Adam and his big gun between his legs.
hmm, look at Rachel's reaction!
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Rachel displays her tongue ring
A charming photo of Rachel. If you look closely, you can see she is displaying her tounge ring.
Don't look too closely though, otherwise you'll get nightmares ;)
Alcohol plus American plus piece of metal plus camera = what a great combination!
Don't look too closely though, otherwise you'll get nightmares ;)
Alcohol plus American plus piece of metal plus camera = what a great combination!
Sheila and Adam...forever!
Adam and Sheila in the 'garden with the wedding photo backgrounds'..in love :D
more adventures
Back from another 4 day holiday, and it was, of course, fantastic.
We saw Qufu -the place where Confucius lived and died (we saw his grave). Confuciun philosophy is the dominant philosophy that the Chinese live by, as an alternative to religion mostly. The place was not too tacky although very busy, and the cemetary was especially peaceful (although not too inspiring). Having taken an overnight seated train to get there, we quickly left for our trip to Tai Shan, the holiest of the 5 'holy mountains' in China.
This is the mountain that everyone climbs (its not easy taking 4 hours fo solid uphill step climbing to get there), and is beautiful with a famed sunrise. Rachel found a porter to help her for the first half (she has a very heavy way, but somehow managed the harder second half alone); we hid from everyone on the mountain in order to find a place to camp (not supposed to), and all 7 of us showered in the 1 hotel room that 3 people took (instead of camping). The walk up was tiring (as we had had no sleep the night before), the sunrise was great (we were lucky with the weather) and camping was fun (I just bought the tent). However the 'fantastic piece of flat land' that I had found at dusk, turned out to be the overgrown roof of a concrete sewerage tank for the nearby hotel...hmm, in the morning (4.30am) we woke up to a pungent smell before running to catch the sun.
A walk down the mountain was pleasent, off-the-beaten-track and long, but the vegetation smelt great. We then got a bus to Qingdao, one of the first cities opened up to foreign powers (Germany). It is a beatuful city with beaches and tree-lined promenades and is just like mediterranean Europe, with European style villas, houses, churches etc. We were kindly shown around by Rachel's friend's brother and saw the Chinese Naval museum, ate all kinds of seafood (some scary looking), drank lots of Qingdao (especially the first night, as it was Chris' brithday), turned off the power of the submarine whilst touring it, gathered large groups around us 'foreigners' especially when listening to an old sailor's life history....
Once again, the joys of travelling in a group, with people I have never met before has been fantastic, with lots of laughs and lots of crazy moments; great memories and great photos (uploaded, and a few key ones to be shown on weblog soon). When we bought 5 litres of baijiu (strong, horrible cheap, chinese spirit) and went down 8 carriages on a train wearing paper hats singing a song and giving out baijiu to very beweildered chinese people, it was truly a moment never to be forgotten (we were chanting: wo gei ni baijiu, mianfei/gambe -i give you baijiu, free/bottoms up)..I'll track down some of the other's photos too.
We're not quite sure why we did it (just for fun?), but i was concerned to start with about our maturity levels(!) and about stereotyping our culture, but once we started it was great, they all wanted pictures with us, we got rid of 4 litres of the horrible stuff (Chris was challenged to a 'gambe' and then had to spit the stuff out!), and we ensured their journey will never be forgotten!
Now, back in beijing, contemplating another weekend trip (wallet is getting thin and chinese knowledge even thinner!) and finished tutoring :( -Derrick is off to London this week for school. Tomorrow I start my internship at the British Chamber of Commerce in the afternoons (will let you know more once i know), have to catch up on 3 days of class missed (train was late this morning) and I have to celebrate France rejecting the EU constitution. Meanwhile the weather is great, I'm healthy and my camera is overused!
We saw Qufu -the place where Confucius lived and died (we saw his grave). Confuciun philosophy is the dominant philosophy that the Chinese live by, as an alternative to religion mostly. The place was not too tacky although very busy, and the cemetary was especially peaceful (although not too inspiring). Having taken an overnight seated train to get there, we quickly left for our trip to Tai Shan, the holiest of the 5 'holy mountains' in China.
This is the mountain that everyone climbs (its not easy taking 4 hours fo solid uphill step climbing to get there), and is beautiful with a famed sunrise. Rachel found a porter to help her for the first half (she has a very heavy way, but somehow managed the harder second half alone); we hid from everyone on the mountain in order to find a place to camp (not supposed to), and all 7 of us showered in the 1 hotel room that 3 people took (instead of camping). The walk up was tiring (as we had had no sleep the night before), the sunrise was great (we were lucky with the weather) and camping was fun (I just bought the tent). However the 'fantastic piece of flat land' that I had found at dusk, turned out to be the overgrown roof of a concrete sewerage tank for the nearby hotel...hmm, in the morning (4.30am) we woke up to a pungent smell before running to catch the sun.
A walk down the mountain was pleasent, off-the-beaten-track and long, but the vegetation smelt great. We then got a bus to Qingdao, one of the first cities opened up to foreign powers (Germany). It is a beatuful city with beaches and tree-lined promenades and is just like mediterranean Europe, with European style villas, houses, churches etc. We were kindly shown around by Rachel's friend's brother and saw the Chinese Naval museum, ate all kinds of seafood (some scary looking), drank lots of Qingdao (especially the first night, as it was Chris' brithday), turned off the power of the submarine whilst touring it, gathered large groups around us 'foreigners' especially when listening to an old sailor's life history....
Once again, the joys of travelling in a group, with people I have never met before has been fantastic, with lots of laughs and lots of crazy moments; great memories and great photos (uploaded, and a few key ones to be shown on weblog soon). When we bought 5 litres of baijiu (strong, horrible cheap, chinese spirit) and went down 8 carriages on a train wearing paper hats singing a song and giving out baijiu to very beweildered chinese people, it was truly a moment never to be forgotten (we were chanting: wo gei ni baijiu, mianfei/gambe -i give you baijiu, free/bottoms up)..I'll track down some of the other's photos too.
We're not quite sure why we did it (just for fun?), but i was concerned to start with about our maturity levels(!) and about stereotyping our culture, but once we started it was great, they all wanted pictures with us, we got rid of 4 litres of the horrible stuff (Chris was challenged to a 'gambe' and then had to spit the stuff out!), and we ensured their journey will never be forgotten!
Now, back in beijing, contemplating another weekend trip (wallet is getting thin and chinese knowledge even thinner!) and finished tutoring :( -Derrick is off to London this week for school. Tomorrow I start my internship at the British Chamber of Commerce in the afternoons (will let you know more once i know), have to catch up on 3 days of class missed (train was late this morning) and I have to celebrate France rejecting the EU constitution. Meanwhile the weather is great, I'm healthy and my camera is overused!
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
censorship..(again!)
The Great Firewall of China provides an update on China's internet censorship situation, linking to a fascinating piece of research done about exactly what sites are and are not blocked etc.
Its amazing what joys you can find crawling the net. Actually its amazing I could download the report too! Find it here. Actually i agree with most of it, especially that commerical competition is encouraging people/companies to take more risks about crossing the (often, self inflicted) line.
