Me in Pingyao, China, munching on watermelon. Pingyao is preserved walled imperial city. It was very hot, and my brother and I had been out on bicycles. My brother took this, and its one of my favourite pictures. There's just so much going on it.

That's me on the far right. This was my first day. I can think of worse ways to start a holiday.


These are the two emails I sent from China last August. The third and final one never happened.

China 1:
Hi all,
Hmm, the final frontier... I've been here a week now, and as holidays go its pretty good fun. Its funny, whatever you might read about China's grasp of capitalism, it really doesn't prepare you for the reality. This country, from what little I've seen, is not communist. Its rather more authoritarian capitalism. Vietnam was more communist than this. Shopping seems to be the big thing here, shopping and neon. They like skyscrapers too. I'm currently in the provincial capital of the Yunnan province in a place called Kunming. Its down in the southwest of the country and borders Laos, Burma and Vietnam. Unlike Shanghai which was completely mentalist its called the City of Eternal Spring. Its 28C in the day and 19C at night and is like this, give or take, all year round. Its also quite high at nearly 2000m. Sadly the latest Chinese trend is here. Demolish the old and build the new, and so there are the requisite skyscrapers, malls and monster shops, and lots of neon too. Last night I went searching for the Muslim quarter as there's meant to be an ancient mosque there but its just a building site. Still it meant getting lost in the market which wasn't so bad. The old town is fairly old, comprised of two storey wooden houses with grass growing on the roofs. The food stalls on the streets are great too; I'm only really held back by my almost total lack of Chinese. Hello and thank you only get you so far. I'm moving on tomorrow either down south to get a taste of SE Asia or up north towards Tibet. There's a place called Tiger Leaping Gorge which follows the Yangtze, and I may go on a three day trek up there. The landscape is apparently stunning, and very Tibetan without being Tibet, but it borders Tibet. I'm spending two weeks down here, and then flying up to Xi'an which is where the Teracotta Warriors are. I'm then travelling with my brother for 5 days, heading to a city called Pingyao, then 2 days in Beijing, a final day in Shanghai then back home (a weekend in Amsterdam). I've heard that at this time of year Xi'an is oppressively hot, temperatures touted as being as high as 40C which'll be amusing. Xi'an and Pingyao are perfectly (although that's Chinese perfect) preserved Imperial cities. They're both UNESCO sites so I'm looking forward to that.

And Shanghai. Now that's a cool city. Its something of a cross between Bangkok and Singapore. It has, surprisingly, the cleanliness and skyscrapers of Singapore, and the hubbub and freneticism (could be spelt wrong) of Bangkok. But what is all the more remarkable is the transformation and speed of change that the city has undergone in the last 15 years. The amount of construction is astonishing. I saw at least ten office developments that are the size of Canary Wharf. Skyscrapers are shooting up everywhere. Its very much out with the old and in with the new, and the decision of what goes and what stays comes down to cash or Mao. I had dinner in a part of town on Monday that had the feel of Covent Garden. Lots of brick 2 or 3 storey pitched roof houses transformed into boutiques and restaurants and bars (PWC have an office right next to it). The block was going to be demolished, and indeed much of it was. I'm travelling at the mo with a Chinese-American who went to school there, which is now a lake. The only reason that the whole area wasn't demolished was that Mao held a meeting there once. Its a sweet irony that the area is now rammed with western chains.

Most of Shanghai - the old city, the French Concession where the Europeans lived in the 1930s and the Bund where the great banking and trading houses stood are on the east bank. The west bank was, until 1990, paddy fields. Its now called Pudong and is filled with skyscrapers. On Wednesday I was over there and went up the Jing Mao (or something) tower which is 88 storeys high. The view would have been awesome had it not been quite so smoggy. That was something I noticed as I came in from the airport. The city has expanded so rapidly that factories are still within the city limits belching out filth. All the cars still run on leaded petrol and so the city is filthy like you wouldn't believe. General practice is not to touch anything as there's this black dust everywhere. I'd heard that the Chinese like to spit and they do, but now I see why. You don't want that dirt to fester in your lungs.

I stayed with my brother for a week which was huge fun. Generally a lot of drinking gets done, with that stalwart of city life, Red Bull and Vodka rearing its head again. Of course the Red Bull is different here. Its not like its stuffed with ampthetamines like in Thailand, as its not speedy, and its not as repellent as the stuff in the UK. It just works a treat. So there's lots of going to cool bars, and a bit of going to bad ones, and because its so cheap you use taxis all the time. I arrived a week ago today and on Saturday went to an all day swimming pool party in a hotel in Pudong. There were two pools on the 5th floor of a hotel, surrounded by skyscapers and it was uncharacterically a clear and sunny day. There was a dj playing cheesy techno which was a little full on for 1 in the afternoon but the view made up for it. That ended at 8 then we went for dinner then on to a rocking club called Bar Rouge. This is a bar which is a roof terrace on a 1930s office block on the Bund opposite Pudong, so very much art deco. That went on til 5. To recover we went to another pool on the Sunday, which had a swin-in bar. Life can be tough sometimes.

