Sara and I got up just after 5am this morning to go and see Mao's corpse. We had to get up early as the queues are horrendous (only open 4 hours a day, 4 days a week) and I wanted to see Tiananmen Square without too many tourists. As it turned out we had to queue for a long time anyway. The people behind kept trying to push in front and didn't appreciate my speech on the importance of queueing.
The Chinese showed their respect for the most "holy" site in China by dropping litter all over it.
All I have to say is that I don't think it's Mao. It looked very, very, very like a waxwork- and not a particularly good one in my opinion. Of course 30 years of being pickled might make you look less human but I reckon the real body is in a fridge and that's the spare.
Next post will hopefully be on Tuesday. There is no internet where we're going.
2011-07-14
2011-07-13
Beijing: it's nice, but Starbucks is nicer...
So Sara and I are now in Beijing.
We queued for over an hour for a taxi from the train station to our hostel. I was slightly bitter about that. But then the taxi driver surprised me by knowing where to go. Normally when I brightly announce to a taxi driver where I want to go they stare at me blankly and I end up showing them around their own bloody city.
The hostel is in a hutong neighbourhood. Hutong are named after wells that used to be at the end of each alley in Beijing but now the whole thing is called a hutong. They are narrow, one's BMW just about gets through, and old. One of the first places I've been in China that doesn't feel like other places I've been-this is most definitely Beijing.
The government is enthusiasticly bulldozing the hutong neighbourhoods and plonking skyscrapers down, only occasionally interrupted by some dispossesed hutong dweller setting themselves on fire in protest. Progress!
Sara and I have so far touristed the Confucian Temple here along with the Imperial Academy. The Confucian Temple has stele listing the names of the last entrants for the old official exams in 1904. Those exams on Confucian thought were centuries old and had to be passed to be a government official. It was felt in 1905 that students should be tested in things like science and maths and modern stuff. I wonder if those last students thought what they were doing was really a waste of time. The temple looked like every other temple I've been to and was sort of peaceful. We'd passed a buddhist temple (specifically Tibetan buddhist I think) on the way that was teaming with people. This one was down a leafy sidestreet. Round the back some girls were practising a dance while their teacher hit them with an empty water bottle.
Then we went to Tiananmen Square. But not for very long as:
1. It's hot here at the moment. Not as hot as Shanghai but hot enough-30+.
2. It's smoggy smoggy smoggy. No sky, just a dome of brown.
3. I forget, living in Qingdao, how big China is. 1.3 billion people. 20 times the size of old Blighty. This is the capital. Families who can only afford one holiday every decade come here. Therefore the crowds here are gigantic and huge and loud. They move in herds following a tour guide blaring through a loudspeaker.
All this conspired to push two hot and frazzled English girls, used to tea in rose gardens with polite, quiet conversation, out of the Square. We hid in a nearby park filled with sleeping cats and watched the ticket sellers play badminton.
The subway here is never less than packed.
Walking is exhausting and hot and full of obstacles ranging from parked mopeds to slow-moving humans.
Taxis are expensive and Beijing's traffic jam can be seen from Space.
God knows where the buses go.
Not many people cycle any more.
Today we planned to go to the Summer Palace after fetching something but then we walked past a Starbucks and it's cool, and not many people and there's tea. The Summer Palace involves a long subway ride and battling crowds in the heat. So we're in Starbucks and I have no intention of going Out There, except to forage.
I'm not a very good tourist.
I told the taxi driver we were twins. He said we didn't look alike at all, in a rather disgruntled way.
We queued for over an hour for a taxi from the train station to our hostel. I was slightly bitter about that. But then the taxi driver surprised me by knowing where to go. Normally when I brightly announce to a taxi driver where I want to go they stare at me blankly and I end up showing them around their own bloody city.
The hostel is in a hutong neighbourhood. Hutong are named after wells that used to be at the end of each alley in Beijing but now the whole thing is called a hutong. They are narrow, one's BMW just about gets through, and old. One of the first places I've been in China that doesn't feel like other places I've been-this is most definitely Beijing.