Lots of interesting stuff about blocking of emails, weblogs, University BBSs etc. or at least i think so!
p.s. There certainly is a strong argument for protecting children from the internet, from violent games and from the general 'internet obsessed' culture that can be bad for them; i think one of the main reasons for closing down internet cafes in the past has been because of the movies, games etc which they were providing access for children.
Its amazing what joys you can find crawling the net. Actually its amazing I could download the report too! Find it here. Actually i agree with most of it, especially that commerical competition is encouraging people/companies to take more risks about crossing the (often, self inflicted) line.
Lots of interesting stuff about blocking of emails, weblogs, University BBSs etc. or at least i think so!
p.s. There certainly is a strong argument for protecting children from the internet, from violent games and from the general 'internet obsessed' culture that can be bad for them; i think one of the main reasons for closing down internet cafes in the past has been because of the movies, games etc which they were providing access for children.
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
Current favourite website
This is an interesting story which was linked from my favourite website right now which is this. The general idea is that we should stop worrying so much about donating aid to Africa (or other developing countries), since it hasn't made much difference and enough of it has already been 'wasted'), and we should not aim for 'fair trade' either, since this will make things worse.
The basic priciple is free-market economics, let countries trade openly, and let the market work to remove poverty, so countries can develop based on what they are good at. At the same time more aid and less debt (although welcome) will not have a lasting impact unless the trade imbalances are sorted out.
Unfortunately, aid is an easier topic to explain that trade, plus its much more marketable. Fair trade sounds better than free trade (which creates the automatic assumption that free trade is therefore unfair) too.
anyway, have a browse of the site and a read of the short article if its of interest!
The basic priciple is free-market economics, let countries trade openly, and let the market work to remove poverty, so countries can develop based on what they are good at. At the same time more aid and less debt (although welcome) will not have a lasting impact unless the trade imbalances are sorted out.
Unfortunately, aid is an easier topic to explain that trade, plus its much more marketable. Fair trade sounds better than free trade (which creates the automatic assumption that free trade is therefore unfair) too.
anyway, have a browse of the site and a read of the short article if its of interest!
democracy and media
not that i ever normally read CNN, but I did once since they did some 'special' on China (actually, just 3 or 4 articles!!) and this was interesting: here
It talks about a conference on democracy that was being co-held between a Chinese and American University, that was cancelled since it was near the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square masacre on June 4th. Once again it shows the sensitivity of the governement to the remote possibilities that something might happen, and I believe this paranoia (similar to the control exerted over the media when Zhao Ziyang died in January) is too extreme, and that the government should slowly open up the media rather than wait till some unfortunate moment when something big actually happens. But just a personal view, of course!
The other thing to note is the academic relevance. Since there is a general (but very slow) trend in China for people to be more daring (businesses, journalists, academics) in order to be 'the first' (to break the story, sell a product, write a paper etc) thus to create fame and/or money for themselves (a natural development I think). Thus there seems to be more people saying things critical of the government than you would normally expect (although it is normally carefully worded), and the government rightly encourages this (as a verison of democracy) since feedback is valuable to help the government improve.
However might there be a time when some people overstep the line? I recently read about a professor in Peking University who was fired/retired because of a posting on an internal online bulletin board. Remember, it is the communist party who run the Universities, not the professors or principals. Anyway, we'll see how it develops!
Its great to know that China thought about holding such a conference in the first place, and I know that it is sllwly encouraging democracy in certain levels of elections etc, and they are quite democratic (how democractic are most of those in the 'west', anyway?); although there is still the "1 party" issue. Anyway, there are elections of a kind within the party, and elections in localities.
I am not an expert on this at all, so I am just trying to identify some trends rather than specifics (which may be wrong), so apologies....and as always, I may be completely wrong!
It talks about a conference on democracy that was being co-held between a Chinese and American University, that was cancelled since it was near the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square masacre on June 4th. Once again it shows the sensitivity of the governement to the remote possibilities that something might happen, and I believe this paranoia (similar to the control exerted over the media when Zhao Ziyang died in January) is too extreme, and that the government should slowly open up the media rather than wait till some unfortunate moment when something big actually happens. But just a personal view, of course!
The other thing to note is the academic relevance. Since there is a general (but very slow) trend in China for people to be more daring (businesses, journalists, academics) in order to be 'the first' (to break the story, sell a product, write a paper etc) thus to create fame and/or money for themselves (a natural development I think). Thus there seems to be more people saying things critical of the government than you would normally expect (although it is normally carefully worded), and the government rightly encourages this (as a verison of democracy) since feedback is valuable to help the government improve.
However might there be a time when some people overstep the line? I recently read about a professor in Peking University who was fired/retired because of a posting on an internal online bulletin board. Remember, it is the communist party who run the Universities, not the professors or principals. Anyway, we'll see how it develops!
Its great to know that China thought about holding such a conference in the first place, and I know that it is sllwly encouraging democracy in certain levels of elections etc, and they are quite democratic (how democractic are most of those in the 'west', anyway?); although there is still the "1 party" issue. Anyway, there are elections of a kind within the party, and elections in localities.
I am not an expert on this at all, so I am just trying to identify some trends rather than specifics (which may be wrong), so apologies....and as always, I may be completely wrong!
Sunday, May 22, 2005
memories and photos...
After the Inner Mongolia trip, we collated 6/8 of our photos together (chris has a fancy 35mm camera and Keren doesn't have one), and put them on CD and dsitrbuted.
wow! its absoultely fantastic to see how other people have seen the same things as you, to see what they have taken, how they have taken the pictures and so on. Indeed its also interesting to see different styles, and to see what appeals to what people. Some of them even used the 'sepia' functions (etc) on the camera to tint the photos, and many of them look great.
Its very nice to see their photos, and some of them are very good, very different to me, and, well, you can tell how great an idea i think it was.
As I sit here looking at them, listening to Virgin Radio over the internet, severals songs have come on; 'time of your life' -greenday and 'its my life (...its now or never)' -Bon Jovi, ironically enough. So it has led me to think about memories..cause often is only through relection that you can think and realise the value of things. From realising how much fun I had this past weekend through to the fantastic, absoultely fantastic times we had in Mongolia, I realise how particular moments isolated mean so much, how when you put moments into a context they mean even more, and how different things combine to define that moment. From the tree that someone is leaning on, to the now flakes or reflection of the sun, to the smile or tears, to the strange person in the photo and the looks between people, from the arms over the shoulders to the sunglasses blocking out someone's eyes (read 'soul').
All of these and millions more elements make a photo, and the best photos are not the most carefully framed, they are just the ones that capture all of this -that you cannot plan, and cannot even see until you look back in hindsight. Not only is it so fufilling and often funny looking at these recent photos, its also exciting, thinking of the next adventure (this weekend up a holy mountain, to the birthplace of Confucius and to the origin of China's most fmaous beer).