The chinese are a funny race. They have no manners and are like children when they get behind the wheel. Basically they don't know how to drive, and driving rules are strictly guidelines which makes crossing the road tricky. The thing is that they use the horn the whole time. Its almost as though its attached to the indicator. They hoot at anything. They sit at the lights and hoot. Traffic jams, bikes, buses, anything in site. Its really tiresome after a while. Yet although the traffic is completely anarchic there are few accidents. Its as though there's a method in the madness. Its not India. As for their manners. On the underground they barge on and practically push old ladies out of the way to get a seat. Then they sit there looking really pleased with themselves. Considering how many there are of them you'd have thought there'd be less shoving. So hoot hoot get out of my way or hoot hoot I can drive or hoot hoot look its a car. Its cross making.

However they may be short of manners but they are friendly too, especially old people. They seem to have an built in respect for foreigners which must have stemmed from before the communists. People are also very keen to practice their english, and a smile and a nod is a good icebreaker. I haven't stretched to mentioning David Beckham but its only a matter of time.

I went tea tasting last night which was great. Green tea is the big drink here. The green tea I had was fresh and bitter at first but after a while tasted of honey. It was rather akin to wine tasting. Puts a whole new slant on having a cuppa. My tastes were predicable for the guy who ran the shop. Jasmine and black tea is what the english like. Jasmine tastes a little like Earl Grey. So, for the first time, I've found a country where one can find a decent cup of tea.

Well, for all that writing I don't think that I've imparted any great pearls of wisdom about China. What I can say is this. Thay are not as anal about rules as the Vietnamese. They like shopping more than we do. KFC is bigger than Mcdonalds. The food is fantastic. BBC news online is blocked, which sucks. Volkswagen builds (I think badges) all the taxis. The nouveau riche, of which there are many, have absolutely no concept of style and as a result look like complete tools. Tsingtao is the beer of choice and gets my seal of approval.

That's me done and dusted. I hope you're all safe and well,

Bye for now

Charlie
China 2:
Hi all,

Time for more tales from China.

China is amazing. Its as simple as that. I suppose its about 2 weeks since my last email and I've travelled far and wide. After Shanghai I went down to Kunming which is the provincial capital of Yunnan Province which is in Southwestern China. From there I took a slightly alarming plane journey up to a town called Leijing. This is a town of two halves. On the one side there is the new town, low rise urban spread in typical developing country grimness, surrounded by hills and verdant lush vegetation. The only point of interest was that Mao's statue's hand pointed towards the bus station. The big message inside was to watch out for TB. With all the gobbing going on its more a matter of when rather than if I catch it. The old town is a pedestrian only maze of ancient houses with large granite slabs as paving, all low-rise, higgeldy piggeldy and extremely easy to get lost. Down the sides of the roads and paths are little brooks and streams, and overhanging them were numerous weeping willow trees, which are everywhere here. One of my favourite trees. There are a lot of plane trees too which is surprising as I thought they only grew in London. It took an hour to find a guesthouse as Lonely Planet maps are really more guides than maps. I've only learnt this through harsh experience. This was particularly unamusing as I was hungry and I knew I was walking in circles and this town is at 2000m and rucksacks start to get quite heavy at altitude. So I found this guesthouse which was in a 200 year old building. It had rooms on 3 sides then a restaurant on the fourth, all facing a courtyard. Think any kung-fu film you've ever seen and that's what it was. Nobody ran in for a fight though which was a pity. It was pretty cool (and cheap which is a rarity here (that's relative cheapness, its all very cheap but surprisingly expensive if you get my drift)). Leijing has sadly been tarred with the brush of Chinese tourism. We backpackers (God I sound like a cock) like to search out little undiscovered gems, only for unscrupulous locals to turn up and exploit our dollars followed by large tour operators turning idyllic paradise into generic resorts. The Chinese saw Leijing as a backpacker hangout and with the help of an earthquake and a UNESCO certificate have turned what was once a tradtional working town (and this really is a rarity in China) into China does Disneyland. Every day hordes of Chinese descend on the town, wearing matching baseball caps, following locals dressed in traditonal ethinic wear carrying umbrellas or flags, or following these miniture loadhailers that amplify their voice by about a half, making them really annoying. Then the thousands charge around the place looking at shops that once sold everyday things but now just sell identical souvenirs. This inconvenience aside, it is a beautiful town, though as is so much the case now, it was not what I expected to see in China. I also saw something which was a real taste of the past. There I was drinking my tea reading my book, which is such a luxury and then I heard this rousing music coming over the wall and went to investigate. On the other side was a large community hall with a conductor and a grand piano and before him about 50 OAPs. They were singing what I suppose is the Mao theme tune. It was a song written for Mao during the Cultural Revolution and the words were probably along the lines of 'Mao you're great, we love you, you rock'. (Of course Mao was destroying the country at the time). It was a cracking tune though and was sooo Chinese, with a wonderful treble and all the men at the back, and really was splendid to see. A chinese guy there filled me in on what the song was, and I've heard it before, primarily on a Mao lighter. Its sad how great musical talent is often somehow waylaid in writing what are at the time perfectly accepable nationalist anthems but in hindsight are completely abhorrent. The Nazi's 'Horst Wessel' is a prime example. A belter like Jerusalem with unsavoury lyrics to boot.

