Back from an exhilerating run this morning; where I ran past some ofthe most 'authentic' parts of Beijing I have ever seen. Rubbishlying around, chaos on the roads with bikes and cars being repairedall over the place and lots of people sitting around. Next time I'lltake some pictures, because it was great.
I subsequently watched 'Finding Neverland' -the (relatively true)story about JM Barrie, who wrote Peter Pan. I highly reccommend it.Last night was Ralph's 21st party; so I had my first visit to apizza buffet in China! Its AYCE (All You Can Eat) and a crossbetween western food (pizza, chips, chicken nuggets, ice cream etc)and chinese food too with beer and everything included. It was verypopular and I ate way too much (predictably), but enjoyed a lot ofthe food.
Earlier I had a traditional Peking Duck lunch and spent a few hoursat Yuanmingyuan -an old 'palace' that now lies in ruins, since itwas destroyed the Brits and French in 1860 (1st Opium War....when wegot Hong Kong from China). There were so many mentions of this, itgot extreme (the israelis and aussie i was with thought ithumourous...although i'm not sure where either of them would bewithout the brits! he he). As it was also designed in a europeanstlye the ruins looked a bit like Rome -very different to everythingelse in China that is all so Chinese! And the few colonial stylebuildings are either in perfect condition (renovated or exclusive)or been replaced by high-rises.
I've now suped-up my bike too :) Well, I replaced the old, tiny,seat post (so now I am more than a few inches off the ground) andgot the front brake installed. The result: a faster, more efficient,safer cyclist :). Cycling is such a joy here, and so much safer thenthe buses that deliberately slamn you around their 20 year oldinteriors that are generally so sparsely kitted out, its just apiece of wood or metal between your feet and the road.
I heard on the news today that Beijing has approved plans to installautomatic ticketing machines on the subway here! I never thoughtthat day would come. That move will create several thousandunemployed ticket sellers and ticket collectors, so its a brave,sensible move. Not sure when it will be finished by, but I guessbefore 2008 once the other 5 subway lines are completed.
Its school-trip time on tuesday! wow, its been SUCH a long timesince i went on one of them; at least 6 years. such fond memories.although it wasnt often that we went on a school trip to somethingcomparable to the Great Wall :) should be fun. we can continue ourbitching about the german girl who disrupts the class so by treatingthe teacher as a personal tutor!
any more news? i dont think so. did i mention that Mark who waspresident after Sarah (who was president after me) in AIESECManchester will be the new President of AIESEC UK? Its great thatwe've made such steady progress in the last 5 years since me and afew others started sorting AIESEC Manchester out. I'm so proud ofhim :)
today when i went running i wore shorts for the first time sinceoctober! not as hot as UK, but it might be almost 20 sometimeshere :) hopefully Spring is FINALLY here!!
Adam
Sunday, March 20, 2005
Saturday, March 12, 2005
oh, and....
and while the focus in on Africa, Blair, G8 etc, spare a though forthe ongoing disaster in Zimbabwe, which will just get worse at theirnext 'election':http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1521516,00.html
also, there are many other Human rights atrocities in Africaincluding the Congo...but noone seems to mention death as muchwhilst the World lauds Blair's economic Marshall Plan...
Zimbabwe is one of those things that REALLY annoys me; because it isis such a stupid waste...a case of 1 man turning a successfulcountry that was exporting excess food, into 1 that is as corrupt,chaotic, starving and as poor as any other in the World. SUCH BADLEADERSHIP! and what does the West do about that? If only they hadoil, he'd have gone a long time ago...
i feel better now :)
also, there are many other Human rights atrocities in Africaincluding the Congo...but noone seems to mention death as muchwhilst the World lauds Blair's economic Marshall Plan...
Zimbabwe is one of those things that REALLY annoys me; because it isis such a stupid waste...a case of 1 man turning a successfulcountry that was exporting excess food, into 1 that is as corrupt,chaotic, starving and as poor as any other in the World. SUCH BADLEADERSHIP! and what does the West do about that? If only they hadoil, he'd have gone a long time ago...
i feel better now :)
taiwan, strange students, dating chinese ppl, teaching, the BBC....
Some of you may have known that the BBC ran a special 'questiontime' in Shanghai with representatives from China's government whichincluded controversial topics about Taiwan etc.
I read about this from various sources. Notably the China Daily(offial, english language, state run media) commends how open thecountry is becoming about these issues and western media accessingthem. I find this very amusing, as the show was not shown in China,and the BBC is blocked in China, in all but the expensive hotels (orrich who have satellite TV). So its a great example of many things Ihave highlighted about China (controlling media, being open to somepeople but not to others, pretending so much) -I wonder if thechinese version of the paper mentioned the show at all?[http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-03/12/content_424237.htm]
So what's news with me? Last week I taught 4 evenings out of 6. Ipromptly then quite the company that provided 3 of them due to:
-kids being too young
-pointless teaching them English
-kids being uncontrollable in English (my chinese is bad)
-any serious attempt for me to teach them would require seriouspreparation and thought into designing games, communicating somehowand so on.
-travel time being around 30 minutes each time....based on all this, I am not being paid enought for it to beworthwhile at all. Anyway, the other job is great; kids are 8 yearsold, speak some english, I have a textbook to use, and its evenbased in a classroom. I'll continue to look for other opportunities!
I met an english girl at a party (dont see many of them around!),and she had taught english for her gap year (pre-uni) in a ruralpart of China, been proposed to by a chinese student of hers (whowas only a year younger) -the proposal was the same as 'asking outfor a date' as they hadn't been on a date yet, she accepted; wentback to uni, quit after 1 semester to start Uni in China instead,and now hopes he can get into Uni Beijing. wow, the things Love willdo (did she really know she would love him, having just taught/beena friend with him for a few months?). apparently her parents gotengaged after knowing each other for 10 days, so it must be a familything. Although she also said that every year at least 1 girl getsengaged, from the group that go to teach overseas through ProjectTrust (the ngo that she went with), and some even come backpregnant. YIKES!
Anyway, the fiancee is from one of the most remote, poorest placesin China (1 of the 100s of millions of chinese who have never lefttheir province, live in a 2 room hut with a fire..); so I am veryinterested as to how their relationship works (cultural differencesetc, although she speaks fluent chinese). I mention this due tosmall-scale past experience with Katy, but also from a couple ofother friends who have dated Turkish guys and others who have datedChinese guys and so on.
She's a nice girl, and I might help her and a friend start a newcharity on campus here to raise money from the (rich) foreigners tosend to help poor people with their education/health etc. She wantsto make it a national movement across all Unis here...nice idea :)
Other news is, and I could go on about this for a loooong time, I amabout ready to kill one of the girls in class; too many irrelevantquestions, too much talking, too bad a dress sense, too critical,grrr. Anyway, a bunch of us students met after class informally, andalso at dinner, to vent our feelings! Felt SOO good! enough of thatthough! the rest of the class are pretty cool; an american who wantsto get drunk (and get the teacher drunk too) in class -just becausehe thinks he can. He isn't here for the studying obviously! Also metsome Andorran who studied in UK and enjoys doing acid in theevenings and a french girl who got arrested last time she was inChina for almost killing a chinese man (who had been stalking her)with her high-heels!
so you meet all kinds here!!
did i mention how weird it is that China is talking about this 'anti-seccession' law with Taiwan and talking about reunification; yetclaims the country is already unified? Bizarrely claims Taiwan as aprovince yet classes its students here as 'international'...the listgoes on. Anyway, for those of you out there interested, the bestarticle i read yet was how this law will be a bad thing for China,because it will allow Taiwan to just look for loopholes in it and dothings that are 'according to the law', whilst going against thespirit of it (if there is no law, then anything against the idea canbe criticised). Also keep a look out for the development in the nextfew months of the EU arms laws being officialy relaxed to China, theconflicts this is causing with the US and so on. Taiwan shouldbecome a bigger issue in the western press I think. Long-run, lookout for signs that US-China cooperation is turning into US-Chinacompetition. From what I have read, the signs are all there forexplicit military and economic competition within the next 5 years.
Lets just hope its not another Cold War (I know noone has mentionedthis much in the press, but...) -I sincerely hope not!
Enjoy your Saturday night, wish England well :)
Adam
I read about this from various sources. Notably the China Daily(offial, english language, state run media) commends how open thecountry is becoming about these issues and western media accessingthem. I find this very amusing, as the show was not shown in China,and the BBC is blocked in China, in all but the expensive hotels (orrich who have satellite TV). So its a great example of many things Ihave highlighted about China (controlling media, being open to somepeople but not to others, pretending so much) -I wonder if thechinese version of the paper mentioned the show at all?[http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-03/12/content_424237.htm]
So what's news with me? Last week I taught 4 evenings out of 6. Ipromptly then quite the company that provided 3 of them due to:
-kids being too young
-pointless teaching them English
-kids being uncontrollable in English (my chinese is bad)
-any serious attempt for me to teach them would require seriouspreparation and thought into designing games, communicating somehowand so on.
-travel time being around 30 minutes each time....based on all this, I am not being paid enought for it to beworthwhile at all. Anyway, the other job is great; kids are 8 yearsold, speak some english, I have a textbook to use, and its evenbased in a classroom. I'll continue to look for other opportunities!
I met an english girl at a party (dont see many of them around!),and she had taught english for her gap year (pre-uni) in a ruralpart of China, been proposed to by a chinese student of hers (whowas only a year younger) -the proposal was the same as 'asking outfor a date' as they hadn't been on a date yet, she accepted; wentback to uni, quit after 1 semester to start Uni in China instead,and now hopes he can get into Uni Beijing. wow, the things Love willdo (did she really know she would love him, having just taught/beena friend with him for a few months?). apparently her parents gotengaged after knowing each other for 10 days, so it must be a familything. Although she also said that every year at least 1 girl getsengaged, from the group that go to teach overseas through ProjectTrust (the ngo that she went with), and some even come backpregnant. YIKES!
Anyway, the fiancee is from one of the most remote, poorest placesin China (1 of the 100s of millions of chinese who have never lefttheir province, live in a 2 room hut with a fire..); so I am veryinterested as to how their relationship works (cultural differencesetc, although she speaks fluent chinese). I mention this due tosmall-scale past experience with Katy, but also from a couple ofother friends who have dated Turkish guys and others who have datedChinese guys and so on.
She's a nice girl, and I might help her and a friend start a newcharity on campus here to raise money from the (rich) foreigners tosend to help poor people with their education/health etc. She wantsto make it a national movement across all Unis here...nice idea :)
Other news is, and I could go on about this for a loooong time, I amabout ready to kill one of the girls in class; too many irrelevantquestions, too much talking, too bad a dress sense, too critical,grrr. Anyway, a bunch of us students met after class informally, andalso at dinner, to vent our feelings! Felt SOO good! enough of thatthough! the rest of the class are pretty cool; an american who wantsto get drunk (and get the teacher drunk too) in class -just becausehe thinks he can. He isn't here for the studying obviously! Also metsome Andorran who studied in UK and enjoys doing acid in theevenings and a french girl who got arrested last time she was inChina for almost killing a chinese man (who had been stalking her)with her high-heels!
so you meet all kinds here!!
did i mention how weird it is that China is talking about this 'anti-seccession' law with Taiwan and talking about reunification; yetclaims the country is already unified? Bizarrely claims Taiwan as aprovince yet classes its students here as 'international'...the listgoes on. Anyway, for those of you out there interested, the bestarticle i read yet was how this law will be a bad thing for China,because it will allow Taiwan to just look for loopholes in it and dothings that are 'according to the law', whilst going against thespirit of it (if there is no law, then anything against the idea canbe criticised). Also keep a look out for the development in the nextfew months of the EU arms laws being officialy relaxed to China, theconflicts this is causing with the US and so on. Taiwan shouldbecome a bigger issue in the western press I think. Long-run, lookout for signs that US-China cooperation is turning into US-Chinacompetition. From what I have read, the signs are all there forexplicit military and economic competition within the next 5 years.
