A one-horse space race

In August, the entire Chinese population got very very excited about the Olympics. At the beginning of September they got pretty damned excited about the Paralympics. And now, just when you thought no further demonstrations of national excitement were possible without mass spontaneous combustion occurring, they’re getting excited all over again about China’s third-ever manned space mission, the Shengzhou 7, and first-ever spacewalk. You wait 50 years and then three come along at once.

Of course, it’s probably no coincidence that they’ve launched the spaceship this year, or indeed at this particular juncture when – Tibet and melamine-flavoured milk aside – China’s image in the world is perceived as being a positive one on which they can build. There’s been a lot of talk about ‘confidence’ and ‘transparency’ – the idea being, it seems, to justify the vast amounts of money spent on such projects (each space suit alone cost $4.5 million US) on the grounds that it will attract more foreign investment to China by showing how far they’ve come as a modern nation. One commentator summed it up by saying that the reason why it has taken until now – more than forty years after the first space walk was conducted by the Soviet Union in 1965 – for China to reach this level of technological achievement was that, unlike the former USSR and America, China has not been competing with anyone to show its dominance of space. China is, he said, ‘only in a race with itself’. In which, of course, as in a one-party state, there can be only one winner.

As I’ve had nothing better to do this week, and as we’ve only got one TV channel (assuming I don’t want to sit through hours of Chinese game shows, karaoke shows and badly acted costume dramas; funny how you can tell they’re badly acted even when you can’t understand a word), over the last couple of days I’ve been following live coverage of the space mission, at least for as long as I can stand it. Having been MUCH too young to watch the moon landings this was, as far as I can recall, my first experience of live space broadcasting, and bloody hell is it boring. It was also China’s first attempt at making such a programme (they were going to do a live transmission of the last manned space launch in 2005, but wimped out at the last minute in case it blew up or something), and it showed.

Apart from amusing little touches like the fact that the rocket which launched the spaceship was called ‘Long March’ (how long can they keep milking that one?), and that the rows upon rows of technicians at the Beijing mission control base were, inexplicably, dressed in jannies’ overalls, the programme – whose intro featured suitably Star Wars-type music and graphics – made excruciating watching. Mostly, nothing was happening, but as with all live broadcasts where they’re waiting for some momentous event they tried to fill the time by discussing pointless minutiae and attempting to explain the proceedings to the uninitiated viewer. To this end, they’d invited a couple of experts – a Chinese scientist and an American academic - into the studio, where a female presenter struggled valiantly to make them say something interesting enough to fill half an hour or so.

The trouble was that the Chinese guy had clearly learnt his English from an aeronautics textbook and didn’t know any words of fewer than four syllables. She’d ask him a ditsy question like ‘So where are the astronauts sitting right now?’, and he’d drone on along the lines of ‘ah re-entry module velocity elliptical orbit component verification blah blah’ for about ten minutes in a robotic Chinese monotone, whereupon she’d titter ‘Oh ha ha, I’m getting a bit lost now, this is a bit technical for me, ha ha! Professor Lewis, maybe you can put it in simpler terms for us?’ Unfortunately, however, he couldn’t, being possessed of – if it’s possible – an EVEN MORE robotic and boring style of delivery than the first bloke. Obviously the director had just looked at these guys’ qualifications on paper and decided, ‘Yeah, they sound intelligent, let’s get them in’ – without troubling to audition them to see if they were remotely suitable for telly or should really have been left locked up in a deserted castle somewhere with lots of bubbling test-tubes and a servant called Igor.

On Day 2, the first Chinese scientist had been replaced by a second, whose command of English was sketchy and unintelligible. Professor Lewis was still there and starting to emerge as front runner. By Day 3, with Chinese scientists nos. 3 and 4 trying their luck, he had come to realise that he was the unlikely star of the show, and was warming to his role. ‘Their blood would BOIL !’, he exclaimed with glee - talking about the effects of failure to depressurise correctly - holding up his fingers like an Italian chef savouring a particularly flavoursome sauce. ‘It would cause excruciating PAIN, and possibly even KILL the astronauts!’, he added, a demonic glint in his eye.

Anyway, amidst all this, some facts which may have escaped you in the old west. All the astronauts are aged 42 and considered to be at their physical peak, which gives me hope that I’m not quite over the hill yet. Mind you, for the last two years they’ve been living in special training camps eating space-food, only being allowed home at weekends, and for the last couple of weeks haven’t been allowed home at all in case they caught a virus.

