Christmas... in Beijing?

It's been a while since my last post... like light years in the Internet age. But I'm here nonetheless with an update on my experiences in Beijing for all you eager readers out there.

My study abroad program ends next Thursday, which I still can't believe is nearly over. It has been an unforgettable ride, this China experience, and a positive one at that. The plan is to stay in Beijing until December 22, when my sister and I jet off to the Philippines! I'm very excited for the trip and to escape the Beijing cold for some beach time. It hasn't snowed here in Beijing and usually doesn't more than a few times in the winter. However, I'll take the warmer weather any day, AND the Filipinos will be in a much more festive mood when it comes to celebrating Christmas. The Philippines is predominantly Roman Catholic, and apparently they get really into the holiday spirit this time of year. It'll be interesting to see how they celebrate compared with back in the United States, so I'll try to throw something up on the blog about that while there.

On the larger scale, Christmas is not a holiday in China. Nearly everyone here knows of "sheng dan jie" (Chinese for Christmas), but far fewer celebrate it. It is true though that both from a religious and commercial prospective the holiday, and Christianity as a whole, are taking a stronger hold in China. Since the 1980s and the reform era far more Chinese have converted to Christianity. If the pace continues China will one day be host of the world's largest Christian population. Even more interesting to consider is the fact that it could one day also be home to the largest Muslim population. I guess that's what happens when a country boasts 1 billion+ people. Commercially, Christmas has a huge influence here, far greater than any I would have ever guessed. Last weekend I went to Wal-Mart (there are 4 of them in Beijing) with my home stay parents, and some of the workers were decked out in Santa hats. On one of the store levels they had a huge Christmas tree with lights, and a huge cardboard sign for people to sign who were feeling the holiday spirit. Pizza Hut, also popular in Beijing, has most of its employees in Santa hats and it too has decorations abound. Granted, I am sighting all places with American roots but it is bizarre to see for the first time nonetheless.

As always, there's so much more to comment on but I have to call it quits for now. Finals and papers coming up, so it be a few days before the next entry. Take care until then, and keep up with the news of the world in the meantime. If anyone has any advice about what to do in the Philippines or what to do in the event of a coup attempt in Manila, let me know!

Finally, Pictures!

Good afternoon all (my effort to include a greeting that reflects the time of day in which I'm writing a particular post seems moot... most of you reading this are operating in an entirely different time zone),

I'm pleased to let you know that I now have photos of some of my travels in China online! Check out my first batch at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/J.Kent87/XinjiangTrip9140792807

The link option on my blog is on the fritz right now, so you'll have to copy and paste the address to get to the pictures. Sorry!

The album covers an incredible two-week trip I took with my study abroad program from Beijing out to Xinjiang, the huge autonomous region in western China. I promise to write more about my experience there, but for now pictures and short captions will have to do.

Enjoy!

Step Aside Ebay, Google, and Exxon Mobile

Hey-o everyone out there in the big, big world!

I know I just posted on my blog a short while ago, but for some reason I'm finding it especially hard to sleep tonight so I thought I'd have another go here. It might a good thing too because there are still so many topics I want to explore and, alas, so little time. Before we go any further, though, it is 2:15 AM here so let it be known anything you don't like reading this time around will be blamed on lack of sleep. If you enjoy this particular post, though, it was all me :)

The title of this post might have some of you scratching your heads, and there's good reason for that. What would compel me to include three huge business giants (how's that for redundancy?), let alone to phrase it such that they seem on their way out? Well, for starters, Google, Ebay, and Exxon are doing fine as far as I know, and no demise is soon in the making for any of the companies. However, surprise surprise, guess who's come knocking on their door? It's China! Actually, forget a knock, this is an in-your-face bulldozing stiffarm/kick-the-door-down metaphor I'm employing. That's right, China is at it again in the business world.

Many of you probably already know what I'm referring to specifically, but whether you've heard or not, it's remarkable stuff to consider. Alibaba.com, the largest of China's e-commerce companies, doubled its stock price on its first day in the market in Hong Kong. In true colossal fashion, the initial public offering price of HK $13.50 leaped to around HK$30, making it the largest offering since Google. Ebay gets a shout-out in my blog because Alibaba.com own the Taobao website, a wildly popular internet auction site based in China (see Financial Times for full story: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/00f7bd1c-8c1e-11dc-af4d-0000779fd2ac.html).