Lets just hope its not another Cold War (I know noone has mentionedthis much in the press, but...) -I sincerely hope not!
Enjoy your Saturday night, wish England well :)
Adam
Sunday, March 06, 2005
more on bikes, teaching
Well I've now done a few trips by bike, and covered a few differentring roads and many miles. I have learnt:
-that you have to pay to park your bike! In busy areas, thereare 'bike parks' (not very obvious, just more bikes than usual) anda government employee watches over them (for theft) and you pay them(not much). I finally clicked when 1 lady chased me a bit down theroad when i didnt pay her (I didnt know why she wanted money, andhad never seen anyone else paying before!)
-that the ring roads are fantastically designed, and its generallyvery safe and efficient to cycle in the bike lanes alongisde them
-that I will cycle everywhere at anytime, in any state ;) (wellmaybe not in ANY state). Its like being back in Manchester again!
I've also done my first teaching job and learnt:
-preparing lesson plans helps if you know more about the targetclass!
-the internet has lots of useful resources
-teaching kids in a living room is not so easy
-teaching kids who have their parents with them is not so easy
-teaching chinese 3 year olds who speak no english is also not toeasy (for 2 hours!)
-this job required huge amounts of effort and energy since most kidswere cycling round the room, ignoring me or too shy to do much; andwhat the parents wanted was just fun and games (why pay for anenglish person to do that?).
-kids are good at reciting words, if you give them fancy stickers asrewards and chocolate!
anyway, probably wont teach such young kids again (too far away & ona saturday), but will teach some older kids (teach, not just play!!)
It does seem to genuinely be getting a bit warmer (no coat today,but i was warm cycling); and my chinese has progressed ever soslightly. But as I have a test tomorrow, I will post more later!!
adam
-that you have to pay to park your bike! In busy areas, thereare 'bike parks' (not very obvious, just more bikes than usual) anda government employee watches over them (for theft) and you pay them(not much). I finally clicked when 1 lady chased me a bit down theroad when i didnt pay her (I didnt know why she wanted money, andhad never seen anyone else paying before!)
-that the ring roads are fantastically designed, and its generallyvery safe and efficient to cycle in the bike lanes alongisde them
-that I will cycle everywhere at anytime, in any state ;) (wellmaybe not in ANY state). Its like being back in Manchester again!
I've also done my first teaching job and learnt:
-preparing lesson plans helps if you know more about the targetclass!
-the internet has lots of useful resources
-teaching kids in a living room is not so easy
-teaching kids who have their parents with them is not so easy
-teaching chinese 3 year olds who speak no english is also not toeasy (for 2 hours!)
-this job required huge amounts of effort and energy since most kidswere cycling round the room, ignoring me or too shy to do much; andwhat the parents wanted was just fun and games (why pay for anenglish person to do that?).
-kids are good at reciting words, if you give them fancy stickers asrewards and chocolate!
anyway, probably wont teach such young kids again (too far away & ona saturday), but will teach some older kids (teach, not just play!!)
It does seem to genuinely be getting a bit warmer (no coat today,but i was warm cycling); and my chinese has progressed ever soslightly. But as I have a test tomorrow, I will post more later!!
adam
Thursday, March 03, 2005
human rights...
just wanted to mention another very interesting story i read:
"China lashes out at serious US human rights violations"http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-03/03/content_421497.htm
Compare the US's opinion on human rights in China:http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/index.htm =indexhttp://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41640.htm =china page Ithink...but ironically, it is blocked from China ...if someone couldaccess it and email it to me, that would be much appreciated!!!!
with China's opinion on human rights in the US:http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-03/03/content_421420.htm
i'd appreciate also being emailed the US's report on human rights inthe UK...as that is also blocked here (??)
i won't make any comments as my opinion, but wanted to mention thisissue and show you what china's stance is as you can read theofficial english language paper's news story on it.
I could write a lot about human rights in china, but won't. Wellactually I will mention that I read 200 people were executed inChina in the week before Chinese New Year, which is higher thanusual apparently (its usually over 100 a week!)..compared to only 59executions in the whole of 2004 in the whole of the US.
Adam
"China has executed more people in the past three months than therest of the world in the past three years, says AmnestyInternational."news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/1425570.stm
again, i can't read this, since the BBC is banned, and so isAmnesty's website!
"China lashes out at serious US human rights violations"http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-03/03/content_421497.htm
Compare the US's opinion on human rights in China:http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/index.htm =indexhttp://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41640.htm =china page Ithink...but ironically, it is blocked from China ...if someone couldaccess it and email it to me, that would be much appreciated!!!!
with China's opinion on human rights in the US:http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-03/03/content_421420.htm
i'd appreciate also being emailed the US's report on human rights inthe UK...as that is also blocked here (??)
i won't make any comments as my opinion, but wanted to mention thisissue and show you what china's stance is as you can read theofficial english language paper's news story on it.
I could write a lot about human rights in china, but won't. Wellactually I will mention that I read 200 people were executed inChina in the week before Chinese New Year, which is higher thanusual apparently (its usually over 100 a week!)..compared to only 59executions in the whole of 2004 in the whole of the US.
Adam
"China has executed more people in the past three months than therest of the world in the past three years, says AmnestyInternational."news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/1425570.stm
again, i can't read this, since the BBC is banned, and so isAmnesty's website!
bikes, studying, jobs...
hey'all
so what's news? 3 classes are done (80 odd more to go!), and I feelok -my tones are not
good still, but my vocab feels quite good(well, i have been here 6 months longer than the rest of the class!)and i now think i know maybe 5 characters. I have realised I have tospend a lot of time writing characters in order to learn to bothwrite and read them, and I also need to up the revision on thevocab :((
and i was just starting to enjoy the DVD player/TV too! I willprobably have a job lined up by next week, teaching english to some6 or 8 year old kids for 4 hours a week (earning about 8-10 poundsan hour) -it seems like the perfect job, close by, well paid andlots of fun just talking to kids, so no preparation really required.
today i finally joined the ranks of the 'cyclist' in Beijing. Ittook a while; as i finally bothered to ask Flic for her bike, andthen get both puntures fixed. Then on a ride home, at 11.45pm, theback tyre went flat again -i guess the guy had not removed the thingthat caused the puncture in the first place :( Then i got anotherguy to fix it, but he only pumped it up, thinking that would fixit..? anyway, it didn't, cause it promptly went flat again, so theni forced him to fix the puncture and check the tyre to removeanything in it....and now it works :)
I must look an idiot by western standards -but typical by chinesestandards. why? the bike is a) female, b) too small for me c) almostprehistoric (no gears, but there are 2 brakes thankfully!). its notmade my life much faster (1 gear, lots of traffic and a need to beVERY careful when cycling = not very fast), but its fun and relaxingand some kind of exercise, and i feel more chinese...thanks Flic :D
The food in the canteen here is great; i normally splash out for 50pence for a cooked meal of 2 dishes + rice. i have a routine now andeverything (including breakfast on the way to uni for 15 pence) asuni is all morning, afternoons is revision and/or aiesec work andevneings will be working (paid) or revision or DVD or party. Its anice life and there are millions of people who i'm befriending in myclass (of 13-16 people) and all the other classes, and all thefriends/roommates of everyone else.
Tell you what, I do feel poor, now all the students have descendedflashing their euros and dollars around (canadian, aussie and US);but after 6 months, you learn to live with being thrifty...althoughits kinda pathetic hunting down cheaper food brands or supermarketsfor the sake of a few pennies. most of the non-asian students havefound accommodation such as: a cheap hotel for the whole semester,an appartment similar to those the expats live in, homestays or ifthey live in the dorms, they have gone for the expensive rooms andoccasionally paid for both people! yikes, we are all so spoilt!
today i realised that in the best University in China they sell beerin the canteens -and that the big 600ml bottles are cheaper than the330ml cans (?? -it might be because the uni can get money bacm fromrecylcing the bottles, whereas noone recycles cans as much). I alsorealised that me being tone deaf (as you all very well know) is nothelping me pronounce my tones. I learned that some of theuniversities here are fantastic, with facilities and the right kindof attitude that puts my (ex-) university to shame. I also askedwhat the chinese version of my surname is (my first name is thesame -adam, but said ya(3rd tone)dam(1st tone)). It seems it is Lay-en (phonetics) which might mean thunderstorms (first word) and aperson who is kind and give things to other people (second word).Not too bad, I think. So I'm getting some new name cards made upwith my chinese name on too (i need more).
that's almost it for now, except for a comment on Gordon Brown'svisit to China..although it seems he was praised for realisingChina's economic importance, I still totally think that the westunderestimates China, and really has no clue about China; so littleabout it is known, and that which is seems to be from some oldhistory class, or to be related to words like communism whichprovoke images of china that are inaccurate. This is summed up bythe fact I am yet to meet a bitish person studying at my Uni (theremust be some!) but plenty from most other countries. anyway, i guessjust me being in china makes you a bit more aware of anything in thenews that cops up about it, so keep on reading (especially about thenew issue of the Hong Kong governor being replaced and the reasonsabout this...which also leads to discussions in the papers aboutdemocracy in hong kong).
enjoy your weekend -I will be off to a party in my old appartment -the office! yay where I will also meet the new German guy who is SOfortunate to have my bed in the corner of the office, he he.
Adam
so what's news? 3 classes are done (80 odd more to go!), and I feelok -my tones are not
good still, but my vocab feels quite good(well, i have been here 6 months longer than the rest of the class!)and i now think i know maybe 5 characters. I have realised I have tospend a lot of time writing characters in order to learn to bothwrite and read them, and I also need to up the revision on thevocab :((
and i was just starting to enjoy the DVD player/TV too! I willprobably have a job lined up by next week, teaching english to some6 or 8 year old kids for 4 hours a week (earning about 8-10 poundsan hour) -it seems like the perfect job, close by, well paid andlots of fun just talking to kids, so no preparation really required.
today i finally joined the ranks of the 'cyclist' in Beijing. Ittook a while; as i finally bothered to ask Flic for her bike, andthen get both puntures fixed. Then on a ride home, at 11.45pm, theback tyre went flat again -i guess the guy had not removed the thingthat caused the puncture in the first place :( Then i got anotherguy to fix it, but he only pumped it up, thinking that would fixit..? anyway, it didn't, cause it promptly went flat again, so theni forced him to fix the puncture and check the tyre to removeanything in it....and now it works :)
I must look an idiot by western standards -but typical by chinesestandards. why? the bike is a) female, b) too small for me c) almostprehistoric (no gears, but there are 2 brakes thankfully!). its notmade my life much faster (1 gear, lots of traffic and a need to beVERY careful when cycling = not very fast), but its fun and relaxingand some kind of exercise, and i feel more chinese...thanks Flic :D
The food in the canteen here is great; i normally splash out for 50pence for a cooked meal of 2 dishes + rice. i have a routine now andeverything (including breakfast on the way to uni for 15 pence) asuni is all morning, afternoons is revision and/or aiesec work andevneings will be working (paid) or revision or DVD or party. Its anice life and there are millions of people who i'm befriending in myclass (of 13-16 people) and all the other classes, and all thefriends/roommates of everyone else.