The government is enthusiasticly bulldozing the hutong neighbourhoods and plonking skyscrapers down, only occasionally interrupted by some dispossesed hutong dweller setting themselves on fire in protest. Progress!
Sara and I have so far touristed the Confucian Temple here along with the Imperial Academy. The Confucian Temple has stele listing the names of the last entrants for the old official exams in 1904. Those exams on Confucian thought were centuries old and had to be passed to be a government official. It was felt in 1905 that students should be tested in things like science and maths and modern stuff. I wonder if those last students thought what they were doing was really a waste of time. The temple looked like every other temple I've been to and was sort of peaceful. We'd passed a buddhist temple (specifically Tibetan buddhist I think) on the way that was teaming with people. This one was down a leafy sidestreet. Round the back some girls were practising a dance while their teacher hit them with an empty water bottle.
Then we went to Tiananmen Square. But not for very long as:
1. It's hot here at the moment. Not as hot as Shanghai but hot enough-30+.
2. It's smoggy smoggy smoggy. No sky, just a dome of brown.
3. I forget, living in Qingdao, how big China is. 1.3 billion people. 20 times the size of old Blighty. This is the capital. Families who can only afford one holiday every decade come here. Therefore the crowds here are gigantic and huge and loud. They move in herds following a tour guide blaring through a loudspeaker.
All this conspired to push two hot and frazzled English girls, used to tea in rose gardens with polite, quiet conversation, out of the Square. We hid in a nearby park filled with sleeping cats and watched the ticket sellers play badminton.
The subway here is never less than packed.
Walking is exhausting and hot and full of obstacles ranging from parked mopeds to slow-moving humans.
Taxis are expensive and Beijing's traffic jam can be seen from Space.
God knows where the buses go.
Not many people cycle any more.
Today we planned to go to the Summer Palace after fetching something but then we walked past a Starbucks and it's cool, and not many people and there's tea. The Summer Palace involves a long subway ride and battling crowds in the heat. So we're in Starbucks and I have no intention of going Out There, except to forage.
I'm not a very good tourist.
I told the taxi driver we were twins. He said we didn't look alike at all, in a rather disgruntled way.
2011-07-12
Goodbye QIngdao
My last few days in Qingdao were mostly spent packing. I have a lot of stuff.
However I did find time to say goodbye to friends, which is definitely a downside of moving so much. You make good friends, and then you leave them.
Becka's family is here too and we went to eat sushi together. The problem was Becka's family are quite Liverpudlian and got a bit fed up of raw food and longed for something cooked... However we ordered too much and when we tried to send some back the woman in charge came and berated us for wasting food. The rest we didn't eat I balled up in tissue and hid in my bag so she wouldn't see.
She said I was pretty because I have thin legs.
Sara and I went to buy train tickets. We queued for over an hour. Then we went to look at the famous pier here but it was so misty we couldn't see the end. There were people everywhere. Then we went to the cathedral and there were around 20 brides having their photo taken. Then we left but it was so crowded we spent ages trying to find a bus and in the end walked out of the area to catch a bus. I taught Sara some chinese characters.
I also took Sara to see Lao mountain. It was very foggy so we couldn't really see much and crawling with tourists.
Predictably the last day was beautiful clear weather. Qingdao is very pretty in the sun. We went to the shiny modern marina and Sara agreed that this was a non-shit part.
Then we piled all our stuff in a taxi (a LOT- partly because I had Becka's guzheng which is slightly longer than a car width...) and left.
Goodbye Qingdao.
However I did find time to say goodbye to friends, which is definitely a downside of moving so much. You make good friends, and then you leave them.
Becka's family is here too and we went to eat sushi together. The problem was Becka's family are quite Liverpudlian and got a bit fed up of raw food and longed for something cooked... However we ordered too much and when we tried to send some back the woman in charge came and berated us for wasting food. The rest we didn't eat I balled up in tissue and hid in my bag so she wouldn't see.
