Vienna

Today, I started reading Eric Hobsbawn's, "Interesting Times" on the train from Suzhou to Nanjing. Hobsbawn I know as a Marxist Historian of the ilk that only bourgeoisie societies can tolerate. Still, his books, "The Age of Revolution", "The Age of Capital", "The Age of Empire" and "The Age of Extremes" are written in tolerable prose and, despite certain shortcomings, they are not devoid of a thinking Historian's logic when attempting to answer very pertinent questions. It is not the place of this piece to get bogged down with those questions. However, "Interesting Times" appears to be a bit different from those four books, it is of a more autobiographical nature. It was his description of Vienna between the two world wars that kept me occupied for about one and a half hours of a one hour forty five minute trip. After the Treaty of St.Germain in 1919 Vienna was situated in a very different world to the one it had inhabited prior to that treaty. Nevertheless, the impression created is of a city that didn't only try to but actually succeeded in keeping up appearances. It is this Vienna that I know today.
After 1919, Vienna was at the centre of fragile democracy and then, after the Civil War of February 1934, of a clerical dictatorship and from March 1938 until the end of the Second World War it was to continue its existence as the main city of the "Ostmark" in Hitler's Germany. After that war it was to establish itself as the capital of the second Austrian republic. That The Republic of Austria suffers at times from a sort of schizophrenia and at times from a collective amnesia is, I suppose, perfectly natural considering its inconsistent past. Yet, I do get the impression that at least Vienna doesn't suffer too much from its identity crisis; when I walk through the city's streets I am, just as I am when I walk through parts of Prague or Budapest, transported to a bygone day, to a time when "Mitteleuropa" was lived. The illusion is of continuity and a "heile Welt". It is 'Schloss Schonbrunn', the 'Stephansdom', the 'Hofburg', the cafes, the bars and the general ambience, it is the centre of Europe and Vienna is one of those places where you are really aware of what Europe was, is and can be.
The picture above is of the city centre in Vienna.

Nationalism Part 3

Especially obnoxious was the "hurrah patriotism" I experienced in Thatcher's Britain during the Falklands War, not to be forgotten was 'The Sun's' "Gotcha' headline on May 4th 1982 when a British nuclear submarine sank the Argentinian cruiser the 'General Belgrano'; a state of the art nuclear submarine had sunk an old second world cruiser outside the 200 mile exclusion zone as it was sailing away from the islands and 323 Argentinian sailors died. Of course, there are those who would argue that the sinking was necessary for various reasons. Whatever, England's "Pravda" had its headline and the flags were being waved up and down the country.
A few years later in Germany, I watched them sing the "Deutschland Lied" and listened to them screaming "Wir sind ein Volk"and along with the upsurge in nationalistic bravado in what was once collectively known as Eastern Europe, I thought that the lid on the Pandora's box had been lifted. The European body politic has managed, I believe, to check the forces of extreme nationalism, at least outside of Russia and in Germany a strange phenomena has appeared. At the football World Cup in 2006 I was confronted for the first time in my life with a patriotism that didn't instill me with fear; a sort of nationalism that rejects any notion of my country right or wrong, a nationalism not bred of an inferiority complex and a phenomena that might offer hope for now and for the future.
The pictures above show the Sun headline from May 4th 1982 and German football fans celebrating in Fuerstenfeldbruck near Munich after their team had beaten Argentina.

Sharon Stone

In March 1998 at a TV tribute to Betty Ford, Sharon Stone told the following feminist joke;
"Two guys go into a store to buy a brain. The male brain costs $100 and the female brain costs $25. When they ask the store clerk why the female brain costs so much less, he tells them, 'Because the female brain has been used." Sharon herself is credited with a very high IQ.
However, for someone who is supposedly so intelligent the following quote attributed to her is at best insensitive if not downright stupid; "I'm not happy about the way the Chinese are treating the Tibetans because I don't think anyone should be unkind to anyone else," "And then this earthquake and all this stuff happened, and then I thought, is that karma? When you're not nice that the bad things happen to you?" Sharon has since apologised and her apology might even be genuine. Nevertheless, I would like to end this little ditty by telling a joke; "Two women go into a store to buy a brain. The female brain costs $100 and the male brain costs $25. When they ask the store clerk why the male brain costs so much less, he tells them, 'Because the male brain has been used."
The death toll in the Sichuan earthquake will probably exceed 80,000.
The picture is of Sharon Stone and the Dalai Lama.

An Ardent Thirst for Distant Scenes

Sitting, talking; sometimes it's nice to just end up sitting and talking. So here is me, in a wee sort of beer garden and sitting and talking. Of course, for all of you who know me, you know that I am not just sitting and talking.
There is at the moment an ardent thirst for distant scenes for getting away from the all too familiar or at least back to the more familiar. Away, away, away from the little row of shops and cafes that sit on my front door, away from the guy today who encouraged his little kid to piss on the pathway that runs up to that row of little shops and cafes rather than take him over to the bushes six metres in front of him, away from the drivers who drive as if they were the only people on the road, away from the guttural clearing of throats and the big spit, away from the "re4 nao4", away from the nice little cleaning lady who is really ever so nice but who wet mops a marble floor at two in the afternoon without thinking that people are likely to slip on it and kill themselves, away from the internet connection that cuts off for no apparent reason, away from my diet of dvds and satellite television.
Now where will the ardent thirst for distant scenes take me; back to the more familiar and my home near Munich or to the last great adventure? Real involvement in the West Bank or an incredible lightness of being as I motorcycle from Alaska down to "tierra del fuego"?

