoyed the free dinner/breakfast and the power socket in the hallway allowing me to watch all 4+hrs of Lawrence of Arabia (great film).
I arrived in shanghai met 2 fudan students and we went to nanjing to be a delegate/volunteer at the yangtze river economic forum in a 4 star hotel for 3 days, where i tried to network, listen to sessions and work hard-core all at the same time. Then i got back to shangahi about 11pm, worked till 2am, fell asleep, woke up, worked more, got lunch, went to a meeting to start at 2.
The company was 2 and a half hours late. so the meeting finished super late meaning i could not finish work, so did 10 minutes of emails before eating dinner, doing 1 hour coaching with one of my LCPs and then going to a bar for a few hours. it was relaxing..cannot work too hard (just become ineffective) and had 0 drinks (way too expensive). got back and now trying to arrange more meetings, finalise conferences and other things.
i leave at 5.30 am for the train station to get to hangzhou for a day full of meetings with the aiesecers there (even managed some kind of agenda!) and then a night train to Beijing, then morning meeting for the case study competition final (Beijing version), lunch and then afternoon meeting with my CSR team and further meeting with the student helping me for the conference on 21st.
Then i think i get to check more mails (having missed friday), panic more (likely), unpack, pack and hopefully sleep before flying to guangzhou for afternoon presentations of guangzhou case study competition and hopefully dinner/sleep after. Then another flight to shanghai, meetings in monday afternoon, all day tuesday (including evening) and flying back to shangahi on wednesday, allowing me not enough time to organise the final details for the 15-20 companies coming to deliver workshops at the conference on 21st, attend the alumni gathering etc.
After the conference it seems I'll have to train it back to Shanghai on the 22nd, stay for 3 more days of meetings and presentations, return to Beijing in time to relax and go through the long 'to-do' list that I have to do before june starts. Then june starts with flights to guangzhou, shanghai and trains back to beijing.. including transition with my successor (who hopefully will be feeling better!), meetings, a few more CSR conferences (actually, maybe 4 days worth!)... once in beijing we have so little time to finish transition to the new team, create plans for next year and... (so much more to do, so excited, can't wait, love being busy, love deadlines, love achieving tangible results and dreaming and visioning and planning) and.. and.. well, leave AIESEC on June 30th.
After 6 years.
i just need to take a few minutes to explain my situation, to save retelling it every 5 minutes to people asking me where i am, what i am doing etc! well i left beijing on sunday night on a soft sleeper train (nothing else available) and enjoyed the free dinner/breakfast and the power socket in the hallway allowing me to watch all 4+hrs of Lawrence of Arabia (great film).
I arrived in shanghai met 2 fudan students and we went to nanjing to be a delegate/volunteer at the yangtze river economic forum in a 4 star hotel for 3 days, where i tried to network, listen to sessions and work hard-core all at the same time. Then i got back to shangahi about 11pm, worked till 2am, fell asleep, woke up, worked more, got lunch, went to a meeting to start at 2.
The company was 2 and a half hours late. so the meeting finished super late meaning i could not finish work, so did 10 minutes of emails before eating dinner, doing 1 hour coaching with one of my LCPs and then going to a bar for a few hours. it was relaxing..cannot work too hard (just become ineffective) and had 0 drinks (way too expensive). got back and now trying to arrange more meetings, finalise conferences and other things.
i leave at 5.30 am for the train station to get to hangzhou for a day full of meetings with the aiesecers there (even managed some kind of agenda!) and then a night train to Beijing, then morning meeting for the case study competition final (Beijing version), lunch and then afternoon meeting with my CSR team and further meeting with the student helping me for the conference on 21st.
Then i think i get to check more mails (having missed friday), panic more (likely), unpack, pack and hopefully sleep before flying to guangzhou for afternoon presentations of guangzhou case study competition and hopefully dinner/sleep after. Then another flight to shanghai, meetings in monday afternoon, all day tuesday (including evening) and flying back to shangahi on wednesday, allowing me not enough time to organise the final details for the 15-20 companies coming to deliver workshops at the conference on 21st, attend the alumni gathering etc.
