November 10, 2008
Nice few days in the Tian Shan, but it’s getting chilly now - soon to be time to head south for the winter.
Nice few days in the Tian Shan, but it’s getting chilly now - soon to be time to head south for the winter.
October 24, 2008
Urumqi cycling.

UK to Istanbul

As part of my strategy to avoid the ‘Beijing Effect’ this summer, I cycled from the UK to Istanbul. You can read the report here.
Now I’m back in Xinjiang, a bit of mountain cycling seems in order.
Now I’m back in Xinjiang, a bit of mountain cycling seems in order.
OK, I’m about to fire this blog up again. Seems like I’m getting a cat next week. Here he is…
OK, I’m about to fire this blog up again. Seems like I’m getting a cat next week. Here he is…
September 21, 2008

Wahay!

Found a proxy that lets me edit my old blog within China! Watch this space…
May 16, 2008
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

By way of closure, here’s an anecdote. A couple of weeks ago I was listening to a BBC podcast, on my MP3 headphones, about green activism in China. The section of Chinese dialogue I’ve posted here contained a word I didn’t recognize, mingzhu, so I asked my Han girlfriend to listen and translate it for me. This was a Sunday afternoon so her daughter, in the next room, was receiving tuition from a private art tutor. Jess wrote down the word in pinyin, but forbid me to say it out loud until the teacher had gone. 

The word mingzhu means ‘democracy’, and my girlfriend, a doctor, had refused to allow me to even say this word in her own flat in case an art student heard me. Think about that for a moment. 

Also consider that, while subsequently writing this draft in China, I googled the word to make sure I had the proper spelling. Not only did Google crash, but the whole browser locked up and had to be restarted. I was unable to access Google for over an hour. I have been unable to post this until leaving China because the entire blog domain is blocked there. This is at the same time China claims it is freeing up internet access under the terms requested by the IOC.

May 15, 2008

Last post...

So, one year on. I’m back in the UK (briefly). It’s been an interesting year. I thought I’d close this blog down - and start up a new one elsewhere because, although the BBC was recently opened up in advance of the Olympics, many blog domains are still shut off behind the Great Firewall of China.

I’m not sure whether I’ll be going back to Urumqi in the future. This is partly due to personal reasons, but also because of my disquiet at the Chinese reaction to criticism over Tibet and the Olympics. The events of the last few months have highlighted the yawning cultural chasm between me and my Han girlfriend on issues like personal freedom. I have very mixed feelings about the whole thing.

Let’s get one thing straight: Western media coverage of China and the Tibetan situation has not been objective. China is portrayed as a nation where people cower in fear of a centralized dictatorship, crushed beneath the jackboot of the CCP. I’ve lived in Xinjiang on and off for three years now, a province which has similar issues to Tibet (although, of course, Muslims aren’t as sexy as Buddhists, so they get less media coverage). There are many problems in China, some of which I’ve mentioned in this blog, but I’m not sure I recognize the picture painted by Western media. That isn’t the country I’ve been living in.

Too much commentary on China is being framed through a lens looking 20+ years into the past, and the past is a different country. My overwhelming impression of the Chinese has been quite positive. On a personal level, one to one, I’ve encountered great friendliness and humanity. In many ways China could teach the UK a few things. Little fear of getting glassed on a Saturday night, or being mugged when walking around city streets in the dark. Families leave their toddlers alone to play on the grass in communal areas, unthinkable in the UK. People generally rub along with good humour, despite conditions being more cramped and basic than the UK. This wasn’t some Potemkin Village constructed for my benefit, it’s just how day-to-day life is there.

However, the whole Olympic/Tibet controversy revealed a collective mindset, as a culture/nation, that worries me. Check out the comments left on Chinadaily to see what I mean plus, increasingly, the postings on western newspapers (often purporting to be the views of foreigners rather than Chinese - people are actually employed to disseminate the CCP viewpoint this way).

