Our Man In China

Book Review - Country Driving, by Peter Hessler

2010-09-12T10:25:00.000+01:00

Country Driving is Peter Hessler’s third book on China, following on from the award winning River Town (2001) and Oracle Bones (2006). The book is split into three sections, all loosely based around the theme of driving. In the first section, he drives a 4*4 across North China, tracing the Great Wall, both physically and historically. The second section documents the years he spent living in a small village two hours north of Beijing. In the third section, he spends time in an economic development zone in the southern province of Zhejiang, getting to know the people and the region.

For anyone who has read the previous two books, they will know Hessler is an elegant and meticulous writer, and Country Driving is another triumph. Trained at Princeton and Oxford, Hessler shows us again the refined style that is the hallmark of his work. For a book on China, this is another must-read, superior to many of these ‘where is China going’ or ‘cracking the enigma of China’ books. By just living there and talking to people and working hard on his stories, he understands a great deal about the country, and presents it in a fashion familiar to those with and without experience of living in China.

I find a lot of books about China tend to be quite ‘shouty’, where the author goes out of his way to look for things that can be exaggerated to show the difference and/or similarity with his own country. This tends to overplay or underplay certain issues. In what can be quite a manic country, Hessler’s writing has a tremendously calming effect, with no hyperbole and few sweeping and unfounded generalisations, producing a very nuanced and accurate appreciation of China and his subjects.

Besides the elegant prose, another feature of Hessler’s writing is the time he spent on his projects. He has certainly been there, done that, and got the T shirt. The book covers a period of around 6 years. As he rightly notes, for a foreigner looking to accomplish something in China, the biggest investment is time. He spent a long time in China, and knows his subjects extremely well.

In writing this type of book, it’s very easy to be judgemental, and Hessler is refreshingly free from such statements. He displays a meekness not generally associated with his countryman. His research on issues such as the Great Wall and the developmental zone in section three is thorough and sensibly arranged alongside personal stories. Statements such as ‘for some reason’, or ‘who knows why…’ do not appear in the book. Everything in the book is researched as much as possible. For example, speed cameras on Chinese highways - it might sound simple enough, but finding out the real deal in China is often time consuming and very difficult, but Hessler sticks at it.

Anyone who has been to a developmental zone in China might find it hard to write something interesting about it. However, Hessler delves deeper, beyond the faceless concrete and steel, to talk to the people involved, understand the behind-the-scenes, and produce a rounded account of this time spent there. This type of ‘fieldwork’, done with an open mind and sense of curiosity, is certainly very conducive to appreciating China (or anywhere else for that matter). He tends to steer clear of political issues. Yet, funnily enough, by taking a sort of anthropological, detached view of his subjects and speaking to them in depth, he actually has a very, very sound understanding of general trends in the ‘macro’ issues facing China today.

Like many Westerners in China, he also has an eye for the absurd, and tells stories such as meeting Chairman Mao on an aeroplane and the driving licence test questions in a fairly centrist fashion, allowing the reader to see the funny side for themselves. Many of his personal tales are presented in this low-key, matter-of-fact way, which allows the inherent interest of them to shine through. It’s not laugh out loud material, but certainly makes for fine reading.

There is nothing particularly ground breaking about this book. Anyone who has spent a long time in China and makes an effort to get to know people around him will identify with everything Hessler says. What Hessler does, though, is combine this knowledge with great writing. This book is a winner on all accounts.

Racism in China

2010-07-21T17:35:00.000+01:00

I've just read a good article by an American woman who lived in Beijing on what she calls the 'racism' meted out to white Westerners in mainland China: http://tinyurl.com/33rfxoa (Wall Street Journal website).

The point made - that white Westerners get preferential treatment - is generally true. As a white Westerner, there's probably never been a better time to live and work in China than now. You can get a reasonably well paid job just by being white and speaking English. I've made appearances on TV. I've made company videos where I've pretended to be a scientist in a white coat. My main job in the company I work for is just being there, a sign of excellence (see previous posts). The majority of people are generally fairly friendly and respectful towards you, usually more so than they are to their fellow countrymen. All courtesy of my race (and to a lesser extent, nationality).

A lot of Chinese, apart from some 'up to date', savvy, younger ones, think all white foreigners are American, rich, work as engineers, scientists or lawyers, drive around in expensive cars, have a huge house with a big lawn and white picket fence, and generally live the life of Riley. I met a guy once when I was making a TV programme and he asked me if I was in Xi'an as a manager or an engineer. Being a lowly employee is not something that white people are supposed to do, particularly in China.

It can be a bit embarrassing at times, and it only adds to the ugly superiority complex that some Westerners, particularly Americans, have in China. Although to call it racism, with the negative connotations that word holds, is a bit misleading. When people shout 'laowai' (foreigner) as you're walking down the street, it's because of curiosity or they're trying to be funny, and is completely non-threatening. The last part of this paragraph from the article is a case in point:

"For some white people hired for this purpose, it's not an easy situation to deal with. Ms Swartz felt she was treated like a child and even a 'zoo animal' at the firm. But she needed the job to take care of her newborn baby. She didn't start taking on any real responsibility, such as overseeing clients, until a manager overheard her speaking Mandarin. 'They didn't even read my résumé,' says Ms. Swartz, who studied eight years of Mandarin before moving to China. But she also believes that it's good for white people to experience racism because most people on earth have to deal with it, and 'it doesn't feel good'."

It might not feel great for some white people, but it's a lot better than the treatment dished out to black people. Black people get the hardest time of all. I went with a black friend to discuss making a travel TV programme once, and as we turned up at the door, the man looked at the black guy and his expression told the story very clearly: 'we want the nice looking foreigners'. The black guy left immediately. Black people have a reputation as being either poor, lecherous or both. Chinese men don't really like seeing a white man with a Chinese girl, but a Chinese girl with a black man is particularly galling. Indians, Pakistanis and South/South-East Asians also don't get the red carpet treatment as often as white people.

A couple of other points worth mentioning. Chinese people are very 'financialist', ie, if you're poor, we look down on you, and vice versa. This also applies to foreigners. If you're from a rich area - Western Europe, North America or Australia/NZ - you're good. If you're from a country poorer than China, you're not so good.

Also, a lot of Chinese people don't like to have dark skin. Dark skin shows you're a 农民 'nongmin', or farmer, and that you grew up or still live in the fields, have no 文化 'wenhua' (education) and can't speak standard Mandarin. Having pale skin shows that you're unaffected by the elements, you work in an office and have air conditioning - or for a girl, it means you have a rich husband so you don't have to go out and earn money. I have a friend who is insisting on having an operation to make her skin whiter. The worst insult you can call her is 黑蛋蛋 'hei dandan' - black egg. She always takes an umbrella out when the sun is out to stop herself from getting 晒死了 'shai si le' - tanned.

Foreigners from Botswana

2010-07-16T14:03:00.000+01:00

A lot gets made in the newspapers about Chinese companies working in Africa. Our company is in on the act as well, with projects in Nigeria and Sudan. Such contracts are normally signed with major state-owned companies, who then sub-contract out various projects to other companies, such as ours.

Last Saturday, representatives from CEC, a Beijing-based state-owned company, and representatives of one their clients, the Botswana National Grid, came to Xian. The purpose, if the red banner hanging over the entrance was anything to be believed, was 'Visiting and Looking'.

As usual with our company, everyone only found out about it about a day or two beforehand. Everything runs through the boss, so only when he lets other people know, do we know. This meant that the day before, the translation department (including me) were busy hastily translating contents pages of manuals from Chinese to English. Preparation is, without exception, either rushed or non-existent every single time we have had important "foreign guests" visit. So I've given up trying too hard. Which is actually the best way to deal with it.

Being the company "vase", or token foreigner, I had to go along for lunch. The boss expects that my presence says "our translation department, and company in general, is high quality because we have a Westerner". Never mind that that's not true, it's perception that counts.

Lunch was to be taken in the Holiday Inn, a brand new, faceless hotel built on what five years ago was fertile farmland. We arrived quite early, before the others, so the boss got to ordering the food. With the customary rudeness and disrespect that rich people display towards poor(er) people, the boss barked his orders at, and made jokes at the expense of, a series of young waitresses.

Having dispatched them, he talked to me about his daughter. She likes cosplay, a Japanese invention where people dress up like videogame characters. Her parents forbid her from doing it, and expect her to take over the company when she is older. Obviously she is completely opposed to this, and the friction between her and her parents is typical of the huge generation gap. Not being an expert in parenting, I just nodded noncommittally to most of what he said.

Later the guests arrived: four Botswanans, two Germans and three Chinese from the contractor. Sideways glances and mild brow-furrowing suggested they were a bit surprised to see me, and it took an announcement five minutes into lunch to explain who I actually was and what I was doing there.

I spoke to the Botswanan engineer next to me about what he thought of China. He mainly noticed that it was very safe, which I've heard foreigners say many times before about China. He also marvelled at the economic development. I asked why so many African countries co-operate with Chinese companies in areas where technical quality is a requirement. The answer - cost.

At meals like these, there is always the problem of translating/explaining some of the dishes. And with broken English from our side and zero Chinese from their side, a lot of conversations drift into confusion, and jokes peter out into empty silence. The boss spent most of this time discussing "zhengshi" - real issues - with the representative from the contractor, leaving the chitchat to us underlings.

On my left was the "head of the business department", Mr Li Zhao. He is a middle-aged, slightly oily-looking man with a thinning side-parting and bad teeth, and he likes to carry one of these black briefcase-cum-handbags that are the preserve of unfashionable Chinese businessmen. He used to sell air conditioners. His supineness is the only reason he works here. (Only the boss has any real authority and power, hence the quotation marks around Mr Zhao's job title).

He said in Chinese to the girl from our business department "Why don't you tell everyone about the history of the dumpling". Perhaps aware of her own deficiencies in culinary history, she then cunningly said to everyone, in English, "Now Mr Zhao will tell you about the history of the dumpling". Then she said in Chinese to Mr Zhao, "I just said you will now tell us a story about dumplings, they are very excited".

The sweat beads started forming on his head as everyone looked expectantly in his direction. He first mumbled something about long history, different types of dumplings in different places, "the dumpling consists of an outside and a filling", and various other uninteresting pieces of bleedin' obvious information. Translating for him was quite awkward because his content was so weak. He said that the Italian pizza came into being when Marco Polo tried to make dumplings back in Italy, but couldn't do it and so just put the filling on top and called it a pizza. This might sound funny to Chinese ears, but the silence it was treated with let even Mr Zhao know that he was losing his audience.

Afterwards in the lobby, the translator from the contractor displayed some of the finest sarcasm I have ever heard from a Chinese person. "So Mr Zhao, I didn't realise you knew so much about dumplings, maybe next time you can tell us about the history of the noodle." Mr Zhao smoked his cigarette, content at the praise but being modest: "My actual speciality is Chinese history". "Wow, Chinese and culinary history, you know so much," came the reply.

In the afternoon, we held a small presentation about the company in the head office. During the Q and A, our boss displayed his skill at fending away very pertinent and direct questions from the German engineers. "Fobbed off" is I'm sure the feeling they felt the most. By the end, the head of their delegation was lamenting at the chaos and suggesting it was time to go to the simulation centre. But our company's relationship with the contractor is the only one that matters, so I don't think the boss is too fussed about what the 'laowai' (foreigners) thought.

The simulation centre is actually quite amusing. It is part of, and belongs to, the Xian Electrical College, and we just use it when we need to train some laowai. But we're very cunning. We put a battered old metal company sign on the door saying "XXX Company Simulation Training Center", and hey presto, it's ours! One Indonesian trainee asked me last year, pointing at all the dormitories on campus, "are all these students studying at XXX company?" Ahh, if only he knew.

The girl from the business department opened up a PowerPoint presentation to discuss the training plan. As soon as she opened it, the words "Trainin Scheduel" stared me in the face. As expected, at the first opportunity the Europeans asked me about the spelling. It should be highly embarrassing for me and the company, but I've already given up trying to make things better. It seems to me very obvious that anything like this should be checked (by me) first, and that if they don't give it to me, I can't check it.

But no one cares. It's interesting that it doesn't matter how bad the presentation is or how unprepared our project manager was, the boss never says anything. Keep your head down, speak when spoken to, don't give the game away, and you'll be fine.

Harmony in a sentence

2010-07-14T09:26:00.000+01:00

Last week at the entrance to my apartment block appeared this rather striking red banner:

It reads "Peace and stability is the lasting theme of people's happiness". Maybe something happened that meant we needed to be reminded to not 'naoshi' - cause trouble. The woman who reads the electricity and water meters probably knows, but it probably doesn't do to ask more questions than is necessary.

Red banners such as this are a popular form of 'propaganda' in China. They originated from ancient Chinese scroll writing, and have been a favourite of the Government over the last 60 years. Over 95% of Chinese were illiterate in 1949, and so they were an extremely effective way of getting key messages across in simple language.

I went to a town near Xian last year and red banners formed guard of honour-like arches at every set of lamp posts all the way down the main street. The majority of them, like the banners in most places, exhort the need to be law-abiding, reminding us how good a stable and peaceful life is, and what the consequences will be if we we're not 'harmonious'. Universities like to use them as well, to remind us to study hard and become a useful member of society. Sometimes you'll see them on the sides of the street, telling us that "Xian is our home, tidiness relies on everyone" (it sounds better in the original). They're not nearly as ominous as a western journalist would make them out to be, and they seem to be accepted as part of the city decor as much as anything else.

It's not just the government that uses them. Companies use them when starting up or welcoming guests. Because of the way the Chinese is written, they usually get translated into something like "Welcome to Leaders from ABC Company Ltd for Visiting and Gyiding" [sic]. Our company has quite a few of these, and they're difficult to translate into something like natural English.

There are more examples of slightly less threatening "hengfu" at the often-interesting China Smack website: http://www.chinasmack.com/2010/pictures/funny-rural-chinese-advertising-depressing-propaganda.html.

Interviews, interviews, interviews

2010-07-13T09:46:00.000+01:00

During the last 12 months, I have probably interviewed over a thousand potential translators. It's a fairly boring process, mainly because of the 'sameness' of the applicants and because I know the good people won't come to our company - only some of the people who scrape through will.

Recently, my first question has been "Hi, how are you?". A fair percentage of responses are "My name is ***", "I'm 23", or "What?". After I manage to extract a "I'm fine thank you, and you?" textbook answer, I ask them if they have an English name. Some of the names leave a little to be desired: Cherry, Summer, Daisy, Coffee, Mervin, Betty, Henry (a girl, and she had no idea what Henrietta was). Yesterday I was graced with the presence of someone called King Rick. King of what, I failed to ascertain.

I sometimes ask them "Why did you come here this morning?". The usual response (if they understood the question) is a "Durrr, how stupid are you?" face and the answer "Because I want a job". Then I ask "But why this job?". Then they say "Because my major is English and I love my major". From the ensuring conversation, it usually transpires that most people are so in love with their major they forgot to actually learn it.

Sometimes, before I even get the first question out, I get treated to an 'impromptu' speech. "Firstly, thank you for see me today, I am honoured to come to your great company, I want challenge myself, I think here I can do this. Thank you." Okay, lovely.

One person - it might have been our old friend Henry - said "thank you" at the end of every answer. "Where are you from?" "Xian. Thank you." "Why do you have a boy's name?" "I like. Thank you."

Most people who come here have depressingly bad English (because the good people go to other companies). It tends to be the people with foreign friends, work experience or confidence who actually speak better English. Whether someone has Zhuan Ba, a supposedly authoritative English exam certificate, is almost entirely unrelated to their ability to speak and understand English.

As for the CV, most of them are long on platitudes and short on experience, particularly for new graduates. A lot of Chinese university students are still seen as children, and most of them will not do any form of paid work until after they graduate. Almost no one will pay their way through university themselves, relying exclusively on parents and some occasional scholarships and government support.

Some people like to prepare an English CV and personal statement. King Rick - for it was he - prepared this moving letter. How he didn't pass will remain a mystery.

"MR (Miss),
"I prefer to recommend myself to your group rather than any other firms because I feel this job will be a challenge and I like to take challenges. Nowadays almost all the employers are asking for the experience. And to be honest, I'm just an unexperienced undergraduate from a college which is not famous, But I still want to tell you some advantages of mine so that u will not miss a talent. I have learned my main subject of journalism for four years, and there's really no need for you to worry about my sense of time and capacity of editor. I have been teaching my Israeli girlfriend Chinese for one year. Well, it was hard in the beginning, but now I'm sure I can handle it anytime. There is no smooth road in this world, but if we always keep learning, we can make all the impossible possible.
"Your company really attracts me. And every time I see it, I feel all the passion striking my mind. This is really amazing to stimulate my brain. I will have so much honor if I can join you.
"With all my heart, I truly hope that one chance will come soon. Appreciate it so much that you take your time to read my resume, and hope you'll see my potential standing in front of your.
"King Rick"

Power industry Chinglish

2010-07-13T09:43:00.000+01:00

I used to feel a bit guilty about laughing at Chinglish. But I now realise it's not a one-way street. The Chinese like to laugh at foreigners when they butcher Chinese, so we should enjoy Chinglish with a clear conscience. Below are a couple of attempts at translation by an intern student in our company. She has since been taken off translation and is now in charge of ordering lunch...

Exhibit 1
"Indonesia north of sudan project now is in the construction item of equipment and has left the stage, the review are all construction units to many still not solved the problem of the staff are called "crunching a bone project". in order to ensure that the toc, the general handed over to the task particularly contractor to review and asked me to do our best to finish this job well. In June, review the professional’s tried this way and tries as a result, the timely..."

Exhibit 2
"The report about check that shows every thing at present running normally but the performance in each profession have so many difference and the normally instance is done too much work to remember. So it affect the overall image, the system on the wall and sanitation clean out, as well as part of the instruments and use of the performance. We believed that if we hard working and always change the mistakes in works, we could be standardization, scientization and institutionalization."

Exhibit 3
"To ensure effective leadership by the secretariat and the national audit office and the training class, the participants in each class needs the signature or get the handout in that day to identify . That can guarantee the attendance and supervision. After the training, we can participants from various professional and interpretation of the secretariat in response that the personnel involved in the training initiative is far greater than was at first anticipated. Many personnel are not only in time to the professional training but also active in other professional training. There is few people have participated in all 18 training and the publishing the exam. From the situation at the last examination and to make an encouraging for him, it was all very good for the training, it’s successful and effective."

The essence of my company

2010-07-13T09:32:00.000+01:00

I have worked for power engineering services company SE Energy for over a year and a half now. As my contract draws to a close, I'm going to try and get across what is the essence of the company.

It is a 夫妻店 (fu qi dian), a 'husband and wife shop'. This term normally refers to a small business run by a married couple. Our company, with hundreds of employees and which is involved in the export of Chinese skilled labour to developing countries, should not, by my western way of thinking, be a fu qi dian. Such a big company, my natural instincts tell me, needs qualified, experienced and skilled managers and engineers to ensure all the things mentioned on the website - "Customer Orientated, Professional Services, Safety First" and so on and so on - can actually be achieved, thereby improving company performance, securing more clients, expanding, and generally becoming more prosperous and 'better'.

It took me the best part of a year to realise that this is not true. And, if anecdotal evidence from numerous friends is anything to go by, this type of large-scale fu qi dian is very common. There's nothing inherently bad or evil about it, but for people who like to 'do something properly or not at all', a fu qi dian will turn your hair grey. For our company is merely a vehicle by which the boss and his (second) wife can earn as much as possible while doing their level best to suppress outgoings. Whether things are done properly or not is entirely beside the point. Make as much money, register empty companies that don't actually do anything and spread around the profits so they're not all in one basket.

Chinese companies like to have four-character phrases as the company motto. The unofficial one for one company is pianyi jiu xing 便宜就行, which a colleague came up with and I translated as Keep It Cheap. Nothing else matters, just do it as cheap as possible. I have it written on official company paper on the back of the bookshelf in our office.

What comes across as bad management and decision-making to a western person is actually, from the point of view of the boss and his wife, a good decision. Why? Because it keeps costs down.

The boss' wife is in charge of finance, HR, translation and administration departments. She is, by western standards, completely unqualified to be a director of anything, and her impressive collection of apparently bizarre and stupid decisions is huge. My favourite instance was when we were late for a recruitment meeting because she was asleep in her office. She blamed us, demanding to know why we did not wake her. This year's new translator recruitment has been a complete cock-up from start to finish. The 'flow' of people in and out of our company is very high, because of the low salary. Our best translator had her salary cut last month because of her new salary system. And, mostly because of decisions made by the wife, the quality of the translation department has actually declined over the last six months.

This, however, is irrelevant. It's all about saving money. This year, no one on an annual salary got a New Year's bonus, almost unheard of for a company with lots of projects like ours. The fact that it caused two senior engineers to leave is immaterial. It saved them money, which can be put towards either their children's British education or one of their other companies. Also, with the company being completely owned by them, they see paying wages and salaries as 'giving' employees money, and look for constant ways to get an extra few RMB back off their staff.

Forty-year-old Mr Shi is the other member of our two-member 'Translation Quality Group'. While he might not be everyone's cup of tea with his fondness for talking about countries he's worked in, he's quite a gossip, which is conducive for me learning some interesting things. He asked me what it would take for me to sign a contract extension. I said the boss' wife would have to leave and go and enjoy her money. But this is the one thing that will never happen.

It might indeed improve company performance. But the key point is, if you get an outsider in to run things, there is a very high chance of someone running off with the company's money. Something similar happened in the company in 2008, and similar things happen all the time. The fact is, the boss' wife is qualified by the virtue of being the boss' wife and therefore the safest pair of hands.

It's all about money and trust. "Who can we trust with the money? Only us two. So we'll control everything."

The 28-year-old female manager of HR is a reasonably nice person, but is also a spineless lackey who works here because a) she would not have the title of HR manager in any other company and b) she probably has some 'guanxi' with the boss' wife despite denying it. She told me before that "everyone here is doing temping work". It struck me as odd for the manager of a large company to say this, but it is true. Many Chinese people would rather be "the head of a chicken than the tail of a phoenix", ie, they would rather have their own business and be in charge of it than earn money for people they have no connection with. While in practice this is often hard to implement, certainly a large number of people think this way. Having been here for a while now, I have a lot of sympathy with this.

As for their decision to employ me, a native English speaker, it may seem like a desire to improve the translation department. This was the initial brief I was given. On my second day in the company, the boss requested that I find co-operation opportunities with large European companies. It petered out and came to nothing, but over the course of the next year, I was asked four times to work in the business department. I gently and indirectly refused each time, initially because I wanted to improve the translation department, and afterwards because I didn't want to be to close to the boss, and the chances of this company working with major European power companies are precisely nil.

A large part of my role here is a 'huaping', a vase, a facade. "Look, we have a foreigner, we're a good company." Last October I went to Indonesia for a week. The sole purpose was a one-minute 'ambushing' of the Vice Governor of Shaanxi province who was in Jakarta at the time and was leaving a meeting. The boss' brother is a big cheese in the provincial trade department, so he helped set it up. (It didn't bother me, I got a free holiday to Indonesia.) Whenever important clients come to the company, I get wheeled out to do the interpreting - or more importantly, to just be there.

On completion of my Chinese language learning in summer of 2008, I wanted to find a job in a 'typical' Chinese company, and I was extremely lucky to find just such an opportunity. But I think I have reached the limits of what I can do here. So it's time to move on.

World Cup 2010

2010-07-13T09:29:00.000+01:00

The World Cup has caught the interest of many Chinese people. If China actually qualified then interest would be even more huge. The Chinese men's national football team is also known as the national pig, a play on words and a fairly accurate description of what Chinese football fans think of their team. The national team is one of the few things to do with China that Chinese people will openly criticise and joke about. "1.4 billion people and we still can't find 11 decent football players" is a line I've heard many times already. It's particularly hard to take, as their 'poor' North Korean neighbours managed to qualify. At least there's a Chinese company with their advertising billboards around the pitches (China Solar), whose Chinese characters among all the Latin letters have caught a few people's eye.

There may be three reasons why Chinese football is rubbish. One is corruption. A colleague asked me before how common it was for national coaches in England to accept bribes to pick players even if they're not good enough. The Chinese FA is rife with corruption, so progress is difficult. Secondly, the national government perhaps doesn't focus as much on football as other sports, particularly Olympic sports. If the Party demanded a decent football team, they could probably knock one up. Thirdly, there's a Chinese phrase "one person on his own is a dragon, 10,000 people together becomes insects". They seem to be better at individual sports than team sports.

The Chinese only like the most famous teams. The idea of supporting underdogs is unheard of. They want big matches with lots of goals scored by famous people, like the players who feature on the adverts during half time. Messi appears in an advert for QQ (the ubiquitous instant messaging service). Argentina are possibly the most liked, but England, Germany, Brazil, Netherlands and Spain are popular as well. No one seems to care or notice much that the England team is a lot more hype than substance.

For the England-Germany game, most Chinese men were cheering for both teams and clinking glasses whenever something noteworthy happened. The clinking of glasses (sometimes 'ganbei', 'bottoms up') is like the seal of approval: that was good. For one of the earlier group stage games, I was sitting with friends on the Bar Street, a series of bars with TVs and tables outside. Because it was 0-0, the three Chinese guys sitting in front of us were having to scrape the barrel to find excuses to drink. After a few small beers, they started doing it with water. The girl with them was either asleep or texting for the whole game. Still, they probably got some face by sitting at the same bar as some white foreigners.

Xi'an City Wall Park

2010-06-16T16:48:00.000+01:00

Last weekend I spent four hours walking right round the park that goes all along the outside of the City Wall. With the sky being more blue than grey for a change, I took my camera along with me...

Company outing

2010-06-16T16:30:00.000+01:00

Last weekend was the annual company outing. In a surprising show of democracy, we were given the choice of three destinations, with the unanimous winner being a trip to Hanzhong, a small city of a million or so inhabitants that's in this province but south of the Qinling mountain range.

The morning coach trip started reasonably enough before the tour guide cranked into life. Tour guides tend to be attractive young women, but we were presented with a short fat man who was nevertheless equally annoying. Being the tallest person on the bus, and also the whitest, meant my decision to bring my MP3 was a correct one. He started playing a game where everyone had to say an adjective, then go round again and this time everyone had to say ‘My bum is…’ in front of their chosen adjective. I had my headphones on and pretended not to hear, saving myself a lot of unnecessary hassle, nomination for song singing and so on.

The Qinling mountains run across the lower half of Shaanxi Province and form a natural and formidable barrier between northern and southern China. They're the source of countless Chinese folk stories and home to an abundance of wildlife, most notably pandas. Newly built tunnels bore straight through the mountains, occasionally bursting out into sunlight to reveal the green-covered peaks before diving straight back inside.

Eventually we made it to Hanzhong. The city itself was as faceless and ordinary looking as most mid- to small-size Chinese cities. Lunch was taken in a restaurant where the food was served within one minute of our arrival, and after 15 minutes we were already being herded out. There was a wedding party going on, with large amounts of baijiu being consumed, and it looked rather more fun than our dry tables.

For the afternoon outing we went to the countryside to Wuhou Ci, or Temple of Marquis, a place commemorating the life of Zhuge Liang. Zhuge Liang was the Chancellor of Shu Han during the Three Kingdoms period 2,000 years ago, and remains a popular figure today on account of his all-round genius and wisdom. Romance Of The Three Kingdoms, one of the four great works of ancient Chinese literature, was written 1,000 years after his death and extols his exploits. As well as having contributed many of the genius ploys to the 36 Strategems, he is also credited with inventing military weapons, landmines and steamed buns.

There are actually lots of different Wuhou Ci around China, but the one here is the earliest, first built in 263AD, and continually repaired and modernised since. I found it much more pleasant and agreeable than many of the major tourist attractions in bigger cities, which are so often overrun with tourists. It was laid out in the usual way, a rectangular area laid out symmetrically around a centre line.

Inside the entrance was a small construction built to look like a city gate with a zither (ancient Chinese musical stringed instrument) inside. It commemorates the Empty City Strategem - Kong Cheng Ji 空城计 - supposedly used by Zhuge Liang. He was left stranded in a nearly deserted city with the enemy’s strong army rapidly approaching. He decided to open up the gates to the City and sit up on the Main Gate and calmly play the zither. When the enemy Sima Yi approached with his Wei army, he was suspicious and retreated, fearful of an ambush. It's now a common saying in modern Chinese meaning to use a false show of strength to cover up a weakness.

Inside was a series of neat and tidy buildings with red lacquer walls, with trees and rocks dotted in between. While the rest of our 40-strong group followed the incomprehensible guide around, I wandered off and found a secluded pond with a small pavilion in the middle with goldfish and pink lilies basking in the sun. It was here that Zhuge Liang was said to sit peacefully and mull over his tactics away from the frenzy of the battlefield – and perhaps tourists, too.

At the back of the site was a red wooden building perched high up on the wall with fantastic views over the verdant farmland and river beyond. Most people didn’t actually get to see it because they were too busy taking photographs of themselves. The sheer volume of photos taken was astonishing, with any opportunity for a photo being grasped. 'Pose' is now a word incorporated into Chinese and familiar to any young person, and ‘posing’ was the hippest thing going on. The favourite one is the classic victory V sign. There’s also the ‘pouty face with big eyes’, and leaning in front of someone else with arms outstretched. The favourite ‘pose’ of anyone older is to stand there with less expression than a Terracotta Warrior.

Later in the afternoon we went to a picturesque lake formed behind a dam. Before the dam was built in 1970, the area was the site of the remains of the earliest ancient boardwalks in China. To get from the ancient capital of Xi'an to the southern cities of Chengdu and beyond, crossing over the Qinling Mountains was the only way through, and a series of wooden boardwalks were built onto the edges of the mountains to make it possible. It took 1,900 years to complete. All that remains are a few photos in a museum.

It was a reasonably pretty area, with the lush mountain peaks rising straight out of the man-made lake, and a modern boardwalk hugging the edge, making it possible to walk a long way around in among the trees and above the water in places. Unfortunately, there was a tacky gift shop selling a cross between a recorder and an accordion, and two of the parents from our company caved in and bought one for their kids.

Evening dinner was identical to lunch, only in a different place because everyone apart from me had complained that the lunch was disgusting. It shows more my unrefined palate than my affable nature. After dinner, we were free to wander round the City. In the central square I stood with a group of old residents in battered old clothes expressionlessly watching a promotional event. There was a guy on a BMX on a stage jumping over a very frightened girl with dyed frizzy hair. The music blasting out from the speakers was that Chinese classic, Prodigy’s ‘Smack My Bitch Up’.

The second day started with a huge breakfast in the same restaurant from 12 hours previously and a short bus ride through the rain to South Lake, an extremely pretty lake dotted with small islands. It probably would have been even prettier had it not been completely shrouded in mist. The light drizzle and my lack of umbrella prompted everyone in turn to ask me how I managed without one.

Looking at the map and listening to the tour guide, it was clear we were only going to go to two of the most popular islands, a tiny fraction of the whole lake. A five-minute boat trip dropped us off at the far end of one. There was a small zoo with some bored and unimpressed looking animals hiding in the corners of their concrete boxes, and a place with monkeys where people were throwing in sweets with the wrappers left on. I wandered on up through the bamboo and over the bridge to the second island, home of the ‘Catching the Moonlight Tower’, a tall pagoda and hive of tourist activity. On seeing all the bumper cars, fairground games and general tourist pap, I wondered down to the lake edge and walked around the outside of the island, hidden among the wet green trees and away from the noise. There was a rusty old rowboat tied up with a fraying rope, and I was very tempted to hop in and propel myself into the mist to an isolated spot to enjoy the serenity that the Emperors came here for hundreds and thousands of years ago.

After about an hour or so I wandered around to the front of the pagoda, where it turned out the rest of the group were having a massive group photo on the steps leading up to the pagoda. I stayed down by the lake and watched the fish darting around under water. On the boat back, there was a frenzy of photo-taking as our brief trip away from Xi’an drew to a close.

Lunch might have been a ‘tour group meal’ we had in the same restaurant again, but it was extremely good (and free), so I stocked up. On the bus back, my friend and I amused ourselves by taking pictures of people nodding off in amusing positions. A couple of people noticed, and so were then unable (or unwilling) to get back to sleep for fear of being caught on camera. Infantile behavior rarely loses its comedy value.

This trip showed me again that China is huge and has a great number of places worth visiting away from the cities. It’s just a question of finding them and getting away from the computers, traffic jams and bad air that constitute a large part of daily urban life.