I spent about 3 days there and then got a bus down to a place called Dali, a walled city, but very small, about 3 hours south. The good news is that Chinese bus drivers are not quite as suicidal as Indians. To this end I only saw two crashes. One was a minibus - one of those sh*t toyota Hilux w*nk mobiles that are everywhere in Asia. It was being fished out of a ditch after suffering what looked like a highly effective roll. The other was a tractor that had fallen over. The tractors here look like they were designed in the 1950s in some machinery commune, and perhaps carved out of a solid block of pig iron. They produce a monstrous amount of noise and thick oily smoke and go maybe 10mph. I'd heard all sorts of talk of landslides and so on, and saw a few photos of some near misses that befell some English guys I met. A cliff literally falling on the road in front of them. Ahhh, bus travel in the rainy season on mud tracks, don't you just love it.

Going back to my last email about offensive use of the horn. Some people were in a bus and their driver used the horn so much that he broke it! They then had stop for15 minutes so he could fix it because he couldn't drive without it!

So I got to Dali, and it rained for a week and was cold and I had to wear jeans and my shoes and socks (call this a holiday) and then I got ill for 3 days and then I seriously tired of everything Chinese and generally had a sense of humour failure. I didn't really see anything apart from an hysterical amount of Chinese tv. The Chinese army is the biggest employer in the world (3 million) followed by the NHS. Unlike the nhs the army has almost nothing to do, and so they put on huge martial concerts on CCTV3. This involves massed ranks of surly bored soldiers watching a starched, government approved, deeply communist uniformed greased up medalled 'entertainer' singing rousing songs about the motherland (perhaps). One concert was in a colossal hall complete with marching and all sorts of excitement with an audience of thousands, a bit like The Royal Tournament but without the fun. The other was set in an army base in the back of beyond. Even with all the dynamic Top of the Pops style camera work nothing could diminish the fact that these soldiers were having a miserable time and didn't appreciate sitting in mud whilst being musically harangued and assaulted. Its great stuff.

All this sitting around feeling sorry for myself got me thinking about Chinese history. All through school in the west we are told how the Chinese had gunpowder whilst we were being mauled by sabre-toothed tigers and were writing when we didn't know our arses from our elbows and basically they were really advanced and we had issues making fire and designing round things to put under carts. They missed one vital element and they still haven't nearly got the measure of it yet. And its essential. Its the loo. Chinese loos are beyond redemption. They are the single most revolting fetid rank creations I've ever seen, and I thought India was bad. Holes in the ground I can deal with, but they don't have doors here and they don't have walls either. Nobody needs to see a line of China men crapping ensemble in the morning, all spitting and gobbing and smelling, because they don't really go in for washing either. Nor do they go in for flushing. It is wrong on so many different levels. I mean really. Is a door too much to ask for...

So after Dali I flew (again) to Kunming, where I was prepared for a quiet couple of days before heading to Xi'an. Luckily I met some teachers who acutally live there and so saw the other side of the town, as to see a city properly its best to know someone who lives there. And I definately saw another side. So there's the requisite bars and so on and getting drunk on the local brew and being stalked by hookers which is not ideal. Then the next day we went Chinese ballroom dancing, as you do. The Chinese are amazingly elegant dancers and the contrast with a similar scenario in Britain is striking. Rather than making a beeline for the bar the Chinese headed straight for the dance floor and what a set up it was. It was a huge room like a roller disco with the same kind of lighting but what could be described as a varied playlist. There was a selection of Chinese romantic numbers followed by some up-tempo pieces which had a somewhat martial feel to them. Really think of the drums of the Coldstream guards and you're there. Dancing is cheap and fun for the masses, a bit like clubbing. So rather than sneaking off to the corner for a snog, the lights are turned off every ten minutes or so for 5 minutes so that there can be embarrassment free frottaging and so on. Very funny.