The craziest thing about all of this is that while boasting impressive numbers, this feat is not even the best China has seen before. Last year the Bank of China and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China combined to had IPOs of HK$25 billion!

In other news, more China-based companies continue to dominate as of the past couple days. On November 5 PetroChina Co., an oil producer, debuted on the Shanghai market and, get this, nearly tripled in value AND become the first company worth $1 trillion (that's in US dollars. For more, see Bloomberg's coverage: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=awaLHmbrWw8A). Among the profiteers of this boom was Warren Buffet, whose Berkshire Hathaway Co had a large staek in PetroChina and who sold on opening day to the tune of an eight-fold gain. The is a big "BUT/HOWEVER" point to make here, though. After this monster day for PetroChina, the stock came crashing down to earth in the NY Stock Exchange, sliding down ten percent. This was largely attributed a report by Bear Stearns that recommended investors sell because they foresaw no good explanation for Petro's vastly higher value in comparison to rivals like Exxon. But even with that PetroChina still trades with 70% higher earnings than Exxon, who before Petro was the largest company in the world in net worth.

Again, some more fat to chew, although this time around I'd saw it's more like a big, honking porterhouse fresh from the flames.

T.I.C.

The learning really never stops. In talking to my home stay parents these past few days, I've learned some interesting and somewhat surprising facts about China. For instance, the other night we were having dinner and talking about travel in general. I was telling my parents about my latest plans for touring SE Asia over winter break (an aside: starting Dec 14 I am island hopping with a friend from Australia to the Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand. I will make every effort to keep entries regular during that time. Can't wait for the trip! Anyone with travel tips for these parts, drop me a line!), and that started a discussion about where else in the world we'd like to visit. Naturally, I wanted to know if they had been to the U.S. and if not, if they wanted to go. They both emphatically replied that touring the states was something they had always wanted to do. Unfortunately, they have yet to make the trip and the reality is unlikely to change anytime soon. This is because our government back home does not allow for Chinese citizens to enter the country on short leave, unless for business/education purposes. So traveling to the states is out. As a disclaimer, I have yet to read any hard facts to back this claim (though a Google attempt was made), but I trust my home stay family, though there might have been a translation snafu along the way.

I find this restriction placed upon Chinese citizens to be, among other things, interesting and downright unfortunate. Interesting because as far as I know, Chinese can travel nearly anywhere else in the world, including Europe. In fact, my home stay mom is particularly well-traveled (definitely more so than me), and has been to England, France, and Germany. Yet another interesting point to consider is the issue of reciprocity (again, assuming the policy I state here is correct). Now, on the surface, maybe things aren't so bad, if you factor in cases of work or study. Here I am, a strapping young, American student with the opportunity to study overseas in essentially any country of my choosing, including China. Flip the coin, and you get a similar story for Chinese students, who can get over to the good ol' U. S. of A. if their stated purpose is to study there. The story is different for leisurely travel, though. Again, I can still come to China for the sole purpose of seeing the Great Wall and pandas as long as I have my passport and visa, but a Chinese family wanting tour our homeland to get a flavor of the Big Apple, the West Coast, and everything in between is forced to sit on the sidelines until government officials work something out. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if within five years the travel restriction in the U.S. is lifted. The fact that it's there to begin with, though, is hardly fair in my book.

Another did you know (a random one, but nonetheless fascinating to me): funeral preparations are done differently in China. Let me explain. Unlike the U.S., where most people can request to be cremated, buried in a casket, or even have organs donated upon their passing, China has a one-rule-fits-all scenario. Everyone must be cremated, no exceptions. Well, unless you count Chairman Mao. His body still rests in a mausoleum in Tiananmen Square that is on display for the world to see (interesting fact: there are actually two "Mao" figures kept in the vault, one being the genuine Mao, and the other a fake look-alike. When I went to see Mao, I couldn't tell if I saw the real deal or not). But even the story of how Mao's body ended up only further demonstrates how some very private things in China are just simply not left up to the individual. The Great Helmsman himself requested to be cremated, but upon his death, the Politburo made a quick decision to have his body preserved. So even one of the most powerful leaders in China's vast history didn't get his way in the end. As my friends and I so often say when something happens in Beijing that runs contrary to what we're used to back home, "T...I...C... This Is China."

Just a couple facts to mull over as you crunch away on your cereal, fight your way through traffic, or breathe in fresh air as you walk through campus or your neighborhood.

