Flying scares the crap out of me. I first stepped onto an aeroplane in 2001. It was a short flight from Exeter Airport to Palma, Majorca. Before that, I'd only ever travelled abroad by long-distance coach to Europe (and one aborted trip to the Canary Islands on my dad's yacht when I was four). I remember feeling a bit apprehensive, not knowing what to expect, but still reasonably confident. It was a relief when we landed safely, but the overall experience wasn't particularly traumatic. Plus, I was travelling with my boyfriend, who (back then) I saw as a Michael Palin-style seasoned world traveller thanks to the time he spent living in Australia. Of course, I wanted to maintain a brave face. The second time I flew, in 2004, was a little more ambitious. This time, I travelled solo from London to Brisbane. Yep, 24 hours in the air, with a stopover in Tokyo. This was probably the most happy and confident I've ever been about getting on a plane. I don't remember being afraid.
Then a few years later I began flying to/from and within China. I can pinpoint the exact moment when I started being afraid in the air. It was a domestic flight from Shenzhen (Hong Kong border city) to Dandong (North Korean border city) with one stop in Shanghai. On the second leg, I dozed off. I woke up with a violent start, feeling the plane descending and hearing no engine sound in the cabin. This brought on a panic attack which lasted several minutes. I'd also been having some weird nightmares about air accidents which made the situation worse. Anyway, it was fine, the plane was simply coming in to land in Dandong. Dandong has a tiny airport that looks like a collection of farm huts, not somewhere I'd choose to fly to again.
After this incident, although it was minor and nothing to do with the plane, I've become a nervous flyer. Up until now, I've still been able to fly, but it doesn't get better with experience. Then came the news of Air France Flight 447. This awful tragedy started with a full Airbus taking off from Rio de Janeiro and ended when the plane vanished four hours later above the dark Atlantic ocean. In the week since the incident, there has been daily news coverage following the findings of experts, as they try to solve this horrible mystery. Yep, it seems the plane just fell out of the sky and plunged into the ocean. 228 people were on board, and so far only 17 bodies have been recovered. This is my worst nightmare brought to life. I think about this exact scenario every time I sit on a plane and I'm sure it's an image that often haunts the minds of many other nervous fliers. It was a creepy feeling to see the arrivals board at Charles de Gaulle flashing 'retarde' next to AF447. I can't imagine how those families and friends must have felt, even worse - and I don't want to let myself imagine - how the doomed passengers felt. Teams of experts are still trying to find the cause of the accident. The black boxes might never be retrieved from the bottom of the ocean.
This incident will put many people off flying for a while. Like some journalist said in his article yesterday, usually we hear news of air crashes and think 'oh well, that was an African/South American/Russian airline. It was probably an old plane, badly maintained and with poor safety standards.' Air France is a First World top-notch carrier using the most modern planes available, of which Airbus is the safest and most technically advanced. I know one thing for certain, I will travel to Korea by boat this summer, and then I will ride the Trans-sib all the way home...
Sunday, 7 June 2009
Saturday, 6 June 2009
Spouse Market
Thanks to the government enforced one-child policy and the traditional preference for boys, China now has an awful lot of young bachelors who just cannot find a bride. Today I read an article in WSJ about a village boy who finally found the perfect wife. His family helped him to pay the dowry or 'cai li', which can be many years worth of farmer's income. This girl wanted 38,000 yuan (about 3,800 GBP) for cai li before she would accept his marriage proposal. Less than two weeks later, the new bride had vanished, leaving behind everything except the money. Apparently, this 'runway bride' scam has recently become more common in China. It counts as fraud, so the women will spend time in jail if caught.
I have noticed that Chinese parents really put heavy pressure on their kids to get married. My friend Nancy is my age, 26, and got married last year to a soldier. She used to say that she wasn't sure about marriage, and even talked about starting a career in Shanghai. But her parents were strong-willed and kept badgering her until finally she gave in and found a husband. Although she seems happy now, previously this year she told me she'd already considered divorce, because some of her husband's opinions and habits were completely out of sync with her own, and she felt she couldn't tolerate the differences. Nancy is an English/Mandarin teacher and speaks excellent English. Her husband's family, dislike non-Chinese people, and her husband hates the Japanese (although this is certainly not uncommon). I believe that living within this small-minded attitude is sometimes challenging for Nancy, with her open nature and multi-cultural social circle. Divorce, although a quick and easy process in Chinese society, still carries stigma. This is especially so for divorced women, who may find it harder to remarry in future.
