MAYSHA'S BLOG

Sichuan

After two months of studying, we got a well-deserved two week Summer holiday! Where most of my classmates went back to Europe, I decided to travel a bit in Sichuan. It happen to be that Erika joined an exchange group of Dutch students who were going to Sichuan to visit some areas that were hit by the big earthquake a year ago. In order to get acquainted with developmental work, they had meetings with a.o. NGO's, and they visited schools to organize activities and games with local schoolkids.

I met up with Erika and her group in Chengdu, and joined them for their last week in Sichuan. Sichuan is located in the South-East of China and from its capital Chengdu it is a 3 hr flight to Beijing. I arrived in the early evening and while having a walk with Erika in Chengdu's city center, we saw these statues of "Western" people. Chinese people pose next to these statues as to be on a picture with a "Westerner". I know that Chengdu is less of an international city as Beijing, having less foreigners as their inhabitants, but still.. Is it really necessary to pose next to a statue of a foreigner? I sometimes feel that the obsession that some Chinese have with "Westerners" is not healthy. Towards the end of my holiday, I was in Chengdu with Simon and I showed him the statues. We thought of a nice business plan in which he would stand next to the statues, eating a Big Mac and drinking a Coke, and I would ask 10 kuai for every picture taken with him. Now that's a business!

The next day we went to see Sichuan Opera. This was actually the first time for me to see a Chinese Opera. I have never been to any Beijing Opera, because in my mind (and this might be incorrect) it is an play, with continuously high pitched singing to which I can listen to to a certain extent. Not for more than 30 min. Sichuan Opera is famous for its mixture of several acts for example slapstick, erhu performance, puppet-shows, face changing and fire breathing. The show was obviously set up for tourists; it was possible to get a massage before the performance or even during the performance, which Erika and I signed up for ;)Even though it is not really my cup of tea, the Sichuan Opera was quite entertaining. I might give the Beijing Opera a chance now as well..

One of the best kept secrets of Sichuan Opera is the changing of faces. The performers change their masks so fast, that within a blink of the eye, they suddenly have a difference face. I must say that the effect is quite impressive. As with most magician tricks, you'll never find out how they do it, unless you become a magician yourself. 

Chengdu and the East of Sichuan has a subtropical humid monsoon climate. The summer season is the season of rain. Here is a picture of Wangjianglou park. This park is also known as Bamboo park as it has more than 150 varieties of bamboo. Since last year, the local government has cancelled all the entrance fees to the parks to stimulate the tourism. As the rain was pouring out of the sky, there were not many people visiting the park.

And the people that were present, preferred to drink a nice cup of tea in tea houses like this:

This picture is taken on the road to Sichuan's second largest city, Mianyang. Also known to be the cleanest city of whole China. The city itself was only lightly damaged by the earthquake, other areas within the Mianyang prefecture were among the most heavily hit areas. The houses with the blue rooftops are prefab houses, temporary houses for the people who lost their homes to live in.

We visited two schools near Mianyang. This is the first school, and as you can see, the kids were all lined up to welcome us. This school only has around 30 middle school kids, coming from different villages in the area.

The Dutch youngsters organized activities for the kids like musical chair, football and singing class and the Chinese kids had a fun morning. I spoke to one of the teachers and she told me that their school was visited often by foreigners who come and undertake activities with the kids. The tour guide who was with our group told me that she is happy that people from the West are concerned and even though there's nothing that these activities can do for the kids on the long-term, at least for the moment, for this morning, everybody was having a great time.

In the afternoon we visited another school. Our bus was too big for the little road that led to the second school.

This school was attended by considerably more children.

Handling a classroom full of kids is certainly not an easy job.

Many people from the villages in this area had come to the school to see what was going to happen. Considerably more people were watching and curious about these foreigners (of whom most have Chinese origins) coming to the school and doing activities with the kids. I guess this school was not used to visitors as much as the first school.

The contrast between the old and the new houses was tremendously big!

New house:

Old house:

What I heard was that most newly build houses were funded by companies or individuals. It is not so clear were the money of the government was spend on exactly, except for some of the prefab houses and schools.

I wonder what all these kids were thinking..

Next item on the programme was a visit to Leshan ("Happy Mountain"), home of the world largest stone-carved Buddha, 大佛 (dàfó = big buddha). The construction period lasted for 90 years, and the 71m high Buddha is the protector of the boatmen. The first thing you see when you arrive, is his head. Then you can descend a stairway on his side and slowly see his grandeur be revealed to you.

Unfortunately, many Chinese had a holiday and of course they ALL wanted to see Dafo! I don't remember anymore how long we stood in line to reach the stairway down. But it reminded me all too much of Xizhimen during rushhour.

When we finally arrived at the stairway going down, we were hoping for a somewhat fast descent, but of course we should have known better. The line just continued on the stairway down to the feet of Mr. Dàfó.

One glance of Dàfó..

Many glances of the tourists like me.

His big toe is 8.5 meter long..

Very impressive to stand as his feet and look up to him.

After Leshan, we went to Emei Shan. Emei Shan is one of the four famous Buddhist mountains in China. We arrived in Emei city, about 7 km away from the mountain. Here I said goodbye to Erika and her group and I went to Baoguo village; a one-street village at the foot of the mountain. Here I would meet up with Simon who had been travelling in the West of Sichuan. I wandered around myself that day, waiting for Simon to come, and I walked a bit up the mountain already. The scenery is beautiful, and it was great to be surrounded by nature as in Beijing it is hard to find. I wasn't the only one enjoying the greenery and the freshness of the little river.

Macaques live on Emei Mountain, and we were warned for them harrassing travellers as you climb up the mountain. The Lonely Planet actually recommended to bring a fixed-length umbrella to use for the rain, as a walking stick and as a warning to the monkeys! Well, 99% of all the monkeys I saw were the ones that this little boy is carrying around his neck.

In the early evening, Simon arrived in Baoguo village, and to pay our honours to the good ol' times when we were both living in Beijing, we had the street BBQ with Baijiu!

The next day we left at around noon. We took a bus to Jingshui, about 500m up the mountain and starting walking up the steep steeeeep stairs! Another option was to get carried up the mountain as quite a lot of other people were doing. What a job!

I don't recall having walked up so many stairs before in my life.

But the views were amazingly beautiful!

This little horse gave a good example of how to walk down the stairs. Do it zigzagging!

We spent the night at Huayan temple, after walking for more than 6 hours.

During the walk we hardly saw any other tourists.

And there is nothing better than arriving at a peaceful monastery, after an intensive walk up the mountain for several hours.

There was even a hot shower!

Simon has fans everywhere in China! The next day a couple with their three daughters arrived at this summit and they were just lovely!

This is the only monkey we saw during our whole walk up the mountain. He wasn't harassing anyone!

On the way up ,there are many little snack corners like this one. No need to starve on the way up!

Again the steep stairs!

The more we ascended, the more misty it became, causing these mystifying views of the huge trees.

I love this one!

We walked until we were at about 2540m in height on the mountain. At that point there was a connection to the road, and buses were just pouring out the tourists. It was just so annoying, after having such a long walk through a very peaceful environment. The fog became thicker as well, and we decided not to go to the top of the mountain. After walking more than 20 km, ascending more than 1500m, spending the night in a monastery which gave me the feeling of sleeping in the sky, amongst the clouds, we decided not to ruin the good memory of Emei Shan by going to the top and be overrun by tourists. The fog would not have allowed us to see anything anyway. So we took a bus back to Baoguo village, and then got a ride back to Chengdu.

Chengdu cannot be mentioned without thinking about Panda's! The Giant Panda Breeding Research Base is located in Chengdu.

The baby panda's are so tiny!

 

 

I am back in Beijing and enjoying my last free days before school starts again on Monday!

Concerts

Hi! Sorry for the long pause, will try to give you updates soon. For now, two vids of a concert I saw last Saturday in Yugong Yishan. Haha, yess, still enjoying life in BJ a lot!

