Results tagged “China” from Birmingham Post - Lifestyle Blog

Well, it's finally here. And I don't know about the rest of the world, but over here this day has been about as hyped up as new millennium eve was. Jeez, was that really 8 years ago?

Security is ridiculously tight, we're being scanned and searched what seems like every 5 minutes, and most of Beijing is cordoned off, including Tiananmen Square and the Olympic arena (of course). Everyone is frantically trying to organize where they'll be at 8:08pm when the opening ceremony commences and the fireworks are set off, and people are speculating as to who will light the Olympic torch. There is endless gossiping about who managed to get tickets to the opening ceremony (practically nobody!), and slagging off those who managed to get a ticket at all (I did! Cycling in the Vendome, next weekend. Ahem.)

This really is China's big chance to show the world how great it is. And man, are they going for it. Yesterday I walked passed a street of Chinese people chanting "Come on China! Come on China!" for no particular reason. And I'm feeling quite left out that I haven't yet purchased my 'I heart China' t-shirt, since everybody else seems to have one and wear it religiously everyday. I do, however, have a Beijing 2008 sweatshirt, but if I wore that in this humidity, I'd probably die.

Expats in Beijing, I've found, are not getting as excited about the Olympics as the locals. In fact I was chatting to two Americans earlier that were saying how they hoped that things didn't go so perfect for China during the Games. One guy, having lived in China for more than three years, was quite bitter that Beijing had put on a big front, cleaning up the streets, planting flowers and reducing traffic. He said that the people that come during this time won't be met by the real China, just a pretty version of it. But hey, you can't blame a country for making an effort, can you? It's no different to you picking up your dirty undies off the floor and washing the dishes when you have a friend coming to visit.

I, on the other hand, have been dragged along with the hype, and will probably be the one that starts a "You can do it, China!" chant tonight after a few mojitos. However, my one little nitpick is that I seriously think that whoever coined the Beijing Olympics as the "Coming Out Party", should have reconsidered it before opening their mouth. To me, and maybe I stand alone on this one, it connotes that this is the day Beijing announces to the world that it thinks Judy Garland was "fabulous" and is in a serious relationship with a guy called Guo Dong.

Having just let an opening ceremony ticket slip through my fingers (my friend called me to offer me a ticket, but I was at work and missed the call. Doh!), today all comes down to organizing this evening. I'm sure a majority of Beijing will agree with me when I say that the best thing about this day is that we all got a day off work. London take note of that one. Going to stand outside the birds nest at any point today is no-no. I predict that there will be approximately 3.2 squillion people standing outside there tonight, all getting pushy and sweaty and screaming "One World, One Dream!" at the top of their lungs, whilst waving tiny China flags.

I've read that the opening ceremony is set to be the most lavish in history, the "greatest show on Earth." Damn, I still can't quite believe I missed out on that ticket..*curses*

Everybody is asking "what is with the weather?!" We somehow managed to survive July without committing suicide, after it practically rained every day. We were told that it was all so that the sky would be clear for the Olympics. Now, I don't know exactly how you make it rain, but some scientist people in the south of China have been, well, doing it. Is that even legal? Will I get extradited for telling you this?? I had better stop writing now.

Happy Olympics opening day, everybody!

Since the age of about 18, when I found an old copy under my then boyfriends bed, I have been an ardent reader of Viz comic. Yes, it has been viewed as sexist and politically incorrect, but the humour is dry and satirical, something which you rarely find anywhere else these days, and something that I crave once every now and then. Having been in China for well over a year, I have felt a massive void when it comes to humour. And so, with a pleading email to my father every few months, he nips down to the local newsagents and hastily posts me a copy of the latest Viz. Good old Dad. Why is his 25-year-old daughter more interested in reading an adolescent boy's comic and not Heat magazine, he must wonder.

However, inbetween Viz comics I have found a satisfying relacement. The English language Chinese newspaper. The 'fillers' are my favourite. The fact that these are true stories that the Editor has selected out of all the happenings in China, I find delightfully amusing. It puts me in mind of the 'Letterbocks' pages from Viz, where readers write in with their own ridiculous tales.
Yesterday's paper entertained me with such newsworthy stories as the following, "a yellow-billed grosbeak slammed into a shop window and died in Taiyuan, capital of Shanxi province.
A second bird settled on the ground near the dead animal, appearing to keep vigil.
A woman passing by surnamed Liu tried to explain to the lingering live bird - which of course did not understand her flurry of excited hand signals - that she would give the dead grosbeak a proper buriel."
- Shanxi Evening News

How that didnt make front page, I will never know.
I like to imagine that lady frantically doing sign language to a bird, trying to tell it that she will give it's mate a plush funeral. And in my imagination, the bird is looking back at her with one of those "she's mental" expressions on it's little furry face.