On Sunday morning in Labour Park, I stumbled across an interesting event which I'd often heard about but never seen. I call it 'Spouse Market'. A large group of people had gathered in the park and were crowding around some pieces of paper pinned to trees and displayed on the pavement. Taking a closer look, this is an example of what I saw:
男士 (male)
1981年11月出生 (date of birth)
身高：180 (height)
东北财经大学学生 (occupation: Dongbei University student)
专业：会计 (subject: accounting)
想找女士 (would like to find a girl)
22-26岁 (22-26 years old)
身高：170一下 (no taller than 170cm)
聪明，漂亮。(clever, attractive)
电话：87909568 (phone number)
These are advertisements made by parents to help their child find a husband/wife. The example above is made up, but it's a fair sample of what is included. Some ads stated work and salary details, even the desired salary level of the potential spouse. The area was crowded with people, mainly older folk, but I spotted a few young guys copying down telephone numbers from the ads. I suppose this system works, like a combination of arranged marriage and internet dating.
I have noticed that Chinese parents really put heavy pressure on their kids to get married. My friend Nancy is my age, 26, and got married last year to a soldier. She used to say that she wasn't sure about marriage, and even talked about starting a career in Shanghai. But her parents were strong-willed and kept badgering her until finally she gave in and found a husband. Although she seems happy now, previously this year she told me she'd already considered divorce, because some of her husband's opinions and habits were completely out of sync with her own, and she felt she couldn't tolerate the differences. Nancy is an English/Mandarin teacher and speaks excellent English. Her husband's family, dislike non-Chinese people, and her husband hates the Japanese (although this is certainly not uncommon). I believe that living within this small-minded attitude is sometimes challenging for Nancy, with her open nature and multi-cultural social circle. Divorce, although a quick and easy process in Chinese society, still carries stigma. This is especially so for divorced women, who may find it harder to remarry in future.
On Sunday morning in Labour Park, I stumbled across an interesting event which I'd often heard about but never seen. I call it 'Spouse Market'. A large group of people had gathered in the park and were crowding around some pieces of paper pinned to trees and displayed on the pavement. Taking a closer look, this is an example of what I saw:
男士 (male)
1981年11月出生 (date of birth)
身高：180 (height)
东北财经大学学生 (occupation: Dongbei University student)
专业：会计 (subject: accounting)
想找女士 (would like to find a girl)
22-26岁 (22-26 years old)
身高：170一下 (no taller than 170cm)
聪明，漂亮。(clever, attractive)
电话：87909568 (phone number)
These are advertisements made by parents to help their child find a husband/wife. The example above is made up, but it's a fair sample of what is included. Some ads stated work and salary details, even the desired salary level of the potential spouse. The area was crowded with people, mainly older folk, but I spotted a few young guys copying down telephone numbers from the ads. I suppose this system works, like a combination of arranged marriage and internet dating.
Tuesday, 2 June 2009
Caonima! Alpaca to the Rescue.
Today is just another sunny day in Dalian. As I walk down the street I'm enjoying the sunshine and watching the bustling activity of street vendors, deliverymen, school children and other ordinary Chinese people going about their daily lives. However, the means by which I accessed my blog today quickly reminded me of the realities surrounding this country.
Today is not just another ordinary day. It's the eve of the 20th anniversary of the 1989 events the West calls 'The Tian'anmen Square Massacre'. I was only seven when Deng Xiaoping's People's Liberation Army violently suppressed pro-democracy protests in Beijing, killing hundreds of students and civilians. The story is well-known in the Western world, but the Chinese government still tries to keep it quiet within China. One method they use is internet censorship, which has tightened up considerably in the weeks preceding the anniversary. Now a number of popular social networking/blogging/personal video sites are inaccessible. Of course, the government is afraid of word getting out. Youtube has been blocked for the last month. Recently, Twitter, Blogger and Flickr fell victim to the 'net nanny', 'great firewall of China' and other tags referring to the government's censorship mechanism. I have been accessing this blog through a proxy server, which I discovered through a friend. Usually a simple Google search for 'free proxy server' produces a whole selection of options. This time it was a difficult task, because each one I tried, even the old stalwarts, failed me. Sneaky old sneakme was the answer, and I have been 'sneakily' sneaking onto my blog since yesterday. But oddly enough, foreign news sites with front-page headlines such as my current homepage, "Survivors Confront Legacy of Tian'anmen' (Wall Street Journal) are freely accessible. This morning I watched a whole 5 minutes of archive video footage showing the PLA tanks chasing and shooting people in the backs as they tried to run away. It was unreal and I felt detached, as if this wasn't the same Beijing square where I'd often strolled with friends on tourist trips to the capital, watching the dragon kites drifting in the breeze and the happy families playing with kids and photographing each other.