After the conference it seems I'll have to train it back to Shanghai on the 22nd, stay for 3 more days of meetings and presentations, return to Beijing in time to relax and go through the long 'to-do' list that I have to do before june starts. Then june starts with flights to guangzhou, shanghai and trains back to beijing.. including transition with my successor (who hopefully will be feeling better!), meetings, a few more CSR conferences (actually, maybe 4 days worth!)... once in beijing we have so little time to finish transition to the new team, create plans for next year and... (so much more to do, so excited, can't wait, love being busy, love deadlines, love achieving tangible results and dreaming and visioning and planning) and.. and.. well, leave AIESEC on June 30th.
After 6 years.
Thursday, May 04, 2006
dragon escalator
on the left is a dam, on the right is a series of escalators taking us to the top (behind the dam is the gorge proper). the escalators are beautifully hidden under the plastic dragon!
horses (with riders) on the grasslands
this is the greenest picture I could take -you should see the others!
the best bits..
1) The '100 flower cave' which one would expect to be full of beautiful flowers inside a cave... which it was, sort of -except none of the flowers were real (not a single one) and each cave was themed (south china/jungle, western china etc) and included paintings as backdrops to the 'scenes' as well as plastic tigers or little men with axes, or fake snow, bridges etc etc. So although it was laughable (and only took up 10 minutes of our time as we walked through without stopping), it was a bizarre piece of art: for it was, I suppose, art.
Most likely the result of the local governor's daughter's pet project (maybe she liked fake flowers) or the result of a local fake-flower producer bribing the tourist spot's owners to convince them this was something that would really add value to the attraction (maybe it is designed to contrast with the real beauty outside?) or (my last idea) is that they had a number of bids from 'designers' and of course, cause its China, wanted to pick the craziest one that a "highly respected" foreigner suggested. This final idea is based on the countless crazy designs for buildings in cities in china that seem to have resulted from foreigners gleefully being held in high respect and being given a bank cheque!
2) Pierre's 'bandage' which was sometimes a local famer's bandage, sometimes his towel, sometimes a 2 rmb (25 US cents) 'professional' bandage from a pharmacy, and sometimes just him holding his poor hand across his chest. Apparently this was all needed because he crashed into kitty at 'high speed' and fell of the bike causing a sprained wrist and some blood. The alternative theory was that he just liked Kitty rubbing some chinese painkiller on his wrist every day... hmmm
3) The sleeping and massages that seemed to be more frequent than the actual cycling. It was a case of 'if i massage you for 30 seconds, will you massage me for 10 minutes' (NB: it seemed we men always got the better deal!) and the 'i'll just nap whilst waiting for the food to arrive' -every meal time. Although I risk my life every time I step out on my bike, at least i had something to show for it...!
4) The ride back yesterday where we spent 5 kms overtaking trucks as they queued to be checked by the police, and then 15kms overtaking more trucks as we cycled downhill :-). So this is where all the resources needed for Beijing's huge growth is coming from!
and smaller things like.. the girl peeing on the floor outside the restaurant, the man skinning and emptying the goat, fixing Peter's bike with a padlock (since we lost the nut/bolt), the girls getting on a public minibus with their bikes to skip going up the hill, the delicious Dongbei (NorthEast China) food, Leon's 'white powder' that he mixed with water to make an energy drink, Peter cycling on the motorway despite the toll-collector telling us no-one had passed by (and then peter cycled back past her), the masseuse's comments on my hair (again!) and finally the incredible experience of bunjee jumping 50m.
China is booming and the size of the internal tourist market is testament to that.. all these Chinese tourists paying good money to see plastic flowers, drink coconut milk, get a sleeper bus for a 2 hour bus journey back to Beijing and so on. China's saving rate is something like 40% (The UK is more like 5% or negative saving!) and the government wants to encourage people to spend this money, thus creating jobs in tertiary sectors. Every year the growth and statistics of tourism in China is incredible, especially during the 3 'golden holidays'. China has a lot of people and not that many tourist sites. Although many have started going overseas to spend their cash, this presents a big dilemnas.
Growth in China just seems to bring more and more problems!
