tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-340940942024-03-08T18:35:05.478+11:00South Korea (남한) and China (中国) 2006This is a blog about my holiday to South Korea and China, about the organizing and the doing and perhaps even some of the aftermath.yewenyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10053973864711137550noreply@blogger.comBlogger146125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34094094.post-8729806028592225112009-07-05T08:09:00.001+10:002009-07-05T08:09:42.422+10:00Well, I have not removed these posts, but my <a href="http://yewenyi.net/wpblog/">blog site</a> is now on a <a href="http://www.qiq.com.au/referrer.php">friends server</a>.yewenyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10053973864711137550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34094094.post-48127663992673534482009-03-17T20:51:00.002+11:002009-03-17T21:17:10.639+11:00Day 6 - Xian, 10 November 2006<div style="text-align: justify;">We headed on the over night train to Shanghai. The trains have improved greatly in speed over the years. The Chinese, in their engineering inspiered designated lack of imagination (which I feel very comfortable with, being an engineer) call them various speed up versions, usually with some number. In fact, I often wondered if the top level brass in China did not rise up through the rail system. They spend a fortune on it.<br /><br />Because the restaurant car was full, they brought the breakfast to our soft sleeper cabin. Ah, the posh joys of soft sleeper class.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/363326189/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/181/363326189_bd57788758.jpg" alt="breakfast" /></a><br /><br />As we came into Shanghai, we passed though a land of canals.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/363326910/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/172/363326910_7f106d4718.jpg" alt="canal" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/363327429/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/144/363327429_22f2486265_s.jpg" alt="at the station" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/363327042/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/159/363327042_b199c80383_s.jpg" alt="beds" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/363327234/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/144/363327234_d69584ef57_s.jpg" alt="pressure and extinguishers" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/363326790/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/164/363326790_0fe775011a_s.jpg" alt="ewen" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/363326470/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/149/363326470_b771d05572_s.jpg" alt="rose" /></a><br /><br />We then went to the our hotel and then along the bund. When I arrived in China the first time, I flew to Shanghai form HK and went along the bund with Barbara. It has changed in many ways, but in some way it has not changed at all. It is the latter I think that is very interesting. But I did not spend enough time in Shanghai, this third time to get a really good view of it. That is one of the drawbacks of travelling with others.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/364698927/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/162/364698927_b264f5882f.jpg" alt="Chinese Tourists" /></a><br /><br />In this view of the over the river, when I visited in 1992, the communications tower (with the bulby bits) was only partly constructed. The entire rest of the scene was rice paddies.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/297143222/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/102/297143222_b4fe92b716.jpg" alt="Pudong" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/364699114/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/134/364699114_ef3d6f3f94_s.jpg" alt="Barge and ferry" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/364699324/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/169/364699324_10eb0f09c4_s.jpg" alt="黄浦江" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/364699465/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/163/364699465_26b520b427_s.jpg" alt="river traffic" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/364699594/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/109/364699594_1004a7d9b8_s.jpg" alt="old style barge" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/364700591/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/182/364700591_6637c1f47b_s.jpg" alt="revolutionary" /></a><br /><br />The amount of traffic on the main river seemed to be about the same, but the multi-barge flotillas were gone. I remember seeing trains of barges, with say 20 barges head to toe in a line. In the creek, the massive barge trains were gone.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/364701976/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/165/364701976_ea80b7f441.jpg" alt="Bridge" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/364701239/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/125/364701239_e0ad4d9750_s.jpg" alt="sculpture wall" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/364701549/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/125/364701549_89dc9a9df4_s.jpg" alt="Russian embassy" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/364701726/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/123/364701726_a82fda0582_s.jpg" alt="Huangpu River" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/364702916/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/99/364702916_d89a0fc770_s.jpg" alt="steam" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/364703782/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/148/364703782_110ba1e447_s.jpg" alt="footpath" /></a><br /><br />As I remember it, this building was the old Russian embassy, in the Russian quarter. The previous tow times I stayed in Shanghai I stayed in the backpackers behind the embassy.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/364704201/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/152/364704201_a1c8be749a.jpg" alt="russian embasy" /></a><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/364705111/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/102/364705111_f4bf6a4bfb_s.jpg" alt="limousine" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/364705398/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/149/364705398_ef07faacd1_s.jpg" alt="PuJiang Hotel" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/297143223/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/102/297143223_a5c3b272c8_s.jpg" alt="bridge" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/364705790/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/140/364705790_e187a51cef_s.jpg" alt="Broadway Mansions Hotel" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/364706178/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/134/364706178_8bdae92f9f_s.jpg" alt="China Post" /></a><br /><br />Bicycles, What I remember of Shanghai the first time was the bicycles, though there were very few compared to Nanjing. Today there are less bikes than ever. But occasionally you saw some.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/364707036/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/133/364707036_0c24547f1f.jpg" alt="bicycles" /></a><br /><br />A before shot. I guess the trikes have gone and are replaced by mopes, electric bikes and scooters.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/2204038897/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/2010/2204038897_40c99fcd3a.jpg" alt="Shanghai 1992 December" /></a><br /><br />That night we went out on our most expensive night on town, I possibly have ever had. We went up to the a bar on the 88th floor of one of the buildings on the other side of the river. We had to take three lifts to get up there.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/364692620/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/159/364692620_4da728ab05.jpg" alt="high class eating" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/364692065/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/99/364692065_6f9650d648_s.jpg" alt="Oriental Pearl Tower" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/364693353/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/184/364693353_f16ca66c0f_s.jpg" alt="cocktails" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/364695065/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/132/364695065_3e6d970a7d_s.jpg" alt="looking out the window" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/364693999/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/186/364693999_3f339008a0_s.jpg" alt="cigar" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/364694721/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/170/364694721_9a90bb993a_s.jpg" alt="ewen" /></a><br /><br />And then we went under the river by taxi to have dinner in the old French quarter.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/364696270/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/179/364696270_551f8aa599.jpg" alt="yang's kitchen" alt="yang's kitchen by yewenyi"/></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/364695948/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/140/364695948_6a0cd4bdec.jpg" alt="under the Huangpu River" alt="under the Huangpu River by yewenyi"/></a><br /></div>yewenyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10053973864711137550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34094094.post-64790291870896998042009-01-31T16:22:00.005+11:002009-01-31T17:05:26.756+11:00On the cutural revolution<div style="text-align: justify;">This will not be a detailed or complex history of the cultural revolution. But it is a somewhat personal view point of these events and the odd random things I have learned along the way, from the media and from being in China.<br /><br />Before I first went to China in 1992, I knew about the cultural revolution only from the Australian Media. What I had seen on TV and in the news papers and what I had learned at school. I entered china without much of an interest to learn about the topic, and really this is where I still stand. But I am interested in such things from an anthropological and historical point of view. And I will talk of my view of others periods of china's history in latter posts.<br /><br />When I went to China my view was that it was a period of great ferment. A period when the new Political landscape of China was formed and the old destroyed. It was a time of massive deaths, from political violence and starvation, of major blunders like the decision to kill the birds because they were eating the seeds.<br /><br />What got me thinking about this time occurs in a little town call <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leshan">Leshan</a> (<span lang="zh-Hans">乐山)</span>. In Leshan is the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leshan_Giant_Buddha">Leshan Giant Buddha</a> (<span lang="zh-Hans">乐山大佛</span>) and we visited it. We were told a story. Apparently a train of red guards left Beijing with the specific intent of destroying the Buddha. One of the leaders, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deng_Xiao_Ping">Deng Xiaoping</a> (I am stating this from memory, it was a long time ago) or perhaps some of his supporters were trying to stop these trians. They were successful with this train and it ended up in ChengDu. The red guards never made it to Leshan to destroy the Buddha. This was the first I had ever heard of decent from the top ranks of the party. I though, this does not sound like what I have been told it was. It sounds like a power struggle. But I put it to one side. There was too much to learn in China to ponder and I was not really interested in further investigation.