Two of them, Zhai Zhigang who did the spacewalk and his backup Liu Boming, are from Heilongjiang - where we are. Our boys in space; almost makes you proud. They didn’t say they’re from Harbin so I would imagine they’re from little one-horse towns – the equivalent of having two guys from Auchtermuchty and Ecclefechan up there. Zhai Zhigang in particular, it seems, came from a very poor family. His father was infirm and his mother made her living selling toasted sunflower seeds on the street. The story – romanticised possibly – is that when he passed the entrance exam for the army, she borrowed 15 Yuan (about £1.25) from a neighbour to buy him a briefcase, but all she had to put in it was toasted sunflower seeds, so that’s what he went off to army training camp with.

She didn’t live to see her son become a national hero.

G'day folks

I’ve finally worked it out. My so-called broadband-which-isn’t-really-it’s-dial-up internet connection – if such a lumbering, clunking thing over which it is impossible to upload even the shortest video clip in less than an hour really merits the name ‘connection’ – thinks I’m in Australia. Or if not in the country itself, then its environs. (Does Australia have environs?)

This explains why
a) I can see all the websites (including this one) which I’m not supposed to be able to see from China, and yet my VPN which I purchased for this express purpose before leaving the UK doesn’t work, implying there’s a proxy server somewhere;
b) when I went to renew my anti-virus software the other day, the price came up in dollars. I assumed it meant US dollars and went to the drop-down box where it said ‘Change currency’ – and the two options it gave me were Australian dollars or New Zealand dollars. Big choice there, then.
c) when I try to find out what’s happening in Neighbours, I can’t get off the Australian version of the site no matter how hard I try, so all the storylines are three months ahead – though annoyingly it won’t let me actually watch the videos. But I DO know that Libby…. oh no, I couldn’t possibly tell.

So I say good on ya, cobber, to my Chinese landlords, who must have had the same devious idea as me and set up something to bypass the blockade. I’m SLIGHTLY annoyed at having forked out £20 for a VPN which is effectively redundant. I suppose I can use it in hotels, but usually their internet connections are unrestricted anyway. Still, my fault for being hyper-efficient and buying it in advance rather than waiting till we got here to see if we actually needed it.

By the way, thanks to all for your emails and comments on this blog. I really do appreciate them and apologise for not responding. It’s just that what with having to connect the modem and dial up every time as if it was – God – 1998 or something! [snorts in contempt], and needing to communicate with Peter who’s been in the UK all week, I’ve just not really got round to it. But I’m thrilled you’re all reading, and I never intended this to be one-way communication so I promise I’ll make a better effort. Claire, I’m glad I made you laugh but I was deadly serious about the face creams! Congrats to Rachael & Jake. Arno, actually I miss Polwarth – a bit! Lucy, are you out there?

Just going to crack open a can of Foster’s and put another shrimp on the barby.

Water, water, everywhere

I do so hope you can see these pictures clearly. This is several official men, including a uniformed security guard (later joined by a second), trying to clear up a major leak from a manhole cover in our courtyard by sweeping at it with broomsticks - proper ones, as ridden by the Wicked Witch of the West (though of course she'd have melted in so much water).

This was the scene I came home to today - about three inches of water outside our front door due to I don't know what, but enough to make them shut off the water to the whole building earlier, without warning or explanation.

This was somewhat disturbing because we pay for our water by the primitive means of a card inserted into a meter under the sink. When I asked our interpreter, Kevin, what would happen when this ran out, he said, 'The water will stop', as if this was the most obvious and normal thing in the world. Our landlords had offered to pay for the water for a year in advance for us, but as they'd failed to get a fa piao, Kevin had sucked his teeth in a jobsworth manner and they took the card away.

Hence my panic today, but fortunately Kevin's phone was engaged, and I was just about to go over to the office to harangue him when an almighty gurgling erupted from our toilets and the water came back on.

Milk matters

Don’t know how much coverage there’s been in the UK of the news story about tainted baby milk powder. Here, it’s vied with the Paralympics for biggest news of the week – at least on the one English-language TV channel we currently have, which shows the news every couple of hours so you tend to get to know it off by heart!