Mosquitos

My first real confrontation with mosquitos was when I first went to Germany. There was a rather big window in front of a rather big garden where I slept and my girlfriend would leave the window open not only during the day but also at night. "Wir brauchen Luft", that was it, basta, no discussion and then they would come; ...."zzzzzz, ..zzzzzzzz, ...zzz". In Germany I discovered that mosquitos can be quite big and reasonably noisy; at night they would buzz into my ear, drive me crazy, buzz back out again, then stop humming and that I knew was when they were sucking my blood. Of course, I couldn't sleep and up I would get, close the doors and the windows and lo and behold there it was, sitting on the white walls, normally above the bed, a massive mosquito that looked as if it had a beer belly. After a time, I would normally manage to hit it and in doing so splatter blood all over the white walls. There was usually enough blood for two heart transplantations and at the end of every summer the walls were papered and painted.
In 1995, I worked in Bangladesh and that is where I discovered that there were very small mosquitos and not only could you not see them, you also couldn't hear them and, in fact, you didn't even notice them until half of your leg was gone and when you did notice them and put on the light you just couldn't see them. The mosquitos have arrived in Suzhou and I have still to classify them; my leg is covered in lumps but there is no blood on my walls. Still, there was a distinct buzzing in my ear last night. but when I woke up, closed the door and threw the light on, I just couldn't find anything.

Qingdao

My first six months in China were spent in Qingdao where I had a flat with a view across to the sea. The sea is what makes Qingdao and there is a spate of good restaurants close to the beaches. The cafes, mainly 'Starbucks' and, the Taiwanese chain, 'SPR' are set a little away from the beaches but there are a few and all of them have a free wireless connection. Without a doubt Qingdao is one of the most pleasant Chinese cities. In the summer the locals sit outside eating and drinking their draft "tsingtao beer". The old town, which was built by the Germans is quite pretty, even if it is a little run down. Good seafood, some decent bars and a couple of very good shopping malls all make for pleasant living and then there is the Italian cafe and the incredibly good ice cream just behind the mall "Mykel" and, of course, the "Monheimer Eck", the excellent draft "Tsingtao" and the bottles of "Weihenstephaner and Erdinger Weissbier".
The Qingdao experience was a positive one; I worked with post-graduate students who I ended up really liking. My immediate superior, a Chinese who had received his PhD from Caledonian University in Glasgow was supportive, friendly and thoroughly decent. It is when I think back to Qingdao that I become very positive about China. A little trip to Qingdao before I leave China is a must.
The picture above is of one of the six beaches in Qingdao.

Nationalism Part 2

If Marx were around today, his observations vis-a-vis China would be interesting. He would in my opinion have more than enough reason to believe that was history repeating itself.
Today the Olympic torch comes to Suzhou and they are all waving their little flags, beeping their horns, and generally celebrating being a member of a bigger whole. Nothing wrong with all of that. However, the mood today smacks not of a healthy patriotism but of a nationalism that exaggerates the country's virtues and remains blind to its failings, a nationalism that can be contemptuous of other countries. The Historian experiences a sort of 'deja vu' and has no difficult task in seeing the 'quo vadis' of it all and it would appear that the general law that governs history has to be human stupidity.

The Incurable Romantic

It was possibly back in the year 2000 when the French Minister of Culture, a self confessed Dylan fan, Frank Lang gave Bob Dylan an award that i caught myself thinking; there are some people who were meant to exit the stage early. Maybe we were all taking the lyrics a bit too seriously in the 60s and early 70s and maybe Bob wasn't really trying to say anything in particular but there was a nervous embarrassed inarticulate Bob and there was an embarrassed Frank Lang and there was me recognising that prophets should not outstay their welcome. Dylan got religion in the late 70s and I got bored and at some stage of the proceedings I began to think that his “catarrhal death rattle” (http://arts.guardian.co.uk/critic/review/0,,1857351,00.html) wasn't really worth listening to. Now Bob has continued to work his socks off right up to this very day but I just think maybe he should have done a "Georgie Best", or a "Lady Di" or , more appropriately, a "John Lennon". Now, Jesus of Nazareth was never going to hit the ninety was he? What is the point in crucifying a ninety year old to save the world. You would just be left looking up at the cross saying, "ach the old boy was on his last legs anyway", and there is Bob still singing , "Blowing in the Wind" when it really doesn't mean anything anymore. It is almost a bit like throwing Simpson, Craig and Gemmel, Murdoch, McNiel and Clark, Johnstone, Wallace, Chalmers, Auld and Lennox a ball and telling them to take on the present Manchester United team. Couldn't really do it , Jinky's dead. Nevertheless, even without him, I would at still give the 'Lisbon Lions' a chance of winning.
The picture above is of Bob when he had something to say.

Two thoughts on Capitalism and China

Capitalism is based on unlimited growth and the evidence would appear to suggest that we are living on a wee planet where the resources are finite. This has always been a fact but in the global village it is all the more evident. The hope might be that we come up with new technologies that rescue the planet and keep the ball rolling for some time to come. Approaching Wuxi last week on the train from Nanjing the evidence would seem to suggest otherwise, “Old King Coal" still rules in China and with China and India developing our reliance on both coal and oil is anything but waning. Growth is at the end of the day unsustainable.

In 2003 the constitution was amended in China to protect property rights. The concept that property has rights is absurd. How far have we come since Proudhon? Now, it is a case of all animals are equal but some are more equal than others as the gap between rich and poor increases. It is the private ownership of property that will cement the unequal nature of Chinese society. If civil society were developing this could be tolerated in the hope that the more enlightened members of the bourgeoisie were to reject the absurdity of capitalism. This, however, is not being done.