Most likely the result of the local governor's daughter's pet project (maybe she liked fake flowers) or the result of a local fake-flower producer bribing the tourist spot's owners to convince them this was something that would really add value to the attraction (maybe it is designed to contrast with the real beauty outside?) or (my last idea) is that they had a number of bids from 'designers' and of course, cause its China, wanted to pick the craziest one that a "highly respected" foreigner suggested. This final idea is based on the countless crazy designs for buildings in cities in china that seem to have resulted from foreigners gleefully being held in high respect and being given a bank cheque!
2) Pierre's 'bandage' which was sometimes a local famer's bandage, sometimes his towel, sometimes a 2 rmb (25 US cents) 'professional' bandage from a pharmacy, and sometimes just him holding his poor hand across his chest. Apparently this was all needed because he crashed into kitty at 'high speed' and fell of the bike causing a sprained wrist and some blood. The alternative theory was that he just liked Kitty rubbing some chinese painkiller on his wrist every day... hmmm
3) The sleeping and massages that seemed to be more frequent than the actual cycling. It was a case of 'if i massage you for 30 seconds, will you massage me for 10 minutes' (NB: it seemed we men always got the better deal!) and the 'i'll just nap whilst waiting for the food to arrive' -every meal time. Although I risk my life every time I step out on my bike, at least i had something to show for it...!
4) The ride back yesterday where we spent 5 kms overtaking trucks as they queued to be checked by the police, and then 15kms overtaking more trucks as we cycled downhill :-). So this is where all the resources needed for Beijing's huge growth is coming from!
and smaller things like.. the girl peeing on the floor outside the restaurant, the man skinning and emptying the goat, fixing Peter's bike with a padlock (since we lost the nut/bolt), the girls getting on a public minibus with their bikes to skip going up the hill, the delicious Dongbei (NorthEast China) food, Leon's 'white powder' that he mixed with water to make an energy drink, Peter cycling on the motorway despite the toll-collector telling us no-one had passed by (and then peter cycled back past her), the masseuse's comments on my hair (again!) and finally the incredible experience of bunjee jumping 50m.
China is booming and the size of the internal tourist market is testament to that.. all these Chinese tourists paying good money to see plastic flowers, drink coconut milk, get a sleeper bus for a 2 hour bus journey back to Beijing and so on. China's saving rate is something like 40% (The UK is more like 5% or negative saving!) and the government wants to encourage people to spend this money, thus creating jobs in tertiary sectors. Every year the growth and statistics of tourism in China is incredible, especially during the 3 'golden holidays'. China has a lot of people and not that many tourist sites. Although many have started going overseas to spend their cash, this presents a big dilemnas.
Growth in China just seems to bring more and more problems!
rain!
tonight it finally rained.. only just, but enough! We got back last night from our trip which totalled 250km in 4 days (though mostly on day 1 and day 4 getting there and back) -it was enough to wear out the other 5; but thanks to my previous cycling experience I was still able to cycle another 30 km in order to pick up the electricity card and save us from darkness all night!
It was a a fun 4 days; we had some tough riding up mountains (and enjoyable ones back down); we stayed in a yurt; had 3 punctures; bunjee jumped and horse-rided and other things besides. The weather was beautiful and so was much of the scenery.
Not surprisingly the grasslands lacked grass (the ones in went to last october in western china are a million times more beatiful) and most of the villages we passed were a dump (though the towns were booming). On the other hand the gorge was almost a model of a tourist attraction -well organised, well laid-out and sustainable. Although it was the busiest day of the year it was still a pleasure to be there. We had fun laughing at some of the inevitable tackiness (like the dragon shaped escalator) and playing 'spot the fat chinese kid' -not as many as we thought there might be!
Afterwards we headed for a full body massage, though i am still not much of a fan (apart from the comedy value of having a tiny 18 yr old girl standing on my back causing me agony! Since i skipped the horse riding i was in better shape than the others (Susan is still walking funny -he he!). Now we are back at work: only 3 weeks or so to go before and then our successors move in for a month working together. I should be travelling a lot in the next 4 weeks -yay; polluted and dry Beijing is so depressing after the 4 days in the (relative) countryside. On our trip we even saw stars in the sky!
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