Tell you what, I do feel poor, now all the students have descendedflashing their euros and dollars around (canadian, aussie and US);but after 6 months, you learn to live with being thrifty...althoughits kinda pathetic hunting down cheaper food brands or supermarketsfor the sake of a few pennies. most of the non-asian students havefound accommodation such as: a cheap hotel for the whole semester,an appartment similar to those the expats live in, homestays or ifthey live in the dorms, they have gone for the expensive rooms andoccasionally paid for both people! yikes, we are all so spoilt!
today i realised that in the best University in China they sell beerin the canteens -and that the big 600ml bottles are cheaper than the330ml cans (?? -it might be because the uni can get money bacm fromrecylcing the bottles, whereas noone recycles cans as much). I alsorealised that me being tone deaf (as you all very well know) is nothelping me pronounce my tones. I learned that some of theuniversities here are fantastic, with facilities and the right kindof attitude that puts my (ex-) university to shame. I also askedwhat the chinese version of my surname is (my first name is thesame -adam, but said ya(3rd tone)dam(1st tone)). It seems it is Lay-en (phonetics) which might mean thunderstorms (first word) and aperson who is kind and give things to other people (second word).Not too bad, I think. So I'm getting some new name cards made upwith my chinese name on too (i need more).
that's almost it for now, except for a comment on Gordon Brown'svisit to China..although it seems he was praised for realisingChina's economic importance, I still totally think that the westunderestimates China, and really has no clue about China; so littleabout it is known, and that which is seems to be from some oldhistory class, or to be related to words like communism whichprovoke images of china that are inaccurate. This is summed up bythe fact I am yet to meet a bitish person studying at my Uni (theremust be some!) but plenty from most other countries. anyway, i guessjust me being in china makes you a bit more aware of anything in thenews that cops up about it, so keep on reading (especially about thenew issue of the Hong Kong governor being replaced and the reasonsabout this...which also leads to discussions in the papers aboutdemocracy in hong kong).
enjoy your weekend -I will be off to a party in my old appartment -the office! yay where I will also meet the new German guy who is SOfortunate to have my bed in the corner of the office, he he.
Adam
Sunday, February 27, 2005
new photos, old stories...
hello
now i have internet in my room (and its actually quite fast ADSL), Ihave uploaded lots and lots of photos to the website:http://www.imagestation.com/member/?name=adamlane
You have to register to enter, but its free and its Sony, so youshoulfnt get millions of junk emails. There are loads of albumsthere (22), I have resroted them a bit too, and the ones that havebeen added of note are:
-Chinese New Year (see some pictures of dragon dancing and redlanterns everywhere!)
-BJTourist-blackbamboo park
-Tianjin
-random socials
-appartment
-holiday (see my lovely family in these pictures too!) includingspectacular Yangshuo
Below I have copied the interesting article that I read about ZhaoZiyang who died earlier this year. I mentioned it a bit in Januaryso won't go on, but I did realise forgot to copy the article. Formore information, even better (longer) articles are here:http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/GA29Ad03.html
Anyway, what is most interesting is that I can access these articleshere, when from reading them, you would think that China would wantthem banned...the answer i am sure is that they are in english soruling out most of china from reading them.
On other matters, Thursday morning was a test to establish mychinese level (very low -short test!), friday night I went to theAustralian Chamber weekly drinks (and suffered pom jokes) withRalph, and tuesday lessons start for real :)
Now I'm off to watch a video of poor schoolkids in the westernprovince of Yunnan, that a friend filmed as part of a schoolproject -she showed the film in shanghai to friends.fmaily etc inorder to raise money to pay for the education of the kids. She isgoing back in October, so if I am still here, I hope to go with (wehave to apply for permission, and be accompanied by a local povertyalleviation officer, but she thinks I will be allowed) -veryexciting!
Enjoy the weekend, from sunny (yet with ice still lying everywhere!)Beijing
Adam
Farewell to a righteous official
Zhao Ziyang is dead and buried, but the memory of Tiananmen Squareremains very much alive
Isabel Hilton
Saturday January 29, 2005 The Guardian
It took 12 days of hard bargaining, but today there will at last bea funeral at Babaoshan, the cemetery for China's senior leaders, forthe disgraced Zhao Ziyang who died on January 17. Family and friendswill be permitted to attend and, after days of confrontation, it isreportedly agreed that the Communist party's negative assessment ofZhao Ziyang's life will not be rammed down the throats of hisgrieving circle until after the funeral. Even in death, Zhao, theman disgraced for trying to save the students in Tiananmen Square in1989, offers a reproach to Beijing's ruling elite.
Before Jack Straw's visit to China, the Foreign Office tried hard topersuade us that the EU's desire to lift the arms embargo on Chinawas a simple, practical matter with no wider resonance. The embargo,their argument went, is ineffective, and EU rules would bettercontrol Beijing's access to lethal weaponry.
That remains to be tested. But the argument neglects the symbolicvalue of the gesture. To lift an arms embargo imposed after themassacre of Chinese citizens by their government in Tiananmen Squareis to announce to China that the episode is over and done with. Thatwould please Beijing's rulers. But as their reaction to ZhaoZiyang's death demonstrates, they themselves believe that Tiananmenis far from over.
It is difficult to pull off the modernisation of a society ascomplex as China's without relaxing authoritarian controls. Socialdevelopment demands enough freedom to permit talent and enterpriseto flourish. Political stability requires a population inclined totrust its government and share its goals.
In the People's Republic it is far from clear that people trusttheir government. There is a muscular patriotism, Maoism's lastideological legacy. But China is in the throes of a profoundtransition and its people have every historical reason to be wary.For the last decade the majority has generally accepted the bargainof political acquiescence in return for rising living standards.Even so, rebellious minorities continually break through. It isclear from the events around Zhao's death that Beijing fears thatdisaffection and the potential for trouble are even more widespreadthan the visible protests that take place daily suggest.
Beijing routinely suppresses news of civic protest, fearful thatstrikes and demonstrations might coalesce into something moreorganised. They feared that Zhao Ziyang's death might galvanise justsuch a movement. Its explosive potential rests in a culturalarchetype - that of the righteous official, whom tradition suggestsis as powerful a focus of loyalty as the figure of the oppressiveemperor.
A righteous official, in Chinese history and mythology, risks hislife to stand up for justice against the tyrant. His symbolic valueat moments of political crisis is immense.
The opening shots of the Cultural Revolution in the early 60scentred on a play that honoured a righteous Ming dynasty official.The play was understood by Mao to be a coded attack on himself fordisgracing Peng Dehuai, whose crime had been to blame Mao, rightly,for causing the death by starvation of about 30 million Chinese.When Zhou Enlai - who was remembered, rightly or wrongly, fordefending several of Mao's victims - died, and the Maoist hardlinerstried to bury him without due honours, the crowds erupted inTiananmen Square. When Hu Yaobang - who had been disgraced in 1987for sympathising with democratic reform - died in 1989, it was thesignal for the occupation of the square by pro-democracy protesters.That episode ended in the massacre Zhao is credited with trying toprevent. Hence the explosive potential of his memory.
There are ironies in this succession of names: Zhao helped to toppleHu Yaobang, two years before he himself was toppled. But the idea ofthe righteous official does not represent a coherent movement oreven a rigorous view of history. Its power lies in the symbolism ofa moment when a man stands up for what he believes to be right,regardless of the consequences.
Despite China's facade of modernity, the battle over memory andhistory runs as deep as ever. Today's leaders know that they are thebeneficiaries of economic reforms that Zhao Ziyang pioneered in the70s, but to honour him officially for helping to lay the foundationsof today's market-driven growth would demand a reassessment of thepolitics of his disgrace. In 1989, for his opposition to the use offorce, Zhao was accused of trying to split the party, a crimegreater in the bureaucrats' eyes than the murder of an unknownnumber of citizens.
To rehabilitate him posthumously is unthinkable as long as JiangZemin, chief beneficiary of Zhao's disgrace, is still alive, and themen he chose are still in charge. Even to discuss it risks openingup a festering wound - hence the close surveillance extended sinceZhao's death to his family, friends and anyone suspected of sympathyfor him. Yet not to face it means that the wound continues tofester. Whatever the EU apologists argue, the subject is far fromover.
• Isabel Hilton is the author of The Search for the Panchen Lamaisabel.hilton@guardian.co.uk
now i have internet in my room (and its actually quite fast ADSL), Ihave uploaded lots and lots of photos to the website:http://www.imagestation.com/member/?name=adamlane
You have to register to enter, but its free and its Sony, so youshoulfnt get millions of junk emails. There are loads of albumsthere (22), I have resroted them a bit too, and the ones that havebeen added of note are:
-Chinese New Year (see some pictures of dragon dancing and redlanterns everywhere!)
-BJTourist-blackbamboo park
-Tianjin
-random socials
-appartment
-holiday (see my lovely family in these pictures too!) includingspectacular Yangshuo
Below I have copied the interesting article that I read about ZhaoZiyang who died earlier this year. I mentioned it a bit in Januaryso won't go on, but I did realise forgot to copy the article. Formore information, even better (longer) articles are here:http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/GA29Ad03.html
Anyway, what is most interesting is that I can access these articleshere, when from reading them, you would think that China would wantthem banned...the answer i am sure is that they are in english soruling out most of china from reading them.
On other matters, Thursday morning was a test to establish mychinese level (very low -short test!), friday night I went to theAustralian Chamber weekly drinks (and suffered pom jokes) withRalph, and tuesday lessons start for real :)
Now I'm off to watch a video of poor schoolkids in the westernprovince of Yunnan, that a friend filmed as part of a schoolproject -she showed the film in shanghai to friends.fmaily etc inorder to raise money to pay for the education of the kids. She isgoing back in October, so if I am still here, I hope to go with (wehave to apply for permission, and be accompanied by a local povertyalleviation officer, but she thinks I will be allowed) -veryexciting!
Enjoy the weekend, from sunny (yet with ice still lying everywhere!)Beijing
Adam
Farewell to a righteous official
Zhao Ziyang is dead and buried, but the memory of Tiananmen Squareremains very much alive
Isabel Hilton
Saturday January 29, 2005 The Guardian
It took 12 days of hard bargaining, but today there will at last bea funeral at Babaoshan, the cemetery for China's senior leaders, forthe disgraced Zhao Ziyang who died on January 17. Family and friendswill be permitted to attend and, after days of confrontation, it isreportedly agreed that the Communist party's negative assessment ofZhao Ziyang's life will not be rammed down the throats of hisgrieving circle until after the funeral. Even in death, Zhao, theman disgraced for trying to save the students in Tiananmen Square in1989, offers a reproach to Beijing's ruling elite.
Before Jack Straw's visit to China, the Foreign Office tried hard topersuade us that the EU's desire to lift the arms embargo on Chinawas a simple, practical matter with no wider resonance. The embargo,their argument went, is ineffective, and EU rules would bettercontrol Beijing's access to lethal weaponry.
That remains to be tested. But the argument neglects the symbolicvalue of the gesture. To lift an arms embargo imposed after themassacre of Chinese citizens by their government in Tiananmen Squareis to announce to China that the episode is over and done with. Thatwould please Beijing's rulers. But as their reaction to ZhaoZiyang's death demonstrates, they themselves believe that Tiananmenis far from over.
It is difficult to pull off the modernisation of a society ascomplex as China's without relaxing authoritarian controls. Socialdevelopment demands enough freedom to permit talent and enterpriseto flourish. Political stability requires a population inclined totrust its government and share its goals.
