Chinese wedding

An affair that is a curious combination of East meets West. The wedding couple take millions of photos before the wedding in full wedding dresses then, on the big day everyone meets at the husband's home to smoke, eat fruit and eat sweet things. Guests cannot say no to anything, of course.

With the bang of firecrackers the couple arrive at the house with cameras flashing and the groom carries his new wife into his bedroom that has been decked out in red and double 'xi' 喜喜 everywhere. After photos of the couple on the bed and in the house (the whole wedding really is about photos!) everyone goes to the nearby hotel for the wedding lunch to give a red envelope of money to the couple upon their greeting at the entrance. More sweets, more cigarettes and then the celebrations begin.

The wedding I went to is a colleague of mine... you can imagine that charity workers are not the richest, so it was no fancy shanghai 5 star hotel or anything (more like a 2 star, but still looking nice); in fact my other colleagues who went, and are not from the local area the bride is from, could not really understand the local accent. Me, well i had no chance :)

Everything seems informal as no-one dresses up for the occasion apart from the couple themselves and bridesmaid/best man, kids run around screaming, cigarettes/nuts/Sunflower seeds litter the floor in seconds and nothing seems well organised; but of course this is China so everyone takes it in turn to go on stage and wish the couple well (in the mean time the cold dishes sit on the table untouched, which is remarkable!); they both go around the tables drinking with everyone and the parents do their utmost to keep order!

Once the eating has finished, everyone ups and leaves with another quick photo and thanks and then the bride, groom, bridesmaid etc go back into the dining area to finally eat! With wedding invites sent out just a couple of weeks before it is quite different from the very big deal we make of weddings in the West. Though the wedding dress, wedding music and honeymoon are all imitated here; there are a number of traditional Chinese customs, such as red everywhere, 'xi' everywhere, speeches and drinks etc. Overall a rather strange experience, and somewhat anti-climatic, but still pleasant and the bride, Li Na, looked incredible!

Under the Malaysian sea

Malaysia photos

Philippine Photos

Under the surface of Malaysia

Now, after a day of work, I am writing this whilst sitting on a beach at a candle-lit table waiting for the BBQ to be ready. The afternoon was spent lying in the sun, finally getting a few hours sleep, enjoying the air, sun and sea views. I chose one of the medium-size beaches on the Perhentian Kecil island, with about 6 restaurants/cafes/bars, 5 chalet style accommodation options and 2 dive shops. Of course most people are couples, but they are all friendly and open at the bar!
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Yesterday was my first wreck dive which was pretty cool, although the visibility was not that high. The second dive was a traditional 'coral and fish' dive and had more to see. A night spent sitting on the beach at the 'bar' with candles in the sand, chilled out music playing and slightly drunken conversations followed.

The last dive was the best, seeing some sharks, turtles, stonefish and generally swimming around amongst scholes of fish the entire time; swimming eye-to-eye alongside many of them is very cool... somewhat humbling as the fish show how superior to humans they really are - and truly beautiful, of course the corals are stunning too. And everything down there has evolved in its own way, with own colours for a reason.

I took the bus to the airport to fly back to KL and, as the area near the islands is particularly Muslim, found my fellow passengers to be entirely Women dressed with a headscarve and beautiful, flowery dresses. Malaysia is a great example, even more so than Turkey, of a country with many Muslims that can successfully modernise and where Muslims can live in harmony with Chinese, Christians, Hindus and so on.

Having said that it seems they are not really creating a single Malay identity (as the UK tries to do with its immigrants) but allows them to live separate identities alongside each other, to some extent -a policy the UK tried and declared a failure...leading to a segregation of ethnic groups and conflicts. I'll have to find some Malaysians to ask more about how they think their ethnic groups coexist, or otherwise.

The last day was spent (well, 4 hours of it -which is enough) exploring KL's squares, mosques, buildings, shops, ethnic quarters and so on. It seems a delightful city, easy to be in and get around in, clean and simple, relatively small and cheap. Only the heat and humidity bothered me, which was really high on the last day.

The flight back was packed with chinese tour groups (either Chinese from China or Malaysian Chinese), most of whom had never flown b4, and this is always an interesting experience as they struggle to adapt from the Train to the Plane... not turning phones off, standing up 10 secs after take off and touch down (only for a hostess to rush over and shove them back into their seats), sitting next to their friends rather than in their allocated seats (and walking back up the plane to find their friends while everyone else is still boarding) and so on. Well, its good to be back, I suppose!

In touch with nature in Malaysia

Airasia, the easyjet of asia, started flying from china to Malaysia recently, just in time for a conference there. Since I'd worked the whole of the previous 3 day weekend, i took a few days off b4 and after the conference and found myself arriving at Kuala Lumpur (KL) at 4am wondering what to do.