<br /><br />This was probably the only such event back in 1992. In the intervening time, I did read the odd thing with interest about the cultural revolution and started on the journey to my latter conclusions.<br /><br />The next time I was in China was in 1999. In the interim time, Deng had died. One of the interesting things that happened, was that overnight tian-a-min square filled with flowers and tributes. The next day they were removed. The communists have never been happy acknolwledging Deng.<br /><br />Back in China, I decided to learn a bit more about what the Chinese think of Mao. Well, seemingly he did not exist. There was just a mao shaped void. My chinese was not good enough and things were a bit tricky becuase of the NATO bombings of Serbia. So again I did not follow up. But more and more I was seeing the revolution as a political bun fight.<br /><br />I travelled in China again in 2006, this time for 6 weeks and visited Manchuria as well as the places I had been before, Beijing, Xian, Shanghai (for the third time) and Yangshuo. When I was in Harbin, I found a statue of Mao, the first I had ever seen. I tried to take a photo, but was gently stopped by the guard on the gate. Apparently I was not allowed to take a photo of the defence HQ building behind the statue. But there was mao in the back blocks, a bit like the stautes of St Peter and Stalin in a park in the remoter parts of St Petersberg.<br /><br />The only other reference I saw was a poster of Mao in a loung room in a village near Yang Shuo. I pointed out that I found the view of the Chinese towards mao ambivilent at the best. This caused the man who was eves dropping on us to leave the building. Very strange. I described the Chinese relationship towards Mao and the revolution as one of being like a bunch of Penguins. There are seals off the coast, they have eaten others. The chinese are standing on the edge, they know they need to take the leap. No one wants to be the first one to jump.<br /><br />So here is my current consolidated view. I may come back from time to time if I find that there are gramatical errors that do not cause this to correctly present my point of view.<br /><br />The chinese know what happened during the revolution, so does the party. The party does not want to talk about it because the party is full of gits who can't possibly admit that what they did was wrong becuase it would bring into question what they are doing. The people do not talk about it in the open becasue the party has secret police everywhere and if they did, they would likely end up in jail or perhaps be killed. So there is this silence, nobody talks about it. Every one who is not a vendor selling trinkets to foreign tourists wishes the whole mess would go away and help the forgetting by pretending that mao was just some kind of bad dream. The only people who hold mao in esteem are foreigners where he has pop icon status.<br /><br />I veiw the cultural revolution as a continuation of the civil war. After the communists won, there seems to be a period of relative calm while they got over the victory and getting back into running the country. But China is not a democracy. It is an Autocracy. This means that it works more like a feudal system and the way to power is to get rid of your opponents. The Cultural Revolution was Mao and his sides attempt to remove the opposition from within the party. They used the chaos of the revolution to allow them to run roughshod over any processes and do what they wanted. The reason his opponents like deng are so loved is that they fought this and tried to protect china. Even until the end Mao's wife saw Deng as her biggest threat. I suspect that this power struggle also has something to do with the split with the Soviet Union. Perhaps Mao's opponents were the ones who had the Soviet's support. This means that the civil was did not really end until the execution of the gang of four.<br /><br />What I am really interested in learning is what people learned in school of this time, most particularly those in China. So if you have any stories, feel free to add them here, no matter how mundane they may sound to you.<br /></div>yewenyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10053973864711137550noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34094094.post-66036570420742076492008-12-08T02:09:00.003+11:002008-12-08T02:52:27.877+11:00Day 5 - Xian, 9 November 2006<div style="text-align: justify;">As a group we headed out of the south gate and along the wall of the city. Being in the lead, I came across a group of musicians sitting and chatting in a pagoda. As I started taking photos, they came to an agreement and started setting up. They soon launched into a folk tune and this attracted all the others. There were a few other groups further along the wall. Always older people. There were not very many people in the park at this time.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/356662971/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/165/356662971_1dd8d61e89.jpg" alt="bamboo pipes" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/356662293/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/153/356662293_2a90f46a04_s.jpg" alt="city wall" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/356663248/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/153/356663248_e1b374d0a3_s.jpg" alt="chinese music" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/356662666/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/149/356662666_4623e50eac_s.jpg" alt="musicians" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/356665371/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/135/356665371_2c33b0c834_s.jpg" alt="playing in the park" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/356664501/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/145/356664501_5d81385939_s.jpg" alt="music group" /></a><br /><br />We then headed back into Xian via the south gate, to the calligraphy market. By this time I had split off from most of the rest of the group and at the end of the market I headed off on my own. This part of town is still quite touristy.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/356665910/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/154/356665910_821a902ed8.jpg" alt="gate" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/356667178/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/166/356667178_506790a694_s.jpg" alt="fish" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/356666814/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/148/356666814_6b798caf6c_s.jpg" alt="child on a tricycle" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/356667973/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/126/356667973_5a269c05b9_s.jpg" alt="statue" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/356666404/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/139/356666404_328254769a_s.jpg" alt="calligraphy shop" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/356665685/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/157/356665685_dc7f6e415f_s.jpg" alt="pagoda" /></a><br /><br />I wound my way along the inside of the east wall, and up to the east gate. As I passed a hair dresser's I caused quite a stir with my long, unkept hair. I should have stopped for a hair cut.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/356668827/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/158/356668827_8476256fdf.jpg" alt="tricycle cartage" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/356670556/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/154/356670556_706fe85dda_s.jpg" alt="towers" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/356670139/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/129/356670139_b4ae9315d3_s.jpg" alt="bridge" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/356669873/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/156/356669873_73abf2dad0_s.jpg" alt="wall" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/356669367/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/129/356669367_0a505b15fb_s.jpg" alt="wall" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/356669235/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/130/356669235_ac2705b87e_s.jpg" alt="wall" /></a><br /><br />Passing out through the gate, I wandered through the back streets. I was impressed again to see how far china has come. I saw my first cement truck in China. I remembered many years ago, watching a road be built in Le Shan in Sze Chuan province. There must have been at least 100 men. There were men shovelling the sand, screening and concrete into little mixers, much smaller than the one on a concrete truck. More men, took this away in wheel barrows, while others used trowels to put the concrete onto the road. The white lines were hand layed tiles. It was amazingly labour intensive.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/356671129/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/133/356671129_3b6fd48cf4.jpg" alt="cement mixer" /></a><br /><br />I was now in the real china. I walked a block too far to the north. Here I came across a school, with the children just heading off home. So I was quickly adopted by a few groups of school children. I was very impressed with their english and we played the game of you ask me a question in my language, and I will reply in yours. This is a game that is impossible to play in Australia as children are taught that all strangers are a safety risk.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/356671828/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/131/356671828_11d1878c69.jpg" alt="leaving school" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/356673337/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/155/356673337_3d9ef58759_s.jpg" alt="showing off" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/356672475/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/131/356672475_5688b1878f_s.jpg" alt="playing a game" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/356672911/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/132/356672911_dea24f1036_s.jpg" alt="school boys" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/296388210/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/116/296388210_6a70608827_s.jpg" alt="School Children" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/356672068/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/145/356672068_a858e54809_s.jpg" alt="school kids" /></a><br /><br />As I travelled along, I get several positive responses from the adults. Eventually they got a child to ask where I was going. I explained that I was headed to the 8 immortals temple. The child seemed genuinely disappointed. I explained that I was going there to take photos. I did not say that my guide book said that it was the last remaining temple of it's type in China. Though I do not believe this claim. By now the older boys were in on the act and they arranged for one of them to take me to the temple. I had gone a little to far and needed to back track about 150 meters to the temple.