En route

A Chinese man told me one day the following: “In fact, China is very simple country. There are five rules to follow: The government is ALWAYS right                   Respect you leader (= is ALWAYS right) Look after your children as they are OUR future Money TALKS…” and… forgot the last one. … Met this Chinese girl the other day; quite westernised with a good command of English. She described me her trip to Hong Kong and added ‘That may surprise you, but we need a special permission to go to HK, even though it’s a part of China. It’s a special autonomic region, you see’. Then I asked her if she had a passport. ‘No’ – she replied. Me, maybe in a bit not politically correct manner, continued my exposition and asked – I read in The Economist that only 5% of Chinese population has a passport (still, it’s around 70 million people), is it really difficult to get one?  -...

I don't long for the streets I know inside-out, I don't miss all these rainy days when you were treating me like shit, making me fall off my bike and scratch my arms. But I do miss what you offer: gourmet coffee in Soho, relative freedom and cultural melting pot, and most importantly, my own places in your bewildering labyrinth of streets, roads, lanes and courtyards. We've been having this long-lasting, love-&-hate relationship that I can't take anymore sometimes . My days in Beijing are coming to an end a vision of seeing you makes me... worried? Whenever I fling back into your arms, you are taken aback and need extra time to get use to me again. All right, let's cut this poetic crap. I've got three weeks left, 7 lessons to go with my students and many sights to explore. Beijing has a lot to offer, including numerous museums (e.g.bizarre-sounding Beijing Museum of Tap Water), evergreen parks, temples and, of course, kilometers of hutongs .  ...