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Olympic Ticketing Chaos
The sale of Olympic tickets has been suspended less than 24 hours of Round Two of the booking process getting underway. The reasons, summarised by the China Daily, run as follows: "...the booking system crashed, phone lines jammed and serpentine queues formed at banks." In short, demand was high.
No doubt this is true. The problem is the utterly mendacious comments we heard yesterday as the booking system began to groan and creak: "We had tested the booking system several times, but the number of buyers are still out of our expectations," said Xu Chen, head of the Olympic affairs
...Showtime
My first blog in Godonlyknowshowlong comes at quite a life juncture. Today is the final day of my youth. Tomorrow, I officially enter an entirely new era. Normally such splits in the space-time continuum happen only gradually. They begin only as hairline cracks and spread so slowly as to become undetectable. The move from childhood to puberty was long and painfully drawn-out. I'm guessing going from middle-age to old-age is much the same. Not this one. Tomorrow, everything will change in a matter of seconds. Tomorrow, I am to become a father, courtesy of a quick surgical snip.
I am told that my
...Dirty Cantonese Air
Here's an interesting image. This the state of Guangdong's air on February 16th, 2007. Blue indicates very clean, green indicates clean, yellow is a bit mucky, orange is bad, red is severe. I copied it from a website that I monitor daily: the Pearl River Delta Air Quality Monitoring Network website (http://61.144.36.8/equality2/raqi/eng.aspx). It's a joint project between Hong Kong's Environmental Protection Department and its Guangdong equivalent (though I have a hard time believing such a thing exists), and basically lets me know whether it's safe to open the window or not.
Normally, the mesage is clear. Stay at home, shut the window and seal all
...Chinese Mating Habits
Hello world. Since my last blog entry, some two months ago, I have done quite a lot (by my admittedly lazy standards). I’ve completed my first decently-remunerated project in, er...well, ever (equivalent of a year's Zhaoqing wages for verifying a 400-page guidebook for the AA). I’ve seen Christmas in and out with minimum fuss (and a particularly delicious packet of Highland Shortbread, sent by my good mother). I’ve begun studying for a Master’s Degree in photography at Dalian Medical University. I've been on a three week tour of the country (pictures to be posted, and shamelessly backdated, soon). Oh, and I’ve begun
...Off To See The Doctor
Ling and I went to Zhaoqing's 'No.1' Baby Hospital today. We did so in the hope of, one, getting absolute confirmation that Ling was preggers, two, discovering 'how' pregnant she was and, three, obtaining some information about what the hell to do next. It was, needless to say, a shower of bureaucratic incompetence and general offensiveness.
So first to the reception desk, where we are told to go to the third floor. The woman on the third floor greets us with all the distaste of a fussy suburban housewife who has just discovered the cat has deposited a dead bird on the kitchen floor. Who were we and
...Zhaoqing Adverts
I am angry, and somebody needs to pay. This man is the obvious target. He's the imbecile who heads up a 'Wok' advert that has - for the last six-to-eight weeks - appeared during every single bloody commercial break on the Hong Kong English-language channel, Pearl. Of course, this advert is not a Hong Kong advert. It's a Zhaoqing creation, inserted between gaps in the Hong Kong programming with all the subtlety of a subway rapist. The minute a slick, sexy Hong Kong ad appears, a button is pressed and we are jerked across to a homemade studio somewhere in Zhaoqing. A trumpet
...A Good Day
Ling and I are smiling cos today was a rather good day. In the wee hours of the morning, as I was struggling through another episode of that interminable television series, 24, an email dropped into my inbox. It was a woman by the name of Karen Kemp asking me to write her a book. Karen was asking on behalf of AA Publishing, a major guidebook publisher back home in the UK. Next year they are to add China to their Spiral series and I, apparently, am the man to do the job. This was a rather major development.
The excitement meant I
...Cheung Chau
Quick posting on the occasion of my leaving of Cheung Chau. I've been here for five days. It was my mother's idea really. She flew out from the UK to visit Ling and I five days ago. She doesn't really like long-haul travelling. She would have much rather I lived in Greece. Accordingly, she asked us to find her a quiet little hotel close to the beach. It sounded like a tough job. In the world's most densely populated city, the words 'quiet' and 'beach' are not used that often? But we found a solution in the (dumbbell) shape of Cheung Chau.
This
...Ngong Ping 360
Today I visited the much-heralded (and long-delayed) Ngong Ping Skyrail cable car ride. I had hoped to feature it in Asia and Away three times last year, only to be told each time that the opening was being put back. The magazine went bust a full five months before the bloody thing finally saw the light of day. Actually, it did open in July, but broke down within a day, leaving passengers stranded in mid-air and prompting another extended wait for those itching to enjoy this long-hyped 'journey of enlightenment.'
At 5.7 kilometres in length, Ngong Ping is apparently the longest cable car ride in the world. It takes between 20
...Ridiculous Things
Nice building eh? You probably think it's some kind of super sleek, 21st century art gallery, or exhibition hall, perhaps a museum or a culutral centre fashoined by Zhaoqing's architect de jour. This is precisely what I assumed when I first laid eyes on it. I couldn't wait to discover what treasures lay within. Today, I did find out and, well, I could barely believe it.