Mouss and the Chi'ni band:

Lions of Puxi:

Training Programme has begun..

Hi folks!

This is the third week of the Exchange Training Programme. We finally have some more free time as the first two weeks were just crazy. We started with a 2-week Intercultural training in Beijing and Shanghai. The schedule was so fully planned, I don't think I have ever experience such intensive two weeks before. Only in these first two weeks, all the 46 Europeans and the 59 Chinese were together in the programme. The Chinese people are leaving now for their training in Europe, and the Europeans are starting the Business Chinese language training this Friday.

It is not so easy to give you an idea of these two weeks of intercultural training, but I will give it a shot, showing you loads of pictures.

It all started in The Marriott hotel in Beijing. Here is a pic of my hotel room. Quite strange to stay in a 5-star hotel, while my house is only a 20 minute cab-ride away. But my apartment doesn't have a luxurious swimming pool or breakfast buffet, so I was ok with staying in the hotel. :)

After the welcome speeches, introductions of the organization, participants, the intercultural training etc. we started with an outdoor training, nearby the Great Wall. As we were with more than 100 people, we were divided in groups, and also to experience working in a group with people from different cultural backgrounds.These two weeks were all about intercultural communication, cooperation, negotiation, understanding, etc..

So this is my group during the Outbound training, we were called the Baijiu Busters, and they appointed me to be the leader, as I was the only female European in the group. I am actually the only European with Chinese origins in the whole group. The first day of the outbound training my leadership skills turned out to suck badly.. but luckily the second day was better. The outbound training consisted of many activities in which communication and cooperation was important.

Baijiu Busters

Some of the other groups

On our way to the training area

Example of one of the activities: building a tent with limited material and the requirement that the whole group should fit in

The Great Wall, although I am not sure which part we were exactly

After the two days outdoor training, we received a certificate.

That evening we took an overnight train to Shanghai. We arrived very early in the morning in SH and had to wait the whole morning before we could check in to our rooms. Although this 5-star hotel was less luxurious than the one in BJ, the apartment I got for myself was nice!

Nice "Dutch" colored living room

and the kitchen... that I never used

Even though we had the nice hotels booked for us, we were only there to sleep as our whole days were fully planned and in the evening, especially in SH, most of us went out to catch some of nightlife in SH. I of course went to the Cotton Club to check whether my fond memories of 2005 were not too biased. It was as good as 4 years ago!

We received several lectures at the China Europe International Business School in Shanghai. All topics were related to international business with the focus on cultural differences.

Experts in the field sharing their experiences.

It was not difficult at all to find a bar after class to ponder about all we had learned that day!

One day of the training in SH was dedicated on exploring SH. We went to the SH Urban Planning museum.

Had our share of silliness

Took loads of pictures with new friends

The best of the whole museum was this model of the city! Impressive!

After this, we also visited the Shanghai museum, the building in the middle of this picture:

Lunch!

Typical Shanghainese fried dumpling

We were divided in groups and each group had to explore a certain part of Shanghai, and give a presentation about their findings. We had to explore The Bund (famous waterfront area in SH) by doing certain assignments. The building that looks like a bottle-opener (and also called like this) is the SH World financial centre and at this moment the highest building in China. But they are planning to build another one, next to the bottle-opener which will even be higher.

Interviewing people on the streets

In the end, we made a movie to present our area in SH. To see the movie, you can click on this link.

The next day they planned company visits for us. I went to a company which is the largest steel producer in China. The company actually has tour guides to show people the company. Quite interesting to see a part of the production.

Then came the graduation of our Executive Business training in SH! Of course with a ceremony!

And of course with a certificate

Western style dinner to celebrate!

Last evening in SH where I went to the rooftop of our hotel to see the nightview.

Here we are at the SH airport, on our way back to Beijing

Back in Beijing we immediately started with the next training, a business simulation training, in which we were again divided in groups and every group is a company. Goal is to make a joint venture with another company and of course to get as much revenue as possible.

This training was all about time management and performing under pressure in an intercultural environment.

Unfortunately, the company I was part of went bankrupt with a loss of minus 5 million. Oooops!

The end of the two week intercultural training. The two weeks felt like 3 months.

A huge party was organised as the group would split up after this in the Chinese going to Europe and the Europeans staying in China. That Friday happened to be my birthday as well, so it was very nice to get a party like that!

Now we have started the Business Chinese Language Programme, and the university in BJ has developed a intensive but very good programme for us. Back to being a student again!

Ordinary day

Such an ordinary day...

Last chapter of the apartment story

The fax could not give me the permission to pick up the deposit. My former flatmate Xiao Feng therefore decided to come to BJ to help me get the deposit back. The guy from the agency who wanted money from us, Mr. Wang, works for a smaller branch of the company near my house. Yesterday Xiao Feng arrived in BJ and instead of going to Wang's office, we decided to go to the head office of this company, hoping we could get it back without Wang's interference. Getting the deposit back didn't seem to be a problem as we had all the correct papers to get the deposit back. Once there, we were told that Wang had to be there too.  As Wang is the account manager dealing with this apartment, he had to come to the head office to arrange it with us. After 20 min Wang arrived and he avoided me, didn't even dared to look at me or say hello. I didn't really feel comfortable and I just wanted it to be over. Luckily it all went well. I got the deposit back, and no word was said about the additional 800 kuai that needed to be paid to Wang. So the story ends well. And hopefully it is really over now. In the worst case we can expect Wang at our door asking for money. I don't think that is going to happen. We'll see!

Story of our apartment

One year ago I moved to this apartment in a hutong, surrounded by courtyards. I met a Chinese girl at the real estate agency and I immediately got along with her and we decided to rent this place together. This place is great, and I have one of the best views one can imagine, looking over the rooftops of the old hutong houses, with pigeons flying over, and often a clear view of the moon above the high trees who earned enough respect for people to build their houses around them.

We rented this apartment from an agency that landlords often use to handle things with tenants. All was just fine! My Chinese flatmate moved out after several months, quit her job in BJ and moved back to her hometown, Tianjin. She was replaced by my present flatmate from Amsterdam. In January this year, I was back in BJ for two weeks to finish some stuff including making sure that we would extend our rental contract for another year as I wouldn't be back in BJ in time to extend the contract. We signed a new contract but heard that the landlord was too busy to sign it. When I flew back to Amsterdam, the new contract hadn't been signed by the landlord but I trusted the agency to have the landlord sign it. I believed all would turn out well.

When I came back in BJ, my flatmate told me there were strange things going on with the agency and our landlord. We heard contradicting stories about extending the contract. As we are both foreigners we suffer from a language barrier and have difficulties to understand what was going on. My flatmate's gf helped us a lot with it, as she is native Chinese. We were not sure anymore whether we could stay in this apartment. It turned out that the person from the real estate agency who had my landlord as her client, quit her job and went to another agency. This would mean that she would take her clients with her, but my landlord didn't want to join the other company. He could not stay with the current company either. We agreed with our landlord that we would sign a contract with him directly. A guy from the current agency came along, and we heard we had to pay this agency a month fee for extending the contract. Which turned out to be very strange as we would not be using them at all anymore, as we would sign a contract directly with the landlord. Afterwards we discovered that the guy wanted the money for himself. He even lowered it to 800 kuai which is evidence of that he just wants to earn some money on the side.

One morning all three of them came to our house, the landlord, the guy from the current agency and the woman who left this current agency. We signed a contract with our landlord,  while the other two went to my room, and closed the door, for some unknown reason, and as it is my room I went in to see what they were doing and they were whispering  to each other. The atmosphere was filled with distrust.

We were happy to have signed a new contract with the landlord, and then him and the woman left. The guy of the agency stayed and he wanted us to pay him money. We refused, as we should still get our former deposit back. He was talking a lot, and none of us could understand him, even my flatmate's gf, as he spoke very fast and unclear. But to all of us, the underlying meaning was clear, he was trying to convince us to pay him. I told him firmly that I wanted my deposit back first. The fake friendly face of the guy turned into anger and he started to walk away, being angry and threatening us that we wouldn't get our deposit back if we wouldn't pay him now. Then all of a sudden he became very friendly again. Probably because he realized that acting angry like that would not help him at all in getting money for himself. It was so obvious.

