Greg in China

Well its been an extremely long time since I’ve made myself heard. Apologies for that. The picture is from New Year’s Eve in the Lazy Lizard Bar in Dali. I spent a few days in Dali over New Year with Martin, Qian, Meimei, Ben and Gab doing some cycling and boating during the day and partying hard at night. It was so hot on the way to Dali that I was wearing a t-shirt on 31st December, not something I’ve ever been able to do at that time of year before. Despite being a little bit nippy at night the sky was completely clear and filled with the brightest stars I’ve seen in a long time. But that all seems like a long time ago now.

A month later during Chinese New Year I went back home to London for a short visit. It was quite a hectic couple of weeks. After quite a heavy night in Kunming I flew to Beijing and spent the day with Cat. Armed with unrelenting hangovers we went for a 2 hour massage in Sanlitun and spent a quiet night watching DVDs. I arrived in London on the Friday afternoon, went straight up to Leeds on Saturday for my brother’s house party, completely overdid it and spent the next week in London nursing a cold and feeling rather jetlagged. However it was great to see family and friends – went to a couple of parties, went out in Shoreditch a bit and had a curry in Brick Lane. In 2 weeks in England I spent more money than during 4 months in Kunming. Apologies to those I didn’t see – I was a little lazy about getting in touch with everyone. I had a fantastic time but it wasn’t all fun and games, I was also busy working on a couple of business ideas that I’m working on with a Chinese friend of mine. I won’t say much more about that for now though as these ideas are in their infancy.

While I was at a party in England someone asked me what it was like working in China. I explained that this is a difficult question to answer without some more specifics and what transpired was along the lines of “isn’t it so repressive?”, “you read such terrible things”etc… I can’t remember the exact exchange and I’m sure my defensive response had as much to do with having had one too many at a party as it did the tone of the inquiry but I felt like I was being asked to give a moral justification for what I was doing. It later transpired when I mentioned it at another social gathering that this is something that other people have mused upon too. One of my friends told me that while he agreed with my argument, it was still a perfectly reasonable question to ask.

While I make absolutely no claims to being any kind of China-expert (far from it), I’ve spent a fair bit of time here – first coming to teach English in 1998, and I guess exposure over this time has contributed to me finding that question a little strange. Sure, I suppose it is a perfectly reasonable question to ask and its one I’ve discussed a little with people since I’ve been back but its not something that entered my head when I decided to come to China this time around. I really don’t want to come across as an apologist for the Communist Party – I routinely see things here that make my blood boil. However it should be pretty obvious from any rudimentary glance at China’s recent and less-recent history that things have changed positively and continue to change remarkably for the Chinese. Just read any of the plethora of ‘I survived the Cultural Revolution’ autobiographical novels if you’re unsure. And I am not ignoring Tiananmen Square, imprisonment of dissidents, censorship of the media, censorship of the Internet and Western companies’ facilitation of it, state executions, corruption and suppression of rural protests when I make that statement.

Engagement and involvement bring about far better changes than sanctions and boycotts. I’d like to quote an article I found online by Robert A. Sirico called ‘Free Trade and Human Rights: The Moral Case for Engagement’:

Economic reforms in China have transformed daily life for hundreds of millions of people who now enjoy greater opportunity, freedom of movement, material abundance, and access to Western ideas[...]Imposing sanctions against China will disrupt this mutually beneficial relationship while doing nothing to improve human rights. Like the failed embargo against Cuba, trade sanctions isolate the victims while strengthening their persecutors.

While there’s much in the article I don’t agree with he does make some interesting and worthwhile points.

I am not going to enter into a lengthy comment about this as there’s plenty of material out there which does a much better job. I am constantly questioning many of the things that are happening in China but I have never questioned my being here (well actually I have but not for those reasons). Besides, I am not working for a large multinational – I am teaching English and exploring a few business ideas all of which I believe to be ethical. While not wishing to sound self-important, my being here is far from a bad thing, its not even a neutral thing. Its a good thing. That applies to lots (although by no means all – a subject for another day) the foreigners in China.

Anyway, back to less sensitive topics.

The flight back to Beijing was fine although a long wait on the tarmac at Heathrow caused me to miss my flight back to Kunming. So I spent the day in Beijing, feeling really jetlagged sitting in the Bookworm watching DVDs on my laptop. Absolutely exhausted I made my way back to the airport for an evening flight to Kunming. I arrived at about midnight and noticed an email that some of my friends had gone to do Karaoke. Feeling not quite ready for bed I went along and ended up there most of the night. I spent most of the following week awake all night and asleep all day. Jetlag has never really hit me this hard before.

Since then I’ve settled back into the swing of things, found a nice new flat and continued with the teaching. Flathunting was tough – I saw so many less than desirable places. But I’m happy with the place I’ve found. Its in an old building which is not in particularly good repair but the interior is great. The only qualm would be the tiny bathroom with chinese-style squat toilet but that doesn’t really bother me so much. I’m not an on-the-loo reader. Its a little noisy though as there’s a school just nearby and every morning at 10am they blast us with the music for their morning exercises. There’s also a number of people cycling round outside shouting for old washing machines and fridges to send to the countryside. However their local dialect sounds so incomprehensible to me that I imagine them shouting “Bring out your dead”. The house was broken-in on Friday night with a birthday party for my friend Christina. Here’s a few photos.

Catch you later. xx

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