No longer hobbling like a penguin

Finally, after spending Sunday afternoon and Monday struggling to walk or avoiding walking like a penguin, I am finally walking normally again. Certainly at 11.30 on Sunday the thought going through my mind was that the marathon itself didn't seem to be as hard as walking does now!

Overcoming a flat battery on my mp3 player, rain, wind, the cold, and a lot of boredom, I did complete my first marathon. I know it is an achievement. I am still not sure how I did it... Running non-stop for 3 and a half hours is a hell of a lot of running, not made any easier by the dearth of spectators due to the awful weather and half the route being away from any residential areas.

Anyway it is done, as is the training. Now, whilst we shiver waiting another couple of weeks for the government to turn the heating on I am enjoying the extra time in bed in the mornings. Aside from the running, over the last two weeks I have been exploring what the American chamber of commerce in China should do to drive sustainability, and how pharmaceutical companies' sustainability efforts help them enter new markets or improve their reputations. Work that is, on the whole, interesting.

There was also a small office outing to a local organic farm to understand best agricultural practices which was quite interesting, and two visits to one of my favourite restaurants, Vegan Hut. I m not becoming a vegan, although am trying to eat meat less often, but the food there is wonderful.

In the meantime we've witnessed China flexing its muscles, ignoring all calls to release Liu Xiaobo from jail despite him winning the Nobel Peace Prize, and standing up to Japan over ownership of certain islands by stopping (it seems) the export of certain minerals. Certainly these kinds of issues will continue, foreign countries need to know that criticising China will make it less likely to change, not more, and China needs to be a bit less selfish and see other perspectives (though which country is not selfish?). No doubt more on this at a later date.

Rubbish, rubbish and responsibility

I had no real recollections from my walk past the kungfu temple and
school in 2004; but Andrea, who had briefly studied kung fu in one of
the schools for a couple of weeks back in 2002, left wondering where
the village was that she remembered surrounding the temple and being
full of kung fu and wushu schools. It seems the village is gone and
many of the schools relocated to make way for the electric tourist
buses, street-side sellers, tourist centre and other ancient
Chinese-looking buildings that seemed to have no purpose. Such is
typical with China and necessary to handle over a million tourists
that visit the one temple each year!

The schools seem to be doing well with over a hundred still
thriving-the biggest with over 20,000 students. Impressive though
knife-wielding and punching skills may seem to tourists both of us are
unsure what jobs the students might hope to get. We guess many go into
the army or related private security firms, some go into film or
stage, and the rest... Well maybe their odds are no worse than other
students from their (often poor) backgrounds if, as our taxi driver
reassured us, they do study more regular school subjects in addition
to kung fu. However in 2002 at least (and a lot has changed in china
since then, especially in the education system) when Andrea was at one
school it was pretty regimental... 2 bowls of rice and vegetables a
day and 8-10 hours of physical practice a day.

The next day we visited Longmen Grottoes (one of the four famous
Buddhist caves in China) that are special due to the extensive
carvings and paintings in them. This was the third one I have been to
out of the four and just as impressive. Tens of thousands of Budhhas
of sizes from a few cm to 50m in hundreds of caves carved out of a
cliff overlooking a river. One set were built near Datong when it was
the capital of China almost 2000 years ago. Then the capital moved and
the caves were re-done again (though not identical).

The next day we went to an area known as Taiyun Shan, though we
skipped climbing the mountain itself to spend time in the beautiful
red rock gorge, walking along rivers and past waterfalls, marvelling
at the impressive rock layering and geological formations (the area is
recognised by UNESCO), and even going into the museum. The museum was
worth a 15 minute visit and had English text which places it in an
elite list of museums in China! Unfortunately the site management let
themselves down with a monkey show in one of the gorges (the monkeys
seemed to do their acts out of fear) and a few 3m x 3m cages that
'rescued' monkeys were displayed in and that tourists poked sticks at.

On the one hand I was happy with the site management who had made a
real effort with signage, pathways, electric cars taking tourists to
and from the various sites and rubbish receptacles every few metres
over the several kilometres of pathways. They even had a small army of
rubbish collectors. On the other hand I was dismayed at how incredibly
badly most (not all) Chinese treat their beautiful environment. The
small army and thousands of receptacles were not enough, though they
helped.

Even when we said to a small girl and her dad to put her ice cream
wrapper in the bin that was no more than 5 steps away she just waited
until we turned around and dropped it on the rock. It is a real shame.
I understand that industrial pollution is typical amongst
industrialising counties with lax enforcement of laws and other
(economic) priorities and I know China is not alone in littering...
all across Asia in urban areas it is a problem... but when will
Chinese people 'grow-up' and be responsible? They are not poor
(entrance and transportation around Taiyun shan is an extortionate 30
US dollars and they are not ignorant (there are signs all over the
place) nor are they uneducated. Unfortunately most people are still
fairly disrespectful to anyone they do not know and think incredibly
short-term. Others have probably written fairer and more extensive
pieces on the issue and this is just one paragraph. Of course it is
really impossible to generalise about anything in this country, but I
do like to vent every now and again!

In the course of our six days we have, once again, benefited from the
insane infrastructure that has gone up (and is still going up as we
also experienced with some bumpy rides) and the entrepreneurialism of
the Chinese with highways everywhere, buses all the time, minivan
drivers always hovering nearby, and entire streets of hotels and
restaurants built in a few months to cater for tourists. As
frustrating as it is that everything is so commercial and developed,
it is certainly necessary in order to try to encourage domestic
consumption (or even just manage it as often it is uncontrollable
without any need to encourage it) and to manage the environmental
impacts of having so many people wanting to travel (and often to only
a few places).