Be Thankful for Your Furnace!

With all the talk there is about China's rapid economic development, there are some things in this country that continue to just plain baffle me. For instance, many stores you go here do no accept credit cards. It's cash only, and usually no checks are allowed either. This gets particularly awkward if, say, you're a student having to pay your tuition for the year and to do so you must almost carry a briefcase full of cash (unmarked bills, just like in the movies). The surprising thing is that this "cash-only" phenomenon is still highly prevalent even in urban areas like Beijing. For a city with less than a year before the 2008 Summer Olympics, this can't be good news. I anticipate many a foreigner, particularly westerners, are going to have to get used to toting around mucho moolah, unless Beijing has some quick trick up its sleeve to make credit card machines available at most places. It is true that the malls here are Visa/Mastercard-friendly, but still it's not much.

What really prompted me to write this post, though, is how the heating of most apartments in China works. My homestay family lives in a danwei ("work unit"), meaning that everyone in the apartment has at least one family member who works in the office building adjacent to the apartment. While incredibly convenient for commutes to work, there are downsides to the danwei layout. Some of you may be thinking, "wow, how awkward it would be to have to live next to your boss", and you definitely have a point there.

On a greater level though, people in danwei-style apartments don't enjoy the freedom to decide when to turn on their heaters! Right now it is a chilly 37 degrees out, and none of the apartments have on their heat. Why? It is Beijing policy that no heat is to be used in homes prior to November 15 each year. I still don't know if this is official or informal policy, but regardless it makes my toes cold. I learned of this bizarre fact yesterday when talking to my home stay parents. It helped me put into context their daily question of "aren't you cold?" when seeing me strut around the apartment in shorts and a t-shirt. To help adjust to the frosty fall weather that has recently descended upon Beijing, my parents bundle up every day in multiple layers (yesterday my dad wore 3 pairs of pants), so I could understand their disbelief in seeing me donned in only one layer.

Honestly though, this small experience made me realize on a larger scale how much we as Americans still take for granted. I never think twice about turning up the heat in our house in Minnesota if it gets too cold (though my real dad has a killer instinct about when that dial changes and I usually consider this point). I jokingly told my family that come November 15 we should have a "we now have heat" party, and we had a good laugh in imagining such a festivity. Seriously though, in the end this lack of heat is no joke, especially once the cold sets in and one can't do anything about it save throw on another blanket.

Speaking of Change...

(The above picture was taken in early September in front of the National People's Congress. This was after an all-nigher in Hohai, followed by the brilliant idea to walk from there to Tiananmen Square to see the 6 AM flag-raising ceremony that happens there every morning.)


Man, talk about timing!

I decide to come out to China, and the one year - heck, even the one semester! - I choose to do it is when the 17th Party Congress convenes in Beijing, an occasion reserved for only once every five years. Call me nerdy, but as someone who sometimes feels like I can’t get enough of politics and government, this is a sweet deal.

Yesterday, after eight days of secretive party deliberations, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), also known as the government here, released the names of newest leadership core to lead China through 2012. The most important affected by this party vote (coming from the Central Committee) is the makeup of the Standing Committee of the Politburo. As I’ve most recently learned through news reports and class, the Standing Committee is for all practical purposes the governing and ruling body in China. Almost all power is concentrated in this nine person enclave, which currently includes President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, along with other decorated party leaders. Both the “election” process and structure of the governing bodies in Chinese government are interesting topics to explore in and of themselves, especially when compared to how things are run in the United States.

What I find most interesting at this point is the tie-in that this news has with my last post discussing the prevalence change holds in China. I came across a thought-provoking assessment of the “new” leadership in a New York Times news analysis found at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/23/world/asia/23china.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Among other things, what the article and the emergence of the new government leaders show is how change remains an ambiguous term. If you read the above article, you’ll see how the outcome of yesterday’s election results ties in to this claim. Hu Jintao appears, as he has stated before, to want to break more from the “grow now, save trees later” mentality of the Deng Xiaopeng era that favored decentralization and privatization. However, in many respects the membership of the Standing Committee, while it literally changed by a few seats, remains largely the same in terms of ideology.

