Yep, gone and put my foot squarely in it, though this time I don't think that things are going to ignite like last time back in January.
By this I mean the storm of protest about 'censorship' on Living in China, something which I was not responsible for. I was in fact sightseeing in Beijing.
The current arena is Glutter - you can read aaaaalllllll about it here (be aware that it gets rather abusive): Hidden Curriculum and www.glutter.org, and goodbye LIC. Pay particular attention to the comments.
There's even more here - Glutter's at it again.
All I'm trying to do is find more people who are writing in English from or about China. Currently, politically correct as this sentiment is, there are too many white male expats and not enough Chinese (particularly Chinese women). Since ultimately the peoples' are the voices that really matter.
If anyone would care to explain why this is such a bad thing, please do so below. I'm not depressed about it, merely exasperated. But there's a darker and deeper undertone that is beginning to worry me.
It's the issue of depression itself. Not concerning me, but among young Chinese women, and probably men too. More than one student at my university has approached me - a not altogether insensitive but completely inappropriate counsellor - with problems of various hues.
Furthermore, I've heard of and am hearing about more and more examples among people I know and people connected with them. They have no one to turn to; they don't know what to do. There are only about 12 qualified psychiatrists in Shanghai - that's one per million. Expect the same elsewhere in the country.
Depression is in many ways a Western disease. You could argue that when you stop worrying about the raw necessities such as finding a square meal every day, then you discover things to worry about within yourself. But China is accelerating itself towards being a developed nation. The major cities are already there.
Thus there is bound to be a nagging sense at the pit of the city's stomach: where do we go from here? What else is there to achieve? A feeling of being alone among an amorphous mass of millions, billions, of people. The culture of saving face and not expressing emotions in public - much like in England - could be another factor.
I have no answers, and this is an admittedly clumsy wishy-washy and superficial attempt at tackling a serious issue which I think is going to become more and more relevant in the new China. But whether people are indiscriminately lashing out or simply withdrawing into themselves, I think that it needs to be recognised.
"Don't say let me pass, OK? But say let me pass, PLEASE," a tall and big guy front turned around, seriously, with a chalk in hand directing me and picked the error out of my word.
This is Philip,my English teacher from London who is 28-year-old journalist. He impressed me with his sharply bright character and working style at the first sight.
He didn't seem like a gentleman if valued by our common definition that a gentleman always owns a so-called noble idiosyncrasy or graceful behaviour. Whereas, he was a little bit crazy.
He showed a number of exaggerated guestures to make himself well understood. He, for example, went up to the window, held his hand and stretched both of his forefingers straightly in one direction to demonstrate where his office allocated. He shouted "STOP" very loud and decidedly to show the time is up which, however, trapped many timid girls in shock.
Far worse, one girl privately guessed that he might have a bad temper. But the truth is that we never feel the two classes' time passed more quickly than this one.
Perhaps this is the kind of action that the lively atmosphere in class sprung from.
No doubt he had a quick mind and a good sense of humor. And these qualities were more reflected by his responses to our constant questions. When the class started, he required his students to ask every questions they want to know because he thought a good journalist was an excellent questioner, as well.
But this time I had to add that a reporter is also a smart answerer. He had a wide knowlege of his country, his abundent experience in Janes' inflamed the boys' interest, especially on Kelly Event.
May be at first class what we should do is to know each other. There weren't any heated debate or excellent questions. If the students got well-prepared, and we know him in further step, the questions will be like bullets fired.
This was the first impression of my English teacher, Philip, and he will be along with us for a whole semester. The story began here and will be created by time and every people in our class.
To be continued...
Hi, I am XXXX, after reading this passage, give your opinions, the more the better. If somewhere is not correct, pick it out.
Perhaps my English writing is no more than a pupil's work, but if I stick to practice, I believe I will make great progress. Thank you very much.
Remember, it is our secret.
