Me Ol' China (week 6)

Dear friend and reader,

this week has been the appendix to the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) and while I write there are still fireworks exploding around Beijing... Will it ever end? Anyway, not much has happened this week as I have been off from work and off from the Chinese streets and shops. MSG, sore throat and excessive exercising has kept me away from life.

I have worked from home but due to poor health I had serious problems in accomplishing a lot so I have been left in company of the TV. You might think that I have watched some Chinese channels, right? No way! HBO, Cinemax, Star movies and... RAI International... I have been watching Italian TV all day long! I have to admit that since last time I had the opportunity of watching the International Channel of the Italian public broadcaster, in 1999 in South America, the quality has improved a lot. I would actually propose it to the Italians as the only public channel. A channel that concentrate the most interesting shows broadcast on the Italian shameful TV channels. Unfortunately to the good quality of the shows there is the usual tragedy of the usual faces. If my grandfather would come back from the dead, he will realise that after 30 years there are still the same people around, the same entertainers, the same journalists and the same politicians. The only difference are the parties.

However on Monday I went to work and I discovered a new excellent restaurant and I found out some new shopping malls and shopping streets. The most singular one was the shopping street around the Oriental Plaza Mall. On a stretch of road there are a few hairdressers whose parlors are very narrow and long in shape but the characteristic is that all the guys and girls working in there and the clients seem to carry the same hair style. There is only one hair style in that road. They all remind me of the Japanese Toons characters like Yoogie Ho (not sure how to write it) and other Japanese Mangas... All straight hair falling on the face in sort of spikes. Not many tainted hair like in Japan but the style is the same all over.

I started looking at the hair style of the youngsters around and I noticed that in that area most of them had that style while just 2 kms away, were I live, the hair style was different: long hair with very small bur intensive curls starting half way between the top of the head and the shoulders. I was really intrigued and I asked a shopkeeper where the closest hair dresser was and I got directed towards a parade of hairdressers where all girls working there had, once again, all the same hair styles.

It really seems that going to hairdressers here in Beijing is like going shopping in a Swatch shop or in a single item shop. I haven't had a cut (or I should say a shave) since I came here and I am afraid that if I will go to visit one I will come out with long curly hair!

On Friday night I have been invited to a party, a house warming party, held by a young Dutch man working here in Beijing. It was pleasant, I have to admit, being able to talk to some westerners after 6 weeks in Beijing and I found extremely interesting exchanging views coming from young students and workers about China and Europe. There was a bunch of Chinese ladies, the Dutch host, one Austrian young lady, a girl from Botswana, some guys from Cuba and a few more arrived later but I had no time to talk to them as, due to my not so young age, by 11 I left the party to go out for dinner.

These 20-odd years old guys have no desire of living in China for good but they all found China being a new frontier, the future of the world and, even more interesting, they see how backward Europe is going in terms of intolerance and building up barriers and looking at its own belly button. I am glad because my view of Europe, from a different perspective is the same that people still in school age and with different ideals and ideas have. It makes me feel younger but less hopeful about the future ahead. You know when you hope to be wrong?

I have to admit that I find them different from the way we were at 20. The amount of cigarettes they smoke and alcohol they can flush down is amazing. In 2 hours there I have seen beers and wine go down in rivers. The Chinese ladies, though, preferred alco-pops and slightly wiser about the amount of cigarettes puffed. The separation between the Chinese and the Westerners was very noticeable and while we were talking about our experiences around the world, the Chinese were taking pictures in all the funniest poses. I was wearing some smart casual attire while the other Big Noses were in a casual or very sexy attire. The Chinese ladies were wearing all black clothing with miniskirts caps or hats and carrying all the most advanced technological gadgets like iPhones, iPods and even a beautiful Sony Vaio. This confirms my impression that Chinese want to have everything technology has to offer and have it now. These ladies drive big cars and they are all educated in top European universities. I have asked them how much they loved living in Europe and unanimously the answer was “very much” but they all had to come back because the mothers missed them… It’s not the first time I hear that. Family is very important in China and the family will is king over here. As I might have mentioned in last week diary, a colleague was surprised by the fact that my parents lived alone and us, children, do not live with them. This is something that goes in strong contradiction with the common feeling of Communist not loving (eating) their children and the fact that 50 years of communism demolish the most basic values. China, under this point of view, represents a very interesting world and it’s the ideal place to demolish all stereotypes. More and more China reveals to be a country where more systems can live side by side where communism and free market live together, where the religious spirit of the citizen is still there and not been replaced by the cult of Marx and Engels and where traditions are highly regarded as the country heritage.

