I'm an Alien

I now hold an Alien Employment Permit. Sine it required a contract, an endorsement letter from our local partner (Shaanxi Women's Federation) and an endorsement letter from the Foreign Affiars or Foreign Corproation's bureau (?) , me leaving the country, changing my visa, returning to the country, getting a health check and then extending my visa.. it was not so easy to get.

Of course by leaving the country, I only had to go to Hong Kong; since China follows the 1 country -2 systems principle. What this means, who knows? From my point of view both Hong Kong and Macau have totally different laws and systems to China (and to each other of course) and Taiwan is another system: so that makes 1 country, 4 systems doesn't it?

Aaah, Taiwan, the place where the previous government ran away to (with all the country's cultural and financial treasures) before Mao and the Communists took over. China claims it is theirs, though the Taiwanese government don't claim to be a part of China (some people want to return to China, some want to make their 'serperation' more permanant and some are happy as they are) -its likely it will just stay in a weird state of flux for a while yet. For those interested, Taiwan used to be the China recognised by the UN (and the government in Tai pei sat in the UN) and rest of the World until 1971 when Beijing moved into the UN instead (and most countries recognised Beijing instead of Tai pei). Nowadays only a few small countries still think Taipai represents China.

[According to Wikipedia, the Dutch formed the first government in the 17th C, but in 1683 it was taken over by China, in 1895 the Japanese were rewarded with Taiwan as compensation for beating the Chinese in a war. When they lost WWII the Americans 'temporarily looked after it' and in 1951 the Kuomintang took over leadership, which the 'West' recognised as the real China during the Cold War]

Some see Taiwan as a flashpoint that will flare up into a big crisis (since the Americans have declared they will protect Taiwan against any 'forced reclamation' by China); others think maybe Taiwan will happily return to China (only if China sometime becomes democratic -since Taiwan has been a democracy for the last 6 years or so); others think it will just stay as it is. One thing is for sure China will not let it try to declare full independence (and blocks any attempt Taiwan makes to join the UN seperately), and since many Taiwanese fled from China previously, and the rest are still culturally chinese (in fact more traditional than those in China), then there is a lot in common with relationships everywhere.

In the meantime, expect continued political spats (for domestic political gain) and more fanfares over the occasional 'direct flight' (flights must still go through Hong Kong airspace doubling journey time, but usually they have to actually stop there) . For the Taiwanese in China they continue to have 2 passports (1 Taiwanese and 1 Chinese, though of course neither is recognised by the other as a passport), continue to learn how to read simplified Chinese (rather than complex Chinese), continue to make lots of money here and continue to be discriminmated against just like other foreigners (higher university fees, joining the 'international' line in airports) and so on.

The Taiwanese in China are also Aliens in a weird way despite looking the same, speaking the same language and sharing the same culture and a great deal of history. Yet another weird contradiction in this country... how can Beijing claim Taiwan as a province when it cannot controlwhether or not its own people can travel there (it is really hard for any Mainland Chinese to go to Taiwan yet a million or more Taiwanese are over here making so much money!). Well, maybe the Chinese are just sitting sumgly knowing how dependent the Taiwanese are on Mainland China economically.

The big questions... will China ever try and pull the economic plug for some measly domestic political gain/nationalistic pride? Does China now have such an effect on the World economy that the World/USA would continue to let it do whatever it wants, would the USA continue to defend democracy, will China itself slowly become democratic enough so the Taiwanese would be willing to become a full part of China? Or will Taiwan ever try to declare independence, and why?

tibetan tour guide

Life in China is like this for the average person in rural china (remember that the average income per person in China is a little over 1,000 USD ~8,000 Y a year) :

Income: about 30 Y a day for being a tour guide. Not working every day, therefore annual income is about 5-6,000 Y a year.

Education (supposedly free) for 2 kids =1,000 Y a year
Water = 120 Y a year
Electricity =300 Y a year
Tax =500 Y a year
no rent

leaving about 3-4,000 Y a year for food and clothing (and some basic transport, though horses are enough it seems!). which is 500 USD for a family of 4 people -who are not farmers (and do not grow their own food). And this is a good enough life.. the family is ok. This is the China that most people forget about.. just thinking of the rich businessmen, the polluting factories and all the upper class owning cars.

fresh air

coming back to Xi'an was the natural end to a great holiday -and it was supposed to be a great opportunity to show my mum around (including a karaoke party with some colleagues) -unfortunately we landed without even seeing the ground, so bad was the pollution.

It was made even worse since we were contrasting Xi'an smog with the pure fresh air of mountains 2-4,000m up where we had spent the previous week horse-riding (sore bum!) and in the most stunning natural park in China (and possibly the world). Its hard to describe what it is like trekking amongst lush green hills and mountains with waterfalls and streams separating various local tibetan villages; the snow capped peaks in the distance coming closer and closer until we were standing in half a meter of snow under a 5,500m high mountain.

The vistas were incredible (and so was the cold in the evening, in our tents), however not even this could rival JiuZhaiGou. An area of several stunning waterfalls and tens of incredible lakes that were all colours of the rainbow reflecting the algae, the minerals, the leaves, the sky and all other things in their fresh, clear water. The varying depths of the lakes (generally quite shallow it only 1-5m deep) led to such a diverse collection of colours, it could not be painted. It is quite clear why the millions of chinese (and others) flock their every year, and with a night in a local tibetan guest-house and some fantastic examples of environmentally sustainable tourism (by chinese standards and also with signs, maps, walkways etc) it was a great couple of days.

Previously me and mum had tried sichuanese cooking, seen the pandas (cute; though I wonder what future they have), climbed a typical chinese mountain and sampled the local teas and spicy food. Despite forcing my mum to spend most of the time hanging around with 20 year olds and backpacking she loved it -though may welcome the comforable beds at home.

In the meantime I'm leaving later this weekend for the USA and Canada with a stop-off in Shanghai on the way there and a few days in Beijing on the way back; time to turn my attention away from how tibetan kids should be educated (traditionally in monasteries or in real schools) and how beautiful nature is (and cold) -and back to working with companies to develop Plan's programmes. The conference in USA should be fun too... wonder what Cleveland is like 5 years after I was last there?

SARs

Not Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, but Special Administrative Region. That is the term for Hong Kong (the former British colony). It is also the term for Macau -a former Portugese colony that was returned to the Chinese at about the same time. It is 30km west of hong kong, and is mostly based on a peninsular attached to mainland china along with a couple of islands (Hong Kong is split between 1 island and a different peninsula. Though Hong Kong is much bigger than Macau, and has millions more people and hundreds of other (mostly empty) islands. Macau was given to Portugal in somewhat of a friendly way -Hong Kong was taken by the british as reward for beating the chinese in a couple of wars (along with bits of tens of other cities (similar to Berlin after WW2) that were forced to give a few miles of their land to the Brits, French, Americans, Germans etc during various other wars/activities).

This weekend I went to both. I've been to Hong Kong twice before and love the city. It is totally unique: romantic, buzzing, beautiful, crazy, noisy... a very emotional place. This time I went to one of the tiny islands that you would think is more like a piece of vietnam than hong kong (not a single car on the island and only a 20,000+ people living in 1-3 story houses or shacks. I also went to the northern part of hong kong, towards the Chinese border where the remains of many old villages and temples still exist surrounded by lush forest (and of course english speakers, english roads and english efficiency).

Yes, I did say English efficiency -you see you have to compare Hong Kong to China, where everything is a mess! Hong Kong has a great subway, great footpaths, great cultural heritage protection projects, great architecture.. Modern China had pretty much none of that until 5 years ago (now its building subways, restoring its heritage and thinking a bit about its new buildings -sometimes thinking too much!).