Another one of my favourites from the same issue, is...
"A woman in Hankou, Hubei province, did not see her husband when she woke up on Tuesday morning. He did not answer her calls all day.
Worried that he might have been kidnapped, she alerted police that he was missing.
Later, officers found the man camping out on the roof of their home.He said he was hiding from a gang of criminals who had recently threatened him at the small grocery store he owns.
Both police and his wife wondered why the man, 42-year-old Huang Liang, had not informed his spouse."
- Chutian Metropolis Daily

Fabulous. Have I been away too long, or are these the kinds of newsworthy stories we find in western papers too? Perhaps it's the way that the stories are worded that amuses me.. Or perhaps i've just been eating too much street BBQ food this week.

From an outside-of-a-relationship perspective, I have always advised my friends never to change for a man. Be who you are. And if he doesn't appreciate you as you are, then get rid and move onto the next. Being the supportive best friend, and the much hated girlfriend's best friend, has been a role that I feel I have excelled in. It's so much easier to be objective when you are not involved in a relationship yourself.
However, when you are the one involved in a relationship, the objective way of thinking becomes somewhat hazy, and you'll find that no matter how much your best friend demonises your boyfriend for making you want to listen to a different kind of music, this is just something that you find you want to do. It's about keeping your lover interested, finding a common ground, and adapting to maintain attraction.

When the relationship ends, perhaps you will find that it has changed you. Maybe you continue to listen to that new music and do those new things. The relationship has broadened your mind, and taught you something new. You live and you learn. The biggest lesson of all usually being, don't date someone like that again.

If Beijing were a person, like you and I, I would say that Beijing has been looking for some love interest for quite a while now. Beijing's not unattractive, in fact rather beautiful. It has a reputation, sure, but name one place or someone that doesn't...

After a long time 'developing' and doing it's own thing, Beijing now finds that it will finally be in for some romance this Summer. Summer lovin', if you please. In fact, this Summer will be like Beijing appearing on Chris Tarrant's Man-O-Man, as the only bear-chested contestant in front of an audience of over-sexed middle-aged women. The world's eyes, and not just those belonging to females, will be trained on Beijing for a whole four weeks while it hosts the 2008 Olympic Games.
In preparation for it's 'close-up', Beijing has already begun to change it's appearance. Obviously it wants to look it's best for this date.
So, it's cutting down on it's smoking habit. No more smoking in restaurants and taxi's, for this city, which is an achievement in itself. It has also noticed that it's a bit smelly, and err toxic, so it has cut down traffic pollution by alternating the days for which people can use their vehicles. And to show that it is the caring and environmentally aware type, it has placed charges on plastic carrier bags, in the hope that people will use less, and recycle more.
Commited, check. Hygenic, check. Caring of mother Earth, check.
Add a little bit of 'wow' factor by throwing in a few impressively big and odd-shaped buildings, and bingo. It's innovative and good-looking. Beijing could be the perfect man-o-man.

Now whereas I have always (hypocritically) advised my friends to never change for a man, a man changing for a woman seems...ok. I'm no Germaine Greer, but I do think that if there's something annoying about your man you could try your luck and ask him to quit it. I'm not talking about drastic things, like encouraging your lover to have liposuction or abandon his family... Really! But perhaps a well-timed hint that the moustache that he's trying, and failing terribly, to grow, makes him look like a reject from the village people. Or that when he chews his food with his mouth open it you feel an uncontrollable urge to spear him with your fork/chopstick. Not that I condone violence in a relationship. Or any place, for that matter.

Of course if changes are made, you need to know that they're going to be taken seriously. If I promise to not sing in the mornings, then he must promise to never expose his feet until they have been thoroughly bathed in dettol. And we should accept these little 'nit-picks' as friendly advice from a loved one that they are incredibly annoying and unattractive. We should be thankful that they have pointed out these things, because it means that by stopping you from doing this they have improved you as a person.

What makes Beijing the equivalent of the perfect man, is that it has made a commitment to stop all of these unattractive things, and prove to the world that it is wonderfully caring, hygenic, modern, multicultural and innovative, and not the slob that people have always assumed.

Ergo I find that I like my cities like I like my men. Willing to change and ambitious. Not to mention, big and rich.

