Happy 2006 Everyone!

A little bit late, but Happy New Year to all! Hope you had a great time. Mine was certainly interesting... but more of that in a bit.

Over in QD the weather is chilly, the net bars are now taking passport and ID numbers before use - strange, but on the upside the number of chain smoking day and night customers is well down. End of term exams were amusing. Having not attended the bulk of culture classes (for reasons of not wanting to waste 8hrs a week or learn words like 'fire signal rampart'), university decided I still had to sit 'AN' exam so that I had four results... so with one evening to learn a whole text book I attended the highest level groups' business exam... interesting stuff, though the exam was rather strange. Luckily I'm covering some of the same material with another tutor. What else? Ah, starting to look at the economic sections of newspapers, learnt the word for 'flagship store', and had a ball watching the original of 'Oliver' in Chinese the other day. For some reason Mandarin really suits Fagin.

So New Years: My Aussie friend here, GaoFei, who just left, was asked to attend an 'investment conference'. The content, location, and people involved were all a rather unclear, so he asked me if I minded sacrificing NY Eve to go with. What a bloody relief, I leapt at the chance. We donned out suits and went to JiangSu to inspect wood factories, be wined and dined, sing Karaoke badly, and practice our Chinese. Why? Because a local businessman originally from the growing town that we were in had promised his friends he would introduce some investors to their new 'investment district project'. We were of course those very 'investors'. So we got fed bu the top communist officials and inundated with business cards, our local entrepreneur got to impress his friends, his friends got to entertain two westerners and practice their pitch... and everyone left feeling pretty happy. The only hitch was me projectile vomiting at opportune moments, which I think terrified our hosts. So in the photos I'm an interesting shade of ghost white.

The wood factory was actually fascinating for a number of reasons - the people in it, the work systems, and the glaring differences to other factories I've seen - but I won't bore you with that.

So that's it, my three China goals have all been realised (aside from the language learning).

1) To ride a motorbike down a Chinese street, girl on the back hugging me for dear life. The fact that it was an electric scooter and she was the local dry-cleaner helping me get a new phone should not detract in any way.

2) Be on Chinese TV. 22nd to 26th Jan 'my cafe' is on TV and guess who was filmed eating a sandwich there!? Yes, none other that Moi. Sadly not in Qingdao then to watch it.

3) Be wined and dined by local officials and given tours of factories, while hopefully chatting business. Don't ask why on earth that would be a goal... but its' done! The 7 voms added colour to the occasion.

Now just to consolidate for a bit, get ready to head back, play around with the newspapers, and spend too much time in the local bookshops, and enjoy using what I've learnt out here while I have the chance. Am sure there'll be another blog before I head back, but the days are still busy as ever, if not more so...

Keep well, wishing everyone a great 2006!

Dan.
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