What concerns me is that there’s no debate. It’s ALL coming from exactly the same viewpoint – five thousand years of culture, you don’t know Chinese history, western media is anti-China, what about X/Y/Z that the West did in the past, you’re just jealous now China is getting strong, soon we’ll repay you yang gui zi for the Eight Nations’ humiliation, yadda yadda yadda. It’s infantile, playground politics, like official attempts to control access to Western media. They have real points to score (genuine development in Tibet and Xinjiang, Western bias), but it’s drowned out by a tide of uninformed, triumphalist jingoism. Unfortunately, it’s not just a bunch of redtop reading, BNP-style knuckleheads making these statements. By definition of the fact they speak English, they’re the educated elite, the people who will be shaping and influencing public opinion in years to come.

It’s also worrying that a national media resource’s moderation policy permits blatantly racist and xenophobic commentary by Chinese citizens, but deletes temperate & reasonable posts expressing a different view. I know, because I’ve tried it (from cybercafés). Latterly, things have loosened up a bit on that score, presumably part of the same Olympics strategy that finally allowed access to the BBC. However, it remains to be seen whether such concessions will remain in place once the Games are finished. Google ‘One Hundred Flowers Campaign’ and see what you get…

There’s a fundamental lack of understanding about the way debate and the political system works in the West. The best example I can think of is Iraq. When I talked about, for instance, Chinese policy in Tibet (good and bad), I just got Iraq thrown in my face – and what could I say? All I could fire back is that over a million people demonstrated in London against the UK Government on the issue (without being shot in the streets), and it sparked discontent among the public that resulted in Blair losing his job and, possibly, will ultimately contribute to Labour being kicked out. The Chinese aren’t told about the huge popular opposition to the war (or other Government initiatives), for fairly obvious reasons. They only get the anti-China stuff. Is ignorance a defence?

This kind of freedom to express your views simply isn’t understood by many Chinese and, as a result, they’ve reacted badly to foreign criticism of China (see the BBC audio clip posted below). Although they may not be the brainwashed threat that many (especially Americans) seem to think they are, there is now an ongoing shift in economic and financial power, west to east. In the longer term this will be far more significant than blips like the Credit Crunch. How will Western governments, economies and social systems react to that transfer of power – and how will the Chinese wield it? You may think that’s not your problem….but you’d be wrong.

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Interesting BBC clip from FOOC, examining the nationalism stirred up by events surrounding the Olympic torch relay. It’s a pretty even handed piece. The BBC are certainly one of the lesser offenders when it comes to Western bias, but there’s a great irony here. The BBC was only recently allowed past the Great Firewall – and the reaction of China’s netizens seems to have been almost universal criticism of its bias and lack of partiality! Oddly enough, they were criticizing it before they even had access to it…
November 27, 2007

The Great Firewall

It seems the Chinese authorities didn’t like my humble little blog, so there will be no more updates for the foreseeable future. I may be able to continue posting more stuff here - but who knows?

Update Feb 9th 2008: I’ve just popped out into Thailand after a 2700km bike ride through Yunnan. I had intended poking around Guizhou province too, but China’s worst winter in 100 years put paid to that idea, and I turned right into Laos instead…..