On Monday you said you would be 29 after two weeks, well, happy birthday. Mid-aged man is hot.
A genuine, (almost) unedited, and completely unsolicited, e-mail article entitled 'MY ENGLISH TEACHER, PHILIP - Part 1 : First class', from one of my journalism students (not pictured to preserve anonoymity!). This individual is sure to go a long way. But "mid-aged man is HOT"??!!
All in all, it's been a good week. Meeting my new classes has been a bit varied: some have been very subdued, while others are bubbling with enthusiasm. However, one I thought was being particularly morose the other day is in fact now in hospital with TB. TB? Christ.
I'm especially pleased to be teaching journalism. It'll be a major challenge, and even a risk, but for once I feel my skills and knowledge can really be put to good use.
Other good things that have happened - my credit card finally arrived, thank God, meaning I can now purchase a much-needed new laptop. Also within the package was a copy of my long-awaited Sunday Times Travel Magazine article, 'Lost and Lonely on the Khao San Road'.
Saori, the Japanese graduate who I helped out the other night bought me a pizza; we found a good DVD player for Cameron; and, to cap it all it was a jolly warm, sunny and pleasant day.
Those of you who've written to me telling me to cheer up and stop dissing the PRC, relax. China is my punchbag: I take it out on China when I'm annoyed, but it makes a great cushion when I'm not!
Yep, it was a strange one.
Out with Jenny "let's-pretend-we're-Valentines" Zhao, I thought it'd be a good idea to take a look at the photographic exhibition at the Liu Hai Su art centre down in Hongqiao.
Having no idea what to expect, we were confronted with images of naked pregnant women in black-and-white, photos of household objects and model landscapes dressed in raw meat and finally, wooden peephole boxes containing cute Chinese-style porcelain dolls doing it.
We fared little better in the cinema. Jenny was keen to view Baober in Love, which she said is the film everyone's talking about. The poster depicted a happy smiley young couple hand in hand, though with outstretched arms. "Looks OK," I thought, agreeing to sit through two hours of un-subtitled Chinese cinema.
The story began promisingly enough as we met the eponymous heroine, an odd and flighty girl who regularly flicked her eyes and head in all directions to show she was a bit different, a bit crazy. There followed some surreal Poppins-esque sequences, such as the hovering dinner set and the nookie among silver cushions in a construction site rubbish chute.
Turned out, however, that Barbour was actually deeply disturbed and ended up disembowelling herself. Not very Valentine's.
Waiting 90 minutes for red-hot spicy Szechuan dinner, plus further loitering around trying to get trains and taxis meant that I didn't get back to campus until around 11.00.
There, on the edge of the basketball court was a forlorn-looking Japanese girl with designer togs and a suitcase the size of a karaoke machine. "Help," she said. I could hardly leave her, so full English gentleman act swiftly followed.
Poor lamb had just got of the flight from Tokyo with less Chinese than even I expecting to be met by the university staff. No sign of them. I turfed Jenny out of bed at 11.30 begging for translation assistance, and eventually Saori was found a room, provided with food and water (by me) and packed off to sleep at 12.40am.
It wasn't half a funny Valentine's day.
"In a country where misery and want were the foundation of the social structure, famine was periodic, death from starvation common, disease pervasive, thievery normal, and graft and corruption taken for granted, the elimination of these conditions in Communist China is so striking that negative aspects of the new rule fade in relative importance." Barbara Tuchman
OK, so this quote is probably taken out of context. I came across it while randomly surfing a quotes site looking for inspiration. Not a bad resource - check it out here.
But I'd like to know what planet the Pulitzer-winning historian, author of seminal WWI study The Guns of August, was living on when she wrote it.
Let's look at each clause in turn. Famine and starvation - try The Great Leap Forward. Disease - try AIDS and SARS. Thievery, graft and corruption - try doing business here or speak to anyone who has. In fact try having anything with even remote value (to post office personnel who don't speak English) posted to you and see if it ever shows.