She said I was pretty because I have thin legs.
Sara and I went to buy train tickets. We queued for over an hour. Then we went to look at the famous pier here but it was so misty we couldn't see the end. There were people everywhere. Then we went to the cathedral and there were around 20 brides having their photo taken. Then we left but it was so crowded we spent ages trying to find a bus and in the end walked out of the area to catch a bus. I taught Sara some chinese characters.
I also took Sara to see Lao mountain. It was very foggy so we couldn't really see much and crawling with tourists.
Predictably the last day was beautiful clear weather. Qingdao is very pretty in the sun. We went to the shiny modern marina and Sara agreed that this was a non-shit part.
Then we piled all our stuff in a taxi (a LOT- partly because I had Becka's guzheng which is slightly longer than a car width...) and left.
Goodbye Qingdao.
Shanghai Sweat
It was so hot in Shanghai, even the air was sweating.
It's true that at 38 degrees there are many much hotter places on the planet-I've been to some of them. But combined with the pollution of millions of people this gets very uncomfortable. What makes it even worse is that people insist on artic air conditioning so every morning I woke up snivelling and sneezing.
I tried to show Sara places in Shanghai but as that was all mostly outside, we didn't get very far. We saw the site of the first Republican government of Korea, as well as Xintiandi, Tianzifang and the horrid, horrid Yu gardens. We also saw the Bund but again it was just packed with people.
One high point was when we found a nice hotpot restaurant to go to. (We asked at the hostel and they said "East Nanjing Road". This is like asking for a nice restaurant in Edinburgh and being advised to try the Royal Mile. Of course there are plenty of restaurants there, but are they any good?) This hotpot restaurant was slightly old style and used copper basins with the heating element in a cone in the middle. Normally it's just a bowl in the table. The food was nice but I had two quibbles. The first being that it was only water to cook food in- most places it is some sort of broth with mushrooms, peppers etc floating in it to add flavour. This meant ours lacked the tasty factor. The second quibble was that as the heating element was in the middle, there was left only a small area to put food. And whatever Sara put in opposite me, I couldn't reach, and vice versa.
Then Haagen Dasz as a treat. Yum yum.
There was a fight outside between a female ticket seller and some man. I had no idea what about, but we joined the police in standing around and watching amusedly.
The last day I got my passport back along with a Russia visa. Yaya! I now just need a Mongolian visa and was intending to get it today but the Embassy is closed because it's a Mongolian holiday and they are busy wrestling yaks.
As it was so hot in Shanghai, we decided to go see a film and then head to the airport. ("Where can we find a cinema?""East Nanjing Road") but couldn't find a good film on when we wanted so we headed to the airport and spent 3 hours waiting around. There were two monks waiting there too. After waiting 3 hours we almost missed the flight. Oops.
We got the maglev to the aiport. The maglev is the very fast train that levitates. The track looked just like some concrete slabs with nothing to stop the train flying off the sides. I don't trust physics. I'd already ridden it twice but the first I was stressing about being late and the second it only went to 300kph. This time it went to 430kph and those extra kph really do make a difference. You are going rather fast... the fun bit is it wobbles a lot. And when a train passes in the opposite direction the shock makes you start but as you are going so fast the train has passed before you can finish your start and so you just sit there with wide eyes and open mouth.
It's true that at 38 degrees there are many much hotter places on the planet-I've been to some of them. But combined with the pollution of millions of people this gets very uncomfortable. What makes it even worse is that people insist on artic air conditioning so every morning I woke up snivelling and sneezing.
I tried to show Sara places in Shanghai but as that was all mostly outside, we didn't get very far. We saw the site of the first Republican government of Korea, as well as Xintiandi, Tianzifang and the horrid, horrid Yu gardens. We also saw the Bund but again it was just packed with people.