While all of this is well and interesting to discuss, I want to again try to provide a more personal element to these latest developments in China’s political arena. I, for one, was curious to get a feel for how people in Beijing felt about the process and all the media attention it was grabbing (much like our presidential elections in the United States). It is true that the Chinese government has a hand in nearly all the media run here, so that skews the perspective already. What I found, though, in talking to people like my home stay dad and my language tutor, who is the same age as me and in school, is that a lot of people are largely unimpressed and otherwise uninterested in what happened on Monday. My dad said that while he found the process interesting, he personally felt the outcomes of the elections would have little to no effect on his daily life. His reason for watching the news coverage on TV was to stay informed and to satisfy what appears to be a modest interest in politics. My tutor was surprised that I even bothered to show her the headline of a newspaper that prominently displayed the names of the new government officials (really not that new though, as Hu Jintao is still president and everyone, including me, expected him to maintain his post). After further pressing the issue, I found out that she was aloof to most if not all of Chinese politics, and that she also thought that the 17th Party Congress was almost inconsequenetial in terms of how she and everyone else in China would continue to carry on with their lives. I will be the first to say that I would need to poll a much wider audience before making any valid conclusions, but I contend the sentiment expressed by those I talked to applies to many others in Beijing and other parts of China.

Political apathy is not specific to China alone, and we have more than a fair share in America. However, nobody votes here in China for the next president or prime minister, and I think that reality alone is enough to keep the intrigue out of the process. Everyone knew that barring some huge scandal or shakeup, Hu Jintao would remain president and Wen Jiabao as Prime Minister. The curiosity surrounding the election (or rather, selection) was more subtle, involving specific members of the Standing Committee – obviously important people, but more obscure in the eyes of the public in China. It’s true that my home stay dad could rattle off the names of most of the officials shown on TV during a press conference yesterday when I pointed at each oneand asked, “who’s that?” (I will refrain from making a lame alliteration joke involving “Hu” and “who”, wait… too late). He’s definitely the exception, though. I like to think of the announcement yesterday to be like if the makeup of the United States Supreme Court were all of the sudden to be decided by an internal process in which all nine justices were subject to replacement. It would be (and the process of judicial nomoination and confirmation is a huge deal for many in our country) a big change taking place, but I wouldn’t expect the majority of Americans to be able to name every justice when asked about it. I use this as an example of powerful government/judicial figures that still somehow remain obscure to most citizens, and not for any other comparative purposes (because I would otherwise argue that many in the U.S. feel like the Supreme Court makes decisions that determine some of the more important aspects of our lives, unlike the popular view in China that the central government is too far removed from issues of local/provincial importance).

Well, I’ll peter our here because this post is getting long and class starts in an hour. More later, I promise.

Change: It's What Happens Here

Good evening friendly readers,

I think part of what made me take so long to come around to writing a blog is that there is really just too much to talk about when it comes to China. Newspaper headlines in the U.S. alone say it all, especially those speaking of booming economies and environmental issues. When it comes to such topics it is China, China, China, love it or hate it. The good news for me is that I also have a nearly inexhaustible list of topics at my disposal, so we’ll see how I do.

Today’s topic of the day, as shown by the post heading, is change as it relates to China, particularly Beijing. I thought about using the word “progress”, but immediately I paused to think about what that might convey. Yes, to a degree progress goes hand-in-hand with the China of today: economic progress, social progress (some might say), and progress made in standard of living – again, for some – to name a few. However, reread everything I just wrote in that last sentence, and you quickly see that the word “problematic”, this time an adjective and not a noun, also applies, along with a heaping pile of other nasty sounding adjectives and nouns (I also think the same can be said for other positive ways to describe China…ah, the circular logic and contradictions continue, what fun!). In short, I soon realized that progress was not what I meant. I was thinking about something more abstract and inconclusive, and hey, what better term for that than change.

As we’ve all likely heard by now, the buzzphrase for a while now as been about how much China has changed in such a short period of time. Since the passing of Mao and the Gaige Kaifang that soon followed (the Chinese term for the opening of China’s economy brought about by Deng Xiaoping in the late seventies), the country has been anything but static. There are so many examples to draw from, and it not solely out of my own personal laziness that I do not elaborate on this point in terms of what history books and newspapers write. Rather, I want to comment on specific, everyday changes I’ve witnessed firsthand in the city, and what they might mean for Beijing both now and in the future.