The problem now is that the receipt of the deposit is on my former flatmate's name, and as I told you before, she is living in Tianjin, not far away but still not around the corner. She said she would send a fax to the company stating that she gives her approval to me to pick up the deposit. The agency may not know that we signed a contract directly with the landlord, the guy can tell them and then I have no idea who exactly is fucked, but on the other hand I can tell the agency that the guy is trying to get money from us, as I know that his company doesn't know about this. But what about my deposit? There is still no fax as my former flatmate was too busy to do it, although she knows how important this is. So no deposit back yet.

If you have stopped reading halfway the story, I do not blame you at all.

I wish it could all be over, and you can imagine how much fun it was to be back in BJ and then getting slapped in the face with this issue. Positive thing now is that we can stay in our apartment, and I can enjoy my room and my view for some more time. About the deposit and the guy who wants money from us...That is still an ongoing thing.

Back in the Jing!

And.... I'm... Back!!!

It is Tuesday already, which means that I am already 3 days in Beijing. My flight was alright, transfer in Frankfurt with 4 hours before my plane to Beijing left. Not bad, very doable, had some nice Frankfurter sausages und Kartoffel Salat! The 9 hour trip to BJ didn't feel as long as it sounds. I was reading a Stephen King book, and damn, I should do that more often. His books are great for travelling long hours in a plane.

The days in Beijing are nice, it is warm but not to warm, around 27 degrees Celsius I guess. In the evenings and nights the temperature is nice enough to be out on the streets. I don't have the feeling that Beijing has changed, of course I have only been away for 3 months. Oh how I missed the spitting on the streets. ;) The city is still dirty, especially in my street as they are renovating all the old hutong houses and courtyards. There was a layer of dust and sand on my balcony. Almost impossible to clean it up, and even so it wouldn't help as new sand would come in anyway. I tried to clean it up a bit, but best is to just keep my door shut to avoid having the sand in my bedroom.

My good old room. Unfortunately there are some things going on with our landlord and the real estate agency we are renting this place from, some kind of conflict which leaves us in the middle, not sure whether we can stay here, and to whom we have to pay rent to now. Hopefully, the answer will come soon, I really don't like this uncertainty we are in now, whether we can stay or not in our house. My flatmate has trust in that it'll all be fine, but I am not so sure about that.

Today I went to see the university where I'll be studying soon. Nice green campus, not very big, reminds me a bit of BLCU. I had to find the office for international students, and I was told it was number 6. Of course, when I arrived all the buildings did not have numbers, but names. So after walking a bit and asking around, I found a nice guy who knew where I had to go to and he showed me the way. I need to arrange my students' visa now, and tomorrow I have to go to the hospital to do a healt examination, which is required for the visa. I have done this before, and really, it is almost hilarious. Crazy, ... haha I might tell you next time.

Anyways, just a little update from me in BJ! Hope you are all doing well!

Goodbye DT!

Today was my last working day at Dutch Telecom! Crazy how three months have passed already!

I had a great goodbye lunch with my project team, and the rest of the day was more or less filled with chatting and having fun with colleagues, as I finished the transfer of my work to my replacement.

I am happy I decided to do this project for three months! I have learned so much, have seen so much, have bumped into walls so often,  have met cool people, and have laughed so loud!

All the best to my former colleagues there! Thanks for the good times! Believe it or not, I will miss you!
And maybe someday, somewhere, we'll meet again!

Tomorrow I am taking the train to LONDON!!!! Together with Ellen, I am going to visit Job! Lovely!

Being unemployed has never felt so good!

Cheers!

Baking pancakes in Beijing

One evening in November in Beijing....

WT (friend and flatmate) and I decided to bake some pancakes with Dutch cheese, bacon and strawberry jam. We live in the center of Beijing in an old neighbourhood (hutong), in an apartment with a little kitchen. For WT, it was the first time to actually turn the pancake in the pan.

I found this movie again when I was browsing through my external hard disc. Makes me laugh!!

Kaki King in concert

Yesterday I went to see Kaki King in Paradiso, Amsterdam. My older brother introduced me to her music, and I was quite interested. She is known for her non-conventional way of playing the guitar and somehow I do not know many very good female guitar players.

Dan Brantigan had a trumpet next to him, and I was waiting for him to play on it. Au contraire, he played the electronic flute, or how to call the thing he played, which reminded me of the asthma inhaler I used when I was very young. He only played trumpet during one song, which was a pity.

Paradiso is located in a former church in Amsterdam, and the most famous music venue in The Netherlands. It is a cultural icon and according to Wikipedia, Keith Richards once said that the Paradiso concerts were the best live shows the Stones ever did.

It was interesting to see that there was a decibel meter in the concert hall. It is known that 80 dB is the safe and legal limit to which the hearing may be exposed. Regular noise above 80 dB would inevitably lead to hearing damage. I forgot to bring my ear plugs. I will definitely buy some professional ones for in Beijing. They don't care about the level of dB in Beijing. At least here they show you to what you are exposing yourself ;)

Brussels

Somewhere last year, I was in Salud, a bar in Beijing, and I met two Dutch guys. Considering the fact that Salud is a bar where the whole French community of Beijing goes to, I was delighted to hear some Dutch in the dominant French chattering. Even more surprising was that they both came from the north, Groningen! One of them was in Beijing as he was a participant of METP: The EU-China Managers Exchange Training Programme. It was that evening that the idea for me to apply for METP came into my mind. I had never heard of this programme before and it was pure luck for me to come across it.

METP is an " intergovernmental cooperation project between the EU and China in the field of international trade. Built within the dynamic context of continuously developing relations between the EU and China, the programme will enhance business expertise by developing European and Chinese human resources." See their website for more information.

It took some time for me to finalize my project plan and I worked hard on it, as the end of the year 2008 came closer. On Jan 23, I received an email that I was pre-selected, and was invited for the final selection round in Brussel. Feb 25 was the big day of the selection and I arrived in Brussels way too early, just to have some time for a nice walk in the center of Brussels. I played the tourist, and felt the atmosphere of Brussels, the de facto capital of the European Union. As a true tourist, I took my pics!

The "Grote Markt", or " Grand Place", the central market square of Brussels.

Brussels' beautiful City Hall

Of course you cannot visit Brussels without seeing this dirty little fella: Manneken Pis. He was nicely dressed up as it was carnaval.

Maybe you are not really interested in watching the below movie. I like streetmusicians who don't give a shit and just play.

A typical little street

Then it was time to be on my way to the hotel where the final selections were being held. On my way there I passed Jubelpark, or Parc du Cinquantenaire. Unfortunately I didn't have time to actually go in it and see it.

The entrance of the park

She's watching you as you enter.

Then I saw the impressive Berlaymont building; the headquarters of the European Commission.

The selection was held in a hotel next to the Berlaymont building. It took the whole afternoon, and around 5 pm, I left the building, to catch my train back to Rotterdam, where I would have dinner with friends.

Less than 4 weeks ago, I received an email with the results

I'M IN!!!!

O yeah! Movies!!

Some time ago I discovered that the movies I put on my blog (the youtube ones) were not working anymore. But something happened, no idea what.. but they are working again!

I am trying to put back all the movies on my youtube account as for some reason my former account was deleted. Anyways, most of the movies you see on this page will be working again. The ones in the archives are yet to come.

Revival of my blog!

11 Weeks later..

After having a great Christmas holiday in her hometown Groningen, Maysha returns to Beijing. She has decided to do the project at Dutch Telecom, to quit her job at Intertalent, and to be away from and back to her beloved ones for three months. When she arrives in BJ, she knows all too well that time is precious as she has only two weeks before the plane will bring her back to Amsterdam again. She fills the two weeks with making arrangements with the apartment to ensure that she can come back to that little place in the hutong, and spends loads of time on the things and persons she will miss most during her stay in Holland.