Office space

2010-05-16T14:50:00.000+01:00

Since I last wrote, our company has moved into a new office on the edge of the Hitech Zone of Xian. True to form, corners have been cut and a few pence saved. The building is miles from anywhere, and certainly not in ‘the heart of the Hitech Zone’ as mentioned on our website. The floor we’re on was originally designed for residential apartments, but they took out the walls and put some MDF ones up in different places. Unfortunately, they’ve been put right up against the windows so most of them can’t open. Most of the offices don’t even have any windows, and not being allowed to turn the lights on means those guys sit in semi-darkness in winter. The ones that do have windows are roasting hot in summer. The toilets are right in the middle of the office, so any guests coming have to walk right past them - and some translators have to sit next to them. The boss is okay though. In his huge office, he has a 60,000RMB (£6,000) table and his own living quarters.

It’s not just our company that’s into cutting corners - the developers do as well. There are only four lifts for the 23-floor building, so at midday when everyone goes for lunch, the lift is full by the twentieth floor. I usually end up taking the stairs. Mornings aren’t much better. It might seem stupid not to have enough lifts, but is actually perfectly sensible from the point of view of the developer. Why should he pay more money when he doesn’t have to? They do the bare necessities and leave. It’s the same for residential flats. When you buy a new flat in China, you’re just buying a box of concrete and steel and it’s up to you to decorate it from scratch.

Recently we’ve been doing some recruitment events in three or four universities. This year we’ve done it in conjunction with an employment website company. The woman in charge is one of those very, very short people who’s constantly trying to prove herself. She likes to announce herself as my Chinese teacher at each event. She also has a habit of saying ‘only joking’ after her appalling semi-jokes, as if telling us will remind us to laugh.

Unfortunately, our boss’s wife, Mrs S, number two in the company, is also involved and so brings with her ineptitude and stupidity at every step. We were late for the second event because she fell asleep at three in the afternoon reading the newspaper. Then she got angry and blamed us for not waking her up. During the event, when asked by the short woman to introduce the company, she went off on a 15-minute tangent about how good the company is. Asked three questions, she successfully failed to answer all three. Afterwards, when her husband - Mr Q, the main boss - phoned from abroad, she said there were over a thousand students in attendance. I love the lies. There were actually about 250 people.

In fact, we were told that there would be hundreds of students at each event. Last Saturday, there was a written exam, the first part of a series of rounds to choose 50 translators. The company originally planned for over a thousand people to turn up. The actual turnout was 136, most of whom were not in the final year of university and therefore useless to the company. On Monday we had a meeting where one of the HR guys told her about the low turnout. She was both flummoxed and angry and blamed it on everyone except herself.

I wrote and marked the exam. The final part is reading comprehension, and the last question was a general knowledge question related to the text. Last year the question was ‘Who is Saddam Hussein?’ and it offered some interesting answers - ‘President of America’, ‘a black man’, ‘a bad man’ and so on. This year the question was ‘Where is Jamaica?’. Incorrect answers included ‘Africa’, ‘UK’, ‘London’, ‘Indonesia’, and my favourite - ‘Jamaica is in the Privy Council’.

In other news, four people from an Israeli investment company came with a Chinese investment company ‘for visiting’, as it’s called. Our boss, Mr Q, actually speaks reasonable English so, as main translator, I didn’t have much to do. I think maybe the Israelis thought his waffling, avoiding the questions and general vagueness were because of his English being limited. I think it was a deliberate attempt to fend them off. Mr Q doesn’t want to make the company bigger and better, he wants to get as much money out of it as he can. Ceding control of some of it may make the company bigger and better, but that isn’t his primary goal.

On Tuesday, Mrs S called me in to her office. Apparently the email I sent on her behalf to her daughter’s school in England did the trick of getting her her visa, despite her attendance in classes being lower than UK government requirements for overseas students. She reached into her draw to get something. I thought there would be a red envelope with 100RMB in there. I should have known better. It was a packet of Indonesian coffee beans. That’s now the third unwanted present she’s given me. Her husband spent the last week entertaining government officials in Bali, and presumably one of them brought that back for her. She probably thinks all foreigners have a fancy coffee machine and eat croissants for breakfast.

Other than that, every day is just the usual proofreading technical manuals, chatting to the guy opposite me about China in the 1980s and thinking about what to do when my contract and visa run out in July. Some interesting choices ahead.

Saturday morning swindle

2010-04-02T13:27:00.001+01:00

A piece of writing about China would not be complete without reference to 'an ancient Chinese proverb' or some such. 崇洋媚外 - chong yang mei wai - is one of the first I learned, referring negatively to someone who overly admirers foreign (particularly western) objects and ideas. Generally speaking, this trend is present throughout all of China, as seen by the token foreigner who appears in adverts for luxury products. In fact, it probably accounts for half the reason why I have my current job. It also provides me with an extra income.

Last Wednesday, I get a call asking me if I'd like to pretend to be from the French Royal Professional Eye Beauty Association and give a short speech and deliver a prize at the new product launch of a Chinese make-up company. I said I would be delighted.

After work the next day, I went to an office hidden away in the back streets of old central Xian. I waited in the manager's office, admiring his extensive tea drinking set and Buddhist statues promising wealth.

The manager never turned up, so I spoke with another guy. I did mention the slight stumbling block of not being able to speak French, but he said it didn't matter. Waiyu - foreign language - is a collective expression used to refer to anything other than Chinese, so the fact that I would be speaking English instead of French was a non-issue. He dismissed my other queries as the ramblings of an over-worried foreigner.

Then it came to the key - money. The day before and again in the office, they asked me how much I wanted. It was the same when I got the job at the power company. It makes me uncomfortable. I asked how much he was offering. He insisted I first name a number. Then some random men came in and we sat around smoking Eight Happiness cigarettes and drinking tea for a bit. Later we went to a room to discuss again the money issue. I started at 500, he got me down to 400. I'm rubbish at bargaining, but in terms of consumer surplus, I was happy enough.

On Saturday morning, I turned up at nine o’clock at the hotel where all the guests of the company were staying. Previously I had been told 10am, then 8am, and after getting to the hotel, I sat in an empty room for an hour and a half, away from the crowds and watching live coverage of the drought in south-west China. When all the guests left, we headed off to the venue. It turned out to be a theatre, with all sorts of singers, dancers and the 'workers' of the company in the wings waiting to go on and do their lifeless performances showing how good their team spirit is.

Two flaws in the master plan quickly appeared. One, no translator. Two, if I really was a guest of the company from Paris, I should be sitting with the company leaders at the large table in front of the stage, not waiting in the wings with the performers.

Anyway, after hearing my name, I walked out and stood on a big empty stage in front of 200 people. I was given two bouquets of flowers, which I had to hand straight back to read my speech. For some reason, I read the following - written by them, translated by me - both quickly and in a very poor French accent.

Respected ladies and gentlemen,
Firstly please let me introduce myself. I am Jean Dupont, from the French Royal Professional Eye Beauty Association. On behalf of the Association, I would like to welcome Shanghai Yuze Biotechnology Development Company into our team and becoming one of our co-operation partners in China.
I would also like to tell everyone a good news. Yuze Company will, from today, having undergone stringent checks from us, have the only Royal Professional Eye Beauty Association manicurists accreditation in China.
We have a series of stringent checks and procedures in place for all our partners. When we were at Yuze, we saw that their attitude was serious, their service honest, and they were concerned greatly about the customers. Not only the standardised strict procedures, but also their diligence in production moved us. They showed themselves to be dedicated to raising awareness of eyes and eyes health issues, as well as the overall health of customers. A company which is so concerned about its customers is worthy of our trust. It is also worthy of the trust of everyone sitting here today.
Finally, let us applaud the new product showcasing of our partner, and hope that this range can bring us an even better future. Merci.

100% horse poo, naturally.

After the speech, the MC wearing a white suit and plastic glasses with no lenses came back on and addressed me by my Chinese nickname, apparently forgetting that I wasn't supposed to speak Chinese. A company 'leader' got up and I presented him with a fake but beautifully framed certificate. Then I walked off, put on my coat and met my 'contact' outside. He looked slightly disappointed, perhaps realising the same two problems that I had realised. Then one of the other men from two days before came out and invited me to lunch. While I was making my excuses, I was bundled away by one of the company's staff because some of the guests were filing out of the main auditorium next to where we were standing, no doubt wondering why this French make-up business guy who speaks accented English instead of actual French was now talking in Chinese about his afternoon of teaching English.

And with that I walked out into the spring sunshine, 400 kuai better off. There is obviously the moral issue of lying, but I chose to see it as a 'minor wealth enhancing opportunity'. Besides, in a few years’ time, when Chinese people are less inclined to be chong yang mei wai, my days of getting paid to put on a tie and sound like Inspector Clouseau will be coming to an end.

Myth busting

2010-04-02T13:20:00.000+01:00

The dispersal of three myths:

1) All Chinese are hard working.

When I was studying at Auckland University in New Zealand in 2004, I used to make my way into the library some time around ten in the morning. I was lucky to find a seat, such was the keenness of my Asian friends to get in and practise for their IELTS test. If I went to my host university in the UK at ten in the morning, I could have had a whole row of tables, maybe even a whole floor, to myself.

It is, however, all a myth. Maybe it’s the lazy ones who stay behind and the hard-working ones who get the opportunity to go abroad (not actually true, either). And certainly people in Shaanxi and north China generally are regarded as less hard working than southerners.

It's laziness coupled with protestations of business that make it particularly interesting. One of the things I hear most often is wo hen mang (I'm really busy) and variations on it - mang de hen (so busy), mang si le (busy to death), mang feng le (so busy ive gone crazy), etc. I hear this mostly while I'm chatting on QQ, the instant messaging service.

Being busy means just doing your normal, everyday job. When they get asked to do something over and above their normal routine, then they just "beng kui" - collapse under the enormity of the onerous task placed upon them. They need a good xiuxi (rest) after that. I'm trying to work with a university on foreign student recruitment, and the people in charge of the website deserve a prize for stonewalling and intractability. They'll go home after eight hours of playing computer games and chatting on QQ and say how busy they've been.

The people in my office who have the least work to do like to make out they have the most. When one of the drivers comes back from picking someone up - a tough 45 minutes of sitting down and rotating his arms slightly - he'll emit lots of 'ooooh's and ‘ai yahhhh’ sounds, just to let people know how busy he is. When someone asks if he is free in the afternoon, he looks slightly pained and mentions how 'mang' (busy) he is. As soon as the person goes away, he sits at the computer playing on his QQ farm game until lunchtime.

There's another guy here who is employed purely because he is a relative of the boss' wife and can be trusted not to leak secrets and to keep an eye on people. He is probably the laziest and most stupid person I have ever met, but he's good at walking quickly and smoking and talking loudly on his phone in local dialect, which perhaps gives the appearance of being busy. He sits in on our meetings, and at the end repeats everything that was said like he's just thought of it, then recaps again (just in case we missed it the first two times), then concludes the meeting.

When our company moved office, I've never seen them so excited. Here was an opportunity to loudly move tables and chairs up and down stairs and show everybody how busy they were. If no one was watching or within earshot, they would probably just sit around smoking.

Another point worth mentioning is that, generally, Chinese people are willing to work long hours. The opportunity to earn money is rarely passed up by a Chinese, and they think anyone who does is either very rich or very stupid. But when they're not working, they do hardly anything. They seem to struggle to enjoy themselves, and ‘playing hard’ is not on the agenda. A group of Indonesian power station operators received training from our company in Xian, and for the closing ceremony they had prepared songs and skits and all sorts. The boss of our company lamented the inability of our staff to have a good time like the Indonesians. I think this trait is actually generally fairly well recognised by Chinese themselves, particularly those who have foreign friends.

Also, I rarely see anyone running.

2) All Chinese people are poor.

I should make some distinctions here. The older generation in China had it tough. My friend’s grandmother had to give some of her children to her sister to raise. My ex-girlfriend's father is now bald because he never had enough to eat in his teens when he went to work in the countryside. Anyone who lived through that period is very able to live and get by and be satisfied with their lot, especially now.

All change, please! Now it couldn't be any more different. Urban kids born after 1980, and even more so those born after 1990, couldn't be better off. One reason is the family unit. The parents pay for everything. Almost none of the post-1980s generation will pay their own university fees. Almost none of them will buy their own house - the parents will buy it for them. They'll find them a job, buy them a car, maybe even find them a husband or wife if they're still single at 25. A new group of people has been formed - 月光族, ‘the monthly spenders’ - post-1980s generation people who spend all their salary on shopping, drinking and more shopping because they know their parents will buy them a house. I think it's fair to say that, compared to their western contemporaries, most urban Chinese are better off.

However, the return part of the deal is that the kids are expected -and have a legal responsibility – to look after their parents in old age, ie, live with them. It strikes me that this has significantly financial advantages for all concerned compared to nursing homes, separate houses, etc.

My colleagues - mostly post-1980s generationers - like to point out my relatively high salary. And in turn, I like to point out that I pay my own rent, buy my own food, pay for my own plane tickets, and don't get red envelopes stuffed full of money from various aunts and uncles. A good half of these colleagues do not have to pay for anything. Particularly the women. The one child policy (see below) has indeed created 120 men for every 100 women, but this is highly advantageous for women. Girls who are relatively cool and open about going out for a good time never pay for anything. They're not expected to pitch in for the house. While many want to and will be independent, if they choose not to, they could easily get through life without lifting a finger (particular the pretty ones).

There are no slums in China. Brazil, Mexico, India, Indonesia, most of Africa – places which have had the advantages of decades of free world residence and support – have plenty. The closest thing resembling a slum in China are former villages that have been absorbed into the urban area. They might not be des-res, but they are hardly seas of poverty. The buildings in them get higher and higher as people expand upwards.

There are plenty of poor people in China, and being a city dweller I admittedly don't get to see a lot of them. But it doesn't seem too desperate to me. I was walking through a village the other day, and there were brand spanking new washing machines and big new red doors in battered old courtyards. Salaries are rising for almost everyone while inflation (property excluded) is manageable. The Chinese government is considering raising the rate at which tax is paid from 2,000 yuan per month to 5,000 yuan. This has regional implications, but it is the roughly the equivalent of anyone earning £30,000-40,000 a year not paying any tax.

There are 300 new cars a day on the roads in Xian alone - one million a month in the whole country. One million new cars a month? Think about that. More and more people are going on holiday overseas, eating western food, drinking whisky and enjoying the good life. The wealth is far from evenly spread, and this old route to economic growth is obviously unsustainable and will have only one ending, but for now, the rising tide has indeed lifted most boats, if only to varying degrees.

3) The one child policy is a horrible abuse of human rights, blah blah blah

Simple fact for everyone - the planet is chronically and totally unsustainably overpopulated. In particular, China. In the 1930s, due to hundreds of years of highly advanced agriculture and medicine, the population of China was already over 400 million. Chairman Mao, in charge from 1949 until 1976, advocated "more is stronger", encouraging people to have as many children as they could. Of all his decisions, this one undoubtedly was the most pig-headed and has the deepest legacy. In 1954, the projected population of China for the year 2000 was 2 billion. In 1978, sanity returned to China, and they implemented a policy which people, particularly non-Chinese, should be very appreciative of.

I've never met one single person who has said anything other than "there's too many people" in this country. It's so blindingly obvious. Try getting on a bus in any city in rush hour (or any hour for that matter). I've taken over a thousand journeys on urban buses. Quite often I was unable to actually get on it, let alone sit somewhere. There are people everywhere all the time. To find peace and solitude like that depicted in ancient paintings is a challenge in itself. Hard seats on the train are also a must-see for those human rights flag wavers. What about the right to some food and a place to live, something which would be impossible without the policy?

It's illegal to have a kid outside of marriage, giving birth is expensive, and you need permission before having a kid. It sounds pretty awful ('draconian' seems to be the adjective of choice in certain circles). No one particularly likes it. But Chinese are too practical and the situation too obvious for them to do anything other than accept it. With the massive increase in wealth that has now come about, a significant number of urban women only want one child now anyway, and almost none of them want more than two.

I like the phrase "responsible member of the international community". It usually has connotations of terrorism. But overpopulation is much more serious. And when it comes to population, China has been very responsible - due to its own reasoning rather than any desire to be a responsible member of the international community.

The policy is not as strict as it is made out. People from the countryside can, under certain circumstances, have two or even three kids. Ethnic minorities can have two or three. Obviously the rich and corrupt can get around it, and it has created a generation of ‘little emperors' - selfish, bad tempered and dependent children. The gender gap is also a real and undesirable side effect. But aside from the above points, do you really want a huge and increasingly wealthy foreign population spilling onto your doorstep? I didn't think so.

Modern concubines

2010-02-02T17:57:00.000Z

Last Wednesday was the second of my two recent appearances at the local TV station to be one of the guests in a “light-hearted” chat show. For both topics, the person in charge thought it would be interesting to hear the “foreign” point of view, so I got invited along.

The topic of the first programme was something I became aware of a good year and a half after coming to Xian. It’s 'ernai', literally meaning ‘second grandmother’ but actually meaning private prostitute. I suppose the ancient term is concubine.

An ernai (sometimes called xiao san, or small three) is a girl, usually a university student, who, in return for large amounts of money, plus a car, a flat, etc, agrees to be the private prostitute for a rich man, usually a businessman or government official. It’s called ‘to be wrapped up’ (bao), which means that in return for having her material needs fully taken care of, she agrees to be on call whenever he needs someone to make him ‘comfortable’, to sit with him when he’s drinking baijiu with his friends, go on holiday with him, and to not do anything of that nature with anyone else.

After hearing about it the first time, I was pretty surprised. Afterwards, every single time I asked someone about it, they looked at me like I just asked them “Have you ever heard of chopsticks?”. It’s now such a common thing, no one pays attention to it anymore. One girl friend of mine who was a student at the Xian Film University and is in the know about things like this said about 10-15 percent of girls in her year were ernai, while another 30-40 percent worked as “masseurs”, “waitresses” in KTV bars, or prostitutes in high-class hotels.

If you ever see a red car, particularly a red Mazda, in China, it’s probably being driven by an ernai (or the “dakuan”, rich man, who is her ‘employer’). Beijing Foreign Languages University is the most famous in China for its legions of ernai. It’s the same at the universities here with the prettier students, ie, the music university, the arts university and the foreign languages university. Every Friday afternoon and Saturday morning, there’ll be piles of expensive German cars, usually black, waiting outside the main gate. A small procession of girls come tottering out on high heels and park themselves in the front seat before driving off. One of my colleagues at work tried to deny this happens, and everyone rolled their eyes. It’s fairly well accepted that the vast majority of eligible men (rich and powerful) will ‘wrap an ernai’.

This is, of course, not to say that everyone is in on it. Most girls would not do it, especially the conservative types like my colleagues. I often get told I should learn the ‘good things’ about China, not the 'bad stuff’, which is a pretty lame attempt to save face. However, I’m still fairly surprised by how most 'eligible' people would consider it and indeed do it. Most people talk about it like it’s nothing. I've been told that any man who can afford one will have one, while the richer ones will have two or more. I’ve got a friend from the music university who helps rich guys make contact with willing ernai from the ranks of her classmates.

The reasons for it are probably numerous. Most men over forty got married early in a much more austere age than now. With their one child grown up, wife unlikely to divorce him, and the money rolling in, the temptation is not insignificant. As for the girls, it’s a huge amount of very easy money in a highly competitive, over-populated country. A slightly more cynical take on it would be that it shows the pre-eminent position of money and materialism in modern Chinese society.

The topic of the second programme was why married women ‘stretch over the wall like a red apricot’. Or, in modern terms, why do they have affairs. I made the point that a lot of Chinese men, even now, tend to be nice and loyal before getting married, then after getting married and earning more money, they start to ‘wan’, or play around. I also said that sex life is near the bottom of the list for the vast majority of people when it comes to choosing a lifelong partner. Money, in the form of rich parents, stable job, high salary, etc, tend to be at the top of the list. These points were not denied. The other special guest, a 29-year-old psychologist, had just got divorced three days previously after discovering her husband had four different girlfriends during their four years of marriage, and never once came home before 2am.

In modern China, there seem to be ancient ways of thinking, communist (1949-1976) ways of thinking and ‘modern’ ways of thinking all jumbled into one and spread across different generations. Coupled with the unprecedented speed of unsustainable economic development, it’s hard to get to grips with it, particularly for the only children. As they say, ‘the forest is big, it contains every type of bird’.

Christmas, New Year and other bits and pieces...

2010-02-02T17:50:00.000Z

Christmas passed without much happening. Despite the enormous popularity of Christmas among the younger generations, it's far from a public holiday so everyone went to work as normal. On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, though, it seemed all of Xian came out to wander round the streets. The centre of town was blocked off to cars (although not my electric scooter) from four in the afternoon. By 7 o'clock, the streets that are normally choc-a-bloc with cars were even more choc-a-bloc with what can only be described as hordes of people. Hawkers were also out in force, selling Halloween face masks, Santa hats and a general array of absolute pap.

I did receive one Christmas card. I have a friend who works in the provincial trade department, and she said (the day before Christmas) that she would send me a card. So it was to my sheer delight, a week after Christmas, that I received yuletide greetings from both the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade Shaanxi Sub-Council and the China Chamber of International Commerce Shaanxi Chamber of Commerce. The spirit of Christmas lives on after all.

For New Year, national law requires companies over a certain size to give a small gift to their employees. Normally it's in the form of vouchers. But this year the boss' wife, who is in charge of the money, had a brainwave whereby she could save a few kuai. And so it was that each of us was given an enormous box of bananas and a slightly smaller box of tangerines. I estimated the bananas to number approximately 80-100. Despite being partial to the occasional banana, I felt slightly overwhelmed by the volume and smell of boxes upon boxes of bananas being stacked up in our small office. We were faced with the problem of transporting this lifetime supply of diarrhea-inducing fruit back home. My electric scooter is pretty good, but it was not designed to transport cargo. So I took about 30 of them out, and left the rest to someone else. I think he sold them over the weekend.

The day before New Year, the news headlines popped up on my QQ (the ubiquitous instant messaging service) with a report about 'Thief Village', a place in the countryside near Xian famous all over China for being an outlet of stolen clothes and accessories. I decided to go there on New Year's Day, one of my rare days off.

After about a 50p, one-hour bus ride from the southern bus station, I got off the bus on the main road running through the countryside, with few other people about. I headed towards a nondescript looking village. Not sure if I was in the right place, I was about to ask someone when they stopped me mid-sentence: "You saw the report on QQ then?"

The entire place is completely illegal, but even the huge introduction sign erected by the village council states 'clothing retail industry' among the selling points of Meng Family Village. Near the entrance is a block of small, single-storey shops, all with a bed sheet covering the doorway. Most of them sell the same things - shoes, clothing, belt, watches, and so on. From my research, it's mostly fake stuff but with some genuine items mixed in. I heard that if you make yourself friendly with the shop-owner, they'll bring out the best stuff from the back for you to inspect personally.

I don't think they get a lot of foreigners there, and I was greeted with plenty of 'hah-lows'. They don't like it when you say you're just browsing, so I said I was checking the place out for some rich foreign friends who were hoping to visit the next day. One shop, unassuming from the outside, had wooden floors and dark wood closets, with a very strong smell of leather. It could easily have been the real deal. Inside, rough but well dressed women with dyed hair were arguing with customers about the genuine-ness of the clothing. There's no fixed prices, so the final price depends on the bargaining skills of the two parties. I left with no damage to my wallet, but a good idea of where to do my gift shopping next time.

On the other side of the main road by the bus stop was a single-track road heading through the countryside with a sign for a mountain scenic spot. Having not much else to do, I decided to take a look.

Having not been to the countryside much, it's always good to have a wander round. I was struck by how empty and quiet the villages were. Urbanisation is taking in people and leaving behind old people to look after the kids. It seemed the kids, though, playing outside on the streets and in the fields, were better off than urban contemporaries stuck in front of their computers with no fresh air. I wa as also struck by the relative wealth. One battered old house with a missing door had brand new washing machine humming away in the courtyard, and many of the houses had big red doors and white tiles on the front, a sign of wealth.

After paying the five kuai entrance fee (50p) and avoiding the enormous dogs belonging to the old women in charge, I wandered up the mountain, Erlang Mountain. It's effectively in the middle of nowhere and not well known at all. I had the entire place to myself for most of it. There were lots of birds and pheasants flitting around among the trees, and the overall peacefulness brought home just how much noise there is in the city. A waterfall was completely frozen over, and I watched some university lecturers attempting in vain to climb round and over the side of it. One woman, like many others, chose to wear high heels for her Sunday afternoon mountain climb, which always interests me.

On the top section was the occasional mud brick house, and any reasonably flat part was given over to crops. I met up with a nice couple and wandered round with them for a bit. Later on they gave me a lift back to the bus stop. It's easy to see why so many people are enjoying high standards of living in China. Their small hatchback cost only 60,000RMB (about 6,300GBP), much cheaper than before. And with their only one child being looked after by the grandparents, they are free to go out and climb mountains and give random foreigners lifts.

Snow in Xian - for one day, at least

2009-12-23T13:14:00.000Z

A few weeks ago we had some very heavy if short-lived snow, making the usually grey urban mass a fantastic white. Riding my scooter home from work at 8.30 at night along the City Wall through the snow was one of the nicest experiences I've had in Xian...

Winter solstice - beware your ears

2009-12-23T12:54:00.000Z

Yesterday was Dongzhi, or the middle day of winter. And it was also the day I appeared in the Shaanxi Daily. Click the link below:

http://www.sxdaily.com.cn/data/bsxakb/20091223_9775744_2.htm

The person next to me is a friend, opposite are two of her friends. All very innocent. And yes, a lack of regular physical activity has made me fatter, although in my defence, the angle is unfavourable and that pose was deliberate...

The Chinese text of the story reads as follows:
"Yesterday was Dongzhi, which means, as the saying goes, 'If you don't have a bowl of dumplings, no-one will sympathise with you if your ears freeze and fall off'. [My translation perhaps leaves a lot to be desired.] In the area around Dachejia Street [the street I live on] and the Xiangzi Temple, all the restaurants were thronging with people, with long queues stretching out the door. This excitement also attracted foreigners. This foreign chap is enjoying his dumplings on Dongzhi just like us Chinese!"

Google Translate produces a slightly different version, perhaps showing that computers can't do everything:
“Yesterday was the 24 integrity of the winter solstice, folk known as "the winter solstice misconduct dumplings bowl, frozen out Ear nobody, "the folk. The day, reporters in the cart Wenjiaxiang Xi'an, Hunan several sub-Temple Street The shop selling dumplings, dumplings and saw people who's interest is high, and everyone at the door waiting in a long Long. This lively scenes are infected with a foreigner. You see, the foreign dignitaries and the Chinese people, like the Winter Solstice dumplings to eat something!”

Apologies for the infection...

Yesterday I think I had about ten to fifteen people ask me if had eaten jiaozi (dumplings). Being a foreigner and generally nonplussed by festivals of all denominations, I figured I could take the risk of my ears falling off. But in the evening a friend phoned me up and said they were at a restaurant near my flat. It turns out I go past this restaurant every day, but names of restaurants are even harder to remember than Chinese people's names.

The three of them had waited for ages to be seated, and they called me just when they were getting a table. The restaurant has cannons outside and is adorned on the inside with pictures of emperors and replica clothing from the Qing Dynasty. Given the relationship in the past between the Qing Dynasty, Britain and cannons, I stayed away from mentioning the theme of the restaurant. Minimum expenditure per person was 40 kuai, comfortably exceeding my prediction. I don't like ordering food for other people, so I left the three of them to ensure 160 kuai was well spent.

The food was actually excellent, as it usually is. The same greenery (cauliflower, cabbage) that gets cooked in England and tastes awful tastes much better when it emerges from a Chinese kitchen. The suffering English children endure with greens during their childhood is not a misery inflicted upon their Chinese counterparts. There was also some beef on a bone. You put in a straw in the bone and drink the juices, then don some plastic see-through gloves and knaw away at the meat. It was actually very good once I had managed to put the gloves on.

Halfway through, I noticed a photographer taking some photos. Being the token foreigner in the restaurant, it was pretty obvious what he wanted - a picture of a waiguo pengyou (foreign friend) eating jiaozi on Dongzhi and holding his chopsticks badly. He took quite a lot, and I'm impressed, and of course grateful, that he managed to choose such a bad photo.

Conversation was the usual unfilling pap. My friend is okay but her two friends were a fairly common type of female university student - immature, no personality, a bad case of Little Emperor attitude and zero sense of humour. After finding out I've been here for two and a half years, they then asked me if I could use chopsticks. A silly question deserves a sarcastic response. I said no, and when I did use them, they were flabbergasted. In situations like these (which occur all the time), I can go a whole evening just humouring myself. It sounds rude, but it's either that or talking about mobile phones or brand name bags or the difference between American English and British English and other incredibly tedious topics.

But getting your photo in the provincial daily – not bad, that.

STOP PRESS: I've just spent the entire evening walking around the centre of Xian. After going to 12 newspaper stands, one bookshop and two hotels, I discovered that my photo has appeared in the worst selling newspaper in the entire province. Of all 15 places, only one had three old copies of the Shaanxi Daily. The answer for this was explained to me by the owner of the last newspaper stand - it's the official Party paper, so no one reads it. Given the unflattering photograph, perhaps this is a good thing.

Oscar breakthrough

2009-12-23T10:08:00.000Z

Following my appearance on provincial television in March 2008, a few weeks ago I was asked to take part in a 25-minute discussion programme about female university students wanting to be the mistresses and "er nai" (private prostitutes) of rich men. And following that, I was phoned up by different people from the same channel who wanted to make another programme. It's just this sort of random interesting opportunity that crops up now and then that retains my interest in living in this overcrowded country.

Every night on Shaanxi TV 2 there's a 30-minute mini-soap, different every night, all made by amateurs. Collectively they are known as bai shi. I took part in one back in 2007. Everyone speaks in local dialect, which varies from being very similar to standard Mandarin to completely unintelligible, especially to me. The point is that the stories reflect the lives of the average person, or laobaoixing (old hundred names). The programme I was to take part in was a mock Oscars-style awards ceremony, and there were to be six judges, with me being one of the judges by virtue of the fact that I am a foreigner who can speak some Chinese and was available for filming.

When I met two of the station personnel in Starbucks two weeks before to discuss it, they told me that Furong Jiejie (The Lily Sister) would be one of the other judges. She is the equivalent of a Z-list celebrity, somebody from this province who became famous via the internet for being ugly, wearing tight horrible clothes and performing a series of poses and dances ranging between silly and vomit-inducing. The show was to be filmed over three afternoons, with three awards per day, and will be broadcast over three different days over Chinese New Year on Shaanxi TV 2 - potential audience, 60 million (likely audience, much, much lower).

I turned up on Tuesday morning for rehearsals, which involved me watching the opening performance and doing nothing else. For each of the three days there was a fairly elaborate act involving the presenters, nominees for the awards and various dancers. There was also an in-house band, complete with electric drumkit, keyboard for making amusing noises when something funny was said and an array of interesting outfits, my favourite being on day two when they dressed up like Viennese aristocrats. The judges - myself, Furong, a film director, a comedian, a professor of arts and a representative from the show's sponsor – got to sit back and watch the on-site director getting in a flap when the nominees, all amateur actors, stood in the wrong place and didn't move when they were supposed to.

For most of the awards, the actors would introduce themselves, then we the judges would vote for who to get rid of. Then the audience (30 or so people on either side behind each of the two rows of judges) would have their say. Some of the awards included some secretly filmed clips where the nominees had been set up and covertly filmed, Jeremy Beadle style. Then the actors and presenters and judges would have some easy back-and-forth light-hearted banter about who should win and why, then we would have the final vote and present the awards (a clear plastic Oscar-like trophy and a piece of tarted up A4 masquerading as a certificate).

The most entertaining category was the Male Impersonating A Woman, which involved some humorous alternative uses for mantou (steamed buns). Some of the other categories, though, failed to get the atmosphere going, particularly when for one prize only one nominee turned up. It's also evident that amateur actors doing comedy is much more successful than amateur actors doing serious acting. With the overall nature of the show being a cross between a variety show, talk show and prize-giving ceremony, it was quite difficult to really get into it. I replied when asked, made a few light-hearted comments (most of which were drowned out by the accompanying keyboard sounds), but didn't 'shine' as I think I would have liked to. My career in provincial television hangs in the balance.