Macau is a strange place. Physically it looks quite mediterranean with many bright yellow churches or majestic mansions and road signs in portugese and chinese (and often in english too!); but under the surface no-one speaks portugese, you can use the hong kong dollar interchangably with the Macca Pataca, they drive on the left (like hong kong), there are very few europeans and most of the population is poor. Macau used to be more successful than Hong Kong 100 yrs ago.. but until 5 years ago was very poor.. most of its industries lost out to China (Macau is tiny with not much of anything!). It used to be a port city trading with Asia, but when I was there the only ports were for the ferries to China and HK, and for fishing boats. Aah, fishing, hardly the most profitable of industries :-)

But now Macau is changing..supper fast, at something like 20% GDP a year since the end of the Asia Financial crisis and its all because of gambling (which is illegal in China proper and many other chinese or muslim asian countries). But Macau is full of rubbishy housing intermingled with fancy european mansions; so they filled in land to build casinos and hotels.. lots of land. So much in fact that one of the bits of sea between 2 of the islands has pretty much disappeared under cranes and hotels. Now you can find fake volcanoes, impressive fountains, neon and Bentleys. Of course, you'll only find them in the new Macau.. the rest of the citizens survive on tourism and employment in the casinos or hotels.

Anyway, interesting place. Hong Kong though is awesome, especially since i went to one of their beaches and on some great hikes. Macau is ok for a day or two, but be warned -the only cheap hotels there are in the red-light district (don't ask....)

Surprising people

The last couple of weekends, with me (firstly) and my friends (I went back to the same place with 3 friends/colleagues) in rural china have provided lots of surprises. Sometimes its the woman at the top of Kong Tong Shan (a relatively famous Daoist Mountain) selling fangbian mian (literally: convenient noodles -instant noodles) who was surprised to see a foreigner, let alone one with a massive backpack and tent -or one who comes back 2 weekends in a row!

Other times its the kids who see you strolling through their village in the middle of nowhere, 2 hours from the nearest track; or the shepherd and his son who were sitting with their bulls admiring the view when i came and sat next to them; or the 70 year old guy pulling a cart piled high with straw who turned the corner to find me lying on a hill reading a book; or the 15 year old kid who was looking after his 3 cows only to turn around and find a Brit, a Japanese, an American and a Chinese all speaking english eating a packed lunch.

Then there were the construction workers building a high-way who were just a little surprised to see the 4 of us descend out of the middle of a craggy valley and dodging their dumper trucks.. it goes on. Actually I wonder if I should have told the villagers my name -then they might name the village after the 'white man'! he he. We found several shepherds who remembered me along with the hotel manager and noodle woman.

Actually for the 15 year old whose school is a 4 hour walk away (they normally stay overnight during the weekdays in appalling conditions), I am sure he won't go to the city very often, and he won't even dream of going to Beijing or seeing foreigners -but he's got a story to tell his freinds. I don't know if meeting (or seeing really, since we don't talk too much) people like me inspires these villagers or makes them laugh.. or makes them come a little bit closer to the life they hear about on TV.

I can tell that they are happy people; they may be uneducated, and live a harsh life, but its simple and happy. But at the same time most of these villagers only wash their bodies once a year (fact!) and have a cash income of a hundred dollars a year. Now to put it into perspective, they don't need much cash -except for a) education and b) health. Which is where Plan comes in, as a development organisation (not a charity), Plan works not just to give the children money to go to school (although we convince the government to do that too), but to help teach the teachers and the parents about washing hands (and the kids), and teach them how to make a toilet, or to use toilet paper instead of newspaper. Or help women understand their role in their local community (when the men are all looking for work in the cities, or on the hills); or encourage parents to care about their child's early development.

In Bhutan; the tiny mountainous kingdom somewhere between tibet, burma and india, they don't measure GDP, they measure happiness (and there was an international conference discussing this recently). It is an interesting question -that of happiness. Much like how pointless the 2 USD a day poverty line is. 2 USD a day is a fortune for many of these people, and they are living without it. But the questions are, are they able to have the opportunies others have? Do they want to be able to reach their potential? Do they want to be educated to a higher level... hmmm

Lessons from travelling for Work (or life?)

1. Have a plan
2. Do some research
3. Take extra resources, just in case (money)
4. Be prepared for trouble/unexpected (first aid, torch, spare food)
5. Attitude: expect problems (always look on the bright side!) and be flexible. Be positive!
6. Adapt. Make the most of everything. Recognise the achievements and beauty. Take time to reflect.
7. When alone, challenge your decisions. listen to your conscious, since there is no-one else to disagree with you!
8. There are distinct benefits to going alone: no arguments, more opportunities to meet other people and less compromise
9. Be brave -just do it. Be determined and ambitious. Explore -opportujnities and try new things -what is there to lose? But don't take stupid risks
10. Choose advisors carefully: make the right friends. If you don't ask you cannot get!
11. Always prepare for the next step
12. Learn your lessons.

Scientific-ness

After my previous post about the need to change the education system in China, if China is to have a responsible role in the World, I am happy to report (NY times):

"The new standard world history text drops wars, dynasties and Communist revolutions in favor of colorful tutorials on economics, technology, social customs and globalization.

Socialism has been reduced to a single, short chapter in the senior high school history course. Chinese Communism before the economic reform that began in 1979 is covered in a sentence. The text mentions Mao only once — in a chapter on etiquette.

Nearly overnight the country's most prosperous schools have shelved the Marxist template that had dominated standard history texts since the 1950's. The changes passed high-level scrutiny, the authors say, and are part of a broader effort to promote a more stable, less violent view of Chinese history that serves today's economic and political goals.". Though I have to admit that I didn't learn much at School about Asian history (rather important economically for the world) or even about Africa and colonialism. What did I learn that was useful?

China is very keen on science. It's translation of science is 'best', therefore China wants a scientific method od development. Presumably this requires research into what the best method of development is, then implementation and evaluation. hmm, well i guess sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Science never manages to deal with people's emotions, unpredictableness etc. For example most Chinese cities, when creating (or changing) their street names, chose to do so in an orderly (and identical) fashion. There are loads of 'Peace Street' or 'Beijing Street' for example and plenty of '2nd ring road, south section, east end'. It makes sense, if say you are an American, where most habitations only have a couple hundred years of history (presumably not much is named after native americans), but in China, with 5,000 years, why are all the street names the same across the country? So boring!

I miss the UK with 'pudding lane', 'grimsdyke road' and millions of other examples. I guess most streets are named after people who lived there, their professions, or places along the road. And in China the system extends to schools and hospitals, eg. Beijing 101st Primary School! On another note, I am told that in teh early 80s during China's opening up, Xi'an's stupid government decided to imitate Shenzhen (a brand new city near Hong Kong) to become a beautiful garden city, with parks, flowers and grass. They promptly cut down or allowed to die most of the trees, replacing it with grass.

Of course they failed to anticipate things like:
-the grass cannot survive in a city with little water
-the trees played a crucial role in drainage
-trees use up CO2 and create O2, grass doesn't
.... leading us to a city permanently grey and smoggy.. apparently the wind normally comes from the north so blows the pollution from factories or coal mines in to Xi'an and it gets stuck here, because of the mountains to the South. Any other direction would be fine as there are no mountains to the E, W or N, stupid wind!