Several hours later, after some last minute shopping for more sunglasses and sandals (always get broken somehow) and some yummy Indian food, the bus finally left for the Cameron Highlands, an area in the mountainous jungle that is cool, wet, green and very fresh. It was developed by the British colonialists as a retreat with plenty of hiking paths -along with the left-hand drive, widely spoken English and good infrastructure, just 1 of the (nicely) positive legacies the British have left here.

1 legacy the British did not leave behind is that of good maps. As with everywhere else in Asia i've been to, 'hiking' maps are inaccurate, not to scale and useless. This meant I had to run the back 3km of a hill path, partly bare-footed because my sandles were not tight enough to my feet, and hitch back to make my bus -in the end with 15 min to spare but it was close and some lucky guess work on paths was needed!

Earlier that morning, I'd joined a half day trip to the jungle and to the tea plantations (another British legacy) with a fantastic guide showing us which plant leaves can be used for what medicines, which smell good etc. It was a fantastic trip... combined with the afternoon hike/dash the 22 hrs spent in the Cameron Highlands (inc. 7 hrs sleeping) were well worth the combined 11 hrs bus ride there and back.

Malaysia has fantastic food -Indian, Chinese and Malay with wonderful flavours in the curries, a wide selection of fish, meats and vegetables and, most importantly, excellent mango shakes, which is always the highlight of coming to SE Asia.

KL is a very pleasant city which was only really developed in the last hundred or so years and has an interesting mix of Islamic style buildings, modern skyscrapers and more plain buildings. Overall it is a great city, with decent transport and good night life too.

What is most striking about KL is the mix of Malaysians of Indian descent, Chinese descent and Muslims as well as native Malays. On the streets there are women if full habib (if this is the right term), traditional dresses or those just wearing colourful head scarves. Then there are plenty of Indians and non Muslims, the latter likely to be seen in more modern clothing. All of them, of course, spend more time on their mobile phones than they do breathing of course... I can barely imagine what SE Asian culture was like before the mobile!

a shot in the foot

If China is not in the news enough with the Olympics, with its environmental problems, with its human rights problems, its trade and economic growth, it seems insane that it could be in the news even MORE. Yet, now that the Olympic torch parade, which lasts a number of months, has started, and is attracting major protests in every city through which is pasts, it seems that China will be in the news on a (literally) daily basis. Although this parade was supposed to be a positive PR tool (the longest Olympic parade ever), it is now a constant, ongoing PR disaster!

That means every day there is now an opportunity for protesters to raise any issues, be it Tibet, Burma, Sudan, Falun Gong or anything else...regardless of the truth of what many of these protesters say (honestly the Tibetan rioters probably injured more local Chinese living in Tibet, than the Chinese police injured Tibetans), everyone will be bombarded with more and more about China. This will mostly be negative (what is not negative in the media nowadays?), and everyone, from politicians, to business people, to celebrities, seems to be being affected by this.

It seems like it will be an interesting 4 months until the Olympics; and no-one seems to really actually care much about the Olympics, outside of China!

Apples!

Most of the last 3 weeks has been spent in Xi'an or in the countryside nearby, as we organised another study trip for companies to learn more about poverty in China, showed around the managers from another company whom we might work with, and trained 25 foreign students who (through AIESEC) will be now teaching High School kids in China (in English) about poverty related issues.

The last time we organised the study trip, one of the attendees noted that being in the countryside at the height of the apple picking season was the highlight of the trip for her, adding colour to the countryside (the apples are red) and getting all the villagers out into the fields; there was also colour added to the villages with all the thousands of apples (literally) piled up on every single piece of spare land in the villages, waiting to be packed and shipped/sold.

In March the trees are all bare unfortunately, though some of the apples on sale still taste ok even if they were picked before the Winter! Yesterday I attended a big conference to attract investment into Shaanxi province (where Xi'an is) and the government officials responsible for trade did not hesitate to stress the opportunities for investment into the apple industry as well as natural resources (plenty of coal, oil and gas still available for digging up if any readers are interested in this sector).

Before, when asking the villagers where all the apples went, I never believed them. I presumed a middle man picked them up, took them off to be packaged and then they were transported etc. But, when they were saying they are sold all over the world, they are speaking the truth! Indeed most of the apples are sold in the apple juice market, for export, all over the World. So next time you drink some apple juice, it may have been made with a red apple from a little village (with a name you cannot pronounce like Xi Po) in the middle of China and that you are helping make some poor people a little less poor... only a little, though, as most of the profit will be going to the supermarket, the distributer and the packing/juicing company, but still...eventually, down the line, some little kids are benefiting. Aaah, the benefits of trade!

Tomorrow I am off to steamy Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia for work/travel. Enjoy the snow in the UK!