I‘m afraid I don’t really have a story to tell at the moment. No bland, uninteresting social critique or observations of Chinese culture but just a plain old summation of plans, recent things and the whole recent situation. So someone expecting any of the afore mentioned can just close this window right now.

I’ll skip the apologies about my lack of posting if you don’t mind because we’ve all seen that before. Been a little busy so in a situation like that I’d rather have a nice Tsingtao – Chinese beer brand – and nod off watching TV. I’m sure we can all understand that, right? Which is kind of what my plan was for tonight also but due to a nagging sense of responsibility here I am giving you the down low (do people still say that?).

The main point was of course my birthday and many thanks for the birthday wishes. I really appreciate that small gesture. My birthday was spent in a rather unusual way for me actually. And this is going to sound really bad. Because you see, for the first time this was also really a full workday for me (seven and a half hours of teaching/assisting). But regardless of that it was a good day and I got a truckload of presents which is always appreciated. I haven’t invertarised everything quite yet but when I do I’ll be sure to present you with a full list.

Right now the Magic English summer camp is going on so that’s quite a lot of work at the moment. But it’s a lot of fun and I’m actually doing things of which I think: “Wow, guess this is not just for kids”. We took them to the crappiest dinosaur museum I ever saw. The paint was peeling off the wall, the dinosaurs were falling apart and the moving dinosaurs all kind of sounded like cows that were being milked. But kids have enough of an imagination to enjoy it regardless of that. And for the adults there it was actually just kind of funny to see such a crapshack. Tomorrow a trip to the beach is planned and two days after that we’re going to Papa Johns to make pizza with the whole group. And a few days later…

It’s all done! Then it’s time to go traveling. The Tibet plan already went down the drain and a lot of other plans I don’t have yet. First it’s to Hong Kong for two days, then to Guangzhou, then to Guilin (which always looks absolutely stunning) and after that try to kind of go off the beaten track and find some more of the pure China that I know still has to exist somewhere in this landmass with 1.3 billion people.

Right now that’s all I have time and inspiration for. I will try to get some nice pictures up of the summer camp and of course you’ll be kept up to date of any travel plans.

So last night I had my first enounter with a tropical storm, or a typhoon as they’re called in this part of the world. You may also know them as cyclones, hurricanes, tropical storms or as the Australians call them: Wet Willies or something similar. This one hit Hong Kong and Shenzhen head-on last night at around 1:00 in the morning. It wasn’t a full force storm and it was a little bit on the weak side they tell me.

At about 12:30 I go to bed and wake up a few hours later to the sound of howling wind and torrential rain. Nothing to worry about, right? On the 23rd floor you generally don’t experience floods anyway. This morning I am woken up by Sean who tells me to get out of bed. It was 8:30 so I unwillingly complied. So I throw my legs over the bed and onto the floor and what do I hear?

Splash. ‘Hmm, normally the floor doesn’t go splash’, I think to myself.

So I get out of bed and the whole apartment is just absolutely flooded. About 5-6 centimeters of water just lying there across everything. My room and the other bedroom were a little better off. But you know, in a situation like this it really just takes a few minutes to sink (haha, little play on words there) in.

The odd thing was that I got up at around 3:30 to go to the toilet and nothing was going on. So in the space of about 4 to 5 hours about 150-300 litres of water managed to seep in through the balcony window doors. How on earth is that possible?

Thankfully, damage was limited (though the floor is starting to get a bit lumpy) and the electricity switched off in the night which is really fortunate. Or it could have ended a lot more dramatically (it’s China, you don’t know about such things). And after about 2 hours of squeezing towels and mops into buckets we had it all dried up. But for the next few hours I will be blowdrying all the wet books.

More pictures inside the post.
(more…)

Once again the most dreaded moment is nearly upon me. Only eleven days until that fateful day. The birthday. It makes one wish one was born on the 29th of February so it would only happen once every four years. Unfortunately such luck is not bestowed on me. Although I did win 10 RMB scratching fa piao (a sort of receit with a scratch card game built in which you get wherever you can eat) the other day. That probably cost me my supply of luck for the next year.

The one thing that is so ironic about birthdays is that people actually expect you to celebrate becoming a year older. All you are is one year closer to death! Should a birthday not be a day of mourning instead? Instead of congratulations people would offer you their condolances. Imagine all the designers suddenly required to design all these new birthday cards saying: ‘Many condolances on another gloomy birthday!’