Dear oh dear, poor Sharon Stone must be kicking herself. Correction, Sharon Stone's publicist must be kicking her, as this week she spectacularly put her foot in it by alienating the third largest country in the world. Dear oh dear indeed.

At the Cannes Film Festival, the usual press surrounded the stars to get a few quotes to fill their column inches. Imagine the scene as the journalists asked Stone the standard questions... "How did you like working with (insert name of director/actor)?", "Tell us about your new film...", etc etc. Then one cocky journalist decides to try his/her luck and ask her to comment on the (very touchy) topic of the situation between China and Tibet. There are a few sniggers from the other journos in the crowd; of course she's not going to comment on that! Celebrities can rarely get away with having a public opinion when it comes to politics. Unless it's written into a song, ala Bono, Lennon, Dylan. A catchy melody tends to filter a bit of tension between insults, we've discovered.
Unfortunately, Stone didn't have a catchy melody, or a thought for her flailing career when she let rip, "I'm not happy about the way the Chinese are treating the Tibetans". Well, not many people are, Shaz. Surely, she must have some great intellectual follow up to such an over-opinionated remark.. "(...) because I don't think anyone should be unkind to anyone else." Oh I see. Well that's a good enough reason then... Isn't it?

She could have left it at that, and perhaps got away with losing a few Chinese fans, but she went on to add that she reckons that because China were mean to Tibet, the Sichuan earthquake happened. Ouch. So Stoney turns out to be a big believer in karma - the Hindu and Buddhist belief of cause and effect. It's no big deal. If we can accept that Tom Cruise believes we're all aliens, and Michael Jackson believes he's Peter Pan, we can come to terms with Sharon Stone believing in karma. In fact, I'm actually a believer in karma myself, but only really to the point of if I'm rude to my mum then I'll break a fingernail. If I did have strong opinions about more pressing matters, such as the reason why my mate's husband left her must be because she dropped his toothbrush down the toilet and didn't tell him, I'd have the sense not to blab about it. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that people don't like blabbers. Blabbing is bad.

I think that Sharon Stone blabbed a bit too much that day. And her karmic retribution is that she'll be lucky if any film featuring her will be shown in China and Hong Kong for a while, and her advertising campaigns for names such as Christian Dior have all been removed from stores and billboards. There is now a call for a boycott of other products with which Stone is said to be associated, such as Guerlain and Ebel. Phew-wee, now that's some bad karma. She must've dropped a whole lot of toothbrushes down the toilet, as well as insulted *1321851888 people.

For future reference, we can make the assumption that blabbing equals bad karma, kids.

*Population of China 2007, courtesy of wiki.answers.com
Quotes courtesy of Beijing Today 30/05/08 p.5

Oh woe is me as I find myself living in a country devoid of Youtube. I never thought of myself as an internet dependent individual, but am in absolutely no denial about my addiction to British broadcasting. Namely, Eastenders.

You may think it's rather sad that despite the fact that I live in the most culturally rich country in the entire world, I still feel compelled to hear some cockney banter and watch sensationally far-fetched storylines. But what can I say, this was my reality touchstone, however unrealistic.

But now, it has been taken away from us in China.

Time goes by quickly, we all know that, yet it still never ceases to astonish me. I have already been in Beijing for almost a month! A mere few weeks ago, I set out on my quest to make new friends, and that I have ticked off on my list relatively easily. I expect most things are simple enough to do if you're in the right frame of mind, determined and acknowledge the fact that some chinese people will only want to be your friend to practice their English. I've been told many many times before, mainly by my father and over-protective brother, "don't trust anybody!" Well, I'm no fool, I know that almost all relationships are formed on the 'I want, you need' mentality. "I want to see the sights of Beijing, you need to practice your English, so let's be friends!" I think it's fair to say that I have made a modest amount of friends in the past two weeks, and also bagged a modest new boyfriend, which was quite unexpected. Even more unexpected was the fact that he said "I love you" ("wo ai ni" in Chinese), in record breaking time.

Having spent a year in Shanghai, one would think that I would be pretty much a pro when it came to conversation, navigation and frustration. However, my move to Beijing feels like my life has been rewound a whole year and I'm having to start all over again.
The checklist still reads: 1. Familiarise myself with the city, 2. Make new friends, 3. Study Mandarin. On the upside, I suppose I could see this as an opportunity to wipe the slate clean and start the new year as a new and improved me. Well...I have been eating a lot healthier, that's a start! Maybe I'm sounding negative about my move, when in actual fact, I'm really excited. I'm the kind of person that likes their own company, and enjoys being up against a challenge.