Disaster strikes when she becomes sick in the last week. Having horrible images of sitting in a plane with annoying passengers, while sweating out feverish liquids, she decides to spend her last days in BJ in bed and on his couch. She recovers just in time and before she knows it, she is on the plane again. The thought of being back at work in Holland is a bit frightening and Maysha seriously ponders  why the hell she is doing this.

Very early on Sunday, the plane lands safely at Amsterdam Airport, Maysha's sister picks her up and they stay at her sister's place in Leiden. This is going to be the place where she will live for the upcoming three months. Having hardly any time to adjust, the next day, Monday, Maysha starts working at DT. The two worlds alternate very fast, and it feels as if BJ was just a dream. At DT in Amsterdam, she runs into a lot of familiair faces, and setting up the Delivery Academy does not give any space or time to even think about the worlds that just switched places in a blink of an eye. Let alone that Maysha has any time to update her blog. ;)

She fights against jetlag in the 1st week, starts finding her way at DT Delivery in the 2nd week, finally sees Erika again who got MARRIED in 2008 in the 3rd week, has dinner with Hok Kwan whom she knows from BJ causing her feel like being back in BJ again and to almost yell out Fuwuyuan to the Dutch waitress in the 4th week, parties with her Posse in Groningen in the 5th week, hears that she is going back to BJ for sure in May in the 6th week, breaks her 50-years-old saxophone in the 7th week, cycles with Kirsten to the beach and ends up in The Duke in the 8th week and has an old-fashioned evening with Tobm filled with pizza, pot, and bad horror movies in the 9th week...Still 5 weeks to go....No one knows what will happen..

My hometown Groningen

I have spent three weeks in my hometown Groningen and wanted to share some pics with you!

Groningen is a great small city, very lively and dynamic!

This is a park called the Noorderplantsoen. I have spent many many hours here, having a picnic with friends, lying in the grass. My university was very near here. So many hours of procrastinating!

This is a little music chapel in the park. Many years ago, some friends of mine and me organized a little music festival here! I had an important exam the next day, it was my first year of studying Psychology, and I studied the whole night through, and passed the exam! Haha, probably cause the knowledge was still in my short-term memory.

This is one of the little streets going towards the city center.

A part of the city center called the Waagstraat, where old architecture is combined with modern architecture.

Our city's pride and joy: The Martinitower!The christmas tree was still there, as well as the ice-skating ring.

Our city hall.

The market place with in the distance a beautiful church called the A-kerk.

Of course we have the canals running through the city.

Another picture of the Noorderplantsoen. I love this park!

Stamppot Zuurkool! A typical Dutch dish!

Again! A New Year!!

Another new year has started! Amazing! How they just show up like that! Again we are amidst a new January, and soon a new February and so on!

I have been in my hometown for almost three weeks now.. Those weeks passed by so swiftly, and tonight is already my last night in Groningen. Tomorrow, I am going to the West of Holland and on Saturday I am getting on the plane, to arrive in Beijing on Sunday.

My new year will bring me a life completely different from the former year. I quit my job (Intertalent) in Beijing! I was offered to do a three-months-project for Dutch Telecom and quite impulsively I decided to just do it. I think I needed a change, a new challenge, a new old environment and just... something else. So I will only be about two weeks in BJ and then head back to Holland again, to start my project in Amsterdam.

Crazy weeks, so many administrative things to arrange, flying back and forth and back and then working in Amsterdam while having no place to live in Amsterdam. Crazy..but it drives me and it makes me energetic and excited to start this new period of my life. It will only be for three months, and after living in BJ for two years, I look forward to live in Holland for a little while. Fresh air, good quality of food, and the opportunity to see my family and dear friends regularly again.

I'll try to keep my blog up to date, that is one of my New Years' resolutions.

Wish you all the best in this new year and let's see what we'll make of it this time!

Merry Christmas again

Merry Christmas again.. The time does seem to go faster the older you get. It is midnight, everybody in the house is asleep. It is great to be back home in Holland during Christmas. Again nothing seemed to have changed. It is great to be back in my hometown and aside from little things like the fact that my elementary school has been torn down and there is nothing but a big nothingness now, nothing seemed to have changed. As if this past year did not happen. As always it puts me in a contemplative mood. How such an artifical creation like a year consisting of 365 days can cause people to think about their life at a certain point in time. Now is that time. Another year over, a new one to start. Again the same thoughts as a year ago, and a year before that and before that..What will this new year bring us?

Everything is insecure, everything in my life can be completely different from the year before, and there is nothing we can do to enlighten this insecurity, to give one any support in the fear for the unknown nearby future. I've been writing diaries since I was 8 years old. Since I am living abroad, every year around this time, when I am back in my childhood home, I get out my old little suitcase that is filled with all the diaries, with all the stories I have written about my life, how trivial they are. My life fits in this little suitcase that my dad once bought when he was busy with trying to get out of China. A little suitcase for all his stuff for his great journey away from his roots.  I scan through the diaries and as soon as I start reading I know exactly what it is about, when it was written and what will come after.

When I started writing, I promised myself to keep this up until my 80th year, as I somehow thought that that is the age that will be my last in which I am still able to write. After that I would ask my grandchildren to read me from my books as by then my eyes are probably too old to read the words. I already feel like an old fool. I'm curious and scared for what will happen in the new year. I look at the empty pages in my current diary and wonder what will be written on it. Let's just hope for a good year..

Merry Christmas!

Back to Jinshanling-Simatai

Haha, Koen thought I was going to announce that I was pregnant! Noooo... not yet!

After 3 and a half years I returned to the Jinshanling - Simatai portion of the Great Wall. For the loyal readers of my blog, you might still remember that the follow up of my last visit to this part of the Wall led me all the way to Montreal. Long time ago already.

Kirsten came visiting me in Beijing a few weeks ago and on a very nice Autumn Sunday (Autumn is the best season to visit Beijing) I gathered a bunch of my friends together to do the Jinshanling - Simatai walk. We hired a mini-van and with a group of 9 people we took off!

So.. Where exactly do we have to go?

On the road!

This part of the Great Wall is just amazingly beautiful!

Group picture. One of the few attempts to make a good jumpshot.

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No place better to have a lunch than a lunch on the Great Wall! With Gilles sitting in the sun, eating Sushi from the 7Eleven.

Kirsten and me!

The shadow of an old watch tower.

It is not easy to grasp the beauty of the Wall on pictures. Maybe a movie is better!

Click here to watch the movie!

At the end of our walk, we sat down and had a delicious STROOPWAFEL!!

Ooooww!!!

So many things happened, so many things so suitable to be posted, so many pictures, but oooh no time do to it..Sooon, I promise, sooon it will happen, I will take it step by step, post by post, but yes.. I tell you,,...soooon...sooon.... very soooooon......! :)

Peter's exposition

My friend Peter has exposed his stained glass.

Check his website for more of his art.

A tree at night

Chaoyang Park

Maysha meets Balkenende

Last Saturday, the Dutch Embassy organized a reception where they invited Dutch prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende for a speech. Balkenende was here for the Euro-Asia summit about the financial crisis. This reception was also meant for him to meet and greet the Dutch community in Beijing. He held quite a funny speech and then he just walked around among the people to have a drink and to chat with everybody.

So Lisa, Esther and me grabbed our chance and we chatted with him and of course took a picture!!!

Interesting Sunday

Last Sunday was a beautiful Sunday! I woke up early by the rays of sunlight shining through the curtains and I was planning a relaxing lazy Sunday, doing nothing at all!