Then of course you have all the stupid unscientific ideas, like sending students off to the countryside, with few skills and few ideas or plans to create any lasting change.. 1 recent campaign led to students advising and helping build B&B equivalents -i wonder if they investigated is there is actually a market for this? You also have the military service that every University student (and some high school students) do. It involves 1-2 weeks (once in your life) marching. It culminates in each 'cadre' firing 5 real bullets. Everyone calls it a joke and hates it. I don't think it benefits the country at all, helps install any discipline, provides any useful skills, or prepares students to defend the country in terms of crisis. Old habits die hard.....

An interesting interview in the Times, Wen Jiabao (PM) said though democracy is occuring at local levels, it will not grow until Chinese society can handle it and that it is not the most pressing problem: inequality or environmental degradation (and many others) are. He seems to fail to recognise that democracy can help solve those problems! There is an excellent commentary that I totally agree with on the problems in China and role of the media: spot-on.

and finally.... Bullet and bomb proof WC in Beijing

I am not quite sure the point of this -is it to throw a bomb in, so it can be detoanted safely? -is it for all of zhonguancun to try to squeeze into the toilet when there is a bomb threat? -Is it just that some American company bribed a local official to buy their latest invention which they couldn't even sell in the USA?

any other ideas?

some recent photos...

Another sunday

Its sunday night, and time to go to sleep. A 1-2-1 Chinese class that starts at 7.30 in the morning for 2 hours requires intense concentration! It is an unusual Sunday, since I won't be working tomorrow. At work I only have to work 12 (out of about 24) working days a month -and the rest I can spend travelling or visiting our programme areas as a volunteer (not too useful out in the countryside yet, with current chinese level!).

Tomorrow's a day-off (as with Thursday and Friday) since Chris (Jingwei) came to visit -the 1st visitor to Xi'an. Chris was a girl I was living with in my first 6 months in China (along with various other people) and just returned from 1 year in the AIESEC Global HQ -but we don't just talk about AIESEC, or about Europe vs Asia stories! It means I have now done all the standard touristy stuff in Xi'an -and probably not for the first time. Definitely the hardest was climbing Hua Shan, one of the 10 or so famous 'must-climb' mountains in China, all above 1,500m or so. It was not too tough -we went quite slowly and weather was very cool; the views were some of the best of the various mountains I have climbed, with little cloud cover at the top.

I am always amazed at just what human beings can achieve: the Great Wall truly is breathtaking -at 5,000 km long and built mostly at the top of small mountain ranges, the wall is more like a highway made of solid bricks. But these mountains are similar, with most of the way paved with stone slabs, handrails and at the top -hotels and everything. Hard climbing up, let along carrying some stone up too! We gathered for the sunrise (the sun rose, but behind some clouds, unfortauntely) and I enjoyed watching on as another white guy was forced to stand in every chinese person's photos -aah, so often it has been me (though I was forced into 1 nearby some random well!).

This mountain was short of temples, but was also a superb example of good tourism (meaning the entrance fee of 10 euros is not so painful) with litter bins everywhere, guardrails, warning signs, signposts (yes, they do exist sometimes in china!) and snack/water sellers who were not too pushy. I don't see the point in cliumbing up at midnight, in time to arrive for sunrise, since you miss all the scenery and its more dangerous. Plus going down is so much harder on the feet (we took the cable car).

Random recent activities:
-seeing 2 'famous' Gou (ancient chinese board) players (Chinese champion and Korean champion) being carried from the cable car to the top of the mountain in sedans for a game
-realising that Chris is more impatient than me with her own country! (i.e. the minivan driver who refused to pay extra to go on the highway, or the smokers on the no-smoking buses, or the spitting...)
-rain, and lots of it in Xi'an. Unused to this level of rain (obviously the town planners never went to Manchester!) Xi'an becomes flooded as the drains cannot handle it. Apparently it gets so bad sometimes the trycicles come out to shepherd you just across the road for a few mao
-traffic jams, not much in Xi'an, mostly just just in a few areas -but when encountered, they are of the '20 minutes to go 500m' type
-crossing the road adventures. Chris finds this so stressful that she holds my arm! Xi'an has zebra crossings, but very few pedestrian lights. The zebra crossings lead to a gap in the railings dividing the 2 lanes. You have to therefore be no fatter than the railings to avoid losing your toes, and be very fast across the zebra crossings. Cars don't stop for you, People get impatient and start to be pushy, forcing cars to swerve around pedstrians without slowing, creating chaos and danger. Be warned!

where the hell is Li Ping?

By 9am tomorrow, I would have been out of Xi'an for 60 hours including:
-23 hours on overnight trains
-11 hours on truly spectacular (and truly bumpy) buses into the mountains
-9 hours sleeping in the only hotel in the mountains (I'm the first foreigner to visit in 2006!!)
-4 hours on local buses visiting a lake mostly without water and an old path along a spectacular gorge (now re-built in 'wood' -i.e. concrete painted like wood)
-3 hours jogging/walking in the mountains (6am-9am!) seeing wonderful mountains, gorges and villages
-2 hours at the lake and 2 hours at the gorge
-1 hour being stared at in 1 of the mountain villages whilst an alternative bus (i.e. crappy chinese minivan with 9 people stuffed on 6 seats) was sought, since the public bus was cancelled (I was the only one that wanted to know why... -must be normal)
...and another 7 hours eating dinner cooked on an open fire, waiting at more bus stops, trying to buy slippers (my feet are too big for china), buying train tickets (such a performance, as always) and writing in my blog :-)

I feel very privileged to have been to such a beautiful place that no-one has heard of. I am sure that it will be different in 5 years either from an influx of tourists or continued droughts! One of my favourite quotes -in fact, probably THE favourite quote- is "life is about the journey, not the destination". It is something i think sums me up very well, and this trip has broken all records (that were already pretty high) for time spent travelling vs time spent doing something else -but the 11 hours on those buses and minibuses into the mountains were spectacular.

Over the journeys it was so clear that the crappy shops selling mobile phones, bric-a-brac, hairdressers that are all over China -started to disappear. Then there were less brick buildings with garish white tiles on them. The road became a track. The motorcyclists disappeared, then the cyclists disappeared. Then the houses were made of brick coated in mud, the few people on the road were over 60 with bags on their backs full of vegetables (most people were still in the fields working); then the bridges became broken fords.

All this happened as the scenery started changing. From small towns along the road to villages where they dry their grains on the road to vegtables growing along the river plain, to terraces in the hills to mountains of just trees and occasional dwellings along the river. It was a combination of all that i saw in southern yunnan (border of Burma) and in Guilin (towards hong kong); but somehow, what was different was that not too much was changing. In southern yunnan they are building roads because of the growing trade with burma (mostly in drugs, illegal timber, people etc!), and in guilin there are tourists everywhere. Both places are beautiful -more so than lowly Li Ping National Forest Park on the border of Shaanxi and Sichuan, but all that was changing was more natural. As people got a bit more money, they were improving their houses; buying minivans etc.

Even in remote China, its almost unheard of! There is so much to be said for pointing at a map that has a mountain marked nearby and just turning up! There is always some kind of lowly tousim available, someone to take you somewhere cheaply and somewhere to stay. We did it last weekend by picking a mountain no one had heard of to go to -instead of 1 of the big 5. The difference? Less people, less steps and more footpaths, lower admission fees :-). I have though decided that I have to go to the remote mountains of scotland hiking. Something I have not done yet, and something I really should do -at least there will be signposts in English!

And to top it all off... I had no mobile phone signal for 2 whole days.

Change in China

There is an opinion that China is going to change for the better -those who went to study abroad in the 80s are now rising up the ladder in government and business. You can see the change in many well-run and internationally successful private Chinese businesses, but you annot yet see teh change in the government. Hopefully, soon, it will happen -and the returned scholars can bring with the best knowledge from overseas to combine it with the chinese situation/culture and create a dynamic, fair, successful China.