Ibri

In 2005 I worked for a few months in Ibri in Oman. Ibri is possibly Oman's fourth biggest town in terms of population; the "Wilayat" of Ibri has about 100,000 people living in it. There is not much more to do in Ibri than there is in the bordering "empty areas" that cover 25o,000 square miles of Southern Arabia.
Anyway stuck half way between Dubai and Muscat, coming up for air in Ibri meant the three and a half hour drive to one of those two places. Although Al Ain two hours down the road to Dubai did at least offer a good swimming pool at the Hilton and a couple of decent shopping malls and Nizwa on the way to Muscat had at least the decent swimming pool. There wasn't, as I have said, a lot to do in Ibri.
Places like Ibri attract people like me by offering us all sorts of things. They offered me an Assistant Professorship at their Ministry of Education and a salary, which made me just about the best paid person in the "Wilayat". However, places like Ibri also attract people like a certain Canadian colleague of mine who, despite earning about thirty times more than the Indian and Pakistani workers in the town, displayed a certain ambition by trying to live on a dollar a day. Now, as everyone who has worked in the Gulf knows, you need a car and you most certainly needed one in Ibri; the College of Education was on the outskirts of the town and about a ninety minute walk from where we lived. Now try walking that in fifty degrees celsius in the middle of an Omani summer. My Canadian colleague wasn't about to but he also wasn't adverse to standing at the side of the road at seven a.m. with the labourers from the sub continent and try his luck at hitching a lift. No buying a car for him and no renting one either. His dollar a day just didn't facilitate it. There would be me sitting in my kitchen, supping my percolated lavazza and looking out of the window across the road towards the big mosque and hoping, hoping, hoping that he would get his lift before I got into my car. Actually I felt like a bit of an idiot for paying my some $US150 a month for my car when I had to stop for him. Of course, the dollar a day man was the idiot as are the thousands like him. They are, I suppose, harmless but their pecuniary meanness is generally reflected in a meanness of spirit of the type that would make me give them a body swerve back in London, New York, Paris or Munich.
The location of Ibri is shown on the map above.

News 3

It now appears that the death toll in the Sichuan earthquake will be over 70,000. Many the dead are children who might have survived had their school buildings not crumbled so easily. The accusation being voiced is that corruption is to blame for sub-standard buildings. The central government has promised a full inquiry and we can only wait and see. However, the tragedy is very real for many poor people who have lost their only child.
Watching Premier Wen Jiabao at the scene of the disaster, the man's humanity is obvious. It is real and doesn't have to be encouraged by the party. Nevertheless, as China changes the gap between rich and poor increases, a new nationalism is on the horizon, corruption is rife, environmental pollution is widespread and, while the party remains broadly popular (partly because of the Wen Jiaboas), there are complaints about a number of issues. How these complaints are dealt with and how the issues are resolved will determine the "quo vadis" of this country and, to no little degree, of the planet.
The picture above shows Wen Jiaboa at the earthquake's epicentre.

Religion Part 2

One of my workmates stormed off in a huff today because I wouldn't listen. Now, I was trying to explain to him that people walking on water and being born of virgins is just not on and he started telling me to listen, while explaining why there must be a supreme being. Of course, I wasn't going to listen because that is not really what I was talking about and his rabbiting on about this was only indicative of his having never listened and, well, never really wanting to. There are a lot of people who just don't get the point.
Anyway, if there is a higher spirtuality, supreme being or whatever out there we might get in touch with it and have our own little enlightenment. However, a couple of things are required for this to happen. The first thing is that there is indeed that higher spirituality out there and the second one is that we clear our heads of the poppycock and the nonsense that we call religion. Stangely those who spout out the nonsense are generally intolerant of those who preach similar nonsense or a variation of the theme. We would do well to remind them that the tolerance that exists to no little extent in the West is not because of them but in spite of them.

The Bookworm

The Bookworm is a little oases at the bottom of Suzhou's Sichuan Jie. Here you can get a hard copy of a daily newspaper (normally the current "Herald Tribune"), good coffee, good food, a wireless connection and an atmosphere that smacks of Paris, London, New York or Munich. It is a place that has me almost contradicting my "hui2 jia1" post. In the Bookworm the illusion mentioned in that post is almost perfect and so much so that it is really quite real.
Sitting in the Bookworm, China's openness regarding the Sichuan earthquake comes as no surprise. However, while sitting here I am availed of the opportunity to be reminded of how that openness can also be threatened from outside China. An article and an editorial in "The Herald Tribune" is quick to contend that such openness can start a domino reaction of complaints that might lead to the whole system collapsing as it did in the Soviet Union seventeen years ago. Drawing parallels like this are, I believe, misplaced, politically motivated and counter productive.
Moreover, when I look at the emotion and obvious concern shown by China's leaders this week and when I think of George Bush's reaction after Hurricane Katrine and the lies, lies and more lies that were the pretext for an illegal war in Iraq, the hypocrisy of the West can, at times, be quite offensive. There is a lot wrong in China, there is a massive lack of transparency and there is corruption. There is, however, a lot of good will in a lot of places and although the system might itself breed corruption,we in the West should be setting an example, we should see China as an equal partner in the global village and in doing so facilitate a positive development that will help determine the kind of China we have to co-operate with and the nature of the world we live in. At the moment, we do not do this. It is, perhaps, naive to think that we will and maybe even more naive to assume that it will have the desired effect. There is, however, no alternative.
The picture was taken inside the Bookworm and outside the sun had its hat on. The summer has arrived!