One high point was when we found a nice hotpot restaurant to go to. (We asked at the hostel and they said "East Nanjing Road". This is like asking for a nice restaurant in Edinburgh and being advised to try the Royal Mile. Of course there are plenty of restaurants there, but are they any good?) This hotpot restaurant was slightly old style and used copper basins with the heating element in a cone in the middle. Normally it's just a bowl in the table. The food was nice but I had two quibbles. The first being that it was only water to cook food in- most places it is some sort of broth with mushrooms, peppers etc floating in it to add flavour. This meant ours lacked the tasty factor. The second quibble was that as the heating element was in the middle, there was left only a small area to put food. And whatever Sara put in opposite me, I couldn't reach, and vice versa.
Then Haagen Dasz as a treat. Yum yum.
There was a fight outside between a female ticket seller and some man. I had no idea what about, but we joined the police in standing around and watching amusedly.
The last day I got my passport back along with a Russia visa. Yaya! I now just need a Mongolian visa and was intending to get it today but the Embassy is closed because it's a Mongolian holiday and they are busy wrestling yaks.
As it was so hot in Shanghai, we decided to go see a film and then head to the airport. ("Where can we find a cinema?""East Nanjing Road") but couldn't find a good film on when we wanted so we headed to the airport and spent 3 hours waiting around. There were two monks waiting there too. After waiting 3 hours we almost missed the flight. Oops.
We got the maglev to the aiport. The maglev is the very fast train that levitates. The track looked just like some concrete slabs with nothing to stop the train flying off the sides. I don't trust physics. I'd already ridden it twice but the first I was stressing about being late and the second it only went to 300kph. This time it went to 430kph and those extra kph really do make a difference. You are going rather fast... the fun bit is it wobbles a lot. And when a train passes in the opposite direction the shock makes you start but as you are going so fast the train has passed before you can finish your start and so you just sit there with wide eyes and open mouth.
Shanghai Stress
I am writing this from a hostel in Beijing, having finally left Qingdao.
So exams were finished on Monday and Tuesday. At the time I thought I had done badly but it turns out that I had still done rather well, beating most of the Koreans. Which is interesting as they nearly all had books open under the desks. "They cheat worse than Italians" according to Laura. In one exam the two behind me saw that I hadn't circled some answers for the listening and prodded me on the back. I turned around and they waved the answers at me. I looked back to the front, not wanting to cheat, and they prodded me again. I asked how they knew the answers were correct and they pointed to their book under the table before prodding me again. By this point I had seen the answers and figured there was no point not writing them down and as I couldn't forget them, just wrote them down.
The teacher was oblivious to all this. I suspect cheating is normal in Chinese universities. Great educational system they have here...
Then I had the most stressful day of my life. This involved getting up early at 5, and thus waking up stressing that I'd overslept at 3,3:30, 4 and 4:30. Then down to find the bus to the airport which meant stressing that it would be late. It left at 6 and my flight was 7:45. Then it stopped at some hotel for a stressfully long time which caused me to get out and stare at the driver who was having a cigarette. I think he got the message and we headed off.
Landed in Shanghai. Stressed about finding the Russian Embassy. Walked there in 38 degree heat. Applied for Russian visa which involved stressing about whether they'd accept my unoriginal invitation letter and that the form wasn't entirely conscientiously filled out (I filled it out in the embassy thinking I'd know all the information. As it turned out they needed previous contacts for universities and work, travel insurance numbers, hotel addresses and shoe size). I managed to write something in each box (mostly by pretending I've never worked) and after queueing for ages to pay, my application was accepted sweet halleluia. However just when it was going my way, it turned out they didn't work on Thursdays so by next day delivery they meant 2 days. This meant I then had to buy new flights for Friday evening not Thursday. This cost a lot of money. The one consolation was that when I rang up ctrip to change my flights they answered with a cheery "hello Miss Jones" and proceeded to be very helpful. I am always in awe of how they know it's me straightaway when I ring.
Then to check in at hostel. Accidentally booked different hostel to one I thought. Went to wrong hostel. Went to right hostel.
