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 Twenty packages arrived from China yesterday; boxes we sent three months ago (by sea). So now begins the slow task of opening them and deciding where everything goes. Thankfully, we got our attic boarded last month - just in time - so at least we have somewhere to store the boxes whose contents we don't need right away. It's a timely reminder of our past life, and how far we have come over the last couple of months! Six more boxes to come sometime later...
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In about the same time as Britain has been debating, planning and starting to build "HS2" - its high-speed rail track from London to Birmingham - China has been connecting 31 of it 33 provincial regions with 40,000km (25,000 miles) of high speed railway. Maybe there's something to be said for Governments who don't have to worry about public opinion!!   The last time I was in Beijing in the 1990s, Tiananmen Square was somewhere where you turned up and just wandered about. Now you need to book your visit 5 days in advance and pass through three different security checks to get anywhere close.  After seeing the Square (declining the two hour queue to see Chairman Mao's embalmed body - I've seen it before) we headed for the nearby National Museum (also booked 5 days ago). More security checks and long queues. The items displayed were very impressive, but the place was packed with Chinese (very few foreigners) so we just gave it a few hours before heading back to our hotel.
Whenever there's an important Government get-together in Beijing, the "powers that be" flick a switch and suddenly VPNs no longer work. VPNs are the software products that (normally) spoof the internet into thinking you are in another country and thus get round the "Great Firewall of China" which blocks Chinese citizens from using "dangerous" apps like Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Google, Yahoo, BBC, etc.  I rely on VPNs to keep in touch with the rest of the world and the Chinese Government appears to tolerate them most of the time. But it just goes to show that when they really want to cut China off from the outside world, they can! Another reason to return home...
This is typical Chinese parking. Drive down the middle of the road, spot some dumplings for sale, and just stop. Nobody can get past you. And the amazing thing is that other drivers just patiently wait for the car to move again, once the driver has bought his snack and wandered back!  I read a BBC article with some good news about China the other day. Although China is still one of the top polluting countries in the world, its efforts to switch to cleaner energy are huge and growing fast.  China already has more large-scale solar energy power plants than all other countries added together. And Chinese Solar/Wind energy is set to more than double in just two years time - faster than anyone predicted. Sure, China is still building coal power stations at some pace, but there does seem to be a genuine desire for a renewable future.
Sometimes the propaganda text messages I receive on my phone make me chuckle. But I will certainly try my best to learn from this deep-sea pioneer...!?   Saw this gorgeous and huge (but sadly deceased) moth yesterday. I'm going to miss the bonkers wildlife here when we return to the UK.
 This is what happens when your discover your Green Card has your name as "Hider, Paul John" (space after the comma) but your Social Security card has your name as "Hider,Paul John" (no space after the comma) ...chaos ensues.  The system assumes you are two separate people and the kindly, but bewildered, staff at the Social Security Office, unfamiliar as they are with foreign names, can't work out how to rectify it.
After two hours, the problem was finally solved ...we think!  It's interesting to see the recent G7 Conference focusing as much on the "threat" from China as the Russia/Ukraine war. We've certainly noticed an increase in the confidence of the Chinese Government to throw its weight around, both domestically and internationally, in recent months and years. Time for us to move on, perhaps?
 Wonder how many roast duck meals this restaurant gets through!
 Jiajia bought some multi-use cleaning fluid recently. But the examples of what it could clean got progressively weirder!
 I woke yesterday to text messages informing us that all Primary and Secondary schools are closing again, for at least three days. Yes, COVID is still perceived as a major threat to life in China and, with 100 positive cases in Kunming (pop: 7m) and three deaths in Beijing (4 hours flight away) life here grinds to a halt, once again! Today my University went into lockdown. We will probably have to teach online again next week. Groan!  Meanwhile, we all have to queue for 30-45 minutes every day or two to be tested, and guards check everyone's phone health codes at work, on buses, in parks and shops etc. After three years of this it really has gone beyond tiresome, especially when the rest of the world (using vaccines that actually work!) seems to have moved on.
P.S. As I suspected, all teaching is online again until further notice...
This graphic shows the current world reaction to COVID-19. Blue means "No restrictions", Orange is "Limited restrictions" while Red is "Full restrictions to maintain a zero-COVID policy". China is on its own!  So I started my term doing online lesson, JD's school has been closed this week because of two COVID cases found in a town near Kunming and, as now (with 25 more cases found) we are all required to attend a testing centre every other day. Will it never end?
Sometimes your name just defines what job you will do.   One thing I like about the Chinese people is the default position of fixing things, rather than just chucking them away. Usually, anyway.
 I was asked by my University to attend a "Thematic Briefing on the Sixth Plenary Session of the Nineteenth CPC Central Committee" yesterday. To be fair, the organisers tried their best to make it accessible and fairly interesting (Powerpoints in English, real-time translations, phone app "games", gifts, etc) but there's only so much fun you can wring out of "XiJingPing Marxism Thought"!?
Mobile phones in China get various messages from Government sources every day. I usually ignore them but yesterday, just out of interest, I translated one of them. It was typically bonkers!  This is JD [bottom row, towards the right] as his class are about to launch into a patriotic song they've been learning recently, Lyrics include, "The glorious People's Party is the sun that warms the ground in China!" ...helps explain global warming.  Phones here get regular unsolicited texts from "the powers that be". Translating them gives a little insight into the 24/7 propaganda that is part of Chinese life (especially if you can read Chinese characters!). 
Posters have been put up all around town over the last month or so, reminding people that the great Communist Party of China is celebrating 100 years (yesterday). Happy Anniversary, CPC! My phone translates the poster content as a heady mix of self-congratulatory and confusing messages. Most Chinese people I know just shrug. Politics and its associated propaganda are not a conversational priority here.
This is a fairly common sight in the Chinese countryside - boards laid alongside the wheel arches of parked cars and vans  It's taken me some time to find out what the reason is. I'm told on good authority it is to stop dogs weeing on the tyres, because of the belief that their urine degrades tyres and causes punctures. I'm not sure dogs really do that, or that their urine has any effect at all but hey, this is China! Facts often have no bearing on local traditions.
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 AuthorPaul Hider started this blog to share his rather odd life living in China for over 20 years. Since returning to the UK in 2024, the blog now records his more "normal" lifestyle! Past blog entries
December 2024
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