<br /><br />The temple had the usual shopping area opposite with religious items but internally was quite empty and had only minimal upkeep.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/356673893/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/51/356673893_78cc8ece74.jpg" alt="worshiping" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/356676253/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/161/356676253_0de80774f0_s.jpg" alt="entrance" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/356675303/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/130/356675303_22286ab50f_s.jpg" alt="historical account" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/356675024/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/153/356675024_2cd285b036_s.jpg" alt="corridor" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/296392528/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/109/296392528_7bbeb7966f_s.jpg" alt="temple door" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/356673707/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/127/356673707_7891ee2ca0_s.jpg" alt="arch bridge" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/356682781/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/145/356682781_87bccab0b8_s.jpg" alt="moon door" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/356680509/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/133/356680509_92909cf604_s.jpg" alt="roof" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/356680787/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/153/356680787_07672f1e0e_s.jpg" alt="front gate" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/356678493/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/133/356678493_e5c63b8b8e_s.jpg" alt="story" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/356677166/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/149/356677166_4ad6c12b99_s.jpg" alt="urn" /></a><br /><br />Heading back into town, I came across some Chinese playing mahjohng. The old man is delighted and the woman is trying to hide. At the wall there were also some people playing pool.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/296392530/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/111/296392530_e0bf9d430f.jpg" alt="mahjong players" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/356682037/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/131/356682037_db3514c3d0_s.jpg" alt="moat" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/356681851/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/137/356681851_dbbd5cbf16_s.jpg" alt="moat" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/296392531/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/121/296392531_830b6fd67b_s.jpg" alt="city wall" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/356681344/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/131/356681344_db3efd4e55_s.jpg" alt="wall" /></a><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/356680989/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/131/356680989_fa2d962893_s.jpg" alt="clothes line" /></a><br /><br />Back inside the city, I find this advertisement and have to take a photo and laugh.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/356682571/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/154/356682571_7dfcb74c84.jpg" alt="" kermit="" john="" by="" yewenyi="" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">"Kermit John"<br /><br />Kermit John was born in Canberra Australia and 1788 depending on his good sense.<br />Kermit contracted to explore gold mines. After several years of persistence and hard work, he quickly became the leading gold maker in Australia. Kermit John's motto is premium quality derives from pursuing details. To show respect for his achievements later, people called his as "gold earl".</span><br /></div>yewenyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10053973864711137550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34094094.post-89829947711951725552008-08-13T19:08:00.002+10:002008-08-13T19:11:00.692+10:00internet filtering<div style="text-align: justify;">this one is a bit out of order, and I have not been good at finishing the detailed blogs, I have not forgotten, I will get back here to complete the task.<br /><br />When I was in Gui Lin, I had great trouble with the stability of the links. There was never this problem anywhere else in china, though it did occur to a lesser extent in HK. Basically the TCP links would be reset. At the time I just though that it was due to overloaded links, but then I read that <a href="http://www.networkworld.com/newsletters/frame/2008/081108wan1.html?nlhtwan=ts_081208&nladname=081208wideareanetworkingal">Comcast</a> in the USA was doing this to peer to peer links. I wonder if the chinese were doing the same?<br /></div>yewenyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10053973864711137550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34094094.post-80887506539306559412008-05-14T22:20:00.007+10:002008-05-16T04:22:20.229+10:00Xian the first time<div style="text-align: justify;">Strangely my drop down list has the title, thinking that it has been used before. But it does not exist in my blog.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">On my first trip to <a href="http://flickr.com/search/?q=xian&w=30265340%40N00&ss=2&ct=6&s=int">Xian</a> several quite strange and unusual things happened.<br /></div><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li>At the train station a man came up to me. He was a taxi driver. He wanted me to stay at a particular hotel. He was determined to do so. Verily so and so much more so than I have ever encountered before that I took special notice of it. When I told him where I was to stay, he said that I should not do so as the showers did not work. (Well this much turned out to be correct. The showers were cold and had to held by candle light. I stayed somewhere to the north west of the city wall.)</li><li>At the place where I was staying, this American man was sharing my dormitory room with two girls from Sweden. He said that he had been intending to stay at the hotel where I was offered by the taxi driver but had changed his mind. He seemed out of place in the low end accommodation that I was using.<br /></li><li>While I was walking the streets of Xian with this man a day or two later, he was talking about having blue balls. Later he told the girls from Sweden that I was safe.</li><li>At the market in front of the grand mosque (<a href="http://flickr.com/search/?q=xian+mosque&l=cc&ss=2&ct=0&s=int">大清真寺</a>), I wanted to buy a green hat. The man at the stall asked if I was a muslim. I said no. He said that only muslims were allowed to wear hats like that. I thought he was being very narrow minded.</li></ul><div style="text-align: justify;">I learned quite a lot from this man. He was living in Taiwan and his chinese was very good. Back in 1999 it was still only a month after the nato (to the chinese american) bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. While I was always asked if I was an American and was glad that I could say no, he would say yes. I was somewhat aghast. But there ensured a discussion on several occasions. My chinese is not great, but I was impressed with how well the Chinese understood the one-sided view they are given by their media and the American man would always win the argument by pointing out that every day the (the chinese) threatened to blow up TaiPei and that he lived there. My resect grew enormously.</div><br />"Courtyard at the Great Mosque, Xi'an, China" by molas <a href="http://6v8.gamboni.org/Flickr-Easy-Photo-Post.html">[?]</a><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/molas/62271411/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/32/62271411_08720a44bc_m.jpg" alt="Courtyard at the Great Mosque, Xi'an, China" /></a>yewenyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10053973864711137550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34094094.post-63546783351085753642008-04-25T04:56:00.003+10:002008-04-25T05:31:09.681+10:00Day 4 - Xian, November 2006<div style="text-align: justify;"> For the second time, I arrive in <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/sets/72157594476654544/">Xian</a> on the Z19 train. This time in the reverse directions. With all the speed up plans for the rail system, the journey is about half the time. I remember it taking 25 hours the time before. Now it is overnight. We arriving in the morning light.<br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/363320164/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/114/363320164_610a55093f_t.jpg" alt="Shaanxi farms" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/292878516/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/111/292878516_eaf956263a_t.jpg" alt="the train tracks near Xian" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/363320425/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/130/363320425_209db39f8d_t.jpg" alt="rail bridge" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/363320274/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/173/363320274_a4bf925eeb_t.jpg" alt="locomotive" /></a><br /><br />We do an early check into the hotel and then it is a quick orientation of the city. When I stayed here in 1999, I stayed outside the city wall on the north side. This time we stayed inside the wall near the south gate. It was the most chinese style hotel. I loved it, the others hated it.We had yummy pork dumplings for brunch. Unfortunately, I managed to dribble pig fat all over my camera. While standing in line at the dumpling shop, I was a bit tardy in deciding what to have. Some chinese girls got in the line in front of me. They got three dumplings for ¥1. We only got one. So I saw that there was still a dual price structure. But the locals were more discrete here in Xian. They did not know I knew enough Chinese to see what was going on.<br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355676169/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/154/355676169_79745351a6_t.jpg" alt="tour group" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355676417/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/127/355676417_794bf0fdc8_t.jpg" alt="dumplings" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355676478/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/153/355676478_2825702572_t.jpg" alt="Bell Tower" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355676478/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/153/355676478_2825702572_t.jpg" alt="Bell Tower" /> </a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355676676/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/124/355676676_621c066c8a_t.jpg" alt="hawkers" /></a><br /><br />We now headed off into the Muslim Quarter. I was quite keen to see how it had changed. I had some good meals there last time. think that there is more variety now. What had changed was that there was more activity. When I was there before, it was quiet. The streets mostly empty. Now it was bustling with commercial activity all the time. Brian and I had a traditional <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355678766/in/set-72157594476654544/">muslim meal</a> with the large round piece of bread and a bowl of food. I preferred the one I had in 1999.