The Lebanon Revisited

The recent hostilities in the Lebanon between the Sunni and Shiite communities illustrates all too well the complex nature of the conflict in the Middle East. There is strong support for the Hezbollah among the disenfranchised Palestinian refugees in the Lebanon. Those refugees are predominantly Sunni and make up about 10% of the "real" population of the Lebanon. However, unlike Palestinian Christians and Palestinian Shiites from "the seven villages", they are not entitled to Lebanese citizenship. The radical Sunni group, "Fatah al Islam" who fought a bloody three month battle with the Lebanese Army last year condemned the recent actions by the Hezbollah. This group also has support among the Palestinian community in the Lebanon. This is a Palestinian community that mainly supported Saadam Hussein during the 1991 war after the invasion of Kuwait and who see in the Hezbollah an ally in their struggle against Israel. Hassan Nassrallah might go out of his way to deny that Sunni-Shiite tensions were an issue but the evidence would seem to suggest that for the Palestinian community a new Lebanese civil war would lead not only to divided families in the camps but indeed to an almost collective schizophrenia. In 2006 the Lebanese Prime Minister, Fouad Siniora said that the Lebanon would be the last Arab country to make peace with Israel. This Lebanon though has to accept the non-sectarian nature of the struggle it is involved in, while the Palestinians should remember George Habash and seek their inspiration in him in a struggle that, at the end of the day, has less to do with holy land and more to do with stolen land and brutal occupation.
The picture is of the main Christian church and Sunni mosque in Beruit

hui2 jia1

In line with the "time" theme from yesterday, it goes without saying that life is too short not to give it some serious thought. After some eighteen months in China, I have decided that enough is enough.
There is a sort of illusion here that everything is available and, indeed, almost everything is albeit with certain restrictions. You can get a decent coffee but you are normally restricted to "Costa Coffee" or "Starbucks" for that and there is no "Cafe Machiatto" on the 'Hauptstrasse', no Tambosie, no Cafe Demler, no Dommayer and no Cafe Florian. On a Saturday evening you can pick up all of the Premiership football live with English commentary but then there is no buzz in the city with the fans floating around before the big game. Of course, one shouldn't complain, this is a comfortable enough existence but the emphasis there has to be on "comfortable enough".
So, what about China? Well, I have seen the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, The Terracotta warriors and a few other things. They are all impressive! However, you cannot help but feel that there is something missing and that that might have started to go missing during the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976. It might have but then that is rather academic. Oh, you can walk through the back streets of Nanjing early in the evening in the summer and the people are sitting outiside, playing cards, supping a cold beer, chatting and slurping their noodles but there is just no 'je ne sais qua' and, while there is a sniff of 'la dolce vita', no convergance of the football fans in the city and the more I think about it, the more I feel like Antoinne, the hero, in Jean Paul Sartre's "Nausea" when he decides, that after his years in Asia, enough is enough.
Of course, in this day and age we do have the world wide web but even here there are periods when you are being hampered for no apparent reason and only this evening i trecked from one "Starbucks" to the next with my laptop only to discover that the wireless connection in all three "Starbucks" in the Suzhou Industrial Park aren't working. In the one closest to me, it hasn't been working for over a week. A simple thing to repair and it is time to leave China.
The picture is of Vienna's 'Cafe Demel' they melt the chocolate for the drinking chocolate in front of your eyes.

News 2

The headline from "The China Daily" online tells me that at 2 p.m. today there were 32,476 dead in the earthquake in Sichuan. This figure is likely to rise further. The scenes being televised are heart rendering and this short post represents my condolences to all concerned.

Religion

Mohammad went to heaven on a horse and Jesus was born of a virgin and the state of Israel was promised to the Jews by God and the band played believe it if you like.
Sitting on the train to Munich about three weeks ago there was this guy diagonally opposite me, he had his eyes closed and he was nodding his head, while chanting some gibberish. On the seat facing him he had opened a folder with a picture of the German "pop" idol, Dieter Bohlen on the left hand page and a picture of Jesus on the right hand page. Now the guy was obviously a bit of a nutter. As I too would be if I were to tell you all that I am waiting for the gobbly-gook in the sky to come down and take us all off to the chocolate and "Weissbier" paradise.
Now, that very same day, on arriving in Munich I took myself off to the "Theatinerkirche" - big fan of Baroque and Roccoco despite my Northern European roots - and low and behold there was a wee lady under a big wooden cross with a guy stuck to it, she was playing with a set of beads and mumbling to herself. She, however, is sane, unlike the guy on the train, for hers is a collective madness and one I can begin to understand when I think about my statement on time. What, with only a couple of thousand days left, who wouldn't want to live forever? Nevertheless, I will have to opt out on this one, for while there might indeed be more things between heaven and earth than were ever dreamt of in my philosophy; people walking on water or splitting moons, I don't think so, somehow!

Time

Imagine you are a fifty year old man, or woman, and you go to the doctor to be told that you have at best fifteen thousand days to live but that you could die anytime before then. Don't imagine it because this is in fact reality. Of course, you might get lucky and live a couple of thousand days longer but fifteen thousand days is probably stretching it a bit if you are a fifty year old woman and if you are a fifty year old man, it is most definitely stretching it. Now, while we cannot actually waste time this thought might be a call to try to utilise it a bit better. So, is there that book still waiting to get out? Or is it time to sacrifice yourself for a noble cause? Perhaps, you should just be paying attention to things that you have neglected.

Nanjing

Having spent the best part of a day in Nanjing, I genuinely think it is one of the nicer Chinese cities I have seen. Tree lined boulevards, clean streets and generous parks complement a history that, all too often appears to be dominated by the atrocities committed by the Japanese here in 1937. This is said to have been the biggest city in the world for some seventy years from the mid 14th century onwards and it was China's capital under six different dynasties. Today it has just over six million residents although, like elsewhere in China, the migrant workers are not included in this figure. The Nanjing government puts their number at 2.47 million officially - http://english.nanjing.gov.cn/today/njnew/polity/200706/t20070615_216088.htm - unofficially, who knows! This population would not make it one of China's ten most populous cities.
The hotel where I am staying is in its own grounds and it offers probably the most peaceful living environment I have experienced since arriving in China some eighteen months ago. The complete absence of "re4 nao5" is a godsend.
The picture above is of a view across the little lake to the hotel annex I am staying in. If you are ever in Nanjing and it is peace and quiet you are looking for book into the International Conference Hotel.