I didn't do myself any favours after filming on the final day, either. I was talking slightly nervously to the male presenter, Shitou (a very big cheese in Shaanxi province), and some other people outside in the car park. I have a tremendous habit of missing a key sentence at a key time. He said something about going to dinner with the other guys. However, I didn't really catch it, and assumed he was talking to the other people, which looking back on it is unlikely. So that was another chance missed. Although at least I did get a phone number, so we live and hope.

Riding a scooter in Xi'an

2009-11-25T13:45:00.000Z

Winter cracked into action today, producing clear nostrils, cold fingers, stinging ears and a quickened step. I had the first three, but not the last, because as the proud new owner of a Xinri Electric Scooter, I don't have to walk to the bus stop. Instead, I can cruise past it on my way to work in coal-powered, psuedo-environmentally friendly silence.

I’ve been waiting a long time to buy one. My research told me that Xinri was the most reliable make, and if the adverts painted on the sides of the 704 bus are anything to go by, it appears Jackie Chan also drives a Xinri. That effectively was a deal clincher for me.

It comes with five different methods for locking it. Mostly I only have to use two, because my flat and workplace have secure parking places, and there are plenty of makeshift ‘bike parks’ around the city where you pay 1 kuai (10p) and get it looked after. However, leave it outside in an unfortunate position and that may be the last I see of it.

It also comes with a sort of rain cover that you drape over yourself when riding in rain. Whenever it rains, Xian becomes dotted with people wearing an assortment of different-coloured plastic sheets whizzing through puddles. Only at the third attempt did I manage to correctly put it on, thinking the two holes for the wing mirrors were holes for my arms and the see-through bit for the light was for my face.

The flats where I live have an old brick bike shed where the bikes live and where you can plug it in to charge it up over night. It’s looked over by an old lady of dishevelled appearance and a young girl with a bad limp, both of whom speak a language almost unintelligible (to me, at least). It’s dark and dingy inside, mostly filled with old unwanted bicycles covered in dust. Every time I come in she is either sitting in her chair by the stove warming her hands with the ginger cat wrapped around the base, or watching TV in the little room that she and the girl live in inside the bike shed. Sometimes I stop and have a chat. Topics are almost exclusively about someone she knows in Sweden, flight time from Beijing to London, the fact (or opinion) that I overpaid on the rent of my flat, and that I should watch out for the woman who reads the meter because she doesn’t trust her. Now winter has come, the two of them must be absolutely freezing.

My morning route takes me up the main South Street to the Bell Tower, centre of Xian, and along the main East Avenue, through the arches of the East Gate and straight along the main road more or less to my company. In the evenings, I take a left inside the East Gate and drive along the single-lane road that circles round right up against the entire inside length of the City Wall, until I come out at the South Gate, very near my flat.

Mostly every road is busy and requires maximum concentration at all times, leaving little room for enjoying the surrounds. However, that road I take in the evening is not really designed for cars. It’s very quiet, and passes some areas that retain a lot of original character, not to mention the ever impressive City Wall. Especially now I don’t have to take the overcrowded buses, it is a genuine pleasure to go to and from work. I particularly like being able to weave through gaps created by cars stuck in traffic.

With only a throttle, brakes and the all important horn to worry about, and a top speed of 35km/h (on full battery), driving is mostly a test of hazard awareness. The hazards come from many directions. The large intersections common in Xian are generally controlled by traffic lights, but right-hand turns at red lights are acceptable, so always looking in every direction is a definite must. Drivers of large trucks carrying earth from construction sites (la tu che) apparently have some code of conduct whereby they must drive at a speed of ridiculous or above. Fortunately, they only come out at night. The rampant proliferation of cars is less of a hazard due to the almost permanent low speeds everywhere in the gridlocked city. The main roundabout, for example, looks a little like that one around the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, but the low speeds make it surprisingly easy to negotiate. The bus drivers are masters of their trade, well used to two-wheeled vehicles entwining themselves around the bus as it drives along.

The electric moped is more common than its petrol-driven cousin, but less common than the bicycle and certainly less common than the car. However, the number one threat comes from the lowest rung of the ladder - the pedestrian. Particularly the elderly. I've seen a few minor incidents involving an old person and a car. Seeing as the driver is obviously a rich person and the old person, ticket warden, etc is not, issues of financial fairness are more important than whose fault it actually is. The crowd invariably supports the less financially well-off party with calls for 'pei qian' - 'cough up some money!'. Plus China is generally a country were old people are respected and looked after like children. Not wishing to have a potential mob hemming in my front wheel, I take extra care when approaching someone who looks like it would be expensive and culturally reprehensible to hit.

The elderly and other highly compensatable parties do have one advantage in that they are unlikely to suddenly run out into the road at any angle or speed that takes their fancy, which is what happened in what's the closest I've come to an accident. Fortunately my brakes were working so a potentially nasty low-speed accident was avoided. I delivered a choice selection of the finest words the English language has to offer, and continued on.

In fact, while road rage is fairly uncommon, it's quite liberating to be able to swear very loudly and directly without fear of retaliation. I make sure to swear in English, partly because my bad pronunciation might reduce the insulting impact of what I mean to say, and partly because one day someone actually might turn round and things could get very mafan (troublesome) indeed. Most of the time the pointedness is slightly lost on them, not to mention the humour of combining four different F-words into a grammatically correct sentence. Last week I was going at full speed when faced with five youths walking in the middle of the road in my direction, ie, the wrong direction. I engaged the horn early and continuously, which only scattered them very late, but one was so engrossed in his mobile phone that it was only when I was shouting "Out the way, you f***ing idiot!" at ear trumpet length from him that he finally perked up and jumped out of the way with the sort of expression that I was aiming for. About five seconds later they had managed to remember the rude words they saw in some Hollywood film and directed it back in my direction, although it took a further five seconds for me to understand it, by which time any chance of further exchanges were long gone.

The scooter can also be used as a means of generating income. Some people, mostly middle-aged blokes, operate informal taxi services. While it is technically illegal (and even carrying a second person is also illegal), it's also very handy given the uselessness of public transport in Xian. I've been approached before by people wanting a ride, but when they see it's a foreigner, they keep on walking and pretend they weren't approaching me. One of my proudest moments in China happened last week when I fooled one of my colleagues into thinking I was one of these taxi guys. I drove up slowly beside him and said 'zou bu zou' - 'where to, mate?', the standard greeting. He shook his head angrily. I drove slightly ahead and said it again. This time he was halfway through his angry 'piss off' expression when he saw it was me and his face dropped. Although it was only one sentence, it sounded native enough to fool him.

Overall, it's a lot of fun, practical and a huge improvement on the buses! Presuming, of course, I don't hit someone tomorrow.

National Day holiday in Henan

2009-10-22T13:14:00.000+01:00

Henan province in central China, adjacent to Shaanxi, is famous for fake products, thieves and the over-visited Shaolin Temple, and it was with such an illustrious reputation in mind that I gladly accepted a friend's offer last week to spend a few days of the National Day holiday in Henan. He is a university teacher, and had been invited by one of his students. I'm still not sure exactly why I was asked, but the idea of a cheap break from the city sounded good.

Things didn't start too well when Yu Bo's father (Yu Bo being my friend's friend) crashed the car three minutes after setting out. Apparently, turning late, suddenly, without looking and without indicating does have consequences; namely, Yu Bo's father having to fork out 3,500RMB to the taxi driver who crashed into the rear side door, and the yoghurt that my friend was eating at the time being sprayed all over the inside of the car and us. On the plus side, no injuries and the car we were driving was an insurance company car.

It was about a four-hour drive along the spanking new expressway to Xixia, a county in Western Henan and home of Yu Bo and family. On the way, the car was making several unpleasant noises, and her father had a habit of answering the phone, sending texts, drinking tea and gobbing out the window – mostly simultaneously - which made my friend and I slightly uneasy, and pleased to get to Xixia safely. On the way, the first interesting thing I found out was that my friend, Dong Hongjie, who I have known for over two years and was my Chinese tutor, is surnamed 董（dong, 3rd tone) not 东 (dong, 1st tone), as I have been calling him this entire time.

In the evening, we went to eat huoguo (hotpot) with her parents and her younger cousin, and then afterwards went for a stroll round the main square. Xixia is quite small (by Chinese standards), so, as with most people from Xian, the thing I mainly noticed was how relatively clean the air was. The main square is like most main squares - a big mass of concrete in front of the main government offices, adorned with fountains, which is pretty stupid in a country with severe water shortages.

The second day was 1 October, and the 60th anniversary of the founding of New China. It had been talked about for weeks, and the highlight was the 'da yue bing' (military parade), which all my colleagues at work were looking forward to. It was pretty interesting stuff, rows after rows of soldiers and performers going past Tianamen Square. Unfortunately the organizational abilities present do not seem to have filtered down to the company I work in.

In the afternoon, we went to Yu Bo's house for lunch. I had previously asked her what her father did for a job, and she said she didn't know, which is the answer I get the most when asking people what their parents do for a living. They live on the outskirts of the main town in a fairly big and well equipped, if old, house, which told me that they were not too short of cash. Her mother's younger brother's wife was also there.

We had seen her earlier at the hotel, and the first thing she said to me (and my friend, incidentally) was, 'Ooh, you're good looking". I should explain that Western people hear this all the time. I've seen some of the ugliest, fattest, most physically deformed people in the Western world being called 'hen shuai' (very good looking). And absolutely everyone, Chinese or foreign, fat or thin, supermodel or Ann Widdecombe, get called the female equivalent (meinu). It's difficult to formulate a suitable response to such vapish sentiments, particularly as she was quite attractive but was also married and had her five-year-old son with her. Anyway, lunch was excellent, and the dishes plentiful. Her parents were incredibly generous the entire trip. Most Chinese tend to think Western people, with the so-called 'AA system', or splitting the bill, are tightfisted and a bit weird.

After lunch, we went to Shimen Lake just north of the main town. It's a big lake formed by a dam, and surrounded by amazing, steep, rugged, tree-lined mountains of the sort seen in 'typical' Chinese paintings, and which were the main feature of our four days in Henan. Showing a sensible disregard for health and safety, the driver of the 10-seater boat allowed the three of us to stand outside on the front section, giving us a perfect view of the scenery and a perfect opportunity for my teacher friend to recite poetry and words of love and praise to the Motherland, which we had heard in the morning on TV.

The next day, the five of us - me, Hongjie, Yu Bo and her parents - went to Longtan Gou, about an hour's drive north of Xixia. As happened with most of the places we went, we didn't need a ticket because Yo Bo's father wangled our way in for free. During the entire time in Henan, we were constantly bumping into people her parents knew, which made things a lot smoother (and cheaper). And with all the places we went to not even near to being mentioned in Lonely Planet, it shows the value of travelling with locals.

Longtan Gou is a scenic spot, with water flowing down a ravine in the moutains, forming pools and waterfalls. Fortunately, there weren't too many people, and so we were able to enjoy the spectacular scenery. A series of steps and stairs wound their way up and through the ravine, passing about 15 pools in total, all with crystal clear water and clear blue skies overhead. It seemed the perfect place to go for a dip, but I would have been the only person, and I'd rather people took photos of the scenery, not me. As usual at these places, there were rocks noted for a resemblance to something or someone. I don't really get this (perhaps in the same way I don't get magic eyes), and I especially don't get the fairly considerable excitement bought on by a rock that looks vaguely like a fat pig.

With Yu Bo's mother setting the pace, we had to get moving quickly for lunch and then onwards another two hours or so in the car for whitewater rafting. The Chinese don't strike me as a particularly 'outdoorsy' people, and the rafting typified that. We were given yellow plastic bin liners to wear, and you could buy straw shoes for 3RMB to wear in the boat. Down by the waterside, old women were very insistently selling things that looked like bicycle pumps and cooking pots that you could use to get people wet with. And given that young children were allowed on the rafts as well, I wasn't expecting anything particularly stimulating. And so it proved, especially as after five minutes we stopped to buy some photographs that had been taken as we went over one of the very unrapid rapids.

However, back on the river and propelled by an old bloke in khaki uniform with a wooden pole, we became separated from the few other rafts on the river. It was very peaceful and pretty, despite the incessant wittering of my fellow crew. I asked if I could swim in the river, and was pleased to learn that I could. So I jumped in, closely followed by my friend who quickly realised that he probably needed a few more swimming lessons.

That was the first of several swims in the river that afternoon. The scenery was fantastic, tree-lined mountains rising high up in the cloudless blue sky, the water clear, calm and slow moving, and with no one else but our raft in sight. Several very pretty countryside houses were dotted along the river, their black tiles, white walls and crops around the house adding to the colourful scene. At one point, our raft stopped and the others got out and sat on the bank to allow our 'boatsman' to ferry a family across the river. They made their way slowly across, disembarked on the other side and disappeared off into the trees and up the mountain on the other side. I continued to drift contentedly on my way.

That evening, we had dinner in a restaurant, as we did for four of the five nights. Dinner at a restaurant is one of those things you probably learn about in Chinese culture courses, and it could perhaps be described as a big, pointy pain in the arse. Putting food from the dishes into other people's individual bowls (jia cai) is important, as is knocking glasses with the other people before drinking (jing jiu). When to do this, in what order, at what time, is something to be aware of.

My friend, and something of an advisor to me on all things Chinese, told me afterwards that for things like paying the bill, you'll only get a proper answer after four times of asking. For example, if you offer to pay the bill, you have to say it at least four times for the other person to consider it a genuine offer. He also told me that there is now something of a 'custom' in China these days, namely, that if you do really want to pay the bill, you'll pay during the course of the meal (ie, by excusing yourself to go to the bathroom when really you're going to pay the bill) instead of waiting until the end of the meal. There'll be a lot of perfect friendly jostling and discussions about "I'll get it", "No, I'll get it", "No, no, I insist, really". In some ways, it shows how genuinely hospitable Chinese people are. But to me it also feels like everything is a game, played on the surface, a riddle wrapped inside a dumpling inside a chop stick, where no-one really knows what is going on. And that's just dinner.

The next day, we found ourselves in a minivan and with another family (parents and one child) on our way to Neixiang, a small town containing the best preserved yamen, or ancient government office, in all of China. The yamen was where justice was administered, taxes collected and so on. It was certainly very impressive and pretty, the design showing the traditional Chinese attachment to symmetry, order and hierarchy. They also had a small show, showing how justice was administered, ancient style, which I failed to understand but certainly looked quite fun. The only disappointments were that most of the furniture had been destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, and Yu Bo's mother was again attempting to break her own Olympic record for sight-seeing.

After lunch, we went to what Xixia is probably most famous for - dinosaur fossil eggs. Unsurprisingly, it was complete rubbish. Dinosaurs are undoubtedly fascinating creatures, but there's only so much you can glean from looking at a few fossilised eggs through a window. The main building was inside a huge park, complete with plastic dinosaurs and naff piano music wafting out from speakers badly disguised as prehistoric foliage. Not that I could hear it, because we had one of Satan's children, ie, a tour guide, accompanying us. The spiel, rote-learned, spoken without any interest and directed into the caustic microphone, was enough to kill off any interest I might have had immediately.

For the final day, we drove for hours along a single-track road, then dirt track, deep inside the mountains. This was a new scenic mountain spot not yet officially opened, so there weren't too many many people again. The climb was fairly gentle, although two sections involved walking along a narrow walkway attached at right angles to a sheer cliff-face. The scenery all along was fantastic, the blues and greens a stark contrast and welcome change to Xian. On the top section were several pavilions and little walkways cut through the trees. Quite how they managed to get all the building materials up here is another thing. I could have quite easily stayed there the whole day, gazing across the peaks and valleys of China, but Yu Bo was going for the silver medal in sight-seeing, so we had to get going.

And that was that, a five-hour train journey the next day taking us back to Xian, and probably the last opportunity to go outside the city in a while.

Jakarta trip

2009-09-23T13:51:00.000+01:00

The power company I work for provides staff and services to new power plants in China as well as Sudan and Indonesia. Because of this, and also because the Vice Governor of this province was going to be visiting Indonesia, the boss asked me to go to Indonesia with him for a week. A free trip to a new country? I gladly obliged.

After taking all of Sunday to get from Xian to Jakarta, the Monday morning we took a taxi for a meeting in a subsidiary company of the Indonesian State Grid. This company owns one of the power plants that we've operated for the last two years in Sumatra, and the boss would like to be awarded the contract for the next two years as well. It was more of a small chat than anything. Unlike most Chinese bosses, my boss can speak reasonable English, so he did the negotiations by himself, with another translator (who sometimes acts as he business assistant) and me sitting around the table. I wasn't properly introduced, and the slightly nervous sideways looks I was getting from the Indonesian manager we were meeting showed he was slightly confused by the presence of this random Western person.

Afterwards we went for lunch with a Chinese student who works part time in Indonesia for an affiliated company. It was only after a while that I realised it was Ramadan, but the locals tucking into chicken and rice didn't seem to be too put out by it.

We took a 'microlet' back, which is a cross between a minibus and a taxi that ferries people around some parts of Jakarta. The temperature was in the mid-30s outside, and even hotter inside. Jakarta has apparently developed without much centralised planning. The traffic is pretty shocking, and if you get behind one of the bajahs (a round box on three wheels), you'll have a face full of exhaust fumes.

We were staying in Kota in the north part of Jakarta, which is where many of the overseas Chinese live and do business. In 1998 there was a backlash against the Chinese community, when many Chinese and overseas Chinese were killed, raped and had their businesses destroyed. When you mention Indonesia to a Chinese mainlander, this is the thing you are most likely to hear in reply. Part of the reason for it was to do with the fact that the Chinese business community is very strong, and they are generally richer than the locals. The big apartment block opposite my hotel, where my boss has a rented apartment, is populated almost exclusively by Chinese, including over 2,000 attractive young Chinese women who can earn up to a million RMB (90,000 pounds) a year in the various 'entertainment venues' in this part of town.

In the afternoon, I was free to wonder round. I walked south along the main road, which was lacking a pavement but did have a large open sewer running down the middle. It also had hundreds and thousands of small-engine motorbikes zooming along. Some of the junctions looked like someone had double booked a motorbike race and an F1 race on the same track, as motorbikes and cars vied for space. The huge Independence Monument in the centre of town, just over the road from the Presidential Palace, is a very tall and boring edifice commemorating independence from the Dutch. The open area surrounding it is huge, and included a deer park and plenty of military police vehicles. With such a huge rich/poor gap, it's probably a wise decision.

For the first three nights, the boss put me up in a very nice four-star hotel, where they have breakfasts which actually fill you up and the English-language Jakarta Globe gets put through you door in the morning. From reading it, it would seem corruption is a major issue in Indonesia. And when we went to a follow-up meeting the on Tuesday, there was a 'Fight Corruption' plaque in the meeting room, signed by senior members of the Indonesia State Grid. The meeting was to decide the requirements for bidders for the contract discussed the previous day. Asking one of the bidders (ie, us) to help design and advertise the bid proposal seems stupid to me, especially when our boss made recommendations that meant only our company can fulfill the requirements. Perhaps our boss was displaying some of the 'acumen' that has made the Chinese overseas community quite wealthy.

That afternoon, I wandered up the road to the very north of Jakarta, which is where the old colonial town was based. There were a couple of nice old-style buildings, but I was struck by the rundown nature of the area. Some of the old buildings looked like they had been bombed, and the surrounds were particularly insalubrious. I went to the internet bar to see if there was actually anything to do in Jakarta. It seems if you like heat, traffic jams, clubbing, prostitutes and expensive beer, Jakarta is for you.

On Wednesday, we took a taxi and sat in traffic for half the morning on our way to the Sultan hotel, a magnificent five-star hotel where the Shaanxi government delegation and other heads of Shaanxi industry were staying. It turns out we (the business assistant and myself) were going to translate a Memorandum of Understanding for the Shaanxi Minerals and Metallurgy Group Limited, one of the largest state-owned enterprises in Shaanxi and also in the Indonesian market. For whatever reason, they didn't have anyone available to translate it, so we gave the boss enormous face by translating it in the hotel lobby for him. And because he had a foreigner (me) doing it as well, his face was even bigger.

In the afternoon, after another excellent Chinese lunch, I took the bus to Blok M, a place sounding like part of a Dutch prison but actually a part of south Jakarta with lots of shops, Westerners and bars. Jakarta does at least have a few designated bus lanes, making bus travel much quicker and cheaper than taxis. The main bar street was quite disappointing, and the whole area was just one big shopping fest. Apart from queuing for ages in a sweltering hot bus station, I didn't stay long.

On the Thursday morning, we went back to the hotel via a very convoluted route thanks to the driver getting completely lost. We were to meet with the Vice Governor of Shaanxi province. This was the sole purpose of my coming to Indonesia - a chance for the Vice Governor (and other important Shaanxi people) to see that my company has a white Western foreigner working for it and is therefore a great company. We had to put on the blue power plant overalls our company's engineers wear, partly to look orderly, and partly to prove that I really do work here. We waited outside one of the hotel meeting rooms, waiting for the Vice Governor. While waiting, I found out that our boss is the younger brother of one of the top leaders in Shaanxi government, which goes some way to explaining why this company does quite nicely.

When the VG came out, our boss pounced, and introduced the three of us to him. Naturally, he was quite surprised to see me, and more more surprised when I spoke Chinese to him. The boss introduced me as 'Director of Translation', which is not true at all. The VG, a short, elderly, unassuming man, asked whether I really do work here. He checked again, complimented me on my Chinese to which I replied 'it's just average', which is definitely the right answer when someone, especially someone important, compliments your Chinese. He was impressed that I knew how to be modest (perhaps thinking modesty is something only Chinese can do), and with that hurried off to his next engagement, surrounded by a melee of other people.

And that was that. The entire point of my week in Indonesia was completed in half a minute. A bit later, we attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony between the largest company in Shaanxi - Shaanxi Auto Company - and an Indonesian company, where the Chinese company sold them 300 dumper trucks, some of which were parked outside the hotel for everyone to admire. A buffet lunch with no chairs for underlings followed, and before we left I managed to get the QQ [instant messaging service] number of the rather attractive and possibly useful secretary to the head of the Shaanxi Trade Promotion Department.

***

Still having a day and a half left, and with Jakarta offering nothing much more to see or do, I went to Indramayu, a town three hours from Jakarta where we have 20 or staff working at a new power station. Also going back were the business assistant and the two engineers who had come yesterday to be at the morning's main event. Halfway into the journey, I got talking to Mr Hou, a chemistry engineer on site. The night before, dinner conversation had resolved around the main topic of the week - 'China is more developed than Indonesia', 'Jakarta is a mess', 'Indonesians are not as rich as Chinese', etc, etc. Mr Hou had not said one word the entire evening. He looked slightly lost.

However, during the car journey on the way to Indramayu he talked at length and in depth about his past. He told me he was sixty years old, which would have made him sixteen in 1966, the start of the Cultural Revolution. I find this part of history fascinating, because it's not in a museum or a book, it's living people with stories to tell when conditions were very different to what they are now.

People of this age are called zhi qingnian, and they have similar stories to tell. He told me how he had left school at sixteen to go down to the countryside to do farmwork. Schools were closed, teachers paraded through streets as 'dunces', and students were sent to the countryside or joined the Red Guards. He stayed there for five years, until eventually he was allowed back, and found a job in a power station.

In 1964, China successfully launched an atomic bomb. "We had a special physics lesson for the whole school, explaining how it worked and everything. I remember that particularly clearly. And Old Mao, when he heard the news, didn't believe it at first".

"1960 was a particularly tough year. No-one had enough to eat. Everyday 'chi bu bao' (feel hungry). It was tough." His withered appearance, thinning hair, stooped posture and thick local accent were testament to the hardships that most young people now in Chinese cities have absolutely no idea about.

I ventured that in those days there were no thieves because there was nothing stealing. "No! It was because if you had something nice that no one else had, people would come round 'on patrol', asking were you got it, making accusations. Then more people would come. They'd ask a lot of of questions, it was dangerous. It was better not to get involved."

People of his generation generally admire Mao greatly. Given the enormous sway one man held over so many people for so long, I asked him what he thought about Mao. "Obviously, towards the end it wasn't perfect. People were scared, they couldn't give him advice. But I still think he's definitely a great man. Deng Xiaoping ruled in peacetime, so it was easy for him. Mao fought off the Japanese, Chiang Kaishek and uninvited foreign influence. He took China out of its highly backward state and made it stand up on its own two feet. People were hungry in the sixties, but better off than in the '30s and '40s. He was also a great military strategist and man of literature. For me, he's still a great man."

He talked about the work he has to do now. "Back then, I'd get 1,000 yuan (90 pounds) a month, and everything was simple. Now everything is done on computers. It's tiring, and my eyes hurt after a while."

Meanwhile, the other two people had not paid the slightest bit of attention to anything he said.

***

The next day, Friday, I had a quick tour round the power station before returning to Jakarta. Because of Idul Fitri, the end of Ramadan, people were streaming out of the capital to return to their hometowns, making the roads a nightmare. Our local driver, after driving for much of the way down the hard shoulder, took a detour through the very pretty countryside. Field after field of green crops and tropical trees, with rows of colourful houses with porches overlooking a bumpy old road and small flowing river, all under a bright blue sky, all a marked contrast to the greys and browns of northern China. The two (different) Chinese engineers with me were busy discussing how backwards Indonesia is, but I thought it was great.

Saturday was not a day I was looking forward to - a full day travelling with the boss. It started by the two engineers supposed to be coming back with us missing their flight. The inability of anyone in our company to plan anything can be quite amazing at times. On the plane to Guangzhou, the boss ignored my book-reading attempts to talk to me.

He is a short, fat man, 45 years old, local to this province, a good brain, not flashy, but not a people person, and obsessed with earning money. As we were flying over Hong Kong, he said HK was not nearly as good as Shenzhen, just over the border, because Shenzhen has a wider range of things to buy. Shenzhen is one of the most soulless places on the planet, but good for earning money, so I was not surprised by his choice.

We spent the afternoon in Guangzhou, an enormous, ugly, hot, shopping-mad city in southern China that I could not wait to escape from. At midnight, we arrived back in a chilly Xian to be driven home slowly and with two stalls by the boss's wife.

Dinner with Mr Wang and Mr Deng

2009-09-23T13:45:00.000+01:00

From about April to October 1st, our company institutes a one-and-a-half-hour lunch break. Never mind that the receptionist likes to play pop music at excessively high volumes, the extra half hour is meant for us to sleep. Anyway, it means that by six o'clock, I am very hungry. Fortunately, there are many restaurants in the vicinity of the company. One is a hu lu tou restaurant, which is a fairly prevalent dish here in Xian.

I usually go there once a week. It consists of 'mo', a type of round bread, which you break into pieces yourself. Add in some rice noodles, mushrooms, quails eggs, herbs, spices and sheep intestines and it makes for a good dish. It seems the phrase 'sheep intestines' does not have much appeal, but if we eat sheep meat, why are the intestines any different? And, indeed, sheep blood, as someone quite accurately pointed out to me last week.

Anyway, at about 6.05pm, after parking my so-rubbish-it's-not-worth-stealing bike, I walk into the hu lu tou restaurant. Just as I think it's fairly empty, I see, at a table in the corner, sit Mr Wang and Mr Deng.

Mr Wang, more generally known as Wang Zong, is an important person in our company, project manager for various projects at home and abroad. I first met him properly during the spring outing our company arranged in April. He has, as a fellow translator pointed out at the time, a tremendous 'ability to summarise', which is great in an age of waffle, guff and spew. He spoke to me about Chinese culture, and is convinced I should become a Chinese professor (possibly because he knows I can never learn power station engineering). Probably about 50-55 years old, he has spent his entire life in a power plant. A power plant in China, particularly the 'old days', is a life. The power station complex consists of schools, hospitals, leisure and, of course, a job.

He speaks directly, to the point, without airs and graces, and with a thick North Eastern accent that makes it even harder to understand what he says. And I knew when I bumped into him evening, it would be more of the same intense listening practice. A warm welcome to sit down and join him and Mr Deng (project manager for a power station in Indonesia) was followed very closely by a sharp call to the waitress for another bottle of baijiu.

Baijiu is the Chinese liquor of choice. If you are a man, and especially if you don't smoke like me, then you need to be able to drink baijiu. Fortunately I can, so I quite welcomed the entire bottle being poured into my glass.

Firstly we ate 'liang cai' (cold dish), which is like the first course of a two course meal. During that, we drank the baijiu and spoke about many topics. Being a foreigner and an Englishman, we mainly spoke about foreign affairs, England and China. Not unlike many Chinese, Mr Wang spoke at length about the humiliation suffered by China from 1842-1949. They don't necessarily want to be number one, and they dislike, even mock, America for trying to be so. But they do not want to be bullied. They admire Stevenson, Watt and Britain generally for being a small country yet able to produce many famous inventors and conquer half the world's land mass.

The main course was eaten quite swiftly. Afterwards, the beer was finished, and more was talked about. I tried to ascertain exactly why Mr Wang would work for our company, at a time when working for a state-owned company is seen as a perfect job. He gave a full and detailed answer, which I completely failed to understand.

A short time afterwards, we left the restaurant. I unlocked my bike - correctly identified by Mr Wang as 'that one that no-one would want to steal' - and rode home.

Renting a flat in Xian in one evening

2009-08-23T14:07:00.000+01:00

With the contract on my flat ending in a couple of weeks and the two-hour round trip commute to and from work through hopelessly narrow roads filled with new cars on a bus that more often than not cannot be boarded because of the overcrowding, sometimes at only the first stop, I've started a search for a new place. This will be the fourth flat I've rented here, so I'd like to think I learnt something in the process.

I finished work at six and jumped in a taxi - the congestion is horrendous at this time of day. I met the man and wife who run a small 'estate agents' in a nice living area inside the city walls. I say estate agents, it was a small concrete room next to the bike and moped shed, with the flat information written in chalk on the outside wall. I'd been there yesterday and liked the area, right next to the city wall and South Gate - it feels like you're actually in Xian rather than just the endless sprawling grey suburbs. This living area, like many areas, is a sealed-off section with only a couple of gates in and out, making it very peaceful compared to the raging noise going on outside.

It took me a long time in Xian to discover these living areas - they can be well hidden. Many of these areas are affiliated with a factory, government department and so on - ie, the employees in that institution get assigned houses. This system doesn't really exist much any more - most people with money want to live in a new house with a lift, car park and no play area for their kids.

The bloke in charge emerged from his little concrete room next to the bike and moped shed, wearing the blue plastic flipflops that are the shoe of choice for many in the summer months. He was taking me to see a one-bedroom flat. I left slightly disappointed - as expected, 'fully furnished' is a phrase that needs some salt. We went back and I asked him what his commission was. He said a month’s rent, which was funny because his wife had told me the day before it was half a month’s rent (plus the standard is half a month anywhere anyway). He said, 'seeing as you can speak Chinese, I'll do it for half a month’s rent'. What he meant was I wasn't a foreigner who makes up for his lack of Chinese language skills with lots of money. Although hardly a sweeping triumph, I felt quite pleased.

Anyway, we looked at a two-bedroom flat as well. I asked the person packing up their things (out of earshot of the 'agent') if there was anything that wasn't any good - she pointed to the water heater used for the shower. The very same one that Mr Blue Flipflops had told me was 'absolutely fine' less than a minute ago, in fact. So rubbish was it that she even bought a new one. On the way down the stairs, I asked him how old the buildings were. He said they were built in 1995, 30 years newer than I thought they were, which proved my theory that buildings in China age incredibly quickly. A couple of days later, I had another theory - he was talking crap to get my money off me.

Slightly disappointed and promising to call him tomorrow (which I didn't do, naturally), I went to the nearest internet bar to search for flats. Most of the people looking for someone to live with requested girls only. No pets, cleanliness, a steady job and good 'societal relationships' (no drug-taking friends, etc) were other common requirements. I phoned one number, which was answered by a very brusque woman. At one point I thought she said 'you're not allowed to go home'. Turns out she said 'you not allowed to bring home people randomly'. Selective hearing can sometimes have its drawbacks.

As the flat was in the centre of the city near the Bell Tower, it was just a short walk. But with time of the essence, I flagged down a moped. These are mostly retired guys cruising (illegally) round the city earning some extra cash. I think they're great, and certainly necessary given the horrendously crowded buses. You wave them by shouting 'la bu la - do you take people?'. You have to be wary not to flag down a legitimate moped driver, however, as you'll look like a tit when they drive past, ignoring you.