You may already have the feeling by now that I don’t have any particular desire to celebrate much. ‘Why this depressing post?’, you wonder. Well, I’ll let you in on it.

Shopping. I went shopping. Now usually I find that quite an enjoyable experience but it was shopping of the wrong kind. Shopping for a birthday present. You see, I’m part of a twin and that means on my birthday it’s also my sister’s birthday. I wanted to get something Chinese which would also be kind of funny yet something useful so not like a crappy statue. So I went to Dong Men shopping center, which is a shopping mall the Chinese way.

Wander through one street and you find a whole street of butchers, turn left and you’re suddenly smack in the middle of a maze-like womens’ shoe temple (which it took me 15 minutes to find the way out of) and take a right and you’re suddenly in the Starbucks (I have developed a sixth sense to finding these unconsciously). And all the while all the sales people see you as a dollar sign with legs or a walking, talking wallet. I seriously don’t need womens shoes (though I did see one lovely pair) or ‘sexy DVDs for sexy boy’ (that one was good for my ego, actually).

All of this was a rather roundabout way of coming to a rather solemn point. Why do people need all of this? China is experiencing the biggest economic growth in the world at the moment but is the nation as a whole becoming happier? I doubt it. I would almost wager on the opposite. You may think that you own a house, have a nice job and lots of wonderful possessions but the fact of the matter is that those things own you. They limit your freedom and cloud your vision. Now I realize that this makes me a little bit of a hypocrite as I also indulge in non vital luxuries but never for the sake of the indulging itself. I suppose being confronted with the gap between rich and poor here that has me thinking seriously about these issues.

I was pondering something while looking at the hordes of people passing by the Starbucks branch. If you gave these people the choice between buying happiness and a new flat screen television which one would they choose?

Iam always making tiny improvements to this website as an ongoing project. Until now I’ve resisted the urge to give photography a strong presence on this website. For me it’s always been about telling the story and the photos were just something to add some colour. And of course to tell their own story.

On the other hand I’m seeing some interesting and beautiful things which I wanted to share. Usually I kept my pictures strictly on Facebook but with the downfall of Facebook, Flickr and other similar services also slightly wobbly (and not to mention slow) I decided to succumb to the photos. While I will still keep them off the front page those looking for it can now go to Photos in the menu at the top. Also, clicking the title of the post on the front page will show images in newer posts in full size. Enjoy!

So after two days of actual physical regurgitation – or vomiting, for those of you not familiar with the term – I thought it was time for one purely of words. You’ll notice I have been a bit lazy on keeping you updated and that’s due to several reasons. I’ve touched upon this slightly in the past if you recall. It’s hard to tell an interesting story now and then without becoming boring or repetitive.

But also because the things that baffled you in daily life here every now and then start to become more mundane. The stop-and-go driving of the traffic, people staring at you on public transport and seeing someone driving a bicycle with four matresses tied to the back of it just become part of the every day. When I say it like that it sounds like I’m already bored of it but I certainly am not. I still find it quite fascinating to watch the struggle that life for a lot of these people is.

One of my favourite pasttimes remains Chinglish signs – I found one the other day that said ‘please fall down here carefully’. Unfortunately my camera’s batteries had no more juice left in them.

So you may have noticed me mentioning vomiting up there. Well, I don’t know what caused it but Tuesday night after class I was feeling terribly drained. So I went to bed early but as soon as I was lying down I had to get up and get to the toilet to do the first one in a series of stomach-emptyings. Things were kind of going black in front of my eyes so I managed to put my head between my knees until it calmed down. I was sweating like a madman but eventually it calmed down. Two days later now it’s thankfully a whole lot better, but I’m still a little bit weak and the thought of any food other than white rice, bread or fruit still makes me gag.

So as I said there really isn’t much to report on. Holidays are only three weeks away with the summer camp starting on the 24th of July and after that my trip to Lhasa if all goes as planned.

Especially now. If you’ve heard about the unrest in Urumqi it wouldn’t surprise me if the permit regulations for Tibet were also made more strict. Though on the other hand I doubt the Chinese government would want to lose the revenues from all the foreign tourists streaming into Tibet. But I can’t reserve that yet anyway because the permits are on a short-term basis. The casualty of this has also been Facebook, so excuse me for not replying to anything on there for the moment. In other words, it’s being censored.

Also, let me try and get some pictures up here. And once again my apologies. I’ll do my best to update more.

(more…)