Woo Hoo - It's May

And today is the day when everyone in this free market economy gives thanks to Uncles Karl & Vladimir. Half of the population will take a 4 day weekend and go somewhere, which possibly makes the Chinese tourism industry the fastest growing industry in the world, while the rest of us, who have made the mistake of traveling during one of these hol;idays before, will celebrate by going shopping. Truly, the crowds in the malls today will be awesome. Chelsea vs Man U in Moscow will look like a 4th division game in midwinter somewhere on the North Sea coast. (I've just finished my weekly trawl through the Guardian)

I think that was the longest 3 day week in the history of the working world & since I'm resolutely not writing about work, there isn't a lot left over to say. Went to a farewell party at Luhu Park, in the barbeque section, last night. Guangzhou has exactly the right climate for this kind of thing, and it was a good night. Well, the crowd wasn't pleased by my Australian-style barbequing technique - they think charcoal is a fuel here, not a food - but fortunately there were a large number of people on hand to demonstrate much greater skill.

Getting home was looking to be a challenge - no taxis, well no empty taxis. About a kilometer down the road someone who had been at the barbeque in an unofficial, ie gatecrashing, capacity pulled up and offered foru of us a lift back to civilisation. Well, that was nice. I'll never say anything bad about customs auditors again. They are truly generous people.

Three days off. I think I'll visit every station on one of the metro lines. Or maybe I'll catch a bus somewhere. Or try and find a pair of shoes that fits. Or both. There's a river here somewhere, I might go and have a look at that.

And as it began, so it continued

It rained all day Sunday. So much for my plans to drop in at the public table tennis tables and learn Cantonese. Instead I hit the books and I think I have finally worn out me electronic dictionary. It's confused. It can read my handwriting, but it can't find the characters in its dictionary...how can that be right? Straight from a perfectly respectable book. Grrr.

And I watched a lot of TV. I'm not sure if my listening is improving, but I can certainly read subtitles faster than I used to.

I have a new local restaurant (I bought an umbrella in the 7/11 next to my building). Curiously, I can get about 3 times as much food there for the same price as most of the other places around. Can't say it's inspiational food, but it's OK. They have a massive takeaway/delivery trade; I guess about 3 times as many orders were shipped out as there were diners while I was there. That means it would just about be possible to live exclusively in my flat, the train, and the school buildings. A paradigmatic 21st century existence. Add telecommuting (coming in May) and I could have a state of the art paradigm - never leave home. Curious in the middle of the most populated country in the world to think that it is nearly practical to live without seeing onyone at all.

Sunday Morning Coffee Shop Blues

Well yesterday's entry seems to be lost, which is no great loss since it was mainly a paean to the joys of technology - it was handwritten on my mobile - and it's loss seems entirely, if ironically, communicative.

I'm starting to spend a lot of time on trains, in particular the Shenzhen-Guangzhou express. It's not a bad commute really, from my front door to the Shenzhen school is 2 hours. Yes, but it's more than 130 kilometers. And I can collapse down in the dining car, pullout my computer, do an hour's work & eat breakfast. All for around $12. It's a major part of business life in the 2 cities, in peak hour there is a train every 7 minutes and the rest of the day it's every 15 minutes. In the evening I can leave work at 7 and be home at 9 having eaten a perfectly adequate dinner. It was supposd to be once a fortnight, but it's turning into twice a week.

I'm not sure if the camera takes pictures at 200 kph, but I will try. If successful I will add them later. It's not, in general, an inspirational journey. Pretty much every item of clothing manufactured in China is manufactured in that stretch, it's the factory run. But there is still a lot of farming going on, on reclaimed land, between factory fences and the railway line, on deserted factory land. The whole area is well and truly in the delta of the Pearl River, so no shortages of water. In fact, the landscape would be rather boggy and sad, except that it isn't. Well, there is one bit that looks like slum housing, but it's a very small bit. And it may actually just be field huts for farmers who actually live elsewhere. If it isn't, then it becomes easy to understand why the dormitory occupation provided by the factories is so popular.