In China you have to show your passport when you check in. Mine was in the Russian Embassy. I had photocopied the passport page but not the visa page.
Went to police station to get a waiver to stay in hostel. Policeman was very rude and aggressive.
Went back to hostel. Ate. Hurried to airport to meet Sara. Got off wrong stop on subway for the maglev so had to go back. Was now late.
Got on maglev. Sometimes 430kmh isn't fast enough and I sprinted through the airport to the arrivals 30 minutes late. Worried Sara had arrived and wandered off.
Instead waited another hour as Sara spent ages in immigration queue.
So after lots of taxi fares, lots of sweating and lots of hurrying, I had more or less accomplished my main goal of getting a russian visa. Sara and I relaxed at dinner in an art deco restaurant that was very Old Shanghai. I say relaxed, more went from a tightly wound spiky ball of sweating stress to a mere frazzled frizz of still sweating stress.
So exams were finished on Monday and Tuesday. At the time I thought I had done badly but it turns out that I had still done rather well, beating most of the Koreans. Which is interesting as they nearly all had books open under the desks. "They cheat worse than Italians" according to Laura. In one exam the two behind me saw that I hadn't circled some answers for the listening and prodded me on the back. I turned around and they waved the answers at me. I looked back to the front, not wanting to cheat, and they prodded me again. I asked how they knew the answers were correct and they pointed to their book under the table before prodding me again. By this point I had seen the answers and figured there was no point not writing them down and as I couldn't forget them, just wrote them down.
The teacher was oblivious to all this. I suspect cheating is normal in Chinese universities. Great educational system they have here...
Then I had the most stressful day of my life. This involved getting up early at 5, and thus waking up stressing that I'd overslept at 3,3:30, 4 and 4:30. Then down to find the bus to the airport which meant stressing that it would be late. It left at 6 and my flight was 7:45. Then it stopped at some hotel for a stressfully long time which caused me to get out and stare at the driver who was having a cigarette. I think he got the message and we headed off.
Landed in Shanghai. Stressed about finding the Russian Embassy. Walked there in 38 degree heat. Applied for Russian visa which involved stressing about whether they'd accept my unoriginal invitation letter and that the form wasn't entirely conscientiously filled out (I filled it out in the embassy thinking I'd know all the information. As it turned out they needed previous contacts for universities and work, travel insurance numbers, hotel addresses and shoe size). I managed to write something in each box (mostly by pretending I've never worked) and after queueing for ages to pay, my application was accepted sweet halleluia. However just when it was going my way, it turned out they didn't work on Thursdays so by next day delivery they meant 2 days. This meant I then had to buy new flights for Friday evening not Thursday. This cost a lot of money. The one consolation was that when I rang up ctrip to change my flights they answered with a cheery "hello Miss Jones" and proceeded to be very helpful. I am always in awe of how they know it's me straightaway when I ring.
Then to check in at hostel. Accidentally booked different hostel to one I thought. Went to wrong hostel. Went to right hostel.
In China you have to show your passport when you check in. Mine was in the Russian Embassy. I had photocopied the passport page but not the visa page.
Went to police station to get a waiver to stay in hostel. Policeman was very rude and aggressive.
Went back to hostel. Ate. Hurried to airport to meet Sara. Got off wrong stop on subway for the maglev so had to go back. Was now late.
Got on maglev. Sometimes 430kmh isn't fast enough and I sprinted through the airport to the arrivals 30 minutes late. Worried Sara had arrived and wandered off.
Instead waited another hour as Sara spent ages in immigration queue.
So after lots of taxi fares, lots of sweating and lots of hurrying, I had more or less accomplished my main goal of getting a russian visa. Sara and I relaxed at dinner in an art deco restaurant that was very Old Shanghai. I say relaxed, more went from a tightly wound spiky ball of sweating stress to a mere frazzled frizz of still sweating stress.