It turned out a bit differently. I had a nice unexpected lunch with Gilles, and then he asked me whether I felt like going on a bike ride on such a beautiful day. That sounded very appealing. He wanted to go see the conference about Gnome, and that was a perfect occasion for a nice bike ride. The Gnome conference - Gnome in the sense of the Linux desktop, and not the leprechaun-like creatures, to get things straight here ;)- was at a university not too far away but far away enough for a 40 minute bike ride.

Never expected to be at a Gnome conference that Sunday. Can't really say that it was that interesting although I did see an interesting presentation about language input methods (reminded me of my work at MS).

After this Gilles' friend called him to tell him that there was an opening of a befriended artist's exposition in the Bed Bar. So off we went.

Here is a short movie to show you the transition of events of this interesting Sunday:

Unfortunately we were too late to see the actual performance, but I guess the end was enough to get an idea of the performance. It seems that the guy in white was dancing and while he was dancing the painting behind him was made.

I also met an interesting Chinese guy at that opening who spend many years in the Netherlands, and somehow we quickly started talking about hot guys at that venue. Don't ask me why! :) Guess it helped that we were the only ones speaking Dutch there, or at least that's what we thought.

I like these unexpected happenings, expecially when they happen on a beautiful Sunday

Closing Ceremony

It's over! Joanna and I had a nice dinner on this last day of the Olympics. After that we went to a bar (Salud) in Nanluoguxiang to see the closing ceremony of the Olympics. Very nice to just sit and watch it on a big screen surrounded by many people. There were fireworks everywhere in town after the show ended. We were lucky to see some of the fireworks while standing in Nanluoguxiang. So here is the last movie on my blog about the Olympics. Life will go back to normal now... I hope...

Olympics: Taekwondo

O yeah, I went to see Taekwondo as well! I think that that was the best one of all the matches I've seen now. Here are some pics:

Sorry, can't remember anymore who these fighters are.

I never had a toy like that when I was his age!

Sooo many red flags.

There were quite some Iranian supporters. Not for nothing! An Iranian guy won gold in the end!

In red the Iranian guy who won gold.

French supporter cheering for the French lady who won bronze in the end.

The other side of me! I should be ashamed holding the flag wrongly!

Afterwards, I kind of miss doing a sport which involves kicking! No worries, Jean Seb was not hurt!

Holland Heineken House

Today is the last day of the Olympics. Yesterday evening I went with some friends to the Holland Heineken House. I hadn't been there before in the evening and it was said that it is one of the best places to party during the Olympics. Wasn't too bad at all!

The Holland Heineken House is located in the Agricultural Exhibition Centre of Beijing:

Many many Dutch people of course. Been a long time ago since I was surrounded by so many Dutch. But the Holland House is open to everybody!

Here is a video to give you an impression of the House:

Jihui, Mark, me and Benjamin in our orange shirts, kroket and french fries with REAL mayonaise!!

Me and Dave:

 

My friends and me, in the spirit of the evening

Olympics: Volleyball

I went to see volleyball as well. When I was in the Holland Heineken House I met a Dutch guy called Peter, who invited me to see volleyball this evening. Again the atmosphere is just great, and this time the stadium (Capital Gymnasium) was packed! We saw China - Brasil (China lost badly), and a part of US - Serbia. But again, great way to spend an evening!

I might have become a bit nationalistic..Holland wasn't even playing..

Capital Gymnasium

Not many empty seats this time!

Party!!

Brasil won!!

In the breaks and in between the games we got performances!

Cheerleaders ( I didn't even know that volleyball has cheerleaders)

Martial arts performance! Of course! TIC (This is China)

US against Serbia

Just a bit nationalistic.. No worries, it is just the spirit of the Games..

Olympics: Judo

Last Thursday I went to see a judo match! A Dutch guy (Henk Grol) won a bronze medal. Of course the Chinese won another gold medal! The atmosphere is just great at the Olympics matches! It is quite impressive, I never expected it to be so much fun actually!

The security check:

Chinese fans are the majority of the crowd of course and their support to their athletes is just amazing! I guess everybody in the world knows Zhong Guo Jia You now!

This is during the matches for the medals. The press photographers have the best spot!

The referees

Chinese fan:

Anton Geesink on the left, handing out the medals, Henk Grol on the right:

Dutch supporters:

Me thinking that it should actually be One World Many Dreams, or One World One Nightmare (considering certain aspects of this whole event)

I got Olympic Tickets!

Yesterday I heard that the Holland Heineken House is selling Olympic tickets every morning to Dutch people! So I went there this morning!

And I GOT TICKETS!!

For Judo tonight!! And guess what?? They were 8 euro each!! After buying the tickets, I got myself a nice broodje kroket met mosterd!! Sooo good!

Long Live the Holland Heineken House!!

Evening of the Opening Ceremony

Last Friday evening, people were getting ready, sitting in front of the television at home, or in a bar. Many bars had the big screens to show the Opening Ceremony. I didn't feel like being at home, or in a bar in front of a screen. I wanted to go out on the streets, to try to get near the Bird's Nest (the Olympic Stadium) and just feel the atmosphere on the streets during this historical event. Etienne and I got on our bikes and rode towards the stadium. We already heard that the roads to the stadium would be blocked from any directions and the chance to get near it and actually see the fireworks coming from the stadium was very small. We set out anyway, and saw the blocked streets. So many policemen standing in line, forming human walls to avoid people going down the roads to the stadium. So many people were on the streets, shouting Zhongguo jia you! (China come on!), the atmosphere was filled with excitement. Even though people couldn't see anything of the stadium, they stayed on the streets anyway..

We started Southeast from the stadium, and rode towards West to get around it, to find any chance to get inside the road blocks. All the apartment complexes near the site were guarded as well, and only people living there were allowed to go in. We managed to get near an apartment complex, and find a back entrance that was not guarded. We saw a fence that was not too high to climb over it and at the moment we wanted to climb over it, we noticed that the fence wasn't attached to the wall anymore from one side. We laughed, this was too funny, we could just enter this apartment complex. We looked for a flat that could give us some view of the Olympic site, and the first door we tried was open. Normally, you need a key or electronic card to open the door to get to the apartments. The elevator brought us to the 11th floor, and through the window of the hallway, we had a view of the Watercube and a part of the stadium! In the reflection of one of the balcony windows we could even see a television screen and the show.

Mission Accomplished!

Pictures taken by Etienne

Afterwards we rode back on our bikes and the road blocks were gone. We could pass the Bird's Nest, and it was a bit strange to realize that just an hour ago, so many world leaders were there, and that this was the place where so many eyes in the world were focused on and that this place will get a spot in the history books.

That evening Etienne and I rode more than 4 hours  on our bikes. On our way back we were so tired that we got lost and it took us even longer to get back. At around 2.30 am we finally arrived in our neighbourhood again, went to a bar called Room 101 and finally had dinner! It was a memorable evening

Olympics Neighbourhood Watch

Welcome to Beijing! Today is a special day as it is 08-08-08 and in within a few hours the spectacular Opening Ceremony of the Games will start! Ain't it an exciting day! It is HOT, HUMID and POLLUTED outside. A typical Beijing day. We have experienced more blue sky days these last few weeks than ever before. Our Beijing did not seem to be herself anymore. But luckily today and yesterday, she came back to herself.

I went out today and shot pictures of the "small-feet squad". The neighbourhood watchers (often old ladies and gents) who have been instructed to report any unusual visitors or activity in their districts, according to Liu Shaowu , director of security for the Games organising committee. These are all people living in their district for a long time already, so they know who is a stranger or not, and can ask them what they are doing here. Anything suspicious will be reported of course. Walking on the streets you can see these "security volunteers" about every 50-100 meters. I took quite some pictures of them, while passing them on my bike. I didn't want to like.. stop, stand in front of them and then take a picture... Who knows what they'll report... ghi ghi ghi! Click on the image to see the enlarged version.

Except for these volunteers, the street image has undergone more changes.