Anyway, my thoughts are racing, and i'm still looking at the photos. In fact, its reminded me of some calssis moments from the trip:
-the girl in the 'club', since there is a picture of her epileptic-like dancing
-the authenticness of China, since there are pictures of china's street life, of average chinese people on teh train, in the grasslands and everywhere else
-the bizarre china moments...like the driver lifting up his seat (where the engine is) and just playing with the engine (like it is a casette player) whilst also using his fancy, slide-up mobile phone
-the classic moments, with picture of people in great poses (on 'hanging seats', skimming stones, sitting on stone lions, playing cards, sleeping on trains,
-Keren's phobia of being in photos -the onese she is in are fantastic, rare and special! (and the photos of her and Joe in together now have new meaning since they started dating!)
-Chris's money belt; in that he keeps it around his waist, so unzips his trousers to take out more money
-meeting chinese people..in fields, on trains etc...with guitars, babies, 'v for victory' signs,
and so on .....
wow, memories. so great, so fleeting, so many of them. And yet talking on line to my friends from home (and i dont do this enough unfortunately), I remember that life is about people, and some of them aren't in China :(
thoughts and reflections. but on the whole, fantastic photos, and I'll upload the best of them soon, since some are classics.
wow! its absoultely fantastic to see how other people have seen the same things as you, to see what they have taken, how they have taken the pictures and so on. Indeed its also interesting to see different styles, and to see what appeals to what people. Some of them even used the 'sepia' functions (etc) on the camera to tint the photos, and many of them look great.
Its very nice to see their photos, and some of them are very good, very different to me, and, well, you can tell how great an idea i think it was.
As I sit here looking at them, listening to Virgin Radio over the internet, severals songs have come on; 'time of your life' -greenday and 'its my life (...its now or never)' -Bon Jovi, ironically enough. So it has led me to think about memories..cause often is only through relection that you can think and realise the value of things. From realising how much fun I had this past weekend through to the fantastic, absoultely fantastic times we had in Mongolia, I realise how particular moments isolated mean so much, how when you put moments into a context they mean even more, and how different things combine to define that moment. From the tree that someone is leaning on, to the now flakes or reflection of the sun, to the smile or tears, to the strange person in the photo and the looks between people, from the arms over the shoulders to the sunglasses blocking out someone's eyes (read 'soul').
All of these and millions more elements make a photo, and the best photos are not the most carefully framed, they are just the ones that capture all of this -that you cannot plan, and cannot even see until you look back in hindsight. Not only is it so fufilling and often funny looking at these recent photos, its also exciting, thinking of the next adventure (this weekend up a holy mountain, to the birthplace of Confucius and to the origin of China's most fmaous beer).
Anyway, my thoughts are racing, and i'm still looking at the photos. In fact, its reminded me of some calssis moments from the trip:
-the girl in the 'club', since there is a picture of her epileptic-like dancing
-the authenticness of China, since there are pictures of china's street life, of average chinese people on teh train, in the grasslands and everywhere else
-the bizarre china moments...like the driver lifting up his seat (where the engine is) and just playing with the engine (like it is a casette player) whilst also using his fancy, slide-up mobile phone
-the classic moments, with picture of people in great poses (on 'hanging seats', skimming stones, sitting on stone lions, playing cards, sleeping on trains,
-Keren's phobia of being in photos -the onese she is in are fantastic, rare and special! (and the photos of her and Joe in together now have new meaning since they started dating!)
-Chris's money belt; in that he keeps it around his waist, so unzips his trousers to take out more money
-meeting chinese people..in fields, on trains etc...with guitars, babies, 'v for victory' signs,
and so on .....
wow, memories. so great, so fleeting, so many of them. And yet talking on line to my friends from home (and i dont do this enough unfortunately), I remember that life is about people, and some of them aren't in China :(
thoughts and reflections. but on the whole, fantastic photos, and I'll upload the best of them soon, since some are classics.
'Sheila'..oh dear!
Disclaimer..Sheila did intentionally pull a stupid face.
having said that, she's done a damn good job in looking like a freak, and its kinda funny. There are normal pictures of her on my website, but for those to lazy to go there, you can just remember Shelia as looking like this.
i promised her I would put this on my blog, and I await her comment... ;)
having said that, she's done a damn good job in looking like a freak, and its kinda funny. There are normal pictures of her on my website, but for those to lazy to go there, you can just remember Shelia as looking like this.
i promised her I would put this on my blog, and I await her comment... ;)
YEN, Chengde...
I'm now back in Beijing, having spent Saturday and Sunday in Chengde, which is the old 'Imperial Summer Palace' - a mountain retreat for the Emperors back in the 18th and 18th centuries. In fact, I was reminded by the plaque and the museum inside the palace that it is also the place where the Beijing Treaty was signed in 1860; which was 'the treaty of national humiliation' ceding hong kong etc to Britain (remember there was another museum dedicated to this in Yuanmingyuan in Beijing!)
Saturday, when we arrived, it was raining heavily, so we chose to visit 2 of the temples; 1 that is a miniature of the Potala Palace in Tibet, the other with a big carved goddess in it. Potala was interesting, the other one not so, and both charged a fortune to get it.
This morning we woke to beautiful sunshine and spent 3 hours hiking around the Imperial Palace which was fantastic; its huge with lots of green, forests and other stuff (the emperors built things that represented other chinese minorities as a sign of resepct). Lots of nice pictures on the website.
Random events in Chengde:
-found a hotel for 30rmb each...saw the rooms and promptly left!
-Chris being unprepared for rain, and thus walking around in shorts, t-shirts and a pink umbrella which he bought for 5rmb!
-cheap taxis (5 or 10 rmb maximum)
-fantastic train journey there and back with beatuficul countryisde, rivers, villages, cliffs etc. I LOVE China's scenery!
-being told not to walk on the path by 'officials' in the park in case we started forest fires (hmmm)
Earlier in the week I had attended a UN Youth Employment Network meeting people from the ILO (International Labour Office) and other 'experts' on youth. It was interesting, and came with nice food etc. We also had an opportunity to talk to John Elkington -the 'god' of CSR (the area of businesses being more responsible that I am interested in), which was great. Its official...the new 'buzzword' for CSR is 'blended value', since that is what the man himself has said. Actually his company(consultancy) has used that word in their reports before, but John created the phrase 'triple bottom line' over 11 years ago and its still the most used term.
We also had a reunion (from the inner mongolia trip) where we all went out to beautiful hou hai (my favourite place to hang out in the evenings, over a lake, in couches, wearing shorts) and I am now a twice weekly regular football player at lunchtimes (so unfut, especially playing in 25/30 degree heat).
We got a negative from Swiss Re on sponsoring AIESEC for CSR, so have to look for alternatives for that (hoping to get a powerful international business organsiation's chinese branch to endorse us and reccommend us to their members to sponsor us! -will meet them in about 10 days). This week I'm emailing all my contacts looking for (paid preferably) internships or long-term job opportunities. Depending on the replies I'll decide in a couple of weeks when/if I am travelling or working this summer, and also what kind of studying I will do next semester.
I'll end this now and post again with less 'personal' stuff soon!
Adam
Saturday, when we arrived, it was raining heavily, so we chose to visit 2 of the temples; 1 that is a miniature of the Potala Palace in Tibet, the other with a big carved goddess in it. Potala was interesting, the other one not so, and both charged a fortune to get it.