<br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355676928/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/162/355676928_fded753d63_t.jpg" alt="Electric Bicycle" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355677126/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/130/355677126_a9d0f0b947_t.jpg" alt="street cleaners" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355677351/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/159/355677351_21958f132f_t.jpg" alt="shops" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355677555/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/160/355677555_65f7a8ed6b_t.jpg" alt="muslim food" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355677728/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/139/355677728_55bd918412_t.jpg" alt="tea pots" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355677863/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/128/355677863_d52b4bdf76_t.jpg" alt="bicycle truck" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355678016/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/148/355678016_65ee4f3154_t.jpg" alt="changing the coal in the stove" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355678135/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/132/355678135_1e1faf9428_t.jpg" alt="butcher" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355678280/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/158/355678280_fa413270d8_t.jpg" alt="firing" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355678459/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/141/355678459_ee5b67dc72_t.jpg" alt="taxi" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355678588/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/163/355678588_26b0e83f3e_t.jpg" alt="lunch" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355678766/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/123/355678766_15efa08f05_t.jpg" alt="lunch" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/292878517/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/122/292878517_1624974f62_t.jpg" alt="Making Lunch" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355678954/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/134/355678954_7b9f59bf07_t.jpg" alt="tourist stuff" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355679183/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/142/355679183_8092cd4af7_t.jpg" alt="market" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355679412/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/166/355679412_815784b56f_t.jpg" alt="trinkets" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355679646/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/152/355679646_5d02292825_t.jpg" alt="food on a stick" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355679840/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/125/355679840_95e105bd61_t.jpg" alt="lamb on a stick" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355680038/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/134/355680038_9a8f4b761a_t.jpg" alt="Approriate Parking" /></a><br /><br />In the afternoon we headed out to see the Terracotta Warriors. The whole place has been redeveloped and I was a bit saddened. But it is much nicer. The authorities were trying to stamp out the hawkers from inside the museum area, but with only limited success.<br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355680212/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/135/355680212_942a26e262_t.jpg" alt="review" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355680365/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/126/355680365_12068692a4_t.jpg" alt="toll booth" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355680463/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/151/355680463_944262a2e3_t.jpg" alt="Shaanxi Tourism Corporation group bus" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355680562/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/154/355680562_7ccd74ed97_t.jpg" alt="museum" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355680753/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/124/355680753_b609cf3753_t.jpg" alt="horses" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355680903/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/161/355680903_4820d0bd64_t.jpg" alt="metal warriors" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355681026/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/156/355681026_7320ab421a_t.jpg" alt="ranks" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355681243/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/138/355681243_6b1d0dc187_t.jpg" alt="the end of the line" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355681462/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/125/355681462_94a67515a7_t.jpg" alt="roof" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355681643/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/137/355681643_c4e5dd1726_t.jpg" alt="repair workstation" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355681884/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/129/355681884_ce4a2e3138_t.jpg" alt="roof" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355682135/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/147/355682135_c0e98080ee_t.jpg" alt="lone warrior" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355682364/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/156/355682364_51f45bb26c_t.jpg" alt="ranks of warriors" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355682531/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/145/355682531_a14e211437_t.jpg" alt="roof support" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355682657/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/166/355682657_3c73a4ae1d_t.jpg" alt="pit no 2 and number 3" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355686187/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/141/355686187_aa5d12a106_t.jpg" alt="terracotta horses" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355682881/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/157/355682881_12526d5e1d_t.jpg" alt="generals" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355683092/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/166/355683092_99cb954557_t.jpg" alt="ornamental cabbages" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355683282/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/154/355683282_85b89e9416_t.jpg" alt="head" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355683420/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/165/355683420_6972fc1031_t.jpg" alt="warrior" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355683640/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/127/355683640_339fbcc21e_t.jpg" alt="workings" /></a><br /><br />In the evening, we went back to the Muslim Quarter, for a steam boat. I have to say I was not so impressed with this type of Steam Boat.<br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355683773/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/148/355683773_6d8ba14156_t.jpg" alt="dinner" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355683936/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/165/355683936_8c88f13cd4_t.jpg" alt="food on a stick" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355684128/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/141/355684128_bbb4cd3a64_t.jpg" alt="group dinner" /></a><br /><br />After that we wandered back to our hotel.<br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355684345/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/139/355684345_0bae77bd61_t.jpg" alt="muslim quarter" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355684564/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/164/355684564_63589a99b3_t.jpg" alt="photography" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355684779/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/140/355684779_f8ab400d2a_t.jpg" alt="street sweeping" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355685105/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/149/355685105_224154c9b3_t.jpg" alt="restaurant" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355685368/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/139/355685368_8632e067f8_t.jpg" alt="shuttle cock" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355685569/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/139/355685569_10af1e29d6_t.jpg" alt="dried fruit market" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355685810/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/137/355685810_1c862c201b_t.jpg" alt="Main street" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/292878522/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/100/292878522_cc80693284_t.jpg" alt="Drum Tower" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355685998/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/155/355685998_a8407b2964_t.jpg" alt="underpass" /></a><br /></div>yewenyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10053973864711137550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34094094.post-7137365013686724762008-04-07T17:48:00.004+10:002008-04-07T17:56:21.337+10:00of Australians and AmericansOne of the things that I have always found interesting is the fundamental differences in approach of Australians when compared to that of Americans. Of course these are dangerous generalizations. But on the whole they hold true of the people I have met. It is mostly true of the sort of people I travel with.<br /><br />Australians are always worried about creating distortion and of overpaying. So they want to preserve a place as it is. They reject change, especially change that they might have caused. So they think that to be friendly in their interaction is to leave a small footprint of their existence. They do not want to make the world a giant theme park designed to cater to Australian tourists.<br /><br />Americans are mostly concerned with the experience. They treat the world as a giant theme park. On the money side, if it is cheaper than the price in the USA, then it must be a bargain. They treat the world as just another part of the USA, with an interesting folkloric content.<br /><br />An example with food. In Beijing I was disappointed at how expensive the food was. It was in the price range 15 to 30 yuan. (@ about 8 yuan to $1 AUD.) This is because in Harbin I had meals for 2 or 3 yuan. Maybe the meals in Beijing were of a higher quality, but not that much better. If the Americans get a meal for this price they are astounded at how cheap it is and want to give a heft tip to make up the embarrassing difference. Perhaps the Americans are happier, if not a little poorer.yewenyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10053973864711137550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34094094.post-7808724545798709562007-12-09T09:42:00.000+11:002007-12-09T09:57:55.917+11:00day 3 - The Great Wall - 7 Nov 2006<div style="text-align: justify;">On the third day of the <a href="http://ewenbell.com/workshops.php">tour</a>, we went to the Summer Palace. Parts of it, including SuZjou street", and like many other places in BeiJing, was reconstructed after the British burned it down when they were an occupying force.