I’ll begin with the simplest example I can think of: construction (and demolition). Beijing is a huge city, about 14 million registered citizens, and its size is reflected not only by its booming population but also how ridiculously spread out it is (think of cities like Houston to get my drift). Hence the name of my blog. It was given in honor of a description that fits Beijing for more reasons than one. But back to the story. Since Beijing is big, it came as no surprise for me to find construction of buildings, roads, subway lines, bridges, apartments, you name it, all over the place. My sister, whom many of you know, is also living in Beijing (yes, I know, how adorable – two siblings in the same city. Please. KIDDING! I love my sister and I feel incredibly fortunate that we’re both here at the same time). When I arrived in Beijing one of the first things I did was go visit my sister’s apartment. On my walk over from where a cab dropped me off, I couldn’t help but notice that the sidewalk was being torn up on the other side of the street. I didn’t give much thought to it at the time. However, mere days later I stopped by my sister’s place, and they had the sidewalk complete done, smoothed over, and people busily tramping upon it. Now, I’m no sidewalk-laying expert, but this is a long street that I’m talking about here and quite frankly I had never seen progress (there, I used it!) over road construction achieved so quickly. Then again, I’m from Minnesota so I might have an especially skewed perspective.

Seriously though, I tell this otherwise commonplace observation because it exemplifies just how far down the food chain change winds itself here. If a sidewalk is given that much priority, then think about what these lightening-quick turnarounds might mean for more important matters.

As an aside, honestly, in one respect I find this topic rather difficult to write about for two reasons:

1) No matter how many examples I give, I can do no true justice to the rate and volume at which change is occurring.
2) I know for a fact that even I don’t grasp the full meaning behind change as it exists in China, and that is for the simple reason that I just don’t understand or appreciate it enough yet. I only have what I read about in the news, what I hear from others, and what I observe day-to-day to reinforce my views. Then again, isn’t that what we all rely upon in the end? Ok, I feel better now.

Another quick example to consider is a new pedestrian bridge that went up near one of Beijing’s five train stations, the west one. In early September I remember crossing the street to the station to see my meimei (Chinese for younger sister. More specifically, she is the only child of my home stay family parents) off to Shanghai, where she goes to college. Less than a month later I returned to the same street to make the same walk across, only to find that a bridge was now there for my family and me to conveniently use to cross over the traffic. Again, I don’t know what the record time is for constructing something like that, but I have never seen such efficiency displayed back in the states.

One final example of construction has to do with restaurants and housing developments. My university, Beijing Waiguoyu Daxue (Beijing Foreign Studies University, also known as “Bei Wai”), has its campus divided into two main sections: east and west campus, respectively. I live on the west side and have all my classes there, but this particular description takes place on the east side. There was a fantastic noodle shop on this side of the street that my classmates and I would frequent whenever the craving struck us. Unfortunately, after during only our first visit, we noticed that areas surrounding the shop were marked with spray-paint for demolition. While a bit odd, I did not think too much of it because it did not seem to pertain to my coveted noodle supplier. However, in the weeks to follow I saw a group of workers clearing out the building next to the shop, and I began to grow worried. After early a month’s hiatus, due largely in part to a trip to Xinjiang (the autonomous region in northwestern China – an awesome place I promise to write about in a forthcoming post), just this evening I walked to the same area just to poke my head around. I didn’t even have to turn off from the main road running between the two sides of campus. From more than a hundred yards away I could see a large, black fence behind which there were only piles of rubble, and much to my disappointment, no noodle shop in sight. This topic was not discussed among anyone I knew, including teachers who live in that same part of the neighborhood. The demolishment simply happened (there’s probably more to it than what I’m describing, but if there is I don’t know about it) and that’s that.

Well, not entirely. From my perspective – and maybe some of yours – this rapid development/change/bulldozing (take your pick) has caught my eye and is something I now look for more and more every day. It is a symbol of a market economy as impatient as any in the world, of a government that decides firmly and decisively, and of a community that, from the looks of it, can do nothing but stand idly by and watch (whether people here want to or not is another thing).

