My weblog has been blogged for months in China. I was thinking, they will unblock the blogspot soon, but unfortunately….. It is taking too long, so time to take action! I gave my sister my confidential password and ask her to help me put this online. Hopefully, I can make the people outside of China happy now, because I know you all miss my blogging so much ;)
So many things happened and so many new things to tell. One strange thing happened last weekend in Shanghai. A 13-story building with apartments just keeled over and fell down. Everything was almost finished and it was part of the “lotus riverside” community of 629 apartments and which 489 were already sold. Some people were already living in the other same constructed buildings 20 meters away. But the authorities confirmed that these apartments are safe to live. How can a 13-store apartment building just fall down like that? Authorities are still investigating. Hopefully they will get some good results and make sure it will never happen again. I was thinking to buy a house in Shanghai, but not really sure about it now.
The weather in Shanghai has been changing a lot these days. Yesterday it was nice and cool, today it is warm in the morning and rained like cats and dogs in the afternoon. The “Yangmei” season just started and this means also the rain season began. The season of the plum rains or, misleadingly, intermittent drizzle is a special meteorological phenomenon of the middle and lowland areas of the Yangtze River. Usually, the plum rain season starts in the middle of June and ends in early July which will last for about 20 days. The climate during this season is characterized by continuous rain and hot temperatures. So I guess you all will know how I feel right now; wet and hot!
The weekend I should have time to relax and hopefully the weather will then be less wet and hot ;)
Friday, July 10, 2009
Thursday, April 9, 2009
I am fascinated by a book which I am reading since last week. This book is called China Road, a journey into the future of a rising power, from Rob Gifford. It is a nice journey along route 312, the Route 66 of China. He speaks Chinese, meet local people and gives his opinion about China's religion, politics and the fast developing economy.
His journey starts in Shanghai and while he is on the road heading to the west, he meets garrulous talk show hosts, tragic prostitutes, yuppies, drivers, peasants, AIDS patients and Tibetian monks. His book bring me now in Tibet, where he tells the stories of poor tibetans farmers and tibetans children who are trying to study Chinese very hard and pray for a better living for the future. The Chinese are on one mission in China: science and progress. Get them out of their "barbarian" way of living and throw their own civilization to them. "Revive the nation through science and technology"!
While he is on the road, Rob Gifford described the things he sees on the road. He finds the following propaganda on the roads: "one child less will save 3000-5000 yuan" or "speed up road construction. speed up the development of the west. There is no copper in roadside cables. Thieves will be severely punished"
Another interesting story is when he meets a prostitute and talks with her about the reason why she is doing the job she is doing. He expected a sad story how she had to leave school, because she didn't have money. Something like; I must do this or won't be able to eat! But then he says (quote of the book): "but there is a dangerous tendency for everything in modern China to be given an economic impetus, as though financial pressure is the only reason anyone ever does anything. We often fail to see that Chinese people are living, breathing, loving, hating individuals, who do things for complex psychological reasons, just like Westerners."
His journey starts in Shanghai and while he is on the road heading to the west, he meets garrulous talk show hosts, tragic prostitutes, yuppies, drivers, peasants, AIDS patients and Tibetian monks. His book bring me now in Tibet, where he tells the stories of poor tibetans farmers and tibetans children who are trying to study Chinese very hard and pray for a better living for the future. The Chinese are on one mission in China: science and progress. Get them out of their "barbarian" way of living and throw their own civilization to them. "Revive the nation through science and technology"!
While he is on the road, Rob Gifford described the things he sees on the road. He finds the following propaganda on the roads: "one child less will save 3000-5000 yuan" or "speed up road construction. speed up the development of the west. There is no copper in roadside cables. Thieves will be severely punished"
Another interesting story is when he meets a prostitute and talks with her about the reason why she is doing the job she is doing. He expected a sad story how she had to leave school, because she didn't have money. Something like; I must do this or won't be able to eat! But then he says (quote of the book): "but there is a dangerous tendency for everything in modern China to be given an economic impetus, as though financial pressure is the only reason anyone ever does anything. We often fail to see that Chinese people are living, breathing, loving, hating individuals, who do things for complex psychological reasons, just like Westerners."
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