Back online

First of all sorry for leaving it so long, but I had no access to WordPress for a month and I didn’t like blogging on Facebook.

WordPress is finally back online after a short absence that nearly threatnened to destroy my motivation to blog. I moved to blogspot.com, but that also went down, then tried blog.com (absolute rubbish) as well as a host of other sites but gave up becuase they are simply not user friendly.

Those who have followed from Facebook are expecting some updates, but you’ll have to wait becuase I have a backlog of posts to put that will never be read if I flood the blog at once, so there will be no ‘new’ posts until the weekend.

What I can say is that I intend to give this blog some direction. I’m going to break it down into seperate categories that will include in depth research of my views of life in China, in addition to the StreeVIEW snapshots. None of my posts will be any longer than 400 words going forward, becuase I don’t want to bore my audience with filler material.

I’m building a personal website in a bid to get some freelance journalism work and so many of the more erudite posts that I make here will become articles that I will try and flog. I will also host my own blog that should not get blocked in future.

Stay tuned, some real news is coming soon.

Sightseeing, Farmers and Censorship

This post should have come online in May but becuase WordPress was down I wasn’t able to put it up. I hope you enjoy it.

After having visited a restricted area on Friday, thanks to the family’s connections to the local Party office, I had high hopes for our guided-tour on Sunday morning before the wedding, provided by the bride for her friends, of the port town of Lüshunkou; better known in the Western world as Port Arthur.

Port Arthur was the scene for one of the defining battles of the 20^th century, the first clash in the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-1905 in which a rising Japan destroyed the Russian Baltic sea fleet and claimed its place on the modern world stage. The history of the port is briefly mentioned in my earlier post Dalian: the Shanghai of the North.

Still raining heavily, we departed in a large Chinese made coach, worthy of a mention for its bizarre and, if it were the UK, highly illegal seating arrangement. Aside from the customary lack of, or lack of access to, seatbelts in public road vehicles, the van had 3 rows of three seats, aisle, and one seat (the back-row spread across the width of the van).

Fine, except that on the edge of the three seats was affixed a folded seat which could be brought down to create a 5-seat row for every row in the van, and allowing absolutely no room to move.

With the visiting party complete, we drove off into the hills and to Port Arthur, where we were expecting a tour of historical monuments and the port itself. However disappointment soon set in as the tour-guide informed us that foreigners were not allowed into any historical monument, or the port itself. Having read the papers, I knew that there were restrictions on movement in China, so I accepted this as just one of those things, but for 2 things.

Firstly was the ‘farmer’ mentality of one of the group. In the UK, we refer to the unruly, criminal, ill-mannered and often undereducated (but this is no means exclusive; those with a good education are also prone to moments of utter stupidity and primeval instincts) as ‘Chavs’.

In China they are called farmers. This mildly derogatory term is used to describe a) a real farmer, and b) people from secondary cities who have urban aspirations, often a university education and money, but who cannot for the life of them behave in a restrained and civilised manner.

Although my disappointment was clear, I didn’t make any public comment, and I agreed even to go instead to a tiger and lion game park at an extortionate cost of 150rmb, £15 pounds!!! But one joker in the group had to open his mouth and preach about how I should accept this and understand that in England Chinese visitors are denied entry to many places.

My only thought was: has this guy actually ever been to the UK. Where British tourists can go, so can Chinese – once they get their visa there are no visiting restrictions that are not applied to other tourists. In fact foreign tourists are able to see more of the country than I am because they are in a position to pay £20 to visit Windsor Castle, Buckingham Palace and all the other over-priced attractions.

But this ‘farmer’ mentality was furthered evidenced at the lion and tiger zoo, which I found to be ubeliveably inhumane. I’m not going to preach on the rights and wrongs of zoos, or say that developing nations should not be allowed them until they can improve animal welfare. From my visit to an Aquarium and this Zoo, my personal opinion is that all zoos are wrong, and that using animals for human amusement in this way is shockingly wrong.

His actions, and that of many other tourists from other groups, many of them real farmers, were to punch the windows of the van and to make irritating noises to try and stir the animals into life. This was the same at the other places, where he kept hitting the screens of the display units. I’ve lost this will to write anymore on this topic.

Anyhow, later in the day I discovered to my absolute frustration that I wasn’t declined entry to these historical monuments, but not the animal places, for any security reasons, but because the local tourist board did not deem the attractions of high enough standard to be open to Western tourists, i.e. they were afraid of losing face.

