Christmas in the sun

Decided to spend Christmas in the sun this year, so off to the Malaysian island of Langkawi for the holiday week. Rebecca and Claire flew out from London and we met up at the spectacular Tangjun Rhu resort, on the northern tip of the island, overlooking the Andaman Sea. Malaysia has been battered by heavy thunderstorms and floods over the last few weeks which have caused significant damage across parts of the country, so we weren't expecting good weather, but luckily the skies were blue and clear and the temperature in the high-20s.

It felt a little weird to spend the Christmas holidays lying on the beach drinking mango juice and catching the rays instead of chasing round the shops buying presents and stocking up on provisions....but, somehow, we coped.




We spent the week reading, sleeping late, relaxing and eating good food. Just what we needed after a very busy & tiring year and a welcome escape from the Beijing winter winds that begun in earnest at the beginning of the month.

Christmas in China is, not surprisingly, a muted affair. Mostly its ignored but some places get into the decorating spirit big time - like my office building which really got carried away with a massive tree, lights - the works. What's all that about?

And this department store Santa...what did the kids make of him? Who do they think he is?

Dad & Mum pay a visit

And enjoy some of the highlights of Beijing - a Sunday walk in the park for some Tai Chi and a sing-a-long with the locals; a pedicure; the Great Wall and, of course, some Da Dong famous Beijing roast duck.

View from my window..first snow

Woke to grey, dull, Monday morning in Beijing to see the first snow of the season fall. Traffic snarled up and everyone late into the office. Makes you feel right at home.


















Today's paper said that Beijing's population had reached 17.5M.

The local government is building new subway lines, criss-crossing the city, as fast as they can. The north-south number 5 line opened last month and ticket prices were reduced by a third to 2RMB (0.20 euro cents) for a single journey anywhere on the network, to encourage greater usage.



But the Beijingers love for the car runs deep with more than 1,000 new cars sold every day. It's amazing that anyone makes it into work at all.

Rice-lifting. An Olympic sport for 2012?

It keeps you fit; it keeps you healthy

and you save all of those horrendous gym fees...

A walk in Chao Yang park

As part of the Festival of Australian Theatre in China, we go for a long walk in Chao Yang park to see the Melbourne based Strange Fruits 'SynchoSwing' - basically an air ballet come synchronised swim atop 4 meter bendy poles. It's a lot better than it sounds.

Experience it yourself. And more.

Taming of the Shrew

I never win anything. But, last Friday I won a pair tickets for TNT's production of Taming of the Shrew at the Peking University Hall. TNT is an international touring company and this production was terrific. The talented six person cast take on multiple roles, sing the original score and even change the simple scenery themselves.


It was a lot of fun and this huge auditorium belonging to the Beijing University was packed out. The audience loved it and, even though a translation was provided at the side of the stage, clearly had an excellent command of English cheering, clapping and laughing at this faced paced play.


But theatre-going in Beijing has its little quirks. Especially when it comes to finding your seat. Seats are numbered from the centre of the row with even numbered seats going out to the right and odd numbered seats going to the left. And the numbers are on the back of seats and each row doesn't line up with the row in front. What's all that about? Actually, this is less of a problem than you might think since many Chinese believe in sitting in the best empty seat they can find regardless of who it belongs to. So when you do find your seat, someone else is often in it. They move on graciously to the next best one they can find and so on. This bizarre seating ritual continues until - in a sold-out show like this one - everyone is finally sitting in the correct seat - generally by the interval.

The sincerest form of flattery

I remember when touch tone dialing first came out in the US, AT&T published a list of all the tones that controlled the system. Kids with perfect pitch could whistle down the phone lines to make free calls...

Our friend Peter Gottlieb does a perfect imitation of the ring tone of a '70s Trimphone. Takes me back to my youth whenever he does it. Unfortunately, not too much demand for that skill these days, I guess.

October Golden Week in Yangshuo

Yangshuo is a picturesque town in the Guanxi province of southern China. It sits on the Li River and is tucked in among the thousands of dramatic karst peaks that cover this region.

Karst hills are what's left over when limestone rock formations have dissolved and, typically, the area around each one is completely flat, creating a landscape that looks littered with giant pimples growing out of the ground. Not far from here is the northern border with Vietnam and the famous karst hills of Halong Bay which rise majestically out the water and were so beautifully captured in the Oscar winning Indochine.

This natural landscape makes Yangshuo a huge draw for tourists from across the world particularly hikers, rock climbers and bikers as well as others - like us - who just want to hang out for a while in this pretty part of China. Tourism is Yangshuo's key business and the town is awash with souvenir shops (batik, silver jewelry, 'antiques'); travel agencies offering trips up and down the Li River; hotels/boarding houses and restaurants all carrying identical menus (full English breakfast, burgers, Chinese food). During the Chinese Golden Week holidays, Yangshuo heaves with tourists and feels like New Orleans during Mardi Gras - but without the beads.
Traffic jam on the Li River..