Basically several of the big dairy companies have been found to be producing infant formula powder tainted with melamine (the stuff kitchen shelves used to be made from), which unscrupulous local producers have been adding, in order to make a quick buck by disguising the fact that they’re watering down the milk. Apparently it was the New Zealand-based parent company of one of the dairies who did a random quality-control test, spotted it and blew the whistle. At least four babies have died and hundreds more are ill as a result. It’s just too horrible to think about. If ever there was a time to feel grateful that I’ve so far failed to produce a baby, this is probably it.

But like all these scares, positives will (and indeed already have) come out of it. Peter – being the expert & all – says that it will professionalise the dairy industry here, which after all has only been in existence for about fifteen years. Apparently it’s been common practice for ‘peasant’ farmers [I don’t like to use that word but can’t think of a better one] who own one or two cows to walk them daily to a local milking station, where their milk is then sold on to the big dairies. This earns them a bit more money, and adds to the milk yield for the big dairies who are, it seems, struggling to meet the growing demand.

Certainly the milk section of the supermarket is always very busy and there seem to be hundreds of brands and different types of milk. In Heilongjiang province we're fortunate in that all of the local dairies have tested melamine-free. Incidentally, we’ve learnt that if it looks like a milk carton, it’s probably yoghurt. Milk tends to come in bags. Yes, little plastic bags from which it is impossible to pour unless you snip off the corner and put them into – you guessed it – an empty carton. As they say, you figure it out. We, however, have a milkman! Well, technically we don’t at the moment, but we did and we will again very soon. He (or she, never seen him/her, and never likely to) comes at 5am, seven days a week, and deposits two of said little bags, containing real fresh milk, not UHT – which is a miracle – in a little polystyrene-insulated box attached to the wall outside the door of our flat! What are the chances of that? Who knows, maybe the whole ‘milk delivery’ idea will catch on in the UK (!).


Oh, while I’m off tack slightly, one source of light relief in all this is the fact that Chinese newsreaders are having some difficulty with saying the word ‘dairy’ repeatedly (as I’m having some typing it repeatedly, actually). ‘Diary’ is quite common, but there was one report we watched which referred more than once to ‘diarrhoea’ companies. Possibly strangely apt in a sick kind of way!

Anyway, it’s at the local milking stations that the problem has been occurring. Several people have been arrested, and the head of the main dairy company involved has been sacked, along with (for some reason) the mayor of the region where the scandal first came to light. More importantly, a much more rigorous system of quality controls has already been put into place, and Peter reckons the use of milking stations will cease, peasant farmers will find another way to make money, and the dairy companies will have to use bigger herds of their own – which ultimately will mean more business for his firm. As several other companies have now been implicated, chances are there will be more sackings and arrests. What’s interesting is that if this happened in Europe or America, I bet these people would have resigned without waiting to be sacked, but here the done thing seems to be to wait to get caught before you admit to anything or take responsibility. ‘A shame culture, not a guilt culture’, Peter read somewhere.


Hence, I dare say, the reason why no one will take charge of our visa situation. I can hardly believe that as I type this, Peter is up in the sky on his way back to Edinburgh without me. Before anyone gets excited, it’ll be a flying [pardon the pun] visit; he’ll be in Yorkshire most of the week and hopefully back to China next weekend. We await the verdict on whether I’ll have to do the same in October. Meanwhile, I’m alone on the bridge, watching out for Klingons as I eat my lunch.

Spot check

Here’s a good thing about China.

Cursed as I am with somewhat oily skin, I have spent the past 20 (ok, try 25) years in a perennial quest for good skin products to help with same. In the UK, this is an extremely frustrating task. There isn’t much on the market, and what little there is tends to be found in the ‘teenage’ section of most chemists, which is not only a rather embarrassing place to be seen shopping at my age, but also means the products are cheap and, ergo, useless.

From time to time, one of the higher-end cosmetic firms brings out a product aimed at the grease-coated among us. I buy it, use it for a few months or, if I’m lucky, a couple of years, and start to think my troubles are over. And then one day I go to replace my almost-empty bottle or tube, and am told the product has been discontinued ‘due to lack of demand’. This happens every time without fail.