So the secret thrill I felt of the two attractions I did sneak into, by pulling up my hood and pretending to sleep in the back of the van when the gate-masters counted how many persons were on board – to see a huge concrete bullet shaped pagoda and an arms depot in the cliffs, where we found two women standing isolated in the pouring rain under an umbrella trying to sell photos, despite zero-visibility – was stolen away cruelly.

StreetVIEW: No football please, we’re Chinese

Now pay close attention class. I would like you to study the photo below of a typical urban junior school in China, and note some general observations.

The more eagle-eyed among you will have noticed the glaring absence of a football field from the large, if faded, sports field, which clearly includes a running track and two basketball courts.

This is because in a country obsessed with overseas football, notably the Premiership on the UK – as well as being susceptible to marketing promotions worthy of any American sports franchise – watching is one matter, playing is very much another.

Chinese football is a shambles. The national team have only ever qualified for one World Cup (2002) and failed to win a game. Since then they have been unable to make any impression whatsoever in the qualifying stages, never making the second round.

To boot, their domestic game is as corrupt, inefficient and flooded with shoddy foreign imports as Poland’s – including a burgeoning hooligan scene. It got so bad that last year the only domestic TV station which showed the Chinese Superleague decided to halt broadcasting in protest at frankly an embarrassing spectacle.

So the best way to address the problem and improve the quality of the domestic game is to build a basketball court in every single village of the country, right? We’ll that’s what the government, in association with the sports ministry, announced last year.

I mean what’s easier: give some kids a round durable ball suitable for all surfaces, to kick around absolutely anywhere or build high-maintenance facilities that require a ball suited to a singular purpose?

But you can’t blame them in a way, because China’s famed export machine has actually shipped out some top-quality basketball stars, most notably Yao Ming, center for the Houston Rockets. Unlike the gimmicky fads in football, Dong Fangzhou signing for Manchester United for example – that are soon exposed to be the marketing gimmicks they are – Ming and a few other Chinese players are actually good enough to play in the NBA.

Ming is in himself a business industry in China, a country that promotes its sporting icons to another level altogether, and after his recent injury an entire army of Chinese reporters had to turn back home. Chinese TV stations complained that his absence would reduce viewing figures for their sports programmes, affecting ad rates.

It would be easy to scorn that glorifying a single sporting success is the exclusive act of a developing nations, but in England too we are so desperate for success that we are willing to even glorify curling.

China Transport Watch: Hongqiao Airport

Shanghai’s second airport, Hongqiao, is located in Puxi – Western – side of Shanghai, about a 30 min cab ride from the commercial centre. Betraying its non-commercial origin, the airport from the outside looks slightly dates, from the 1980s, but none more so than Luton or even Heathrow.

Inside is a different story, nicely refurbished with a long corridor running the breadth of the main terminal, polished floors and glass paneling adding to the noughties look. Everything else much like a modern airport, except for the painfully annoying lack of departure boards once you pass through security – the same problem I encountered at Dalian International Airport.

I hope this doesn’t turn out to be the status quo in all regional and secondary airports in China.

For all the traffic that passes through, to have a handful of single screen departure display boards that prolong the agony by displaying all the day’s flights in one action – meaning that if you miss your one you have to wait a good 5 minutes to see it again – its rather surprising.

Seemingly the airport designers decided to allocate their budget to installing top quality urinals, toilets and sinks, instead of a decent amount of departure boards, opting for the uber trendy Japanese brand Toto (if you don’t believe how trendy Toto is, check out the Yuppies alamanc, Monocle magazine).

Successful Japanese manufacturing companies naturally have a range of products, catering from end-user to business and commercial clients, but the reputation and cost of the average Toto product makes you wonder about the commitment to providing a top service.

I have to admit I don’t check out the toilet brands employed at British transport sites, but I’d put a few quid on it being that household staple, Armitage Shanks.

StreetVIEW: Raise the flag and stay fit

Two of the biggest topics abounding in the British media of late are child obesity and the debate over ‘Britishness’. Arising at 7.30am today to the sounds of whistles and schoolchildren, I witnessed a neat solution to both.

I saw row upon row of schoolchildren lining up in their spots field to perform a raising of the flag ceremony. This is, according to my wife, a great honour bestowed upon the classroom monitor in each school.

Each week every class from every year (grade) is handed responsibility of raising the flag at a morning ceremony on Monday, and a closing ceremony on Friday. The class prefect, voted for in a democratic vote at intervals throughout the school year handles the flag.