Nationalism

“Hegel remarks somewhere that all great, world-historical facts and personages occur, as it were, twice. He has forgotten to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.” Karl Marx
At university I discovered that nationalism went to bed as a sleeping beauty and woke up as an ugly demon. The reference is to the positive force of nationalism that ushered in the birth of "La Grande Nation" after the French Revolution of 1789 and accompanied those positive liberal forces for change until the revolutions of 1848. However, a nationalism that was to be exported at the end of French bayonets and that was to increasingly see its legitimacy in race, religion and language was always going to go sour. That it was to culminate in the excesses of National Socialism is, in retrospect, not surprising.
After the war nationalism in Western Europe was tamed somewhat by those supranational structures that were implemented through the Treaties of Paris (1951) and Rome (1956) and by the ascendancy of the United States across the Atlantic. In Eastern Europe an absurd "Realsozialismus" at least kept the lid on the "pandora's box" and when that lid was lifted it was those institutions that had their roots in the 1951 Treaty of Paris that, at least to some extent, tamed the evils that appeared. However, with the United States and its allies continuing to draw up the rules, while failing to to sit down "inter pares" and discuss the form the new global village will take and with their preaching "democracy" while selfishly pursuing their interests abroad, there is resentment. This resentment has its expression in a type of patriotism that doesn't seek its legitimacy so much in an identification with a particular culture alone but rather in also seeing that particular culture as superior; the little man with the inferiority complex is on the defensive, he goes to bed and undergoes that kafkaesque metamorphous that turns him into a demon, ready to blame all and sundry for his inadequacies, vengeful and ready to assert his "rightful" place in the world. With the German"Kleinbuerger" We had the tragedy now let us hope to avert the farce.

Al Nakba

While working in the Lebanon in 2006 one of my Palestinian students asked me, what I think they, the Palestinians, should do? My reply was that I was an outsider and could not, therefore, really feel what they felt. However, while I too viewed "Al Nakba" as an ethnic cleansing, Israel was 'de facto' and indeed 'de jure' an entity that had to be dealt with and that I would look for some solution based on the status quo prior to the seven day war in 1967. It should also be emphasised that while some people with an agenda might want to discuss the "exact" meaning of Resolution 242 the demands made by international law for withdrawal from the territories occupied after that war are clear. The fact is that the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is illegal. In a sense I felt pretty smug with my rational answer, that was before I began to ponder on a few certain home truths.
My nationality has never been important to me. Most of my adult life has been spent in Germany where I live a foot loose and fancy free globetrotter existence, thanks to my British passport. Somewhere down the line I am Scottish but, if asked to prioritise that on a scale of one to twenty, (one being most important) I would probably give it a twenty. However, I can always go back to Scotland and that is when it dawned on me that I was talking to someone who as a baby had to leave his home with his family, never to go back. Somebody who had spent all of his life living in a refugee camp in the Lebanon, someone whose family have had their property expropriated and it was then that the full meaning of "Al Nakba" sunk in and the realisation that being Scottish is not important to me because it doesn't have to be.
The picture above is of the cafe in Tripoli (the Lebanon) that serves the best ice cream outside Italy.

bu4 dong3

After some eighteen months in China my Chinese is not what it might be. In fact, it is probably around about "nada de nada" to very basic. This I think is due to a number of factors. For instance, my exposure to the language is very limited; I watch satellite television or dvds, three Irish lads and a couple of Canadians provide the banter at and after work and I have this weird habit of learning what is basically, low frequency vocabulary. For instance, I was struggling today trying to find the word for "city centre" but I can tell you the words for "mentally ill", "unidentified flying object" and I can even say, "I have been bitten by a tiger." China has not and will not become a point of reference and if it were to, I would probably end up in a place where they keep the "jin1 shen2 bing4" (mentally ill). Moreover, there has never been an intention to study seriously and learn the script although I might at least have learned "pinyin" rather than write the words down as I think they sound. That would have better facilitated my remembering how to hit the tones better when using the vocabulary at a later date. It is there, however, that my responsibility for not learning Chinese might end and the problem of "bu4 dong3" begins.
One thing I actually like about the English is that they invariably don't make allowances for non-native speakers when speaking English. They speak to them as they would to someone who has English as their mother tongue. In Bavaria among a certain class of people there is a tendency to use the infinitive all the time when talking to foreigners; "Du wissen wie viel(e) Auslaender in Deutschland?" Whether they do this because they are as thick as two short planks or just pig ignorant, I still don't know. In China, there is the "bu4 dong3" phenomena and here too I am not sure; are they stupid or are they just ignorant or is it even me? My exposure to this phenomena is normally in the taxi, the one place where you can revel in the opportunity to use your little Chinese. This evening I took a taxi to "The Bookworm" in Suzhou's "Sichuan Jie". On getting into the taxi, I said, "Sichuan Jie" and off we went towards the said street. Now wanting to strike up a conversation I thought I would attempt to talk about the earthquake in Sichuan and, not knowing the word for "earthquake", said simply, "Si4 chaun1 you3 da4 wen4 ti2" (Sichuan has big problems), his reply was simply to ask for confirmation that I wanted the said address and I spent the next ten minutes explaining in, what I thought to be, a quite logical manner that I was talking about the disaster in Sichuan. With no joy and when I got off the taxi in "Sichuan Jie" the driver's final response to my last effort was a final "bu4 dong3". This phenomena occurs all the time and I am still not sure, do they really not know or are they just being ignorant or is it me? If I say to my students tomorrow, "Si4 chaun1 you3 da4 wen4 ti2" I am quite sure they will know exactly what I am saying. ...... or am I?
The post was saved and I returned home in a taxi. The same conversation was pursued with the second taxi driver and although he did eventually grasp what I was talking about, it was only after a massive effort. The Chinese use our word for logic and maybe they do have difficulty in establishing some sort of connection between the street name and the province. However, I do have to confess that, after the journey home, maybe they just don't understand me and that after 18 months in the PRC.
The picture above is of 'The Bookworm' at the bottom of Sichuan Jie.