This morning we woke to beautiful sunshine and spent 3 hours hiking around the Imperial Palace which was fantastic; its huge with lots of green, forests and other stuff (the emperors built things that represented other chinese minorities as a sign of resepct). Lots of nice pictures on the website.
Random events in Chengde:
-found a hotel for 30rmb each...saw the rooms and promptly left!
-Chris being unprepared for rain, and thus walking around in shorts, t-shirts and a pink umbrella which he bought for 5rmb!
-cheap taxis (5 or 10 rmb maximum)
-fantastic train journey there and back with beatuficul countryisde, rivers, villages, cliffs etc. I LOVE China's scenery!
-being told not to walk on the path by 'officials' in the park in case we started forest fires (hmmm)
Earlier in the week I had attended a UN Youth Employment Network meeting people from the ILO (International Labour Office) and other 'experts' on youth. It was interesting, and came with nice food etc. We also had an opportunity to talk to John Elkington -the 'god' of CSR (the area of businesses being more responsible that I am interested in), which was great. Its official...the new 'buzzword' for CSR is 'blended value', since that is what the man himself has said. Actually his company(consultancy) has used that word in their reports before, but John created the phrase 'triple bottom line' over 11 years ago and its still the most used term.
We also had a reunion (from the inner mongolia trip) where we all went out to beautiful hou hai (my favourite place to hang out in the evenings, over a lake, in couches, wearing shorts) and I am now a twice weekly regular football player at lunchtimes (so unfut, especially playing in 25/30 degree heat).
We got a negative from Swiss Re on sponsoring AIESEC for CSR, so have to look for alternatives for that (hoping to get a powerful international business organsiation's chinese branch to endorse us and reccommend us to their members to sponsor us! -will meet them in about 10 days). This week I'm emailing all my contacts looking for (paid preferably) internships or long-term job opportunities. Depending on the replies I'll decide in a couple of weeks when/if I am travelling or working this summer, and also what kind of studying I will do next semester.
I'll end this now and post again with less 'personal' stuff soon!
Adam
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Arty picture of Dalia Hu and me
This will hopefully be the new 'me' picture. You can't see me very well, so its very complimentary ;)
Actually its designed to show off my photographic talent!
Actually its designed to show off my photographic talent!
Monday, May 16, 2005
rain...nomadlife....deep thoughts
bikes in Beijing...its raining. but its t-shirt weather at the sametime, so i'm happy (although my student was mystified: "it rains and is cold at the same time in SUMMER in UK?") The umbrellas are out...yep those on bikes without (and many, with) the weird bike raincoats all cyle with umbrellas -whilst their brakes have turned into nothing more than a screeching bell. not so safe (ever got an umbrella in the eye?)
my 'new' bike (2nd hand, bought for me by my student's auntie) has gears, is almost adult size, has real breaks and, well, seems more like a bike (sorry, flic!). Anyway my old piece of metal is now in Delphy's hands (good luck, but the bell on that one is better than on mine!)
this week i got ok test results, had some fun at a house party(where we got kicked out cause of the neighbours complaining), ate some japanese (and today ate some pigs trotters for the 1st time -probably not kosher! and not got much flavour either), saw Chris off at the airport, ran another successful CSR conference and got confirmation of Spurs being SO F***ING AVERAGE, its depressing :(
Since I was transferring my old yahoo posts over to nomadlife...It was weird going back through my old postings and copy-paste to nomadlife. I think back how much i have learnt about such a strange and previously unknown country, how many friends have come (and some have since gone) through beijing, how much like home this place has become, with routines and regulars (like my breakfast guy). How I knowBeijing better than London, since I am forced to travel around it all the time, and central beijing is smaller than london (plus i live closer to the centre relatively)...and how weird it was yesterday when my mum told my granny (before putting her onto me, by phone) 'its adam, he's in china'.
Yep, I'm in China. A very long way from home;with a strange language, a culture i will never understand, but like every foreigner here, think that i do.Since the american in my class says how much he loves america, but right now feels more comfortable outside of america (he really does love america), I was wondering, what about me. I'm not in the UK, although I spend 30 minutes a day reading the news from Times, Independent and other random sources (more time than i ever spent reading about my country when i was actually in it!). I also think the UK is great, despite lots and lots of flaws (undemocratic,overtaxed,wasteful, environmentally unfriendly ....). And its much better than China, but its not as fun as china. It seems like I 'know' the UK and its boring (although how many brits ever backpack around their own country to see it?). but china -well i don't know it, i don't know the language, and noone quite knows whats going to happen here next -witness the frequent topics of conversation about social unrest,inequality, communism, media control etc etc.
so what will i do? stay here, cause its now the 'sensible' option (its CHINA, says the media everywhere), where I feel like i am losing myfriends from back home, and never mentally said -lets leave thecoutry, and where i don't get to see my parents (for another 7 months when i go home hopefully). And i don't have a career sorted out yet.
moving to end this strange post, i think i am so unbelievably lucky.my past, my present, my future. I can't complain. I am happy, I've realised lots about my self that i didn't know -and thats a strange thought. I've realised that there are some good times that you don'twant to end, but when they do (uni in Manchester, MC in London,living in AIESEC China office) the next time will be even more fun.I've always known life is about people and about experiences(witness the signature in my yahoo account email account that hasnt changed for over 5years); and I've realised some new things will start happening inthenext few months. Some more decision need to be made. Some morepeopleare leaving (sadly), and more will be arriving.
Live's about people...people like you, reading this.
writing it has made me think; and its hopefully given you some food for thought (go on, chew on it) too...
Adam
my 'new' bike (2nd hand, bought for me by my student's auntie) has gears, is almost adult size, has real breaks and, well, seems more like a bike (sorry, flic!). Anyway my old piece of metal is now in Delphy's hands (good luck, but the bell on that one is better than on mine!)
this week i got ok test results, had some fun at a house party(where we got kicked out cause of the neighbours complaining), ate some japanese (and today ate some pigs trotters for the 1st time -probably not kosher! and not got much flavour either), saw Chris off at the airport, ran another successful CSR conference and got confirmation of Spurs being SO F***ING AVERAGE, its depressing :(
Since I was transferring my old yahoo posts over to nomadlife...It was weird going back through my old postings and copy-paste to nomadlife. I think back how much i have learnt about such a strange and previously unknown country, how many friends have come (and some have since gone) through beijing, how much like home this place has become, with routines and regulars (like my breakfast guy). How I knowBeijing better than London, since I am forced to travel around it all the time, and central beijing is smaller than london (plus i live closer to the centre relatively)...and how weird it was yesterday when my mum told my granny (before putting her onto me, by phone) 'its adam, he's in china'.