We went out for dinner around 11 o'clock. The girls took me to a restaurant where the specialty is chicken wings made in all sort of sauces. I took the hot hot hot chicken wings. They were really hot but nice. Anyway, 6 people for about 50 chicken wings, some veggies, some noodles and two bottles of orange juice for 17 Euro… Excellent!

During dinner most of the discussion was about public servants. The same type of complaints you hear from Chinese people can be heard in Italy about ours. They were laughing at the "State Officers'" business tools: the newspaper and the mug of tea. And they were laughing about the mug of tea that is usually stained black for the quantity of tea they can drink every day.

During the last week I have been eating Japanese nearly every day with just on exception that has proved the fact that my intolerance to MSG is pretty serious. I recovered perfectly from my eczema and dry skin but after one meal out to a restaurant on Monday, my intolerance showed up again. Vitamins are helping but the Taurine supposed to be the only thing really helping it and I cannot find it in Beijing unless this is a small ingredient in something else used for the eyes or in Red Bull drinks.

I have to admit that eating Japanese every single day is not unbearable and that I can see the health benefits. Fish and veggies can only do a hell of good to you.

I had my first encounter with the (Chinese) Traditional Medicine and Acupuncture. Since I stopped smoking and I had my priorities shuffled up, the most important thing is exercising but due to some arm and leg conditions I cannot do as much as I would love to. I decided to talk to a Chinese doctor and yesterday the gentleman came to my place and after 40 minutes talks to understand all the issues I got him starting working on me and go through one hour massages and 4 needles in my right arm to alleviate the Lung’s channel. I will repeat the experience on a weekly basis to try to sort myself out and continue on the root to wisdom and health after many, too many, years into excessive eating, drinking and smoking.

The weather has improved a lot and yesterday it has been the very first day we have been above zero here in Beijing. People keep complaining about the pollution in this city. For sure the thing that annoys me most is dust. It’s beyond imagination the amount of dust that settles on the furniture. Concerning the pollution I am never tired of saying that Beijing is not even comparable to Rome in terms of car gas. Going back to the weather, this week, the China Daily has published the figures about the weather issues we had and seems like damages are above 16 billion dollars and 107 people lost their lives. It is not included in the calculation the loss of productivity, just the material damages. I think that nobody will forget this January gone.

Anyway, next week seems to be pretty busy for me both as social life and business wise. I will have to face one week in the office entirely by myself with all my team members on holidays and just one colleague, Linda, that will be kind enough to assist me in case of language troubles. But, now that I know that numbers are not always the same in Chinese but, like Japanese, they depend on the circumstances they are used in, I am sure I will have no problem! eh eh eh

This week will be the first time I will enter the subway during rush hours, I will continue my quest for a powerful iron (my clothes are piling up beyond imagination) and I might even hit lucky strike and find some Taurine so that I can go back to a Chinese restaurant! I will keep you posted next week. Have a lovely one guys!

By the way, I received some emails from someone interested in saying their opinion about this blog and in some case to disagree with it. Please, feel free using the comment line and if you have a blog yourself, paste the link into the comment line. As I mentioned other times, this is My China, the way I perceive it, its not China as effectively is. So, nothing wrong in disagreeing, as long as no offensive tones are used, I will certainly not delete comments.

All the best boys and girls and see you next week, in the meantime I am paying special attention to the Italian political developments that are taking a very interesting turn: it seems that our politicians are really going to do something to change this country! I cannot believe it yet but I have never seen some political debates with little or no offenses on one side and the other and all political parties running in a lonely quest to win the elections without compromising. I think that this election law that was criticised for being the main reason of instability is revealing to be the solution to our problems: the main party winning the elections gets 55% of the seats in the lower house. Good luck Italy!