Less private cars:

The illusion of more cabs:

Strange happy creatures playing around everywhere:

Young Chinese people dressed in blue, standing in a booth:

Chinese flags in hutongs:

Chinese flags on bikes:

Nationalistic kids:

But some things are not easy to change. I still need to close my eyes and imagine there is a blue sky:

Short Notice

Hi, just a short notice to tell you all that I have been back in BJ for some weeks now, that my holiday in XinJiang was great, although I just read today in the news that there has been an attack on a policestation in Kashgar today. Scary.. Olympics are getting near, only 4 days to go. I sincerely hope nothing bad will happen. Will soon write more on this blog bout my holiday in XinJiang and life in general here in BJ!

Byeeeeee!!

Summer is here

Tomorrow I am going on a holiday for two weeks to Xinjiang! Great beginning of the summer! Enjoys yours!

European Championships Soccer!!

Here in Beijing, we also watch the European Championships Soccer! Last Friday at 2:45 am, I watched the match France-Holland, in a French bar, surrounded by French people, with two French friends of mine! What an evening!!! Sour faces.. I almost felt sorry for them! Carla and Ruud brought me a Dutch flag, so I can cheer for the Dutch team with it. Guess it was a good idea not to bring it to this bar!

So where is the flag now? Hehe check out this picture of the building where I am living. Guess which apartment is mine...:)

Here is a close up:

I can't remember ever being so nationalistic during games like this. Well, maybe it's not so strange as I feel much more Dutch here than when I am in Holland. So tonight they play again! It kinda sucks that it is broadcasted in the middle of the night here. Need to work tomorrow...But I will probably watch the quarter finals, no matter what day in the week it is! Hehehe... Hup Holland Hup!!!!

Carla and Ruud

As I said on my former log, Carla and Ruud were in town. They were here last year as well, and I just love them for coming here again! After my birthday party we visited the Lama Temple together, and of course had dinner and spent as much time as possible. They were only 4 days in BJ before going further into China, and I had to work during the day, so we spent all the evenings to catch up!

Lama Temple

Ruud was recording everything with his videocamera

At a certain moment after the Lama Temple we came across a very cosy little hutong. I had my bike with me and had to walk out of the hutong, casually, pretending that I am living there! So funny!

Last evening with Carla and Ruud. Yes, there were some tears..

Birthday Party

It's a little bit late, but I really wanted to share with you some pictures of my birthday party! It was a smashing memorable party with so many friends of mine that showed up! I was walking around with a smile on my face the whole evening! What made it even more special is that Carla and Ruud (my Dutch parents) happen to be in Beijing!! They were the guests of honor! Unfortunately I don't have pictures of both of them at the party, hehehe but trust me, they were really there... Or was it all just a dream??

Here I am with Joanna, whom I met when looking for a language partner when I was still studying, but we became good friends quickly.

Anita, Kim, Simon, Kris and Jessie

Xiao Lu, Rudmer and Ma Heng

And yes there was some live music!!

Marie Claude, Jean-Sebastien, Anita and me

What is a birthday without a huge delicious birthday cake?!

Benjamin and me

This is the first time I got a birthday cake with my name on it!! Thanks Benjamin!!

Short Notice

I moved my birthday party to Saturday May 31!! Same place, same time!!

Trip to Datong Area

A week ago I went together with Anita and Erik (my friends and colleagues) to Datong area. We got on the midnight train to the city Datong in the province Shanxi (West of BJ). This province is one huge mountain plateau with an average height of 1000m above sea level. As it is dominated by the proximity of the Gobi desert, you can imagine the sand and dust that is shifting across the province. Nearly a third of China's coal reserves are to be found in Shanxi province. In the larger cities there is a major development of mining industry. It is been said that Datong is even more polluted than BJ.

View of the city from our hotelroom

It took us 7 hours by train to get to this place. We hadn't booked any hotel or organized trips to the sites we wanted to visit as we just wanted to go check out the place ourselves without being stuck to something. We arrived at the trainstation at 7 in the morning, had some breakfast and then went to one of the first hotels we saw. Just next to the trainstation, we went to Feitian hotel, and it turned out to be a nice reasonably priced one. Immediately after getting of the train, a guy was offering us his car to bring us to the sites, and he was so persistent that we got very annoyed by it. Never go along with the first guy that offers you his services as soon as you get somewhere, especially not when he is too persistent. Just doesn't work like that. In our hotel we met another guy offering his services, he had a friendly appearance, being patient and not pushy at all. He became our personal driver for the next two days.

On our way to the Hanging Monastery, we stopped at a little village. As soon as we stopped the car, little kids and women came running towards us, holding little colourful self made decorations to sell to us.

Our driver told us about the caves opposite of the village where an old man lives. The old man was very hospitable and eager to show us his place.

The old man's house. The cave is 500 years old.

The old man is 73 years old, and has been living here for 30 years. He is not married and has no children.

He showed us around in his place, and told us to take pictures of everything. He was happy to receive visitors interested in his house.

A Kang is a sleeping platform made out of bricks or a form of fired clay. The heat of the cooking is being channelled into the interior of the bed creating a heated bed floor in times of coldness.

The "kitchen"

The view from his place

We were invited by the people living in the old village and who were trying to sell us the colourful thingies to see their homes as well. They lived opposite of the old man's cave.

A part of the village

On our way to one of the homes

The entrance

Mother and Daughter

The daughter is participating in Project Hope. A project initiated by China Youth Development Foundation (a NGO) to ensure that children in rural communities today and in the future have the opportunity to go to school. I bought the thing she is holding in her left hand.

Hanging Monastery (悬空寺)

The Hanging Monastery (65 km from Datong) is one of the main historical sites of this area. This Monastery was built 1400 years ago and is considered an architectural wonder. It also contains Buddhist, Taoist, and Confucian elements: a combination that is quite unusual.  From a distance it is very impressive, especially when you keep in mind how incredible old it is already!

Heading towards the entrance of the Monastery

Inside

Tall, narrow stairs and plank walkways connect 6 halls with shrines of the three main religions/philosophies in China.

I liked it more from a distance

Yingxian Pagoda

After our visit to the Hanging Monastery, we went to a small town called Yingxian. In the centre of this town you can find the oldest wooden building in China: The Wooden Yingxian Pagoda. Originally this pagoda was constructed without a single metal nail, although nowadays there are plenty of them. The small town itself was not interesting. It is a typical town made for tourists, with fake old traditional Chinese architecture.

A closer view of the Pagoda

Inside of the Pagoda

Back to Datong

After the Wooden Pagoda we went back to Datong city.

Back in Datong we had streetfood for dinner (these crispy bowls were delicious!)

And then we went to the Habitat Bar (beer and Skittles) where there was live music! Nice ending of a great day!

Next day

The next day we got up on time and after checking out the breakfast of the hotel, we all agreed on just having breakfast on the streets. Anything was better than what the hotel had to offer. We walked on the streets of Datong and came across a nice little event. Older women playing the drums. Check out the movie I made of it. The lady in pink is just great! She got swing!!

Ancient Great Wall

On this day we went to see the Ancient Great Wall. That it is ancient and much older than the ones around BJ was quite obvious when we arrived. It can hardly be called a wall anymore.

On the way to the Ancient Great Wall

Our driver stretching his legs

The Ancient Great Wall with on the right Inner Mongolia, on the left Shanxi province

We crossed the border to Inner Mongolia on foot

Yungang Grottoes (云冈石窟)

The Yungang Grottoes are ancient Buddhas grottoes consisting of more than 200 caves and about 51000 statues, spread out over a distance of 15 km. What is now most accessible for tourists (and of course you pay a fee to get in) is a small fragment of about 1 km. The rock-cut architecture of the Yungang Grottoes were made a UNESCO World Heritage site and are considered as "the outstanding achievement of Buddhist cave art in China in the 5th and 6th centuries. The Five Caves created by Tan Yao, with their strict unity of layout and design, constitute a classical masterpiece of the first peak of Chinese Buddhist art."

Very impressive to see the huge Buddhas in the caves. Many centuries ago, people carved these out of solid rock!!