I found the flat inside another living area. It was huge, an entire thriving community in itself, and right next to the Bell Tower and main streets, but you would have no idea it was there without prior knowledge. On entering, I was informed that the room had just been taken. I was presented with indoor flipflops (for wearing after taking your shoes off) and the offer of a glass of hot water, but I declined. As soon as the door closed, I had the idea of looking at it and offering slightly more if it was good. But like all my best ideas, they come too late, and without the necessary decisiveness to make it matter.

In the middle of this living area I found another small estate agents, the (probably fake) placards on the wall from various government departments suggesting this was a relatively big operation. The agent was a middle-aged man, bald, possibly blind, with strong dialect. I was assured every flat he suggested was 'piaoliang de hen!' - very beautiful. He thought some body language would aid my understanding when explaining the contents of the flat. The one for shower involved lots of gyrating.

The thing I like about these guys is that they never give a straight answer, and are just trying to maximise financial gain. The good thing is, it's always like this, so I feel less of a shit when asking him questions he doesn't like (ie, any question). If you’re absolutely confident the other guy is trying to get one over on you instead of just not sure, you can be firmer in your dealings.

Anyway, the landlords of a couple of flats were out so I couldn't see anything that night. After accepting a Good Cat cigarette and enjoying it while he did his 'this flat is beautiful / not a penny cheaper, my hands are tied / i will personally help you buy a second-hand tv' thing with a timid-looking Chinese lady from outside the province, I left. I went to another netbar to have another quick search for something. This netbar was above a nightclub with some very inebriated young woman falling out and off their high heels. If there was a competition for 'most attractive woman viewed from behind', China could well take it.

In the netbar I found a number and gave it a try. It sounded promising, but was told I had to wait until Sunday to actually see it. As it was nearing 10 o’clock, I decided it might be time to call it a day. But then the woman sitting next to me came over, heard I was looking for a flat, and offered to take me to the living area where she lived just round the corner to ask about flats. The first three things that went through my mind where 'what are you after', 'maybe she's a nymphomaniac', and 'you need a better facial wash, I wonder if they have tea tree oil here'.

Turns out she was a perfectly normal, friendly person. We walked the ten minutes back to the 'living area'. This one was the living area for the City Government. She said there were only old people living here now. Not surprising, really, given the money swashing through layers of Chinese government. Anyway, there were no flats again, so we said goodbye and, with the last bus back to the south of the city leaving shortly, I decided to call it a day.

TOP TIPS FOR RENTING A FLAT IN CHINA

• Do your research

• Be patient and respectful

• Don't be a sap, man!

Consumers of the World - Unite!

2009-05-03T11:27:00.000+01:00

May 1st is International Labour Day and as such is a public holiday in China. Falling on a Friday this year, it meant a three day weekend (although it used to be a whole week holiday). And what better way to show your solidarity with tea pickers in Kenya and steel workers in America than to go shopping, surely number 1 pastime of Chinese, way ahead of table tennis in terms of overall participants. Xiao Zhai is a favourite place of my girlfriend, and most other females under 35 in fact. I think the best adjective to describe it is 'swarming'. In one place, there was literally a traffic jam of people, the pavement too narrow to accommodate the herds of consumers. The ancient Chinese had a phrase apt for most situations, and here is no exception. 心静自然凉 (xin jing zi ran liang), which roughly translated means a calm heart (or state of mind) will cool yourself down, regardless of external conditions. Although back then the Chinese were much to sophisticated and cultured as to engage in anything like consumerism, it is extremely true. Having faced the hoards of people on hot, crowded, dusty shopping streets so many times now, I have developed a certain patience that did not previously exist. Also I ended up spending no money, which helped my mood.

Afterwards, at my behest, we went to a bar street, which was like sitting in a nice hot bath after a hard day at work on a Friday or snuggling under the warm duvet when outside its raining and horrible (also on a Friday). Empty chairs on tables lined the narrow street, cars were few, no shops selling rubbish, natural greenery provided shade, and an absolute fantastic blueberry smoothie thing made it my idea of a day off. And despite the lack of retail therapy opportunities, I think even my opposite number felt a degree of relaxation.

Last week at work, I've been in the simulator centre of the Xian Electrical College, which is a short walk from our company and the location for the next stage of the training we are giving Indonesian power station operators. The lying that goes on here is hilarious. We told them before that we had our own simulator centre, so the last few days everyone has been asking me if all these students on campus belong to our company. Hmmm, not quite. Displaying our company's almost inability to prepare anything properly, half of the simulator screens are in Chinese, i.e., useless for an Indonesian. But our translators have done a sterling job in providing hand written translations (tres professionel), and generally they've done the extremely difficult interpretation well. I sit at the back taking notes about their performance, as befits my title of 'translation consultant'. If I ever have to do it myself, the illusion will be revealed.

In other news, Saturday afternoon was spent doing the twice annual 'Wardrobe Switch'. It's spring, so the trousers, jumpers, jackets and anything remotely thick have been bagged and stored, and the shorts and flip flops reappeared after 6 months in hibernation. There's two types of people in Xian, those who are 怕冷(literally, scared of the cold) and those who are 怕热 (scared of the heat), and I definitely belong to the latter. The first year here I got sick, couldn't eat anything for 5 days and turned into a skeleton. Last year was better, but it's still going to be sleepness nights, drowsiness, decreased calorie intake and potential for flared tempers. All I have to do is remember the ancient Chinese - 心静自然凉.

Working lunch

2009-04-26T14:30:00.000+01:00

The dinner table is to a Chinese as the golf course is to an American - an ideal location for business discussions. Recently, I've been offered a position in a university in Xian to help establish links with overseas universities for exchange programs, and, accordingly, have been involved in discussions recently.

The first stage was interesting. My friend and former tutor is now a teacher in that university, so he is the all-important 'go-between'. I don't have much experience, but I've heard Chinese only like to do business with associates, or at least people they have some personnel connection with. When you consider its quite an individualistic society, with people looking to make money left right and centre, it is a sensible policy.

So in the last couple of weeks, I've been talking over a coffee in a quiet corner of a cafe about my position and that of the school with that friend. It reminds me of diplomats arranging the basics before the meeting of the political leaders. After two meetings, it was decided that last Friday was a good time to meet the university "lingdao", or leaders.

Expecting an evening of significant baijiu consumption, I had had an extra big lunch. So it was to my great surprise when I walked in and found three women sitting at the table. I had assumed it would be fat middle-aged men with white socks and bad teeth smoking 'Good Cat' cigarettes. I was introduced by my friend to them, and did the only thing appropriate on such occassions - immediately forgot their names.

I also forgot their titles, but it became apparent during the dinner that the woman to my left was the most important. She had a habit of laughing uproariously and spitting out shrimp legs at the same time. The other two (later three) were more demure, following the lead of the leg-spitter. The later addition was actually a former teacher of mine, and so with everyone reasonably familiar with each other, it was a pleasant evening.

The food was certainly a success. For occasions like this, there is always much more food than could possibly be eaten. Although I did my best to break this rule, taking a special fancy to a sort of fried rice cooked inside a pineapple.

Being from a university and with mostly woman in attendance, the atmosphere was more sincere than I had previously assumed. Firstly we made polite chat about this and that. Teacher Gao displayed her appalling command of French, and I complimented her heartily (what else can you do?). Teacher Xiang (the most important one) went off on a lengthy tangent about how she encountered wild animals last time she went to the mountains. Everyone listened patiently, possibly wondering the same thing as me - 'would it be rude if I kept eating that pineapply thing while she tells this incredibly boring, self-centred, anecdote'? It always amazes me how much most people like the sound of their own voice, even though it seems a certain way to ensure you are disliked my other members of your party.

After the eating was mostly over, we got to the 'zheng shi' - the point of the dinner. They want me to work in their university, setting up a website, contacting foreign universities, getting students to come to China. As I already have a job I like, but one possibly not able to renew my visa, the negotiations were tricky, and I discovered afterwards there were one or two misunderstandings. We also avoided the tricky question of money, although universities in China are overflowing with money, so hopefully it won't be too much of an issue.

At the end of the evening, the leader paid the bill, and being a teacher, she got 15% off, which is a common arrangement for restaurants in areas with universities and schools. She asked me if there were similar arrangements for teachers in England. I think not. The mostly undrunk baijiu was given to me, which is a real bonus because it is an expensive one. I left with my friend first, the three other teachers staying behind to discuss the events and to wonder if all foreigners have such a fancy for pineapply rice.

Indonesians come to China

2009-04-21T11:07:00.000+01:00

Last week our company started the training event that we have been 'preparing' for the last few weeks. There are 32 Indonesians, all men and with varying levels of experience as operators of power stations. They are here for nearly 2 months, mostly for training on a simulator.

I've been struck by how incredibly friendly and modest they are. During the opening ceremony, their 'leader' was fraught with nerves and could barely speak. He said if they made any mistakes or did anything culturally inappropriate, they were very sorry. Absolutely nothing of the sort from our side.

The presenter and translator for the speeches of the 领导, ling dao, or leaders, was me. I can be spotted in the background of two of these photos.

http://www.npgc.net/news_detail.asp?id=356&pid=6

The speech delivered by our boss was actually written by someone else, and the first time he saw it was when he unfolded it from his pocket. The Indonesians sung their national anthem with vigour and rythm; our side sung theirs feebly. (The only saving grace was no-one asked me to sing God Save the Queen). My favourite part was when the boss explained how the boiler engineer couldn't make it because he was still compling the teaching materials, when, in fact, the company did not even have a boiler engineer present at that time. As for my translation, it was reasonable. Even the translators in our company were surprised I could understand the Chinese, despite working here for nearly half a year. The Indonesians also looked slightly confused by my presence.

The training is in its 9th day now. I've not actually been told to do anything (I have a lot of freedom as one of the two 'experts'), but I've been listening to each lecture every morning. All I can say, the importance of preparation should never be underestimated. A fairly simple piece of organization, this training, and the people in charge have fucked it up royally. I don't actually translate myself, just sit at the back taking notes, and try to give advice to our translators (Chinese engineer speaks Chinese, Chinese translator speaks English, Indonesians listen - yes, this is as problematic as it sounds).

Our company is nothing if not thrifty. If you want to use a paper cup, you have to apply for one. My suit (which is not the right size at all) cost 300 RMB, but they charged me 500 RMB for it ('standard company policy'). Initially, the boss said that, because the Indonesians going to the mosque on Friday is nothing to do with them, they should go by public bus. 32 non-Chinese speaking Indonesians piling onto overcrowded buses going to a place they don't know the location of? Brilliant. The snacks offered daily for the 32 Indonesian trainings during training consists of one bag of biscuits costing 2 pence. The classroom offered was a room in a hotel on the 'staff area' floor with no windows or ventilation. Even when the big boss saw this, he was pissed off. Although he only changed it when he knew the management from the Indonesian side were coming to look.

But anyway, it continues, and we'll see what happens.

Spring Break Ltd

2009-03-16T05:05:00.000Z

A couple of weeks ago our company organised a 2-day 'chun you' 春游 (spring break), which is something where most people get out and about to make the most of the relatively pleasant spring weather. Most companies will offer this, and our boss, always one for skiving off work and driving her car round the outskirts of the city, organised a visit to some surrounding attractions for our 40-strong team. (Last week, she fell asleep on the couch in her office after a little too much liquid at lunchtime).

(photos available at this address: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=70507&id=510992267&l=35c1d2039f )

We gathered at 8am outside the company and boarded the coach. Just as I'm wondering where we're going, a microphone screeches and a booming, lispy voice comes at me from every direction. That was when I realised I was facing for the first time something I normally try and avoid - a tour guide.

My worst fears were confirmed when she tried to get us to do some 'wake-up games'. The sight of girls rubbing their heads with their left hand and boys rubbing their ears with their right hands holds zero amusement for me, and apparently for everyone as well, because no-one else joined in. Not to be deterred, our courageous guide, a young girl named Xiao Wang, sang us a very moving rendition of the Chinese equivalent of 'wheels on the bus' (or some such). The accompanying round of applause was, if not generous, at least sympathetic. At least we weren't distributed matching visors, and the attempts at colour-coding us into teams proved beyond her powers of organisation.

First stop was a small town next to Xian called Lantian. Almost every city or large town in China is famous for something, and Lantian is famous for jade. So we stopped in the main street and piled into a shop selling jade. I was surprised by how fascinated everyone was by the jade on offer as a) you can buy it everywhere and b) its probably fake. Instead I sat in the backroom with a copy of the Shaanxi Morning Post.

Later that morning, we drove to the outskirts of Lantian to Wang Shun Mountain. Snow still covered the ground, and with the clear blue skies and trees just starting to leave behind winter, it provided a very pleasant backdrop. Taking advantage of this rare opportunity for solitude, I charged ahead and was able to make the 3 hour climb to the top unfollowed by the rest of my 'team'. Stone steps snaked their way slowly up, past waterfalls and pavilions, the footprints of early climbers marking the way where the snow was heavy. Higher up, it was possible to see the surrounding peaks, stretching far away, with the occassional pavilion perched on the side.

However, it was still in China, which meant someone decided that the sound of birdsong and rushing water is insufficent, and needed to be completed by background music. Speakers were rigged to the overhead cable car, and the sort of music you hear in lifts in faux up-market shopping centres accompanied me up the mountain. It was even louder at the top, lilting across the ranges like goo.

The afternoon was followed a longish bus trip to the south of the province (Shaanxi) to Zhashui. On the bus, I was nominated by the assistant guide (a complete twat) to sing a song. I opted instead for a joke, and I'm pleased to say it went down like a sack of rain-soaked rice. Nothing like having to repeat a punchline. Three times. In Chinese.

Anyway, when we got there, the attraction was an ancient street where a film was once shot. In the evening, some of the men in our party thought it would be fun to get me drunk, but their shameful ability at drinking meant their efforts were short lived. The woman boss kept trying to encourage us to 'kao rou' (barbequing slithers of skewered-meat). Instead I was listening to the Chief Engineer in the company tell me all sorts of things that if I had only understood I am sure would have been of the utmost interest.

Sunday morning, I got up early and went for a wonder through the fields. With urbanisation incerasing at planet-destroying rates, its easy to forget that China is an agricultural based country. We got up nice and early and took a ride to the a series of caves with those 'rock icicle' things in. Inside were lots of surprisingly interesting and attractive rock formations and even more tourists. Our group got seperated after about 3 seconds and all different groups then moulded into one, big, slow moving group, like an oil spill in the ocean.

I have to say something about photography. Chinese just love taking pictures, particularly of themselves. Every time anyone got to anything remotely of interest ("this rock is slightly more pointy than the last one!"), they stand in front of it and get someone to take a picture of them. Invariably there are two 'poses', the word 'pose' now being a part of the lexicon of most young urbanites. One is the V sign (victory, not piss off), and the other is a completely expressionless face. I couldn't help but snigger when 3 of them had their battery run out. The forlorn, almost dazed, expression, was a photo opportunity in itself (if only they hadn't run out of battery). For them, that was the end of the trip, and they made swiftly for the exit.

Heading back to the smog of Xian, it was nice to have had a reminder that there is a whole lot more to China (and possibly life generally) than banging around in a city all day.

Who is Saddam Hussein

2009-03-04T07:10:00.001Z

The last couple of weeks I've been doing some recruitment work for company, part of which involved me writing a short exam to test the written English ability of applicants. The final section was a reading comprehension and proofreading exercise. The final question was 'Who is Saddam Hussein'? I chose this question as a general knowledge question, although his name also appeared in the text. Here are some of the incorrect answers.

The President of Iraq

He is a terrorist, he always destroy the peace of the world

He is a publicly financed glorification of serving leader

He is the ex-President of Packstein and was hung years before

The president of Irak

A terrorist, the head of Iraq, did harm to the people in Iraq and also to the people in the whole world

He was thought to a terror and devil by Americans, but a hero in his country

The President of Afghanistan

America's President

The leader of a mideast country named Israel

'If you are honoured enough to join our company..."

2009-03-01T13:27:00.000Z

Last Thursday I took part in a recruitment meeting for our company at the leading university in Xian. Officially due to the snow, although more probably due to the low salary on offer, attendees numbered around the 40 mark.

The presentation was delivered in a lecture room by our 'boss', the woman married to the Actual Boss. I used to think she was quite formidable, but have come to realise that she is hopelessly unqualified for this position. In fact, the whole company reminds me of a monarchy, with people being in high positions or promoted depending on their 'guanxi' (relations) with the other important people. Skill and ability are strictly secondary. It sounds a bit of a cliche to say this about China, but this is what was told to me the day after by the former head of the translation department. To save face, she wasn't sacked directly, but put in a position where leaving was the only real option. It's grim up top.

Anyway, back to the presentation. She fumbled about for 5 minutes with the computer, which turned out to be only preparation for even greater fumbling later on. Even if she had remembered to introduce herself, such was the paucity of her comments and apparent lack of knowledge about the company that the attendees must have been wondering 'Who is this woman', 'What does this company do again?', 'Why is her hairstyle like that of a racoon?', etc.

After skipping over unimportant facts like the nature and requirements of the job, etc, she went on to the bulk of her presentation - showing photos of Indonesia and Sudan, where the company have staff working overseas. She had turned into Judith Chalmers, telling us the delights of beaches and lobsters in Northern Sumatra. My favourite picture was the one of the outside of the car park building at Jakarta Airport - truly a decision-maker for those potential employees.

Then onto the videos. She decided to show some footage of the New Years Party. Just as my feeling of mortification was setting in (me in a dress is not pretty), I was saved by her terrible computer skills as she did not know how to press the 'Play' button on Windows Media. My favourite clip was of two people repairing an old, two wheeled wooden cart next to a pile of coal. So this is the high technology of which you speak! Sign me up!

Our current team of English translators suffers from the slight hindrance of not being to speak or understand English, so this time I interviewed all the people who had not already left to test their English. The level was extremely good. The head of the translation department (age:23) only came to this company by accident because she thought it was a state-owned company, and I got the feeling some of these guys might be under the same false impression. I asked one girl the differences between young and middle-aged people in China, and was given a slightly ribald and detailed response centering on sex.

Afterwards, Mrs Boss, myself and one of her lackeys (supposedly HR manager) had a good laugh comparing the attractiveness of the various female translators in our company. If only Mrs Boss paid as much attention to her presentations as she did to her withering critiques of the physical features of her staff, we might actually get somewhere.

Valentines Day

2009-02-15T12:08:00.000Z

5000 years of glorious history, from the bone-reading clerics of the Shang Dynasty all the way through to Bruce Lee, a fair supply of festivals have been invented and accumulated during this time. A festival celebrating the act of love, lovers, etc, is among them. The traditional 'Lover's Day' in China is the 7th day of the 7th lunar month (in August), and I read about the story in the Intermediate (Lower) Chinese textbook a couple of years ago. It seemed a nice story, about a boy and a girl separated by an evil old woman, and only allowed to meet once a year. They are represented by two stars in the sky.

But that's old, boring, and, crucially, is not commercially viable. So what we need to do is forget that rubbish and learn something from those rich, car-owning Westerners - celebrate Valentines Day. A perfect opportunity to spend ever larger proportions of our small salaries on crap no-one wants for the girl we love.

So what is the correct way to show our appreciation and affection? Money. Or, if you have it, loads of money. Flowers are good, although be sure to buy a bunch bigger than your loved one's best friend, otherwise she will be even more offended than if you had bought nothing. Blue roses have been on offer this year. Chocolates, as well, are good, preferably Western brands (knock off ones acceptable, she'll never notice).

Other ideal presents include kingsize fluffy animals, and it seems the older your precious sweetheart is, the bigger should her new bedtime companion be. Disney character balloons and thin ones twisted into the shape of hearts are offered at street corners. If you're feeling devilish, you could buy all of them, although this might cause the oh-so-disastrous event of her floating away. Another good idea is taking her to her favourite shops, such as those specialising in Mickey Mouse handbags.

Be aware, that the love you hold for her is directly proportional to the amount of money you spend on her, or if she's an understanding type, a percentage of your income. Failure to show the necessary 'love' will result in temper tantrums, beatings and charges of irresponsibility and uselessness.

For the man, prepare a pair of padded gardening gloves and a 20litre backpack as all those flowers, toys, animals and tat purchased will be carried round the shops, to the restaurant and home by you. After all, we wouldn't want anyone to get weighed down by foliage. Your other free hand should at all times be in some way connected to the petal on your other side.

How to choose a restaurant? Option A is to choose a place where your cupid once expressed a desire to go, and being the thoughtful knight, you remembered. This place has a nice environment, excellent food and is something a little different from the usual. Option B is to go to a really expensive one. Select Option B. Worried that it's like dining in a car showroom? Don't be. Just pay the bill, you'll be fine.

After dinner and more definitely-not-boring-as-hell window shopping and actual shopping, a trip to a favourite authentic Western restaurant is a good plan. Be sure to buy the 'meal' where you can get free plastic dolls of characters from the hit movie 'Madagascar'. Preferably choose a seat where your loved one will face away from other people - the table nearest the 'staff only' door or next to the washroom are best. If you choose one open to the comings and goings of high-heel girlfriends and present-clinging boyfriends, you will be subject to the number one pastime of 50% of girls in this part of the world - comparing. It's a super fun game, mainly for her. She gets to compare her level of happiness with others by using the GMR - Gift-Money Ratio, a simple calculation made in under 1 second through careful study of other species in the field of vision. Any perceived slight on her part - for example, girl in the white coat had a bigger Mickey Mouse than her - will be remembered for many days and weeks, and will result in a sullen taxi ride home.

And way the day is over, never mind. There are festivals seemingly every week here (last week was a day when you're supposed to get your hair cut), so you'll have more opportunity to express your feelings to your significant other and your sorrow to your bank manager.

Chinese New Year

2009-02-04T05:42:00.000Z

Although in China for over 2 and half years now, last week was my first chance to properly spend Chinese New Year. Using my miserly 6 days holiday, I went back to a friend's hometown, Baoji. It's the second largest city in the province, and an hour away on the fast train. Or if you're a 'true' local like me, you'll take the super cheap and super crowded slow train. Millions of people travel for twenty or thirty hours with no seat during this time of year, so I certainly wasn't complaining about my seated two and a half hour journey.

When I got off the train to be met by my friend (who was, in keeping with what is apparently another Chinese tradition, late) I was briefed on the correct ways to address the family members. This is a delicate area of etqiuette. I should address the mother as 'ai yi' (aunt) and the father as 'shushu' (uncle). This is both polite and personal. Calling family members by their names would be extremely rude, and the older they are the ruder it would be. Although I knew all this before and was prepped going up the stairs to the flat, it's easier said than done. I feel uncomfortable calling people things other than names (or possibly amusing insults). I was told on opening the door to say 'aiyi, shuhu, nihao' (hello). All I managed was a weak 'nihao', thus committing a faux pas.

That evening we watched the short TV programme I made in 2007 . When I tell people about it, one of the first comments is 'how much money did they give you for it'? My answer that I did it for the fun of it and only got 200yuan was met by the mother in the usual way - bafflement, almost disapproval. A Chinese person thinks anyone who doesn't take every opportunity to make money is either unlucky or stupid.

Baoji is the second city of this province, home to about a million people, most of whom are actually descendants of people who came here from outside the province. My friend's paternal grandparents came here from North East China to work, and the maternal grandparents came from central Henan province, where they were escaping from a flood caused by the deliberate breaking of a dam by Chang Kaishek during the Civil War in the 1940s. Like most people in Baoji, they don't speak the local language of the province. To be unkind, Baoji is, like many Chinese cities, noticeable for it's sameness. But it has much better air than Xian, and the mountains surrounding it provide a welcome reminder of nature.

The father used to work in the electrical equipment factory, and as such the three of them live in the 'family living area', row after row of six storey flats provided for the families of the factory employees. Most employees would retire at 50, and so he runs a small place where people play mahjong. In fact, 20 years ago I would not be allowed into this area, as half of the city was closed to foreigners.

Their family is like that of millions of others. The father has two sisters and a brother, the mother has four sisters and a brother. With the only child policy, the family photo of the mother's side was noticeable for its lack of young faces. The parents grew up at the back end of the Cultural Revolution, and never enjoyed the relative wealth and openness which their kids do. They speak frankly and without airs. Like most Chinese men, the father liked to impart words of wisdom about Chinese history and culture to me. If I had 1 yuan for everytime someone told me how many years old Chinese culture is (answer: 5000), I'd be a rich man (and would not have to make TV programmes for a living anymore). I can also drink baojiu, Chinese alchoholic spirit a bit like vodka, which went down well.

The second day, we went round the corner to the house of the paternal grandparents. Visiting relatives is one of the main New Years activities, with the others being making and eating dumplings, buying clothes, setting off fireworks, sleeping and watching TV. I made the same mistake again of not addressing them in the correct way (although I did splutter out a weak 'nainai' (grandmother) at some point). The food was like the food for the entire 5 days - superb.

The next day we went round again for making and eating dumplings and watching TV. The dumplings were delicious and plentiful. Most of her relatives had absolutely no idea how I could eat something as disgusting as bread, and how I manage to get enough sustenance without rice and mantou (steamed buns) was equally perplexing. With the constant urging of various uncles and aunts to eat more throughout the holiday, I've definitely put on some pounds.

On the evening of New Years, we went outside to 'fang pao', set off firecrackers. We had some exceptionally loud ones. All they did was emit an enormous bang and leave red stuff everywhere. But good fun. The point is too frighten away bad spirits. I imagine the cats were also frightened away. For similar reasons, actually, you're not meant to throw out the rubbish on New Years Eve in case you throw out the good spirits (and possibly some unused fireworks). Some of the neighbours had gone all out and bought loads of 'proper' fireworks, which made for a very spectular and noisy night. The blatent disregard for safety was extrmely refreshing. My over-riding impression was how much it sounded like war, with booms of various intensity heard all around. The fireworks go on for 15 days, by which time I imagine all spirits and timid creatures will have been thoroughly dispensed of.

The highlight for me, though, had to be the next day, when we went to an uncle's house to see the relatives of the other side of the family. After lunch and TV watching, I was taken to the unmissable Titanium Factory. The whole complex employs 20,000 people, and consititutes a small town on its own, known simply as '71'. The relatives work there, and as such live 'onsite' in the family living area. It is the largest titanium factory in China, I was told proudly, and given its location right in the mountains, probaly the most inaccessible of all of China's titanium factories. It was moved here in the 1960s by Chairman Mao as part of his attempt to protect the key industries from possible war.

We piled into the back of a black Volkswagen Santana (with Snoopy steering wheel) to drive the short distance to the factory itself. It consists of different buildings, connected by a single road. They've had 30 years to move it, but maybe the scenic location is too much of a draw. Inside was a mixture of titianium in various forms, crumbling old machinery and brand new Italian and Germany equipment. The mountainous setting was a nice change from the city. In fact, if I had kept walking south through the mountains, I would have made it into panda country and Sichuan.

Which is probably where all those evil sprits went.

Happy Niu Year

2009-02-02T09:46:00.000Z

The year of the Ox has arrived, and with it a pun that has been doing the rounds in China, the word for Ox (niu 牛) sounding like the ‘new’ in Happy New Year. And what New Year celebration would be complete without the company New Year Party.

The threat of a boycott by our Translation Dept evaporated, and even those on our 'team' who weren't performing in our skit ended up getting involved. The event was held in a hotel round the corner from the office, and consisted of dinner followed by each departments' skits and various other acts of jolity.

As I was about to play the part of not one woman but two, the nerves were there, and so the opportunity to eat some of the unappetising food on offer never really presented itself. Also, having my fingernails painted blue to play the part of my second character made me reluctant to extend my hands too far from the safety of under the table.

So you can imagine my delight when I was told I would be saying a few words on behalf of the translation dept. The other staff members speaking, particularly the boss, said how wonderful everything was, was a great 2008 it has been, how 2009 will be so much better, etc, etc. I, with my green hoodie and blue fingernails, mentioned how the translators have a boring job and are essential to the company, and hope they get good leadership in 2009. I was too frightened to look at anyone whilst speaking, but I think it went down well.

Ours was the first skit - The Emperor Chooses his Concubine. I played the First Concubine - Obama's sister, and the Fourth, a women called Furong Jiejie, who is an object of ridicule on the internet in China, famous purely for making ghastly poses in photos and wearing revealing clothes that someone of her appearance probably should not wear. Our lead actor lead the way, performing the role of the first Emperor of China with vigour and panache. His nickname is 'Zhuang Zhuang 壮壮', which could be translated as 'Biffa', and his ample frame helped add to his suitability for the role. Scooping the 200 yuan for 3rd place should be enough for a departmental dinner at some point.

The other acts came and went, in between there were various party games which did their best to arouse the half empty room. The female host of the evening was using a microphone she clearly did not need. As I was leaving, the boss told me that last year nearly three times as many people came, hence the less than spectacular atmosphere. How a company rapidly expanding has significantly less attendees to its annual party is far too sensible (and sensitive) a question to ask.

The most interesting event of the evening was when there was a semi fight outside the hotel involving one of our staff. Being a former resident of Nottingham, I would have considered it a waste of experience if I had not got involved. So I stood there, looking tall and foreign, until the wives of the drunken men bundled them into taxis. After going back in and taking vast quantities of photographs with various humorous poses, it was time to head off and enjoy our six-day New Year break.

Unauthorised leakages

2009-01-20T12:19:00.000Z

It's been an eventful start my third week at the power station engineering company after my three week break back in England. To get straight to the point, 80% of the 15-odd strong translation department, of which I am a member, are spies, leaking information to rival companies, profiting personally at the expense of the company. That's what the boss's wife, big cheese in matters relating to HR, said today anyway. It also explains why the New Year bonus was so hopelessly small. The New Year cash bonus is a way of rewarding employees for their hard work throughout the year, and makes up for what can be very low salaries. It is usually at least a month's salary, sometimes even upto half a year's salary. However, Mrs Boss deemed us worthy of only 200kuai (20 pounds), about the equivalent of 3-4 days salary. Her reputation for miserliness is apparently famous in HR departments throughout Xi'an, and she appears to have lived up to it here. (Also, I have to pay tax on my cash income, which is worth enquiring about again).

As for the New Year bonus, what made it even more interesting was that three people got nothing, on grounds they had been caught 'xie mi' - leaking company secrets. And even more interesting than that, despite having apparently proved their treacherousness, they are still allowed to work for the company, one even leaving for Africa today for a year long assignment.

Currently, I'm in an office with three other girls, all doing translation. One is, I suppose, team leader, although no-one really knows. These three received a bit more than everyone else. So aside from the already existing physical separation, be it only a paper thin wall, a certain amount of resentment has already been added to an ever-increasing pile of grievances. And there is no point in mentioning the relationship between the Translation Dept and HR, Finance and Logistics - precisely zero communication, a mutual dislike, and now, presumably, distrust.

So where am I all in this? Being the overpaid foreigner, I try to stay out of it. There is a huge amount I don't understand. At risk of the usual over generalisation, (although it has been confirmed by colleagues), the company feels a little like a microcosm of Chinese society - unclear, vague, and underpinned with lying. There are some seriously unhappy employees around, and without a trade union or ACAS, and no signs of management at the company, I have to start wondering when it will get worse.

As for the work, I seem to have dropped off the radar of Mr and Mrs Boss. Maybe they're busy, or think I'm syphoning of secrets, but either way, I've not heard anything about the supposed business I was supposed to be creating, and have been doing English-Chinese translation with everyone else. I was thinking of pasting a paragraph of the stuff I have to translate on here - 'effects of generator de-excitation on turbine intermediate pressure casing outer shell temperature', etc, etc, but then I don't want to be done for company crimes.

Which brings us nicely onto the New Year Party, set for this Friday. The preparation could not be worse. No-one is keen on it, and with the latest developments, as well as a round of the flu, it is unlikely to be the jolliest of affairs. In fact, one person of the translation team told me that they're going to boycott it, which would really spice things up. Each department is supposed to perform two items. We've chosen a small play, and the second one was going to be a slightly racy dance routine. Despite having the dancing skills of a dead octopus, I was ready to give it ago, but time restraints meant I've pulled out, along with, now, everyone else. If worse comes to worse, a group singalong might be the best way out, I can always mouth my way through it like school hymn practice.

A great example of lying

2008-12-01T07:20:00.001Z

http://thepekingorder.blogspot.com/2008/11/china-petroleum-equipment-and.html

This article is from the excellent and funny Peking Order blogspot. Definitely worth a look for seeing what you can get away with as a Westerner in China.