November 22, 2007
On today’s ride over the Yarmalik hills I noticed that a whole bunch of these gizmos have just been installed. I took a close-up picture of the sign for Jess to translate, and it turns out they’re silver iodide generators. Concerned by the lack of winter precipitation over the last couple of years, the authorities are putting these on high ground to try and induce snowfall. This is needed, not only to top up water resources (see post dated Nov 18th), but also because the wheat seeds planted each autumn need a blanket of snow as insulation through Xinjiang’s intense winter cold. It’s an illustration both of how stressed the environment is even here in NW China, and of the measures the CCP are taking to combat this.
On today’s ride over the Yarmalik hills I noticed that a whole bunch of these gizmos have just been installed. I took a close-up picture of the sign for Jess to translate, and it turns out they’re silver iodide generators. Concerned by the lack of winter precipitation over the last couple of years, the authorities are putting these on high ground to try and induce snowfall. This is needed, not only to top up water resources (see post dated Nov 18th), but also because the wheat seeds planted each autumn need a blanket of snow as insulation through Xinjiang’s intense winter cold. It’s an illustration both of how stressed the environment is even here in NW China, and of the measures the CCP are taking to combat this.
The fishing pool has been drained for the winter and now serves as an impromptu exercise ground for old ladies, popping jumping jacks while singing the old songs. In the summer this is a good spot for a cold beer under the willows, and even in autumn I like to stop here on the way back from a ride. Sitting on a bench, drinking hot coffee from my flask (bao wen ping, lit. ‘keep warm bottle’), listening to the singing - I never get bored with it.
The fishing pool has been drained for the winter and now serves as an impromptu exercise ground for old ladies, popping jumping jacks while singing the old songs. In the summer this is a good spot for a cold beer under the willows, and even in autumn I like to stop here on the way back from a ride. Sitting on a bench, drinking hot coffee from my flask (bao wen ping, lit. ‘keep warm bottle’), listening to the singing - I never get bored with it.
Oddly enough, the open air pool is still open for business and, despite the fact that it’s dropping to -10C at night and there’s a layer of ice on the water, there are still some speedo-wearing maniacs willing to jump in it!
Oddly enough, the open air pool is still open for business and, despite the fact that it’s dropping to -10C at night and there’s a layer of ice on the water, there are still some speedo-wearing maniacs willing to jump in it!
The Great Leap Backward?
Another good article about the environmental price China is paying for its economic development.
November 18, 2007
Urumqi’s oddly clement weather continues. By now the city should be buried under a couple of feet of snow (climate stats and five day forecast), but I’m still riding around in my autumn clothing. The same thing happened last year, a late winter that then didn’t see anything like the usual amount of snowfall. If this is a longterm climate change rather than a blip, the implications for Urumqi are disturbing. It’s a desert city that depends on snowmelt from the adjacent Tien Shan for its water supply. If the snow doesn’t fall in the winter… The city’s expanding fast, with up to 1000 migrants arriving from the east every day in search of a better life, and they all need water. More than that, the vast irrigation projects that have turned the desert green are also dependent on a ready supply of water. As with much of China, imprudent extraction is causing the subterranean aquifers to drop like a stone, leading to problems with salinisation and literally pissing away a resource that is not renewable within a human time frame. The authorities are starting to recognise this, but it’s debatable how much real action is being taken to curb pollution and environmental degradation. That would inevitably lead to a slowdown in economic growth, and the CCP is terrified by the prospect of the social unrest that could generate. Postscript: an interesting essay on the CCP’s environmental record can be found here. Note that if you live in China, you may have to access it via anonymouse.

Urumqi’s oddly clement weather continues. By now the city should be buried under a couple of feet of snow (climate stats and five day forecast), but I’m still riding around in my autumn clothing. The same thing happened last year, a late winter that then didn’t see anything like the usual amount of snowfall.

If this is a longterm climate change rather than a blip, the implications for Urumqi are disturbing. It’s a desert city that depends on snowmelt from the adjacent Tien Shan for its water supply. If the snow doesn’t fall in the winter…

The city’s expanding fast, with up to 1000 migrants arriving from the east every day in search of a better life, and they all need water. More than that, the vast irrigation projects that have turned the desert green are also dependent on a ready supply of water. As with much of China, imprudent extraction is causing the subterranean aquifers to drop like a stone, leading to problems with salinisation and literally pissing away a resource that is not renewable within a human time frame.

The authorities are starting to recognise this, but it’s debatable how much real action is being taken to curb pollution and environmental degradation. That would inevitably lead to a slowdown in economic growth, and the CCP is terrified by the prospect of the social unrest that could generate.

Postscript: an interesting essay on the CCP’s environmental record can be found here. Note that if you live in China, you may have to access it via anonymouse.