There were not only big ones. Here is a wall full of little ones

Inside one of the larger caves

To give you a better idea of the inside of one of the larger caves, check out the next movie

I know I am not supposed to be playing in caves, just couldn't resist the urge to climb in one and enjoy the scenery

Life as it is...

Just within a few weeks time, life can change drastically. It might be for the good or for the bad but in any way, it does give the spirit a boost. A month ago I heard that I had to move at the end of the month. It was very unexpected. Since my arrival in Beijing I have lived in Wudaokou, Haidian District. In a building complex called DongWangZhuang, a well-known place to anyone who has ever studied in this area. I like this place a lot. My dear friend Simon lives just around the corner in another building, our local supermarket is the best, the little butcher shop sells delicious sausages and the owner is actually a real estate agent as well, all the dancing people at the playground... I know quite a lot of people living in Wudaokou so it was easy to catch up and hang around spending quality time. Wudaokou itself is a real students’ area. Not so many places to go out to though, worst one of all is Propaganda aka the meatmarket, best bar to go to is D22 (also cause my former flatmate Justin works there and it became a bit like our bar to hang out at. Like the one where Homer Simpson goes to to drink, hang out and meet the drunk people he only sees in that bar). Many many places to have dinner with a wide range of different kind of food: Korean, Japanese, Western, Southeast Asian, you name it and chances are you can get it. (Except for German food though). This is what you expect from an area where many universities are located and where many Chinese and foreign students reside. It is also called one of the Korean villages in Beijing as so many Koreans live and study in Wudaokou.

In this area, Chinese would often think I am Korean. Not because I resemble Koreans, just because they did not know what to make of me otherwise. The Koreans think I look more like Japanese and the Japanese, well I don’t know, I haven’t met as many Japanese as Koreans and Chinese. One guy from Urumqi thinks I look like a Kazakhstani. And the nicest thing I heard were people telling me I resemble some Hong Kong superstar. Well, that certainly caresses the ego. Anyways... This is Wudaokou, the area I lived in for more than a year. And I decided to leave it after I heard that I had to move again.

Will certainly miss these people who made a delicious breakfast thingy:

I heard people say that you haven’t really lived in Beijing if you have only lived in Wudaokou. I disagree with that. It is not about where you live, but about what you do. I agree with it if one never leaves Wudaokou, that is a pity, that is a shame, that is not really living in BJ. But if you leave it often enough to see other places without thinking that it is all too far away (as Wudaokou is not near any city centre) then I disagree. I decided to move away just because I wanted to experience something new as routine had already sneaked into my life, which is perfectly normal by the way. But there is always something one can do to challenge the routine and get rid of it for a while before it sneaks back again. Me being forced to move again, gave me a very good reason to seek something new and close the students’ area chapter. And I did.

I moved to Guloudajie area. Now I must say that this is such a difference with Wudaokou, that it felt like I moved to another town. I live in a hutong. Although my building itself is not a little hutong house, I am surrounded by it. See the views from my room:

I think the community is quite close and everybody knows what going on here. See these elderly people in the next pic. There are always sitting outside, looking strangely at me, and seldom say something back when I greet them with my nicest smile which is almost a desperate attempt to get that look out of their eyes that an outsider has intruded their territory. These are real die-hard “hangouderen”; elderly people hanging around on the street, playing cards, telling jokes, gossiping. They keep themselves busy and the good thing about it is that they have fun in their elderly years as I often hear their laughter through my open window in the early evening. Wouldn’t it be great to be old, in good company and have good laughs and gossip endlessly about that strange girl that just moved into that apartment where old Mister Wolf used to live and whether you think he still has all that money stuffed away in that secret drawer of his desk?

The Forbidden City is a ten-minute bike ride away from my house now. I live near the nice city lakes and there are significantly more trees here than I’ve seen in other areas of the city.

Little bakery at the end of my street:

A lot of rebuilding is going on in the old hutong areas of Beijing. Houses like these will probably disappear in the future.

Luck was one my side during my search for a place in this area. On a Saturday I just went down this area to check it out. Now unlike Wudaokou where you can see ads of local housing agents stick to almost anything and ads on websites like The Beijinger, it is not so easy to find a place to live if you want to avoid the official real estate companies. I tried that and it did not make me happy at all. I was determined to live in this area. So after walking around I decided just to go to the first real estate company that I saw at that moment. A nice girl helped me and showed me some studios as I did not want to rent a whole apartment alone. But finding just a room to live, apart from expensive studios, was even more difficult. So all of a sudden this girl told me that she just moved to BJ a month ago and was actually looking for a new apartment as well. Then she asked me whether I wanted to share an apartment with her. And that offer I gladly accepted. My new flatmate does not speak English at all so she was happy to live with me so she can learn English and ofcourse I can practice my Chinese. She is lovely. Although she does represent that part of the Chinese population that believe everything their government is telling them. For example, she hates French people now.

Picture taken from http://english.cqnews.net/

After the Olympic torch affair in Paris, where a Chinese wheelchair athlete was struggling to protect the torch from someone who tried to take it from her, a large part of the Chinese (in BJ that is, I don’t know bout the rest of China) do not like the French anymore. And that is an understatement. They started a boycott on the French hypermarket Carrefour. Now Carrefour used to be a store that was always crowded with Chinese people buying food and so. I never really like to go there as it is just too crowded. But now, you can go and shop calmly as the boycott is active. To me it actually sounds a bit strange as most of the products they sell there are produced in China. Anyways, my flatmate hates the French and would like to shoot them all. I tried to tell her that that person who wanted to steal the torch from the sportswoman wasn’t even French but it was all in vain and certainly not due to my bad Chinese. Last weekend we went out with some friends and saw a nice performance of Zhang Si'an, a French musician. My flatmate did not enjoy it. If looks could kill... the guy would have been dead a thousand times already. But I don’t feel the calling to change her and other people’s minds.

Today I was so happy, I couldn’t stop smiling. I just got hired as a project-based instructional designer at a company called Cyberwisdom. A company from Hong Kong with offices in ShenZhen, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing. They develop e-learning modules, and as some of you might know, I worked in that field before. I never dared to dream of finding a job like that here. I thought chances would be as good as zero. Again, luck on my side! They placed an ad on the Beijinger (where else?!?!). It will be a parttime assignment (one Cyberwisdom got from Microsoft in the States!! Looks like MS is sticking to me now), which is perfect as I work parttime for Microsoft Research Asia too. And next to that there is my freelance job as a translater of technical manuals for a company in Shenzhen. So yes, my working life is nice, full of variety, just the way I like it! Even better is the fact that I do not need to go to the Cyberwisdom Beijing office to do the e-learning assignment. I need to write storyboards so I can do that anywhere I want! Just like the translating job. As my internet connection is non-existent in my apartment, I will work in bars with free wireless internet. Found a great little bar near my place and already tagged that as my second living room, so guess that is where I’ll do most of the work. I always wanted to become a professional writer of novels (I know that that will never happen) but the fact is that I do earn a living now by writing. That is good enough for me. At least for now!

So that is it for today! Today the National May holiday started and we have some days off.Tomorrow I am planning to go on a hiking trip just outside BJ with some friends and spend the night in a farmer’s place somewhere. And after that spend a whole day in a spa!

Chillin’. Relaxin’. Enjoyin’ life as it comes and as it is.

My breakfast in BJ

I do not often have breakfast at home before I leave for work. It is too hard for me to get up earlier to have a decent breakfast. On my way to the subway, I pass several little food stalls on the street, selling all kind of little snacks, for breakfast, lunch, dinner or after midnight. One of my favorites is the egg pancake. Last winter I used to eat this very often while on my way to work. Here is a movie I made of it some time ago already. Notice the tools the man is using to make the pancake: - A bucket for the dough - Putty-knifes - Paint brushes for the sauce. No matter what tools he uses, the pancake thingy is delicious!!