Accompanying the flag-raising is a half hour morning fitness workout iinvolving all manner of exercises, which in my view not only keeps children active, but also stimulates the brain for the day ahead.

Attendance is compulsory, and no DIY sick note or disinterested parent will suffice as an excuse.

A lesson in discipline it seems is also a benefit.

Xuzhou – The only gay in the village (almost)

No doubt for those of you who have been to Asia, or have heard from friends who have been, there is sometimes curiosity from the local population when a white face appears.

This occurrence has lessened as East and West have become more integrated over the years, and in my previous travels to Asia I never experienced it – although this might have to do with the fact that I’m no Brad Pitt.

Regardless, my trip to Xuzhou finally aroused some interest from the locals. Most paid no attention, but enough did to make me start to feel slightly uncomfortable. These ranged from the farmers and elderly to teenagers – some stood and openly stared and pointed; other just looked on bemused.

Xuzhou being the industrially insignificant town (internationally) and of very limited historical or touristic value – but great fun, I hasten to add – means that foreigners are few and far between – so when one does appear, especially at a public event such as a wedding, and in the company of a Chinese girl, lights begin to flash here and there. I was able to count the ones that I saw to the highest number I can reach in Japanese (Ichi, Ni, San) 3 during my whole visit – including Tony and myself.

Tony, a very nice chap, turned out to be a fellow Brit: born in Reading, he moved to Canada about 25 years ago and was a proper high school teacher before trying his hand at ESL in China. He came along as a guest of the aunt of the bride, at whose school he works in Jiaxing, in Southern China.

But more than being an excuse to avoid drinking with 500 people, our attendance at the wedding had a deeper cultural meaning. By attracting foreign guests, the host families can display their international credentials to the other guests, a very significant step, and even more so in the presence of clients and colleagues.

Held in the relatively mid-level town that Xuzhou is gave it another edge, as did the fact that we came such a huge distance to attend. At a middle-class wedding in Beijing or Shanghai, attendance of the trophy foreigner would almost be expected.

This is not so say that all foreigners at weddings are trophies – this would be a greatly disrespectful accusation to level at genuinely warm and caring people such as the hosts of this wedding- but I thought it would be interesting to delve into a slightly off-beat part of the wedding process in China.

A Xuzhou wedding, part 2

So I’ve finally gotten around to part 2 of the wedding, although I really don’t have the energy to pace it quite like part 1. After visiting the groom’s parent’s house, we returned to the wedding convoy and headed back to the hotel. Upon arrival we went straight up to the main banquet hall where the main ceremony was to be held.

At the front of the room was a stage with a big projector screen, and some bits and bobs (check out the photos here to see more), from which led a glass catwalk of 7-10 metres illuminated with blue lighting. The rest of the room was lit by different coloured spotlights, and at the end of the catwalk was a tent. From behind the tent started the dining tables, fitting 100 or so guests, the most senior family members and business associates – its is very common in Asian weddings for the couple’s father’s to invite colleagues and clients to their children’s big day.

The ceremony itself was quite moving, and followed thus: bride and father entered the room, walking down the catwalk to the tent in the middle of the room. A young girl dressed as an angel walked the aisle with a candle, which was used by the bride to light an incense burner. The groom then entered from the back of the room, quite casually strolling in and waving at the guests as if on the red carpet, to receive the bride in the tent from the father. Lights dimmed, big poppers and sprinklers at the ready in addition to a Chinese song, and the couple moved down the catwalk to the stage.

Queue a Master of Ceremony to present the ceremony (which lasted about 10 minutes), followed by a touching short-film, which I will try and post online, and some bowing the parents, who assembled on stage – then down to dinner. The host was a local celebrity, who informed all of us at the beginning that he had won a local radio competition, and event plugged the radio station itself. Talk about being paid to advertise!!!

At one point the couple poured Chinese wine into a stack of glasses, the sort of fancy thing you see at hotel parties in the West, before picking up a glass each, standing face to face, thrusting the glass behind each other’s backs and attempting to drink from the glass. I mention this because this was the closest we got at any stage to a kiss from the couple for the whole day, even weekend. Kissing and public affection is not cared for much in China, but I will no doubt cover this more fully another time.

Most of the other guests were in the second banquet hall downstairs, and they had a video-link set up on a giant screen to monitor proceedings. For the dinner, each main family unit sat separately, with a third room for special friends.