Call me a cynic, but I often can't see the difference between pre- and post-'Communist' China. In every aspect, they seem to be just the same. I'm scanning through The Communist Manifesto right now, trying to get my head around the country and its politics, but so far I'm not entirely sure the bourgeois really has been overthrown by the proletariat.
In fact, everywhere I look, the bourgeoisie are strutting around in their Gucci, Prada, Armani. Take a look round Xintiandi and there's nothing but designer shops, well out of my league let alone the average Joe in China.
Most people in this nation are the types you see hauling big hessian bags around Shanghai station, having just staggered off a 36-hr hard seat ride in search of work. Don't even try to tell me that it's these guys, or their millions of compatriates still in the countryside, that are running the show. Fair enough, I haven't finished the Marx and Engels book yet.
The observations above come from an epic two day roam around central Shanghai in search of Lawsons' stores for a photo job I'm doing for the head office in Japan. View the excitement right here...
A highlight on Wednesday was being told (via Jenny, who kindly translated for me over a mobile phone) that the employees of Lawson's were not allowed to tell me where other Lawson's stores were located. Tell me if you can the reasoning behind this one.
I admit that I'm feeling a little bit negative at the moment. I'm in the midst of a run of bad luck that seemed to begin at the stroke of Western New Year. Since then I've variously been conned, cheated, messed around, insulted and ill.
But I'm still here. Perhaps I also have to look at my own foibles - going travelling during Spring Festival was, in the face of it, pretty damn stupid. A learning experience - don't do it next time!
Topping it all, and admittedly this isn't China's fault, my 'puter is in its death throes and I shall have to get a new one, if the credit card that was posted a fortnight ago ever shows.
I persist. In a bloody-minded way, the more annoying things get, the more I am determined to stick it out and find the best this country has to offer.
At least the travel photos turned out well. It's just a case of having bad Dao at the moment, and I know I'm not the only one. Here's to getting some ying back for my yang, or whichever way round it should be.
Seemed like an easy job when I accpted it. Guy in Japan e-mails, says can I run out and photograph a few examples of Lawson's convenience stores in Shanghai for a corporate brochure? No problem, I say, thinking 'easy money'.
Just spent nearly four hours tramping around Jingan and Ju Lu Lu areas and found only two. One of these had a sign that was peeling off and the other was tainted by an old git scavenging from a dustbin right by the swooshy doors. Managed to conceal most of him behind a bush, but not the kind of thing you want in a corporate brochure.
There are meant to be over 100 Lawson's in Shanghai, but I'm stuffed if I know where they are. Everwhere there's a Kedi, and an Alldays, and whatever the one with the green and yellow logo is called. Soon 7-11 itself will be gaining a foothold.
Compared to other cities in China, Shanghai is awash with these little Kwik-E-Marts, which I think is a great thing. Keeps people employed, and keeps the midnight munchers happy too. It's a sign of some subtle shift in the demography. More money, different lifestyles... more corner shops. Apparently, Lawson's (a tripartite joint venture, the major stakeholder being a Japanese chain) was the original franchise to hit the city just a few years ago, but has quickly been superceded.
But it's been most inconvenient for me. If anyone knows where to find one, drop us a line, OK? Cheers.
At least 18 Chinese workers died on Friday in the most unlikely of places - the picture postcard location of Morecambe Bay near England's Lake District.
The tragedy exposes the practise of exporting Chinese labour abroad, where countless people are ruthlessly exploited by gangs ignorant of the most basic safety procedures.
My mother in fact recently bought a house in the area, within eyeshot of the scene of the accident, and provided the following details.
The labourers were working as 'cocklers', handpicking tiny shellfish (cockles) from the Morecambe Bay mudflats. A team of workers was caught in the estuary, and with no means of escape were drowned as the tide rose.