Yep, I'm in China. A very long way from home;with a strange language, a culture i will never understand, but like every foreigner here, think that i do.Since the american in my class says how much he loves america, but right now feels more comfortable outside of america (he really does love america), I was wondering, what about me. I'm not in the UK, although I spend 30 minutes a day reading the news from Times, Independent and other random sources (more time than i ever spent reading about my country when i was actually in it!). I also think the UK is great, despite lots and lots of flaws (undemocratic,overtaxed,wasteful, environmentally unfriendly ....). And its much better than China, but its not as fun as china. It seems like I 'know' the UK and its boring (although how many brits ever backpack around their own country to see it?). but china -well i don't know it, i don't know the language, and noone quite knows whats going to happen here next -witness the frequent topics of conversation about social unrest,inequality, communism, media control etc etc.
so what will i do? stay here, cause its now the 'sensible' option (its CHINA, says the media everywhere), where I feel like i am losing myfriends from back home, and never mentally said -lets leave thecoutry, and where i don't get to see my parents (for another 7 months when i go home hopefully). And i don't have a career sorted out yet.
moving to end this strange post, i think i am so unbelievably lucky.my past, my present, my future. I can't complain. I am happy, I've realised lots about my self that i didn't know -and thats a strange thought. I've realised that there are some good times that you don'twant to end, but when they do (uni in Manchester, MC in London,living in AIESEC China office) the next time will be even more fun.I've always known life is about people and about experiences(witness the signature in my yahoo account email account that hasnt changed for over 5years); and I've realised some new things will start happening inthenext few months. Some more decision need to be made. Some morepeopleare leaving (sadly), and more will be arriving.
Live's about people...people like you, reading this.
writing it has made me think; and its hopefully given you some food for thought (go on, chew on it) too...
Adam
Friday, May 13, 2005
The Nomadlife
All previous posts to this one were dopied/pasted from my yahoogroup which is what I had been using for the previous 8 months (posts were given orignial dates too). Thus those who were not on that, can now catch up with my past adventures (however some of the formatting did not copy and paste so well, so where a new line started before, there is now no space between 2 words -apologies).
From now on I'll dual post on this site and in my yahoogroup -since i think a lot of people still have not grasped blogging, and receiving an email is just plain easy (xanga allows people to get an email notice when a blog is updated interestingly!)
So now I am a nomader. Strange since I feel so settled in China...
From now on I'll dual post on this site and in my yahoogroup -since i think a lot of people still have not grasped blogging, and receiving an email is just plain easy (xanga allows people to get an email notice when a blog is updated interestingly!)
So now I am a nomader. Strange since I feel so settled in China...
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
back in Beijing
hey all
I'll apologise now for what will be a long (but hopefully a littleamusing) email.
Chris and Flic's leaving party was great. I had Guiness (since itwas in the expat area), and discovered noone in China has ever heardof it, which led me to turn Irish and promote tasting of it allnight (I don't like it that much, but its a nice change from theChinese beers which all taste the same).
Subsequently I left with 7 others by plane to north-east China,where we arrived at the world's smallest airport (probably), to begreeted by some lovely chinese girls with flowers etc. well,truthfully, the welcoming party was for some 'famous' guy who was onthe same plane. Anyway, we crashed his photos and chatted to him(see my photos: http://www.imagestation.com/member/?name=adamlane).
We stayed in crappy old Hailaer, keeping alive through going toKaraoke, having been ripped off by some local taxi drivers and thenext day hired taxis for a 3 hour ride through barren grasslands. Wevisited one of Asia's biggest lakes (and were the only people there,which was typical of the trip), stayed in a relatively authenticMongolian Hut and certianly got authentic food. It involvedintestines, stomachs, muscle and other bits of animal best not tomention..mmmm
Subsequently we visited the Russian/Chinese border, explored thelocal hills (including pillboxes, for military lookouts and tunnelsunder the hills) and the rest of Manzhouli (lots of Russian people,architecture etc) -its weird hearing russian speaking chinesetalking to us in russian (presuming we are russian of course).
Then a 13 hour overnight train journey, 5 hour bus journey andanother 3 hours by minibus took us to 'mirror lake'. The journey wasnotable since we held an open auction at the city inbetween the 2bus journeys to get the cheapest ride onwards, resulting in somefights and an arrest (oops). Fortunately the taxi driver arrestedpromptly reappeared, and we presumed it was just the policemanhaving fun and demonstrating some of his power. The 'official' busthat we then were shepherded onto tried to charge us too much ASWELL as make us swith buses afer 10 minutes (from 4 star to 1 star!).
The lake was kind of average, and only interesting since we got acrap, cheap hotel without any hot water, argued LOTS, in BAD chineseabout this and lit a fire on the beach (stamped out by mad hotelpeople). the whole area was being rebuilt for the summer season andthe waterfall had no water in it :(
we then got yet another minibus 7 hours past fantastic scenery to aplace at the bottom of the Changbai Shan mountain range on theborder with North Korea. So we climbed to the lake at the top (whichwas frozen, and we were walking at -10 degrees through a blizzard,and in prepration for we had bought $2 army waterproofs), saw aspectaculr waterfall, laughed about the supposed nuclear test thatmight take place nearby anytime, met some koreans (who were wavingsome knives at us worryingly after our brazen comments) who wereliving in a tent there for a whole year (mad), and slid down the iceon the stairs going down the mountain (aoh, bum still hurts).
Finally we ate some dog in a local korean restaurant (easy to eat,not too much flavour, but quite nice), experienced the localnightlife (oh, dear! one of the girls danced like she was having afit!) argued with more hotel people (they are mostly nice, but wejust had some communication issues sometimes), visited theTiger 'sanctuary'(felt kinda weird when bus driver threw a livechicken out the window so we could see the tiger eat it), went for ahike and got up early to leave.
Thus after another 7 hour train journey, a KFC (well, why not?), arun up to a temple and yet another 17 hour train journey (we neverhad any beds), we returned to Beijing having missed 2 days of classand bonded tightly.
So a summary:
-8 day trip....2 and a half days spent travelling (exculding shorttrips)
-Met mad american, ex-marines 'teaching' (we think that translatesas 'hiding out') by the russian border
-Realised most chinese are nice, once both sides manage to handlecommunication issues, but some are still trying to take foreignersfor a ride
-Learnt new words (like deposit), made new friends and got littlesleep
there is lots more to say, but i guess this will do for now. oh, igot 43% in the listening test, but they added some % to it, since itwas so hard, so officially i got 63% (average ish) and got a 91% inthe writing/reading (yay, in top 5 of the class). Now you can allstop worrying about me being kicked out of Uni!
no update yet on job stuff, will update that later. still teaching,still organising aiesec stuff (conferences etc) etc. Also, theflatmate's sister has left, since she is apparently mentally ill andthus in hospital after destroying the flatmate's computer (no wonderafter sitting in a small room for 1 month solid with no job orfriends...)
China is beautiful, fun, developing and developed, both efficientand useless at the same time and very endearing.
ta-ta
Adam
I'll apologise now for what will be a long (but hopefully a littleamusing) email.
Chris and Flic's leaving party was great. I had Guiness (since itwas in the expat area), and discovered noone in China has ever heardof it, which led me to turn Irish and promote tasting of it allnight (I don't like it that much, but its a nice change from theChinese beers which all taste the same).