As for myself

As for myself, after having a couple of weeks in which the fundament of my life here in BJ (Job, House, Visa) was shaking and tumbling around, I, at present, managed to get stuff (new apartment, new visa) arranged to secure my fundament again.

I work, I study, I learn, I socialize, organize, finalize, I make music, I fight for my own justice, I see messed up people, I waste my energy on messed up people, I can't blame myself, I clear things out, I move on, I see beauty in a city polluted as hell, I adore evenings with good friends, I laugh, I know it is the beginning of the end, and the end is a beginning, and I am happy. 

Olympic insanity

Read this article about the raid the Chinese police held in the famous barstreet Sanlitun in BJ. Whereas last year I heard a story about how unbelievable mild the police are towards foreigners when it considers soft drugs as opposed to the extreme hard punishments that Chinese nationals would get. This is a special year. A special year in which all foreigners who live temporarily in BJ now, will have major difficulties to extend their visa for the summer, as they want to clear the city of all those temporary foreigners to make more space for all the Olympic visitors. And this is not only aimed at foreigners. Chinese universities will end their semesters earlier so the Chinese students who are from outside of BJ can go back to their hometowns before the arrival of the Olympic tourists. It is not a choice, they simply will not get the permission to stay in the city as Chinese from outside BJ, just like the foreigners, need a kind of residence permit to be able to stay in BJ.

Yesterday someone told me that in Xinjiang province (most western province of China) where many Turkic ethnic groups live, people are also protesting and rioting as they feel suppressed by the Chinese as well. Of course being encouraged by what is going on in Tibet, with their only drawback that they do not have any romantic "Roof of the World" like image as Tibet, so no attention from Western media.

Many Chinese want to make money out of the Olympic year. It will not be easy to find accomodation in July and August in BJ. Not that there is no space (at least this is what I think) but more of the fact that people may want to get the most out of it. If your rental contract happens to end at the end of July, and you want to extend it, then it might be that your landlord will ask 3000 euro rent only for the month of August. Whereas normally you might pay around 200 euro a month. As your landlord may think that he can rent out an apartment for that kind of money to Olympic visitors. But I really don't think that tourists who have the money to come here for the Olympics would go to this building compound (call them "the projects") to pay up to 3000 euro to live in a crappy shithole. I already feel sorry for the Chinese people who could really use some money, having this idea to earn big time during the Olympics and will end up desillusioned.

Tibet

Who really knows what has been going on there and what is still going on there? I read the Western newspapers and I read the Chinese newspapers and what I find striking is that in these media there is always this polarisation of one party being the good one and the other the bad one. I found this movie on youtube, made by Chinese I guess as they talk about how Western media is trying to "slander China". Very interesting to be able to catch this issue from both sides.

Many people in the West may think that all Chinese people think like their government concerning Tibet or Taiwan. And that due to the lack of freedom of press, the Chinese don't know what is really going on there. But of course, there are ways of tackling the internet block of the Chinese government and not only the foreigners in China are using these methods to be able to read blocked pages. The Chinese do as well. And yes I've met Chinese who agree with the point of view of Westerners about delicate issues. They just don't like the fact that some foreigners are trying to teach them lessons about their own country.

True News

As you all know, the news we see here on TV and in the newspapers is not the same as what is truly happening out here. This is not a free country, but living a normal daily life here would almost make you forget it. Click here to get an idea of what is truly happening out here. The link is not accessible for people living in the same country as me now.

MaFeiSan

Here is a video I made several months ago of the Chinese band MaFeiSan. You can see my former flatmate Justin playing the drums. Enjoy!

First performance in Beijing!

Since a few weeks I am playing the saxophone again. I brought my King back from The Netherlands, and last Saturday I played with my friends Tato and Checo in a bar/restaurant called Souk.

I was soo nervous in the beginning, as you can see! hihihih. But we had fun! Check out the pics and vid! Thanks Serena for the pic and vid!

Beijing National Aquatics Centre

This week, the Beijing National Aquatics Centre a.k.a The Water Cube has opened its doors! It was designed by PTW Architects. The construction of this venue for the Olympics has started in December 2003 and it is the largest ETFE (a kind of plastic with corrosion resistance and strength over a wide range of temperature) structure in the world. The ETFE layer is only eight one-thousandths of an inch in total thickness and allows more light (90% sunlight) and heat penetration than normal glass. It actually acts as a greenhouse in saving energy. As you can see, there is still a lot to do in order for the area surrounding the Centre to be ready for the Olympics.

In the half-light, the Cube starts to glow its blue light and the contrast only thickens the darker it gets. It is a beautiful sight, this Cube with its blue lit bubbles in the dark.

After a contruction period of 5 years, the Water Cube is finally finished and this week it opened its doors to host its first test event: The China Open Swimming. Although the event itself is not that interesting, the fact of going to see the Cube from the out and inside made it well worth buying a ticket for. My friend and I were lucky as we managed to get the last tickets for Friday. We could not sit next to each other, but that really did not matter cause it wasn't the swimming we were interested in. It was more than interesting and exciting to go to the Olympic Park, and to see the Cube from upclose, with the Bird’s Nest in the near vicinity. To actually go inside this structure and check out this venue and its extraordinarily design, something that has costs more than $110 million, and was completely funded by rich overseas Chinese.

The National stadium a.k.a The Bird's Nest (located next to the Water Cube) will host the Olympic's opening and closing ceremony, the track and field competition and the soccer games, etc. and is due to be finished in March.

Getting tickets for the Olympics is not an easy deal. They have implemented a system to deal with the huge amount of requests for tickets. It is a lottery system which means that you can reserve a ticket, and then you wait and cross your fingers and hope that your number will be drawn in order to get a ticket. Only one ticket per person, so if you and your loved one would like to go see a match together holding hands, chances are very small, close to zero that you both will actually get a ticket and the seats are next to each other. It is also nice just to go to the venue and holds hands while the blue lights of the Cube shine upon thee.

We cover distance

An alternative way of getting around in Beijing.

Cats The Musical

I have always wanted to see this musical, since the first time I heard of it, many many years ago. I thought they did not play it anymore at all, so when I saw the announcements last year of Cats going to play in Beijing, the decision to go there was easily made. Many of my friends' faces turned into a nasty ugly one when I asked them to go with me. Musicals are not particularly liked by most of my friends. Luckily Serena, my dear friend and former colleague, is like me considering this. We really wanted to see this musical so we already bought tickets in November for the show end of January and we were late as the cheapest tickets were sold out back then already. Still so popular. Last week after work, we went to the Beijing Exhibition Center to finally see the show.

What I like a lot is that Cats is based on Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats and other poems by T. S. Eliot. I like T.S. Eliot, especially The Waste Land which I read during my graduation project and still reminds me of that period. Cats has been performed all over the world and has been translated in more than 20 languages. I prefer the original, so I was more than happy to discover that it was performed by an Australian cast and all was in English, except for a few lines of Memory in Chinese. (The crowd went wild!) There was a minor alteration of the storyline, I was told, there was a fight of the Pirate Cat against a bunch of Mongolian Cats who tried to capture his boat. That was not in the original. Maybe this was the version especially for a Chinese crowd where the Mongolian Cats attacked and were defeated. What surprised me as well is that here going to a musical looked a lot like going to the cinema. The smell of popcorn was so dominant! Eating popcorn during a musical? Strange to me. And not only popcorn, people were eating a lot of things, pealing oranges and so on.

Nevertheless, I finally saw Cats! And it was in a beautiful theatre in Beijing!

Twin Peaks break

Hello!

Sorry for not writing any logs lately. I am watching Twin Peaks as I have the whole serie on my laptop now. It is addicting so whenever I have time I watch it, instead e.g. writing on my blog. No worries, another 10 episodes to go, and then the movie Fire Walk With Me of course! Such an amazing serie, this is the first time I am watching it completely and it is so great! So if you would excuse me now, it is time for episode 13!

Louis and Johnny

Found another gem!

Louis Armstrong and Johnny Cash - Blue Yodel No. 9