News

According to http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/ at 19.26 this evening, the death toll from the earthquake in Sichuan province has reached 11,921. It is the first thing to be mentioned on the news, which is not surprising. However, I am a bit baffled by its failure to dominate the news even more. Moreover, the need to emphasise that no foreigners had died - http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-05/13/content_6680095.htm - leaves me somewhat intrigued; at least 11,921 Chinese citizens have died and the state media finds it necessary to mention that no foreigners have died! Still, to be fair I am looking at "the China Daily" and it would be foreigners who would probably read that.
Here in Suzhou the interest in the earthquake appears at best peripheral. This afternoon I met two of my students and if anyone was going to mention the topic, it was going to be me. Then this appears to be a story, which has no political connotations and is of very limited sensationalist value. The earthquake is also concentrated in a one part of a big country unlike the chaos produced by the weather during the spring festival a couple of months ago.
21.24, the latest headline from http://www.chinadaily.com.cn; 'Death toll exceeds 12,000 in Sichuan province alone'. In fairness though I would have to say that the efforts being made by those involved in the relief are commendable and the pictures coming from the area where the earthquake was are heart rendering. Moreover, the Chinese government's acceptance of help from outside is in stark contrast to the reaction by the authorities in Burma to the disaster there.

Critical Thinking Part 2

The majority of my students are civil, polite and, very often generous. They are capable of critical and indeed creative thinking and it is in them I can see a positive future for China and, indeed, for all of us. However, they do not reflect society here as a whole and while even the most nationalistic and patriotic of my students temper those sentiments with a willingness to listen to others, this is not always the case and among educated youth in the big cities there is an underlying intolerance of any criticism from outside, an intolerance that is reflected in an increasing xenophobia.
This is not surprising in a country where the media is still monopolised and largely censored. Most Chinese assume that governments in the west control opinion much in the same way as their government does and that any criticism of the Chinese government in, for instance, the USA media means that all the people in the United States are criticising 1.35 billion people. With limited access to independent media they fail to comprehend that people abroad might be looking at an array of arguments before reaching their conclusions. Of course, people abroad are not always doing this and the gutter press in the west can be almost as clumsy as the "China Daily". Nevertheless, while CNN and BBC World are only slightly more sophisticated than CCTV, there is a type of crude propaganda here that leaves you thinking, "surely that doesn't influence people?" However, it does and I am sure that if China were to invade some country tomorrow to secure its oil supplies, you would not get millions of demonstrators onto the streets.
The picture above gives you an example of the type of crude propaganda that people are exposed to.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/69ffade2-185f-11dd-8c92-0000779fd2ac,dwp_uuid=723ba534-41c2-11dc-8328-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1

Eulogy

"Der Atzinger" has been around for the longest part of my adult life. Therefore, having been informed that it has been sold to a new owner and that it will be changing out of recognition, it is only fitting that I should take this opportunity to render a small eulogy.
On returning from one of my many travels a couple of years ago, the boys at the "Stammtisch" told me that Georg, "der Wirt", had fallen into a coma. He was to die a few months later and now I have been informed that his widow and the other part owner have sold the illustrious "Gaststaette". No doubt a theme will be introduced, waitresses flashing a bit of thong and working for some 10 Euros an hour will populate the place and the old bar staff with their expensive social insurances will suffer a similar fate to that of 'Boxer' in "Animal Farm'. John, "der Kellner", puts it all down to globalisation but maybe it is more down to Georg dying prematurely.The place will be missed; there were periods of my life where I was a regular and there was many an evening where my pub crawl ended and started there. Indeed, there were a few nights when I didn't manage to leave the place.
In retrospect, was the price for those incredible binges worth it; the fatty liver, the millions of lost brain cells and all the little things that should put any self respecting person to shame? Do you know, I think the answer has to be yes, and anyway if I hadn't been sitting in "der Atzinger" I would have been sitting somewhere else.
My visits have become very infrequent. However, I was walking around Munich nine days ago and I did look in and have a coffee and who was sitting in his usual place, supping his usual "Weissbier" but Charlie. Most likely I will return to Munich via England at the beginning of October and when I do the "Atzinger" will probably look very different. Maybe the big burly "Kellner", will be prancing about in a thong.
The picture above; "der Charlie versteckt sich hinter seinem bier"

Back to Tripoli

The few weeks I spent in the Lebanon in 2006 were mostly spent in Tripoli. Home was a wonderful hotel in a mainly Christian part of the Mina district. In the evening I would sit outside and sup my beer and it was all more reminiscent of the Turkish or Greek Adriatic coast than it was of a conflict zone. Even with the indiscriminate Israeli bombing of the country there was still, at least superficially, a strange normality. That was probably because the Lebanese themselves are used to living with this "normality" until it becomes no longer possible to do so. When does that happen? When your neighbour's house is bombed or when your house is bombed? Last year the camp I worked at north of Tripoli was bombed by the Lebanese Army and I wonder sometimes if it was possible for Omar, Khalid, Mohammad, Adel and the rest just to get on with their lives. Today there is fighting in the streets of Tripoli and strangely this is the city where I walked around for hours without feel remotely threatened. The guy who owned the hotel I was staying at was a Shiite who lived in London at least some of the time and who had a British passport. Both he and I drank in a bar in the Mina that was owned by a Christian. It is no exaggeration to say that the Christian and he were good friends as were Mohammad and Khalid, supporters of the Hammas and Fatah respectively. They were trying to get on with some sort of normality. Part of that "normality" for Mohammad would be jumping into Khalid's car along with their other friend Ali, who was neither a Hammas or Fatah supporter, but who spent his time dreaming of emigrating to the United States, and driving to a disco on the coast where they would have a few beers. When that "normality" breaks down at what point do the friends kill one another? Standing in that bar after the Israelis started their indiscriminate bombing of the country I remember the bar owner's stories about the Civil War that raged for some fifteen years after 1975. He said, "someone would just burst into the bar and let off a stream of machine gun fire. You might recognise who it was as somebody you had played football with."
The picture above is of the clock tower in Tripoli.