Just to show that it’s not all in the construction, I saw yet other examples of quick, evident changes with respect to the Beijing street vendors. These vendors are ubiquitous here, and can be found on nearly ever sidewalk and side street, hawking everything from kabobs and yams (the yams being a sign that autumn is finally here in Beijing) to pirated DVDs and books. This crowd is a fascinating bunch to watch, and usually even more relentless to deal with in person, though they more than make up for it with their absurdly low prices. Maybe in a later post I will talk more about my experiences buying and bargaining with these guys. For now, back to the story: I bring the vendors up because there a common problem the government – and more specifically the police – faces here is how address unlicensed vendors, people who are selling where they have no (legal) right no be. As a case in point, every day to go from west to east campus I walk under the main road through a small tunnel reminiscent of those you see in subway stations. Usually this tunnel is packed with vendors on each side, and man, you should see this place at night! Oh how it comes alive with people crowding around to get at some of the noodles or kabobs or other skewered treats sold. It’s predominately young people, most students, and you almost feel like you’re in the quad or student center at your respective university rather than in a tunnel connecting two sides of a road.

Well, I had grown pretty accustomed to seeing this nightly crowd, so I was shocked to one day find the place completely empty, save the people hurriedly passing through and the two police guards sharply dressed and standing at erect attention, one at each end of the tunnel. It was then that it hit me: I had been warned by the associate director of my study abroad program (also my sociology teacher for the semester) in class about the tendency for the government to send in “crack-down” teams to address the illegal occupation of the vendors. More often than not these “economic police” (as they’re called here) rarely make arrests, as their mere presence is enough to send the sellers packing/fleeing in every direction but that of the police. If word doesn’t get out fast enough of the economic police’s arrival, it is common for the lawbreakers to pay (read: bribe) the police to either avoid arrest or to continue selling at the given location for however many days the law enforcers will allow. The associate director said that usually the economic police’s stay was temporary, and that it was common for vendors to return within hours, or even minutes, and carry on with business as usual. Therefore, my initial shock of having viewed this process, or really the after effects as I never saw the actual “raid”, stayed with me throughout the week as each day I would walk down to the tunnel expecting to find the vendors, only to see the same sight of emptiness and two stern looking guards. Interestingly enough, the vendors did not disappear completely (and therefore the original problem never fully addressed), but rather some of the braver ones relocated just outside the east entrance to the tunnel, evidently far enough away to satisfy the guards.

Finally, this past weekend, by some accord unbeknownst to me, the vendors reappeared, and the guards were suddenly nowhere to be seen. I exhaled deeply, as if I had been holding my breath all weeks in the small hope that the little guys would win out, and thought, “this time for sure things are back to normal”. Less than twenty-four hours later I was again proven wrong. The econo-cops (guards) were back, this time donning winter jackets due to the recent drop in temperature here. To my most recent knowledge, at this point the tunnel vendors are either just outside the reach of the guards or otherwise unaccounted for, but this, like many things in China, is subject to change.

Even I'm blogging now!

A note to the reader: you are beautiful. Fans (you’re fans, right?) can be hard to come by these days, so I wanted to start with something that would make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. No? Ok, I tried.

I have been in China for nearly two months now, and after repeated requests from a few persistent individuals, I finally relented today and created this blog. I intended to write about my experiences when I first arrived in Beijing, the city where I'm studying abroad. However, as all you busy bees know, certain self-promises can quickly go unfulfilled. Now with nearly two pages of my twelve-page Pizza Hut calendar turned since then (courtesy of my awesome home stay family, more on them later), I’ve decided enough’s enough! I’ve never been one to keep quiet for too long, so the silence is broken!

Honestly, this is my first time commanding a blog of my own so I don’t know where exactly it will go in terms of what I write, though I have ideas. Unquestionably, though, rule number one for me is to write with honesty, open-mindedness (except in cases of China rage, also more on that later), and with the goal of describing as best I can life here in China. I hope to inform, to write of happenings here that are thought-provoking, and of course to make at least one of you laugh out loud while reading one of my recounts (I’m talking a full-on, belly-clutching, jolly laugh. If it happens, email me immediately). As I said before, I know you all have busy lives and that reading what I have to say is not – and should not be - a top priority. However, I appreciate any time you spend here learning about my experiences, and I wholeheartedly encourage each of you to comment, leave suggestions (especially any of you who have been to Beijing before or other parts of China), or even a note to say hi. From time to time I do plan to pose questions that any one of you is welcome and encouraged to answer, so look alive out there!

With nearly sixty days logged in Beijing and other parts of China, it’s hard to pick where to start, so I will simply begin with some of the more recent observations I’ve had of Beijing. Not quite sure how or where this blog lists the most recent post, so all I’ll say from here is please scroll up (or down) to read more about my escapades in Beijing and greater China thus far.