Pity the poor bride and groom, who had to share a drink and a smoke with each guest – as is custom in China; the bride and groom usually have helpers to share this responsibility – but on this occasion they used the excuse of having ‘VIP’ guests from England (myself and a fellow Brit, Tony) which meant that they toasted each table and not individual. And it worked – no complaints from the guests.

The whole shebang ended at around 2.30pm, after which most guests departed. But for the closest, we embarked on a photo-shoot around the city before going to a local restaurant for a final dinner, during which each uncle came over to the table to toast the happy couple with Chinese rice wine.

After dinner the bride and groom were obliged to spend the night with the groom’s family, a typical power-play move by the groom’s mother to show possession of the bride after the wedding. We finally hit the sack after 1am.

Mobile Phones: Code Purple

So we dedicated a good few hours to mobile phone shopping yesterday, hitting up a Suning (think Curry’s with better know-how and customer service) as well as Electric City, a giant, all conquering, electronics store with brand concessions in Shu Jia Hui.

The range of phones on offer was impressive to say the least, with a good combination of Western, Korean, Japanese and Chinese brands at all price ranges and functionalities, but I was greatly amused to discover that a fair percentage of the models on display were not in store at Suning – something my wife and I deduced as being a case of brining in the punters.

By the end of the day we finally made a purchase, the Motorolla Q11 – a Blackberry looking device with QWTERY keyboard, that runs Office applications in addition to Outlook. The experience was enhanced by the seemingly entrenched practise of haggling in China, whether it be at the market or in-store.

Haggling is fierce source of pride to the Shanghainese and Hong Kongnese, but is a source of ridicule for other groups who accuse them of being penny-pinching.  However it is a culture here, and my mother-in-law is something of a Master of the Art of Haggling, almost never paying the display price for goods – I’ll never forget the time we went for a meal and she told the owner to cut the lunch menu price (it was already 3pm) by 40% or we wouldn’t sit down (the owner relented).

I think it is a very admirable quality, but given my rather shy and weak personality I’ve only begun to make tentative in-roads. I was interested to read recently that haggling is back in vogue in the U.S., where even department stores such as Saks are bowing to consumer demand for greater value.

Before leaving London, my wife and I embarked on a mini-spending spree of designer goods, purely because the cost much more in China, and found that we too were able to negotiate discounts in brand stores. For instance we managed to save around 35% on new-season Chanel and Ray Ban frames, a nice saving indeed.

We were thus able to negotiate a basic 15% discount at the store, and the sales girl insisted that if we came back to her she’d throw in some more stuff, and she did: an in car-device to hold the Motorlla as a GPS navigation system, a new bed cover and pillow case set (no, really) and 5 store scratchcards. Result.

However I was left empty handed, the Meizu M8 (Chinese I-Phone) not being available in any stores. It wasn’t until I got home and used Google Translate on the Meizu Chinese website that I was able to generate a list of local stockists, and so I hope to pursue my interest to the next step.

Finishing with a note on yesterday’s theme, Frustration, I found out that wi-fi enabled smartphones are not legally permitted in China – hence why all the I-Phones I was offered yesterday were fakes – and that this will not be rectified until Q3 of this year!

Mobile Phone blues

Despite being here only a matter of days, a number of frustrations have already arisen, and I haven’t even had the pleasure of dealing with local bureaucracy yet – although it leaves its indelible mark everywhere I go.

In spite of all the hype, China is still very much a ‘developing’ nation. Point one is the mess over mobile phones. They’ve just started rolling out 3G here, when the rest of the world is onto 4G, and to make things worse you can’t get a free hand-set with a contract, although at £5.50 a month for 500 free minutes and unlimited Internet data you can’t complain too much.

Second is the absence of Blackberry from the market. My wife and I both need mobile email for work, but I can’t configure my company email to sync with webmail such as Gmail, so I need direct connection. Apparently I can get something on the Iphone.

Which brings me to the growth of the fake mobile market in China. According to an excellent report in the IHT, China’s fake-phone market accounts for up to 20% of handsets in the country, with identical looking and operating I-phones up for around US$150. I did think to get one, but the idea of higher-than-average levels of radiation, plus a fear of exploding batteries has definitely put me off.

So I took a look at a genuine Chinese company’s rival offering, the Meizu M8. It has the looks and apps of the I-phone, but at only £240 for the 16G is substantially cheaper. But I just found out that there is no WiFi – great.