Circuit breakers and will breakers

2008-12-01T05:35:00.000Z

Last week started with a short meeting between myself and Mr Big Boss. His office is on the floor above ours, and is notably for looking like an empty store room. A skanky old table, two plastic chairs, a state-of-the-art laptop and a flask for holding green tea where the only things in there. He's moved me to the Commercial Department, responsible for finding clients. I'm now meant to find clients in Europe who might want to co-operate with us. The boss' idea was find out the top 100 companies in Europe and find out which ones work in power plant operation and maintenance, eventually getting the list down to 2 or 3, after which we call them up, etc, etc, etc. Now, call my cynical, but I think the chances of a leading European company wanting to co-operate with our company (see below) are not huge. Still, I have to trawl the Internet.

My other task is to translate and proof-read reams and reams of documents relating to the operation of a power station. I've pretty had my fill of circuit breakers now, having spent three days on one 110-page text. Translating a text for the first time is obviously very time-consuming, and efficiency is key. I thought proof-reading would be easier, but it's actually quite tricky (and even more boring), because you only end up half-changing the not-very-good English, when it would be easier to start all over again. It's also almost equally time-consuming, as so much of the English is such that I have to look at the Chinese anyway.

The task of the translator's is truly thankless. Translating from your language into your foreign language is significantly harder than the other way round. I think it's almost impossible for these guys to do it right. The stuff they are translating - circuit breakers, steam turbines, boiler processes, is just excrutiatingly dull. Also, none of them are engineers so have limited knowledge about what they are translating. I've found, despite by best research efforts, I don't understand much of the English I write myself.

The workload is quite a lot now, but that hasn't stopped anyone from engaging in talking on QQ (instant messaging) and watching movies. Although the Internet was cut off last week to stop time-wasting, they seemed to have found a way round it on some computers. Also, film watching and generally farting around have proven adequate replacements. There are two rows, one facing the other offices and main corridor, the other facing outside, so the people sitting in the latter position have a distinct advantage. They can watch Ugly Betty and Heroes in relative safety.

The other reason for the lack of enthusiasm is the company. The management system is non-existent. The head of the Commercial Department is apparently the Big Boss. There is no-one in charge of the translation department. When I asked them who gave them work, they said they didn't know. There is no motivating activities going on at all. Relations between the different departments are visibly antagonistic. I get told off like a school-child if I'm 3 mintues late. The translators intensely dislike the HR Department, "because they control us". While all companies exist only to make profit, this one, and I imagine many of the same sort in China, do it brazenly and don't try to hide it. I quite obviously should be training these guys, but the Boss wants me to earn money for him instead. So the endemic slacking off (I should mention that I'm writing this during office hours) is understandable. I think it's like the school system - everything is done because people are forced, not because they want to, with highly predictable results.

Thus, I'm a bit reluctant to do business with European companies, partly because of all the lying I will have to do. Our website has some guff about 'integrated management system', 'happy workforce', etc. All complete rubbish. The website also talks about "our two hi-tech training simulation rooms are the central part of our training centre". Turns out what this means is that a week before the trainees arrive, we rent out a conference room in a hotel and rig up some computers. Really professional.

The daily grind

2008-11-21T12:01:00.000Z

End of my fifth week in my new job at an engineering company in Xian, and the end of a slightly slow week. I haven't been given much to do at all, so spent the best part of the week farting about on the internet and chatting on QQ. Today was a little bit more interesting.

Mrs Boss (head of HR, wife of Big Boss) seems concerned about my health, and on hearing I had a migraine earlier in the week, recommended I do 'eye exercises' that all school kids do. (Should be able to post a video of it next week.) It involves rubbing the acupuncture areas around the eyes in various ways to relieve stress, etc. I'm a fraction cynical about it (no surprise there), but everyone is convinced that it is beneficial. I asked why most people wore glasses, and they said because, being forced, they never did the exercises properly.

In the afternoon, the tax inspectors were coming round to check the books (and to enjoy a free large lunch with free alcohol), so they put me in the HR office, which contains the HR boss (big boss' wife) and two or three other members of staff, including a manager. I spent most of the time chatting with the other two, and even Mrs Boss when she came back. Even the manager spent most of her time chatting to me or on QQ. Finally they gave me something to do - translation of electrical engineering theory. They also shared their snacks with me, including something that looked like a twig and smelled like a school physics lab.

The last hour of the week I try and teach English to the translators. I'm going to be avoiding anything to do with China or the cultural differences in the future, as any perceived slight against their motherland is pounced on. I was saying how some Westerners have trouble crossing the road (true) or don't look after their valuables properly when taking the bus (also true). This was interpreted as yet another Westerner attacking and mis-understanding China. The whole patriotism and 'victim-complex', while understandable, gets tiring after a while. One girl spoke fluently about the Terracotta Warriors, but was a direct translation of the guff they learn in school - 'It shows the wisdom and intelligence of the Chinese people, many foreigners like to admire the greatness of our First Emperor', etc,etc.

I think they also might be pissed off I get paid (a lot) more than them, which is true and also pretty unfair. The communication between them and their managers is pretty terrible, there seems to be a lot of bad feeling between them. Mrs Boss thinks they are inexperienced and don't understand the ways of the world, they think they are lied to (which would not surprise me), underpaid and disregarded. I think somewhere in the middle is true, legitimate complaints all round. I have to find a way to steer through it, stay as friendly as I can, which being the foreigner makes it extra interesting. I also said no to Mrss Boss' request that I take part in her daughter's cosplay performance (cosplay being something from Japan where you dress up as computer game characters). No doubt I've caused her to lose face, as well as hurting the feelings of all of China, but I've been to a cosplay thing before, and prancing around as some wizard from the year 3000 with my boss' daughter is not my idea of a fun weekend.

The boss breaks down

2008-11-20T03:21:00.000Z

Things afoot in the danwei. Last Friday, the day before the boss came back from Indonesia, one of the managers quit. He was responsible for finding pretty much all the overseas business, so there was an unpleasant feeling going round in the afternoon. Also, two other senior staff decided they have had enough, so left too.

The big boss, Mr ***, a stocky and capable lookng man, called everyone into the meeting room on Monday. There he explained what he thought went wrong, and apologised for not communicating enough with his senior staff. At one point he even started crying. I asked my colleague next to me what was wrong with him by way of a passed note, to which he replied 'prentend [sic] to be kindhearted'. Afterwards, everyone had nothing but scorn for his 'crocodile tears', claiming he is stingy and a good actor. Certainly, I try staying out of his way. I feel like I'm the pet favourite of his boss and his wife, which is not great - they are noticeable a lot nicer to me than everyone else, not least in terms of renumeration. So I have to perform a delicate balancing act. I do this primarily be keeping my mouth shut.

They both went out off on business again this week, so the last few days have been even slower than usual. I have some ideas I want to do to help the translators improve their English, but as mentioned in a previous post, I feel it's probably wiser to keep my head down, shut up, and keep talking chatting on the QQ.

More from the danwei

2008-11-20T02:41:00.000Z

I'm currently at my computer in the office. I have almost nothing to do. I learnt a sentence in Chinese yesterday - 抢打出头鸟，the gun shoots the bird who pops his head up. This was said by a colleague in response to my suggestion that I ask someone to give me some translation to do. I was working on the idea that doing nothing is not the most optimal of my faculties, and that doing translation is something I actually want to do. I don't think he really understood that. I get the impression the ideal working day for a typical low-level office worker in China is to have nothing to do, leaving them free to chat on QQ (chinese msn) all day, with an occassional break for sleeping. I also get the feeling that using initiative is seen as the equivalent of veering off course, so better to sit down and shut up, just follow the middle way.

This might have something to do with something I noticed recently. People like to call other stupid. In schools, you won't get a huge amount of encouragement for doing something different or positive, but if you get something wrong you'll get shouted out and called 'stupid' - 笨 ben, as well as losing face in front of your 60 other classmates. In fact, in the local paper this morning there was an article about how a teacher hit a 7 year old kid for getting a maths question wrong, damaging his kidneys (although I imagine this is an isolated incident). I remember once last year I was on the campus at university studying, and at the table was a mother teaching her young son English. Not once did I hear any words of encouragement, only a shrill 'ben!' everytime he got his fifteen and fifty mixed up. Chinese girls also find it amusing to call their boyfriends 'ben'.

So maybe me asking for something to do is just plain 'ben'.

Week 5 in the danwei

2008-11-20T01:25:00.000Z

At the end of week three, I accompanied three engineers and two other new recruits from our company to visit the largest power station in this province, three hours northwest of Xian. The purpose was to gain a better understanding of the processes involved in running the power plant, so as to help with the work we do in the office.

The thing that struck me the most was the relatively fresh air (the power station was in the country), and the irony or having to go a coal-burning, four unit (i.e., very big) power station to get some fresh air. The morning was spent wondering round, looking at all the stuff. I asked a few questions, but eiher didn't understand or couldn't here the answers. Inside was a mass of pipes leading all over the place, completely unintelligable to me. Our guide didn't seem to fussed about what we did, so we spent most of the time touching and pressing things we probably shouldn't do, and of course, taking a load of photos.

We took lunch across the road in a small countryside restaurant, although regrettably baijiu (chinese white wine, similar to airline fuel) was considered unwise. After lunch, nobody really seemed to know what to do. We got passed around from one department to the next, where eventually they found someone to lead us on what turned out to be the exact same route as the morning visit. We went into the control room of the each of the units, something like a watered down version of Mission Control. Behind the 2 control desks was another desk where Party officials sat around drinking tea making sure no-one gets upto any funny business.

In the car park of the company hotel waiting to leave, we saw a wedding stumbling out after an afternoon's festivities. The power plant is a self-contained unit, with living, education and recreational facilities for all the thousands of staff. Although the sign on the main gate is that of a pivate company, its definitely a state-owned company, so has many of the characteristics of the the old 'danwei'. I'm sure some people have spent their whole lives living inside the unit, using the hotel for special occasions when needed.

Aside from a load of photos of unidentifiable pieces of equipment and the other staff making 'V' signs, and a free dinner, I'm not sure how much knowledge was garnered. Still, another interesting look at something different.

Week 3 in the danwei

2008-11-05T13:09:00.000Z

Week 2 ended in rather unspectacular fashion, Friday afternoons drag as much as they do here as in any other office, particularly when I've been used to having Friday afternoons off. And even dress down Friday has been made redundant by a manage decision to allow staff to where casual clothes to work (due to the office being too cold).

On Monday I awoke to find that thing on my leg had turned into a nasty boil (the second in two months). When my boss saw, she immediately took me to Xian's premier skin hospital, despite my protestations. A kind act indeed, although the hospital merely confirmed that it is best not to get ill in China. There was literally rubbish everywhere, the smell from the toilets wafted the corridors, and the huge numbers of people, most of them the 'bu wen ming' (uncivilised) people from the countryside, made for chaos and mayhem. MRSA for all.

The doctor's office was a room with a table with more crap on it, and him sitting behind with 2 assistants, and a melee of people wafting the ticket around trying to get 'served'. Whoever shouted loudest generally got seen, although this meant that he was seeing several people at once. He took a brief look at my leg - maximum 1.6 seconds - and decided instantly what it was and what medicine I needed. When I showed him the marks on my face and the scar from the last one, he prescribed some more medicine. My attempts to find out what actually caused it came to nothing, and things like asking me questions, blood tests, and frankly general hygiene were considered unnecessary. In fact, he said showering too much (once a day) was a problem.

On visiting a Chinese hospital as an outpatient, you first have to 'gua hao', or register, where everyone pays a flat small fee. You then join the melee waiting to get seen. I suggest not going after 11am or 4pm, because once they've shut down for lunch and the end of the day, there is no way of getting seen. Ever. The doctor then prescribes the medicine, you go and get a bill for it, you take the bill to the doctor (or thrust it in his general direction is also acceptable), then go and pick up the medicine (my company picked up the tab). It's suggested that you buy the medicine outside if you can because it's more expensive than pharmacies. In fact, most adverts on local TV are for hospitals. While I appreciate the huge challenges that government faces here in providing medical services, unimaginable to those well-served and numerically small Scandanavians, the government has apparently chosen not to divert significant amounts of new found wealth into public services.

Which brings me nicely onto my next beef (being coked up on various medicines that you don't know is contained within is not good for one's mood) - the buses. Again, way too many people in this country (Greater Xian has a population twice that of New Zealand, this province has a population similar to that of Britain, and does not make it into the top 10 of China's most populous provinces). I know I bang on about population, but it's so true. Every single person in China I've met has told me there are too many people here. There's no discussion, its a fact, and I think it is. There is something very unnatural about so many people squigged into buses, high rise buildings and shopping centres.

In fact, I'll have to write a special on the buses another time. And take some pictures.

As an aside, when I was having lunch on the way back with my boss, a middle-aged woman of significant poise and demeanour despite, or perhaps because of, a short stature, happened to tell me about the Cultural Revolution. She said when her brother was at schoolin the mid 1960s, the students used to climb up onto the roof, throw off the tiles, smash a hole in the roof and throw rubble at the teachers. In between doing no study and abusing teachers and other intellectuals ('Old Stinking Ninths'), students learnt the entire collection of Mao Zedong sayings off by heart, which she can still reel off today. And her husband changed his surname to avoid being sent to the countryside for labour education. The gap between then and now is one of the most interesting aspects of modern Chinese society, which again, more will be written about at a later date.

Danwei Day 8 -

2008-10-29T13:33:00.000Z

The last 5 working days have spent doing nothing much more than extensive reading of online newspapers and looking at funny pictures of George Bush pulling those faces only he (and monkeys) can do. My assigned task is boning up on power stations. I've got a basic grasp of things - boiler connected to the turbine, turbine connected to the generator, etc, etc - but beyond this, getting into the nitty gritty of the chemical composition of water leaving the hotwell of the condenser and the mathematical equations used to determine the correct position of the superheater has proved not only difficult but also extremely, extremely dull. Thus, I have been paying close to the 'controversy' (brouhaha, if you will) with Russell Brand and Jonathon Ross, and marvelling at how such a civilised, advanced and educated society such as our own can put a story about 3 fantastically unimportant people above a new report about the rapid and intensifying depletion of the planet's natural resources. British media, I salute you!

My internet activities have not gone unnoticed, however. This afternoon, the big boss, Chairman Qu, and his wife (head of HR), took me to a coffee house to discuss a few things. He praised my diligent attitude. If he was talking about my diligent newspaper reading, then he was spot on. He also wants me to arrange events with my foreign friends to get the staff used to dealing with foreigners, to revamp the English version of the website, and to explore possiblities of establishing links with foreign companies. No idea how to do any of this, but it sounds like what they like to call here 'opportunity for personal development'. He also wants me, next month, to move into to an office next to his, so opportunities for newspaper reading may diminish faster than you can say 'Drill, baby, drill'.

(Ed., enough with the newspaper comments.)

Earlier in the conversation, his wife was picking my brains about English education, because they want to send her daughter to England ('best country for education') to attend university. They said English people are nice and conservative, and don't carry guns around 'like those fat Americans'. I tried to introduce the idea that not everyone walks around in bowler hats opening doors for ladies. We didn't have time to get into the difference between a chav and a townie, which is probably best, I don't want to scare them. They want their daughter to be somewhere safe (' a walled university is best'), and somewhere where she won't live with boys, 'because boys will distract her from her studies'. I've been assigned the task of picking a good university and helping her with the application.

Apart from this, the last few days have been, as mentioned, dull. And not just for me. The other translators have an engineering exam on Friday. The guy in front of me spends most of his time somewhere between sleep mode and awake mode, and the guy next to him even started snoring yesterday, much to everyone's amusement. When not vaguely flicking through a book on turbines, time is whittled away by looking at photos of celebrities, chatting on QQ (Chinese instant messenger), and stretching, as well as, of course, napping.

There was an article in the newspaper today (Chinese newspaper) about 9 Chinese engineers who have been kidnapped in Sudan. I love the timing - today, the company sent out the second batch of engineers to their project in, yes, you guessed it, Sudan. And with even better timing, management sent out a request for translators to go to Sudan next year. Number of takers? Zero.

Danwei (work unit) Day 4 - Too many cooks spoil the broth

2008-10-23T12:45:00.000+01:00

Today was the key event of the week. An Indonesian delegation came to inspect the possible purchase of a power plant control centre simulator and training programmes. I was meant to be translating. But it turns out one of the Indonesians could speak perfect Chinese, and our boss could speak reasonable English, so didn't actually do much. When I was about to speak, one of the Chinese employees piped up to get in there first. When I was called upon, I didn't understand what the guy said, and from the looks on people's faces, it looks like I guessed wrong. At one point there were 4 different people talking English, so no surprises the Indonesians were looking slightly confused. I was.

Besides from that, I've been boning up on circulating fluridized bed boilers, static thyristic excitation and the electromagnetic theory behind power generators. Some old friends from school physics have reappeared, notably Mr Fleming and his left hand rule, and the right hand rule, which is still yet to be claimed by anyone. I've been given the generator manual to read, and a Chinese-English book on conversations at an oil-fired power station. It's actually quite interesting stuff, just a fraction heavy.

As for the staff, I've yet to properly meet most of them. I mainly hang around with the 10 or so translators who I sit with. One guy, Frankie, big-boned, baby-faced, effete, likes talking to me about the standard topics - hating Japan, China's long history, foreigners are all so rich, the exchange rate, I love your Queen Elizabeth, etc. He also asked me why Edward VII adbicated. They have an exam on boilers next week, so spend all their time gazing listlessly at the computer screen.

Breakfast is served in the canteen from 8 to half 8. Lunch at 12 on the dot in a room on the bottom floor next to the bikeshed. Every time I deliberately don't take a bowl of soup, because I don't want to drink it, and everytime someone brings one over for me. The rest of the breaking is spent chatting or playing table tennis in the room next door. 5.30 sharp everyone goes.

Probably the least satisfying thing is getting to and from work, which is at least one hour on stupidly overcrowded buses. I've had body part rubbed, scratched and stroked today by most of Xian, most of whom have decided that since summer has ended, showering is now optional. Being slightly taller than everyone else I feel like people are burrowing past me like moles, searching for the door and daylight. One guy has been working there for a year, and said with only slight exaggeration that he has never had a seat the entire time. The most moronic is the pushing and shoving to get on, especially when people are still to get off. I sometimes make a point of shoulder-barging them out of the way. I don't think I could get away with that in England, so there's an advantage.

Day One of the new job

2008-10-20T13:50:00.000+01:00

Today was my first day working at ***, a company providing contractual services to power stations. After a year and a half of study, and just having the Chinese exam yesterday to prove I haven't been doing nothing this entire time, the chance came around with impeccable timing. Friend of a friend of someone I met once calls me, and a second later, I have a job.

I'm doing translation and English language training. The company is an electricity power generation company, with about 700 employees, 40 translators and projects in China as well as Indonesia, Nigeria and Sudan. All your favourite holiday spots.

First day went quite smoothly. There's an Indonesian delegation coming to the company on Thursday, and I've been appointed chief translator, despite the fact I can't speak Indonesian, the Indonesians apparently can't speak much English, and I still have no idea how to say 'power generation' in Chinese. I was going through some of the documents for presentation, correcting and re-writing the English according to the Chinese. It's not too bad, and should be easier when I can distinguish my operator control module LED panel from my instructor supervision component light display.

My 'team' consists of about 20 people, sitting in 2 rows in a sort of small compartment, i.e., not an open office. The thing that struck me most was how similar it was to working in an office in England. I guess most offices are pretty similar. The transaltors are all 22-23 years old, fresh English graduates out of university. I'll normally be doing 'staff training', although mostly they were speaking to me in Chinese, so that's a bonus.

I'm the only foreigner full-time there, and so there was some interest. The office gay guy - for it was he - was telling me about his undergraduate thesis on the works of Thomas Hardy and his love of Diana, one guy showed me his pictures taken off the internet of Steve Davis playing safety shots (and only safety shots, I might add), and the librarian's second question, after 'Where are you from', was 'What's the richest country in Europe?'. I tried to explain the difference between richest country and richest people, but it was lost.

Everyone was pretty helpful. You clock in with a fingerprint detector. I was given my badge with my number on it - I am now officially employee number A0097 - and a sturdy plastic bottle for drinking hot water out of. You start at 8.30, finish at 5.30 (with no variation), lunch is 12-1, and a break is from 3.45 to 4 in the afternoon. The receptionist brings out fruits and 'candy' for everyone to relax. Apart from maybe not being extremely flexible, it seems pretty good. They pay for your uniform (a suit), you get an accommodation allowance if you don't live in the dormitory, lunch allowance and health insurance. I'm getting a similar salary to that as a foreigner teaching English would get, which will go up in a couple of months if I don't cock anything up. And if I'm really lucky, I'll be spending my next holidays in Khartoum. My bank account will be someone else's name to avoid hassle with various authorities. As for my contract, well, as my visa says I'm a student not meant to be working, we'll quietly forget that. If anyone asks, I'm an intern.

It was quite interesting talking to Head of HR Mrs ***. The market for power generation in China is basically already saturated, she says, so there are now looking to expand futher abroad, which possible projects in Brazil and Pakistan. Maybe I've miss understood, but in 30 years power needs are met here, while countries on the end of Western 'assistance' for years and years now 'desperately need', as she said, Chinese help. Either way, I'd rather go to Rio than Islamabad. But for now, at least, I'll be getting the bus to and from work with everyone else, and taking one more step further into the phenomenom they call 21st century China.

The Olympics continue...

2008-08-28T12:23:00.000+01:00

The closing ceremony was a few days ago, but the news channel is still spending half the time showing re-runs, mostly of flag raising and anthem singing. 'Milking' is being taken to a new level. And there's also the Para-olympics to look forward to. As long as there are more chances to wax lyrical about the combining of China's history and the Olympic spirit, bla bla bla, I'm sure there's more to come. The closing ceremony itself, I was at a friend's dormitory, and just when the England bit was about to start, he decided it would be fun to watch a re-run of the 1999 military parade in Beijing for the 50th anniversary of the People's Republic. Fun it was.

In the fews days before and after, the TV coverage was focusing a huge amount on what foreign media were saying about the Games. There seems to be an obsession with what foreign media say about China, and not just the West. Comments like 'Taijiki President praises successful games, hopes Games will further improve Tajik-China relationships" were seen all the time rolling across the bottom of the screen. I'm not too sure why it is, but shots of foreigners saying great things about Beijing, Chinese people, etc, were played incessantly. In saying that, it does seem everything went pretty well.

I've had enough Olympics. Next time I'll write about new flatmate, who is quite possibly a direct descendant of a hippopotamus.

Olympics Day I've Lost Count

2008-08-20T13:08:00.000+01:00

Too much Olympics, plus the fact that I've discovered other things I have to do other than forming a dent in the sofa have meant I've taken my eye of the ball recently. I keep getting pop-ups on my screen everytime China gets a gold, and some people are lucky enough to get a text message as well. The authorities couldn't be happier, with 45 golds so far, including in things no-one here has heard of, like trampolining and windsurfing. I've got dizzy from watching the f;ags going up and down all the time, and the presenters on TV are starting to grate, their smooth exterior made smoothier by massive victory.

However, that couldn't stop golden boy Liu Xiang getting injured and pulling out of the hurdles. A sort of shock was on the face of the presenters, with them urging restraint and understanding like a hurricane had hit. The official and general attitude has indeed been one of restraint and understanding, which is better than Li Ning got, flying man from the opening ceremony and winner of severals golds in 1984. When he messed up in 1988, he got pilliored, was refused a coaching post and instead made a fortune in business. Although the 40 plus golds might not console his numerous sponsors, everyone else should be reasonably satisfied.

I've only glanced at the Olympics in the last couple of days, but I see that Britain of all countries is sitting pretty in 3rd place, pretty amazing, but not worth a mention on Chinese TV. China lost in the basketball to Latvia, but at least won the 5th/6th water polo playoffs against Italy. And the syncronized swimmers seem to be scopping up some more medals, as well. Unfortunately, I've got a beast of an exam in October, which involved a lot of writing, so I'm having to spend hours a day re-learning characters. That could actually be an Olympic event, who can fill an entire page with the character, with a gymnastic-like grading scale for beauty and difficulty. Although I think this event would be a shoe-in for the Chinese, thigh injury or not.

2008-08-17T13:29:00.000+01:00

Olympics Day 8 and 9

Too much Olympic-watching is making me dizzy, so i'll be compressing entries into 2 day sections.

Day 8 was a bad day for the hosts, only the one Gold medal, and lost a few big matches. The oik who makes up half the Men's badminton doubles team was on the losing team, which was a relief - no opportunity for him to take his clothes off again. The studio analysts, mostly regular TV presenters who clearly have no interest in sport, were pretty silent after that. Also pretty silent after failing to pick up golds in swimming, shooting, tennis plus a load of others I've already forgotten.

Saturday night was a bit frustrating. The four channels featuring Olympic coverage were focusing on table tennis, more table tennis, badminton and a repeat of something earlier in the day, meaning coverage of track and field was minimal. 2 minutes before the start of the Mens 100 metres, they finally switch the News Channel, which flicks between events, to the track, just in time to see that Jamaican guy compress an entire life's effort into 9.68 ridiculously quick seconds. It's unlikely to be like that at 11.10pm tonight, when Liu Xiang, gold medallist in the hurdles from last time, goes in the heats.

The medal table in the corner of the screen is currently showing GBR in 3rd place, which is pleasantly surprising after being a bit rubbish in earlier events. Coverage of cycling is minimal, just a few shots of winners crossing the line. But they showed sailing for a bit, and rowing got a lot of coverage, helped no doubt by a few Chinese teams being in contention. The commentary on the rowing mostly consisted of explaining what rowing is, and how England is a 'qiang guo' (strong country) in rowing, apparently one of the 4 'gentlesmen events' (the other three being tennis, snooker and cricket). Which made the commentators even more excited when the Women's 4s beat GBR to the Gold.

I'm currently watching 'The Palace of Honour', a nightly TV programme looking back at the days events. with an audience complete with those plastic things used for applause. Just know they had 8 female electric violinists, with 2 sets of guys behind them river dancing while holding up an Olympic flag and China flag. Cracking stuff. Then a word of congratulations to Asians, who managed to beat some European/Americans in rowing, showing the great ability of Asians. Now there's a piece on Phelps - winner of 8 Gold medals. Plenty of respect for Phelps, but still time for some words that hopefully an Asian will compete and maybe overtake this amazing 'OuMei' (European and American). Asians beating OuMei in things like swimming and athletics seems like a big deal. Maybe, but they'll have to go some, like everyone else, to beat Bolt and Phelps.

Olympics - day 6 and 7

2008-08-16T03:02:00.000+01:00

Yesterday evening was spent in the same way as the Chinese President Hu Jintao - watching China play America in volleyball. The team events against teams like Japan and America have proven main attractions. However, USA didn't read the script and won. Not to worry, though, because if you changed channels you'd see yet another Gold in the weightlifting. Speaking of which, in the heaviest women's weightlifting event earlier in the day, what can only be described as a large piece of muscle with a head won another Gold for China.

Fun and games in the badminton. China won the men's doubles - or at least, it looked like the Men's doubles. Turned out to be the Women's doubles. More than a few of the Chinese athletes, weightlifters excluded, look like small boys, it can be confusing. Anyway, the match certainly captured the imagination of the crowd, with plenty of booing for the opposing Koreans. (There's quite a lot of booing going on, especially when China plays Japan or America). And the Chinese No. 1 Mens player seems a bit of a character, striping of his shirt after his semi final and fist-punching all over the place.

Every evening, there is a talk show with the Olympians of the day. Last night was the turn of the women's group fencing team. Unfortunately, they only won silver, which is not going to make you stand out when your fellow countrymen are winning Golds for breakfast. The interview was slightly awkward, being only silver medallists, but the gentle background piano music continued, with a slight riff when someone said something approaching humorous. The audience were all wearing the same clothes, and had all been given two plastic things looking like fingers that are used as a replacement for clapping, clapping being such an onerous activity.

The evening news features the Olympics pretty much entirely, and the News Channel has been turned over to the Olympic coverage for 98% of the time. Yesterday there were a lot of features about the foreigners in Beijing, how much they're enjoying it, showing pictures of attractive blondes renting a bike from a helpful volunteer, etc. Every night on the 7 o'clock evening news, there's a montage of Chinese athletes on the Gold platform, with shots of the flag rising, played against a full rendition of the anthem. Another interesting thing is that they often talk about what foreign media say about the Olympics, with high praise all round. Not least from the President of Armenia, special guest on CCTV9. They also have lots of different features about a whole host of different things, including one of Phelps trying and failing to speak Chinese. His swimming has captued the imagination here, but his tones need some work.

Generally, I think the coverage is excellent, certainly near-blanket. Unsurprising, really. There's obviously cynical reasons for it - ramp up the patriotism, which every country likes, especially prominent in China. But also, the Olympics are in China, and they've waited a long time for this oportunity the outside what China is all about. In addition, they have a huge number of competitors in every sport, so it makes sense to have a lot of coverage. No coverage of Tibetan protests, rather obviously.

China-bashing continues at length in the Guardian.
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/08/16/cctv_quickly_wears_out_its_wel.html
The absurdity of someone who doesn't understand a single word of Chinese talking about what she sees on Chinese TV is apparently lost of this journalist. Yes, it's a mass patriotism fest, but its the same everywhere. The adverts obviously have a presence, but I've hardly noticed them, and at worst you can change channel to one of the many others also showing events. They often talk about the Chinese athletes themselves, running segments showing them training, interviewing them, etc. It's also not true to say they don't show Chinese athletes failing - the crying Du Li, who came 5th in a shooting event, has been featured as prominently as anything else, they interview atheletes who don't meet up to expectations, they've showed a Chinese cyclist crashing into a ditch, and when Japan beat China in women's football yesterday, the commentators were as magmanimous as can be expected. There's also a fair amount of coverage events where the Chinese aren't dominant, especially swimming.

The song for this Olympics is cringy and horrible, but thats more a matter of taste of than anything. Here it is -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1z40f57vzk

All these guys are really famous in the Chinese - speaking world - Singapore, Taiwan, HK and the Mainland, although probably only Jackie Chan is know to Europeans. According to another feature, it's also the most popular choice at karaoke for the the past week. Well, why not.

Olympics - day 5

2008-08-14T08:55:00.000+01:00

More medals for China today in weightlifting, diving, shooting, and gymnastics, traditionally strong events. The diving competition seems a bit of waste of time, just give the Gold to China and play for second. The womens (or rather girls) team followed on from the men to win the prestigious team event in the gymnastics. Yesterday evening had another entertaining weighlifting event, this time the Mens 77kg, with a Korean coming from nowhere to beat the Chinese into second place. The Chinese and Koreans have won more medals than the Armenians, Azerbaijins and Kazakhs in the weightlifting, so a lot of face gained there.

However, these events aren't the most popular. Football features prominently, despite everyone being disappointed with the Mens team constant rubbishness. True to form, they went out at the group stage. The women's team are fairing better, however. Similar story in the basketball, with the men just about to beat Angola to squeak past the group stages,with the women already qualified. Badminton and table tennis are bankers for a few more Golds.

Yesterday saw some strong performances in the swimming pool from China, an event targeted for improvement since 2000. In Syndey, 21 of China's 28 Golds came in just 5 events - table tennis, badminton, diving, weightlifting and gymnastics. The efforts to improve in other events, like swimming, fencing, rowing, hockey, and cycling, to name a few, appear to be paying off. More on that, and about the mega-mega superstar-cum-hurdler Liu Xiang, here -
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/sports/playmagazine/803HURDLER-t.html?_r=2&ref=playmagazine&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

The Gold Medallists are treated like heroes. On the CCTV website (Chinese BBC), people have written love letters proposing marriage to their favourite champions. However, of more interest, and easier to understand that Chinese, is this selection of photos of George Bush pulling more faces. One of the captions reads 'On leaving the Opening Ceremony, Bush doesn't forget to pull a face'.
http://news.cctv.com/society/20080813/106976_10.shtml

Last week, I made an Olypmic-related gaffe. Someone was asked me about Tian Liang, which I pretended to half- know. I said what's that again, turned out to be the name of an athlete. A woman? No, a man. Gymnast, yeh? No, diver. Famous? Very, won a lot of gold medals, now retired. Oh, that Tian Liang, yeh all comes flooding back now...

To help avoid appearing like the stupid laowai (foreigner) at dinner, here's the three most popular Chinese athletes.