In the People's Republic it is far from clear that people trusttheir government. There is a muscular patriotism, Maoism's lastideological legacy. But China is in the throes of a profoundtransition and its people have every historical reason to be wary.For the last decade the majority has generally accepted the bargainof political acquiescence in return for rising living standards.Even so, rebellious minorities continually break through. It isclear from the events around Zhao's death that Beijing fears thatdisaffection and the potential for trouble are even more widespreadthan the visible protests that take place daily suggest.
Beijing routinely suppresses news of civic protest, fearful thatstrikes and demonstrations might coalesce into something moreorganised. They feared that Zhao Ziyang's death might galvanise justsuch a movement. Its explosive potential rests in a culturalarchetype - that of the righteous official, whom tradition suggestsis as powerful a focus of loyalty as the figure of the oppressiveemperor.
A righteous official, in Chinese history and mythology, risks hislife to stand up for justice against the tyrant. His symbolic valueat moments of political crisis is immense.
The opening shots of the Cultural Revolution in the early 60scentred on a play that honoured a righteous Ming dynasty official.The play was understood by Mao to be a coded attack on himself fordisgracing Peng Dehuai, whose crime had been to blame Mao, rightly,for causing the death by starvation of about 30 million Chinese.When Zhou Enlai - who was remembered, rightly or wrongly, fordefending several of Mao's victims - died, and the Maoist hardlinerstried to bury him without due honours, the crowds erupted inTiananmen Square. When Hu Yaobang - who had been disgraced in 1987for sympathising with democratic reform - died in 1989, it was thesignal for the occupation of the square by pro-democracy protesters.That episode ended in the massacre Zhao is credited with trying toprevent. Hence the explosive potential of his memory.
There are ironies in this succession of names: Zhao helped to toppleHu Yaobang, two years before he himself was toppled. But the idea ofthe righteous official does not represent a coherent movement oreven a rigorous view of history. Its power lies in the symbolism ofa moment when a man stands up for what he believes to be right,regardless of the consequences.
Despite China's facade of modernity, the battle over memory andhistory runs as deep as ever. Today's leaders know that they are thebeneficiaries of economic reforms that Zhao Ziyang pioneered in the70s, but to honour him officially for helping to lay the foundationsof today's market-driven growth would demand a reassessment of thepolitics of his disgrace. In 1989, for his opposition to the use offorce, Zhao was accused of trying to split the party, a crimegreater in the bureaucrats' eyes than the murder of an unknownnumber of citizens.
To rehabilitate him posthumously is unthinkable as long as JiangZemin, chief beneficiary of Zhao's disgrace, is still alive, and themen he chose are still in charge. Even to discuss it risks openingup a festering wound - hence the close surveillance extended sinceZhao's death to his family, friends and anyone suspected of sympathyfor him. Yet not to face it means that the wound continues tofester. Whatever the EU apologists argue, the subject is far fromover.
• Isabel Hilton is the author of The Search for the Panchen Lamaisabel.hilton@guardian.co.uk
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
student, new year reflections...update
So I am in the University computer lab writing this email! wow, itsbeen a while since i was here. I've paid my tuition fees, got mystudent card and therefore enrolled as Adam Lane, Chiense name isjust 'yadam'. fortunately there are few translation issues for myname, as I can just use the chinese translation of Adam (from Adamand Eve). Other people have more issues. For example, if i had triedto translate my surname i either have to find something in chinesethat sounds similar, and then it could mean anything, or translateinto 'little street'(=xiao lu) or something.
I am moving tonight :), I have a Chinese test on thursday morning(8am!!) so they can decide exactly what class to put me in (beginnersfor sure, despite my few hundred words) and then start classesproperly next tuesday.
Actually AIESEC work has been a bit slow since the new year festival,but it gets more exciting now I will just arrange and go to importantmeetings, whilst coordinating my team of 6 local AIESEC students. Sotomorrow we will get confirmation from Shell on how they want tosponsor us, next week I meet the head of something similar to the IODI think (Insitute of Directors), and will also be meeting a goodfriend from the IBLF -International Business Leaders Forum (he isinviting us to the launch of the China BLF, which is very exciting).So I am looking forward to my part-time AIESEC work.
New Year is almost over; and it was maybe a little less exciting thani anticipated because so many people all go home to spend time withtheir families. Whereas in New York or London Chinatowns, there is ahigh concentration of chinese people with lots of festivities and notflying home to be with their families. I also don't think that newyear here is that commercial. There is the market for decorations andthings, but nothing really around presents (kids, and sometimes otherfriends/family tend to get the little red envelopes with money insometimes), no expensive restaurant packages for new year (orclubbing nights for that matter)- apart from those for expats, and soon. In Beijing anyway, most of the festivities took place in thesetemple fairs, which are great, but its not quite street paradeseveryday or anything (for some reason i had this idea in my mind fromsome movies...maybe its different in hong kong or other cities).
On another of my rare runs i discovered this amazing park that is notin the tourist guides (but is on the map, thankfully!) with lots ofbamboo, rock gardens -as in gardens with carved rock formations andso on (seems to be a chinese/japanese thing), and it was just verypretty all covered in snow.
Still not been to KTV yet (maybe this weekend), but instead ahve beento Banana, a club where western women get surrounded by chinese menwithin seconds, and where westerners generally don't seem to frequentmuch. Its kinda upmarket, with rich kids boozing bottles of whiskeyor renting private rooms. It had a very cool dance floor that bouncedthough. Strangely at 1.30am, they stopped the music and on the 1stfloor, a lady popped onto a stage/balcony to sing ballads/opera for20 minutes -I've never seen that before.
I also forgot to mention how drunk i got on something similar tomulled wine on friday night, which led to some strange pictures andsome strange memories or trapsing around sanlitun for a long timeacting like drunk idiots with Sam (well we were both drunk idiots tobe fair). I do remember the restaurant staff staring at us a lot, andi do think we were the last in the restaurant. anyway, it was greatfun :))
better run,
Adios
Adam
I am moving tonight :), I have a Chinese test on thursday morning(8am!!) so they can decide exactly what class to put me in (beginnersfor sure, despite my few hundred words) and then start classesproperly next tuesday.
Actually AIESEC work has been a bit slow since the new year festival,but it gets more exciting now I will just arrange and go to importantmeetings, whilst coordinating my team of 6 local AIESEC students. Sotomorrow we will get confirmation from Shell on how they want tosponsor us, next week I meet the head of something similar to the IODI think (Insitute of Directors), and will also be meeting a goodfriend from the IBLF -International Business Leaders Forum (he isinviting us to the launch of the China BLF, which is very exciting).So I am looking forward to my part-time AIESEC work.
New Year is almost over; and it was maybe a little less exciting thani anticipated because so many people all go home to spend time withtheir families. Whereas in New York or London Chinatowns, there is ahigh concentration of chinese people with lots of festivities and notflying home to be with their families. I also don't think that newyear here is that commercial. There is the market for decorations andthings, but nothing really around presents (kids, and sometimes otherfriends/family tend to get the little red envelopes with money insometimes), no expensive restaurant packages for new year (orclubbing nights for that matter)- apart from those for expats, and soon. In Beijing anyway, most of the festivities took place in thesetemple fairs, which are great, but its not quite street paradeseveryday or anything (for some reason i had this idea in my mind fromsome movies...maybe its different in hong kong or other cities).
On another of my rare runs i discovered this amazing park that is notin the tourist guides (but is on the map, thankfully!) with lots ofbamboo, rock gardens -as in gardens with carved rock formations andso on (seems to be a chinese/japanese thing), and it was just verypretty all covered in snow.
Still not been to KTV yet (maybe this weekend), but instead ahve beento Banana, a club where western women get surrounded by chinese menwithin seconds, and where westerners generally don't seem to frequentmuch. Its kinda upmarket, with rich kids boozing bottles of whiskeyor renting private rooms. It had a very cool dance floor that bouncedthough. Strangely at 1.30am, they stopped the music and on the 1stfloor, a lady popped onto a stage/balcony to sing ballads/opera for20 minutes -I've never seen that before.
I also forgot to mention how drunk i got on something similar tomulled wine on friday night, which led to some strange pictures andsome strange memories or trapsing around sanlitun for a long timeacting like drunk idiots with Sam (well we were both drunk idiots tobe fair). I do remember the restaurant staff staring at us a lot, andi do think we were the last in the restaurant. anyway, it was greatfun :))
better run,
Adios
Adam
Friday, February 18, 2005
snow, tianjin, valentines....
I strated snowing again! In fact it has snowed on and off for the lastfew days making Beijing look pretty again. I noticed a downside lastnight is that it means 'night-time' is much brighter wiht more lightreflecting off the snow...this affects me because i don't have anycurtains :) Actually it doesn't really affect me at all, cause i stillsleep well, but its a random observation to start the the email with!
We went to Tianjin on Wednesday, which is one of the fast growingcities 90 minutes from Beijing. Its very nice; it was also (likeShanghai) one of the early port cities opened up for foreignconcessions after the british and other colonial powers kept beatingChina in the opium wars in the 19th century. Actually mostly thebritish were to blame -they were making lots of money selling opium(the drug) to China, which was grown in the Indian sub-continent). TheChinese realised it was having some negative effects, and bannedit..hence the British attacked! It led to several port cities beingopened up for trade, and different countries had different 'concessionareas' in those cities. Thats a brief history lesson for you (therewas actually 2 opium wars!).
Anyway its nice -not as built up as Beijing or Shanghai, but muchbetter planned, less tall buildings and lots of nice old colonialbuildings (thankfully they are protected by the city). There was anamazing street which was traditional chinese selling traditionalchinese things (I'll upload the photos eventually), and we had Tianjindumplings (kind of a speciality, but dumplings are eaten all overChina!) from the most famous place in Tianjin. Amusingly we ate themin a cheap place opposite the road, but they went and bought thedumplings from the fancy restaurant as take-away (for a special request)!!
On Monday, it was Valentines Day, so me and Flic made a little bit ofeffort; splashed out on Dominos pizza, drank some wine left lyingaround, had some fancy Marks & Spencers chocolates (left over from myparents visiting) and watched friends all night! there's no love thereof course, but it was still fun, and less depresing being single ;) hehe. (ok, i'll admit it was all my idea, flic doesn't mind being single).
China celebrate Valentines Day in quite a big way, but this year itwas during the week-long new year holiday, so actually it was quitesubdued, but still there were hearts everywhere, and special deals atthe hotels etc. I read an article about western festivals beingcelebrated in china...are they affecting chinese culture? Anyway,seeing as china has so much culture and history and all the westernfestivals are basically just based on pure commericalism, i dont thinktherei s much to worry about. Remember, christmas here is of noreligious significance, apart from about 10 million christians in thewhole country, so people celebrate it just for an excuse to see theirfamily and buy decorations etc!
Other things of note...I ate at a Hakka restaurant (a minority group)which was nice...downloaded the new MSN messenger (v.7 beta) so i canhave fun winking and nudging people (so sad!)...bought 4 fantastic CDsfor 1 Euro equivalent (a bargain, even for China!) -counting crows,norah jones, alfie and bond...haven't been running because of the iceand thus feel unfit...got depressed reading about how bad england areat rugby now...bought a Union Jack (well 2 actually, a small one toleave in the office and a big one for special occasions!)...woke uplast night with a shock as the A0 world map on the wall by my bedcollapsed on me.
For now, ta-ta
adam
We went to Tianjin on Wednesday, which is one of the fast growingcities 90 minutes from Beijing. Its very nice; it was also (likeShanghai) one of the early port cities opened up for foreignconcessions after the british and other colonial powers kept beatingChina in the opium wars in the 19th century. Actually mostly thebritish were to blame -they were making lots of money selling opium(the drug) to China, which was grown in the Indian sub-continent). TheChinese realised it was having some negative effects, and bannedit..hence the British attacked! It led to several port cities beingopened up for trade, and different countries had different 'concessionareas' in those cities. Thats a brief history lesson for you (therewas actually 2 opium wars!).