‘Demand?!’ I want to scream. ‘I’ll give you demand! If you’d taken the trouble to ASK, or WARN ME [they never do] that you’re about to discontinue the damn stuff, I’d have bought every bottle within a 100-mile radius! There may not be many of us, but those of us who do buy these things REALLY REALLY NEED THEM so please could you just NOT do this? Please?’ Yes you, the ex-makers of, among others, Christian Dior Ultra-Mat lotion, Clinique Turnaround for Oily Skins, and even the late lamented Body Shop Lemon Oat Facial Wash (ah, those were the days), it’s YOU I’m talking to.

So, imagine my delight when I first entered the toiletries section of a Chinese supermarket, to see aisle after aisle of products ALL for oily skins! Good ones. This was incredible! It was like I’d died and gone to acne heaven. But you know what? Most of them were by recognisable western brands, but the products themselves were unfamiliar to me. Which can only mean the bastard manufacturers are making these things purely for the Asian market.

I feel cheated! There I’ve been, chasing some holy grail of blackhead removal all over the UK for decades, when all the time Chinese women have had this stuff on tap. Clearly some market researchers have concluded that western women are ‘all’ worried about ‘dryness’ and ‘ageing’, while their Chinese counterparts’ concerns are shiny noses, blocked pores and zits. Do the Chinese have greasier skin than westerners? I can’t say I’ve noticed, but then they’ve had access to good products.

But now I’m on to them. So, while any western woman coming out here should make sure she ships out plenty of deodorant, good soap & toothpaste, disposable ladies’ razors, fake tan if you’re into that kind of thing, and above all tampons [why, China, why?], oh and I suppose products for dry skin if you do have it!, I will be shipping back, when I eventually leave, vast quantities of cleansers, toners, facial scrubs, masks, spot creams, oil-free moisturisers and matifying lotions.

And the best thing is, when I run out, I know where to go to get more.

I love you, Chinese women, every spotty, greasy one of you.

Annoyed

I was going to show you a video of our space-age shower, but haven't got the right lead to upload it from my camcorder to my laptop. Then I thought I'd show you one of a torrential downpour / hailstorm outside the supermarket the other day, which I filmed on the normal camera, but I'm on a crappy dial-up ADSL line so it won't work, even on YouTube, for now. Sorry.

Anyway, all this has now been overshadowed by the news I've just received, that due to more unbelievable visa screw-ups, not only does Peter have to fly back to the UK next week to get his visa, but it looks quite likely that I will also have to fly back, separately, in a couple of weeks, to get mine.

I am not happy about it. Not at all.

But at least I've got a shopping trolley.

It's home, Jim, but not as we know it

Above are some pics of our new flat, which we moved into this weekend. Apologies for the lack of posts for a few days but we've only just got online.

The flat is huge (there are several more rooms, not shown above) and is like the Starship Enterprise. I almost keep expecting the doors to do that 'shhp, shhp' thing.

Next time, a video.

Remember the Green Cross Code?

Yeah, well, if you come to China you may as well forget it. I tell you, if Dave Prowse hadn’t got that George Lucas gig he’d have had plenty of work here to see him into ripe old age.

Forget Look Right, Look Left etc. Here it’s more a case of, Look Left, Look Right, Look Left Again, Look Around Wildly in All Directions, Panic, Start to Cross, Realise That Cars Are Still Coming Even Though Green Man is Showing, Run Back to Pavement, Repeat Process Several Times, Give Up If Want to Stay Alive, Wait For An Eternity, See a Chinese Person Crossing and Stick Very Close Behind Them While Being Prepared to Dodge Rapidly Moving Taxis Which Will Stop For No Man. Doesn’t really trip off the tongue, does it?

Actually, they have a very sensible system for traffic lights which show how many seconds there are to count down until they change to green and the red man comes on. There’s no way for pedestrians to control the red & green men, but the lights change with sufficient frequency to make this not a problem. Except that the green man doesn’t actually mean ‘It’s safe to cross now’. It means, as far as I can deduce, ‘You probably have about a 50% less chance of being killed if you go now than if you wait until the lights change again’. This is because a red traffic light DOESN’T apply to traffic turning right OR left (!), or to bikes & scooters, which have their own lane in Harbin (a minor improvement on Shanghai where the bike & scooter lane doubles as, er, the pavement). And as the roads here are nearly all huge, wide, four-lane boulevards which have to be crossed in stages, it can be challenging to say the least.