</div><br />"Suzhou Street" by <b>yewenyi</b> <a href="http://6v8.gamboni.org/Flickr-Easy-Photo-Post.html">[?]</a><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355060647/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/125/355060647_5d8cbc5874_m.jpg" alt="Suzhou Street" alt="Suzhou Street by yewenyi"/></a><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Again we split up. I went with the girls on a walk around the lake as I have visited the temple complex in 1999 and I had seen the Bodhisattva's having sex. Though I do regret not going back and taking photos.</div><br />"the lake" by <b>yewenyi</b> <a href="http://6v8.gamboni.org/Flickr-Easy-Photo-Post.html">[?]</a><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355076188/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/126/355076188_eca90b86f0_m.jpg" alt="the lake" alt="the lake by yewenyi"/></a><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">At the very end we caught a boat back when we hit the massive crowds again at the north of the lake.</div><br />"tourists" by <b>yewenyi</b> <a href="http://6v8.gamboni.org/Flickr-Easy-Photo-Post.html">[?]</a><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355084945/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/125/355084945_6b03a79028_m.jpg" alt="tourists" alt="tourists by yewenyi"/></a><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">After this, we packed our bags and headed off for one last dinner in Beijing. It was <a href="http://flickr.com/photos/vahid_69/sets/72157594387924497/">Vahid's</a> birthday so we had a cake. Ewen sold his phrase book to one of the waitresses.</div><br />"purple birthday cake" by <b>yewenyi</b> <a href="http://6v8.gamboni.org/Flickr-Easy-Photo-Post.html">[?]</a><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355147087/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/150/355147087_8371f097b4_m.jpg" alt="purple birthday cake" alt="purple birthday cake by yewenyi"/></a><br />"learning english" by <b>yewenyi</b> <a href="http://6v8.gamboni.org/Flickr-Easy-Photo-Post.html">[?]</a><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355147319/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/146/355147319_2b5ab81384_m.jpg" alt="learning english" alt="learning english by yewenyi"/></a><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">And then as the sun set, we headed off to Xian on the train.</div><br />"Beijing Station" by <b>yewenyi</b> <a href="http://6v8.gamboni.org/Flickr-Easy-Photo-Post.html">[?]</a><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/355147552/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/146/355147552_8e9b503695_m.jpg" alt="Beijing Station" alt="Beijing Station by yewenyi"/></a>yewenyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10053973864711137550noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34094094.post-71071137793902003862007-11-18T22:03:00.000+11:002007-11-18T22:07:21.283+11:001999 outside Beijing UniversityI was in a little department store. More like a chinese general store. A man said, you have to make up your mind. But, my mind was already made up. I had made the decision when in 1969. I just said it was already made up. The decision stands, unlike the one made in 1972 that was changed when I had previously been in Taipei that was changed. The change in one made it more imporatant that the other remained unchanged. I think that the nuns would still not approve.yewenyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10053973864711137550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34094094.post-65674027144595869042007-10-28T19:49:00.000+11:002007-10-28T20:10:38.845+11:00day 2 - The Great Wall - 6 Nov 2006<div style="text-align: justify;">I have no idea what we did in the morning. I certainly do not appear to have taken any photos. In the afternoon we headed out to SiMaTai. It seems that this place has caused much confusion to cause people to think that I went to SiMaSai in <a href="http://yewenyi.imeem.com/blogs/2007/09/18/z86G7l8A/he_has_to_admit_that_he_went_to_thailand">Thailand</a>. But that is another story.<br /><br />This was my second visit to this location. I went there in 1999 and climed up to the right. It is when my vertigo struck back with a savage vengeance. In the image below it is the part of the wall in the distance. I was walking up the wall with no problems. Then we hit a part with no sides and with just a mound of rock. I turned around and saw the thousand foot drop and went week in the knees. I had to let the others continue. I could not go on. Two American men, coming back down the wall talked me down to a flat part. I thanked them and was very grateful.<br /><br />"great wall" by <b>yewenyi</b> <a href="http://6v8.gamboni.org/Flickr-Easy-Photo-Post.html">[?]</a><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/360371812/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/161/360371812_797d9b3ac8_m.jpg" alt="great wall" /></a><br /><br />This time we headed up to the left. It was not without issues as a suspension footbridge had to be crossed and when I got further up I could not continue on the sections with no sides and had to wait for the others to return. Because it was a <a href="http://ewenbell.com/workshops.php">photography trip</a>, Ewen arranged for us to be there at the best time of day to get the best light. Hence I have a nice set of <a href="http://flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/sets/72157594484443808/">images</a> with great light.<br /><br />"suspension bridge" by <b>yewenyi</b> <a href="http://6v8.gamboni.org/Flickr-Easy-Photo-Post.html">[?]</a><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/360369877/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/140/360369877_67235d403e.jpg" alt="suspension bridge" /></a><br /><br />In the evening we stopped off at a restaurant en-route to Beijing and had a nice meal in a very steamy restaurant.<br /><br />"Ordering Dinner" by <b>yewenyi</b> <a href="http://6v8.gamboni.org/Flickr-Easy-Photo-Post.html">[?]</a><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/362316660/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/164/362316660_47aac50220.jpg" alt="Ordering Dinner" /></a><br /></div>yewenyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10053973864711137550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34094094.post-26310156790146384742007-10-20T07:18:00.000+10:002007-10-20T07:40:16.344+10:00want or need?<div style="text-align: justify;">When in BeiJing in 1999, I was wandering back from the CBD to my accommodation at BeiJing University. Rather than go the direct route, I headed off to one side to see what was there. I did not know it at the time, but this was supposedly a more disreputable part of town.<br /><br />I came to an intersection. There was a group of 5 people, 4 men and one woman. They were standing in the center of the road at a trolley bus stop. They saw me coming and there was some odd body language in their reaction. Perhaps they were surprised. As I approached the woman cupped her hands, like she was holding some testicles and said what I thought was you ma? This confused me greatly and the quickly scattered.<br /><br />With reflection I think she probably said yao ma? That is need? rather than have? In characters the difference is much clearer.<br /><ul><li>要嗎 need/want?</li><li>有嗎 have?</li></ul></div>yewenyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10053973864711137550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34094094.post-22756163354018320612007-10-05T19:49:00.000+10:002007-10-12T22:55:21.942+10:00A first day for Photography - 5 November 2006<div style="text-align: justify;">The next day was officially the first day of the <a href="http://ewenbell.com/workshops.php">tour</a>. In the morning we headed off to the <a href="http://www.china.org.cn/english/features/museums/139757.htm">Drum tower</a> and spent the morning wandering the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutong">Hutongs</a>. The tower was quite impressive and we were there for a session on the drums. It also has good views of the city. From here it is clear that BeiJing is donut shaped. There is the old city, surrounded by the old suburbs and then by ring of modern high rises. I was quite impressed from up here about how the development had been handled on the macro scale.<br /><br />"group meeting" by <b>yewenyi</b> <a href="http://6v8.gamboni.org/Flickr-Easy-Photo-Post.html">[?]</a><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/350166064/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/147/350166064_4944818708_m.jpg" alt="group meeting" /></a><br /><br />"bang the drum" by <b>yewenyi</b> <a href="http://6v8.gamboni.org/Flickr-Easy-Photo-Post.html">[?]</a><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/350167662/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/129/350167662_1626b59e5a_m.jpg" alt="bang the drum" /></a><br /><br />We wandered through the hutongs. I do not remember which bit I visited in 1999, but the 1999 version was alive and vibrant. Markets and people everywhere. Maybe different parts are different. Maybe the decline of these places as people move out is the cause. Now the place was a bit deserted and the famous wind and dust of BeiJing were in full force. There were lines of rickshaws for the tourist trade and people selling food. Before I left many people here in Australia commented on how it was a tragedy that the government was pulling down the hutongs. But I do not feel this way. I certainly feel that some should be kept as a historical zone. But life in the hutongs is not pleasant. Mostly families live in one or two room houses around a courtyard. There is a communal toilet for the courtyard. There is no running water and the houses have no kitchens. So they eat out all the time, which is the source of china's well know and excellent cuisine. Also the lack of fridges means that it is a more effective method of suppling food to have a central restaurant using freshly made produce in significant quantity. It minimizes the need for storage.<br /><br />"down into the depths" by <b>yewenyi</b> <a href="http://6v8.gamboni.org/Flickr-Easy-Photo-Post.html">[?]</a><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/350171361/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/142/350171361_5bbb1011cf_m.jpg" alt="down into the depths" /></a><br /><br />In the afternoon Ewen and I went to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_heaven">Temple of Heaven</a> to have a private photography lesson. I had visited the temple in 1999 and remember being generally unimpressed. But this time it was much more interesting. They have spent a lot of money on repainting it and doing other restorations. So it was the opposite of the hutong experience. The glory of Imperial China had been restored.