So far 16 survivors have been found, but bodies of 16 young men and two women, all thought to be Chinese, have been recovered. There is virtually no chance of finding anyone else alive. The survivors were suffering from hypothermia due to the cold water, although the weather was mild.
The alarm was raised at 5am Beijing time on Friday (9pm GMT 5th February), and emergency services including helicopters, rigid inflatables, quad bikes and, inshore hovercraft were scrambled. The hovercraft were needed due to the nature of the sands, where the draught is too shallow for ordinary lifeboats.
Local people have been warning since the cocklers arrived that this was a tragedy waiting to happen, as the sands are extremely treacherous. There are signs all along the coast advising of the danger of quicksands, deep gullies and fast flowing incoming tides. There have been incidents in the past of people dying while caught in the mud.
These people were not only working in these areas but working in the dark.
One local was quoted on radio as saying that the young Chinese (or possibly their families) owe money to the gangs and are brought over to England to do this work.
A local fisherman claimed that an individual can earn between GBP 750 (11,000 RMB) and GBP 1,000 (15,000 RMB) per day, although this money was not going to the cocklers themselves but to the gang masters.
The cocklers are still operating here, writes my mother, and all around the bay - total numbers are unknown, but she regularly sees 16-seat minibuses going down the coast.
All the occupants are Chinese, including the drivers. It has been widely reported that they are illegal immigrants, but if that was the case then in theory they would be easy enough to pick up. About 40 and a labour master were arrested last summer at the town of Morecambe itself for this reason.
My parents had previously spoken to a fisheries spokesman from the Department for the Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) as they were concerned about what they saw as the pillage of a local natural resource. He advised them that the cockles have what is known as a 'mast' season every four years, when there are huge numbers, and 2003/4 is such a year. If mature cockles are not harvested they will die.
These cockles appear to all be exported to Spain, in Spanish refrigerated container lorries (upto 20 tonne payload), so none of the harvest is going into the local economy. Cockling in the area had always been a 'cottage industry', with a few families making a summer living from it, but this last summer they felt intimidated by the foreign workers, and the local fish processor reported a significant drop in the number of cockles for processing.
The pillage of cockle beds in other parts of Europe has led to the dramatic rise in price. The only people to gain are the gang masters; the losers are the young people who have died, their families back home, the local economy
and ecology.
The tragedy raises several questions. How did these Chinese workers end up in Europe? What is their obligation to the gangs that appear to control them? And why did the local authorities not act to dissuade the gangs, who at best were clearly interfering in the local economy and at worst, as has been proved, endangering the lives of the people they engage?
The Guardian newspaper reports here, with further analysis here.
In the absence of anything to write about since I've been sitting in my room all day, here's a pretty map of all the countries I've been to. Idea stolen from another blog (Gweilo) and this site here.
Click on the pic to enlarge.
In October 2002, nine days after the publication of the UK government's notorious dossier on Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction, I travelled to leafy Oxfordshire and spent the afternoon at the home of David Kelly.
Ten months later, Iraq had been invaded, no WMD had been found and David Kelly was dead. His suicide sparked one of the most far reaching inquiries into the UK government and media for decades.
Every film has actors and actresses in the lead roles, directors, producers and technicians behind the scene and innumerable extras, many of whom appear for a few brief and insignificant moments before fading back into the celluloid. With a line seemingly drawn below the whole sordid business, it's time for me to reflect on my own tiny part in the affair. This is what happened.
August 2002: less than a year after the 9/11 attacks, debate in the US and UK was turning to Saddam Hussein and his alleged weapons programmes. It was clearly going to be one of the biggest stories of the year, and - another cliche coming up - every two-bit journo worth his salt wanted a piece of it.
I was no exception. At that time I was working as a reporter for The Engineer, a British trade news magazine dedicated of course to engineering and technology. It was in the throes of a remodelling as a popularised journal devoted to exploring cutting edge research and technology in the industry.
