Life is too Short

After eighteen months in China I genuinely feel that I know the place well enough and that is why it is time to get back to Central Europe and it is not because we want for anything here, really, but!

You can get, more or less, everything in this country but the everything that is worth having appears to come from outside. Of course, the Chinese will tell you about their 5,000 year culture but that "5,000 year culture" has about as much to do with reality as the christmas tree with a crucifix at the top of it that they will try to sell you at Christmas and that is just it; the christmas tree with a cross, 'Jingle Bells' in May, the pizza that is ..... well, that really isn't very good and the wireless connection that cuts off at random and then there are the cultural "attractions", the spitting man, the pissing or even shitting kid, the idiot that almost runs you over on his moped on the pavement, the car that is driving on the wrong side of the road and the noise for noise's sake.

Of course, there is also good Chinese food and there are cultural attractions; the Great Wall is spectacular as is the Summer Palace and the Forbidden City, the terracotta warriors are worth seeing even if Pompei is more impressive, the trip to Lhasa by train is an experience and Guillin is pretty pretty. However, most Europeans here live a sort of western existence and that too is the sort of existence that is favoured by Chinese with money and that has to be the point. The "weissbier" can be drunk in Munich and you are never going to get a slightly off bottle, the coffee can be drunk in Munich's 'Tambosi' and the pizza can be eaten in Fuerstenfeldbruck's 'La Piazzetta', if you board a plane and fly for just over an hour you land in London, if you fly for two, you are up in Glasgow or down in Sofia, Salzburg is an hour by car, Prague about four hours and Vienna and Florence about six. There is the mass of daily newspapers that you scan every day, there is the fast, reliable internet connection, there is the privacy, there are no kiddies shitting on the street and spitters are frowned upon and since I left they have even banned smoking in public places, there is the buzz on the Saturday when the football is on, there are the lakes that surround the little town where I live and, and, and!

Once more, I would just like to say you can get more or less everything here. Moreover, Beijing, Tibet, Xi'an, Shanghai, Guillin and a few other places are certainly all worth seeing and you are not going to get a haircut and a massage for 2 euros in Europe, are you? The place was worth the eighteen months but when I say that, I should at least also be aware of why the internet connection cuts off, why strange pop ups appear when you open a website, why when you are looking at BBC World on digital television the television screen might go black and why, sometimes, 'panem et circenses' is not enough, especially when the 'panem et circenses' elsewhere are better and there is no spitter, or shitter, or maker of noise around to interrupt you. Life is, after all, too short.