After crossing a little wooden bridge over a running stream, passing the rosewood reception desk caarved in the shape of a Hong Kong-style junk, and resisting the inviting look of a series of soft, Ikea
...Buy This Book
Just finished reading this book. The 223 pages took me just three days (which is fast for me, though I know there will be some who scoff). Truly gripping stuff. If I knew that economics could be this interesting, I might have actually bothered to read the business pages all these years.
On one level, the book provides an account of China's mammoth influence on the global economy and the threat it poses to cherished European and American notion's of free-market capitalism (predicting the end of globalisation while it's at it). But of more interest to me were the beautifully written little snapshots of situations,
...Fong's Wedding
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For the first time in two and a half weeks, I wake up under the dreary concrete-coloured skies of south China. It’s as if someone has gone up in a fleet of helicopters and unloaded several tones of concrete powder into the atmosphere. It’s humid, it’s sweaty and, worst of all, today I must work. It’s good work, though. Today is my friend Fong’s wedding day. And by virtue of the fact that I own a camera and a flashgun, I am designated photographer.
Chinese weddings are a bit different to what one goes through back in the West. The
...Leaving Dili With Doors Ajar
On my way out of Hotel Timor, I chat to a chap called Bernardo. He's working on the front desk. He tells me he loves English football and, like many Timorese, plans on going to England in seven or eight months to find work and earn a better life for himself. I want to tell him that life ain't a bed of roses over there for young migrants, but, hell, let him dream a while. This country could use a few decent dreams.
Dili Airport is a sight. The man supposedly working the immigration desk is loitering in
...World Bank Blaggers
I wake at one thirty in a darkness that is total and quite frightening. My fear is enhanced by the fact that I have no idea where I am and compounding the weirdness is the menacing sounds of a mosquito buzz somewhere above me. There’s no wall switch to help cast some light on the situation. After realizing that I am in rural East Timor, and there’s no electricity, I fumble my way to the loo. I may or may not have hit the bowl.
Breakfast doesn’t happen. Well, it nearly doesn’t happen. With complete nonchalance, Dominguez announces that the
...Screaming Dinosaurs
My final breakfast on the balcony is a veritable feast of noodles and fried eggs. A fine way to say goodbye to this little dusty corner of Dili. The sun is rising in a clear blue sky, as it has done every day so far. Dominguez, my Mega Tours driver, is there to pick me up just gone 7am. Our car, like most in Dili, has a smashed windscreen. Dominguez, as he will do for most of the coming day, pleads ignorance.
We make the sharp climb out of the city, passing scores of schoolchildren heading down the hill to
...Madmen
An easy day in Dili. The highlight of the morning was meeting a French Canadian bloke in the City Café. He reminded me a bit of Michael Palin in his Monty Python prime. Totally mad. Wore a floppy sun hat and a gaudy bright blue shirt. He talked and talked and talked. The kind of guy who reassures you that, actually, no matter how depressed you feel, you actually doing OK. He talked of spending seven years teaching French in Vanuatu. These days, after an aborted attempt to enter Australia, he was forced into the T-shirt business. He runs his
...Back to Scaresville
I don’t sleep well. The gaping mosquito net is a worry but the worst thing is the stickiness. I wasn’t able to have a shower last night on account on the moon not coming out in time to light the iron wash shack out back. It was dangerous back there. I decide to get up at about 5am. It’s dark outside. I sit on the beach and watch pastel shades spread themselves across the horizon. Pigs from the local homes root around in the sand. The ocean laps the shore and I am alone to watch the sunrise.
The kids
...The End of the Road
And so, finally, I leave Dili on a drive out east with Eco Discovery. The release in tension in palpable within minutes of leaving city limits. Manny, my driver, is a lovely Timorese chap who speaks with an Aussie twang. He spent 30 years living in Melbourne and says he was involved in the resistance against the Indonesians remotely. He returned to East Timor after independence, seeking a ‘challenge,' he tells me, leaving a son in Australia. He was raised a Catholic, and still believes in God, but loves to play bad 80s Heavy Metal to 'get him going'.
Within half
...Trouble Coming
Another morning on the balcony, writing on the laptop as the sun rises, sipping fresh coffee from a thermos flask that is brought up to my room, alongside a couple of fresh bread rolls and a slice of processed cheese.
Diving this morning looks to be off. Steve is sick again and Mark tells me that if he doesn’t get back to test run the company’s new boat this afternoon, the weekend’s trips will be cancelled. I tell him I’m really keen to finish the course today and there’s a bit of tension in the air. We head off in
Earth Spirits
I’m realizing it’s futile to get pissed off about these roosters. When they wake is when I will wake too. Today it’s about six. I get up to find the sun just creeping over the hills behind Dili. I take my laptop and sit out on the balcony, looking over the side at the kids and the dogs as they emerge from their slumber and start kicking about the yard. Breakfast arrives at about seven and I sip on tea and fresh bread. It’s lovely.
Today I walked down to the dive shop. The sea is like a mirror (above).
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