Subsequently I left with 7 others by plane to north-east China,where we arrived at the world's smallest airport (probably), to begreeted by some lovely chinese girls with flowers etc. well,truthfully, the welcoming party was for some 'famous' guy who was onthe same plane. Anyway, we crashed his photos and chatted to him(see my photos: http://www.imagestation.com/member/?name=adamlane).
We stayed in crappy old Hailaer, keeping alive through going toKaraoke, having been ripped off by some local taxi drivers and thenext day hired taxis for a 3 hour ride through barren grasslands. Wevisited one of Asia's biggest lakes (and were the only people there,which was typical of the trip), stayed in a relatively authenticMongolian Hut and certianly got authentic food. It involvedintestines, stomachs, muscle and other bits of animal best not tomention..mmmm
Subsequently we visited the Russian/Chinese border, explored thelocal hills (including pillboxes, for military lookouts and tunnelsunder the hills) and the rest of Manzhouli (lots of Russian people,architecture etc) -its weird hearing russian speaking chinesetalking to us in russian (presuming we are russian of course).
Then a 13 hour overnight train journey, 5 hour bus journey andanother 3 hours by minibus took us to 'mirror lake'. The journey wasnotable since we held an open auction at the city inbetween the 2bus journeys to get the cheapest ride onwards, resulting in somefights and an arrest (oops). Fortunately the taxi driver arrestedpromptly reappeared, and we presumed it was just the policemanhaving fun and demonstrating some of his power. The 'official' busthat we then were shepherded onto tried to charge us too much ASWELL as make us swith buses afer 10 minutes (from 4 star to 1 star!).
The lake was kind of average, and only interesting since we got acrap, cheap hotel without any hot water, argued LOTS, in BAD chineseabout this and lit a fire on the beach (stamped out by mad hotelpeople). the whole area was being rebuilt for the summer season andthe waterfall had no water in it :(
we then got yet another minibus 7 hours past fantastic scenery to aplace at the bottom of the Changbai Shan mountain range on theborder with North Korea. So we climbed to the lake at the top (whichwas frozen, and we were walking at -10 degrees through a blizzard,and in prepration for we had bought $2 army waterproofs), saw aspectaculr waterfall, laughed about the supposed nuclear test thatmight take place nearby anytime, met some koreans (who were wavingsome knives at us worryingly after our brazen comments) who wereliving in a tent there for a whole year (mad), and slid down the iceon the stairs going down the mountain (aoh, bum still hurts).
Finally we ate some dog in a local korean restaurant (easy to eat,not too much flavour, but quite nice), experienced the localnightlife (oh, dear! one of the girls danced like she was having afit!) argued with more hotel people (they are mostly nice, but wejust had some communication issues sometimes), visited theTiger 'sanctuary'(felt kinda weird when bus driver threw a livechicken out the window so we could see the tiger eat it), went for ahike and got up early to leave.
Thus after another 7 hour train journey, a KFC (well, why not?), arun up to a temple and yet another 17 hour train journey (we neverhad any beds), we returned to Beijing having missed 2 days of classand bonded tightly.
So a summary:
-8 day trip....2 and a half days spent travelling (exculding shorttrips)
-Met mad american, ex-marines 'teaching' (we think that translatesas 'hiding out') by the russian border
-Realised most chinese are nice, once both sides manage to handlecommunication issues, but some are still trying to take foreignersfor a ride
-Learnt new words (like deposit), made new friends and got littlesleep
there is lots more to say, but i guess this will do for now. oh, igot 43% in the listening test, but they added some % to it, since itwas so hard, so officially i got 63% (average ish) and got a 91% inthe writing/reading (yay, in top 5 of the class). Now you can allstop worrying about me being kicked out of Uni!
no update yet on job stuff, will update that later. still teaching,still organising aiesec stuff (conferences etc) etc. Also, theflatmate's sister has left, since she is apparently mentally ill andthus in hospital after destroying the flatmate's computer (no wonderafter sitting in a small room for 1 month solid with no job orfriends...)
China is beautiful, fun, developing and developed, both efficientand useless at the same time and very endearing.
ta-ta
Adam
Thursday, April 28, 2005
observations and stupid exams...
hi all
a few random observations on beijing:
-there is no such thing as red or yellow lines to prohibit anyonefrom stopping or parking almost anywhere. So although most peopleare generally sensible, the typical reason for a traffic jam is ataxi blocking 2 lanes as it dashed across 3 lanes to pick up acustomer, and thus parked at an angle...causing chaos, especiallywith the long (bendy) buses trying to go around them!
-there are no trucks or lorries! there are a few..there are lots ofcoal trucks that appear after around 11pm, but during the day itsjust buses and cars mostly. Plus, of course, the many carts, cylesetc taht carry goods like vegetables, cardboard, TVs, doors..youname it!
-Having said this, all the bridges are really low in beijing, thedouble decker buses are kinda short, and only squeeze under thebridges by less than a metre (no kidding), so maybe this was a planto keep lorries away an reduce congestion/pollution?
-I've managed to read bus maps now since i know enough characers toknow where i am and where i am going. It helps no end! It also makesme realise what a superb invention the 'spider maps' are that areused in London, on each bus stop showing where the buses that stoptheir go, and their frequency.
-Noone in China uses deodarant. This is something i have known for awhile (since trying to buy it) but was reminded of again when packedvery, very, tightly onto a bus at rush hour..thankfully a fewwindows were open!
Anyway, moving on, we had our listening test today which waspointless because:
a) it was 50 times harder that what we practise in class, so we weretotally unprepared
b) nothing was repreated
c) everything was in chinese characters, including the answers..thusby the time i had understood the answers i had missed the actualconversation on the tape
d) the conversation was first, and then the question. so we had toremember the entire conversation in order to be able to answer thequestion, since we did not know which particular piece ofinformation to remember or look for in the conversation....and on and on. anyway everyone left wondering what the point ofthe test was. but since noone actually cares what the results are(its not like it matters what mark you get at the end of thecourse), it was a 'who cares' situation.
4 hours later i then had the oral test. it lasted approximately 3mintues since i was asked only 5 questions of such ease i could haveanswered most of them even before i started the course (and everyoneelse agreed). such the opposite of the listening test, everyone wasvery bewildered.
tomorrow is the written, therefore predcitably hard (but at least wehave been prepared with practise tests already)..so i'd better learnsome 'hanzi'.
just before i go, i'll mention that tomorrow night is flic andchris's leaving party :( i wont see flic again for a long time oncei go to inner mongolia (sunday) although i will see chris foranother week. kinda sad..the end of an era :( such a fun,interesting, chaotic time. even sadder than when i moved out of theoffice. oh well, better enjoy tomorrow night.
oh, and this is a great article on 'blogging'. If you dont know whatblogging is, you should know, and you should read this. and if youdo, you should read this anyway, cause its very interesting:
click here
will report back after the camping in a gurt in inner mongolia, andafter we take pictures of the north korean border from a lake on topof a (doramnt?) volcano...
adam
a few random observations on beijing:
-there is no such thing as red or yellow lines to prohibit anyonefrom stopping or parking almost anywhere. So although most peopleare generally sensible, the typical reason for a traffic jam is ataxi blocking 2 lanes as it dashed across 3 lanes to pick up acustomer, and thus parked at an angle...causing chaos, especiallywith the long (bendy) buses trying to go around them!