2011-07-03
Bad Guests
Dongmin has been away this weekend visiting the family business away in Shandong somewhere. This meant we had his dog, Gamji, to stay. Gamji is a spaniel-cross with big black eyes and an engaging manner. Butter wouldn't melt.
As Becka and I are leaving Qingdao soon we were invited to Vivien's house to have a meal with her parents. We needed to be on best behaviour.
Gamji and I thus embarked on a competition to see who could be the worst guest. Gamji pulled ahead as the first thing she did on entering our home was peeing on Boram and Sara's bed. Becka and I chose chocolates as a more suitable gift, although it was rather tempered by us being awfully late and looking like drowned rats.*
Although Gamji did wake me up at 5am by putting her snuffly, snotty, smelly face as close to mine as possible. I never returned to sleep.
Becka and I scored points by waxing lyrical about how lovely the apartment was (and it was actually rather nice and tastefully decorated) which is what you have to do when you go to a Chinese home. Becka and I had our clothes removed and we borrowed some of Vivien's as ours were soaked. Vivien's dad was wandering around in his pyjamas, which threw us a little.
Then we sat down to eat ("wonderful food Mrs Yu"). Vivien's dad was in a happy mood and set about enthusiastically ganbeing us. Ganbei means drink up and that's what you have to do every time he goes "ganbei!" because it's rude not to. Except we had red wine and he had the weakest Qingdao beer possible. So the first bottle went pretty quickly. Then beer. Ganbei ganbei! Then he got out his best baijiu happily gushing forth about how great Becka and I were at drinking. Baijiu is strong. His stuff was good- I could feel the quality in the hellish burning sensation in my throat afterwards. The food was great- lots of shrimps which I guzzled. We had a great time chatting to the dad, who was getting happier and happier with each ganbei, and they were all impressed with our Chinese as we seemed to understand everything they were saying. Becka and I were bluffing. But we bluffed pretty well- nodding was all that was required. We could tell from his tone of voice.
Meanwhile Gamji back home had discovered some left over egg fried rice by my bed. She ate the lot.
Back at Vivien's I didn't feel so good. I had had an upset tummy the whole day. I went and hid in the bathroom.
Back at ours Gamji didn't feel so good either.
Becka noticed I was failing and we tried to leave but realised we'd forgotten something and in that slight delay I lost control and the inevitable got puked up all over their hallway. Becka started damage control by assuring the parents I'd eaten some dodgy Italian food the day before ("foreign food you know how it is") and we were driven home by Vivien's mum, who kept assuring my mortified self how it was all fine and not to worry and Italian food can be dodgy sometimes.
I crawled into bed wondering how that could have gone worse. My leg touched something squidgey. Gamji had followed my example and thrown up the egg fried rice all over my bed.
Gamji: 1 pee, 1 face in my face, 1 sick
Louise: 1 late, 1 sick
In theory I am a better guest than Gamji. But then again, she's a dog and I should know better...
I collected my wages from my school. Then I left. Not even a thank you from them for 3 months of hard work.
*As we tried to find a taxi the heavens opened and it threw it down so we had a hard time finding a taxi. When we finally did, the traffic was awful. It was raining so hard I couldn't see a thing out the windscreen and wondered how the taxi driver could. The drains here are awful so in the dash from taxi to apartment block we basically walked up a river.
As Becka and I are leaving Qingdao soon we were invited to Vivien's house to have a meal with her parents. We needed to be on best behaviour.
Gamji and I thus embarked on a competition to see who could be the worst guest. Gamji pulled ahead as the first thing she did on entering our home was peeing on Boram and Sara's bed. Becka and I chose chocolates as a more suitable gift, although it was rather tempered by us being awfully late and looking like drowned rats.*
Although Gamji did wake me up at 5am by putting her snuffly, snotty, smelly face as close to mine as possible. I never returned to sleep.
Becka and I scored points by waxing lyrical about how lovely the apartment was (and it was actually rather nice and tastefully decorated) which is what you have to do when you go to a Chinese home. Becka and I had our clothes removed and we borrowed some of Vivien's as ours were soaked. Vivien's dad was wandering around in his pyjamas, which threw us a little.