However this still seems a long way off. Chinese students sill learn absolutely zero about the rest of the World in their education system: unless they study something like languages or international trade at university or pick it up in the media (which most young people rarely bother to read since its generally useless. If they do read it then they are checking out the business sections, entertainment etc. The international news is awful. People talk about Bush having to know about the World since USA impacts the world, but what about China? China's current and future global impact is tremendous -its leaders, and its people, need to have SOME understanding of the rest of the World!

In addition, China is trying hard to enforce its excellent laws -its tough in a big country where so much has changed so fast and so many people don't want to give up power, or lose their jobs. Slowly though environmental enforcement and labour rights are being enforced..slowly. But all this is pointless if the law is abused, and the courts useless. If we dis-regard the human rights issues for the moment, this story is typical. A blind lawyer brings to the national government's attention (and only because he got the international media's attention first which forced the local media to report on it, and the national government to do something) forced abortions (local officials need to keep the birth rate low to meet targets and stick to the 1 child policy). Many were violent and disturbing, some as late as 8 months into pregnancy. What happens? a few lowly officials get punished and the lawyer gets detained for a year and finally imprisioned for 4 years for 'theft'! How is China supposed to develop when this happens so often? How is it going to encourage other people to come forward about abuses?

Sometimes China's achievements are impressive (even more so after I read more of Mao's destruction of the country), but so often the future can seem bleak. I am hoping to tell the outisde World that China is not just about the successes (economic) and the failures (environmental), but there are normal people too -something that is not 'news', of course. Unfortunately the challenges are still so great...

Some photos from the last month

All of them are uploaded on the imagestation site, in particular in these folders: China-Xi'an-nanwutai , China-Maijijshan, China-BJ&Hainan holiday , China-Xi'an and some older photos: China-BJTourist-zoo, UK-New Year Party, UK-Xmas, China-BJexcursions-fishing ...,
Here are select few (from left-right, top row first): Maijishan caves/buddhas with walkways, Day trip to top of Nan Wu Tai Mountain, Montain Temple's interior, Xi'an City walls, Xi'an modern offices, Xi'an Ancient Mosque, Our hotel in Hainan, Swimming in waterfall in rainforest in Hainan, Lake in Rainforest, Hotel's beach in Hainan

Maijishan

One of the oldest set of grottoes (sculptures carved into the rock related to Buddhism) on the Silk Road) is Maijishan. They are impressive since its half way up a sheer cliff. Having said that, the more recent efforts to put walkways outside are almost just as impressive (now i know where the steep entrance fee went). Unfortunately you have to pay extra to see some of the best caves.. and all the caves are 'protected' by some wire grills.. meaning you have to peer through the wire -ruins the effect. Must be another way to protect them!

Nearby is a cave. What makes it interesting is that its high up a mountain and is pitch-black (though i had a pocket torch) and full of bats. It is weird sitting in a cave, turning the torch off and just hearing bats flying nearby and hearing their 'voices' (or possible their sonar -if i remember my biology). I was very proud that i actually turned around after 50m, realising how foolish it would be continue with a useless torch and no idea where the cave was going, how bats would react to me getting even closer or what the path was like (was already scrambling lots!)

I then walked over the peak to the exit of the cave (presuming its the same one that goes all the way through the mountain) and worked out using fancy GPS device that the cave must be at least 200m in a straight line. that is a LONG way going 1 step at a time in the dark. Glad i didn't attempt it alone. After lunch I wemt on one of the best short hikes ever. It would have been perfect had i not been typically Adam and decided the path was too easy and to explore the cross-country route. Oops. Anyway, back on the path was a fantastic village with cows and chickens and signs from the government (advertising in China in the countryside involves painting massive signs on building's walls) about new initiatives about birth control, taxes or whatever (i think!); later on was some more (smaller) grottoes and a great path back down a ridge through overgrown paths to another village. Thankfully there was a stream to clean all the leaves, branches and blood of my legs!

Physically the trip was great. What made it fantastic was the people involved.

-ticket collector. Only spoke to her for a few minutes but found out she is paid way below minimum wage. 300 rmb (30 euros) for 1 month. working from 6am-8pm 7 days a week. Typical in China

-Hou Family. daughter and parents. Spoke to them, realised they lived in the town nearby (that i was not planning on seeing, apart from the train station). Didn't want to disappoint them so invited myself round for dinner the following night before my train. Awesome dinner, stuffed me silly, piled me up with more fruit for the journey. She's a police woman, he's a bit of a market trader in White goods. Didn't understand half of what we talked about for 3 hours, though understood the daughter more.. and she'll show me around Wuhan (where she studies) when i wander off there! Chinese apartments for a typical city family are all the same. 1 bedroom for parents, 1 for child, 1 small kitchen, 1 small bathroom, 1 balconny of sorts and a living room. 80-100 m squared. Bought cheaply off their 'danwei' (local residents association who gave out accommodation during socialist times) or by their state owned employer. Owns a motorbike. These families are the majority. They don't own cars, they don't even want to. They have dead-end jobs but its enough to eat out sometimes and support child in education, and have a computer etc. Just in case you thought everyone has a fancy air conditioned apartment, car and a child studying overseas -if all 400m urban residents were in that situation...

-14 year old kids who i was talking to at the first 'farmer's cottage' i went to stay in. nothing too exciting, but helped me find further accommodation once i was forced to move.

-50 year old drunk local man (Fred, asked me how i do 17 times, forced me to drink 22 times). Was on the verge of getting scary, dangerous, me drunk. Kids advised me to leave. So I did. Damn Baijiu (cheap vodka like, disgusting spirit). Typical country man.. spend their time drinking and talking lots. Take 'hospitatity' too far.

-66 year old man who was friends of the owner of the 2nd farmer's cottage i went to (after evacuating 1st one). rarely understood what he was on about (accent, slurred speach) but charming guy for 2 hrs. Something about weather, beijing, Da Shan (Canadian who speaks fluent Chinese and teaches foreigners chinese on China's TV stations), Thames River... must have been something more in 2 hours of a monologue....

The joys of talking to anyone and everyone, seeing out-the-way touristy places, and wondering without any worries. Another 6 months of more weekend (or longer, since i am only work part-time) trips. It might help me get fit. Chinese lessons should start next week. Apartment is sorted. Corporate Partnerships strategy almost finished.. delivering training soon and then checking out our programme areas in the poor parts of the country -then talking to companies about partnerships. AND.. the premiership is almost back!

the clever chinese

"Unless we change direction, we are likely to end up where we are going "- chinese proverb. China changed direction (to economic growth).. a few times...slowly. But sucessfully. It has now set a new direction (harmonius development and environmental sustainability). How long will it take to move the ship around? And the same goes for the Developed World, which is even slower at turning the ship.. maybe the ship has got used to going in its old direction!

and another relevant quote:
"He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough" - Lao Tzu

Truths about China

China is the center of the World and is always right
Maybe it is a requirement to be a Super Power (in waiting!). China's education system is geared to tell people about China. I ask what students learned about the rest of the World at school... and officially they don't learn much -although there seem to be a number of individual professors who realise the education system's curriculum is antiquated and teach people about others stuff, e.g. Tiananmen Square

Chinese babies' clothes are 'special'
Since China is still a land of squat toilets (cleaner than putting your bum somewhere somewhere else has) and will most likely remain so, since Chinese people don't mind them and don't seem to see it as a mark of civilsation (though us Westerners do), then to make life easier for babies, all their trousers (and they don't wear underwear) have slits in them, so to go to the toilet you just hold open the slit. Quite amusing for foreigners to see, but you get used to it. Would shoot my mum if i was ever given anything like that when i was 3. Actually Xi'an seems to have gone 1 step further and taken away the trousers altogether. More than 1/3rd of all the children i see are only wearing a top, and I've seen at least 3 walking around just wearing sandles!