1) Yao Ming(姚明）; basketball; 7ft6; flat head possibly caused by cot being too small and head pressed up against the end。
http://image.baidu.com/i?ct=503316480&z=0&tn=baiduimagedetail&word=LIU+XIANG&in=28079&cl=2&cm=1&sc=0&lm=-1&pn=16&rn=1&di=1777786728&ln=100

2) Liu Xiang （刘祥）; hurdler; Athens Gold medal; first Gold ever for China in running events, proving Asians can compete with the rest (his words).
(see above)

3) Guo Jingjing （郭晶晶）; diver; loads of medals; as prettiest member of female Chinese Gold medallists has right to appear in copious number of Coke adverts.
http://image.baidu.com/i?ct=503316480&z=0&tn=baiduimagedetail&word=%B9%F9%BE%A7%BE%A7&in=19981&cl=2&cm=1&sc=0&lm=-1&pn=21&rn=1&di=2262713140&ln=2000

Olympic blog - day 4

2008-08-13T07:58:00.000+01:00

The main event at the games today from a Chinese point of view was the Men's Team Gymnastics. No prizes for guessing who won that. In so many of the events where China has won gold, they've won it by miles - weightlifting and diving, particularly. The Men's Gymnastics was another. From the first event until last, the commentators were having an absolute ball, as well as the studio presenters.

What made this victory particularly sweet was two things. One was China came above America and Japan - China's main opponent in the medal table is America, and Japan is the 'auld enemy'. The Chinese National Anthem, in fact, which I can now sing having heard it so many times, is about resisting the Japanese in the 1930s. The other was that, in Athens, this same team was expected to win gold but messed up and got nothing, so this time they have redeemed themselves. A montage of the team slipping off the beam and falling over at the dismount 4 years ago was contrasted with the perfection of today, and was the main item on the evening news.

Yesterday evening also had a gripping Men's 69kg Weightlifting, gripping in the way that uninteresting sports suddenly become unmissable during the Olympics. The South Korean was leading after the first round, but in his first lift of the clean and jerk, twisted his ankle and that was that. And it was a close one for the audience too, as the 190kg weight rolled off the podium and was stopped only just in time. One of the coaches of the Azerbaijinis was arguing with the marshals. Just when you thought everyone had finished, out comes one of the Chinese pair and lifts 197kg, thus helping himself in one fell swoop to the Gold Medal. Again.

Olympic blog - day 3

2008-08-13T07:47:00.000+01:00

Day 3 was actually spent at the swimming pool - that is to say, me personally, not watching the Olympic swimming on TV. My running bombs, although unappreciated by the lifeguards, put the Chinese Olympians to shame - no way could a wafer-thin 13 year old Chinese girl outdo me in this event, I don't care how many gold medals she's got. And move over Michael Phelps (known in Chinese as 'fei pu er si'), my doggy paddle is being perfected in time for London. My 'splashing other people', somehow still not an Olympic event, despite the inherent skill required, not to mention comedy value, was also a high points scorer (although again, not with the lifeguards).

I did have time to catch some other events, mostly involving China winning and Britain losing. Britain lost in the men's and women's team archery to China, as well as the women's singles, again to China. We also lost in the badminton, again to China. And in the diving, it was another case of China being stupidly better than everyone else. The Western competitors seem too broad-shouldered for diving, unlike the Chinese people who slip into the water almost unnoticed.

The main event of the day was the basketball, China vs USA. Although China lost, as expected, it was what everyone was watching, a chance to see how good China is against the world's best. They certainly took defeat well, but then with so many medals, who wouldn't.

Olympics -Day 2

2008-08-10T13:16:00.000+01:00

More golds for China, firstly in the faux-shooting 'air pistol' events, and then in the Women's 10m pairs diving. One of the Chinese pair, Guo JingJing, is a huge celebrity in China, and I thought that after all the adverts she's been in recently she might be tired, but not at all. A British pair were also in this event, and finished 8th - out of 8. Good work, girls. Watching the events with Chinese people means I think I'm going to come in for a lot of stick over the next two weeks.

The afternoon was spent watching the Women's Team Archery, which received full coverage. The bow looked like some sort of futuristic orthopaedic leg rather than something Robin Hood would have used. Bendy piece of wood and string would return the sport to something approaching its origins. In the first semi-final, UK played China, and lost. And to make it even worse, UK lost by 2 points in the bronze medal play-off to France. The Koreans, did, however, beat China and are second in the medal table. The medal table is a permanent feature of the news channel, occupying the corner the screen, and its looking good for China. Everytime someone wins a gold, they're sure to thank the country and government for the support.

Not all was lost, however, as coverage showed a Brit winning the women's outdoor cycling. I think the rain probably made her feel at home. The cameras even showed a rider sliding off the road and careering into a concrete ditch, and we she had fished her bike out, it turned out to she was Chinese. A short piece also showed the gymnasts messing up, most of them in fact Chinese, although looking at the size of them, it appeared that it was past their bedtime, so perhaps understandably tired. Football, diving, and weightlifting are the other events that have featured prominently - not so much the swimming.

The big event of today is at 10.15pm local time - China versus America in basketball. This is huge, and everyone's going to be watching it. Basketball is massive in China, and the 7ft6in Yao Ming, who was purposefully bred by making his two super-tall parents get married, so I've heard, is the star of the team. No medals on offer in this match, but you can already sense the satisfaction that would be produced by a China victory.

Olympic Blog - Day 1

2008-08-09T12:44:00.000+01:00

I'm going to attempt to blog for every day of the Olympics. I'm not in Beijing, I dont have a press pass and I don't have people fawning over me to make a good impression. I'm seeing it the same way as most people in China are - on t'tele.

Last night's opening ceremony was pretty extravagent. The main thing that struck me was how over-blown the Olympics is. I thought it was meant to be a meeting of amateur athletes to partake in a sporting event. But now it is a huge corporate event, regardless of where it is held. The ads on TV are constant. The Chinese hurdler who won gold in Athens, Liu Xiang, and who is now hugely famous because of it, has probably not had anytime to train with all the different products he's been endorsing. There's something quite odd about Olympic athletes encouraging people to drink Sprite and eat at KFC. But then the Games is hugely bloated, where governments and companies can acheive their differing aims. I must have seen the word 'Haier' (an electrical goods conglomerate) a million times today, as it bestrides the desks of every broadcast studio.

The ceremony itself was as expected, I imagine. What some guy has flying/running round the outisde of the stadium roof has to to do with Olympic spirit, I am yet to realise. There was the presentation of China's 5000 years of civilised history. The best sight was when the Chinese team entered the stadium.The American contingent was huge, but was dwarfed by the enormous Chinese team, which occupied fully half the track. China has competitors in every event for the first time. It seems the stage is set for a mass hoovering-up of medals by China.

This feeling was reinforced this morning. The first gold went to Croatia, but it wasn't long before China nabbed a couple of golds to go head of the medal table, I position I think'll they keep throughout. I've moved my desk into the living room, so I can study and watch at the same time, a perfect recipe for effective study. And I also have an Olympic guide to tell me when the next un-missable bout of fencing will take place.

My morning was spent watching the Woman's 48kg weighlifting, live from the Beijing Aviation University Sports Centre. There always seems to be someone out of their depth in events like these - like that swimmer from Equatorial Guinea in Sydney. This time it was someone from the weightlifting power house of Nicaragua. She came and went so fast I'm not sure it was the airfare.

This was in stark contrast to the Chinese competitor, Chen XiaXie. While the others where busy failing to pick it up, dropping it, and wobbling around, the Chinese competitor succeeded in all her attempts and won by a canter. An ominous sign for the rest, I think.

The second gold was earned by PangWei in the Men's 10m Air Pistol. For an event classed under 'Shooting', it was extremely dull and safe. If they used one of those toy guns that fires ping-pong balls, it would be more entertaining. A North Korean guy got bronze ahead of two Americans, so don't know whether he gets in trouble back in DPRK or not.

Coverage on TV is blanket. There's CCTV1, CCTV2, , CCTV7, and CCTV Olympic channel, as well as related programmes on local satelitte stations. You can watch everything for free on the Internet, although you'll also be watching a lot of adverts for a select few products. Some shops have set-up TVs outside so you can sit on the pavement and wonder how beach-volleyball is an Olympic event (along with softball and Equastrian). Sports no-one ever watches suddenly become fascinating - taekwondo, cycling, air pistol. The gymnastics remains one the better events to watch, although there's something slightly voyeuristic about watching people centimetres from paralysis.

In the woman's 'Shooting', the Chinese competitor came fifth and cried in her interview, a rare admission of failure. But with so many competitors in so many events, a few 5th places aren't going to dent the confidence. I'm currently watching the first round of the Woman's Volleyball, where the tallest women in China are pummelling the tallest women of Venezuela. Although the Olympic flag is white, you get the feeling that the colour of this Olympics is red, red, and more red.

Excellent article on surveillence and business in China and America

2008-07-16T14:26:00.000+01:00

Excellent article on surveillence and the business of surveillence currently booming in China and America (and Britain). Well worth a read. The content touches on aspects other than the main topic, such as life in Shenzhen, the undescribable creation that is testiment to state capitalism in Southern China. The second to last paragraph is most salient:

"China-bashing never fails to soothe the Western conscience — here is a large and powerful country that, when it comes to human rights and democracy, is so much worse than Bush's America. But during my time in Shenzhen, China's youngest and most modern city, I often have the feeling that I am witnessing not some rogue police state but a global middle ground, the place where more and more countries are converging. China is becoming more like us in very visible ways (Starbucks, Hooters, cellphones that are cooler than ours), and we are becoming more like China in less visible ones (torture, warrantless wiretapping, indefinite detention, though not nearly on the Chinese scale)."

I think this is an extremely insightful view, albeit actually fairly obvious with clear thinking, and one that I have entertained for a while.

Having said that, a friend has just sent me one of those 'embarassing George W Bush' pictures, only this time of former President Jiang Zemin picking his nose in forceful fashion, so this surveillance still needs some work...

Enjoy!

Excellent article on Chongqing and the changes in China's cities

2008-07-13T11:06:00.000+01:00

Chongqing is an enormous city in South West China, and by some counts is the world's largest, yet a lot of people have never heard of it. The article below is a really interesting insight into Chongqing, and some of the changes in China's cities. Definitely worth a read.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/portal/main.jhtml?xml=/portal/2008/07/12/sm_china12.xml

Enjoy!

New Statesman article on the Olympics

2008-07-13T08:37:00.000+01:00

A disappointing piece of journalism by Lindsey Hilsum, about the 'no-fun' Olympics.

http://www.newstatesman.com/asia/2008/07/beijing-olympic-rights-china

Yeh, OK, the 'authorities' are pretty paranoid about what bad things might happen during the Olympics, particularly involving foreigners. And, yes, they're keen that no-one starts 'disstenting' before or during the Olympics, because they know the whole world will be watching - who would want to be embarrassed? But that is about the only reasonably sensible point that I can find in this article.

Above all, the article displays the cultural ignorance and pre-decided stereotypes that mars so much of Western impressions of China, not just journalists. Comparing the atmosphere in Sydney 200o to Beijing is ridiculous. Maybe its fine in Australia to go out and "party", drink in parks, and engage in what many Westerners see as just a bit of fun. But cultural attitudes, not just paranoid politics, is probably the main reason why the authorities don't want people "partying" all the time. Rarely in China will you see people enjoying themselves the way people apparently did during the Sydney Olypmics, so to suddenly expect Chinese people and authorities to allow and promote it is a bit much.

And lets's no forget, it's only 30 years ago that China was a country with virtually no contact with the outside world. To judge it by standards afforded to countries like Australia, and to expect it to adapt to our cultural expectations, is extremely short-sighted.

The article continues: "The Chinese government, it seems, does not care how much it costs, nor whom it pays, provided the Games look good on television. The aim is a picture-perfect Olympics". Well, dur. Who wouldn't? They have a choice - leave the pollution as it is, or do something about it. It's pretty obvious what is going to be chosen, and its also pretty obvious the reaction of Western journalists if they didn't take these measures. Also, linking these pullution cutting measures, however temporary, to the 'no-fun', 'paranoid' attitude of authorities makes no sense.

The Chinese government doesn't want foreigners causing trouble. What about London 2012? Do you think the British government would allow foreigners with a gripe against the government - Iraqis, Afghans, Palestinians, etc - to protest during the London Olympics? I think not.

Such journalistic attitudes as expressed in this article reach China, and more and more people are aware of these attitudes. And they're not impressed, which only further leads them to support the ugly patriotism and nationalism that the government very actively fosters. Attitudes like these, rather than encouraging the Chinese government to be more responsive to its people, play into the hands of the Chinese government, allowing them to stoke up irrationalist nationalist sentiment, which is of little benefit to anyone apart from the authorities this journalist so derides.

Guardian article about UK graduates working in China

2008-07-12T14:22:00.001+01:00

Good article on UK graduates working in China published recently in the Guardian. I think it's spot on with most of the points it makes, particularly about the language, the culture and 'doing business' in China.

The thrust of the article is the sense of opportunity for people here, particularly Westerners. I think it's generally true, I personally also have the feeling that there is something interesting going on here, and that feeling helps make up for the pollution and over-crowding.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2008/jun/07/graduates.workandcareers3

Enjoy!

Interesting China blog

2008-07-12T07:25:00.000+01:00

Below is the web address for a fantastic blog on China, which everyone with half an interest in China should take a look at.

www.danwei.org

Very professional, very insightful, with a huge range of interesting articles, videos, etc.
I had a quick browse just now, and found this funny 2 minute video about Chinese people learning English. Check out the policeman at the end...

http://www.danwei.org/events/speak_a_english.php

Enjoy!

Sunday in Huxian

2008-07-08T08:00:00.001+01:00

Huxian is a small town about an hour and a half from Xi'an. The father of my friend who's wedding I attended earlier this year lives there, and he invited me over to see look at some ancient relics that are frequently found in the surrounding farmland.

I'm never ceased to be amazed by the changing landscape here. Not so long ago, Huxian would have been a small town, surrounded by small villages and miles and miles of fertile, flat farmland, with the Qingling mountain range to the south in the distance. Now, the last half an hour of a the journey, much like the first half an hour, is noticeable for the landscape - a mishmash of huge flyovers, highways, farmland, cleared lands waiting to be built on, the remains of old villages, and the blurred silhouette of the mountains. From the bus, you can see farmers working the land right up to the enormous 4 lane expressway that has been scytched through their fields. Huxian town itself is like a mini-Xi'an, hard to imagine what it was like 30 years ago.

I address my friend's father as 'shushu', uncle, in accordance with custom. He's very keen on ancient Chinese history and culture, and revels in tellng not just the 'laowai' (foreigner) about it. He's also extremely hospitable and generous, as most Northern Chinese are. I guess you could call him 'old school' - bought up in the Cultural Revolution, and with almost nothing in common with young Chinese. A lot of the time its hard to understand what he's saying, but I wouldn't want to disagree anyway, so a lot of head-nodding aids conversation.

He wanted to show me a small shop, which specialises in collecting and selling items that have been dup up around Huxian. In ancient times, Xian was the capital of China, and Huxian, being close to Xian, was also highly advanced, meaning its an archeologists paradise. The shop was located down a small, leafy side street, and without local knowledge, I would never have known about it.

Inside was a treasure trove of often remarkably preserved items, packed onto shelves in no particular order. Being the site of the ancient central bank, the land around Huxian is awash with old copper coins, with more than a few more than 2000 years old. Most of these coins are on sale for less than 20p. Also on display were all sorts of everyday items, bowls, plates, etc, including one item that looked like a squashed, flat hour glass, but turned out to be a container for spitting into. Outside were similarly old stone ornaments used for tieing up horses with monkeys carved on top, as monkeys were the guardians of horses in ancient China (so I'm told). Several items, kept out of view, were of such value as they are not allowed to be taken out of China.

However, there was a catch. Even though my 'shushu' is friends with the boss of the shop, he wouldn't normally allow people just to come and look. So my shushu said that I was the Xian representative of an English travel company, looking to bring foreigner tour groups to Huxian. He seemed to have no qualms about telling whoppers to his friend, and by the end of it, I was getting quite into it, asking the boss about what he could promise my clients, future investment opportunities, etc. I felt a bit uncomfortable 'pian' - lying to - this guy who was being very hospitable and giving me 1500 year old coins as a gift, but there wasn't much I was going to do about it. And besides, they make a fantastic souvenir.

I wanted to know how they could be so sure all the items were genuine and how they knew how old they were. It seems they just 'know', and I didn't press it too much. The stuff is literally dug up in the field by farmers, who then sell it to the boss. When I was there, a boy comes in with a grubby looking pot, unearthed that morning. The boy wants 50, the boss is not budging from 30. It's sold for 30, and later I'm told that its worth at least 200 in Xian, maybe 500 in Beijing. I feel less bad for lying. It may be a place for culturalists, but there's also money to be made.

In the afternoon, we walked down the same narrow street which houses many different workshops and residences of various artisans, collectors, etc - a street of genuine culture, I found, rather than the awful 'bigness' of Chinese cities. One shop had on display old shoes, about 8-10cm in length, of the type worn by Chinese women over a hundred years ago. In feudal China, upto about 1911, all women from the age of two or three had their feet bound to prevent them growing. I'm told that is was mainly done because small feet were considered beautiful, so much so that a woman with 'big' feet would 'jia bu chu qu' - not be able to get marrried off. How times have changed - know the key is to be tall, which is a lot less pain-inducing than foot-binding.

One workshop was that of a middle age woman doing traditional Chinese paintings. The workshop itself was nothing more than a room with walls covered with hanging paintings, calligraphy, a table for painting, a whirring ceiling fan to alleviate the heat, and behind a curtain, a small area for living quarters. The table looked onto a window, from which could be seen people playing mahjiang outside under the shade of the trees. A girl about my age came out and started talking to me. For consistency, I kept up the 'tourism' facade, but when my 'shushu' came out with the tea, he said who I really was - turned out the woman was his sister, and the girl her daughter, and we didn't have to lie to them. Conversation was in Mandarin to start with, but then drifted to their first language, local language, at which point I gazed around at the huge paintings of flowers and mountain scenery, and indecipherable characters written in black brush on red backgrounds. After some more tea (and an ice-cream with the daugther) and browsing more antiquities, it was back to the home to the smog and breath-defying heat of Xian.

It was great to actually see some of the 'culture' that people here love to talk about, but rarely experience in everyday lives. There is a lot of culture here, you've just got to dig a little to get it.

Jia you Zhong guo!

2008-07-05T08:50:00.000+01:00

Friday, 4th July, 2008

6.30am Wake up. Earlier than planned. Anticipation in the blood.

6.31am Rub head. 36 degree weather and oven-esque room causing morning headaches.

6.32. Discover no laduzi (upset stomach). Relieved. Wipe sweat from head.

6.37am. Have shower.

6.39am Finish shower. Dry.

6.42am Continuing drying. Sweat unceasing.

6.45am Pack clothes for washing. And camera. Check battery. OK.

6.47am Double check camera packed.

7.00am Walk along TianTan West Road. It seems more people than usual.

7.05am Arrive at ChangAn South Road, busiest main road in Xian. Usual mishmash of vehicles completely absent. Streams of people heading north.

7.10am Pass countless street sellers selling Olympic memorabilia. One T-shirt reads 'China Refuelling!' (A rather too direct translation on 'Jia you Zhong guo' - 'Come on China!')

7.20am. Nearing the route. People everywhere. No cars (apart from black Audis with important people and their wives/mistresses in).

7.30am. Walk along route, looking for a good spot. Being the tallest person around definitely an advantage. Check watch. Surrounded by the red flag of China, and the white of the Olympic flag.

7.35am Look for grassy knolls. None spotted.

7.45am Film crowd scenes. Everyone in high spirits, excited, adorned with red hats, head-bands, etc. Decide to postpone Tibet-related practical jokes.

7.55am. Begin to tire. Wandering what they'll have in the canteen for lunch.

8.00am Various police vans, offical cars pass by. Extremely bored looking police officers line the inside of the route.

8.10am Anticipation rising. Chanting becomes more regular.

8.14am. Crowd surges forward! Somethings happening!!

8.15am False alarm. Crowd rolls back

8.20-21am Same as above

8.30am Something's happening! Crowd rolls forward. Necks strained. Voices raised. Flags waved.

8.31am 'Crowd warm-up truck drives past. 'Jiayou Zhongguo! Jiayou Zhongguo!'

8.32am The Samsung truck passes. 'Jia Samsung! Jiayou Samsung's New X4000 Hands free phone set with sat nav, mini-bar and rocket booster applications!' 'Jia you Olympic Corporate sponsors!'

8.33am Unknown 3rd truck passes by. Something resembling cheerleaders wafting around on the roof.

8.36am. Torch-bearers alight near-by coach. Wave to the crowd, and take their positions. Noise more consistent, flag-waving more in tune.

8.37am Significant increase in flag-waving seen in easterly direction.

8.38am 'Lai le!' 'Lai le!' 'It's here!' 'It's here'. Necks enter giraffe mode. Arms stretched high, clutching camera.

8.39am Through a forest of red and white, I can see a man with a un-torch like object running very slowly up the street, surrounded by what looks like swimming pool attendents, in blue and white T-shirts. Noise cacophanous!! Flag-waving feverish!!

8.40am JIA YOU ZHONG GUO! JIA YOU ZHONG GUO! Man runs short distance. I take wonky photos. Switch to film mode. Film wonkier-still film. JIA YOU ZHONG GUO!! JIA YOU ZHONG GUO!! Catch glimpse of world's most famous fire safety hazard.

8.41am Torch and flame disappear westwards amongst the red, white and forest of arms.

8.43am Noise subsides, flags sag. Come and gone.

8.44am Slightly unsure facial expressions all round. No-one is really sure what to do next.

8.47am Begin to head for the university. Streets full of people. Have photo taken with strangers. Admire undercover-style camera handiwork.

8.51am. Friend phones. "Where are you? I'll be there in a minute".

PS Check out the pun in '8.36am'. Unintentional.

Eathrquake part 3

2008-05-20T01:16:00.000+01:00

I didn't think there was going to be a part 3, but the Earth's crust is continuing to rumble underneath South West China. The day before yesterday, I was woken by an aftershock, but it wasn't too big, so I left it and went back to sleep. I was looking forward to a good sleep last night, but at about 11 in the evening my flatmate informs us that everyone's sleeping outside again, which meant a repeat of last Monday's evasive action.

Clutching a pillow, duvet, mat, bread, beer, passport and toilet paper, we head back to the same spot in the park. There was definitely more people than last time, 'people sea people mountain', as the Chinese saying goes. Anyone with a car seemed to be heading south, leaving the city. The pavements were full of people wandering round or sleeping, some even sleeping on the side of the road or using the kerb as a pillow. I admire the people who chose to sleep right outside the door of a multi-storey building. Some people seemed amused by everything, but I wasn't prepared to take any chances.

I gathered from some people crowded round a TV outside that a warning has been issued that yesterday and today, there should be a big aftershock, which is likely to affect Xi'an. Joining in the atmosphere, I went over to some friends to sit around on the pavement playing cards. There wasn't any panic, the chances of anything destructive here are small, but everyone was playing it safe, and making the most of it.

I did actually manage to get a couple of hours sleep, but when I woke up all the other Europeans who were in the park had left and gone home. Not too willing to go and sleep, I'm now in the internet bar, occupying the computer nearest the door - with only a three yard dash to the safety, I should be OK. I was pretty sure there was a shock just now actually, but it turned out to be someone zealously bashing away at the keyboard. At the moment, I'm alert to anything wobbly.

For the rest of today (currently 8am), I'm waiting for this shock to come and go so I can go back inside above the first floor. Sods law as soon as I go back to my flat, the tremor will come. Still, I'm better off than tens of thousands of people in Sichuan.

Earhquake part 2

2008-05-13T00:40:00.000+01:00

The earthquake hit in the afternoon, but everything seemed quite normal soon after. Where I live, I only saw one slightly damaged building, but quite a lot of buildings have suffered cracks. It was quickly found out that it was 7.8, and that a lot of China had felt it. Initially people said no-one died, then later a number of 7000 was heard. Just now - 7am on the next day - I heard the number was 40,000.

My tutor is a Masters student, and living in the dormitory, he wasn't sure whether they would be allowed back in, so we went back to where I live. It was all pretty normal, until when we were going back home, I bump into a Spanish guy I know, who was planning on sleeping outside. As it turns out, the park was full of people prepared for a night's sleep. Seeing all that, I thought I'd better stay out as well.

It wasn't quite Woodstock, but it was an interesting atmosphere, about 25 Europeans and all the locals hanging out in the park at night. Because it wasn't too serious where I was, no-one was particularly freaked out. Still, it was only until after I heard the government announced at 12am that there would be no more aftershocks that I went back home. Besides, my building looks reasonably well-built.

4.30am, an aftershock woke me up. It's really a disturbing feeling. It seemed pretty clear that nothing was going to collapse, it was quite a small shake, but staying inside didn't sit comfortably, and seeing lots of people leaving the surrounding buildings, I went back to the park. But after about an hour, everyone was cold and bored so returned home. Now it's 7.50am on the second day, no appetite and I see on the news that it's a big one.

It's been an uneasy few hours. Coupled with the typhoon in Myanmar-Burma, the bad winter in China, and the very strange weather recently here, and the highly-visible, absolute destruction development is having on the environment, it adds to the unease.

Earthquake hits China

2008-05-13T00:06:00.000+01:00

The number of study hours I've lost due to events beyond my control is increasingly huge. Normally it's 'la duzi' ("upset stomach"), but also such things as the bus breaking down, or the weather being too hot, etc. Today was another first - an earthquake.

So I'm on the fourth floor, havng a lesson with my tutor at the university at 2.40 in the afternoon. Just as I'm looking at and not really understanding some classical Chinese poetry, I notice something underneath me, as if the students in the classroom below are all stampeding out. I nudged my teacher, who immediately stopped talking, and stood up.

Now I guess there's three important steps when an eathquake strikes. One, as soon as you realise its an earthquake, leave the building or hide under the table; two, don't go back for possessions; three, if exiting the premises, do so in an orderly manner. From what I did, it looks like my earthquake-handling technique needs adjusting.

The first thing we do is open the door and go outside. Once outside, my tutor shouts 'Eathquake!' I hadn't really grasped what it was at that point, but I knew a building moving side-to-side was probably a bad thing.

Breaking the second rule, we went back in to get our stuff - I went for my textbooks and loo paper (essential items), no time to claim the MP3. And thirdly, instead of sheltering under the table, we ran down the stairs, along with loads of other people, in reasonably orderly fashion. Certainly when I saw some dust and cement falling from the ceiling as I ran, I was pretty worried - not too many things to hide under on the stairs.

When we get outside, the ground is still shaking, but then so was I, quite hard to distinguish at that point. I think it lasted about a minute or so, can't have been more than 90 seconds anyway. Everyone starts making phone calls, meaning everyone can't get through. The students were not allowed back into the dormitories until midnight, which shows you how much confidence the university authorities have in the newly constructed buildings.

Above all, it was a very disturbing feeling. If the building had collapsed, I would have been stuffed. And even outside, I was still pretty wobbly. When I saw the cement falling down, that was pretty frightening. And on the stairs, I was just thinking 'don't collapse now, don't collapse now, don't collapse now'. Fortunately, it did not, but somehow I just don't feel like studying right now.

The Tuesday Night Interview

2008-05-09T12:35:00.000+01:00

Last year I made a short TV programme about a foreigner who marries a Chinese girl and all the problems he encounters with the culture differences - with hilarious consequences, of course. Well, I'd forgotten about it, but then the director gives me a call last week, saying it was going to be broadcast the next day, and I should go to the studio to participate in the 'after-broadcast' interview, live on Local TV. Not wanting to pass up the opportunity to make a fool of myself not once but twice (all in the same evening), I of course agreed.

Things got off to a bad start when, just before doing the interview along with the other cast members, I had to dash to the bathroom. In my haste, I failed to notice the skirted silhouette on the door, so halfway through some female members of the production crew got a bit of a shock when they opened the door to the lockless-cubicle. 'Dignified' it was not.

During pre-filming preparations, they ran through the questions the presenters were likely to ask us. They asked me what I thought of Shaanxi women. My answer of 'I don't know, can't really tell the difference [between Shaanxi and non-Shaanxi women]' was considered an affront to the good women of Shaanxi. They said 'er, no, a better answer is 'fiery''. The programme is normally conducted in local language (the TV station is the provincial station, available to the 60 million residents of Shaanxi Province), but they made an exception for me. It's a nightly programme, and not hugely popular (fortunately).

The interview was 25 minutes long, and live, so I was a shade nervous. I introduced myself in local language, then after used Mandarin to field the questions directed at me. Questions mostly concerned my thoughts on international marriages (like that in the programme) and whether I could see myself living in Shaanxi. I mostly understood what they asked me, and it went pretty well, but it didn't quite have the easy back-and-forth of a Parkinson interview.

Later in the programme, the presenters read out some viewers comments. They asked me if I knew someone called Jiang Nan, because he said he knew me. I looked blankly and said 'No'. Embarrassed faces all round, until I suddenly remembered who it was, and corrected myself. Honestly, Chinese names are incredibly hard to remember, causing numerous awkward moments.

It's been a few days since this was broadcast, and I can't say I've had a huge number of autograph hunters and papparazzi hounding me - none, in fact, to be precise. Still, I'm sure that phonecall from China Central Television is just seconds away.

Xian so far

2008-05-02T12:24:00.001+01:00

So what's different to last year? Not a huge amount, to be honest. I'm still here to learn Chinese, and experience a different way of doing things.

My first move was to do a Gordon Brown and break one of the golden rules - live with foreigners. My new flatmates are a German and an Italian, good friends from before, but as it happens, we rarely see each other, and it doesn't have a too negative impact on my Chinese. I was pretty reluctant to live with other Europeans, wanting to 'Sinofy' things as much as possible, but I find it easier said than done.

I'm living in what is probably the 'expat' area of Xi'an, down the road from last year, but still near the universities. I suppose it's considered suburbs, the complex I live in is a series of 6 storey flats, with guards at the gates and some grassy areas around, definitely an expression of the new and increasing wealth of the middle class. The flat's OK, although my room doesn't have air conditioning, so I'm looking forward to melting in my sleep again. It's May 2nd, and already time to bring out the shorts and flip-flops.

As for my studies, financial considerations have meant I've changed university. It's not as good as the one before, but much more affordable, and seeing as I rarely go to the lessons anyway, the best choice. Most of my learning is done by myself or with two tutors I had from last year. In fact, I'm only at a university because I have to be to get a visa.

Life is similar to before - a mixture of lessons, self-study, and random occurences. My Chinese has improved over the course of time, and I still enjoy learning it. Particularly when I first got back to Xian in March, I wasn't sure if it was the right choice, but I'm confident that it is - the main thing is, I enjoy it, and if I can learn it well enough to be considered useful later on, then that's a good bonus. At the moment, I think it's unlikely I'll stay here for ever, but I waited a long time for the chance to live in a foreign country and try learning a language, I'm not about to give it up lightly. Besides, I'll look a bit of wally if I don't learn it now.

Our Man in China returns

2008-05-02T12:06:00.000+01:00

It's hot, it's noisy, it's unbelievably crowded and I still don't know what's going on - it can only mean one thing. Our Man in China has returned to Xian, China, and returned to the blogsphere. Huzzah!

So what's been going on since last the time of the last entry, I don't hear you ask. Well, I stayed in Xi'an until mid-January, nothing off note happening. I returned to England for 2 months to earn some money, put on some weight and watch some decent sport on TV. However, as of March 2008, Our Man in China has returned to Xian, and is continuing his habit of trying to do things he can't do, namely, learning Mandarin Chinese to an 'acceptable' standard, and making some sense of China. Will he do it? You'll see here (hopefully with the aid of more photos this time).

Fawlty Towers comes to Xi'an

2007-10-19T16:26:00.000+01:00

Friday night, 11pm, a young man in China, what do you do? I could go to the city centre to sample the nightlife where my friend is going tonight but I have a cold at the moment, my nose is redder than the flag of China and my lips are dry and white like a Hovis crust.

So I'm doing what seemingly a lot of young guys do in Xi'an - go to the Internet bar. Personally, I find it quite strange that this is their activity of choice on a weekend evening. But they are not alone. There are lots of Pakistani guys here as well. They all study medicine at university in Xi'an, and the only time I see them is at night, when I'm on my way home and they are on their way to the 'wang ba' (netbar). Joining them is a contingent of Kazakhs, both groups playing 'Counter Strike', one of these games involving guns, bombs, randomly placed wooden pallets and really interestings things like that. Actually, it's probably good the Kazakhs are here, because last week 30 of them got in a huge fight with some Chinese guys, and the police came along and gave them enormous fines. I just hope the Chinese yuan / Kazakh tenge exchange rate is favourable. The Chinese guys like Counter Strike as well, but they also play this dancing game, which just must have been designed for girls under 10.