Anyway its nice -not as built up as Beijing or Shanghai, but muchbetter planned, less tall buildings and lots of nice old colonialbuildings (thankfully they are protected by the city). There was anamazing street which was traditional chinese selling traditionalchinese things (I'll upload the photos eventually), and we had Tianjindumplings (kind of a speciality, but dumplings are eaten all overChina!) from the most famous place in Tianjin. Amusingly we ate themin a cheap place opposite the road, but they went and bought thedumplings from the fancy restaurant as take-away (for a special request)!!
On Monday, it was Valentines Day, so me and Flic made a little bit ofeffort; splashed out on Dominos pizza, drank some wine left lyingaround, had some fancy Marks & Spencers chocolates (left over from myparents visiting) and watched friends all night! there's no love thereof course, but it was still fun, and less depresing being single ;) hehe. (ok, i'll admit it was all my idea, flic doesn't mind being single).
China celebrate Valentines Day in quite a big way, but this year itwas during the week-long new year holiday, so actually it was quitesubdued, but still there were hearts everywhere, and special deals atthe hotels etc. I read an article about western festivals beingcelebrated in china...are they affecting chinese culture? Anyway,seeing as china has so much culture and history and all the westernfestivals are basically just based on pure commericalism, i dont thinktherei s much to worry about. Remember, christmas here is of noreligious significance, apart from about 10 million christians in thewhole country, so people celebrate it just for an excuse to see theirfamily and buy decorations etc!
Other things of note...I ate at a Hakka restaurant (a minority group)which was nice...downloaded the new MSN messenger (v.7 beta) so i canhave fun winking and nudging people (so sad!)...bought 4 fantastic CDsfor 1 Euro equivalent (a bargain, even for China!) -counting crows,norah jones, alfie and bond...haven't been running because of the iceand thus feel unfit...got depressed reading about how bad england areat rugby now...bought a Union Jack (well 2 actually, a small one toleave in the office and a big one for special occasions!)...woke uplast night with a shock as the A0 world map on the wall by my bedcollapsed on me.
For now, ta-ta
adam
Friday, February 11, 2005
games
majiang. its a chinese game; everyone knows it and plays it, so i havebeen told. and now, now i know how to play, and can even play (badlythough), thanks to being taught last night. unfortuantely some of thetiles (like cards) have chinese characters on, including the chinesenumbers. I am not very hot on these; which doesn't help. fortunatelythe other suits in the game dont have this problem, so i just dont usethe suit that i cannot understand!
anyway, i also taught my chinese friends how to play cluekey (i donteven know how to spell it in english!); its a good game that oldpeople tend to play in england -so thats me spreading english culture.unfortuantely i only remembered about pancake day, the day afterwards,although its a christian thing, its only in england (so it seems) so imissed an opportunity. however maybe we will do it if we have ourdinner party (its being postponed).
most of you will have gathered that life is generally very fun andpositive; although i have a bit of a lack of work to do and its aholiday; which combines to just a lot of relaxing and socialising anda bit of boredom but thats ok right now, as life will get busier oncethe students get back from their holidays, my course starts and itactually allows me to see friends more which is great -properfriendships are so much more meaningful!
so i recently read the AIESEC UK new strategic plan; its weird, I havebeen so distant from AIESEC UK, i dont really know what is going onthere any more. its great, that i have finally managed to break away!on the other hand i was very happy that Mark, who was president ofmanchester after the person who was after me, is the new president ofAIESEC UK -first AIESEC Manchester person who has been MCP for a good10 years. unfortunately Bee didnt get elected; which makes me verysad, as she is enormously talented; but i am sure whatever she decidesto do will be even better. it reminds me of when i lost the electionsin 2003 and again in 2004. seems so long ago.... as does seeing somany of my friends back in the UK. I guess i'll try and get home inthe next 12 months (if i end up getting a job here in the summer),and/or encourage everyone to come visit me in the Summer (its cheapeverybody! -just last night i had to pay a 3 pounds taxi fare whichkills me and broke my budget!)
enough reminiscing for now, back to watching friends, then i thinksome cheapass food from the restaurant downstairs, before more DVDs(yay!). Hope that everyone has a great weekend.
Adam
anyway, i also taught my chinese friends how to play cluekey (i donteven know how to spell it in english!); its a good game that oldpeople tend to play in england -so thats me spreading english culture.unfortuantely i only remembered about pancake day, the day afterwards,although its a christian thing, its only in england (so it seems) so imissed an opportunity. however maybe we will do it if we have ourdinner party (its being postponed).
most of you will have gathered that life is generally very fun andpositive; although i have a bit of a lack of work to do and its aholiday; which combines to just a lot of relaxing and socialising anda bit of boredom but thats ok right now, as life will get busier oncethe students get back from their holidays, my course starts and itactually allows me to see friends more which is great -properfriendships are so much more meaningful!
so i recently read the AIESEC UK new strategic plan; its weird, I havebeen so distant from AIESEC UK, i dont really know what is going onthere any more. its great, that i have finally managed to break away!on the other hand i was very happy that Mark, who was president ofmanchester after the person who was after me, is the new president ofAIESEC UK -first AIESEC Manchester person who has been MCP for a good10 years. unfortunately Bee didnt get elected; which makes me verysad, as she is enormously talented; but i am sure whatever she decidesto do will be even better. it reminds me of when i lost the electionsin 2003 and again in 2004. seems so long ago.... as does seeing somany of my friends back in the UK. I guess i'll try and get home inthe next 12 months (if i end up getting a job here in the summer),and/or encourage everyone to come visit me in the Summer (its cheapeverybody! -just last night i had to pay a 3 pounds taxi fare whichkills me and broke my budget!)
enough reminiscing for now, back to watching friends, then i thinksome cheapass food from the restaurant downstairs, before more DVDs(yay!). Hope that everyone has a great weekend.
Adam
Wednesday, February 09, 2005
Happy New Year!
Xin Nian Kuai le everybody.
Its a new year in China- a 1 week holiday marks the start of the yearof the Rooster -its my year :) This means I will either be lucky orunlucky. To ensure i am lucky i am supposed to wear something red 24/7for the entire year; such as a belt or underwear (and not take themoff een when sleeping); a friend is wearing a red bracelet (notsomething i want to do....). Anyway, my solution has been to buy alittle rosster to hang up near by bed and wish me luck whilst guardingaway the evil spirits. I figure its cuter than wearing red underwearall year, cleaner, and also a much better source of luck. My roosterwill kick ass!
Lsat night we went out for our second New Years Eve; a bunch of AIESECAlumni as usual from around the world; it was much fun; from theawesome hot chooclate in no name bar on the lake to the cheaprestaurant, lazy Souk (middle eastern type place with couches andshishas) and finally the comfortable Suzy Wong's. We really must bemore adventuresome and go somewhere else sometimes! Unfortunatelythere werent many fireworks/crackers as they are banned within centralBeijing :(
Today we went to Yonghegong -lama temple- -the most famous temple inBeijing, to check out the crowds of people burning incense, prayingand generally being noisy; then had dumplings (traditional for newyear, especially for the northerners). Apparently dumplings are shapedlike ears, and northerners eat them, as fable goes, so that their earswont fall off from the cold! a classic, typically chinese, tale!Afterwards we went to a 'temple fair'; there was a stage with somegreat chinese gong fu, some dragon dances and other chinese dancing;but mostly it was hundreds and hundreds of stalls selling food, crapand good gifts, rooster this and rooster that, plus some awfulrides/games. I was told its only really a Beijing thing to do and itwas freeeeezing cold :(. It was kinda fun anwyay.
This week might not be so much fun, but i will try to make it so! Dosome work, watch lots of DVDs, sleep, go out a little, try andexercise more (now my cold has gone) etc. Highlights include lunchtomorrow with some alumni, a dinner party on saturday night that Flicis hosting, and probably some other stuff. I might even try and readsome books for a change!
Since Achim left (cool German guy who was here since summer), weinherited all his stuff from his appartment including clothes (fomrhim and other past flatmates), a very cool sword, alcohol andmagazines etc. It was strange him leaving -he has been a good friendand has a unique sense of humour that will be missed. hopefully hewill be back in the next 2 or 3 months. Anyway 1 of the magazines ishilarious -very chinese, talking about china's win-win situations withother countries, China's stance on arm-controls and so on. I alsorecently found a map of the Beijing subway's planned route by 2008 -itwill be great, with 1 or 2 lines opening a year for the next 3 years.There are stations and tunnels being built everywhere (one outside ourappartment for example).
thats enough for now, more comments on more interesting stuff soon Iam sure. The last thing to say, is that I watched American history Xfor the 3rd time recently, and it is still one of the most powerful,great, films of all time. See it, if you have not.
from a cold Beijing
Adam
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
news and taiwan
today i managed to grab the internet for a few hours to catch up onsome internet reading (you may remember we share the line between 4of us right now). i found out that the first flights between themainland and taiwan took place! wow, very cool. I will endeavour tofind out more about it from a western source.
why a western source? because all the news online in english here isso dull. from what i can gather the flights are just for chinese newyear and just for business travellers, and explicitly does not meanrelations are immproving...very confusing. anyway, check it outyourself on english.peopledaily.com.cn. Even on the chinadaily,there was very little about whether this actually meansanything...man i love reading analysis in the british papers!
compare the article here:http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200501/27/eng20050127_172058.html with the much better and very interesting one in atimes (nonchinese): http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/GA21Ad01.html. It isalso interesting comparing it to one on CNN, that really does notcover much of the history or situation in much depth, unfortunately :(. Its here -http://edition.cnn.com/2005/TRAVEL/01/28/bt.china.taiwan.flights.ap/
the people's daily is generally regarded as the mouthpiece of thecommunist party, and i have been told the english versions ofchinese news are much more 'liberal' than western ones too! also onthe site you will see an article about local (grassroots) electionswith the worse ever interview with an official about them. it mademe laugh reading it.., it was actually dull (how can the issue ofelections in a communist country be dull?). I've covered electionsbefore, so i wont touch on it again.
just some interesting comments about recent developments; man i musttry to read the news, and chinese news more often. I read some otherpeople's posts recently, so will endaevour to write more about me,less about my activies and less about china if i can, as that seemsto be what people write about.
anyway, onto bed now. should be paying the deposit tomorrow to myflat mate (wont move in till end of month though) :D
Adam
why a western source? because all the news online in english here isso dull. from what i can gather the flights are just for chinese newyear and just for business travellers, and explicitly does not meanrelations are immproving...very confusing. anyway, check it outyourself on english.peopledaily.com.cn. Even on the chinadaily,there was very little about whether this actually meansanything...man i love reading analysis in the british papers!
compare the article here:http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200501/27/eng20050127_172058.html with the much better and very interesting one in atimes (nonchinese): http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/GA21Ad01.html. It isalso interesting comparing it to one on CNN, that really does notcover much of the history or situation in much depth, unfortunately :(. Its here -http://edition.cnn.com/2005/TRAVEL/01/28/bt.china.taiwan.flights.ap/
the people's daily is generally regarded as the mouthpiece of thecommunist party, and i have been told the english versions ofchinese news are much more 'liberal' than western ones too! also onthe site you will see an article about local (grassroots) electionswith the worse ever interview with an official about them. it mademe laugh reading it.., it was actually dull (how can the issue ofelections in a communist country be dull?). I've covered electionsbefore, so i wont touch on it again.