China has just introduced a new Labour Act, which offers vastly more protection to employees than ever before. It will inevitably push the cost of labour up - I wonder what will happen on the factory stretch then? All the factories will move to North Korea...

One of the restaurants in the same building as my flat is advertising for staff - $300 a month plus board and lodging. That would have been a fantastic deal when I was here in 2002; I wonder how it rates now? The fact that they need to advertise at the front door suggests that they're not being rushed for applicants, so I guess it's not such a good deal. Further down the street, another restaurant is advertising for staff. Waitstaff and the manager must be taller than 163 cm. Dishwashers and kitchenhands are not suject to height restrictions - big of them! That's 5 foot 4 in the old money - which means at least several of my university classmates would have been ineligible. (I wonder why I don't know (m)any short people these days? Seems a bit odd.)




If there's a picure visible anywhere, (it's not to me) then it's a souvenir of my first train journey in Guangzhou, to the second last station on Line 3, City Bridge. No sign whatsoever of a bridge. (Later in the day I visted Five Mountains. No sign of them there either. Removed, a local told me, a long time ago.) Anyway, undaunted, I was wandering around sticking my nose in and I found an alley leading to Red Mountain Village. I can never resist an alley, a mountain or a village, so obviously I set off. I learned that "mountain" includes lumps of mainly clay about 100 meters high (at a very generous estimate). But it was a bit villagesque, and as the picture shows (fingers crossed) it has a very pictureque red feature - this is just one tree of many. It also has some very old fig trees - ladelled and protected, no less. I climbed the "mountain" to a newly laid gravestone (unexpected) and brathed in the heavy eucalyptus scent; half the trees were gum trees, small leafed varieties, sorry I can't be more precise. Wonder how they got here?

I should point out that I have omitted the photos of the extremely well fed rat that seem to think he owned the gutter - at midday! - and the rather scrawny cat that looked like it was bitter about somebody stealing its food. I didn't in fact stay for lunch. Still, there's not much point being squeamish about rats. Twelve years in Sydney have taught me that.

Summer is long delayed here - not that I imagine anyone is complaining. The one climatic constant is that the humidity is never less than 95% - today it's not quite drizzle, but the temperature is around 22, so it's quite pleasant. Given that I have to wear a jacket to work, the longer the hot weather stays away the better.

Terrifying Babies

Chalked up number 2 terrified baby todsy. The first time, on the metro, large numbers of helpful people moved in to obscure its view of me. Today, the baby-carrier carefully moved to the back of the platform.

I know the Chinese (like the Romans, which is kind of curious) think beards are a sign of barbarism, but really, what do they tell these children?

catching up

it's pretty much 2 months to the day since I got here - a quick overview of the time is not so difficult becasue it mainly will be work, which I don't think I'm going to spend much time discussing here, becasue I'm selling an idea a day to Dilbert. If anyone knows where I can get a bulk supply of "The Peter Principle" as staff gifts, please let me know.

I'm planning my own version in 12 months.

Shanghai for the first 2 weeks was cold and dry - so dry the skin started peeling off my legs. It wasn't much colder than a Melbourne winter - I don't really believe 12 years in Sydney has weakend my consitution to that extent. Anyway, Guangzhou, with its 95+% humidity solved that problem.

The hotel in Shanghai was at the edge of a bit of Shanghai that I was kind of surprised to find still exists, an area which apart from being overshadowed by skyscrapers, appears untouched by the past 30 years. I was in Shanghai in 1990, and this bit would have looked identical then.

Introduction

It took me pretty much 2 months to get around to doing this and to anyone who thinks I ma here for a long holiday I would like to say that it is purely becasue I have not had a moment to scratch myself until today. And that I know less about Google than I would have thought possible.

Now I will have to catch up, but that won't take too long. Watch this space.