ming’s musings

Whether it’s for good, bad, or the ugly, China is always in the news. The country has been at the forefront for a lot of recent global affairs ranging from the global economic crisis, to North Korea to corporate business dealings.

So what is it like living in the capital city of a country where it’s all ‘happening’?

Times they are a changin’

Walking through the Sanlitun area of Beijing today, it really hit home to me how quickly the city has changed in the short 2 years that I’ve been living here.

Back in July 2007, I arrived in Beijing and the city was in a midst of a building frenzy; the skies were almost always grey and Beijing held the record for the most number of construction cranes in any city on Earth. You could literally scrape off the dirt and grit on your face at the end of the day.

Fast forward to today and most areas that were once barren, sealed off and dusty have now replaced with gleaming ultra-modern architecture and flashy plazas with trendy people sipping coffees and smoothies. What was once a basic subway system with 4 lines has since doubled to cover most of sprawling Beijing. The largest airport terminal in the world has since opened and an extravagant and expensive Olympics has since been held.

Big-name international brands from Apple to H&M have since opened their first stores on the mainland here and there seems to be more lao-wais (foreigners) than ever sipping cocktails and swigging beers on the streets.

However, you do sense that things are slowing down. Although in a far better position to weather the global financial crisis that has impacted many in other countries, China has not been entirely unaffected by it.

A visible impact

Falling exports has resulted in the mass unemployment of migrant workers around the country, a group who make up roughly half of Beijing’s population. Hundred of half-finished buildings in the capital stand idle and stripped of its workers - starved of cash, construction companies have abandoned the project, leaving behind imposing grey shells of concrete and steel.

But it’s not just the blue-collar workers who have suffered in the last year. Some students studying at Wall Street English, who are generally quite well-off, have lost jobs and in some cases have returned to their home countries due to cost-cutting.

What’s apparent, however, is that more people have turned to education and self-improvement in these difficult times in an attempt to gain an edge, any edge, in an increasingly competitive job market.

The Good Life

For English training institutions and schools, the current economic climate has been good for business, and Pearson recognised this by buying up my company. Pursuing and prospering from the ‘open-door’ policy of the 80’s and 90’s, the demand for English training in China has never been higher and with it the need for qualified English teachers. Packages are attractive and foreigners (like myself) find that the standard of living can be a lot better than back home.

So do it guys, leave it all behind and join me

It rocked the region and it’s all over the news, and unsurprisingly there’s huge international outrage over the tests.

Now, North Korea seeking attention using controversial methods is nothing new, but this time I’m more concerned. Why?

Because I’m going to South Korea in 2 days to see my girlfriend…..Yeah.

Ah well, as long as we don’t fallout I’m happy.

Oowwwwwwwww!

Growing up in the U.K, and ever since my teenage years, I’ve always thought that my life was a little bit different from others.

Some people I’d meet in the U.K. would ask me where I was from and, with an English accent, I’d reply with “Hampshire”. Overlooking my obviously English accent, they’d then go on to ask me “so where are you originally from?” - to which I’d reply: “Originally? Well that’d be Surrey… I was born in Guildford”.

I just loved playing on these sort of questions, reveling in the askers’ confused facial reaction and the following awkward silence.

As a first generation BBC and young teenager growing up in the U.K, having this kind of ‘dual’ identity is a unique experience to say the least. I grew up in a bi-lingual environment, grew up with 2 ways of thinking, celebrated solar and lunar calendar holidays - it’s kind of like a double life, like Batman except without the suit.

Wait, it’s more like Bananaman actually, if any of you can remember that cartoon.

So let’s fast forward to the present, to my time here in Beijing.

As a so-called ‘banana’ (yellow on the outside, white on the inside), my time in Beijing has been equally as entertaining.

Naturally, everybody I meet to begin with think I’m Chinese and can speak fluent Mandarin (I can’t yet by the way). Whenever I have dinner with my western friends, the waiter/waitress looks at me me and asks me what everybody would like to eat.

Often, my friends would speak Chinese and despite it being pretty much near perfect, it’s like the waiter has an automatic block on foreign faces speaking Chinese, and they would look at me expecting me to ‘translate’ for them - much to my amusement, but not my friends’.

On the subway, someone once told me how good my English was.

I said thanks

From my year-and-a-half of living in China, I’ve become accustomed to the various centralised aspects of life here.

The CCTV (China Central Television) channels and China Daily newspaper are state-owned, even the heating in homes is government controlled (they turn on the heating when winter approaches - bringing a completely new meaning to the term ‘central-heating’).

Just when I thought that I’d seen everything, it turns out that the recent snowfall here in Beijing was government-controlled too! Apparently concerned by the lack of rainfall in Beijing for well over 100 days, the authorities decided to fire silver iodide sticks in order to seed clouds and induce snow-fall.

The snowflakes had a metallic taste, now I know why..