The other thing is the car horns. They are incessant, and seem to indicate, ‘I have no intention of stopping, so if you [be you a pedestrian, cyclist or other driver] don’t want to die, get out of my way’. There’s no lane discipline as we understand it; they use the American system where undertaking (never has a word been more apt!) is allowed as well as overtaking, and at roundabouts everyone just sort of pushes forward optimistically, blasting their horns until someone lets them through. It’s kind of traffic Darwinism.

Getting in a car or taxi is a white-knuckle ride, compounded by the fact that many don’t have functioning seatbelts except for the driver, who never wears his anyway. But then the Chinese attitude towards protective clothing and safety gear seems ambiguous. In Shanghai, anyone who has to work, cycle, or even walk in close proximity to traffic wears a surgical mask to protect them from exhaust fumes. Pedestrians carry umbrellas to shield them from the sun. Scooter-riders and cyclists wear sun visors, and weird detachable cotton sleeves, elasticated at the top & bottom, to cover their arms if they’re wearing a short-sleeved shirt. The thing absolutely no-one wears is a helmet. But at least if they get knocked down and mangled to pieces by the relentless, high-speed, multi-directional traffic, they’ll have nice clean lungs and their arms won’t be sunburnt. So that’s ok.

If you want to read further thoughts on Chinese driving, as well as many other aspects of what it’s like to be a British woman living in China, do check out my fellow blogger at http://livingthehailife.blogspot.com/.
What she has to say about culture shock, Chinese food, Chinese sleeping habits, Chinglish, shopping, Tampax and the unavailability thereof in China – to name but a few – I simply cannot improve upon or add to. It’s exactly as she describes it. Her recent description of the visa medical which I mentioned last week is accurate too, though I was fortunate enough not to have had any intimate surgery to have to explain to Chinese doctors.

Incidentally, you may like to know that according to my medical results I ‘Be in basically normal health status’, but that a UK size 14 is considered ‘Obese’ here. I’m still fuming every time I think about it.

Fa piao

Above is the only word of Chinese I have used so far. It’s the first one I learnt, and is still the only one that Peter’s boss knows after nearly a year in China. What could be SO important?, you may ask. It doesn’t mean ‘Hello’ or ‘Thank you’, though I can just about manage both of those as well. It doesn’t mean ‘Toilet’, or even ‘Beer’, which are the two words we always say anyone should learn (preferably as a pair!) in any language.

No, prosaically enough it means ‘receipt’. But not just any old receipt. The little scrap of paper printed in purple ink which is spewed out by your Chinese cash register, just like any other the world over, is not a fa piao. Oh dear me no. A fa piao is a special receipt or tax invoice which is issued separately from the basic receipt, and is required for claiming anything back on expenses, which means that we need one for every hotel, every flight, every meal in a restaurant, every trip to the supermarket – be it for a monthly stock-up or just for a pint of milk (not that you can get a pint of milk, but that’s another story) – every household appliance, kitchen utensil, book, essential item of clothing, probably non-essential item of clothing, and so on. Fa piao, fa piao, fa piao.

Here’s how my first attempt at obtaining one went. Last Friday I popped into the supermarket near the hotel in Harbin. Having ridden the storm of Chinese shop staff pestering you with their incessant sales pitch and refusing to be deterred even when you make it clear you have no idea what they’re talking about, which happens whenever you go shopping, I took my goods to the checkout and as she handed me the receipt, bracing myself, I ventured, ‘Fa piao?’

She said something and gesticulated in the direction of the exit. I’d been expecting this, as I knew that it would be issued at some kind of customer service desk, so I smiled, nodded and headed that way. At the exit into the main shopping mall, a bored-looking girl was checking and stamping – well, glancing at and stamping – everyone’s till receipt as they left the shop. ‘Fa piao?’ I tried again, a little less sure of myself. Without looking up she waved her hand further on, and eventually, about 100 yards outside the shop proper, was a desk proudly proclaiming ‘ISSUE TAX INVOICE’ in English, along with a lot of Chinese stuff.

A staff of three girls in red polo shirts were behind the desk, and a lone female customer sat on one of a row of red plastic stools in front of it. Confident I was in the right place this time, I approached the desk and offered my till receipt. ‘Fa piao?’ I repeated once more.

‘Blah blah blah blah fa piao blah-blah blah blah. Blah!’ she replied in some agitation, shaking her head and gesticulating animatedly.