Over the years, we must have forgotten how to go somewhere and just relax..because we decided it would be a good idea to use this week to brush up on our Chinese. We enrolled in classes at the XiJie Foreign Language School of Yangshuo. Every morning for three hours our teacher - Amanda - newly arrived in Yangshuo from Hebei province, ('I came because I love water and mountains') took us through our paces. I filled a new exercise book full of vocabulary and dutifully highlighted the key words and phrases but when I got home I realised that 75% of the words were already in my old exercise book - I just hadn't remembered them first time around... damn that small left HG. Still, it was useful to practise ever day and devote yourself totally to it without work distractions.

Another successful graduate from the XiJie Foreign Language School

One of the highlights of the week was visiting our friend Pam who owns and runs the Yangshuo Cookery School - a business she set up in Chao Long, a village a few kms outside of Yangshuo - offering half day cooking classes to tourists. Absolutely brilliant! We spent a wonderful afternoon cooking a handful of Chinese classics (steamed stuffed vegetables, chicken with cashews, eggplant with soy & oyster sauce, beer fish and green vegetables with garlic) then eating it all sitting on her terrace overlooking the mountains and river and sipping local Yangshuo beer. Highly recommended.

Old habits die hard

Many people in China are not impressed with this sitting down malarkey.

And then I realised it was all a dream..

Unable to sleep on the Haidan Airlines flight to Guilin, I flicked through their in-flight magazine and came across an article about the preparation of their airline meals.

After reading the opening paragraph, I decided that maybe I had fallen asleep and this was all a bizarre dream.

I always suspected I had a small left Heschl's Gyrus

If the latest issue of Cerebral Cortex hasn't popped through your letterbox yet, you will probably have missed Patrick Wong's (and others) paper entitled: 'Volume of Left Heschl's Gyrus and Linguistic Pitch Learning'.

Basically, Patrick and his team tested the ability of adult native English speakers to learn tonal languages e.g. Chinese. He found a correlation between the size of the left brain Heschl's Gyrus and aptitude to learn these types of languages - the smaller the HG, the harder it was for the students to pick up the language skills.

Here I am wondering why I am making little to no progress with my Chinese classes when, in fact I am, most likely, genetically pre-disposed not to speak Chinese. It's probably an amazing feat that I speak as much as I do given the size of my left HG.

A touch of class

Lorraine and Nigel arrived in style last week - first class Air France - for a long weekend in Beijing. The city put on its best face or them - beautifully warm days & clear blue skies - as they explored the sites and enjoyed some of the entertainment Beijing has to offer.

Gastronomic highlight was, undoubtedly, The Whampoa Club - sister restaurant to the well established Shanghai restaurant of the same name at 3 on the Bund. It was the first time we'd been and we really enjoyed it. Whampoa serves contemporary Chinese food of terrific quality - some of the best we've eaten since moving here - in what, I think, must be the most dramatic restaurant setting in Beijing. The building is a converted courtyard house in the financial district with the main dining room built in the basement. The room's ceiling is made of glass to allow light in from the courtyard above. From below, the ceiling is hung with thousands of reflective glass beads. From above, the ceiling is also a fish pond with dozens of goldfish swimming around. Every aspect of the decor was beautifully done and the service was exceptional - definitely the place to go for a special occasion.

Lorraine & Tac try out the Whampoa bathrooms

If Whampoa is a testament to the sophistication, style and wealth of new Beijing then a Beijing duck lunch at Li Qun in the hutongs south of Tienanmen Square offers you a very different glimpse of Beijing life. The restaurant - also built in a courtyard, but untouched since it opened - is tiny with only a handful of tables. This family restaurant serves great food for a fraction of the price of Whampoa and still manages to retain it's simplicity and originality - with a few concessions to it's foreign customers such as English menus - even though it has become one of Beijing's best known restaurants.

But Beijing also has its duds. We decided to try Shuguo Yanyi (蜀国演义), a Sichuan restaurant recommended by 'That's Beijing' magazine - normally a reliable source of restaurant and bar reviews. As they describe it: "Upscale entertainment restaurant with more neon lights than Las Vegas. This Sichuan place has shows every night including face-changing, classical music performances, and traditional dances. The food is good but you're mainly paying for atmosphere". A bit tacky, maybe, but perhaps good fun on a Saturday night, we thought?

How wrong we were. Arriving at 7.30pm we found only one other table occupied and a Chinese crooner with a dubious voice finishing off his set. Obviously a warm up act and we had come too early, I assumed, as they seated us in a booth with no view of the stage. We moved to a table in the centre of the room and ordered but I should have smelled a rat when a presentation screen came down at the back of the stage and the Eagles live 'Hell Freezes Over' DVD started to play.