just some interesting comments about recent developments; man i musttry to read the news, and chinese news more often. I read some otherpeople's posts recently, so will endaevour to write more about me,less about my activies and less about china if i can, as that seemsto be what people write about.
anyway, onto bed now. should be paying the deposit tomorrow to myflat mate (wont move in till end of month though) :D
Adam
Monday, January 31, 2005
jobs in china
hey people
today i realised that i almost never write about the weather...maybei am losing my britishness! Anyway this is because it rarelychanges; around -3 average. today it was -5 though, grrr. neverrains (maybe twice in 4 months) although if it did rain now, itwould be snow, but it has only snowed for a few days whilst i was onholiday and a few hours a few weeks ago.
we met a lady at the intercontinental hotel today. she explainedanother side to the labout conundrum in china. Yes, there is alabour conundrum, because there is a labour shortage in China.Normally I read about this being a problem in the south, where wagesare so low (pushed down by MNEs), not enough migrants are moving into take the jobs; where there is still some restrictions onmigration, where there is not enough skilled labour and many otherreasons.
the lady today explained another situation: there are lots ofgraduates in China, but they all want gradaute level jobs with thesalary, title etc. None of them want to be bar staff or waiters,even though actually in her hotel you can earn practically as muchdoing that. The other problem is that Chinese people seem to have areputation for not working very hard. For sure a few do, but thislady for example has over 90 positions available and cannot findgood enough people to do them. I will endaevour to discover more,but it seems most students all go abroad for masters, expecting tobe able to return and get a hihgly paid job for little work -thereseemes to be lots of over qualified people without jobs. Anyway theyare under pressure from their family to earn lots and get a good job(not a waiter!); oh well, even a waiter nowadays is called amanagement trainee!
finally it brings me to another point i have muted before, thatthere is probably a lot more capaity in china's big cities to managemore people. although there are lots of cities with over 3 millionpeople in them, non have more than 15 million...you would presumethat the world's biggest populated country would have the world'smost populated city, but it doesn't. for the moment its a goodthing; in that there are no slums etc like there are in the world'sbiggest cities; but i think that once the restrictions on movementsand registrations relax, which they will have to be to enable aflexible labour market, then the populations will grow, and chinacan (i thiink) absorb more people in its cities -well in beijing andShanghai anyway....if only people would take the 'crappy' jobs.
i have been out way too much recently, spending way too much money(although it was fun) and even went ice skating and stuff on afrozen outdoor lake -awesome fun). Found an appartment todya toshare with a chinese lady whilst i study; with dvd, tv, internetetc; its great :))
there was some other stuff i was going to write about, but i forgot,so until next time....
Adam
today i realised that i almost never write about the weather...maybei am losing my britishness! Anyway this is because it rarelychanges; around -3 average. today it was -5 though, grrr. neverrains (maybe twice in 4 months) although if it did rain now, itwould be snow, but it has only snowed for a few days whilst i was onholiday and a few hours a few weeks ago.
we met a lady at the intercontinental hotel today. she explainedanother side to the labout conundrum in china. Yes, there is alabour conundrum, because there is a labour shortage in China.Normally I read about this being a problem in the south, where wagesare so low (pushed down by MNEs), not enough migrants are moving into take the jobs; where there is still some restrictions onmigration, where there is not enough skilled labour and many otherreasons.
the lady today explained another situation: there are lots ofgraduates in China, but they all want gradaute level jobs with thesalary, title etc. None of them want to be bar staff or waiters,even though actually in her hotel you can earn practically as muchdoing that. The other problem is that Chinese people seem to have areputation for not working very hard. For sure a few do, but thislady for example has over 90 positions available and cannot findgood enough people to do them. I will endaevour to discover more,but it seems most students all go abroad for masters, expecting tobe able to return and get a hihgly paid job for little work -thereseemes to be lots of over qualified people without jobs. Anyway theyare under pressure from their family to earn lots and get a good job(not a waiter!); oh well, even a waiter nowadays is called amanagement trainee!
finally it brings me to another point i have muted before, thatthere is probably a lot more capaity in china's big cities to managemore people. although there are lots of cities with over 3 millionpeople in them, non have more than 15 million...you would presumethat the world's biggest populated country would have the world'smost populated city, but it doesn't. for the moment its a goodthing; in that there are no slums etc like there are in the world'sbiggest cities; but i think that once the restrictions on movementsand registrations relax, which they will have to be to enable aflexible labour market, then the populations will grow, and chinacan (i thiink) absorb more people in its cities -well in beijing andShanghai anyway....if only people would take the 'crappy' jobs.
i have been out way too much recently, spending way too much money(although it was fun) and even went ice skating and stuff on afrozen outdoor lake -awesome fun). Found an appartment todya toshare with a chinese lady whilst i study; with dvd, tv, internetetc; its great :))
there was some other stuff i was going to write about, but i forgot,so until next time....
Adam
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
phewwww
so the conference is over. it was pretty successful despite mynerves ensuring my speeches were relatively crap!
i am not sure i have ever been so moved as to when first everyonethanked me, during the open questions, then again at the end(standing ovation!!) and then the MC all came up to hug me and saythanks. now i totally feel like it has all been worth it and amdetermined to make sure that things progress in the next few months.
we had great feedback from everyone so should be able to build onthat for the future.
Anyway just got back from some drinking courtesy of Austtralia Day(lots of friends here are aussies), and now ready to launch some newstrategues, meetings and so one...very exciting. even meeting theministry oflabour tomorrow! Prob shouldnt tell them about theillegal contract i signed yesterday i guess!
i hope you are all well....this weekend we are going to do KTVhopefully, party some more and, well who knows much. This week irealised how much fun i have been having the last few months and howlucky i am to work with such great people, have such great friendsin UK, China and elsewhere.
live rocks!
Adam
i am not sure i have ever been so moved as to when first everyonethanked me, during the open questions, then again at the end(standing ovation!!) and then the MC all came up to hug me and saythanks. now i totally feel like it has all been worth it and amdetermined to make sure that things progress in the next few months.
we had great feedback from everyone so should be able to build onthat for the future.
Anyway just got back from some drinking courtesy of Austtralia Day(lots of friends here are aussies), and now ready to launch some newstrategues, meetings and so one...very exciting. even meeting theministry oflabour tomorrow! Prob shouldnt tell them about theillegal contract i signed yesterday i guess!
i hope you are all well....this weekend we are going to do KTVhopefully, party some more and, well who knows much. This week irealised how much fun i have been having the last few months and howlucky i am to work with such great people, have such great friendsin UK, China and elsewhere.
live rocks!
Adam
Monday, January 24, 2005
pretty boring this time...
firstly, I'll state that now I have been for a run for 2 weekendsout of 3 (I couldnt this weekend because of the conference), I canalmost claim to be a regular runner! We'll see if I can keep it up.Currently the idea is to do a different route each time, to see moreof the local area...however as most of it is ringroads or other mainroads, there isnt too many options!
I went to the other conference, had a lunch in the Summer Palace -the old summer home for the emperor, by a beautiful lake (think ofit as a bit like windsor castle, except that there is no emperoranymore!, so more like what windsor castle might be without amonarchy...) and shook hands with the Ambassador and his wife as wedrank in their house (nice, but not too fancy; wife was verycurteous)
The conference just gone was fun...there were elections for the newhead office. In typical AIESEC Chinese style, the speeches were verypersonal about the person and why they are running (rather than manyideas, or talking about what they have achieved already). However asthe entire election process is in english, i imagine that kind ofspeech is easier. I cant imagine having to do what I did last year(and the year before) in a foreign language so i was very impressed.
Tomorrow we finally sign our contract with a big market researchcompany on a partnership worth in kind £3,500 or so (quite a lot inchina)...it should all be fine, despite the fact that i am signingon behalf of an organisation that has no legal identity, but that'sNGO life in China!
tomorrow is the 'leadship for sustainability' day that I have beenorganising, that will hopefully go well (despite not being able tosee the rooms in the University due to exams), raise some money andhelp launch AIESEC and increase its credibility. Along with this weare doing a world bank course online (did i mention we had avideoconference with WB HQ in Washington DC -very exciting!), andthey will endorse any reccommendations made (not exactly sure whatthat means though), and i am continuing discussions with the FCO repin the British Embassy here about getting our hands on some theBritish tax payers money, fingers crossed.
not too many exciting observations right now, more next time. thereis one piece of information that will appeal to most of you, thatyou can ask about after thursday night.... ;)
Adam
I went to the other conference, had a lunch in the Summer Palace -the old summer home for the emperor, by a beautiful lake (think ofit as a bit like windsor castle, except that there is no emperoranymore!, so more like what windsor castle might be without amonarchy...) and shook hands with the Ambassador and his wife as wedrank in their house (nice, but not too fancy; wife was verycurteous)
The conference just gone was fun...there were elections for the newhead office. In typical AIESEC Chinese style, the speeches were verypersonal about the person and why they are running (rather than manyideas, or talking about what they have achieved already). However asthe entire election process is in english, i imagine that kind ofspeech is easier. I cant imagine having to do what I did last year(and the year before) in a foreign language so i was very impressed.
Tomorrow we finally sign our contract with a big market researchcompany on a partnership worth in kind £3,500 or so (quite a lot inchina)...it should all be fine, despite the fact that i am signingon behalf of an organisation that has no legal identity, but that'sNGO life in China!
tomorrow is the 'leadship for sustainability' day that I have beenorganising, that will hopefully go well (despite not being able tosee the rooms in the University due to exams), raise some money andhelp launch AIESEC and increase its credibility. Along with this weare doing a world bank course online (did i mention we had avideoconference with WB HQ in Washington DC -very exciting!), andthey will endorse any reccommendations made (not exactly sure whatthat means though), and i am continuing discussions with the FCO repin the British Embassy here about getting our hands on some theBritish tax payers money, fingers crossed.
not too many exciting observations right now, more next time. thereis one piece of information that will appeal to most of you, thatyou can ask about after thursday night.... ;)
Adam
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
nice lunches, meetings and more on chinese capitalism
no harbin (ice), due to a failure to get a ticket back to beijingagain :( in china you can only buy one-way train tickets, and wecouldnt risk getting there without being able to buy a ticket backwhen we wanted to (although we tried ringing friends there andtravel agents, and they were all sold out). also, you can only buytickets once they go on sale, 5 days in advance, which makes it hardto plan anything, or get tickets, cause they then all go quickly.well should go in a few weeks instead.
recently we have been relaxing, dvd-watching and working somewhat.the snow has turned to ice -black ice. ..From the pollution. I alsowent for a run!!! my 'made-in-china-bought-in-uk-brought-back-to-china-by parents' trainers were great, and 45 minutes of runningalongside ring roads was lots of fun...honest!
was extremely hungover this morning thanks to a goodbye party lastnight, but had lunch with Swiss Re in the Grand Hyatt Hotel, andthat helped! well tomorrow we meet a lady in the FCO who should beable to get us some money (fingers crossed), ant monday/tuesday aconference starts which is a big uk-china technology thingy, withLord Sainsbury coming over to open it; and its all free, includinglunch at the Summer Palace and a reception at the ambassador's home!
I'm well informed of the news via the web here, but have lessknowledge of what the chinese think about things due to my readinglimitations here (in chinese) and that the english version online ofchinese arent very interesting.
did i tell you that china has energy problems, and it solution is tobuild more power stations? makes sense you think, but not in china.this year they are planning to build so many power stations (no onereally controls this of course) that they would have a surplus ofenergy. of course, someone forgot to mention that you need somethingto go in the power stations, and that there isnt enough of that (orif there is, then, there wont be 3 years down the line!). So thegovernment is going to put a stop to it.
this reminds me that SEPA -State Environmental ProtectionAdministration -only has (I think, but I am probably a bit wrong)about 400 employees nationally. This is the main body helping toreduce China's destruction of its environment. It brings me ontosomething i was reading about in China in various reports....