China never has enough seats on a train
Actually, I lie, it does sometimes have enough expensive soft seats. And it NEVER has any normal beds available (though for the 4 routes in the country with soft beds that cost almost the same as flying do have availability if you really have to leave and don't care about cost). Thus of the 4 classes you have soft seats and soft beds, which are both expensive and rare -but do have space, sometimes. There is little difference (apart from price) between them and normal seats and beds (known as hard). The difference of course is that hard beds for overnight journeys are ALWAYS sold out before they even go on sale, and the hard seats are sold out within 5 minutes of going on sale (if you are lucky). Planning a ourney is tough. You need to buy tickets 4 days in advance and you won't get a choice in which of those 4 options will be available. If you are lucky there will be some standing tickets available (for the same price as a seat though!). China's train capacity is still ridiculously low (for freight too). A rumour is that its intentional by the government to stop too MUCH migration (or travelling to Beijing to protest to the government), just like the ridiculously high flight prices (no competition, regulated market etc -though the service is getting quite good if you ignore that the planes cannot take off or land with a hint of pollution, sand or rain -the first 2 being a problem in many cities in the north, and the last being a problem for many in the south)

They are the nicest people
But they seem the meanest. Once you talk to someone and make some (any) kind of contact then people are wonderful, but until you make any contact, they are just plain mean. Shoving and pushing in lines (for an english gentleman like me this is a capital offence!) and doing all kinds of things that foreigners would say is offensive eg. spitting, staring, ignoring, refusing to serve you etc. I've realised most of this stuff is just the Chinese/Asian/Developing/Foreign country norm -and hence apart from the pushing and shoving, all the evidence is that Chinese people are lovely. Stories abound of being invited into random people's houses for dinner, being bought gifts and all sorts of fantastic generosity -especially from the elders (though they have been through all sorts of hell in their lifetime!)

Its big, its beautiful, its advanced, its orderly
No explanation needed. Though one of my favourite quotes goes something like "The mountains are high and the emperor is far away". For anyone wanting to understand China.. this is the phrase to think about!

It's complicated
To explain the economics, geography, history, languages, minorities, culture, religious influences..... is simply impossible!

Exploring

Yesterday was one of those great days, that happens when you motivate yourself to leave the appartment and go exploring to see new areas. I checked out the Mosque (that does not look at all like a Mosque it is so Chinese, but was full of Muslim Chinese praying) and a Pagoda (so calm and relaxing sitting in the surrounding park/temple) and the city walls (old, big, impressive).

Then I ventured out into the Muslim quarter to have lunch (some noodle thing and some cross between jelly, potato and tofu); I spent almost an hour chatting to the family that own the food stall -even talking about Blair, the Queen and Iraq (not that the conversation was very advanced, but they were very good at dumbing down their Chinese and speaking slowly). I felt so bad that the food was only 15p that I paid double to thank them for the Chinese lesson. I'm going to go back next time I am in the area.

In the Mosque there were some girls handing out surveys for foreigners about their tourism experience in Xi'an, which gave me another hour chinese speaking practise and then there were a bunch of Muslim kids running around the Mosque and playing hide-and-seek from me and my camera (its ok, i had already spoken to the Mosque elders before!). Yes, there is a trend of me travelling around alone talking to absolutely everyone who are all so kind and enthralled to hear a foreigner speaking Chinese. People in Beijing are not quite the same. In fact even in the markets, no-one is dragging the tourists into their stall -it is so much more pleasent -maybe its because most of them are religious?

Religion in China used to be banned during the Communists; now it is tolerated, as long you join the official Church (for example). Most Christians in China go to Churches not affiliated to the government (and thus quasi-illegal) although the number of young people becoming Christian seems to be rising (from a VERY small % of the population) -and the Vatican still recognises Taiwan as the real China, since it prefers Churches to pledge their allegiance to God rather than to the Communist Party. Most Muslims pray in their homes -although it seems as though beiing Muslim in China is very different to elsewhere. Especially for the young people I met. Something to explore a bit more I think in the future. Still not many jews, that's for sure!

Next up was the required walk down the touristy areas selling all kinds of crafts and artefacts -totally reminded me of being in Turkey, since most of the women selling things were wearing head coverings of a sort, and one of the bazaars was indoors (see Istanbul's Grand Bazaar). Then through the commerical area (urgh, so many mobile phone shops and girl's fashion shops!) on a detour out East of the City to a park. I've learned a long time ago that Parks are some of the best hidden secrets in China. Sometimes you find a 'Water World', other times its just beautiful flowers, and others are carefully designed ornate chinese rock and water sculptures.

This one included a big lake, pagodas, small temples, thousands of benches with couples sitting on with(out) their kid, pedalos, and international Ice festival, playgrounds and so on. There is also a theme park with more than 15 rides! Shoved into 1 corner are things like a Pirate Ship, Dodgems, Monorail, Water Fluem, Roller Coaster and more. Will have to tell you some other time whether they are worth the pound or so to ride each one.

Other interesting snippets:
-I've found the all important good and cheap place to buy DVDs and an outdoor Pool table complex
-I've found a place to get 20(!) passport photos done to change my visa
-I climbed up a tree to rescue a father-son's shuttlecock that went wayward
-I started listening to a new weekly podcast that is hilarious (the now show, on BBC 4)
-I ventured into some of the slum areas to get lots of stares, and contemplated investigating a 'room for rent' sign but then bottled out!
-Xi'an's hot, but less polluted than Beijing and has less traffic. It's nice and small and is full of street food everywhere that is totally different to Beijng. There are some tourists, but few other foreigners and thus not many bars or Western restaurants.

Xi'an and Shaanxi

Xi'an is the 2nd most visited place for tourists to see in China after Beijing. It used to be the capital of China and has impressive tombs, old city walls, pagodas and various other things including several thousand life-size statues of an army -yes every single statue is life-size and every one is different. I've not seena ny of this yet -but I will. Of course there is also 1 of the 5 'holy' mountains nearby too -so i can camp on the top.

In China most of the cities that are really growing are those with big populations of workers or potential consumers, or cities with natural resources or good transport links. Shaanxi province has none of that. Its in the middle of China with only 37 million people, not on the Yangtze river and 80% is mountainous or desert in some way (apparently). Although Xi'an is quite prosperous from tourism (and being the provincial capital) the rest is quite desperately poor.

In the middle agriculture is strong, but the rest its not so easy. As with the rest of China its not food that is generally a problem (though its tough growing things in the desert areas and expensive to transport in from elsewhere), the problem is about the quality of healthcare, education, sanitation, environmental protection etc. NGOs are heavily financed from aid agencies and corporate grants, and individual donations from rich countries to help provide the training to jumpstart these problems in China. China cannot wait a few decades to solve these issues like some other countries did when they developed, because its millions of people who are affected!

I am shocked at how much money it does take though to create this jump-start effect. Requiring lots of people to spend many years working with different partners, travelling to every village and organising various capacity building activities for the villages or for other organisations. The sheer scale is incredible -and the level of work Plan is engaged in is very much standard International Development stuff. Most of the people working at a senior level are all Masters or PhD people and use all these fancy acronyms. I mean I can follow on when they talk about base-line surveys or about the cognitive behaviours of children (flashback to Univeristy Psychology class); but some of the other stuff... Well I have a lot to learn.