I did feeel better when a group of 40-50 Koreans walked in - obviously seduced by the thought of that traditional Chinese face changing, dancing and classical music performances - but after an hour of serious eating, drinking, toasting and picture taking the Koreans left. We were at 'Life in the Fast Lane' by now and not a face changer in sight. As it turned out the show had finished at 7pm - way before we arrived - and, in the opinion of the only other dinners in the place - was terrible.
Shuguo Yanyi on a Saturday night

We also fed our minds that weekend and spent a fun morning at the Dashanzi 798 art district where we ended up buying our first piece of Beijing art.

Wen Fang is a Beijing photographer who has created a series of photos of migrant construction workers printed onto grey, 7kg, building bricks. For Wen, the bricks and the construction workers symbolise the headlong dash by local government and property developers to modernise Beijing at, seemingly, any cost including the destruction of Beijing's traditional architecture and culture.

There are more than 3M migrant workers in Beijing, mostly in the construction industry. They have come from rural areas in search of higher wages and earn around 1000RMB (€100) per month in the city, leaving their families back home and, generally, living at the construction sites where they work. Since they can't get Beijing residency, they don't have entitlement to housing or other local government benefits and the stories of their exploitation by their employers abound. The (sometimes) smiling faces and hard hats are to be seen all over Beijing and are as much a symbol of this city as it's eponymous duck restaurants.

Nigel and Lorraine liked the bricks so much they bought two and hand carried them home along with all of their other luggage. Air France first class - c'est la vie.

Happy Birthday Joe!

Our Tongan neighbour, Joe, celebrated his 50th birthday by throwing a terrific BBQ and putting on South Pacific island entertainment for us.

I was supremely confident when I bet him that England would crush the Tongan rugby team when they play in France at the end of the month. But following their matches against South Africa and Samoa respectively, I'm thinking that crate of beer may be in jeopardy.

Claire, Amy & Jessie drop in

Whistle stop, weekend, visit from Claire and her two buddies, Amy and Jessie as they begin a 3 week tour of China. Attended one of Embassy House's summer BBQs - ate, drank, danced (and played 'Who's in the bag??) as well as finding time to visit some Beijing sites and sink some Beijing duck. One day of heavy rain, which now seems to be following them round the country.

Outside Mao Zedong's former home in the Houhai houtongs

Exercising in the park

No need for expensive gym memberships in Beijing...most parks are equipped with outdoor exercise equipment. For some reason, I very quickly had the place to myself..

Take a chance on me

Having never seen Mamma Mia! during the last eight years in the West End, it seemed fitting that we should go and see it in Beijing.

A British based touring company put on a great production during a sell-out two week run at the impressive Poly theatre, complete with all words and music translated into Mandarin and displayed on the side of the stage.

The audience loved it and, although traditionally reserved, were up singing and dancing to Waterloo and other Bjorn & Benny classics.

Washed out in Qingdao

To Qingdao for a relaxing weekend to escape the blistering heat and grey skies of Beijing. Qingdao is a seaside resort about 1000km south east of Beijing. With the Laoshan mountains as a backdrop and a temperate climate, Qingdao is reputedly one of China's prettiest cities.

The city was a German concession in the late 19th century and the old town still bears witness to their influence. Red brick buildings and European tiled roofs create a Sino-Bavarian feel to the place. But the most noticeable, and lasting, symbol of the German presence is the Tsingtao brewery whose beer graces tables at Chinese restaurants across the world and is one of China's most visible and successful brands. In fact, for the next two weeks Qingdao celebrates its annual Beer Festival - an Oktoberfest style drinking and eating extravaganza with breweries from across the world putting their wares on show.

Unfortunately, we have chosen our weekend break during Qingdao's worst weather for a long time. 24 hours of non-stop thunderstorms and torrential rain have flooded streets throughout the town and we are virtually trapped in our hotel until Sunday.

Unable to walk around we head for indoors entertainment - the Tsingtao brewery museum (flashbacks to a wet few days in the Algarve some years ago when cabin fever took me to the Sagres cork museum). Everything you need to know - and more - about the history and brewing process of Tsingtao beer is can be found here, including a bizarre 'Tipsy Room' which allows you to experience being drunk without touching a drop.

Qingdao is also the host city for the Olympic sailing events next summer and a warm up regatta is running there in August, so the city's hotels are full of iron-pumping international sailors as well as beer festival drinkers.

A trip to the Beer Festival was a must and we wandered around the various brewery sponsored beer tents each of which was selling food, beer and providing entertainment. We had a beer and a snack at the Weihenstephaner beer tent - reputedly the oldest working brewery in the world - to find a very lively singer entertaining the crowd.

Qingdao attracts coach loads of Chinese tourists to it's beaches and waterfronts - many of whom have never seen the sea before and had a wonderful time splashing about and trying to avoid the breaking waves over the sea wall.

Several kilometres of sea front have been paved and planted to offer a beautiful walking path along the sea. We walked along here Sunday afternoon, as the sun came out, and enjoyed a beer overlooking the water before heading back to the airport.