<br /><br />"Hall for prayer for good harvests" by <b>yewenyi</b> <a href="http://6v8.gamboni.org/Flickr-Easy-Photo-Post.html">[?]</a><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/352614972/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/131/352614972_c97fa13952_m.jpg" alt="Hall for prayer for good harvests" /></a><br /><br />In the eventing we went to see the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_variety_art">acrobatics</a>. I was not really interested in going as I was expecting a dull tourist driven experience. But I was pleasantly surprised. While it is clearly set up for the tourists, it was a good sampler of the different dance styles. Kind of like a compilation CD is for music of an era.<br /><br />"Acrobatic plate twirling" by <b>yewenyi</b> <a href="http://6v8.gamboni.org/Flickr-Easy-Photo-Post.html">[?]</a><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/292873294/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/121/292873294_fd4dfa3d3d_m.jpg" alt="Acrobatic plate twirling" /></a><br /><br />Afterwards we retired to a Tibetan restaurant in the diplomatic district. It was a bit americanized, but we had Yak. Hm, I do not think Yak is one of my favorite meats. But maybe it was the preparation. Unlike the others I really enjoyed the music.<br /></div><br />"Tibetans" by <b>yewenyi</b> <a href="http://6v8.gamboni.org/Flickr-Easy-Photo-Post.html">[?]</a><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/292876356/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/107/292876356_11072907ab_m.jpg" alt="Tibetans" /></a>yewenyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10053973864711137550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34094094.post-21110261968317513062007-09-29T05:27:00.000+10:002007-09-29T05:36:43.016+10:00Police and Courts<div style="text-align: justify;">When I was in China in 1992, there was quite a lot of discussion in the English Language press about the lack of a judiciary. In China the police were responsible for arresting you and then prosecuting you and sentencing you. As you can imagine it is a quite unsatisfactory state of affairs that will not only lessen the rule of law, it is subject to endless corruption and abuse of power worries. I suppose for a one party state, abusing power is part and parcel of the ruling system so it suits them to be this way. However, China at the time was looking at a way out. In my subsequent travels I did not come across any information as to what changes had been made, if any in this system.<br /><br />It is with dismay that I note that there is great disdain in the police force, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_jock">media</a> and some major <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_howard">political</a> elements here in Australia for the Judiciary and rule of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law">law</a>. These people are leading us down a path that will allow one party rule as exists in China.<br /></div>yewenyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10053973864711137550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34094094.post-3655581463646108542007-09-14T18:30:00.000+10:002007-09-16T04:16:08.521+10:00living in a land with no fridges<div style="text-align: justify;">For a while now, I have been providing flashbacks to my visit to China in 1999, but I also visited in 1992. Back then China was just emerging from the years of communist rule and the economy was starting to develop into a market economy. But it still had a long way to go.<br /><br />In Australia we always take note of the live fish in the windows of Chinese restaurants, and some snobby Australians turn their noses up at this tradition. They think it is distasteful. But I found in China very quickly that in fact it is a good sensible way of knowing that you are not going to die of food poisoning. In a country where there is no refrigeration and food is food fresh, rather than pickled or salted, it is vital to know that your food is fresh. There can be no fresher food than that has been recently slaughtered. So any enterprising restaurant owner will go a long way to prove that their food is fresh.<br /><br />For seafood proving that the food is fresh means showing that it is still alive and looking healthy. For meat, it meant having the meat proudly on display on a counter and letting the patron see the food taken away to be cooked.<br /><br />Now that there are fridges and more importantly the electricity to run them, this presentation method is much less common.<br /></div>yewenyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10053973864711137550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34094094.post-18664407439012495732007-09-11T00:37:00.000+10:002007-09-11T00:50:45.378+10:00北京<div style="text-align: justify;">I speak occasionally with Australians who think that the Communist government changed the name from Pei King to Bei Jing when these are both different <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanization">romanization</a> of the same name. They think that the Communist Chinese government changed the name for the same propaganda reasons as the Vietnamese changing the name of Saigon to Ho Chi Minh city or The Soviets the name St Petersburg to Stalingrad. This shows little understanding for Chinese History. Here is a little excerpt from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing#Names">Wikipedia</a>:<br /><b></b><blockquote><b>Peking</b> is the name of the city according to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Postal_Map_Romanization" title="Chinese Postal Map Romanization">Chinese Postal Map Romanization</a>, and the traditional customary name for Beijing in English. The term originated with French missionaries four hundred years ago and corresponds to an older pronunciation predating a subsequent <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_change" title="Sound change">sound change</a> in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_%28linguistics%29" title="Mandarin (linguistics)">Mandarin</a> from <span title="Pronunciation in IPA" class="IPA">[kʲ]</span> to <span title="Pronunciation in IPA" class="IPA">[tɕ]</span><sup class="noprint Template-Fact"><span title="This claim needs references to reliable sources since May 2007" style="white-space: nowrap;">[<i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_sources" title="Wikipedia:Citing sources">citation needed</a></i>]</span></sup>. (<span title="Pronunciation in IPA" class="IPA">[tɕ]</span> is represented in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin" title="Pinyin">pinyin</a> as <b>j</b>, as in Bei<b>j</b>ing), and is still used in some languages (as in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_language" title="Dutch language">Dutch</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_language" title="German language">German</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_language" title="Hungarian language">Hungarian</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_language" title="Polish language">Polish</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_language" title="Spanish language">Spanish</a>). <p>In <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China" title="China">China</a>, the city has <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographical_renaming" title="Geographical renaming">had many names</a>. Between 1368 and 1405, and again from 1928 <a href="http://www.bartleby.com/67/2470.html" class="external autonumber" title="http://www.bartleby.com/67/2470.html" rel="nofollow">[1]</a> and 1949, it was known as <b>Beiping</b> (<a href="http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%8C%97" class="extiw" title="wikt:北">北</a><a href="http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%B9%B3" class="extiw" title="wikt:平">平</a>; <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin" title="Pinyin">Pinyin</a>: Beiping; <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wade-Giles" title="Wade-Giles">Wade-Giles</a>: Pei-p'ing), literally "Northern Peace". On both occasions, the name changed — with the removal of the element meaning "capital" (<i>jing</i> or <i>king</i>, 京) — to reflect the fact the national capital had changed to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing" title="Nanjing">Nanjing</a>, the first time under the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hongwu_Emperor" title="Hongwu Emperor">Hongwu Emperor</a> of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_Dynasty" title="Ming Dynasty">Ming Dynasty</a>, and the second time with the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuomintang" title="Kuomintang">Kuomintang</a> (KMT) government of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_China" title="Republic of China">Republic of China</a>, so that Peking was no longer the capital of China.</p> <p>The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_China" title="Communist Party of China">Communist Party of China</a> reverted the name to Beijing (Peking) in 1949 again in part to emphasize that Beijing had returned to its role as China's capital. The government of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_China" title="Republic of China">Republic of China</a> on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan" title="Taiwan">Taiwan</a> has never formally recognized the name change, and during the 1950s and 1960s it was common in Taiwan for Beijing to be called Beiping to imply the illegitimacy of the PRC. Today, almost all of Taiwan, including the ROC government, uses <i>Beijing</i>, although some <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maps" title="Maps">maps</a> of China from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan" title="Taiwan">Taiwan</a> still use the old name along with pre-1949 political boundaries.</p></blockquote><p></p><br /></div>yewenyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10053973864711137550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34094094.post-72252147200153973952007-09-02T01:53:00.000+10:002007-10-12T22:53:45.733+10:00Back to BeiJing<div style="text-align: justify;">Back in Bei Jing, I met up with the tour group the first evening in the city. It was our first day together as a tour group. Several people had been in BeiJing for a few days. I will introduce the people over the next few posts. The tour I was on was organized by my friend from Melbourne, <a href="http://ewenbell.com/workshops.php">Ewen Bell</a> and run by <a href="http://www.grasshopperadventures.com/">Grasshopper Tours</a>. The tour nominally includes 8 people, Ewen and out guide.<br /><br />I had spent the day wandering south through the city with Elliot, one of my co-travelers and room mate for the first few days. We had lunch south of the BeiJing railway station. I ordered hot and sour soup, but while good, it was not the real thing. Instead is was egg flower soup, with chicken and pepper. I also had a bit of difficulty with the difference when ordering between two bowls of soup and one bowl of soup with two bowls. Ah well, that's what happens when your Chinese is not so good.