Life at The Engineer was not making me happy. I felt that the news editor, George Coupe, was generally disinterested in my ideas and stories. I was not getting the opportunities to get out and about, meet interesting people and see interesting things, which were the very reasons I had walked out of a safe and relatively well-paid job in finance to seek an unstable and underpaid career in journalism.
Of particular disenchantment was my inability to pursue the field in which I had the most expertise and which I found most captivating, defence and aerospace. Worse yet, I felt that a high proportion of the articles that I did write were being edited so as to introduce bias and error, gremlins that I had painstakingly been attempting to eliminate. Thus, I saw a chance with the WMD issue to regain some of my confidence and self-respect.
My central hypothesis was this: if the inspectors had been absent from Iraq for four years, surely the technology available to them would have improved in this period. How would this influence inspections should they occur? And wouldn't Iraq have spent the same period developing countermeasures to the inspections? How would this affect the outcome of the inspections, which, as was already clear, were the only speedbump on the road to war?
I put the idea to the features editor, David Fowler, and it was accepted. I then turned to seeking out experts who would be able to offer me information, opinion and analysis on my idea.
A reputable former inspector now engaged as a director at the International Institute of Strategic Studies, Terence Taylor, was an obvious choice. To my surprise, not only did he respond to my e-mails but proved extremely helpful despite the pressures he must have been under.
It was he who referred me to David Kelly, whom I contacted by e-mail in August 2002.
From the start, Kelly made it clear that he was enthused by my subject and keen to assist. Arranging a meeting was another matter. Although technically employed by the Ministry of Defence, he was reluctant to meet me at HQ. I didn't then sense that he may have already been uncomfortable in his position.
We arranged instead to meet at his home. Thus it was that, despite objections from Coupe, I escaped the city for a day and took a train into Oxfordshire.
Kelly met me at Didcot station. First impressions were that he was a typical scientist. Grey bearded, soft-spoken and in no way physically imposing, he reminded me of my school physics teacher.
In his car, I asked a little about his background and he of mine. In brief, Kelly was a highly educated man and outside academia had spent time with one of the UK government's vaguely sinister defence research centres at (I believe) Porton Down. After the 1991 Gulf War, his knowledge of biological warfare techniques led to his appointment as a key inspector until the UN's withdrawal in 1998.
Kelly's house was picturesque and cosy in a way that only English country houses can be. He invited me into his sitting room and his wife flitted in to serve tea. For some reason it has stuck in my mind that she also offered a plate of those two-finger Kit Kat biscuits. Strange how I can remember trivia such as this yet recall little that could be of major significance.
After the niceties, I pulled out my notebook, set up my tape recorder and we began. I also remember that my recorder was malfunctioning, and that I had to change batteries. This must have made me look incredibly amateur, but Kelly bore the fumbling with patience. As it turned out, the two tapes were almost indiscernably faint, but as always I backed them up with copious notes in longhand.
We spoke on and off the record about my subject, the technology of inspections, and talked in general about the issues surrounding them. And this, I am afraid, is where my mind goes blank. I know that the discussion was wide ranging, and that Kelly told me some things that he did not wish to be quoted on.
But whether or not he mentioned anything that could shed light on subsequent events, I simply cannot say. Despite probably being the first journalist to see him face to face after the publication of the dossier, I was simply concentrating on the job in hand, namely the technology article. If this makes me a bad journalist then I accept the criticism. I wish it were otherwise.
One thing that did stick in my mind was his conviction as a veteran inspector that the job had not been completed in the 1990s. He had discovered many examples of WMD programmes, but such was the capriciousness of the Ba'athist authorities he was adamant that many more had been concealed from him.
And it was a simple matter, said Kelly, to hide the weapons. Simply bury them in the desert. They might never be found. An inspector's most useful tool was not state-of-the-art technological gadgets but a bulldozer. And the infinite patience required to sift through hundreds of documents and see through the deception and intrigue he met with every day.