It makes me wonder how much the average Chinese person knows about these dreadful events. I have always been hesitant to ask my Chinese friends, fearing to make them uncomfortable. Those educated in foreign countries usually have some knowledge of 1989's events. However, most of my English-speaking Chinese friends, because of their greater exposure to Western cultural sources, do not really represent the average 'lao bai xing', or common citizen. I wonder about the fruit sellers in the marketplace, the young girl doing my manicure while we chat in Chinese about trivial subjects, and the guy sweeping the streets - do they know anything about 1989? More importantly, do they really care? Sometimes I believe that people are perfectly satisfied with their government, for it has given them a society where they have a roof over their heads and food on the table. Maybe our lofty Western ideals of 'free speech' are lost on a more practical kind of folk, who feel they can do nothing to control the government and anyway, have families to feed.
But there are Chinese people who know full well what happened in Beijing. They want to shout about it, they want to protest about the government's continuing bad behaviour, they want everyone to know the truth. Unfortunately, these advocates of freedom are continually repressed and can suffer all kinds of punishment from house arrest to torture. In an attempt to subtly vent their opinion, people have resorted to satire and irony. Today I discovered the real saviour of media freedom, national hero 'Cao Ni Ma'. This phrase has two distinct meanings; Grass Mud Horse, or an expletive - Fuck your Mother. The Grass Mud Horse takes the form of a cute alpaca. It has popped up all over China as a cult symbol of defiance against government censorship and repression. I'm currently trying to buy my own little Caonima on taobao. It's cute and would be an interesting souvenir of three years living in a police state.
Today is not just another ordinary day. It's the eve of the 20th anniversary of the 1989 events the West calls 'The Tian'anmen Square Massacre'. I was only seven when Deng Xiaoping's People's Liberation Army violently suppressed pro-democracy protests in Beijing, killing hundreds of students and civilians. The story is well-known in the Western world, but the Chinese government still tries to keep it quiet within China. One method they use is internet censorship, which has tightened up considerably in the weeks preceding the anniversary. Now a number of popular social networking/blogging/personal video sites are inaccessible. Of course, the government is afraid of word getting out. Youtube has been blocked for the last month. Recently, Twitter, Blogger and Flickr fell victim to the 'net nanny', 'great firewall of China' and other tags referring to the government's censorship mechanism. I have been accessing this blog through a proxy server, which I discovered through a friend. Usually a simple Google search for 'free proxy server' produces a whole selection of options. This time it was a difficult task, because each one I tried, even the old stalwarts, failed me. Sneaky old sneakme was the answer, and I have been 'sneakily' sneaking onto my blog since yesterday. But oddly enough, foreign news sites with front-page headlines such as my current homepage, "Survivors Confront Legacy of Tian'anmen' (Wall Street Journal) are freely accessible. This morning I watched a whole 5 minutes of archive video footage showing the PLA tanks chasing and shooting people in the backs as they tried to run away. It was unreal and I felt detached, as if this wasn't the same Beijing square where I'd often strolled with friends on tourist trips to the capital, watching the dragon kites drifting in the breeze and the happy families playing with kids and photographing each other.
It makes me wonder how much the average Chinese person knows about these dreadful events. I have always been hesitant to ask my Chinese friends, fearing to make them uncomfortable. Those educated in foreign countries usually have some knowledge of 1989's events. However, most of my English-speaking Chinese friends, because of their greater exposure to Western cultural sources, do not really represent the average 'lao bai xing', or common citizen. I wonder about the fruit sellers in the marketplace, the young girl doing my manicure while we chat in Chinese about trivial subjects, and the guy sweeping the streets - do they know anything about 1989? More importantly, do they really care? Sometimes I believe that people are perfectly satisfied with their government, for it has given them a society where they have a roof over their heads and food on the table. Maybe our lofty Western ideals of 'free speech' are lost on a more practical kind of folk, who feel they can do nothing to control the government and anyway, have families to feed.