-there are no trucks or lorries! there are a few..there are lots ofcoal trucks that appear after around 11pm, but during the day itsjust buses and cars mostly. Plus, of course, the many carts, cylesetc taht carry goods like vegetables, cardboard, TVs, doors..youname it!
-Having said this, all the bridges are really low in beijing, thedouble decker buses are kinda short, and only squeeze under thebridges by less than a metre (no kidding), so maybe this was a planto keep lorries away an reduce congestion/pollution?
-I've managed to read bus maps now since i know enough characers toknow where i am and where i am going. It helps no end! It also makesme realise what a superb invention the 'spider maps' are that areused in London, on each bus stop showing where the buses that stoptheir go, and their frequency.
-Noone in China uses deodarant. This is something i have known for awhile (since trying to buy it) but was reminded of again when packedvery, very, tightly onto a bus at rush hour..thankfully a fewwindows were open!
Anyway, moving on, we had our listening test today which waspointless because:
a) it was 50 times harder that what we practise in class, so we weretotally unprepared
b) nothing was repreated
c) everything was in chinese characters, including the answers..thusby the time i had understood the answers i had missed the actualconversation on the tape
d) the conversation was first, and then the question. so we had toremember the entire conversation in order to be able to answer thequestion, since we did not know which particular piece ofinformation to remember or look for in the conversation....and on and on. anyway everyone left wondering what the point ofthe test was. but since noone actually cares what the results are(its not like it matters what mark you get at the end of thecourse), it was a 'who cares' situation.
4 hours later i then had the oral test. it lasted approximately 3mintues since i was asked only 5 questions of such ease i could haveanswered most of them even before i started the course (and everyoneelse agreed). such the opposite of the listening test, everyone wasvery bewildered.
tomorrow is the written, therefore predcitably hard (but at least wehave been prepared with practise tests already)..so i'd better learnsome 'hanzi'.
just before i go, i'll mention that tomorrow night is flic andchris's leaving party :( i wont see flic again for a long time oncei go to inner mongolia (sunday) although i will see chris foranother week. kinda sad..the end of an era :( such a fun,interesting, chaotic time. even sadder than when i moved out of theoffice. oh well, better enjoy tomorrow night.
oh, and this is a great article on 'blogging'. If you dont know whatblogging is, you should know, and you should read this. and if youdo, you should read this anyway, cause its very interesting:
click here
will report back after the camping in a gurt in inner mongolia, andafter we take pictures of the north korean border from a lake on topof a (doramnt?) volcano...
adam
Sunday, April 24, 2005
beautiful Beijing
Back from another trip to the outskirts of Beijing for a dose of non-polluted air, and it was very invigorating.
The area is called Shidu (10 (shi) ferries or crossings of the riveris the rough translation and there is 1du, 2du...etc along theriver), and we went to a 'village' called mujiakou, which is in factjust a recently built village designed to house goats and be ahotel. its nicely done, with the rooms in little stone rooms thatfit in well.
It was very beautiful (a bit like Yangshuo), and i promptly ledeveryone on a 2 and a half hour trek up the mountains...i managed toconvince them all to trust me, and my sense of direction.Fortunately everything worked out well and the exercise, views andanimals, plus the rarity of absolute silence was fantastic.
there are a bunch of photos on the wesbite(http://www.imagestation.com/member/?name=adamlane for those with abad memory).
other news is that we have midterms this week so i need to startdoing some work ASAP, the tickets for inner mongolia are bought andwe all went out for a class lunch last week (hot pot) which waspleasent (unlimited beer, shame i had to work afterwards).
this week i am hoping to get lots of big names (government etc) tocome to the next CSR conference I am organising..hoping they accept.Also this weekend will be the last time I see Flic until...? aww :(have to make the most of her till then, like by eating the xmaspudding at her leaving party!..since the weather is now a perfect 25degrees, why not?
nothing too much interesting in the news this week except theongoing demonstrations and japan issues...a good update is here:http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1581091,00.html. Althoughmore interesting is to read elsewhere about what China does not havein its textbooks, or distorts..(wars with India, Vietnam, TianenmanSquare amongst others...)
lets all keep our fingers crossed for the big derby game tomorrow!
Adam
The area is called Shidu (10 (shi) ferries or crossings of the riveris the rough translation and there is 1du, 2du...etc along theriver), and we went to a 'village' called mujiakou, which is in factjust a recently built village designed to house goats and be ahotel. its nicely done, with the rooms in little stone rooms thatfit in well.
It was very beautiful (a bit like Yangshuo), and i promptly ledeveryone on a 2 and a half hour trek up the mountains...i managed toconvince them all to trust me, and my sense of direction.Fortunately everything worked out well and the exercise, views andanimals, plus the rarity of absolute silence was fantastic.
there are a bunch of photos on the wesbite(http://www.imagestation.com/member/?name=adamlane for those with abad memory).
other news is that we have midterms this week so i need to startdoing some work ASAP, the tickets for inner mongolia are bought andwe all went out for a class lunch last week (hot pot) which waspleasent (unlimited beer, shame i had to work afterwards).
this week i am hoping to get lots of big names (government etc) tocome to the next CSR conference I am organising..hoping they accept.Also this weekend will be the last time I see Flic until...? aww :(have to make the most of her till then, like by eating the xmaspudding at her leaving party!..since the weather is now a perfect 25degrees, why not?
nothing too much interesting in the news this week except theongoing demonstrations and japan issues...a good update is here:http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1581091,00.html. Althoughmore interesting is to read elsewhere about what China does not havein its textbooks, or distorts..(wars with India, Vietnam, TianenmanSquare amongst others...)
lets all keep our fingers crossed for the big derby game tomorrow!
Adam
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
snowing in Beijing at 25 degrees?
Yep its snowing! well not really, its just these white flowers thatare flying absolutely everywhere and getting in all the rooms (pluseyes of cyclists!), so it looks like its snowing!
no-one wuite knows where the flowers are coming from though, but iguess they are spreading their wings for flower mating season!
recently i had my first accident on the road :) not a bad one, justsome idiot on a motorbike pulled out and looked right before lookingleft (the traffic was coming from the left in the closest lane)..soI hit him at about 10mph, missed his leg unfortunately and just wentinto the side of his motorbike. anyway, totally harmless, butexcitingly i was looking at him saying 'kan, kan' afterwards (kan =look)
I also noticed that the chinese are nothing if not clever, in thatsince its so dry in spring (but the trees need water), they dig bigholes around the trees (mini-lakes if you like) and then fill themwith water (from a truck driving along the road taking aim so as tospray into the wholes) so the trees get more water. I think it isjust for 'young' trees and don't know if its just my area or thewhole of Beijing!
most of you will have read about the anti-japanese demonstrations inchina -I havent seen any yet, but there has always been historicalissues between the 2 countries. I asked my tutee..he said: "thechinese not like the japanese" so there you go. anyway, itsinteresting that the government seems to be tacilty encouraging thedemonstrations on one hand (to make japan look bad, and maybe tofocus attention on an external issue), whilst being careful to makesure they don't get too bad that they encourage other demonstrations(ie. against the chinese government). its rpetty obvious they arebeing lax though, since normally they would crack down instantly,and last weekend cars were being wrecked, embassies attacked andjapanese shops ransacked in shanghai and elsewhere.
the other interesting thing i learned is about a wordcalled 'pingde'. Some of you may know that recently UK introduceda 'citizenship' class into the national curriculum, so students knowa bit more about stuff like the law, ethics, voting etc. I am sureother countries have this too. Well the chiense have 'pingde' fromage 5-18, and it literally translates as 'morals/ethics'. Thats alot of classes on that subject. apparently a lot of it is based onstories etc from old times, Mao or whoever with a moral to them(like the bible really!)