I've also realised I am somewhat out of my depth, and will be for a good few weeks. Having not been to the areas we are working in yet, or any real practical knowledge of what is happening, I have loads of ideas about different things.. but probably will have to scrap them and start again soon! Anyway, I'm looking forward to heading out into the PUs as part of my role in the SSIP!

More to come later about my exact job -its being finalised this week as we explore where i can best contribute and what i can most learn.... I'm pleasently surprised about everything.. my colleagues are all fantastic -a great atmosphere in the office and some don't speak chinese.. although since i can barely converse in english about some of these things who knows when my chinese will get that advanced!

The good news is things are cheap here -accommodation is about half of Beijing! Since no companies are really opening many offices or factories here there does not seem to be many tall commercial buildings or many foreigners working here. Though there are loads of Universities.

Globalisation in 2017

SustainAbility, my favourite organisation for insightful, concise and clever thinking is doing a survey on the future of globalisation. I had not really thought about it, but invite you to answer the questions. These are some of my answers.

Q1: In the period to 2017, do you see globalisation:

Accelerating
Slowing down
Stalling
Going into reverse
x Taking a very different direction - and why?

Politically Globalisation will start to regionalise, despite global organisations' wishes. I expect bilateral trade agreements to increase, world trade talks to go into reverse and geopolitics to play an even greater role in trade, wars and general hostilities, sanctions and globalisation.
'people' will start to become protectionist in the face of growing global crises realising that the current global mechanisms for change are not working.
Business wil play an increasing role but will end up fighting against governments. Businesses will become more accountable than governments in the next 10+ years in many cases and citizens will start to trust business more, since business will be the force that is a) thinking long-term and b) responding suitable to the balance between local interests and global needs. Democratic and Undemocratic Governments are unable to do either. Despite globalisation having being let free by political changes, it will now have to break free from politics somehow.

Q7: What needs to happen to generate the political will to create global governance structures?

A change in the role of individuals in society and of national governments in society. An acceptance of the interconnectedness of our decisions, and the desire to try to be less selfish.

This requires a fundamental change in democratically elected governments. Under current elections, governments will only continue to fight each other -for a piece of the pie, rather than work together to make the pie bigger, so to speak.

In this sense we need to create systems that ensure thatincreasing wealth for others is beneficial to ourselves, and then help people understand this.

Governments will need to see their role change and be representatives of a group of people helping those people and contributing to the global good; rather than just doing what is best for that group of people.

on the train

wow, what luggage:
-1 x 100 litre backpack (approx 20kg)
-1x 80 litre backpack (plus small backpack zipped onto outside) (approx 20kg)
-1 (approx 10 kg) suitcase (stuffed with 2 suits and several thick jackets!)
-1 (approx 10kg) rucksack
-1 laptop (approx 5 kg)
and strapped onto all these bags is a tent, a rubber sleeping mat, a scroll (painting) and a cycle helmet plus 2 other empty rucksacks!

quite a lot that it took 3 people to get it into taxi. After a dash around town for dinner and to get the key of my boss's apartment (where i'll be staying this week whilst looking fro other accomm, and cause he is in beijing for a couple days); i then dashed to station expecting a man with a trolley to help me. but i couldnt find anyone so had to carry all of above (1 big backpack on front, 1 on back, laptop around neck and in left hand was dinner +rucksack, right hand was suit case) into station. take it all off to go through x-ray machine. Then put it all on again. Then found a man with a trolley. Said my train is too soon so cannot help me. then told me to hurry up (leaving in 10 minutes).

I started walking, just about, sweating like crazy until i found another trolley man. he said the same thing. Now i was pissed. hot and sweaty, tired and in a hurry for the train. I wasted no time in telling him that the reason i needed him was cause i had little time to get my train. He refused to help me still -told me to hurry. i told him i cannot, unless he helps me! he walks off and 2 ladies (1 in 60s, 1 in 30s) take pity and each grab one of my smaller pieces of luggage (suit case and rucksack). Actually they could barely lift them and hard to share the rucksack between them both. Promptly we hobbled/ran off to the train, making it with several minutes to spare.

My plan was to arrive early, knowing form experience how little space there is for luggage and how much of a spectacle i make of myself normally with just 1 large bag and 1 small bag! now with 2 of each, and arriving 1 minutes before the train leaves... uh oh! After 2 other backpackers got on before me (takin up valuable luggage rack space) i went on. Actually I went in 1 bag at a time.. the whole carriage helps me move luggage around to find space more me. shoes are off, feet are on seats, laughter everywhere.. especially with teh12 yr old kid once i talk to him in chinese. Then i go back for more luggage.. and knock everyone out the way in the aisle..more luggage =more laughter (and disbelief!). I love this kind of experience -talk about an ice breaker.

Eventually its all sorted, i sit down. The little kid asks to swap seats with my neighbour so he can talk to me! yay... great conversations later and i am showing my photos on my laptop to him and another neighbour. practising chinese and making new friendswho all live in Xi'an (where i am about to go, and currently am friendless!). Since I have a window seat, I am now sitting here, typing off-line, an could not be happier.

The rest of the holiday with dad went well and it was a relaxing time. I read the wholoe biography of Mao (the unknown story) which is 650 pages in 4 days on the beach (MUST read for everyone interested in becoming a dictator and runing their country in order to get power!). Realised most readers of this probably have no clue about any thing like the cultural revolution, tibet, great leap forward or anything and will endaevour to put more short history into future posts!

Now after saying some goodbyes (some temporarily as i know i'll be back to beijing for work in a couple of months and cause everyone promises to visit me -and some to people leaving china) I am ready. Excited to meet new people, live in a new place that is so different to Beijing, excited to have such a great boss (more to come on him later I am sure), flexible job and so much more. This train journey sums up China really. As my dad said Chinese people are just so friendly! They are so interesting and so interested in (foreigners, foreign opinions etc), the atmosphere in the hard seats on these long journeys are fantastic. everyone talks to everyone else.. irregardless of age.

True -the beds are more comfortable but the atmosphere is no where close, and in the soft seats -its 100% silent. Hard seat -that is the way to go.

Everyone has been asking me about my salary in my new job.. well it should be enough to cover all my living expenses and chinese lessons. But exact job description and everything is still to be decided. Now, i need to get back to Song Chen Yang (12 yr old kid who has moved back to his seat, bored of my photos, but who i have to email the photo of me and him too) and the graphic designer guy (my actual neighbour -name unknown, but hopefully to become 1st friend in Xi'an!) and another guy who acually speaks some English. new times ahead. Finally i want to congratulate Rachel and James on their wedding that I missed... but send me the photos! and new word of the journey: bo ke (blog -one of those few chinese words that are based on english, but still written in chinese hanzi)

holiday

After leaving aiesec and sorting out my job i had a few days to relax somewhat and then my dad arrived (1 day late thanks to air france). For anyone doing a few days in Beijing this was our itinerary:
day 1: Beijing urban planning museum-Tiananmen square-Forbidden City-Beihai-Hou Hai-Bell/Drum towers and then to centro bar for a drink in British chamber networking.
Day 2: Summer Palace-Zhongguancun (cheap IT stuff)-Qingnianhu park (near andingmen station, which has a water park in it)-Peking Duck just off Wangfujing (nice and not too expensive)
Day 3: Cycle to great wall at HuangHua with tent-camp overnight on wall
Day 4: Cycle back to Beijing by mid-afternoon.
we were staying in jade dragon youth hostel which is convenient with good private twin rooms. though the cycle is not that exciting for the journey outside of beijing, once getting into the country its great, and if your knee has issues (or you get bored of cycling back in rush hour) you can just grab a minivan and rent it for the rest of the journey!