But there are Chinese people who know full well what happened in Beijing. They want to shout about it, they want to protest about the government's continuing bad behaviour, they want everyone to know the truth. Unfortunately, these advocates of freedom are continually repressed and can suffer all kinds of punishment from house arrest to torture. In an attempt to subtly vent their opinion, people have resorted to satire and irony. Today I discovered the real saviour of media freedom, national hero 'Cao Ni Ma'. This phrase has two distinct meanings; Grass Mud Horse, or an expletive - Fuck your Mother. The Grass Mud Horse takes the form of a cute alpaca. It has popped up all over China as a cult symbol of defiance against government censorship and repression. I'm currently trying to buy my own little Caonima on taobao. It's cute and would be an interesting souvenir of three years living in a police state.
Kiss my arse, Chinese censors
Those pesky little scamps have been at it again. Blogger.com has been 'mysteriously' inaccessible for the last three weeks...Blocked, yes blocked, by the Chinese gov. internet censoring policies. This summer sees the 20th anniversary of some rather sensitive events, involving a certain large public four-sided area in Beijing. The internet police have become more vigilant and have blocked a number of websites; Blogger, Twitter, Youtube to name a few. But now I fooled them, I FOOLED THEM. HAHAHAHHA!
It's been a mad couple of weeks. I've had ongoing 签证 hassles, random '德国人' incidents, borderline abduction by my 学生, the amazing discovery of 梅酒 meijiu (lit. beautiful alcohol..made from plums), being asked out multiple times, daily trips to the 水果 market to load up on ingredients for my wicked smoothies and juices...etc...
But after all that madness, even after having finally accessed my blog, I feel drained, lazy and completely demotivated to continue writing. Time for a 啤酒(beer).
It's been a mad couple of weeks. I've had ongoing 签证 hassles, random '德国人' incidents, borderline abduction by my 学生, the amazing discovery of 梅酒 meijiu (lit. beautiful alcohol..made from plums), being asked out multiple times, daily trips to the 水果 market to load up on ingredients for my wicked smoothies and juices...etc...
But after all that madness, even after having finally accessed my blog, I feel drained, lazy and completely demotivated to continue writing. Time for a 啤酒(beer).
Monday, 11 May 2009
Hot Steamy Fun
Last night Sara and I decided to sleep in a Chinese sauna. Every Chinese city is scattered with these places, where you can steam yourself silly, eat dinner, get scrubbed down with salt and even spend the night in a comfy bed (useful when travelling as cheaper than a hotel).
At this sauna, I confronted and overcame a personal boundary (mentioned in an early post) about being naked in front of people. I'm not shy because I have body issues, on the contrary I'm reasonably confident about my body. I just find the idea of being publicly naked uncomfortable in China, because people here don't need ANOTHER excuse to stare! When I went to saunas in the past, I always made a big deal about remaining fully clothed at all times. This time I was determined to try the full body salt scrub, which is rumoured to be amazingly good for your skin. Unfortunately it requires being fully naked and allowing a Chinese lady to rub you all over. Feeling brave, I took the plunge. She looked at me in astonishment when I said I wanted to have the salt scrub, but commanded me to get naked. Which I did, and then stood there waiting while she prepared the scrubbing equipment (all the time thinking 'why didn't you do this BEFORE I took the clothes off, lady!') Once things got started, it was fine and I quickly got used to the sensation of being roughly scraped and scrubbed with salt. The lady also massaged me, which hurt quite a lot! Twenty minutes later it was over and I was sent off to take a shower. The experience wasn't nearly as bad as I'd always expected it to be - and I'm quite pleased with myself for having the confidence to go for it.
At this sauna, I confronted and overcame a personal boundary (mentioned in an early post) about being naked in front of people. I'm not shy because I have body issues, on the contrary I'm reasonably confident about my body. I just find the idea of being publicly naked uncomfortable in China, because people here don't need ANOTHER excuse to stare! When I went to saunas in the past, I always made a big deal about remaining fully clothed at all times. This time I was determined to try the full body salt scrub, which is rumoured to be amazingly good for your skin. Unfortunately it requires being fully naked and allowing a Chinese lady to rub you all over. Feeling brave, I took the plunge. She looked at me in astonishment when I said I wanted to have the salt scrub, but commanded me to get naked. Which I did, and then stood there waiting while she prepared the scrubbing equipment (all the time thinking 'why didn't you do this BEFORE I took the clothes off, lady!') Once things got started, it was fine and I quickly got used to the sensation of being roughly scraped and scrubbed with salt. The lady also massaged me, which hurt quite a lot! Twenty minutes later it was over and I was sent off to take a shower. The experience wasn't nearly as bad as I'd always expected it to be - and I'm quite pleased with myself for having the confidence to go for it.