Had my first KTV experience last friday night (karaoke), but not tooamazing since I slept through most of it (started at 1am, finishedat 5am)...I have to get up at 7am every morning and had not had abreak since conference, so i have an excuse (plus the room was toohot, and we had to wait an hour to get it)...maybe the next timewill be better. It was weird though that for the beatles songe,there were some 'imitation' videos involving a chinese 'lookalikeband' -classic! Sadly Ralph has now left; maybe I'll see him inIndia at International Congress...although I need to find a reasonto go! maybe an AIESEC CSR job could be the excuse...
tomorrow the whole class is going out for lunch, woohoo. we'll seeif I'll throttle the annoying old german lady (she wasted 45 mins ofmy revision time when she collared me on cmapus trying torevise!)..she is very nice and intelligent and quite a character,but sometimes...grrr
rightyo, better do some more revision, before teaching, dinnermeetings and then sorting out my tickets (and sleeping bag) to innermongolia (ooooh).
au revoir!
Adam
no-one wuite knows where the flowers are coming from though, but iguess they are spreading their wings for flower mating season!
recently i had my first accident on the road :) not a bad one, justsome idiot on a motorbike pulled out and looked right before lookingleft (the traffic was coming from the left in the closest lane)..soI hit him at about 10mph, missed his leg unfortunately and just wentinto the side of his motorbike. anyway, totally harmless, butexcitingly i was looking at him saying 'kan, kan' afterwards (kan =look)
I also noticed that the chinese are nothing if not clever, in thatsince its so dry in spring (but the trees need water), they dig bigholes around the trees (mini-lakes if you like) and then fill themwith water (from a truck driving along the road taking aim so as tospray into the wholes) so the trees get more water. I think it isjust for 'young' trees and don't know if its just my area or thewhole of Beijing!
most of you will have read about the anti-japanese demonstrations inchina -I havent seen any yet, but there has always been historicalissues between the 2 countries. I asked my tutee..he said: "thechinese not like the japanese" so there you go. anyway, itsinteresting that the government seems to be tacilty encouraging thedemonstrations on one hand (to make japan look bad, and maybe tofocus attention on an external issue), whilst being careful to makesure they don't get too bad that they encourage other demonstrations(ie. against the chinese government). its rpetty obvious they arebeing lax though, since normally they would crack down instantly,and last weekend cars were being wrecked, embassies attacked andjapanese shops ransacked in shanghai and elsewhere.
the other interesting thing i learned is about a wordcalled 'pingde'. Some of you may know that recently UK introduceda 'citizenship' class into the national curriculum, so students knowa bit more about stuff like the law, ethics, voting etc. I am sureother countries have this too. Well the chiense have 'pingde' fromage 5-18, and it literally translates as 'morals/ethics'. Thats alot of classes on that subject. apparently a lot of it is based onstories etc from old times, Mao or whoever with a moral to them(like the bible really!)
Had my first KTV experience last friday night (karaoke), but not tooamazing since I slept through most of it (started at 1am, finishedat 5am)...I have to get up at 7am every morning and had not had abreak since conference, so i have an excuse (plus the room was toohot, and we had to wait an hour to get it)...maybe the next timewill be better. It was weird though that for the beatles songe,there were some 'imitation' videos involving a chinese 'lookalikeband' -classic! Sadly Ralph has now left; maybe I'll see him inIndia at International Congress...although I need to find a reasonto go! maybe an AIESEC CSR job could be the excuse...
tomorrow the whole class is going out for lunch, woohoo. we'll seeif I'll throttle the annoying old german lady (she wasted 45 mins ofmy revision time when she collared me on cmapus trying torevise!)..she is very nice and intelligent and quite a character,but sometimes...grrr
rightyo, better do some more revision, before teaching, dinnermeetings and then sorting out my tickets (and sleeping bag) to innermongolia (ooooh).
au revoir!
Adam
Thursday, April 14, 2005
hm..
Back from conference!
I had a great time chairing the AIESEC conference over a 3 dayweekend; including the rather emotional closing plenary, since Chrisand Flic were leaving China before the next month, and by the nextconference, there will be a new national team. Ralph is also leavingsoon (party tomorrow though!), but I'm not :)
Our mid-term examination is in 2 weeks spread over 3 weeks. Then thefollowing day I'll hopefully be heading off to Inner Mongolia for aweek holiday (no uni for a week) once i sort out the train vs. planeticket options.
This week the weather has warmed up again to around 20 degrees, soit is very pleasent and we'll be picnicing in the park on saturday!Maybe even the shorts will come out!! The meeting we had to ask formoney went quite well; more info in a couple of weeks, and I haveanother tutoring job paying lots :) (equivalent of 20 Euros perhour!!) for 6 hours, which will mean i might even be able to startsaving some money to travel in the summer.
I noticed that Tony Blair has released his own little red book,which has been compared to Mao's. what an honour! I have a copy ofMao's but have not got around to reading it yet. Not much excitingnews I am afraid, but hopefully there will be more soon.
My bike looks quite amsuing now half of it is tied on with a straw(the chain guard) or pieces of wire (the padlock). Got to dash.
Adam
I had a great time chairing the AIESEC conference over a 3 dayweekend; including the rather emotional closing plenary, since Chrisand Flic were leaving China before the next month, and by the nextconference, there will be a new national team. Ralph is also leavingsoon (party tomorrow though!), but I'm not :)
Our mid-term examination is in 2 weeks spread over 3 weeks. Then thefollowing day I'll hopefully be heading off to Inner Mongolia for aweek holiday (no uni for a week) once i sort out the train vs. planeticket options.
This week the weather has warmed up again to around 20 degrees, soit is very pleasent and we'll be picnicing in the park on saturday!Maybe even the shorts will come out!! The meeting we had to ask formoney went quite well; more info in a couple of weeks, and I haveanother tutoring job paying lots :) (equivalent of 20 Euros perhour!!) for 6 hours, which will mean i might even be able to startsaving some money to travel in the summer.
I noticed that Tony Blair has released his own little red book,which has been compared to Mao's. what an honour! I have a copy ofMao's but have not got around to reading it yet. Not much excitingnews I am afraid, but hopefully there will be more soon.
My bike looks quite amsuing now half of it is tied on with a straw(the chain guard) or pieces of wire (the padlock). Got to dash.
Adam
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