China, in its infinite wisdom, decided to force operators, of which there are only 3 – another case of crappy competition = crappy market – to roll out 3G on a special TD-SCDMA network, unique to China and opposite to the regular CDMA and GSM networks used globally.

All this makes for a potentially very unhappy consumer, but saying that I am off to the big electronic court now to take a look for myself. I’ll report back later.

Ha, just as I was about to go my wife got a call on her mobile, which then cut short. She called it back, and it turned out to be another case of mobile-advertising in China: they send texts to you or one-bell you. I hope I don’t have to deal with this shit; I get pissed enough with call-centres from India on my London mob trying to push some shitty new model.

A wedding to end all weddings (Day 1, part 1)

Well, bugger me. 16 hours, 3 meals and 500+ guests later, the big, first leg of the wedding of Cookie and Wang is over. I’m still a bit speechless in all honesty, and no amount of thesaurus-bashing or superlatives can quite pay homage to what I witnessed this weekend. But one point I can make at this juncture is that the Chinese know how to have a good time.

Waking up at 7am on Saturday, 4 hours sleep this time as the jet-lag continued to work its wonders, we rushed downstairs to the hotel restaurant for the buffet breakfast. Over 25 dishes awaited us, from spicy rice cakes, boiled and stewed vegetables, fried pork and prawn dumplings to toast, bacon and fried eggs. Of course I needed no hesitation to tuck in, an action in hindsight that I would come to regret.

7.45 mad dash to the 16th floor of the hotel we were staying in, the Best Western Xuzhou Friendship Hotel, time to get dressed. Me: black zara trousers, striped blue M&S shirt, silver Zara jacket and Liberty of London leather belt. Her: one-of-a-kind red and white floral Alexander McQueen strapless dress and red flats. We queued, and I lie not, over an hour and a half to buy that dress, so finally it was getting it’s first public airing.

Buggering around with cheap hotel shaving kit, I naturally proceeded to cut myself below the bottom lip and under the chin. Pressing as hard as I could, we sped down to the bride’s hotel room for some last minute make-up and hair. Surrounded by a group of women, with whom I could not communicate, I did what any man should and hid in the corner taking pictures of the proceedings.

ACTION: He’s coming, he’s coming. The bride and party lock themselves into the bedroom of the hotel suite, whilst the groom, resplendent in black Dior suit and Gucci shoes enters with two female aides (not best-men nor bridesmaids but a hybrid) looking at what best can be described as mutton-dressed-as-lamb in shocking white dresses and tacky Gucci handbags, you know, the cream ones with the G&G logo in small brown print plastered all over. Queue the customary 10 minutes of banging on the bedroom door, trying to lure the bride out with promises of love, affection and money – all of which is being recorded by a small army of photographers and videographers. The groom tries to trick his way into the room by getting a friend of the bride to knock and enter ahead of him. He gets a foot in the door before it is unceremoniously slammed in his face. A few frantic and wonderfully acted minutes later, he is allowed in. He whisks the bride off her feet and onto the bed, throwing her down; in full view of the bridal party he whips of her shoes, gets down on his knees and sticks onto her bare feet a pair of bright red socks, followed by red heels – and part one of the ceremony is complete.

Photo after photo follows, after which the bride, groom, bridal party and camera crews go into the lobby and are picked up by a fleet of black cars with tinted windows, about 8 strong. Following behind the main car, we drove through the city in a ceremonial manner, taking care to avoid taking the same route as the groom did on the way to the hotel in the morning. This is a customary event, with almost all urban hotel weddings set in the same manner, although on differing scales. After driving around the length of Xuzhou lake, we entered the groom’s family’s residential complex, to be greeted with a battery of fireworks. The convoy came to a halt and we disembarked. The groom carried the bride up 4 floors of a very dingy staircase (broken windows, dirt) and to his parent’s flat – they turn out to own two flats back to back, both of which are decorated with expensive furniture and antiques.

ACTION: What follows is a short ceremony, where the mother of the groom feeds the bride with a dumpling, and the guests drink water (it’s 28 degrees plus with humidity out there and smoke cigarettes provided by the groom’s family. Expensive red packets, a staple of Chinese weddings, although this time a local brand and not the usual Gonghwas, much beloved by party members.

After around half an hour we are driven back to the hotel, where we meet the other 500 guests for the second, and main part of the day, starting at exactly 11.58 am. Part 2 coming up later.