<br /><br />In the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutong">hutongs</a> south of the station we came across a octagonal church. The man there could not explain in English what type of church it was. He wanted 100 元, but at first I did not understand what he wanted 100 of and then decided that was a bit ridiculous. We moved on.<br /><br />"church" by <b>yewenyi</b> <a href="http://6v8.gamboni.org/Flickr-Easy-Photo-Post.html">[?]</a><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/348386554/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/161/348386554_81f25129f4_m.jpg" alt="church" /></a><br /><br />Next we came to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing_city_fortifications">southern wall</a>. The tower here was the one attacked in the Allied invasion during the boxer revolt. The Chinese are still furious with the amount of damage caused to national artifacts at this time by the invading British. Anyway I am guessing that the tower was rebuilt after the war. Further along the wall is the hole in the city wall made to let the railway line through when the British built a railway line from here to the north.<br /><br />"tower" by <b>yewenyi</b> <a href="http://6v8.gamboni.org/Flickr-Easy-Photo-Post.html">[?]</a><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/348388536/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/127/348388536_a5c184327b_m.jpg" alt="tower" /></a><br /><br />We wandered back to the city and met up with the others. We met in the foyer. Everyone was relaxed and it was a nice group of people. First things were about getting to know each other and to understand the organization. We went out for our first dinner, PeiKing duck in a hutong restaurant.</div><br />"restaurant" by <b>yewenyi</b> <a href="http://6v8.gamboni.org/Flickr-Easy-Photo-Post.html">[?]</a><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/348391875/" title="Go to the photo page"><img src="http://static.flickr.com/133/348391875_8d677db23c.jpg" alt="restaurant" /></a>yewenyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10053973864711137550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34094094.post-39505167839252775612007-08-25T07:06:00.000+10:002007-08-25T07:20:07.521+10:00taxis in China<div style="text-align: justify;">Like everything else Chinese taxis have come a long way and have a long way to go. I have a natural aversion to taxis, which I will not go into here. But, one of the problems with taxis in China always was that they ran cartels. So in 1992, the taxis at a train station would suddenly beef up the prices when a train arrived, even the buses would to this. When I left GuangZhou airport, in 1992, I baulked at being charged a flat 50 元. They would not use the meter. At the time the average wage in China was 600 元. So I walked out of the airport to the main highway. Here, at the bus stop I met with a group of Chinese university students. They took me under their wing and when the intercity bus illegally stopped to pick us up to earn a little more money that made the conductor only charge me 1 元.<br /><br />In 1999 in Beijing the situation had changed a lot and generally the drivers would use their meters. However, on leaving the Summer Palace, we found that again there was a cartel going and they wanted to charge 50 元 for the trip back to 天安門. The others went in their cab, and after the cab left the car park the driver agreed to use the meter. He said that he could not do this while the others were watching. We went a block away onto the main highway and flagged down a cab. The passing cab driver used the meter.<br /><br />Then in 2006, we used cabs a lot as I was traveling in a group. The cabs always used their meters. Now all they need to do is actually learn where things in the city are located. We spent ages in cabs with the driver on the mobile talking to someone else trying to work out how to get to where we wanted to go.<br /></div>yewenyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10053973864711137550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34094094.post-84930728895309407422007-07-28T14:02:00.000+10:002007-08-03T19:29:09.656+10:00北京大學<div style="text-align: justify;">Back in 1999 the first time I visited Beijing, I stayed at the 北京大學 on the recommendation of a man from Taiwan in Xian. I walked there from the underground station. However, it was about 500 meters further than I thought. When at what I though was the right spot I came across some men with submachine guns at a gate in a place I was not allowed. I walked up to ask if this was the 北京大學. It turns out that they were soldiers. There is a sad law that says that soldiers cannot talk to foreigners. At first they tried to wave me away. Then they pointed in the direction I needed to go. I went on my way.<br /></div>yewenyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10053973864711137550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34094094.post-83570575802392057672007-07-23T21:23:00.000+10:002007-07-23T21:30:11.165+10:00Aparently it is my fault<div style="text-align: justify;">I am diverging here. Back to my first trip to Beijing in 1999. Just before I arrived in China, the Americans bombed the Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia. All through China I had been asked my nationality. (<a href="http://yewenyi.imeem.com/blogs/2007/06/10/QujJJTry/">你是渼國人嗎</a>) Every day on the TV were pictures of the dead being brought home with patriotic music. The only thing I have seen like it is what was on Australian TV when <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Diver">Stuart Diver</a> was saved from the rubble of Threadbo. In fact it was so identical that they probably were in breech of copyright. But back to my story. This woman came up to me crying, beseeching me as to why I had committed such a crime. I was glad it was the only time the happened.<br /></div>yewenyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10053973864711137550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34094094.post-43600536993961610972007-02-04T19:44:00.000+11:002007-02-04T20:15:47.412+11:00Beijing and terrorists<div style="text-align: justify;">It has been a while. I have been uploading photos, but not writing my blog. This is because I have much to say, but need time to consider how to say it. So I will break it down into bits that are more manageable.<br /><br />On the day I arrived in Beijing, I headed off to the hotel from my train. I was sharing a room with this fellow called Eliot. (and I appologise now for all the times I have misspelled it.) Eliot turned out to be a terrific fellow. We spent a few hours talking as he has the problem that people such as myself who travel on their own for a while in a country where they do not speak the language have. There is no one with whom you can hold a conversation.<br /><br />I will digress for a moment for a story of a previous trip. When I traveled in Taiwan, I spent about 10 days wandering in a clockwise direction around the island. I think I was in Tai-Jung or Tai-Dung, I cannot remember which. I had visited a local Buddhist temple and had quite an interesting, but short conversation with one of the worshipers. The worshiper wanted to know if I thought it was OK for there to be multiple religions. I was stunned, and of course said yes. After that I was welcome in their temple. Later I discovered the reason for their wariness. I was approached by an American and some Taiwanese who were very friendly. They introduced themselves and invited me along to have lunch with them. It turned out to be at McDonald's. I gladly accepted the offer as I was desperate to be able to have a conversation. They turned out to be Mormons. They were very helpful, but I could only think that they must be the cause of the Buddhist's concern. Is it not sad that religions refuse to be able to get along.<br /><br />Back to Eliot, He was a very patriotic American. He felt that America was misunderstood and that it was his role in life to help fix misconceptions that people like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush">George Bush</a> were creating about his country. He lived close to New York and then the events of 911 were quite close to his heart, and rightly so.<br /><br />I have always had a problem with the statements that the Americans make, like, never happened before and everything has changed, and so on. To me it is just more of the same stupidity, people, often but not always, religious ones who want to change the world by killing everyone or making them follow their religion. You see, when I was little I lived in Singapore. We had many relatives who lived (and still do) in Malaysia. In Malaysia there were race riots. People would walk into places like cinemas and chop people up with machetes. People (in Singapore) would say that you should not go to Malaysia as it was a dangerous place, in the same was as we are advised these days not to visit dangerous places by our government.<br /><br />I would suggest that some of these people committing violent acts, were from similar if not the same groups who preach violence that resulted in 911. However, I have not researched this, hence I cannot say this for certain. For all of my life I have been afraid of such actions. Up until recently I could not talk about such things without crying. I was very put out when the Americans (and Australians for that matter) reacted in such a was as to say that this was new. They have lived fortunately violence free lives, and this is something I would wish on all people (that is: to live a violence free life). But these things are not new and some of us have suffered with such violent behavior for a long time. And what I have been through is only mild and insignificant compared to what others suffered. What I think is that this is a new phase of violence. The techniques for the violence have certainly changed, and the targets are new, but the underlying causes are the same.<br /><br />I am certain that my words are not as well crafted as they could be. I have never been good at the English language. I will probably come back and edit it to improve the wording and structure. I hope there are no glaring errors that will lead to misunderstanding or misinterpretation, but I needed to write it down.<br /><br />Anyway, I think most of my holiday had a lighter note to it, and was not concerned to such an extent to man's inhumanity.<br /></div>yewenyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10053973864711137550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34094094.post-19576211050108198482007-01-13T10:21:00.000+11:002007-01-13T10:38:05.831+11:00Harbin to Beijing ( 哈尔滨 - 北京 )<div style="text-align: justify;">Well I traveled on the overnight train from Harbin. I had decided to travel soft sleeper. For those of you who are confused by this, in China is was politically unwise for class reasons, to have separate classes for the wealthy and powerful while everyone else had to travel in cattle class. So on Chinese trains, there is soft sleeper and hard sleeper. Soft sleeper is first class. There are 4 beds to a cabin. Hard sleeper is second class there are 6 sleepers to a section and no doors or walls (apart from between the beds). Normally in China I have traveled hard sleeper. However, I had decided as I had some expensive equipment with me to travel soft sleeper. So I ordered my bed at the station when booking my ticket. I took a lower bunk. In the future I think I will travel on the upper bunk.