On day 4 (Sunday) we flew off to Sanya in Hainan island.. a biggish island (size of Ireland or bigger probably) known as the Hawai of the east. weather is great all year and though its well-known in china -chiense only mostly go when the rest of china is cold in the winter. so going in the summer is cheaper and not so crowded. A great decision. 1/3rd prcie 5 star hotels and discount flights led us to spending teh first 2 days on beaches and strolling around the local area, including going Scuba Diving (still love it). Dad is still taken aback with how cheap stuff is -I am quite used to it!

Today was 3rd day on Island and we went to the JianFengLing Rainforest. Wow. 2 hour bus journey around a bit of the island (its about a 16 hour round trip all around!) and we got dropped off at the edge of a motorway, grabbed a taxi-motorbike and went through a 100% typical chinese town in the countryside: food-markets, shops selling the same stuff, everyone hanging around doing nothing, bulls and pigs roaming around bossing the road etc. Then 20 kms into the rainforest and 1,00 m up we got to Heaven lake: stunning. photos will be uploaded soon. A nice 'peasent-style' lunch later and we carried on into the rainforest to a health resort which sits near a waterfall. us 2, plus our motorbike guide went up the river, spent a while swimming under the waterfall (not the biggest in the world but refreshing and great to have it alone) and then went back to the lake for a walk. We encountered ancient trees, buterflies and other birds that sounded like chainsaws (but were not!) -no leopards unfortunately, but the whole trip was topped off once we missed the last bus and had to hitch-hike in a chinese blue truck transporting lots of rocks!

What's great about this trip is there are so few tourists; mostly russians at our resort, though replaced by chinese on the beach once the sun goes down. some locals try to sell fruit (yummy) and other stuff but are not too bad, and the beaches are great. The hotel's service is fantastic. The local city, sanya, is buzzing with young people and opld alike.. everyone is out walking past the empty shops, drinking and eating on the streets, playing chess on teh street and giving the place a nice atmosphere. The rainforest was totally empty, the path is a track, but they had a brochure with some english in, some signs in english and all the buildings were tastefully done, nothing was rip-off expensive. i could go on and on, but most toursit sights in china are SO badly done and this was just..perfect. even down to the fact that its hard to get to and no-one there speaks any english -so it will keep out most other tourists in the future!

Haian is an isalnd with huge tourism potential, that it only seems to have started exploiting in the last 5 years... so it has learned from other parts of china, and is doing a better job than most. Its got a fair few fancy hotels, but mostly its an agricultural economy with most people using bulls and cows as transport in the fields (though motorbikes on the roads). As parts of China goes, its got great beaches, great countryside and by exploring its very easy to see the real China.. the crappy towns that are full-of-life, the old people working the fields and the young babies everywhere. its hard to see so much of 'typical china' and enjoy yourself whilst relaxing in china in 1 place -hainan is highly recommended, and not just for the beaches.

found it?

A way of experiencing more about China, of learning more Chinese, of utilising my recent experience, of learning new things.

Hopefully my next step will be all this and more. In 2 weeks I am moving to Xi'an, one of the ancient capitals of China. It is in the middle of China, and is where a global NGO (Headquartered in the UK) called Plan has it's China head office.

Plan works across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, in communities where many struggle to meet their basic needs. Working in partnership with local people of all ages, we support them to end poverty in their community. www.plan-international.org/ It focuses on working with children, and areas such as education, health, habitat, livelihood and building relationships.

I'm going to be working partly in the field on education issues (not teaching!) and partly in the head office working on corporate partnerships and assisting one of the Director's of the NGO in China. I also plan to take a couple of hours of chinese every day.

So, hopefully it will be everything that I want.. the job I am looking for..at the moment. I'm very excited, and cannot wait :-) I'm committing for 6 months at least (until Chinese New Year), and then we'll see where I am, and what to do next!

In the meantime its a 10 day holiday with my dad.. and then i'll be in Xi'an!

next...

hmm, so the last job was great, because it seemed to match with me: interesting, fun, working with people, using my skills, something i was good at.

finding something else that does all that too might not be so easy. it might require learning chinese first or not. it might require trying to do something on my own, if i can think of what exactly, if i can be brave enough...

it will probably involve me doing a combination of things that get work experience, get money, get chinese ability up, are fun, allows me to explore some other options on the side.

For the short-term it would be nice to take advantage of the 'China experience'. It makes sense to try to get something tangible from being here... to look at what opportunities there are, and then to leave and take the learnings and experience elsewhere.

No more AIESEC

its 2 weeks after the rest of my team finished their term in AIESEC and I have almost finished mine. Actually the last real activity was Tuesday night -when a British AIESECer (Lucy) came here for a few weeks to help me and some Chinese students. Since then I went to the AIESEC conference for a couple of days to say hi and bye to people, and now am trying to sort out the future.

There had been a few other activities before that, which had kept me busy over the weekends and evenings. Tuesday's though was a bit different: our chinese members played a really big role and did a really great job -and we might now have found our role in engaging with external organisations. Good luck to the guys who have to do this and everything else next year.

For a few other random bits and pieces...
-the new MC office is great because of the cheap chocolate '99' ice creams downstairs, the freshly squuezed ice mango shakes down the road and the great free-delivery lunch place at the other end of the phone.
-the 957 bus, previously my favourite in all of Beijing (due to speed, air conditioning, convenience) has become a training ground for China's next Forumla 1 Racing drivers. It's happened twice so far. Each time 2 957s come along at once. Then they race each other to the next bus stop, but make sure they leave the bus stop at the same time in order to make it a fair race to the next one. Beijing's traffic is scary normally, now its just hold-tight-and-pray...
-the new AIESEC appartment is great because there are 8-10 people living in 5 bedrooms with a couple of living rooms and 2 bathrooms. Now that's real progress from our place of 6 people in 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom!
-I turned my feet into 2 big blisters playing football in unsuitable shoes during FuLP (Fun Leaving Party) -ouch, and damaged my knee cycling back from the conference (110 km in 4 hours 15 minutes, including 20 kms downhill -beating the outward journey by 15 minutes even with the injury!) -seems all better now!
-air conditioning uses up lots of electricity. It used up all of ours 2 days before we had to leave our last appartment, and i had to pack in the dark (when i tried adding electricity to the card, using an atm, i managed to withdraw 400 rmb and add 0 rmb to the card. I think my atm card doesn't give me the option to add electricity, since i tried every feasible option on the chinese langauge atm!)

Transition

Juan finally arrived a week ago (though 3 weeks late) -due to problems buying tickets to get here (damn World Cup). He is teaching me lots about Costa Rica (only 3 million people -about the same as our appartment building!) and we are sharing lots of ideas about the future of learning networks in China and how all our students (and others) can learn about Corporate Responsibility and then follow their passion in specific issues further.

Before he got here I was taking it easy for a few days then realised how much I had not done and had to rush to finish some things-which are still not done yet, so I'm staying on a week or so more to finish up. So far we have spent 4 days having between 4-6 meetings a day, which keeps us busy running around town in taxis, getting wet (yay!), and praying that Juan and the other new guys don't get too lost trying to meet us oldies! A couple of British AIESECers are here too for a month helping me out on some projects (our Impact Report and the presentation/training/facilitation event to a bunch of other NGOs). Thankfully some of the local students are finishing their exams, and can start pitching in for this and other projects.