Trip to Shanghai

There was a wee jaunt to Shanghai today; the day started with a "Latte" in Starbucks and then some breakfast in Simons before jumping into a taxi to the train station. The "D" train is a joy once you actually get on it but I don't like waiting in Chinese train waiting rooms. They are often overcrowded, the people start to jostle long before the train has arrived and to put it plainly they are just uncomfortable places to be. The one in Suzhou in particular is a real pain in the arse. Still that hassle is compensated by a comfortable fast train and there was me thirty five minutes after getting on it in "Shangers". The day itself was nothing exciting but the weather was good and I did get to breathe the air in the "Big Smoke", meet a colleague for lunch and see once more that life for those on the sunny side in China is as good as it gets. One thing I do like about Shanghai is that you do get your hands on a hard copy of a daily newspaper and even if you don't want to go out of your way to buy a foreign paper there is always the "Shanghai Times" or the "China Daily" veritable "Pravdas" the pair of them but at least something to peruse over when supping your coffee; the horoscope and sports section provide the interest and one is almost seduced into believing that all is well in the Kingdom of Denmark. If I was willing to suspend my critical thinking yesterday and go down stairs and buy the four beers, I am even more willing to suspend it this evening and sup at least two of them. Tomorrow, I will try to put on my thinking cap.

"die Leichtigkeit des Seins"

Some twenty two months ago I was evacuated from the Lebanon. At the time of the evacuation my life, which has always been defined by a certain “Leichtigkeit des Seins” almost changed radically. Such was my indignation and anger at what was happening. It is no exaggeration to say that I almost didn’t get on the boat pictured above and that I almost stayed to at least try and help the poor fuckers who were being fucked once again. My contract working with Palestinians from a refugee camp near Tripoli was terminated prematurely. There followed for me a three day holiday in Cyprus, my full salary until the end of the contract and, within a week of arriving back in Germany, a phone call from Birmingham University that was to give me two months on two tax free salaries. The Palestinians lost their English course and a couple of them lost their lives. The IDF bombed the whole of the country before deciding that they would have to go in on the ground to achieve their goals. What were those goals? The release of the two hostages taken by the Hizbollah and teaching the Hizbollah a lesson they wouldn’t forget? I think not! The evidence would seem to suggest that Olmert was trying to bully his way back up to the Litani; a goal he was only to give up on after 119 Israeli Defence Force soldiers had been killed.
So, today the focus is once again on the Lebanon and I am reminded of the bar owner in Tripoli who, while emphasising his loathing of Israel tempered that loathing by saying, "what the fuck was Nasrallah (the General Secretary of the Hizbollah) thinking of when he kidnapped the soldiers? Could he not at least have waited until the Summer was over and we had made our money." Once more it looks like a the Lebanon's peak tourist season won't quite peak. For me it is back to the "Leichtigkeit des Seins" and the discovery that the little shop under my flat sells bottles of German "Weissbier" for 10 rmb or 0.9 of a Euro.

British Industry

At the moment I am making a contribution to that flagship of British industry; selling a "great" British education to citizens of the PRC. The product is in line with many other "great" British products such as the invisibles that flourished in the the 80s. Do any of you remember those heady days of advertising sales? "Well John, I have got a double page full coloured spread for you here and you can have it for ten thousand pounds but Paul at IBM wants it too so you will have to make a decision." "How many copies do we print?" "20,000 for circulation." Now I worked with the printer and I knew that the figure was closer to 5,000. The product today isn't quite as invisible, something is offered but the question is, what?
Our kids will be ready for their stint in the UK. However, will that be because of us or despite us? There will be more on that later in the blog, unless "Captain Sensible" gets to me, pushes me onto the path of "Queen Reason" and facilitates my writing about more interesting topics such as, the military regime in Burma, the legal case for Palestine, the fight for democracy in Pakistan, whatever ...... Still if there is a theme for now it has to be the here and now and I will classify work at the present time as serving the needs of the UK marketing an "education" to foreign students. In China these students will turn up in places like the Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Nottingham Ningbo or the Sino-British College. They will have a conditional for entry to a UK university (in theory an IELTS 6.5) waived and their parents will lump out lots of money to ensure that they get a "quality" education. Nevertheless, it has to be emphasised that in the case of the institutions mentioned a high "Gao Kao" score and time ensures that they are fully equipped for the illustrious "ivory tower" institutions that await them. It is already blatantly obvious that for the most part they have far superior IQs to those who are preparing them. It is, however, the industry in the UK itself and their bringing over students with IELTS scores of 4, 4.5 or 5 that worries me more. For them there are sixteen week, twelve week and ten week pre-sessionals and while there are good people working in the industry this can mean jobs for those who have, at best, enjoyed the crudest of half educations followed by the most rudimentary courses in teacher training; a nice little earner, EAP, Study Skills, Harvard citation, students paraphrasing academic journals when they cannot write a sentence and then they are kicked up to faculty where they spend another 18,000 pounds for an MSc, successful completion of the pre-sessionals in lieu of the IELTS 6.5 gets them there and the reality is, if they were to take their IELTS again after the pre-sessional course they would probably get a lower score than they did before they took the course. The British lost their soul a long time ago, didn't they? "Well John, I have got a double page full coloured spread for you here and you can have it for ten thousand pounds but Paul at IBM wants it too so you will have to make a decision." "How many copies to we print?" "20,000 for circulation." F.W.Engdahl in his, "A Century of War" shows that the sting is probably bigger than we can all imagine.
http://education.guardian.co.uk/students/internationalstudents/story/0,,2225285,00.html
http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net/
The picture was taken by me waiting to get on the 178 bus in Suzhou Dashu Lake Higher Education Town today.