Streamline Your Life
Buy a netbook instead of a standard size notebook. Netbooks are ultra-portable, with lots of hard drive space and all the functions of their heftier cousins. I use an s10 by Lenovo.Get a multi-purpose PDA style phone. One iPhone can replace your plain old phone, camera, mp3 player and all your books! I didn't go for the iPhone, but bought a Nokia e71, which looks beautifully business-like (think
Blackberry) and has all the useful features including a camera, ebook reader etc.
Throw out your library and replace it all with ebooks. These can be downloaded, many for free, from the internet and stored on your computer or phone. As mentioned above, the best devices for reading ebooks are Nokia e-series, iPhone or Blackberry.
Never, ever, own any CDs. Are you mad? That's what mp3s are for. CDs are heavy, annoying wastes of space. Wait until you own a house to start building up a large physical music collection. Chances are anyway, by that time we will all be using a brand new format to store our music, and CDs will be totally obsolete.
Downsize your clothes frequently - at least every season, go through your wardrobe and be brutal. If you haven't worn it for the last year, it's never going to be worn. Get rid!
Buy a good sturdy washbag with lots of compartments for different things. Keep an eye on your bathroom and cosmetic products and don't allow them to amass out of control. Travel sizes might be a good idea for saving space, but they're not very economical.
Avoid carrying round large amounts of paperwork. Store important documents online. Make scans/digital photos of them and email them to your Gmail account, or use an online vault like www.humyo.com to keep them all safe. Alternatively, storing them on your laptop is ok too, just don't forget to keep backups.
Don't buy souvenirs, just take photos, write blogs and make friends.
Tuesday, 5 May 2009
Early Riser
After reading Steve Pavlina's blog posts on the benefits of early rising, I've been trying to incorporate this idea into my life. Needless to say, I haven't been totally successful. Steve suggests that 5am is a good time to aim for.
But it's haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrd! I'm not really a fan of staying in bed late, but 5am was just a step too far. Today, though, I was awake at 5 without even trying. Deciding to make the most of this, I got up, put on some running gear and headed for Lab
our Park with my camera. The day was already warm, and quite a lot of people were out on the streets. In the park, groups of elderly people were strolling around, dancing in formation, doing tai chi, stretching out their limbs and exercising their lungs by yelling loudly. A few joggers were doing laps of the park, and I followed in their wake. Running meant I missed the chance to observe my surroundings more closely, so I soon gave up and relaxed into a walk, taking in all the activity buzzing in the park. Just inside the entrance to the park was a large display to commemorate this year, 2009, as the 50th birthday of the People's Republic of China.October 1st will be the real time for celebrations, as on this day in 1949 Mao Zedong stood in Tian'anmen Square and declared the country a communist People's Republic. This isn't the only event in Chinese history for which 2009 marks a significant anniversary; 20 years ago,
Tian'anmen Square became infamous as a scene of chaos, terror and bloodshed. In the Western world, most of us know what happened, so I don't need to discuss further here (Big Brother may be lurking... ;)There may also be an important Tibet-related anniversary, but I'm not certain. So far this year, Tibet has been closed to foreign travellers because of ‘security issues’ (read: fear of protests and chaos making China look bad). I heard it will reopen soon, or has already done so.
I digress...
Back to Labour Park, I hiked up to the viewing station and looked out over downtown Dalian. The view includes the giant football that signifies Dalian's past as a national football champ. There is a whole fairground incorporated into the park, with random rides scattered around the place and a cable car that goes up the hill to a place I have never been. An important feature is the rollercoaster that seems to be dormant at the moment, but will come to life in the summer months, when crazy people ride on it. Not forgetting the Ferris wheel, just like the one I once saw across the Yalu River on the North Korean shore - but much better used...
At one point I tried to take a short cut to get out of the park, but found myself stuck behind a spiky iron fence. China certainly likes to keep its citizens under control, not too much free roaming for us. Jackie Chan recently got in trouble for saying that 'Chinese people need to be controlled', but it seems the remark was taken out of context and he was actually referring solely to the entertainment industry. With the iron fisted government approach, I don't think we presently need to worry TOO much about lack of control.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