I couldn’t see how this could possibly be the case. As supporting evidence I pointed to the ‘ISSUE TAX INVOICE’ sign above my head with an expression of some affront. ‘Blah blah! Blah blah blah-blah blah. Blah-blah. Blah blah blah!’, she insisted.

‘Sorry, I don’t understand’, I said, feeling like a fool. All four of them were staring at me now. The three girls looked at each other and laughed. ‘English?’ I asked hopefully, although for some reason I found myself pronouncing it ‘eengleesh?’, as though me sounding foreign would somehow help us to understand one another. More looks and more laughter. Laughter in China, I tried to remind myself, is often used to cover social embarrassment and doesn’t necessarily mean they think you’re hilarious. Though in this case it may have done. Eventually the lady sitting at the counter came to my rescue. ‘You can take this’ (indicating my receipt) ‘and come back in two days’, she said. Without waiting to try and find out why, I said ‘Ok’ and scuttled off.

At the weekend, Peter went to the same supermarket for more stuff, and came back announcing that fa piao’s were only issued on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. I have no idea how he found this out, but on Monday morning I duly presented myself and my two receipts at the fa piao counter. Monday morning was clearly peak fa piao hour. There was a queue, headed by a lady with what looked like her entire extended family in tow and a giant wad of receipts, which the red-shirt girls were arguing with her and each other over, whilst jabbing at a calculator and attempting to convert them into multiple fa piao’s.

I sat on one of the stools and waited. Impatience in China, I intoned inwardly, quoting one of our guide books, is seen as a serious character flaw – though in fact this doesn’t seem to apply to queue-jumping which is more of an Olympic sport, and one at which they excel. The enforced delay enabled me to check out a sign listing the other services offered at the desk, which included ‘Umbrella service on raining days’, ‘Give straws small spoons, toilet papers’, and ‘Filling with air the bicycle wheels’. I also observed the fa piao issue procedure, which involved adding up the receipts and filling in the details in a small triplicate book. This book had no perforations so they sliced each page out with a razor blade, carefully cutting around different sections on the stub according to some unknown criterion, and then finally used the razor blade again to slice off the bottom centimetre of the till receipts showing the totals, and stapled these to their copy of the fa piao. Nothing to it, I thought. I can handle this.

I did notice that the customers appeared to be telling them what to write and that they were asking a lot of questions, but thought maybe these people had special requirements or that they were just chatting. However, when it finally came to my turn (which wasn’t before extended family lady had left, come back again and leaned over my right shoulder to rant loudly for a full five minutes) she asked me a question. I looked blank, so she turned over the receipt, wrote something on the back in Chinese characters and looked at me expectantly. I shook my head again, she gave up and went on the the next person (a guy on my left who’d been desperate to push in front of me the whole time). I waited a minute, saw she had no intention of pursuing my case and then left.

Peter, at lunch: ‘Oh, they just want to know who to make it out to.’ (How does he KNOW this stuff?). ‘Here, take my business card. Give them this company name. It’ll be fine.’ ‘Are you sure that’s all they need?’, I say. ‘Oh yes, definitely’, he says.

So, fa piao, Take Three. Monday afternoon. I return to the desk. Smaller queue. Girl who tried to serve me in the morning goes past, smiles at me. I wave the business card with a knowing look. She smiles again. Guy with the girls behind the desk this time, who seems to want to take charge. ‘Blah blah fa piao blah-blah?’ he enquires on seeing me. I nod. He nods and indicates the queue. I nod again. So far so good. I wait. Again.

Alas, however, the magic business card seems to cause no end of confusion. Whether this is due to the fact that it’s a company they’ve never heard of, or the illegibility (to a Chinese person) of the acronym-style logo, or what, is unclear, but the girl runs off into the back office with it, gets all three of them looking at it; they turn it over and over, looking at both the Chinese and English sides; lots of animated discussion. I keep trying to explain, but the girls seem determined not to understand, and the guy keeps writing long screeds of Chinese on a piece of paper, finishing with a question mark, and then pushing it towards me with an enquiring look. For goodness sake, I want to say, I’m foreign, not deaf – how is you writing it down supposed to help?