<br /><br />Arriving at the station, I spent a while waiting for the train. In the end I got on the train. The train was full of first class carriages, and there were many of them (at least 10) and there were black Mercedes arriving on the platform, to allow their occupants off onto the train while only having to walk less than 5 meters. This is not a side of China I normally see. I shared my compartment with three very smartly dressed business women. There was a man who spoke English. We had a short conversation and then he left the train. So I was on my own from a language point of view. It is good to see that the Chinese do not have the same sexist hangups that many Australians have about mixed traveling. I would strike this bias in a few days from the Americans.<br /><br />The train even had a power point (220 V Australian style) and each bed had it's own TV and we each had a pair of head sets. When browsing the dozen channels, I came across a movie with Americans singing. I though - great, a movie in English. However, it turned out that only the singing was not dubbed. Everything else was dubbed.<br /><br />The next day after a very smooth trip, I arrived in Beijing in the morning.</div><br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/346451226/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/134/346451226_2e8aaca0e1_m.jpg" alt="Harbin Railway Station" height="160" width="240" /></a>yewenyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10053973864711137550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34094094.post-8752573755240749892007-01-07T09:29:00.000+11:002007-01-07T09:46:45.780+11:00Harbin (哈尔滨)<div style="text-align: justify;">With my illness I have not really been in the right frame of mind for posting. Harbin was the last place where I was traveling on my own. It was a place where my use of Singaporean English again clashed with Australian English on Flickr and elsewhere. I had to laugh. In a way, it was also where the little honeymoon with the Chinese came to an end.<br /><br />To start with, the subject of spitting. When traveling in China in 1992/1993, I always felt that, while the Chinese spit in every day life, that some forms of spitting were meant to be hostile. I think in Harbin I confirmed this. Of all the cities I have visited so far, Harbin was by far the most old world Chinese city. I had at least two rounds of hostile spitting. (Hostile in that they disapprove.)<br /><br />In Harbin I also felt like I was in Victorian England. Why? Because the <a href="http://madramblingman.blogspot.com/2006/12/chinese-economy.html">three levels of the Chinese economy</a> were in full force at the same time. I can imagine that in Victorian England, the upper class, middle class and lower class structure was like this.<br /><br />When in the hotel, I received several phone calls. I could head the phone ringing in the other rooms. Clearly these people were calling around every room, soliciting their business. As I could not hold a conversation with them, I could only guess the nature of the business they were soliciting.<br /><br />Finally, I was sick. It was cold in Harbin, and in sympathy, I caught a cold. Luckily my room had ADSL Internet access. I was unable to set it up with the instructions from the front desk and in the end a man came to help me set it up. Between us we got it to work, but it was like the blind leading the blind.</div><br /><br /><a href="http://flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/sets/72157594461253979/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/132/346464462_c54640db2a_m.jpg" alt="babushka dolls" height="240" width="240" /></a>yewenyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10053973864711137550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34094094.post-63848524829455439742007-01-05T02:52:00.000+11:002007-01-05T03:08:09.688+11:00Shenyang (沈阳)<div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/343833715/" title="Photo Sharing" style="float: right;"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/142/343833715_4be878dd45_m.jpg" alt="dragons" height="240" width="156" /></a>I traveled by bus from Dalian to Shenyang. I stopped at Shenyang for two reasons. One it was half way to Harbin and being a major transportation hub, a good place to stop-over. The second reason was that it had a palace that the Manchurian empire built before conquering China and moving <span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">their</span> palace to <span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Beijing</span>.<br /><br />When I arrived I was a little worried. Normally I am surrounded by women wanting to sell me hotel <span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">accommodation</span>. This did not happen. So I stopped to purchase a map. Then out of the blue, a woman arrived and all was OK. She took me to a very hard to find hotel across the road from the train station. It was hard to find because I had to go through a restaurant, through a dark, water covered corridor and up the only working lift to the 8<span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">th</span> floor. The room numbering was strange. There only seemed to be rooms with the digits 0, 4 and 8.<br /><br />That afternoon I went for a wander around the area I was staying. I had another of those, if only I spoke more <span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Chinese</span> incidents. This woman said to me - bu <span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">shr</span> er, which as far as I can tell means not is 2. But then maybe I do not understand. I also had the man with the <a href="http://flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/343828823/in/set-72157594456319960/">GPS incident</a> later in the day. I also went and purchased my bus ticket to Harbin. I was having difficulties with the day and the woman at the counter just froze up when she realised I do not speak much <span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Chinese</span>. So I said, <span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">jintian</span>, <span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">mingtian</span> and then looked hopeful. Luckily the man behind said <span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">hwotian</span>. Which means the day after tomorrow. That was when I wanted to travel by bus.<br /><br />The next day I wandered off down to the Imperial Palace. I spent many hours there, and I think it is much better than the forbidden palace in Beijing.<br /><br />The next day I travelled by bus to Harbin. The bus was much older. They filled the <span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">under-bus</span> storage and back half of the bus with cartons, so I had to have my bag with me on my seat. I was there early and was able to sit directly behind the driver. Halfway to Harbin we made an <span onclick="BLOG_clickHandler(this)" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">unscheduled</span> stop to unload the boxes and then later made another stop to pick someone up. With all of this we were over an hour late arriving in Harbin and the sun set as I arrived.<br /></div>yewenyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10053973864711137550noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34094094.post-12880776291567368672007-01-02T15:28:00.000+11:002007-01-13T04:17:26.777+11:00Dalian - (大连)<div style="text-align: justify;">After the overnight trip on the Dain ferry, I arrived in Dalian. It was quite a surprise. A very modern Chinese city. But still incredibly Chinese. I had decided that I needed a few days to get my bearing in China, even though I had been there twice before. Firstly I wandered to see how much the banking system had evolved. I was having trouble believing that it had become so modern so quickly. In the end it took three attempts to find an ATM that believed it talked to a foreign network to work. I also took out so much money (about $400) that I easily had enough, with what I had brought from Korea for the next three weeks of travel. (Though for the tour all my accommodation and travel were paid for.)<br /><br />Dalian was a great place. These gay guys helped me find an Internet cafe. (网芭 Ithink) Initially they said it was Y1 per hour but it turned out to be Y2 (about $0.25). I found a cinema that had advertising for an interesting looking movie, but it was never open.<br /><br />While traveling through the labour park (劳动公园), to get up to the TV tower, this person said g'day. He turned out to be from Balkum Hills and was living there with his Chinese wife. She was from Dalian. They had two girls, born in Australia. They were much more concerned with the simple task of purchasing a bus ticket than I, and she went to the bus terminal to check it out. They called me on the phone to explain the arrangement.<br /><br />The next day I wandered off to the Russian part of town. Like many places in Northern China, Dalain owes much of it's existence to when it was part of Russia. It also had a strong Japanese influence. The Russian town was interesting, but mostly consisted of Russian buildings full of Russian traders selling Russian goods. It had the first KTV I had seen. I would not find out what they were for another two weeks.<br /><br />The people in Dalian were generally friendly. They call it the HK of the north. I think this is an apt description. The people are friendly and helpful, but also generally busy and do not have much time.<br /><br />On the second full day, I went down to the Modern museum. I wanted to go to a Qing museum, but the people in the tourist information center did not know where it was. They had to make several calls and then explained that I had to catch two buses. I was not confident with the buses and decided that the one bus trip journey to the modern museum was more the go. The museum was excellent It had many great displays and I pretty much had it to myself. I then wandered down to the sea front. As you can see from the photos it has more of a European feeling than a Chinese feeling.<br /><br />On my fourth morning, I caught the bus to Shenyang. The buses in china have improved by an almost infinite amount. When I first traveled on an intercity bus we traveled from Chungching to Leshan. We put our bags on the floor to cover over the holes to reduce the wind. It was a classic old rust heap complete with chickens on the roof. They would overcharge anytime they could, lie about where they were going and the was a fight between the conductor and the passengers when the Chinese passengers were told that they would not go to a town they said they were going to go to. Now the buses are modern, clean and efficient. The chairs were vinyl, made to look like leather. It left on time and they now have motorways to travel along. It is a completely different experience. In many ways it is better than the train.</div><br /><br /><a href="http://flickr.com/photos/yewenyi/sets/72157594450446886/" title="Photo Sharing"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/123/340502653_4fd6bbe26f_m.jpg" alt="dusk" height="160" width="240" /></a>yewenyihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10053973864711137550noreply@blogger.com6