China is very regionalised in many aspects, with many powers done bylocal authorities, despite orders from national bodies. so this iswhy china has a poor record on labour laws, not that the laws arenot good enough -they are pretty good (and drawn up by centralgovernment), but that they are not enforced locally (no buy-in ofcourse). and the laws vary by region to some extent too (such asminimum wage).
It all leads to the typical Chinese short-termism capitalism thatexists here. An example: in a drive to create jobs, cities willlower their labour standards in order to remain competitive andattract more investment. so other cities do the same in a downwardspiral.. even chinese people agree that at the moment they put short-term economic gains ahead of long-term environmental protection.Going back to my previous emails...anyone could realise thefollowing:
-great tourist attraction
-attract more tourists, create jobs and wealth
-do so irresponsibly (thus destroying the attraction), and at thesame time ensure most of the local economy becomes dependent ontourism-tourists no longer come cause the attraction is crap
-local area loses its source of income, is left with a decayingtown, and no alternative source of income, so has to go back tosquare 1
its not just china..., but its interesting.
just want to briefly touch on something else too. so Lenovo (Chinesecompany) buys the part of IBM that makes a very small profit,despite a fantastic brand and management, and one that has more andmore competition in it. hmm, then i hear a car company here wants tobuy Rover....hmm, sounds like the same kind of story: Chinesecompany buying a brand that has little future, then you add in thecultural differences of the companies, the language barriers, thegeographical issues (IBM HQ is still in US....) and you wonder whatthe future holds. Here is hoping the chinese can work miracles, ortheir investments get wiser in the future, before they get a badname globally....
anyway, thats enough for me
take care y'all
Adam
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
whats been happening
Another precious grab at the internet and time for something less deep!!
Today it snowed again, the first time I have seen snow for probably almost a year -as it almost never rains in Beijing in Autumn orWinter it immediately settled and everywhere became white instantly -I then realised that Beijing traffic CAN get worse!
It ispermanently around -5 degrees C, and it tells, going outside withoutgloves for just 2 minutes is not sensible.
This weekend we are going to Harbin (tickets are bought andeverything): the stats:
-8 people going
-hard seat journey costs around 15 Euros single
-Its a 13 hour overnight trip
-Minus 20 degrees is the average temperature there right now.
-World famous Ice festival in a city that is very 'Russian' andsounds fantastic according to the bible (thats the lonely planet ofcourse)
-Capital city of China's most northern province
The string that serves as the flush for the toilet broke again ...every time we retie it, the string is shorter, which doesn't bodewell for little Chris ;)
We have almost finished the left overs of the Korean food that wascooked for us by an AIESEC member a full 2 days ago..mmm, itincluded lots of soups. Combine that with all the tea and hotchocolate we are drinking and you can expect the toilet flush tobreak again soon!! Actually the appartment temperature is ok, andthe shower always has hot water, so no real complaints.
Since I returned (by the way I missed an amazing christmas party,sadly), Chris has laid some more poison for the cockroaches and ithink it has been working. It has also got so cold that now noonehangs their clothes to dry in the enclosed balcony we have; so theoffice looks more respectable now, I think.
We got lots of xmas cards from other aiesec countries; I have hungup my painting that I bought down South and some random wallcalendars have appeared. Combined with the xmas decorations thatFlic put up (and are still here, including her 2 foot highinflatable xmas tree), and the place looks really 'cosy'.
I've started attacking the chocolate that I dragged back to BJ withme, that my parents brought with (along with a 2kg xmas pudding andseveral kg of shortbread!), but I have trainers now, so I can dosome exercise. Well, once its warmer I will (might be a whilethough...)
ok, got a telephone meeting later tonight with a guy from the WorldBank in DC (13 hours behind, what a drag!), but I will leave youwith the exciting news that my meetings tomorrow and friday are bothin the starbucks which is a) close and b) expensive by Chinesestandards (free Mochas, mmmm) and that I am rearranging a lunchmeeting with someone else that is going to be in the best hotel inBJ -I was worried it might not be rescheduled.
You can rest assured I will be well fed and well coffeed to help merecover from the ice festival!take care
Adam
p.s. 5-2 and then almost an away victory against United..what agreat start to the new year!! shame for the blind linesman :(
Today it snowed again, the first time I have seen snow for probably almost a year -as it almost never rains in Beijing in Autumn orWinter it immediately settled and everywhere became white instantly -I then realised that Beijing traffic CAN get worse!
It ispermanently around -5 degrees C, and it tells, going outside withoutgloves for just 2 minutes is not sensible.
This weekend we are going to Harbin (tickets are bought andeverything): the stats:
-8 people going
-hard seat journey costs around 15 Euros single
-Its a 13 hour overnight trip
-Minus 20 degrees is the average temperature there right now.
-World famous Ice festival in a city that is very 'Russian' andsounds fantastic according to the bible (thats the lonely planet ofcourse)
-Capital city of China's most northern province
The string that serves as the flush for the toilet broke again ...every time we retie it, the string is shorter, which doesn't bodewell for little Chris ;)
We have almost finished the left overs of the Korean food that wascooked for us by an AIESEC member a full 2 days ago..mmm, itincluded lots of soups. Combine that with all the tea and hotchocolate we are drinking and you can expect the toilet flush tobreak again soon!! Actually the appartment temperature is ok, andthe shower always has hot water, so no real complaints.
Since I returned (by the way I missed an amazing christmas party,sadly), Chris has laid some more poison for the cockroaches and ithink it has been working. It has also got so cold that now noonehangs their clothes to dry in the enclosed balcony we have; so theoffice looks more respectable now, I think.
We got lots of xmas cards from other aiesec countries; I have hungup my painting that I bought down South and some random wallcalendars have appeared. Combined with the xmas decorations thatFlic put up (and are still here, including her 2 foot highinflatable xmas tree), and the place looks really 'cosy'.
I've started attacking the chocolate that I dragged back to BJ withme, that my parents brought with (along with a 2kg xmas pudding andseveral kg of shortbread!), but I have trainers now, so I can dosome exercise. Well, once its warmer I will (might be a whilethough...)
ok, got a telephone meeting later tonight with a guy from the WorldBank in DC (13 hours behind, what a drag!), but I will leave youwith the exciting news that my meetings tomorrow and friday are bothin the starbucks which is a) close and b) expensive by Chinesestandards (free Mochas, mmmm) and that I am rearranging a lunchmeeting with someone else that is going to be in the best hotel inBJ -I was worried it might not be rescheduled.
You can rest assured I will be well fed and well coffeed to help merecover from the ice festival!take care
Adam
p.s. 5-2 and then almost an away victory against United..what agreat start to the new year!! shame for the blind linesman :(
Monday, January 03, 2005
censorship...
just a brief one, this...on a topic that is frequently discussed inour office.
Some of you may know about a rise in recent discussions aboutchinese intellectuals -anyway there is a very good article about ithere: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/FL15Ad05.html. It alsoraises the issue of censorship's survival in the modern era.
There are 2 recent barriers to successful censorship: 1 being theinternet: despite the government's best efforts, it simply cannotcensor the internet 100% effectively; people get around it, siteschange, blogs are especially hard to tackle and so on. Apparentlythere are 30,000 people monitoring internet sites, email trafficeetc, on behalf of the government. Everyone in China is aware thatsome sites are blocked etc, but also that many sites are slower thanothers for no justifiable reason. The fast ones are those trusted bythe government!
The 2nd is that a capitalist society means that businesses cannotalways obey government, as they also have to listen to the market.In this case, the media is under pressure to gain advertisers andreaders; if they can do this better by being the first to reportcontroversial issues, then they will (without waiting for governmentauthorisation). And, as is different to the history of advertisingin the UK (according to my media course at University), hereadvertisers are not going to care about being associated with anewspaper that may not be supported by the government, because thecompeition and advertising market is so fierce, businesses will notthink of these issues over and above the bottom line requirements toadvertise.
anyway, i mention this because in Hong Kong there is no censorship(certainly not of the internet anyway), and thus I imagine this is 1small reason why many NGOs and thinktanks for China are still basedin HK, and have not moved to the Mainland. It was a pleasure to beable to follow links and read the BBC whilst I was there!
Today I was discussing with Chris about the legalisation of the HeadOffice of AIESEC in Mainland China again...the above topic is realbecause I have a fear of AIESEC being too successful, raisingattention to itself and so on. Especially if the CSR publicationgoes ahead as planned (after our CSR conference that has a fantasticlineup, with people even flying up from Hong Kong just to deliverpresentations to it!). Well I'll do my best to make us as well knownas possible, only restricting myself to not inviting or talking toany media, and we'll see what happens!
Tonight we had some members cook more Korean food for us, mmm mmm,fantastic and tomorrow work starts again (today was a nationalholiday); so I have some important meetings to lineup and heavyaction to do before the big day on 25th Jan when the CSR day starts.
enjoy your return to work/school, everybody!
Adam
Some of you may know about a rise in recent discussions aboutchinese intellectuals -anyway there is a very good article about ithere: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/FL15Ad05.html. It alsoraises the issue of censorship's survival in the modern era.
There are 2 recent barriers to successful censorship: 1 being theinternet: despite the government's best efforts, it simply cannotcensor the internet 100% effectively; people get around it, siteschange, blogs are especially hard to tackle and so on. Apparentlythere are 30,000 people monitoring internet sites, email trafficeetc, on behalf of the government. Everyone in China is aware thatsome sites are blocked etc, but also that many sites are slower thanothers for no justifiable reason. The fast ones are those trusted bythe government!
The 2nd is that a capitalist society means that businesses cannotalways obey government, as they also have to listen to the market.In this case, the media is under pressure to gain advertisers andreaders; if they can do this better by being the first to reportcontroversial issues, then they will (without waiting for governmentauthorisation). And, as is different to the history of advertisingin the UK (according to my media course at University), hereadvertisers are not going to care about being associated with anewspaper that may not be supported by the government, because thecompeition and advertising market is so fierce, businesses will notthink of these issues over and above the bottom line requirements toadvertise.
anyway, i mention this because in Hong Kong there is no censorship(certainly not of the internet anyway), and thus I imagine this is 1small reason why many NGOs and thinktanks for China are still basedin HK, and have not moved to the Mainland. It was a pleasure to beable to follow links and read the BBC whilst I was there!
Today I was discussing with Chris about the legalisation of the HeadOffice of AIESEC in Mainland China again...the above topic is realbecause I have a fear of AIESEC being too successful, raisingattention to itself and so on. Especially if the CSR publicationgoes ahead as planned (after our CSR conference that has a fantasticlineup, with people even flying up from Hong Kong just to deliverpresentations to it!). Well I'll do my best to make us as well knownas possible, only restricting myself to not inviting or talking toany media, and we'll see what happens!
Tonight we had some members cook more Korean food for us, mmm mmm,fantastic and tomorrow work starts again (today was a nationalholiday); so I have some important meetings to lineup and heavyaction to do before the big day on 25th Jan when the CSR day starts.
enjoy your return to work/school, everybody!
Adam
Sunday, January 02, 2005
Yangshuo and reflections on poverty and the internet
As promised, more time so many more comments, to catch up on sincemy last post way back in December (I forgot to mention that thebirthday party was good and I am no a convert to Korean BBQs, mmmm)
When we were in Yangshuo, which is the wonderfull village/town(still fairly big), we cycled off out into the countryside, whereyou feel they rarely see foreigners venture; although we did pass 2.