The best part is when you come in after 10pm, the receptionist will ask you if you're here for the whole night or just a few hours. Surfing a whole night's internet is a perfectly acceptable activity, indeed, it's considered 'cool'. If you go to a netbar early in the morning, maybe 8 or 9, you'll see the remnants of last night's Counter Strike battle strewn across three chairs, sleeping soundly now they have killed their friend over 400 times repeatedly.

So what do the girls do? Attractive girls will take advantage of the huge demand for attractive girls, and work in bars and nightclubs, drinking with guys and earning money for the bar. Others will work in nightclubs or KTV (karaoke places), where you pay for the privilege of having someone sit with you. In my hotel - in every large hotel in China - you'll have one of these KTV places, and a sauna/massage place on another floor, where you can get a little something extra for the gentleman customer. I don't really know what to say when these American guests ask me if we have a massage place, because no-one is meant to know about this (although everyone, of course, does). Presumably the customers are mostly these moneyed, fat guys. I'm fairly ambivalent about it, but it does seem a rather sad way to live, for the girls as well as the men.

Speaking of my hotel, I had quite a difficult evening today - nothing but complaints. (And the for first 45 minutes I was looking for my laundry, which turned out to be lost). I had the "I've been travelling for over 30 years and have never experienced such appalling service" speech from several guests - all from the UK and Ireland, actually. Most of the problems are due to the formidable language barrier mentioned in a previous post. I think the English-speaking guests cheer up after finding a foreigner there and like chatting to me about China.

All our guests are are mostly middle-aged people, coming on package tours, seeing the big cities and shows and main sights, etc. It's interesting talking to them, because sometimes they have a completely different view on China. An Irish woman said to me today how hard-working Chinese people are, and how there was no litter. I don't know what country she was describing, it certainly wasn't the one I live in. In saying that, I'm hardly an expert myself, and I would be very suspicious of people calling themselves China experts, such is the nature of this beast.

The biggest benefit of working in the hotel is the Western buffet. I make generous use of the term 'buffet', and stuff in as much meat, fruit, and non-diced-to-smitherens vegetables as I can in 20 minutes. I then have 4-5 minutes to make short-work of the cheese platter and 3-4 minutes to make mincemeat of the fruit selection, followed by a minute or two for digestion. After all, I'll need all the calcium and protein I can get for an entire night of shooting rogue terrorists and perfecting my break-dancing.

The Princess of Belgium and the short one from Hale and Pace

2007-10-07T13:18:00.000+01:00

Firstly, hats off to the England rugby team on a sterling victory over Australia. I should also personally thank David Campese (Australian idiot) for his expert pre-game analysis - 'England have no idea and will lose'. Good call, Dave. Also hats off to the New Zealanders, who have choked yet again. To cock it up that many times is an achievement in itself.

For the last few weeks, I've spent a fair amount of time on the Internet, following the rugby. I really should be using this time to read Chinese, but reading Chinese is painfully slow and lacking in rugby-orientated content. My task for next week is to find a place to watch the semi-finals. I found a German bar the other day with excellent imported German beer, so there must be somewhere in this 6 million person city with satelitte TV.

As to the title of this blog, these are two people I saw in my new job, which I started last week. I work 3 evenings a week in a hotel, supposedly as 'General Service Manager', but really just talking to the foreigners, a little translating, a little sorting out foreigner-related problems, etc. I wear an outfit that makes me look like Alan Partridge - blue, white and yellow striped club tie, etc. It's pretty simple work, and I get a free Western buffet dinner every shift. Taking full use of this offer, last time I had, amongst numerous other things, 8 mini steaks.

(Incidentally, last week I arrived for work too early, so went to have a quick look at a nearby park, adjacent to the city wall. Everyone stared at me when I went in, but it's fairly normal in China, I thought nothing of it. Then this guy comes up to me, chats a bit, asks if I want to take a walk with him. I say no. Then another guy comes up, we have an identical conversation. Thinking something is a little fishy, I turn round and there's lots of people standing behind me, staring at me. Then I realise everyone here is male, and that I had found Xi'an's Clapham Common. A hasty retreat followed).

This last week, the World F1 Powerboat Championships came to Xi'an, and for some strange reason they all stayed at our hotel. I say strange, because this is at most a 3 star hotel, yet they call themselves 'pre -5 star', whatever that means. Throughout the week, there were a number of problems, mostly stemming from the Chinese staff being hopeless at English. It's good for me, because I can practise Chinese with them, but it's amazing how bad it is, given how long they study it for. Typical conversation is as follows:

Guest: Can you speak English?

Hotel staff: Yes.

Guest: What time is breakfast?

Hotel staff: Yes.

Guest: No, I said what time is breakfast?

Hotel staff: No.

(Guest angrily exits).

One of the receptionists is actually scared of foreigners. When a foreigner came to the front desk, she would glance up at him, the foreigner would open his mouth to speak, then she would just turn away, hoping this ogre will go away.

I also love the way they deal with things. You ask someone for something, they will ask someone else, they will ask someone else, they will ask someone else, and a long time later you will get the opposite of what you originally asked for. It's like Chinese whispers without the whispering.

The F1 people mostly consisted of Italians, a few other Europeans and some Arab princes. The main thing I noticed was how physically big Europeans are. It was pretty obvious that the Europeans were the ones driving the boat, fixing the boat, etc, and the Arab playboy princes were providing the funding. I saw the Princess of Belgium, but she didn't look very pretty to me. Also, one of the Finns looked just like the short one from Hale and Pace. Maybe it was him, who knows. I've seen a lot of lookalikes recently, actually - last week, I saw a French guy who looked just like Dr Mengele.

Speaking of Germans (good link, huh), with this new found income I can afford to go to the German owned supermarket near my flat to buy some decent stuff and start doing my own food, particularly breakfasts. I just love the garden furniture display outside, and the fact that not one single person in China has a garden. Genius. But inside they have a good array of breakfast materials, so I bought some Chinese yoghurts, French cereal bars and German cornflakes - 'Der knusperfrische Start in der Tag'!! Ja, tasten ist gut. The controversy about Chinese made products has some truth - a lot of things made here are poor quality. But that's why they are so cheap - pay peanuts, get monkeys. If you pay a labour force nothing and ensure that safety standards are not enforced in the effort to keep costs down and profits up for non-producing managers and directors, it should be unsurprising that quality is an issue.

Recently I've been in the local bar a lot, ostensibly to practice Chinese. There was a guy there last week, I guess he could be considered 'cool', he had a friend and some attractive girls sitting around him. He wore dog slippers that looked like the car in Dumb and Dumber, and when he sat on the desk, he sat with his knees up like a kid. These are the cool guys. Another time, a group of middle-aged men, bored with their wives, came in because they heard that this bar had a lot of 'mei nu' (beautiful girls). When the bartender said they had gone home for the holiday, they left because the only decent way for moneyed, married, middle-aged men to drink in China is to pay young, bored-looking girls to sit and drink with you. These are the cool guys.

A couple of weeks ago, I met a person who lives on the floor above me. A couple of times a week we get together, speak Chinese, English, etc. But she wants to watch Friends, which is good for me (nice to see some TV that I can understand). She pauses it in places she doesn't understand, and I explain. Incidentally, she is a Christian (I've met more Christians in Xi'an than in England), and being Chinese as well, incredibly conservative. Yet she has a tremendous ability to pause the DVD on all references to sex and amusing body parts. Recently I've had to explain the meaning of the following: 'diaphragm', 'wood' (the other meaning), 'skidmark', 'burning loins', 'topless babes', 'taking me roughly in the barn', and so on.

And finally, a word on the weather. 4 weeks ago it was extremely hot, sweaty and horrible, now it is freezing cold, wet and horrible. Autumn lasted an entire 3 weeks. Hats, gloves, scarfs, the whole kaboodle has been dusted off and all is being worn. And to cap it all off, everytime it rains my building has no hot water, so ice cold showers all round. Still, I'm not fussed - the main thing is we beat the Aussies.

Do fish get thirsty?

2007-09-22T12:48:00.000+01:00

This question has been puzzling me recently. Answers on a postcard, please. Also puzzling are the following fish-related questions - 1), do fish get bored in goldfish bowls? 2), would they like to go out and swim freely, or do they enjoy the protection afforded by a bowl habitat? And 3), we eat shrimps, crabs, etc, but why don't we eat goldfish?

As you can see, I've really been immersing myself in Chinese recently. The last few weeks have been a fraction worrying, in that I've discovered I just do not speak enough Chinese. However, the plus side about learning language is that this situation is not out of my control, and I've found some ways to change it. One of them is the dreaded 'language exchange', one hour English, one hour Chinese, etc. I say 'dreaded', because my pet hate is speaking English to Chinese people. So I'm putting up a notice on a noticeboard tomorrow - '1 hour English, 2 hours Chinese'. Seeing as this entire country is seemingly learning English, I expect to find takers.

As for the weather, it's just as weird as China itself. About 3 weeks ago, it was 37 degrees or so. Then it rained for a day, and when it stopped raining, it was about 25 degrees and has been so ever since, with clear blue skies and moderately breathable air. The feel of the city has changed, there are less short skirts around, men are no longer rolling up their trousers to air their shins, and I've been able to study in my room without passing out. With the clear skies, however, you can see just how bad the air is - all along the horizon line, it's just brown, stretching out miles all the way to the surrounding mountains. To think I'm breathing this in all the time is not pleasant. In fact, general unhealthiness of lifestyle is probably the thing I like least about being in China.

Taking advantage of this good weather, I caught a bus out to the countryside and went to a Buddhist temple. Visitors to China may suffer from the phenomenom 'templed out', which is even mentioned in Lonely Planet, and means having seen so many temples that they aren't interesting any more. This is true, but the one I went to had no other people there, and the temple grounds were a very nice place to read Dostoevsky's The Karamazov Brothers (not his best, ed.). The monks invited me to lunch, and then afterwards I spent the afternoon with one of them drinking green tea and, when he wasn't answering his mobile phone, discussing the wrongs of consumerism in modern society and how Buddhism has the answer. At least, I presume that's what we were talking about, I really didn't catch most of it. I did, however, receive a pamphlet.

Today I went to something called Cosplay, with is big in Japan and involves lots of 16-23 year olds getting together in groups and dressing up like their favourite Japanese computer game characters and having people take photos of them. I was pretty much the only person there who didn't like computer games, and not dressing up like a princess from another planet or whatever, I didn't get a huge amount from it. It was still pretty interesting, though, to see how the really cool kids spend their time. And I had some people I knew there, so I got in for free and spoke some Chinese.

In other news, my idea to start running again has been hamstrung by the military. That is, all 1st year university students currently have no lessons and must do military training, most of it on the running track, and lasting all day, every day for one month. It mostly consists of short bespectaled students in Army fatigues either a) practising to stand still for hours on end b) practising to sing for hours on end and c) goosestepping across the football pitch like Nazis for hours on end. The thing that strikes me is how unthreatening and pointless it all looks. Still, nice weather for it.

Survival tips for China

2007-09-12T13:02:00.000+01:00

Fancy a trip to China? Don't forget to pack the following 10 items.

1) Sense of humour. Without it, China sometimes seems a rather grim place. With it, everything becomes interesting and a source for humour.

2) Sense of humour. I really mean it.

3) Some paper/books to sit on. When sitting down somewhere outside, a Chinese person will always sit on something to prevent their trousers getting dirty. The other day, a friend of mine saw someone picking an old newspaper off the ground and sitting on it. Because those old papers are really clean.

4) Toilet paper. None is provided.

5) Cigarettes. You'll often get offered one, so it's a good idea to have some of your own to return the favour.

6) A Portuguese passport. This means, when someone says 'Where are you come flom', in order to practise their English, you can legitimately say you're not American/English, etc and continue the conversation in Chinese. Unless of course, you do what I do, and lie. About 40-50 people in Xi'an have now met a Portuguese guy called Carlos, who looks suspiciously like the English guy their friend knows.

7) A map of China with Taiwan shaded the same colour as the mainland.

8) Haggling skills. I've yet to master.

9) One of those rollbars they have in rally cars to fit in your taxi before setting off.

10) Your business card. I got given one today by some guy who owns an English language school. The English name of his school was spelt wrong.

Things you won't need

Arrogance. We all know Europe is less populated, cleaner, no silly tones in the language, etc. But if you come here with the 'we're better' attitude, there is really not much point in coming at all.

A phrasebook. No one will understand you anyway.

Knowledge of MaoZeDong and the Cultural Revolution in particular. Young people in China have about as much interest/respect for this period as a New Zealand sheep farmer.

A wallchart for the Rugby World Cup. If you want to watch that, forget it.

'Your pronunciation is causing me physical and/or mental suffering'

2007-09-11T10:56:00.000+01:00

And so goes the latest gory indictment of my less than stellar progression in Chinese, the world's most traumatised and traumatising language. This confidence-imbibing remark was made to me this morning by one of my teachers at the university. In fairness, she does have a point: my pronunciation is dreadful. I just have to admire the frankness.

The new term started last week. I'm in what's meant to be the 'Upper Intermediate' class, which has about 11 students - half are Koreans, two Japanese, a Thai and an Aussie. It's not bad, but with the teaching more or less remaining as it is, it remains an ineffective way of learning language. While I plan to be in China for 2008, I doubt it will be at a formal institution like this. Whichever way you look at it, and I've looked at it every convievable way, Chinese is an absolute stinker of a language.

Yesterday I spent 3 hours writing out characters over and over again. And the really fun thing about this is, is it 24 hours later I've completely forgotten most of them, so you have to do it again. And again. And again. Until 2 weeks later I test myself again and can write it. A lot of the words I'm learning now are ones I haven't had an opportunity to speak, so I'm learning the language backwards. If you think about how you learnt English, you first listen to it, then say it, then read and write it. I'm doing it the other way round here, and the ineffectiveness is all too visible. I've also discovered the more I know, the more I realise I don't know. So heart-warming.

Learning Chinese for me is a matter of peaks and troughs. Sometimes I feel really good about it, my progress is visible, I can talk to people without constantly saying 'shenme' (what?). Then I have a few days of not thinking much in particular, then a few days of not understanding anything, pronouncing my Chinese name incorrectly, forgetting how to write my name, holding the pen upside down, etc. The my mood goes back up again, and so on.

I can't say I have a huge number of Chinese friends - I have plenty of people's phone numbers, but only a few I see regularly. I discovered Chinese people have many friends, but few friendships i.e., they know lots of people, but have very few really good friends. I'm kind of the same here. I go to a bar and some small restuarants near my flat quite often, to eat, drink and 'blow the cow' (a Chinese phrase meaning 'hang out and chat') (or so I'm told). Not speaking enough is the one major problem I face on a daily basis. However, I've been here over 6 months, and the difference is huge. As the final line of the Chinese national anthem goes, 'qian jin!' (surge ahead!)

Nicknames

2007-09-07T14:31:00.000+01:00

The best book I've read about China - River Town - is written by an American guy (Peter Hessler) who spent 2 years here teaching English in the 1990s. He was working in a town with no other foreigners apart from his fellow American teacher. He said over time they developed nicknames for several people in the town, the school, etc, that no one else knew and I've found that my fellow European flatmate and I have done exactly the same. Unfortunately I have no pictures, but a written description is presented below.

The Burger
A Korean student at the uni, so called because a) he's more than a tad lardy, b) in winter he wears a big, brown puffer jacket and c), he appears to have the mental capacity of grilled meat. He always has this dumbfounded look on his face, like he's been airlifted into Xi'an for the first time and has no idea what's going on. He's actually a nice guy, but a complete burger.

Tiger Woods
This is a girl from Thailand at the uni who has a 42-teeth grin just like Tiger Woods. The funny thing is, we both used to think she was pretty. Then after the summer, I said to my flatmate, 'Hey, I saw Tiger Woods today, she doesn't look pretty anymore', and he said he had seen her that day as well and thought exactly the same. While she may have lost her appeal, there's no-one better with a 7 iron.

The Doormat
This is a girl who has been staying in my Chinese flatmate's room recently, so-called because she has a fringe resembling this essential household item - brown, thick, coarse, heavy, all in all, extremely matty. The thing about the girls who dye their hair here, presumably they do it to look a bit different, but they all dye it a pale brown colour. Individuality, Chinese style.

The Duck
This is the Taiwanese guy from the bar last week who quacks when you call his name. It's not really a quack, but it must be the Taiwanese equivalent of 'eh', or 'aye', the sound when you hear someone calling your name. I was there today, and so was he, quacking happily, unsurprising given the recent rain.

FuckYes
This is the Butler's friend (see below) who has been to our flat a couple of times. Typical Chinese girl, a bit mousy, innocent sort of personality. She wanted to learn some English so we taught her 'fuckyes', saying it means 'absolutely right', which is more than a half truth. It's quite funny when she said it with this big smile, thinking she was being so clever with her English. (Her degree, by the way, is English). Next day she phones me up saying she looked in the dictionary and discovered it has alternative meanings. Isn't she clever!

The Butler
Former flatmate who moved out last week, so-called because in the first few weeks of living together he actively volunteered to be butler at any future party. He said he felt no-one respected him, which is probably true, and very unsurprising, given things like when there were lots of people in the flat, he would insist on sitting on the floor. A complete nutcase, I'm not certain his genes are 100% human, there seemed to be a fair amount of plankton in his DNA.

The Truman Show meets Winston Smith

2007-09-01T10:38:00.000+01:00

I've suddenly realised what life has been like recently - I'm Winston Smith [the guy from that book 1984] and I'm in the Truman Show. This has been particularly true in the proceedings concerning the university in the last few weeks, proceedings which came to a head this afternoon. I am pleased to say that, like when Jim Carrey walks through the sky at the end of the film, I have succeeded.

What's been the problem with the university? They said this term's tuition fee is 7300RMB, I said not for me it ain't, because I'm here for one year, and according to last year's tuition fee, my fee should be 5570RMB - a big difference. What's more, they specifically told me in February that the second term's fee was this lower one. They can raise the tuition fee for new students all they like, it doesn't affect me - thus went my water-tight, non-deniable argument.

They've been point-blankly refusing recently to budge on this, throwing up the usual walls - not answering the phone, avoiding me, saying 'mei banfa' ['I have no choice']. Thus last week I didn't even go to the university at all, because talking to them is really extremely similar to talking to a tank stuck in wet cement.

My German flatmate is the same situation. So he went there this morning, and came back and told me all about his 'discussions'. Turns out he'd copied my 'Robert DeNiro-in-the-film-Casino' from last week and gave the two people in the office a talking to, making one of them really angry. But it's easy to understand why, talking to these guys is incredibly exasperating at times. For example, the following mini-conversation took place.

Chinese office person: Everyone has already paid this semester's tuition fee.

German friend: Has he paid? (pointing to his German friend next to him, who hasn't yet paid).

Chinese office person: Everyone has already paid.

German friend: Has he paid?

Chinese office person: No

German friend: So not everyone has paid.

Chinese office person: Everyone apart from him has already paid. You pay now.

Maybe the exasperation doesn't come across, but it really makes you feel all alone, and pull a lot of Tim-from-the-Office type expressions.

So this afternoon I go the office as well and talk to someone a bit higher up. We have the usual rebuttals about how it's not their fault, we want to be friends with you, bla bla bla. I told them, truthfully, that I had yesterday been to the cheaper Xi'an Petroleum University to ask about studying there, and also to the Public Security Bureau to check this was OK. A genuine threat to give them no money at all was my trump card.

We continued discussing and getting nowhere for a bit. One argument they had against giving me the pre-arranged fee was that everyone would then starting wanting it. This is rubbish, because I'm not a new student, and the old students have either already gone home (only here for a semester) or already paid a whole year in advance. I asked them how many students started in February, are here for one year and paid only half in February (i.e., same as me) - she said lots. I said you could maybe you could check your records for an exact number, she said they don't keep such records. I said so how do you know it's lots, she said it's probably lots. I said maybe it's no-one else, she said, yeah, maybe it's no-one else. Great, thanks a lot. Please don't go into law.

Afterwards she said would talk to her colleagues and get back to me on Monday or before. An hour later she phoned me to say they have already discussed it. It's amazing - some things take for ever to get done in China, and others can get done super-fast. They agreed that where was a 'banfa' (solution) after all - funny, that. They agreed that I had made no mistake and will let me continue at the uni for the lower fee, on the condition that my flatmate says sorry for telling them how shit they do things, and that we don't tell anyone else.

I'm sure they all now think I'm the most annoying person ever. But did they really think I was going to let them p*** all over me and let them get away with it? Did they really think that? This was their biggest mistake. I currently feel like Perry Mason after a well-won courtroom drama case.

PS, yesterday I was sitting at the bar, and on my left was a Chinese guy who looked just like Austin Powers, and on my right was a Taiwanese guy who quacked when you called his name. You just gotta love China!!

24 hours in Xi'an

2007-08-25T06:48:00.000+01:00

China is strange. Really, really strange. I regularly wonder what on earth I am doing here. I often feel like I'm in an upside down dream. Sometimes it's a nice feeling, sometimes not. The last 24 hours have just been ridiculous.

I've been thinking of, next term, not going back to study at the university. The teaching is so bad, but more importantly they've raised the tuition fee. For a very simple reason, I should be paying the lower fee from before, but they don't agree. Trying to sort this out is almost impossible. I agreed to meet someone from the office to talk about it, and he just didn't turn up. I phoned him and he said he went out. Hiding from problems rather than dealing with them is really common, and it drives me nuts. What I also find strange, is that when I go in there to ask about this problem, they always pretend this is the first time they've heard it, even though I've spoken to them a few times about it. It's so strange.

So I go to a Chinese language school nearby, where I've been looking to study instead. I wanted to make sure that I could change study places without his affecting my visa. So it's a simple question - Can I legally study in this school? Did I get a simple answer - of course not. Eventually, I get to speak to the boss. She first says, yeh, no problem. But when I pressed her for written proof of this, she started changing tack. It turns out she has no idea about this. She also said it would be better not to tell the university I won't be going back, and suggested I tell them I'm sick, or going travelling with my mother for 4 months. It's so strange - does she really think this is an acceptable solution? Two minutes before, she had said to me, 'I never lie, I'm very honest, bla bla bla'. And then right after she suggests I tell the university a ridiculous lie.

I find this often happens when I talk to people. To start with, everything seems so straight forward. But the more simple questions asked, the more it turns out they are either lying, or don't have the foggiest idea what they are talking about. Also, a lot of people are terrible liars - you can normally rumble them after 5 minutes, and a lot of the people who have lied to me have this habit of laughing and smiling as they lie, so they give themselves away. I'm sure this sounds all rather rude, but I'm just describing my experiences.

So now I have this potentially big problem. I have to go to the Public Security Bureau on Monday to ask them if I can change study places. With the university so far continuing to act without a shred of decency and a huge amount of greed, laziness and stupidity, and this new school seemingly not a whole lot better in terms of how they deal with things, I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place.

So after talking to all these idiots, it was 5 o'clock. Not being in the mood for study, I dropped in to a local bar where I know the bartender. I have a couple of beers, spend most of the time feeling Mao ZeDong's shirt collar on 100 yuan notes to see if they are fake, then head home. Then my German flatmate - Clemens - gives me a call. He says he's had a strange afternoon, and is currently on his way to a club with several random people, they're paying, and do I want to come. I say sure, why not.

Afterwards, I realise why not. I've been to clubs once or twice before in China. It's mostly people sitting around eating watermelon, but still with exceptionally loud music. So before I go I think it would be a good idea to buy a small bottle of baijiu - Chinese vodka - and polish it off on the bus into town. Mistake number One. Baijiu, it turns out, is much stronger than I thought, and my alcohol tolerance has evidently plummeted recently.

So I'm walking to the spot where Clemens was waiting for me. And standing next to him is probably the most attractive girl I've ever seen. According to what Clemens said this morning, my jaw nearly hit the floor when I saw her. Also, wearing board shorts and flip flops probably wasn't the cleverest - mistake number 2.

We go into the club, which seemed to be full of young woman, moneyed middle aged men and the occassional foreigner. Clemens' friends and their friends - mostly fat men - were sitting round a table, where one of some had bought a huge bottle of whiskey or something like that. Seeing as I wasn't paying for it, I had a glass or two (or three) - mistake number 3.

From here on, my recollection is hazy and I was informed of it this morning. This guy wearing fur trousers and a small fur waistcoat came along, and was playing a varient of 'rock-paper-scissors' with these friends for some of the evening. It was quite a good evening, I think. After some time, me, Clemens, and some other people leave and are outside. Apparently, some guy comes out and I started doing my 'Robert DeNiro-in-the-film-Casino' impression, which involves a lot of finger pointing and liberal use of the F word. Mistake number 4. I don't know why he warranted such a talking to, Clemens said he didn't do anything. And as it was his expensive drink we had been drinking and everyone probably now thinks I'm Joe Pesci, I currently feel particularly stupid.

Next thing I know I wake up this morning, still rather drunk. In the flat is XiaoMing - Chinese flatmate - talking to some random guy in the balcony with the door closed, two random girls (XiaoMings classmates) who have been living in our flat for a couple of days sitting on the sofa eating what looked like gruel, and some other random guy in the other Chinese flatmates's room. As usual, I have no idea what's going on. This feeling is normally quite interesting, but with a hangover, it isn't, particularly when you can't for the life of you get hold of a cheese and bacon toastie.

More on economics...

2007-08-18T12:58:00.000+01:00

An excellent article explaining how trade between China and America (and therefore England) really works, and how reporting of this issue in the mainstream press is worse than dreadful.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18201.htm

Its by the same person as before, a former Assistant Secretary to the U.S. Treasury under Reagan, so he's hardly a radical. It's just nice to hear a little bit of intelligence and common sense on an issue otherwise so shrouded in ideological fanaticism and stupidity.

A slow, hot summer

2007-08-13T06:16:00.000+01:00

The last two weeks have been pretty slow. After a reasonably cool phase, it's getting hotter and hotter again. Last week, I thought I had contracted a fever but it turned I was just incredibly hot. I did, however, contract 'laduzi' ('lose bowels') again, and have had it ever since. It's just inconvenient more than anything, having to carry a loo roll everywhere, and timing activities so that every 3-5 hours I am within sprinting distance of a suitable place. I think by year's end I will be able to go to a fancy dress party in what looks like one of those skeleton outfits, but in fact is really just me.

I've been doing some intensive study recently. I haven't spoken a lot of Chinese this month, but have been revising characters and reading a lot. I've discovered I can now more or less read simple newspaper articles. This is enormously satisfying. When I glance across the paper, it just looks less daunting and more familiar than a while ago.

I thought I would read one thoroughly, a rather amusing piece about how an Australian tourist in Beijing collapsed to the ground after being harrassed by a very perserving beggar. On first glance, I could get most of it. Then I went through it with a red pen, underlining all the characters and bits that I didn't fully understand. When I finished, it looked like it had suffered death by firing squad, such was the amount of red ink smattered all over it.

Obviously, Chinese is monstrously difficult. One of the multitude of reasons is that many characters have more than meaning. Used on their own, or with other characters, or in different contexts, their meaning changes, often completely. Another thing is that it's very difficult to tell proper nouns from ordinary words. In English, capital letters give the reader a big clue, but there is no equivalent here, so sometimes you just don't have the foggiest idea. Reading headlines is nearly impossible, I need a picture to give me a headstart.

Yesterday I was practising writing characters. My tutor said that all foreigners write characters very big and like 5 year olds, and I'm no exception. It's quite easy for Chinese people to write English normally, but foreigners writing characters is quite hard. I'm also told that being left-handed makes writing properly impossible, which is really great news.

So I'm at my desk, writing away. And while I like doing this, it is pretty boring. It was really hot, and I was pretty tired anyway, so I just thought I would rest my head on the desk for a bit. 3 hours later, I wake up and for a fraction of a second I thought I was blind, but it turns out it was just the paper stuck to my forehead. If only I could get vocabulary to stick in my head as firmly as that paper was stuck to my forehead, I would be sorted.

Besides this, I have been tutoring a kid English. Unfortunately, he has gone back to Shanghai this weekend, so my income has disappeared. Although I can't say I enjoyed it hugely, it was pretty easy and he was a really nice kid. Last week, he said 'After playing basketball, I am hot, so I like to drink a glass of beard'. He got mixed up with 'beer', but it's still quite funny even if he had said beer, he's 10 years old. It does at least mean I don't have to take taxis to his house anymore. I am getting less and less used to the driving here, and more specifically the pedestrians. Some of them just do not look when crossing the road. It is something I really don't get, walking around like they're in a deserted field, seemingly not noticing the hordes of buses, taxis, cars, mopeds, scooters, bikes, rickshaws heading their way.

Last week, I went out and about and discovered a nice park not far from my flat. It was only half finished, so had plenty of trees and grass, had quite a nice 'garden' feel about it. Because it hasn't been properly opened, and not yet completely covered in fake marble paving stones and bathroom tiles, there was no-one there. I still think I need to get out of Xi'an - my German flatmate has been on holiday 4 times in less than 6 months, I haven't been further than an hour outside of town. First, however, I need some bowel stablisation before I can consider such a move.

China's economic hold on America?

2007-08-13T05:49:00.000+01:00

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18154.htm

This is something written by a former Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury Department about how China's huge reserves of dollars give it potential power over US policy making.

A sentence in the final paragraph is quite interesting. "It is paradoxical that Washington is putting pressure on China to raise US consumer prices [by wanting China to revalue the yuan], while blaming China for harming Americans [jobs offshored to China]." Of course it's paradoxical and makes no sense, but it doesn't stop people in the media from continuing to write such rubbish. The yuan, being valued as it is, does make for a huge trade deficit for America and the UK, but if it was revalued down, the deficit would fall, but all the products made in China and consumed in USA/UK would become more expensive. You can't have it both ways! And while moving manufacturing jobs to China does harm ordinary people, it works great for the business elite.

My opinion, for what it's worth, is that China is unlikely to do anything to upset world markets, i.e., upset America. There are a lot of people making huge amounts of money on both sides of the Pacific at the moment, and I don't see any reason why they themselves would want to jeopardise that.

My TV big break

2007-08-01T12:48:00.000+01:00

So this weekend I made my break into Chinese television, starring in Shaanxi TV's production 'Jie Hun Yang Nu Shu' (I still don't know what this means). It was at times pretty frustrating but mostly extremely interesting and a very well spent weekend.

The other actors were as follows: 'my fiancee', the director's daughter; 'her brother', a cool guy who was actually a really good actor; 'her mother', an extremely Chinese looking middle-old aged woman - short, dignified, poised; 'my teacher', played by the director; and my favourite one, 'her dad'. This guy had smoked so many cigarettes in his life that he had one of those splendid smokers' coughs that make you wonder how they are still alive. The inside of his face must have be lined with an inch of tar, because he was just incapable of changing his expression, which is something of a setback when you are trying to act. For the whole two days, the director was shouting at him to express at least some emotion. This guy is a cop in real life, and suitably corrupt, so he got us some donkey meat (illegal in China) to eat on Sunday. It's actually really good, but apparently if you eat too much it makes your nose bleed.

Both days got off to cracking starts. I'm told the director will call me at 7am both days to say when to meet up. Both days he calls around 8, and says we'll meet at around 9.30. So that 6.30 weekend wake-up was really worth it. And on Sunday morning, we were driving in one of those Rascal mini-vans looking for a cake shop to film a scene with me happily walking out of it with 'my fiancee'. It took for ever to find it, and sitting in the front of a car with an increasingly irate Chinese driver is not a pleasant experience, I just do not know how he did not kill at least several pedestrians.

On Saturday morning we drove out to a smaller town about an hour away to film a scene at a bus station. After eventually finding one in the early afternoon, I dusted off my actor's hat. It turns out I didn't dust it off very well, because when I saw a recording of the scene on the camera, I was reminded why I sat out a Lower Sixth Form History production of Martin Luther and the Reformation. Do I really look like that? Do I really sound like that? My voice is very un-microphone friendly anyway, and with a Chinese local language coming out of it, it's even more offensive to the ear. I saw myself on the camera for a few seconds, and no more for the rest of the weekend.