Finally he takes the card and writes some version of the company name on the fa piao. He gets the calculator and tots up my receipts. Great, I think, hallelujah, we’re there. But no. He asks me something else. I shake my head. He goes through the ‘writing it down’ pantomime again. Exasperated, I say in English, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t read Chinese!’ This results in him getting his mobile out and calling Management. The conversation was, obviously, all in Chinese but was utterly comprehensible.

Fa piao guy: Sorry, boss, we got a bit of a situation down here. Idiotic foreign woman wants a fa piao but we can’t get any information out of her.
Boss (on phone): How much is it for?
FPG: Not much, about 300 yuan [about 25 quid]. Tracey here says it’s the second time she’s been in today. Doesn’t speak a word of Chinese. Bloody ridiculous. Thing is, she’s holding up the queue and we wouldn’t want anyone getting impatient for a minute, now would we?
Boss: Well it’s not worth losing sleep over, Dave. Just give her the damn fa piao and get rid of her.

So they did. I suspect all of us are traumatised by the experience.

Just to clear a couple of things up

Firstly, Harbin isn't technica-lly in Siberia. It nearly is, and it sounded good. Administratively it's in Heilongjiang province; regionally speaking it's in Manchuria (you know, that place that had a Candidate). But if you went about 300 miles north of here, you would be over the Russian border and in, yes, Siberia. Also, you know how when you’re going on holiday, and you suggest packing some obscure item which you might just need, or even extra toothpaste or something, and your other half argues, ‘We’ll buy it when we’re there if we need it – it’s not Outer Mongolia we’re going to!’? Well, for us it almost is. If you look at a map of China, we're in the bit on the top right which sticks up between Russia and Mongolia (Outer, the country; Inner Mongolia - yes, it exists - is the next Chinese province down. Peter has to arrange a symposium there, in the capital, Hohhot. I'm not making this up). A lot of the locals here look less Chinese and more like the Tuvan throat-singers or those Mongolian guys you see on telly, galloping about the steppes on horseback.

The city of Harbin was founded by Russians working on the construction of the Trans-Siberian railway, which actually still stops here. The Russian community is mostly long gone, but their influence remains in some of the architecture (see pics), food, and the fact that Vladivostock and one other Russian town just over the border are the only international flight destinations from Harbin airport. There's also the odd group of Russian tourists about, and one Russian TV channel on satellite in the hotel.

Which brings me to my other, unrelated point. I hate hotels. I just had to let it be said. I hate them, with a passion. The more stars they've got, the more I hate them. They cost a fortune and expect you to pay up front, even though we're here at the company's expense and would never stay anywhere as expensive as this out of choice. I've just had to pay £72 to get two weeks' washing done (well, we're not paying, but you know what I mean). They are mostly decorated in brown leatherette. You can't relax for people constantly knocking on your door offering 'turn-down service' - like I can't get into bed without someone showing me how - or bringing you stuff (never stuff you actually want; one day in Shanghai last week, someone banged furiously at the door, yelling in a way which made me think there must be a fire at the very least, and when I opened the door the maid was standing there with one of the little Kit-Kats they put on your pillow if you let them 'turn you down'. Where but a hotel could there be a Kit-Kat related emergency?). If you want a lie-in, you not only miss breakfast but don't get your room done until some incredibly inconvenient time. If you put the 'Do Not Disturb' sign on the door, it's guaranteed that will be the one occasion when they try to bring you something you actually DO want, like your clean laundry, and it's then a huge hassle to get it later. And don't even get me started on the ridiculous stuff they provide in the bathroom. Is there anyone on the planet who actually travels without a toothbrush? Or genuinely uses the hotel sewing kit, rather than just nicking it?

And another thing. Ok so I'm in China and it's my fault I don't speak Chinese, I get that, but if hotels are going to cater for westerners, have their menus in English as well and employ some 'English-speaking' staff, then why do they not at least teach them the English words relevant to the hotel trade? And familiarise them with the English translations of the menu, so that when you ask for a pillow, or toilet paper, they know what you mean, and when you order room service it doesn't take ten minutes of phone non-communication to get them to understand what you're asking for, even though it's printed in front of them? Even the in-room breakfast menu which you fill out yourself is like a game of Russian roulette. If you ask for 'Cereal and toast for two persons', you might get 4 slices of toast with butter but no knife, a big bowl of cereal and two spoons. Or you might get 8 slices of toast, two bowls of cereal and one spoon. Or no spoon. Or even a knife and fork. I suppose it all adds to the spice of life, but it does get tiresome very quickly when this is where you actually LIVE.