Critical Thinking

It would appear that, at least for the time being, this blog is developing into a daily reflection of my chewing the cud on an experience I have had shortly before writing the entry.
Contrary to popular belief, some Chinese students are more than capable of critical thinking. During my lesson today on that topic one student, when asked what was wrong with a particular author's conclusion that English was destined to remain the global language was quick to point out that the conclusion was illogical and not supported by his arguments that English was the global language due to historical, economic and practical ("it is easy to learn") reasons. None of these assumptions, even if true, means that English has to remain the global language. China's students and graduates are on a par with those in the West and even although their education might at times not be as good as that enjoyed by their contemporaries in London, Paris, New York and Munich, that will change in the medium and longer term and, indeed, for a small minority it is already changing.
The problem is that those students represent a very small elite and for the one billion or so drones there is at best only a very basic education. When one thinks of the aristocracy of labour that made its appearance in 19th century Europe and of the consciousness developed by that class, it soon becomes difficult to envisage any real development in China coming from below. It is in vocational training that the West still remains light years ahead of China and to be honest there is more than a little trepidation on my part when I call a plumber or electrician out to repair something. Moreover, I have learned through experience that you don't buy the "made in China" lamp, which will invariably explode in your face but you go for the quality and value for money Dutch version. It is in the area of innovation that I also fail to see real change and despite what I have said about the university elite being capable of critical and indeed creative thinking it is in the area of reverse engineering that they are still excelling; they can take a Porsche apart and copy it, the copy will function, at least for a while, just as well as the original but please, please, don't ask him to tell you exactly how it is functioning.

"re4 nao4"

There isn't really an English translation for "re" (4th tone) and "nao" (4th tone). However, it could be literally translated as heat and noise and the emphasis would have to be on the noise. The Chinese like "re nao". On the bus this morning the driver had his radio playing full blast, it wasn't playing anything in particular it was just a noise, a terrible din and at lunch time today a colleague and I went to the canteen where I was, once again, exposed to a terrible din. The concept that music might be there to create an atmosphere, to stay in the background, is lost on them. Whatever the song, and it could be "Jingle Bells" in the middle of June, it is turned up full blast. This love of noise is, however, reflected in a number of other ways too; there might be two people sitting next to each other in a cafe and they have nothing better to do than shout at each other and then there are the telephone conversations where you actually think they might be shouting because the other person at the end of the line is some distance away.
The "heat thing" could be loosely translated as bustle and this too is an interesting phenomenon. Sitting in an empty bar, a Chinese might walk in and sit right next to you even when you are the only two people in the bar. It is not that he or she is looking for a conversation, it is just natural for them to drift close to the other person. In mentioning this or similar phenomena such as their getting on the bus before you get off or their blocking the whole of the escalator, or their walking in front of you in a queue, they will invariably tell you that China has too many people.
The picture shows "re nao" at Auchan in Suzhou.

Monday Morning

It is 6.30 a.m. and I am sitting in Starbucks, supping my "coffee of the week" and trying to access my blog. It seems that while I can create posts and publish them, I cannot actually view the blog. The tendency is to think that my blog is being blocked. Of course, I will continue to write the blog, rely on friends to send me copies of the blog itself and just hope that this state of affairs can be sorted out as soon as possible.

The "Frankfurter Zeitung" was allowed to pursue a sort of independent existence until it was banned after the attempt on Hitler's life in July 1944. Dr. Josef Goebbels himself once said that if there was only the party press to read, he would be bored out of his wits. Nevertheless, "zwischen den Zeilen lesen" was required to find any sort of independent opinion.

The picture attached is of the Potala Palace in Lhasa.

Room with a view

This afternoon I arrived in Shanghai from Munich. Tomorrow I go back to work after a seven day holiday that didn't seem too short and was certainly sweet.
Back in China and there is no "Links stehen, Rechts gehen", no waiting until you get out or off before they go in or on and ....... well, I could rabbit on about this but here is also no room with a view. It is not difficult to live here but there is a certain, "Sehnsucht nach meiner Wahlheimat" and that "Leichtigkeit des Seins" that epitomises the Summer in Upper Bavaria.

Ghost Wars

pThis blog has been started unexpectedly and sponataneously after a telephone call with a friend. At the moment I am really not sure, which direction it will take; will it be a "potpourri", a sort of diary about this, that and the next thing, a sort of "kunterbunte Mischung" of everything concerning its author or will it be more focused. Even in writing this I can sense that, while it is bound to suffer from that indecision common to Pisceans, it will slowly take shape and find some sort of focus. As indeed, even the most fickle of people tend to do during the course of their lives.
It is perhaps suitable therefore that I should continue this first entry by telling a little story and then going on to recommend a book and in doing so maybe I am already beginning to give my blog some sort of direction.
Some years ago I had a contract teaching business skills in a company that built oil pipelines all over the world. One day they had a visitor from Texas who walked into my class on negotiations. In a role play half of the students represented the oil company and the other half were representatives from the Afghani government. It was explained to the visitor that a pipeline was being planned from Turkmenistan to Karachi but that we had this little problem of Afghanistan in the middle. The said visitor replied by saying in his slow Texan drawl, "we will soon have that solved." This was about one year before 9/11. Now read, "Ghost Wars" by Steve Coll.