We rode through some villages; very basic villages. I imagine theyare very typical of China's rural population, in that most werebrick, the paths nearby were just wide enough for walking or cycling(no vehicles) and they were getting their water from a well (thevillage is near a river). The agricultural land surrounding thistiny little hamlet (maybe 20 orso houses) seemed very 'efficiently'farmed -every inch was used for different cropps, their wasirrigation channels, terraces and it was extraordinarily pretty asthe little patches were small, but every patch had different coloursand types of crops growing. This led me to conclude that the peopleare pretty self-sufficient in that they can grow almost all types offood they need, and that every person seemed to help. Any extra theygrew I presume they sold for money. I used '' for efficient becauseby western standards it probably is not. Its slow with small fieldson different levels growing different things and all done by hand.But then western farmers dont grow enough variety to feed themselves.
The point of this is all that to me these people are not starving;they are all pretty happy, from our cycle through their villages,especially once the kids saw us and scremed 'hello'. For me this isthe closes I have come before to such an environment and was buzzingwith interest. Are these people poor?Firstly I can tell you that you can quite easily buy food in Chinafor 3 meals each for $2 US, at the most. If you are a local,probably much less. Secondly these villages (and this might not bttypical) seem very self-sufficient. I am aware that definitions ofpoverty tend to hover around % of people earning less than 1 ormaybe 2 $ per day; but these people probably do not need to earn anymoney at all for their water or food needs (accommodation excluded).I am sure they don't have as much luxury goods as me, or able toenjoy as varied pleasures in life (from bunjee jumping to theinternet -I think there may have been 1 phone line or electricitycable serving the village) but they seemed happy to me.
Now I am making a big presumption that most people in China or Asiaat least are lucky enough to live like this; and thus are not inpoverty (although they may be poor in relation to me). People whocannot survive day-to-day, that to me is true poverty, and theTsunami disaster I think shows that it has left in its quake peoplewithout homes, food, or water. For me its an interesting thought.The result, which harks back to something else I read about the MDGs(Millenium Development Goals aiming to reduce the number of peoplein poverty) was that, actually although the gap between rich andpoor may be growing, at the same time the base level of the poor isgrowing; which means the number of people who are not in poverty islower, but the number of people who are poor is still large,because, and this is the 'great' thing, our definition of 'poor' hasbeen raised, so for example the MDGs can aim to ensure every childhas a certain amount of formal education. This for me is wonderful;that mankind has actually managed to support such huge populationincreases in the last 200 years relatively (and it is all relative)well.
Of course, I now think that edcuation is the defining point betweenthe rich from the poor (I still think maybe 10% of the World is 'inpoverty', at the level below 'poor' though). Education is what willallow people to develop democracies, develop their abilities toprovide for themselves, understand others and allow them to supportthose less fortunate. The other thing I realised is how probably 95%of the world have access to a telephone or electricity in some form(fixed and mobile), or if not now, then will do in the next 5-10years, and thus this leads me onto the internet -how the internetcan serve such a wonderful public good by (if it can be madeaccessible to all) providing this education to continue the raiseour definition of 'poor' upwards.
I am not sure what everyone else thinks, but what concerns me isthat if you sat anyone in front of the internet, they would actuallystruggle to find anything of any use -in the sense that it can beused to develop your basic knowledge -i.e. of use to these lessfortunate people who may not know about other cultures, about humanrights, about efficient use of land (not just telling them about newtechnology or whatever). Anyway, I know there are many commendableefforts globally to provide access to the internet but probably notenough efforts are being made to ensure it can be best used foreducationally purposes (especially in multilingual formats).
This for example is why I am so irritated at the limitations beingplaced on the BBC in the UK -apparently some of the things it doescan be done better by commercial organisations. As far as I amconcerned, much of what it does, specifically is for 'public good'.Its website has some of the best educational material around, and itcan use its brand to make a difference, to play a apart in providinga global source of educational materials that be used more widelythan just in the UK.
Some thoughts on poverty (from my limited experiences/knowledge) andthe internet...anyway for those interested the BBC's CSR report isinteresting -not that is a great CSR report (there is very littleself-criticism, probably becacuse of its charter review!) butbecause it explores some of the ways the media in general can make adifference. You can find it at www.bbc.co.uk/info/csr (or if you arein China and thus cannot access it, ask me for an email version)
All the best
Adam
When we were in Yangshuo, which is the wonderfull village/town(still fairly big), we cycled off out into the countryside, whereyou feel they rarely see foreigners venture; although we did pass 2.
We rode through some villages; very basic villages. I imagine theyare very typical of China's rural population, in that most werebrick, the paths nearby were just wide enough for walking or cycling(no vehicles) and they were getting their water from a well (thevillage is near a river). The agricultural land surrounding thistiny little hamlet (maybe 20 orso houses) seemed very 'efficiently'farmed -every inch was used for different cropps, their wasirrigation channels, terraces and it was extraordinarily pretty asthe little patches were small, but every patch had different coloursand types of crops growing. This led me to conclude that the peopleare pretty self-sufficient in that they can grow almost all types offood they need, and that every person seemed to help. Any extra theygrew I presume they sold for money. I used '' for efficient becauseby western standards it probably is not. Its slow with small fieldson different levels growing different things and all done by hand.But then western farmers dont grow enough variety to feed themselves.
The point of this is all that to me these people are not starving;they are all pretty happy, from our cycle through their villages,especially once the kids saw us and scremed 'hello'. For me this isthe closes I have come before to such an environment and was buzzingwith interest. Are these people poor?Firstly I can tell you that you can quite easily buy food in Chinafor 3 meals each for $2 US, at the most. If you are a local,probably much less. Secondly these villages (and this might not bttypical) seem very self-sufficient. I am aware that definitions ofpoverty tend to hover around % of people earning less than 1 ormaybe 2 $ per day; but these people probably do not need to earn anymoney at all for their water or food needs (accommodation excluded).I am sure they don't have as much luxury goods as me, or able toenjoy as varied pleasures in life (from bunjee jumping to theinternet -I think there may have been 1 phone line or electricitycable serving the village) but they seemed happy to me.
Now I am making a big presumption that most people in China or Asiaat least are lucky enough to live like this; and thus are not inpoverty (although they may be poor in relation to me). People whocannot survive day-to-day, that to me is true poverty, and theTsunami disaster I think shows that it has left in its quake peoplewithout homes, food, or water. For me its an interesting thought.The result, which harks back to something else I read about the MDGs(Millenium Development Goals aiming to reduce the number of peoplein poverty) was that, actually although the gap between rich andpoor may be growing, at the same time the base level of the poor isgrowing; which means the number of people who are not in poverty islower, but the number of people who are poor is still large,because, and this is the 'great' thing, our definition of 'poor' hasbeen raised, so for example the MDGs can aim to ensure every childhas a certain amount of formal education. This for me is wonderful;that mankind has actually managed to support such huge populationincreases in the last 200 years relatively (and it is all relative)well.
Of course, I now think that edcuation is the defining point betweenthe rich from the poor (I still think maybe 10% of the World is 'inpoverty', at the level below 'poor' though). Education is what willallow people to develop democracies, develop their abilities toprovide for themselves, understand others and allow them to supportthose less fortunate. The other thing I realised is how probably 95%of the world have access to a telephone or electricity in some form(fixed and mobile), or if not now, then will do in the next 5-10years, and thus this leads me onto the internet -how the internetcan serve such a wonderful public good by (if it can be madeaccessible to all) providing this education to continue the raiseour definition of 'poor' upwards.
I am not sure what everyone else thinks, but what concerns me isthat if you sat anyone in front of the internet, they would actuallystruggle to find anything of any use -in the sense that it can beused to develop your basic knowledge -i.e. of use to these lessfortunate people who may not know about other cultures, about humanrights, about efficient use of land (not just telling them about newtechnology or whatever). Anyway, I know there are many commendableefforts globally to provide access to the internet but probably notenough efforts are being made to ensure it can be best used foreducationally purposes (especially in multilingual formats).
This for example is why I am so irritated at the limitations beingplaced on the BBC in the UK -apparently some of the things it doescan be done better by commercial organisations. As far as I amconcerned, much of what it does, specifically is for 'public good'.Its website has some of the best educational material around, and itcan use its brand to make a difference, to play a apart in providinga global source of educational materials that be used more widelythan just in the UK.
Some thoughts on poverty (from my limited experiences/knowledge) andthe internet...anyway for those interested the BBC's CSR report isinteresting -not that is a great CSR report (there is very littleself-criticism, probably becacuse of its charter review!) butbecause it explores some of the ways the media in general can make adifference. You can find it at www.bbc.co.uk/info/csr (or if you arein China and thus cannot access it, ask me for an email version)
All the best
Adam
Merry christmas, Happy New Year...
2005 is here :)
wow, just as I became 23, I am already thinking that this year Iwill be 24, well and truly mid-20s. It should be about time to thinkabout a) relationship (girlfriend), b) paid job, c) some kind offixed residence and many other things, that I don't have. Butinstead I am planning a weekend trip soon to an Ice festival inHarbin (average -20 degrees C), 90% sure to pay my tuition fees andstart studying Chinese until the Summer and fighting for our 1internet line in a crowded appartment!
Last year was great; this year will probably be even better. This isnot an email for refelction though, maybe that will be some othertime. For now I will just explain about the recent hoilday down tothe South of China with most of my family (Beth was left at homestudying!).
It was a fantastic trip; Yangshuo was probably the highlight withgreat scenery, wonderful little shops and cafes, nice people, cheapclothes and food, a christmassy spirit and international feel(apparently lots of foreigners backpack there and end up stayingthere setting up shop). The weather was not great (it was not verywarm), but I highly reccommend it. It was, unfortunately, nottypical of Tourism in China; which more typically destroys naturalbeauty and social beauty (as in tacky merchandise).
Hong Kong was also fantastic; much better than my expectations. Itis very diverse, multicultural, modern and a great blend of Chinaand 'home' (english road signs!). It was also a nice hotel with apool on the 31st floor outside.
anyway must go now, but more to come very soon.
have a great 2005!!
Adam
wow, just as I became 23, I am already thinking that this year Iwill be 24, well and truly mid-20s. It should be about time to thinkabout a) relationship (girlfriend), b) paid job, c) some kind offixed residence and many other things, that I don't have. Butinstead I am planning a weekend trip soon to an Ice festival inHarbin (average -20 degrees C), 90% sure to pay my tuition fees andstart studying Chinese until the Summer and fighting for our 1internet line in a crowded appartment!
Last year was great; this year will probably be even better. This isnot an email for refelction though, maybe that will be some othertime. For now I will just explain about the recent hoilday down tothe South of China with most of my family (Beth was left at homestudying!).
It was a fantastic trip; Yangshuo was probably the highlight withgreat scenery, wonderful little shops and cafes, nice people, cheapclothes and food, a christmassy spirit and international feel(apparently lots of foreigners backpack there and end up stayingthere setting up shop). The weather was not great (it was not verywarm), but I highly reccommend it. It was, unfortunately, nottypical of Tourism in China; which more typically destroys naturalbeauty and social beauty (as in tacky merchandise).
Hong Kong was also fantastic; much better than my expectations. Itis very diverse, multicultural, modern and a great blend of Chinaand 'home' (english road signs!). It was also a nice hotel with apool on the 31st floor outside.
anyway must go now, but more to come very soon.
have a great 2005!!
Adam
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