Then we sat down to eat ("wonderful food Mrs Yu"). Vivien's dad was in a happy mood and set about enthusiastically ganbeing us. Ganbei means drink up and that's what you have to do every time he goes "ganbei!" because it's rude not to. Except we had red wine and he had the weakest Qingdao beer possible. So the first bottle went pretty quickly. Then beer. Ganbei ganbei! Then he got out his best baijiu happily gushing forth about how great Becka and I were at drinking. Baijiu is strong. His stuff was good- I could feel the quality in the hellish burning sensation in my throat afterwards. The food was great- lots of shrimps which I guzzled. We had a great time chatting to the dad, who was getting happier and happier with each ganbei, and they were all impressed with our Chinese as we seemed to understand everything they were saying. Becka and I were bluffing. But we bluffed pretty well- nodding was all that was required. We could tell from his tone of voice.
Meanwhile Gamji back home had discovered some left over egg fried rice by my bed. She ate the lot.
Back at Vivien's I didn't feel so good. I had had an upset tummy the whole day. I went and hid in the bathroom.
Back at ours Gamji didn't feel so good either.
Becka noticed I was failing and we tried to leave but realised we'd forgotten something and in that slight delay I lost control and the inevitable got puked up all over their hallway. Becka started damage control by assuring the parents I'd eaten some dodgy Italian food the day before ("foreign food you know how it is") and we were driven home by Vivien's mum, who kept assuring my mortified self how it was all fine and not to worry and Italian food can be dodgy sometimes.
I crawled into bed wondering how that could have gone worse. My leg touched something squidgey. Gamji had followed my example and thrown up the egg fried rice all over my bed.
Gamji: 1 pee, 1 face in my face, 1 sick
Louise: 1 late, 1 sick
In theory I am a better guest than Gamji. But then again, she's a dog and I should know better...
I collected my wages from my school. Then I left. Not even a thank you from them for 3 months of hard work.
*As we tried to find a taxi the heavens opened and it threw it down so we had a hard time finding a taxi. When we finally did, the traffic was awful. It was raining so hard I couldn't see a thing out the windscreen and wondered how the taxi driver could. The drains here are awful so in the dash from taxi to apartment block we basically walked up a river.
2011-07-02
Happy Birthday CPC
Yesterday was the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China. (I always thought it was the Chinese Communist Party but they've changed it apparently. Without telling me.)
They've gone from a dozen revolutionaries in Shanghai to being the most powerful, and largest, political party in the world. Not bad eh.
Happy Birthday!
(I wrote a much longer post ranting about how we should give the CPC a break and the awful journalism I've seen recently, especially this piece http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/01/chinese-president-corruption-communist-party. Littered with spelling mistakes and wrong dates, it makes completely unfair criticism. No Hu isn't going to speak about the party's mistakes made decades ago but then Cameron doesn't at the Conservative Party conference does he??? However this post was lost as my vpn died without my realising and I pressed post and the firewall ate it. Please remove the firewall, China. I just want to watch videos of cats falling baths and Ed MilliRobot's response systems malfunctioning not foment revolution!)
They've gone from a dozen revolutionaries in Shanghai to being the most powerful, and largest, political party in the world. Not bad eh.
Happy Birthday!
(I wrote a much longer post ranting about how we should give the CPC a break and the awful journalism I've seen recently, especially this piece http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/01/chinese-president-corruption-communist-party. Littered with spelling mistakes and wrong dates, it makes completely unfair criticism. No Hu isn't going to speak about the party's mistakes made decades ago but then Cameron doesn't at the Conservative Party conference does he??? However this post was lost as my vpn died without my realising and I pressed post and the firewall ate it. Please remove the firewall, China. I just want to watch videos of cats falling baths and Ed MilliRobot's response systems malfunctioning not foment revolution!)
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