Celebrating a 61st birthday in Henan

China's 61st birthday is the occasion for a week-long public holiday,
and for Andrea and I an opportunity to visit her Chinese friends who
live 5 hours away by train. The couple had gone to Germany to study
German and a masters degree a decade or more ago and got to know
Andrea and her family then; and now both teach German at the
university in their city (Zhengzhou, a provincial capital). Their
daughter is almost 2 years old and her presence featured strongly
during our visit. For the most part, as is typical with most Chinese
we spent a lot of time eating and visiting their parents and
grandparents -all of whom dote over the girl.

The couple bought a new apartment several years ago but currently live
in an older apartment with one of their mother's who is retired and
thus helps look after the child. Though the apartment building is old,
the interior is nice - almost the same as the apartment buildings of
the various other relations that we visited, even though their
buildings are newer.

The few days we spent with them were stereotypically typical... The
big meal with all the family with toasting and drinking, each putting
food on the other's plate so they would eat more, an afternoon nap for
the adults whilst the elderly played mahjiang (a Chinese board game)
and so on. Zhengzhou is a typical provincial capital city, with
several subway lines and many apartment buildings under construction.
A new business district was recently built centred on an exhibition
centre, concert hall and several malls. Life is fairly quiet and in
the apartment complexes fairly tranquil. Old people sitting around,
street sellers a regular siting, kids playing between the few cars
parked inside the complexes etc. So far most people seem to suffice
using electric scooters and there are no tourists since there is
nothing to see.

As if to prove my point from earlier in the week, when we got to
dengfeng (next to the home of Kung Fu, shaolin temple) we ate a meal
with 12 dishes T our hotel, even though we were only 4 people. Andrea"
friend's brother's friend's job was related to looking after VIPs in
the area so the meal and hotel were free. As was the evening'
performance which we drove to in a convoy behind a police car. All of
us just put our hazard warning lights on and tried to keep up as the
police car led us to the VIP parking lot. This is the land of guanxi
(relationships) after all where who you know can get you anything.

The show in the evening did not involve much Kung Fu unfortunately as
it was more focused on the story behind it (which was fairly boring)
and on the lighting, stage and visual effects. They were impressive -
the show was set at the top of a hill where a stage and seating had
been built facing a valley with a stunning mountain backdrop. The
stage was 100m wide and almost as deep going up the mountain complete
with 8 storey pagoda, rocks, a gulley and a bridge!

The next day we climbed a mountain that I have fond memories of,
having been here 5 years ago. It was just as impressive due to the
winding path half way up the cliff-face which was a cliff full of
vertical fissures from geological and tectonic plate movement 1.8
billion years ago. At the end of the walk we came out to Shaolin
temple and a million tourists (due to the public holiday). We skipped
the crowded and overpriced temple and went to see some kung fu shows
and students practising.

A man with a helmet in Fat China

After the team outing at work where we cycled around the Beijing
countryside I was returning two bike helmets to friends (since the
travel agency could arrange for bikes but not helmets!) when I failed
to adequately answer their question: "why are you not wearing your
helmet to cycle back home?" So, since then I wear my helmet when I
cycle to and from work every day on my cheap bike, when previously I
only used it for long distance rides on my racing bike (about 1 a
year). At first I thought it was weird that I attracted so much
attention cycling with a helmet but quickly realised that I react the
same when i see someone with a helmet; it is so rare it only happens
once or twice a year -of course usually foreigners wearing them.

Last week we went to listen to a book talk. The book is called Fat
China and is one of the first books to be published looking at the
rising obesity problems in china. The talk itself was nothing amazing
though the book seemed better from a quick flip through. One topic
focused on too much was the issue of western fast food. Obviously not
a positive influence but certainly not that important compared to
issues like the lack of sport or fitness the Chinese do. A lack of
facilities is one element, a second is a lack of sport at school
beyond the required morning aerobics before class; a third is the
academic pressure on children and students, and a fourth is the desire
state of Chinese sports. Aside from some individual athletic stars,
most Chinese prefer to watch American basketball or European football
because their own professional leagues are in such a state.
Unfortunately the Olympics seemed to have been a missed opportunity
here, though Guangzhou is apparently making more effort with the Asian
games next month.

The other issue that the book's co-author touched upon, rightly and
intriguingly so, was the nature of communal eating and food culture in
China. It is customary that when cooking for friends (or take them out
for a meal) you should cook (or order) more than can be eaten, and
guests should never have empty plates as that implies you have not fed
them well enough (the opposite of the UK). Also since dishes are all
shared in China there is no accurate sense of individual portion size
and people tend to order too much (though some is taken home in doggy
bags). An issue not mentioned was the Chinese (well, East Asian)
tendency for dried, preserved food, sweets and all sorts of snacks
that are not made of natural ingredients. More and more, the Chinese
are eating these over fruit, sunflower seeds or other traditional,
less colourful, exciting or artificially flavoured, options.

Though the statistics say the Chinese are already fat (over 30 or 40%
in beijing apparently though the definition must be different to the
West) certainly more and more are getting fat..and not just the kids.
The health consequences will be incredible and it is an issue is
certainly one worth paying attention too. It certainly needs more
research and analysis and thus Fat China is a good start.