Exam season is not the best -Reminds me of the nightmares of 3 years ago... but it was 3 years ago, and not I can just forget all about it. Though I am shocked to hear that there are a couple of suicides each year in EACH University in China. yikes. I hope that is just at the top Universities. There is also free counselling for students -which I suppose is a good thing. How many would there be without it? Just shows how much pressure students are under (and I belive it is much more intense before University -once you are in the top universities, you are one of the lucky few!)

Returning to work me Juan has been asking me all kinds of questions, and I thought you readers might be interested in some general answers:
-What is the biggest issue and problem in China?
*um, they are all big: water, energy, poverty, education, governance, health, population, migration, urbanisation...
-So which ones should we focus on creating opportunities for the aiesec students to learn more about?
*what are the criteria?
-Internal demand of the students, exernal demand of the market and possible partners
*There are possible partners for absolutely everything: think tanks, universities, businesses, international organisations, NGOs... from all over the world there is someone doing something in China. They have to -as the saying goes: "There can not be a sustainable World without a sustainable China"
Students in China are keen to learn about everything, but (like all students around the World) don't know that they are keen! -But once you open their eyes to something, they are quick to realise its relevance and interest
The market doesn't seem to care right now! But lets try to change that!
-Who are the key people I should know about?
*Well I have this spreadsheet...
-There are over 400 people listed on it!
*Uh, yeah
-Well who are the important ones?
*Most of them... you need to be able to access all kinds of resources from all kinds of places to do this job. You also have to travel to all the universities, go to loads of conferences, create or support an average of 1 event each week, manage a team of over 15 people, create at least 5 new projects...

Anyway, a few insights. What is exciting though are some of the ideas we have been having.. of using the money we are receiving from the British Government and from other companies who are sponsoring our CSR programme. Stay tuned for the output, if you are an aiesec member, and if you are not, then just wait and see if i start complaining about Juan not being up to the job!

Actually I am very impressed with his knowledge and how he has jumped in at the deep end. I realise how many networks I have made in almost 2 years, how much I have learned, and how good I have got at certain things.. its hard to transition this to Juan. The hardest thing though.. is having so many ideas, and not being able to do ALL of them. But, by doing some, Juan will be able to really drive things forward and carry on making a difference. Good luck!

British Bulldog Pub -Engalnd vs Paraguay

British Bulldog Pub -Engalnd vs Paraguay
Originally uploaded by adam lane.

The 3 story (theatre-style) British Bulldog Pub in Shanghai with English, British and Chinese flags. Lots of people, very orderly. Not the best of games!

World Cup in China

Back in Beijing, about to start our transition to the new team, and stifling in the heat. Its 3o something apparently and certainly feels it. Though the evenings are great -great for sitting outside and eating or drinking and of course great for watching the World Cup on the big screens that every bar and club have put up. Or if you go one place there are 9 TVs inside and 2 big screens outside.. on the plus side there is way more capacity than demand, so its normally easy to find a place where you can sit, or at least see the screen (all the bars in the same district, conveniently).

The first game I watched in the British Bulldog pub in Shanghai. If the game was actually good the atmosphere might have been fantastic. As the game was not the best, neither was the atmosphere. Yesterday was better. Not many people bother to go out to watch a team unless it is there own, so when we were watching the switzerland -france game it was a great atmosphere of swiss and french. And its the same for every game -it makes every game fun. I heard the brazilians (Especially the women!) were the most fun so we're going to watch their next game!

Suprisingly a lot of Chinese people seem to be watching the World Cup (cumulatively about 10 billion people will watch games apparently) -so they just watch it on TV or for students on the internet (where we also watch ESPN 2's world cup programming through some software) -taxi drivers talk about it and a bunch of girl students too (maybe they just don't want to study, or want to find out what the fuss is all about). Since I am constantly reminded of how bad england are i can remind them that China did not qualify.

When we were in Shanghai a lot of people in the Pduong business district were being given holidays, or told to work an extra weekend instead of some work days. Why? Because the Shanghai government decided to close down the area where most big companies' offices are, due to the SCO meeting. I wonder what economic impact there is from this... It seems a bit drastic, even if it is for security purposes.

The SCO, by the way is the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation; a bunch of countries in the middle east/ex-soviet states talking about co-oepration, terrorism, enerrgy etc. In other words it is an anti-USA club. Especially since Iran is now an official observer in the organisation!

Time to buy yet another ice cream (just so cheap) and get back to work, which is not geared up for transition and wrapping up a few things. Just like last year its the crazy exam time, its the dangerous sun-umbrella period, and it seems like the 'rainy season' has unfortuantely ended already! At least the World Cup keeps life exciting, though does affect sleep patterns with the time difference...and alcohol consumption!

outdoors and aftertastes

The best of Beijing's summer is to head outside and join the thousands who sit outside restaurants eating and drinking in the warmth. Restaurants become empty on the inside, cold beer sales rocket, streets become noisier and the litter collecting street sweepers get busier. Often in Beijing you will get 3-5 restaurants next to each other (and then none for ages), so its chaotic -but great.

Last weekend we went 1 step further. We trusted our lives to Leon (maybe we were drunk when we agreed to this, since he originally 'bought' his license, then learned how to drive afterwards) who hired a car and drove us (and some others who were in another van) north for some BBQ (chinese style, ie. meet/fish/vegetable kebabs on BBQs that are 2m long and only 4 inches wide) and fishing. I skipped the fishing to explore the local beach and lake (ie. sleep, listen to ipod and get a sandle-tan). The others caught tons of fish.. but since they were fishing in a fish pond it wasn't too tough!

Tonight i was a the 5th anniversary party of a Chinese newspaper that is under the Ministry of Civil Affairs (so focuses on social welfare stuff which is related to harmonius and sustainable development -my work). It was part official chinese (with rounds of toasting, and awful maotai/moutai which actually taskes like vodka but then 2 days later another taste appears) but mostly not very chinese. People weren't throwing name-cards around, the speeches were short, and the food wasn't as wasteful as usual. The night was actually a caberet-style. 100 of the 250 ppl were the newspaper employees and each department had to do a skit/song..some had practised for weeks.

Before their 'karaoke on a stage', there were some serious performed... boy bands, actresses and child orchestras. all very nice. not overly fancy -but enjoyable. topped off with the free gift of strange herbal teas that might have vitamins in but are made by a biological chemical company. Anyway, the chinese love their gifts (and their big, horrible, creamy birthday cakes!)

Its the end of 2 weeks of just normal work, and now its crazy mode again.. but its also the beginning of the week when I will find out what I will do in my next 6 months. ooh, exciting. happy children's day and happy-30-degrees-at-night-so-lets-use-the-air-conditioning-for-the-1st-time-day too!

a moment to relax

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/)

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.

Panoramic view of the gorge

panorama of the gorge
Originally uploaded by adam lane.

dragon escalator

dragon escalator
Originally uploaded by adam lane.

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!

Longqing gorge

gorge 15
Originally uploaded by adam lane.

Its often compared to Guilin in southern China, and here you can see why...

horses (with riders) on the grasslands

horses on the grasslands
Originally uploaded by adam lane.

this is the greenest picture I could take -you should see the others!

Suan, Adam and Kitty

Suan, Adam and Kitty
Originally uploaded by adam lane.

at the top of the mountain overlooking the gorge

the bunjee jump

the bunjee
Originally uploaded by adam lane.

50m above a river in a spectacular gogre in northern beijing

tiger in 100 flowers cave

tiger in cave
Originally uploaded by adam lane.

everything is fake...

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!

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!