After our conversation, Kelly showed me to his study, where he kept several albums and CDs stuffed with photographs of the Iraqi's WMD factories. Here was a vat in which they had been brewing anthrax. There was a germ research centre masquerading as a chemists. I asked to borrow some as illustrations for the article but he steadfastly refused.
As he gave me a lift back to the station, we discussed the possibilities for a free Iraq. As the Babylonian cradle of civilisation, the nation was replete with historic sites, a few of which he had visited. Perhaps one day, I mused, I could visit as a tourist, Lonely Planet in hand.
This was the last I heard from him. Upon writing the article, which named many different sources, the information Kelly had imparted featured but they were barely any direct quotes from him. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
August 2003: Having left The Engineer in January 2003, I departed on my travels returning briefly to England in July. The war was already over, at least in its first phase. Idly watching the news one day, I saw a face I recognised. It was David Kelly, being interrogated by the Commons committee regarding the report on the BBC's 'Today' programme. A week later he was found dead in the woods outside his home.
It's also worth mentioning that I have also met the originator of the report, BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan, while at a pre-Farnborough Airshow junket in Killarney, Ireland. Gilligan struck me as a genial, knowledgable and opinionated man, if a little rumbunctious. Someone who believed in himself and in his skills as a journalist at the top of his profession. We chatted, but didn't have a deep conversation of any kind.
When the Hutton Inquiry began, I wondered whether I would be required to give evidence. The call never came, but I was contacted by The Guardian/Observer's Home Affairs editor, Martin Bright.
My name (misspelt as 'Phillip Sen') had appeared in a letter that was presented as evidence early in the inquiry. (PDF files of the letter can be seen here - page one TVP/2/0012 - page two TVP/2/0013 - page three TVP/2/0014). Was there anything I could offer?
[Note - to this day I have no idea what the handwritten lines and notes next to my name on document TVP/2/0013 mean - presumably just to say 'this guy probably isn't too important'.]
If only I had a photographic memory, I wouldn't need to make tapes and take notes myself. But upon leaving The Engineer, I remembered that as an employee all my journalistic material was property of the employer. The WMD article scrawlings and tapes were tucked in a manila folder and I gave instructions to the editorial assistant to see that they were stored. She said that they would be put in a box and kept with the other records. In retrospect this may have been too vague.
Martin Bright and I discussed my meeting with the figure at the centre of the inquiry, and agreed that it would be worth recovering the tapes and notes with a view to developing anything found with the consent and co-operation of The Engineer. This would have been both a legal and moral requirement had anything come to light.
I had e-mailed the editor of the magazine, Sean Brierley, immediately after hearing about Kelly's death. However, unknown to me, he had been succeeded by George Coupe earlier in the year and the e-mail was never read.
Both Bright and I e-mailed and telephoned Coupe to be told that he he didn't know where the files were. As far as he was concerned they were 'lost' during a move from one side of the office to another. During my tenure, Coupe himself had told me to be persistent in my work but after a few conversations like this he lost patience. He reminded me that I was no longer an employee of his, that the file was 'lost' and that as far as he was concerned the matter was closed.
There the story ends. We'll never know if anything was said during my interview with Kelly that may have influenced the outcome of the Hutton Inquiry. Most probably nothing at all. But it would have been worth a look.
Both Bright and I were deeply dismayed at the unavailability of the tapes, whether they had indeed been 'lost' or merely withheld. It was surprising that Coupe did not seem curious as to what the tapes might have contained and did not see this as an opportunity for his magazine. So we shall never know.
In conclusion, it has to be said that for all the furore surrounding the affair, David Kelly himself was just a man, a human being involuntarily caught up in events far greater than he. He was not a politician or a general. He was not even a soldier. He was a scientist, trying to do his job which in effect was the same as Gilligan's and Hutton's: finding the truth.
Though I only met him once, his death saddened me. It seemed unnecessary.