Then we went back to Xi'an to a show flat to film most of the scenes. It was meant to be mine and 'my fiancee's', but the garish purple and orange furniture made me feel very uncomfortable. As for the acting, it was getting increasingly difficult. Due to the fannying around that seems so much a part of life here, it was already late afternoon when we started, and it was clear time was short with so much to film. It was very difficult for me even to remember my lines, because it was in a language I don't understand. A lot of my stuff was filmed one line at a time. One scene I was reading a newspaper and had the cunning idea of holding the script inside the newspaper, but apparently it was poking out the top.

It's also quite difficult because the director and the camera guys refused to inform me about anything. So they'd be talking to each other, then stop, there's a silence, and it turns out that I'm meant to speak. The thought of them letting me in on this rather uesful information forever escaped them, so I had to increasingly impolitely ask them to let me know what was happening. They also never said 'action' or anything like that, we were somehow meant to guess when to start.

The last scene was horrible, I just could not understand anything of what I was saying, could hardly say it, and the some of the people were obviously looking at their watches, so I switched to using a language that I know and they (hopefully) don't and told them where a good place to put that watch might be.

As for my acting, I'm reminded of someone's comment about John Nettles, the main guy in Midsummer Murders - 'he looks like he's auditioning for the part of a comatose patient'. The director kept asking me to look more happy. I felt like Mr Burns, I was smiling my arse off and he's still asking for me to crank up the happiness. My face was sore afterwards. Tom Martyn does not do happy, he does brooding and wronged. I ended Day One in a mini-actors' huff.

Day Two

After the aforementioned cake incident, we went to the directors' hometown, a tiny village in the middle of the countryside. The countryside is the poor, unwanted half of China that is completely forgotten about by those in the cities and outside of China. I loved it. Lots of corn fields with tall green stalks, trees all around, fresh air, less noise, laid back. When I wasn't filming I just wandered round, watching an old man feeding his goat along a path, talking to old people sitting outside their front doors doing nothing in particular. The kids there had never seen a 'waiguoren' (foreigner) before, so they were genuinely excited to see me, there were loads of them crowding round and watching when we were filming.

We filmed a scene of me walking merrily along the side of a field with 'my fiancee' when some kids come along and give me flowers and I play with them and point to my funny big nose and we sing songs together and jump and dance and, oh my, everything is so gosh darn happy! Of course I felt like a complete idiot and was mighty relieved when that was over. After, we went for lunch in the director's mother's home. Being invited into these guys' houses with people who live there was a high quality experience.

We filmed a scene in the courtyard of a traditional Chinese countryside house. During this scene, the 'dad' was even worse than normal thanks to his sporting consumption of 'baijiu' (Chinese vodka-like drink) over lunch. All the people crowding round were laughing at him and by Chinese accent.

Eventually we had to leave the countryside, but we still had to film a scene inside a flat. So we went back to film to some random flat. On entering this flat, I very nearly vomited up my donkey meat. There were several huge photos of the young couple who lived there in those 'his-and-hers' type photos, with them gazing into the middle distance against a blue background, holding teddy bears and wearing white and pink. There was a HUGE one above their bed, it really was the most foul thing ever conceived. I didn't know I would be filming this scene, and accordingly didn't appropriate clothing. So me and 'my fiancee' and I are lying on the bed, having a chat before lights out, and I'm wearing a pair of very short shorts borrowed from some guy and the same white shirt I had been wearing all day. It's going to look dreadful on TV, me having the same shirt on, on supposedly different days of the week.

After a further slightly fraught piece of filming on Monday night, we had finally finished. It was a really cool experience, incredibly interesting, good Chinese practice, but mainly it had given me a great opportunity to go to the countryside with people who knew it. All I have to do now is wait for those Hollywood offers to roll in...

3 Sunday specials, including match-making Chinese style.

2007-07-22T14:08:00.000+01:00

1)
After coming back home from buying some dumplings this morning, I see XiaoMing (very strange flatmate) sitting on the sofa apparently watching the TV. Only it becomes immediately clear that he is 'watching' and listening to the walkman he has placed on top. The TV was broken, so he put his walkman on top and was listening to an English language cassette. So we're sitting there in silence, both listening to different ways to sum up a business meeting, watching a blank TV. I asked him how much of it he was understanding, he said 'not a word'. Excellent.

2)
I've been learning the script today for the TV programme I'm making next week for the local TV station. It's a one-off soap opera. I play a foreigner planning to get married to a local girl, and it charts the conflicts and passions aroused as my (Australian) culture clashes with that of her traditional Chinese parents. But in the end, I learn how to slurp my noodles and shout loudly in restaurants, so we get her parents' consent.

The director said to me there's only 2 or 3 speaking lines, and even if I could not speak any Chinese it wouldn't matter. Either he is stupid or lying, because I have 63 lines, which will be impossible to remember in Chinese. And better still, it's in the local language, not Mandarin. So it's a bit like learning Italian for 5 months and then being expected to speak Latin. However, I expect this will be my big break into North West China acting circles, and no doubt will, in a few years, be appearing on Parkinson, retelling humorous vignettes about my early acting career.

3)
This afternoon the blue sky appeared, so I went for a wonder round the city, and came across 'The Revolutionary Park' somewhere in the middle of Xi'an. The first thing you notice when going in to most Chinese parks is how incredibly noisy they are. Rest and relaxation? No thanks, deafness for me please! One section had loads of kids' amusement things with exceptionally loud pop music blasting out, and this was competing with the old people performing Beijing opera in another section of the park. While Beijing opera is truly horrendous (think several cats in golf course style lawn mower), it's pretty interesting to watch. Apart from the amusement things, it was actually really nice, quite big so plenty of places to wonder round. Lots of greenery, tropical trees, ruins of old Chinese buildings - not a bathroom tile in sight.

The best thing, though, was a huge group of people looking earnestly at pieces of paper hanging on string between trees and attached to the trees themselves. I wandered over, noticing that nearly everyone was at least 40 or so. Then one of the people talked to me, and I discovered what was going on - a matchmaking service. It was lots of mothers come to find a girl/boy friend for their as yet unattached son or daughter, scribbling down contact information on scraps of paper. All the hanging pieces of paper were like things you get in newspapers - 'woman, 35, seeks etc,etc'. I asked if the 25-40 year olds in question come themselves, and said 'oh, no no no!' It's perfectly normal here, I guess, for mothers to 'assist' in the 'finding significant other' process. There were very, very few people under 40. I felt slightly odd.

I talked to quite a few people there (one guy was telling me why Diana and Charles' marriage didn't work out, he was surprised to learn that Harry's father is not really Charles). Everyone kept asking me, often with a wink, if I had come to find someone myself. When they found out I was 23, they all scoffed and said 'too young, too young!' It was definitely clear from all the name lists that this sort of drastic action need only apply to those in their late 20s and above.

Reading the adverts was really interesting. By far and away the most important thing appearance-wise is height. This is listed right at the top, other physical attritutes weren't normally listed. They were very precise - 'must be 1.58m or taller', etc. On some of them that was the only information listed. When people meet me, the first thing they comment on is how tall I am, and therefore handsome. (This isn't arrogance, all foreigners, despite appearance, get told how handsome they are. It gets very tiring after the initial novelty wears off).

Other 'yaoqiu' [demands/requests] are extremely frank. Mostly the women are looking for someone with a) a good, stable income b) a house c) 'culture' (education level). Personality traits, like generous and kind hearted, etc, if mentioned at all, came after the material, matter-of-fact things. Likewise, men were usually more interested in the financial condition of a prospective wife than her personality.

It's a pretty interesting place, I might go back again. But I'll be sure to bring ear muffs and tape measure.

More propaganda from British newspapers [you know you've been in China too long when... is below]

2007-07-20T14:08:00.000+01:00

Just seen this gem of propoganda in the Guardian...

"As the stage lights were turned on for Shanghai's Live Earth concert yesterday, 200,000 residents of Shuyang county in Jiangsu were getting used to water again after a chemical spill halted supplies for 40 hours. There are reports of riots, demonstrations and petitions in China, reflecting its people's anger at living with pollution.

Meanwhile, Live Earth itself has been an extraordinary success; hundreds of millions have watched, heightening awareness that we must act to protect the planet. For decades blame has been heaped on the United States - 5 per cent of the world's population causing 20 per cent of the world's carbon dioxide emissions - but now China has grown into the world's worst polluter.

In 2006 China sent 6.2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere compared with the US's 5.8 billion tonnes. By comparison Britain emitted 600 million tonnes. The truth is that despite the exhortations of Al Gore and all yesterday's charismatic rock stars, unless China changes its ways, the planet will continue to get hotter.

The problem is that, as Ma Jun, China's top environmental campaigner tells The Observer today, there are no independent courts, no free media and no system of political accountability, and China's companies have no sense of corporate responsibility. Unless the communist political system changes, the Chinese people, like the rest of us, can expect its economy to remain filthy. The next Live Earth Day will have to campaign for democracy in China - to save the planet."

I draw your attention to the last paragraph in particular, which Herr Goebbels [Nazi propaganda minister] himself would have been proud of. There first sentence implies that China has none of the listed things, but Britain (and Western countries) do. England has independent courts? What about the BAE affair? Free media? How can a media be 'free' when it's primary function is to maximise profits for shareholders (not necessarily report accurately and appropriately), and when it is funded by adverts from budget airlines, car manufacturers and the like?

Political system of accountability? It takes a really well indoctrinated 'journalist' to write this rubbish and not see the problem. What does Tony Blair get for assisting the killing of thousands of people and ignoring issues people are most concered about? A job as peacemaker. And the last one shows, I think, the incredible stupidity induced by being an white middle/upper class elite. 'Corporate responsibility'. Anyone who has studied any basic economics, or even has just common sense, can see that this is a nonsense. Corporations exist to maximise profit, that is what they are. If 'being responsible' fits in with this goal, they will act accordingly. If not, they won't. Bemoaning Chinese companies for lack of responsiblity, while probably true, is a waste of time.

The last sentence means only democracy in China can save the planet. Maybe a genuine democracy, yes, but presumably the idiot writing this drivel was referring to the glorious democracy that exists in Britain, where you have one vote every 5 years from a hopelessly limited range and have no say at all on the vast majority of matters. This democracy is, also, presumably the democracy that we enjoy spreading to other countries, like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Jordan, Morocco, Uganda, Hong Kong (before 1997), etc.

And there are some more obvious problems. China has the world's biggest population, so it being the biggest polluter is hardly surprising. Also, if you took China away and put it on the Moon, the planet would still continue to get hotter. And where do a lot of the polluting factories' products go? The European market.

The article shows the usual zero understanding of local conditions. Most Chinese people over 40, and even today hundreds of million more, grew up in poverty, where getting enough to eat was the main concern. Now the country is enjoying prosperity for the first time in a long time. Yes, it's filthy and dirty, but getting a decent standard of living comes first - look at European cities' development. Do you really expect the Chinese leaders to jeopordise that?

And the idea that China needs to do something about it, but Britain doesn't really because it only produces 600 million tonnes or whatever. This is an abject shirking of responsibility. How many Chinese leaders and common people are sitting in their teahouses reading The Observer or Guardian on a Sunday morning? I suspect the answer is near to nil, thus making the exhortation within the article - 'Hey, China, clean up your act' - absolutely worthless. What would be more useful would be writing something that can have an effect i.e., something directed at the people who are reading it, i.e., British people.

Of course China should change it ways, but this sort of blame-shifting article is a) pointless and b) an example of the subtle propaganda present in Western reporting.

You know you've been in China too long when...

2007-07-18T10:53:00.000+01:00

You know you've been in China too long when...

(some of a facebook group, some of my own, all ones i agree with)

1) You walk backwards in a park, clapping your hands in front and behind you, listening to a transistor radio

2) You believe the following are medically beneficial / true
- walking backwards
- eating vegetables (soaked in oil)
- you can tell the sex of a pregnant woman's child by taking her pulse
- you shouldn't brush your teeth for 28 days after giving birth
- eating cloves of garlic with every meal

3) All white people look the same to you.

4) You call other foreigners 'laowai' (Chinese for foreigner).

4a) When you see another foreigner, you look them up and down notice their huge arse / yellow hair.

5) You think a 30 year old woman who wears Helly Kitty flip flops is cute.

6) It's OK to throw rubbish, including old fridges, from your 18th floor window.

7) You believe that pressing the lift button 63 times and jumping up and down will make the lift move faster / doors open quicker.

8) You push your way into a crowded bus/lift before letting other people off.

8a) It becomes exciting to see if you can get on the lift / bus before anyone can get off.

9) You aren't aware that one is supposed to pay for software.

10) You think that 3 pounds for a pair of shorts is a rip-off.

11) You have no reservations about spitting sunflower seeds on the restaurant / bar floor.

12) You feel cheated if you don't receive a full head and shoulder massage when getting a haircut.

13) You no longer wait in line, but go immediately to the head of the queue.

14) You have developed an uncontrollable urge to follow people carrying small flags.

15) You regard it as part of the adventure when the waiter correctly repeats your order and the cook makes something completely different.

16) You are not surprised when three men with a ladder show up to change a light bulb.

17) You look over other peoples shoulder to see what they are reading .

18) You honk your horn at people because they are in your way as you drive down the pavement.

19) When car accidents become a source of heartwarming humour.

19a) When an 'incident' occurs on the street you gather round and stare gormlessly.

20) You have learnt how to detect someone is in a hurry behind you, and now have the ability to not only walk very slowly but also grow eyes in the back of your head, so when they start to overtake on the right hand side, you automatically cut in and walk very slowly directly in front of them.

21) You have absolutely no sense of traffic rules.

22) You start cutting off large vehicles on your bicycle.

23) The last time you visited your mother, you gave her your business card.

24) You go to the local shop in pyjamas.

25) When looking out the window, you think “Wow, so many trees!” instead of “Wow, so much concrete!”

26) You think “white pills, blue pills, and pink powder” is an adequate answer to the question “What are you giving me, doctor?”

27) Firecrackers don't wake you up.

28) Forks feel funny.

29) You only wear a suit when you dig ditches or do home repairs.

30) Your handshake is weakening by the day.

31) You compiled a 3-page list of weird English first names that Chinese people of your acquaintance have chosen for themselves.

32) You cannot say a number without making the appropriate hand sign.

33) You feel insulted when you enter a restaurant and only three waiters welcome you.

34) When you get on a plane you quickly run for your pre-assigned seat.

35) You can justify drinking 9 laopi [beer] instead of 6 qingpi because it's 1 kuai [ 8 pence] cheaper.

36) When you think it is normal to give money to the turtles in the gardens and not to the homeless.

37) You believe smoking in the gym improves your cardiovascular workout.

38) You want to corner any foreigners you see to practice your English.

39) When you consider tiling the outside of your house with bathroom tiles.

40) You talk incredibly loudly on the phone, particularly on a crowded bus and in local dialect.

41) You're in the market and notice how expensive everything is.

42) You remember to take your tissues with you to the restaurant to wipe the sweat from your forehead afterwards.

43) When you walk round your flat in socks and flip-flops and don't feel like an idiot.

44) Somebody you met 5 minutes ago, introduces you as their "best friend".

45) You make 'best friends' with someone, exchange phone / QQ numbers and never hear from your new best friend again.

46) When you think warm beer and hot water are refreshing and healthy.

47) You no longer get pissed off at hearing how 'shuai' [handsome] you are or how 'li hai' [great] you are.

48) When you notice an attractive girl in short denim shorts, small top and high heels eyeing you up, you accept it's purely because a) the weather is hot and b) you have a very hairy face and big nose.

49) You want to be different and so dye your hair light brown like everyone else.

50) The lorry that sprays water on the road and plays the 'Happy Birthday' tune like a ringtone is no longer annoying.

51) You stop saying please, thank you and sorry, and subsitute them with en, ur and huh.

52) When you can talk on the phone for 20 minutes and only say "en"

53) When you start thinking, "what car shall i buy? A black 1983 Volkswagen Santana".

54) When you start saying how 'mang' [busy] you are because somebody asked you to do something and you're going to have to stop chatting online at work for 10 minutes.

55) When you see a child having a whizz in the lift / on the street is no longer disgusting.

56) When you start thinking that kids trousers with a slit in the back for excrement omittance is a good idea.

57) You wear pink plastic flip-flops.

58) You call the clouds of pollution 'fog'.

59) You say 'Aye-yaaaaaa!' unnecessarily loudly whenever anyone says something disagreeable.

60) When a problem arises you say 'zenme ban' [what should we do?], quickly followed by 'mei banfa' [there's nothing that can be done], then go to the net bar to play counter strike and forget about it.

61) You refer to the computer game Counter Strike as CS.

62) You've learnt how to spin a pen on your finger like Chinese kids can.

63) You think reading comic books in a bar is cool.

64) You stopped checking your weather on the BBC website, because opening it every day has caused all your internet actions to be censored.

65) You're no longer surprised that when ordering a beer, first comes the glass, then the beer, then a short while after the beer opener.

66) You're no longer surprised when, after asking for said beer opener, the waiter looks at you with a 'Shit, you're clever, that's a good idea' look.

67) You're no longer surprised when ordering food, the dishes will come first, followed 45 later minutes by the rice.

68) You think people are handsome just because they are tall.

69) You start using the word 'handsome'.

70) You say 'How to spell', instead of 'How do you spell'.

71) You refer to things as 'ke ai' [lovely, cute, nice], particularly in the presence of other men.

72) You walk at a mind-numbingly slow speed and block the whole sidewalk despite being wafer thin.

73) When watching a film you laugh uproariously at the most inane thing and insist on pointing it out to your foreign friend, explaining exactly why it is amusing.

74) You need a break after your lunch break.

75) You can't use a mobile phone without something red hanging from it.

76) You start using the word 'oral' instead of 'spoken/speaking'.

77) When you realize you cant take a photo without raising your hand into a "V" sign and saying 'aubergine' in Chinese everytime.

78) When you think taking pictures of your friends on campus standing next to bins / lampposts / table tennis tables / gates constitutes fun.

79) Liquid or flaky poo is normal. Solid ones are looked upon with suspicion.

80) When the concept of punctuality has disappeared from your thought process.

81) You can automatically avoid stepping on those loose paving stones that spit up water when you step on it.

82) You think sleeping on a wooden bed sheet is comfortable and cooling.

83) You feel the uncontrollable urge to hurt something once you're asked what you think about 'DaShan' [an ugly Canadian whose head is 85% forehead and speaks perfect Chinese, a celebrity in China].

84) You're no longer surprised to see 22 year old male university students wearing David Beckham Tshirts.

85) You start to believe you actually could be the most handsome or beautiful foreigner known to man.

86) You can start to tell the difference between Koreans and Chinese.

87) You dont' even notice anymore when the lady going through your rubbish stops to answer her mobile phone.

88) You aren't suprised to walk into an office and find everyone either sleeping or eating.

89) You carry your phone in a case on your belt. You'd put it in your man-bag but that's full of cigarettes, plus the zip breaks easy on fake LV bags.

90) You think it's cool to book a table in a night club and sit and watch everyone else having a good time.

91) Putting ice into your beer with a teaspoon no longer makes you feel homosexual.

92) You're able to write characters on the table with your finger to explain your meaning.

93) You don't notice the people at 3 am watching the goings-on at the building site next to your apartment.

94) You think that the utter crap sold at tourist sites is good quality merchandise.

95) You've realised you can't run anymore.

96) All your light coloured shirts are stained.

The following are based on, but with personal amendments and additions from me, some guy on Facebook called Kirk Dougnalds. All genius observations.

93) You roll up parts of your clothing.

94) You think a chicken's foot is the best bit.

95) You enjoy a 'man stand' (standing with other men, doing nothing except spitting and smoking).

96) You wait (impatiently) for a 'xiaojie' to re-rack your balls on the pool table.

97) You state simple observational facts about yourself for conversation. Such as, 'wo hen lei' [I'm tired] or 'wo hen leng/re' [I'm cold/hot].

98) You prefer QQ [Chinese MSN]. Especially with the volume on.

99) You leave your apartment door wide open when u are home (particularly with the above).

100)You hate Japan vehemently.

101) You need glasses.

102) You start sitting 4 inches from the TV and still squint.

103) You think bars and clubs are places of evil.

104) You can't speak English very well.

105) You can speak the local dialect.

106) You say 'I know' to things you didn't know.

107) You say 'maybe' before stating a fact.

108) You start lying to avoid losing face.

109) A half pint of beer looks like a bucket.

110) You stop thinking about sex.

111) You think a man-made lake is very beautiful.

112) You think it's a good idea to wear high heels / jeans/ suit when climbing a mountain.

113) You think climbing 7kms of stone steps up a mountain in 35 degree heat is relaxing.

114) You open a window on the bus to avoid catching a cold, despite the fact it is freezing.

115) You start saying 'Bah bah' instead of 'bye'.

116) You think contact sports are very dangerous.

117) You feel embarrassed to split the bill.

118) You don't like quiet restaurants.

119) You interrupt peoples' conversations.

120) You think it's reasonable to yell out for a waiter's attention.

121) You don't allow your rucksack to touch the floor.

122) You insist on sitting on a book when sitting on something outside.

123) You get drunk on 1 pint of Western beer.

124) You continually say 'gan ma'.

125) You feel comfortable touching and being extremely close to people of the same sex.

126) You refer to your friends as siblings.

127) You roll up your t-shirt to reveal your fat stomach after a good meal.

2007-07-18T10:16:00.000+01:00

So yesterday I thought I'd give my new 'fan in a box' a try. It's this contraption which is a bit like a fan in a box, and you put cold water and ice packs inside, so when it's turned on, it blasts out cold air, instead of warm air like an ordinary fan does. To start with, my room temperature was 29.1 degrees. After 30 minutes 10 inches in front of the fan, the temperature reader was reading 29.0 degrees, a truly enormous change, producing igloo-like conditions in my room. And because it's quite noisy, it has to be turned off when trying to sleep anyway. Another quality Chinese product.

What have I been doing recently? Not a huge amount. Have 2 hours of Chinese lessons in the morning with a 'tutor' (Masters student), going through an intermediate level textbook. So it ensures I continue to make progress. I've been working a lot on my 'fayin' (pronunciation) recently, I have successfully learnt how to pronounce previously unpronouncable sounds, but I know I still have a horrible foreign accent. I've also started writing things again, and having them corrected. Learning new words, grammar, and using them both correctly is only half the challenge - the style of writing in Chinese is very different, and obviously incredibly hard to imitate. I think I could write a grammatically perfect essay and it would still be obviously penned by a foreigner.

Last week, I made 2 mistakes. One, agreed to teach English to some kids for a few days, and two, agreed to teach English to one rich kid for the summer. I've finished with the group of kids, and this week started with the rich kid. I teach him for 6 hours a week, 3 times a week. He's only 10, but really bright and already speaks decent English, much better than my flatmate whose 'major' is English. Today he corrected my spelling ('switches'). I tutor him in his house, and his mum sits next to him during the lesson. But today she gave me a Cornetto after the lesson, so it must be going OK. I got him to label everything with post-it notes today, that took up quite some time. Maybe next week I'll get him to label everything in the bathroom - 'What's this? That's right, it's a bog brush'.

Apart from this, I spend a lot of time reading Chinese, re-reading things, speaking to random people, and wandering around Xi'an on a bike. The bike allows what is a hectic, dirty, and stifflingly hot place to become a leisurely and relaxing city. It's all about the old fashioned handlebars that point in. I feel like I'm in cycling round Cambridge with deck shoes and a jumper tied round my shoulders, until I see an old man walking backwards across the road and realise that I am, indeed, in China.

News reporting on China

2007-07-03T08:44:00.000+01:00

Every week I read all the articles about China from the main British newspapers. The thing that strikes me most is the abysmal standard of reporting. I know mainstream journalists are mostly pretty indoctrinated (you have to be to get that high up), but they're obviously pretty lazy as well. I know the Telegraph main China guy gave up learning Chinese because it was too hard. He's meant to be this fountain of knowledge about China, and can't even speak to 99.9% of Chinese people.

And a couple of weeks ago there was a big story in a place 200kms outside of Beijing. The reporter, this time from the Guardian, relied 100% on Xinhua, the Chinese government news agency, for all the information. How about getting on a train and going there to find out for yourself? It's very noticeable how they use Xinhua when it suits them, for reasonably non-political stuff. Here, Xinhua is treated as reliable. But when it comes to more overtly politically-orientated stuff, Xinhua is referred to as 'the state controlled Xinhua', or 'government-controlled Xinhua', implying that, now, Xinhua is not useful as a source of accurate information. Personally, I'm sure Xinhua is rubbish, but then the British reporting is not far behind.

This week was the 10th anniversary of the return of Hong Kong. For 3 days there was nothing else on the news channel. I can't understand a lot of it, but the gist was 'HK is better, stronger, richer than before, also rightfully ours, so we're very happy'. That's fair enough, you wouldn't expect them to talk much about democracy and that sort of thing. It seems Beijing has mostly left it alone anyway, it's too much of a good thing for them to interfere in and mess up.

The reporting on it from this idiot in the Guardian, though, was an example of how indocrtrinated elites are. Here's the article - http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,,2115315,00.html

The first half is a sort of grudging acceptance that the Chinese didn't cock it up as predicted. The second half is almost Orwellian. And the second half is moaning about the lack of democracy. The last two paragraphs are as follows :

"On both sides of the border, there is more money, inequality and frustration. With neither administration elected by universal suffrage and both focusing on business interests, they increasingly resemble unpopular plutocracies.

"The collusion between rich people and the government is accelerating," said Leung Kwok Hung, the only popularly elected Marxist among the 1.3bn population of China. "We have a more divided society than ever. The gap between the rich and poor is widening.""

If you change the first few words from 'on both sides of the border' to 'In the UK', you would have a pretty accurate picture of affairs in England. England is richer, more unequal, and people feel they have no influence on government (eg, Iraq Adventure). Only 59% of people vote. Government is so obviously here to support leading British companies (eg, BAE-Saudi issue), it hardly needs clarifying. The last two sentences of the second paragraph are a pinpoint description of Britain. In HK, this situation is a disaster, but in the UK, its so widely accepted it's not even noticed.

It seems that this contradiction is just totally missed by this journalist. If he had half a brain that he cared to use, he would realise the proposterous nature of the rubbish he is writing. The idea that the UK government is somehow 'committed to democracy' is just absolute, utter rubbish, in England and especially abroad. Britain had 150 years to introduce democracy to HK, and chose not to. Why expect the Chinese to do so, especially as they're so evil and horrible anyway.

There's a phrase in Chinese - 'shuo san dao si 说三道四' - literally, say 3, do 4, ie., say one thing and do another. The Chinese government does it, but the idea that the British do it is just not acceptable in the higher levels of society, even when it is so glaringly obvious.

Food stuff

2007-07-03T08:37:00.000+01:00

These are pictures of 'malatang'. This was just after my week of no eating, hence the skeletal appearance. Your table has a big bowl in the middle, heated underneath, which is divided into two different soup things, one spicy, one not. You then go a select your food, all of which is on sticks. The funny thing is it all looks different but tastes more or less the same. Then you go back and put all the sticks with food on into the soups, then when you eat it, you pull it off the sticks with your chopsticks, dip in the bowl with peanut butter stuff in, then eat it, all the time being buffeted by steam from the soup. I like it mainly because it's funny trying to eat it, as well the lively atmosphere in the restaurant.

Rock concert

2007-07-03T08:13:00.001+01:00

This was a music 'festival' the other day in a field outside Xi'an. Like most things here, it was great not because of any intrinsic quality but because it's just so strange, interesting, and different. You never know what's going to happen.

For the first few acts, the people at the front were all sitting on the floor. True party animals, these guys. My flatmate is the worst for this. To digress a little, we went to another music thing the other day, and when he was telling me beforehand about it, he said it would be really good for 2 reasons - a) they have chairs, and b) the chairs will be comfortable. I just find it so funny the a key requirement for a music event aimed at young people is the quality, comfort and ampleness of the seating. So many are just too lazy to stand.

It was mostly rock music, but Act 3 was a middle-aged woman in sequien dress belting out such rock classics as 'Moon River'. Again, I just find this so funny - all these people dressed up in the audience for a night of rock and then their mum comes on stage for an operatic version of Moon River.

Although I do class Moon River as one of the my Desert Island Discs (who doesn't?), I thought that would be a good time to check out the grounds. There was a lake somewhere behind the stage, and when I was walking round it, some old dude grabbed my arm and tried to throw me in it. I broke his grip and walked off, then he picked up a brick and threw it at me (he missed). I retaliated with some colourful English and Chinese swearing, although it's very hard to swear in Chinese when taken by surprise.

After a while (and after the Moon River woman), the people at the front finally got up and started moving, throwing drinks around,etc. The music was OK, nothing incredible, mainly local performers from Xi'an. Had some rappers, some Avril Lavigne impersonators, Guns and Roses, some group doing Libertines stuff. (I've no idea who they are, but my Aussie friend told me).

And then, in something that nicely sums up the petty paranioa of Chinese authorities, the police stopped it 11pm (it was meant to be an all night event) because they were worried it would get out of control. I.e., they were worried people might actually enjoy themselves and do such outrageous things as having a good time. There was no way this event was ever going to get out of control, old people in Crown Bingo on a Sunday morning are more raucus than Chinese students, but they shut it down anyway. So I sat around for a while with some Chinese friends eating lollipops and hiding under umbrellas becuase of the light drizzle (again, hilarious).

And you thought Glasto was good.

Cycling in China

2007-07-03T07:46:00.001+01:00

My friend was given a bike recently, and I've taken it out for a spin a couple of times. It's a big ugly black old thing called 'erbai dalu' with those old-fashioned handlebars pointing in. When you cycle past people, you sometimes hear' 'look, foreigner on a bike!'. The young people note how old and horrible the bike is, but the old people give you a knowing nod of respect.

The best thing is the sense of freedom. You can go wherever you like, at whatever speed you like, at whatever time you like. Last week I went into the city centre (about an hour) at 11 at night and spent all night riding round, getting lost in side streets, cycling on empty 4 lane roads, just sampling the summer nighttime atmosphere, etc. Great fun. And like the best things in life, it's free.

The complete lack of bike lights, helmets, reflectors, trousers clips, water bottle on the frame, panniers, and whatever else constitutes cycling in an EU health-and-safety regulated country only adds to the freedom and fun. All you need here is a bike (although the bell comes in handy). I felt like an idiot the first time I rang the bell, but you really have to give it tinkle now and then with all people wandering all over the place.

You can go on either lane of the road or the pavement. If you don't feel like stopping at the red lights, that's cool, no worries. If you want to have a go on the 4 lane roundabout in the middle of the city, that's cool as well, you'll be joined by plenty others.

The strangest thing is that if you ride like a sensible person, you will have trouble. If you make eye contact with people coming on the opposite direction, it promotes indecision so everyone starts wobbling around as you get closer and that's when accidents happen. The best thing is just to ignore everything and keep going - people will (mostly) stop for you. It's very counter-intuitive, and I haven't mastered it yet, but it's surprisingly true.

Classmates

2007-07-03T07:27:00.001+01:00

One of the best things about studying Chinese here is the international atmosphere. Most of the students are Korean. I'm in 2 classes, and the majority are Korean and really nice. I had a good friend from Korea who left the other day, so hopefully I've bagged myself free accommodation for next time I'm in Korea. One time, the lesson was on eating out, and one of the Koreans invited everyone over to their flat that evening, where she cooked loads of really good Korean food. Being a modern day Notre Damus, I decided not to go to class that day, so didn't know about this and heard about it the day after from someone else...

There were loads of Kazakhs here earlier on in the term, but they've all gone home. They were pretty cool, but my Kazakh isn't upto much so conversation was limited. They're pretty friendly to each other, always shaking hands and hugging when seeing each other in the morning. Quite a few of them were always shaking my hand, even though I didn't know them. As long as it didn't get onto hugs, I thought it was great. The coolest guy was the one who, on May 7th, pointed out to my German flatmate that it was VE day. 'Thet vas a real var!'

There's a class of Vietnamese as well, they're all really good at Chinese, and super friendly. One of them is so incredibly friendly, she just talks to everyone and anyone. If I had any money, I'd be going down to Vietnam this summer.

Then there's a few others, a few Aussies, 2 from England, a few from Western Europe and America. The only time I've spoken to one of the Italians is when he asked me if I knew Samantha Fox, apparently she's still big in Italy. There's a couple of guys from Ghana, and I feel sorry for them because being black in China is not easy. There were 3 other English guys here, but because the teaching is so dreadful they left.