After that we went clubbing which was huge fun and which led to a number of revelations. We went to the Cobra club which was unlike anything I've ever seen. First revelation is that you can get drunk on the fiendish combination of Budweiser and Coors Light. I've never bothered trying before. Chinese beer is about 3% which means that it is very lightand eminently drinkable. A bottle of local brew, Dali beer is about a pint and a half and costs 8 RMB (14RMB to the pound). In this club there was no entrance fee, rather you paid 100rmb and got 7 cans, and 120rmb bought 12 cans. So we sidled in, and let me just say that being the only blonde white person there attracts a certain amount of attention. We met some Chinese who were already well oiled then layed into the Bud. They drink their beer in glasses which are about the size of 2 shot glasses. The toast is 'gambai' which is 'neck it' and off you go. The club was heaving even on a Monday night. Girls come round and take your drinks orders and even though there are bars you can't actually buy anything from there. Of course, being China, there are bartenders (as everyone has a job) but they don't actually do anything. It was musically challenging. Think bad hi-energy Euro techno with a chinese slant. That went on until 5am, which wiped out the next day but I'd seen everything of value there.

On Wednesday I flew from Kunming to Xi'an which is in the middle of the country in Shaanxi Province and is where the Terracotta Army is. After getting fleeced by a taxi driver who had a hidden meter and pulled the old 'oh the meter didn't start' and then whinged and then I ended up paying the amount he plucked out of the air which was a third again more than I should have payed and I felt like killing him and I really wish the police had been there so that I could report him. General feeling towards crime is as follows. The Chinese as a whole are under instructions to make foreigners as welcome as possible, what with the Olympics coming in 2008. To this end any crimes committed against foreigners are strictly dealt with, which means that there is basically no crime (touch wood). The Lonely Planet in the pointless, alarmist and paranoid dangers & annoyances section for Dali said that in 1997 two people were robbed. And then nothing for the next 8 years. So crime is low. The sentiment is that if you are robbed or something then you give the robber a kicking because reporting him to the police can result in a harsh penalty. I heard a great story last night about how a foreign girl had been pickpocketed on a train about ten years ago. She told the guard. He then stopped the train and everyone was searched. The thief was found with her wallet, taken out on to the track and shot. Hence, low crime.
But the mentality of petty crime is different here. What we would regard as dishonesty and cunning, which we regard as underhand and not very nice is seen here as an enviable quality. Its just different. So the trick the taxi driver pulled on me was of the enviable cunning variety not to preclude from the fact that he deserved a thorough beating.

Its midnight now, and as I was on a sleeper all last night I'm pretty tired. Surprisingly enough the beds are a little too short. The staff have gone to bed and the aircon has a vicious draft running down my neck. I'll have to save the Terracotta Warriors for later. I will say that they really were quite something, they really were.

I'm back in a week's time, but I should manage one final email. These emails effectively double as my journal so on a personal level I've no option but to write another one.


Bye for now
Charlie

I tried but failed to get the links to work on the right side bar. I'm at work and html is a bit too detailed to be getting into right now.

There's (obviously) some great animation on the web, and there's this guy called Monkeehub who did the video for that JCB song that got to No. 1 just before Christmas. They also did a stunning animation for Radiohead's Creep. You'll need flash:

http://www.lowmorale.co.uk/creep/

I found it by chance using a search engine randomiser called Stumble:

http://www.stumbleupon.com/

It works best (like all these things) in Mozilla. You tick a load of boxes to choose the subject you're interested in. Then a Stumble button sits at the top of your browser. When you're bored you click stumble and then off you go. The beauty is, and this is where the magic lies, that it only finds quality sites. It could so easily be crap. But its not, its great. That's how I found the Monkeehub site.

Brand of the Week


Coppella: In particular the apple one. 250ml may cost £1 which is pretty steep. On the other hand its pure apple juice with vitamin C added and with the plethora of coughs and sniffles on the Tube its completely necessary. And it counts as one of my 5 portions of veg a day (according to the label).


Un-Brand of the Week

Entirely coincidentally another apple. Big ipod/itunes/istore issues this week. My remote control broke and there's a dodgy connection in the headphone socket where the lead disconnects, though its still attached, then the bloody thing pauses. And I don't know where my receipt is, which means that all this vitriol is aimed by proxy at me. So in effect I'm the un-brand of the week.

Hence Mental Deposit

Me in Amsterdam for Queens Day in May 2005