Hope that's clear then.

One Week in China

Welcome, folks, to the inaugural posting on my China blog. Wonderful wonderful technology allows me to bring this to you with -hopefully - no interference from government internet censors (the ‘Great Firewall of China’ of which you may have heard tell). I hope over the next couple of years to keep you all updated regularly with developments and observations on this truly bizarre new life of ours. Please feel free to pass on the link to anyone I’ve missed but who you think might be interested (within reason!).

Peter came out a week before me as you know, and had a chance to go to our home-town-to-be, Harbin, to look at a couple of flats, on which more below. His initial stay there was remarkable mostly for the novel definition of ‘room service’ embraced by a certain French hotel chain which shall remain anonymous. On his first afternoon he was just trying to take a nap when the phone rang in his room. A woman was whispering something in Chinese. For some reason he got the impression that it was the wifie who had cleaned his room that morning who was worried he might be unhappy about something. She kept saying ‘Rooma rooma {incomprehensible Chinese word} one, two – yes, no?’ After several minutes of What? and Sorry? and repeating ‘Don’t understand’ in Chinese, he hung up. A couple of minutes later the phone rang again and after going through the same non-conversation a second time, he finally said ‘Room hao’ (good) to express that he was quite happy with it, thank you very much.

The next thing he knew, the room doorbell went and there was a small woman outside with large sunglasses on. She marched in, deposited a carrier bag on the floor, turned round and repeated the ‘Rooma {Chinese} one two yes? mantra but this time she made a massage type action with her fingers. He said ‘Ah - no thanks’, shook his head and went back towards the door - but she wasn’t taking that for an answer. Pointing at his willy she said the Chinese word again. He said ‘NO!’ but as he headed for the door she made a lunge for his privates. He opened the door, grabbed her hand an inch from his bits and pushed her out. She skipped back for her carrier bag and beat it immediately. When he reported this encounter to his interpreter the next day, the lad nearly wet himself laughing. ‘She wasn’t saying “rooma” she was saying “woman”’, he said. ‘She wanted to know if you wanted one woman or two, and when you said ‘room good’ that was an invitation to go ahead!’ Peter asked him if this was common and he said ‘Oh yes – all the hotels have an arrangement with locals to make sure every need is satisfied. Many people require this service’!! What would Basil Fawlty have made of it all, I wonder?

Having escaped with his virtue intact, it was back to Shanghai to meet me off the plane and begin the tiresome task of applying for our residency permits etc. The first requirement for this was to undergo the ‘Aliens Exit-Entry’ medical (something painful involving Sigourney Weaver surely?). This is essentially a ridiculous production line designed to ‘process’ as many ‘aliens’ as they can in the shortest possible time. They get through probably 40-50 patients an hour, chiefly by having a clutch of nurses running up and down the corridor barking orders at you: ‘Go in there! Take off shoes! Lie on bed! Breathe! Hold breath! Again! Finish! Now wait outside room 206! Next!’ It was probably just as well I was in a jet-lagged haze, having been forced to endure this less than 24 hours after landing. Perhaps Peter’s Harbin hotel friend intended to conduct her business in a similar fashion? Anyway I can only assume it’s been designed purely as a money-spinner, as the relevance of most of the tests escapes me. A blood test for AIDS and TB I can understand but honestly, an eye test? Peering in the ears? Poking my stomach for 20 seconds, a quick ECG and an ultrasound of my liver and kidneys? How exactly do these determine whether I should be allowed to stay in China or not?

Peter had already had his medical before I arrived and his results happily came back as ‘Normal’ - “Even my liver!” he announced with some surprise. (No one can tell us what happens if your results are not Normal. They certainly don’t treat you, and may indeed ship you home, possibly dumping you overboard into Japanese waters as they go.) Unfortunately though, even the Normal are subject to the whims of the Chinese authorities who have decided, it now transpires, to change the rules so that Peter will have to fly to Hong Kong or possibly even back to the UK to get his visa sorted. By spectacularly bad timing our arrival has coincided with ongoing Olympics-induced visa paranoia, so we remain somewhat in limbo at the moment.

Apart from that our stay in Shanghai was unremarkable, owing to the fact that I’m still waking up at 4.30am every night so I’m permanently too tired to go out unless I have to. I have no idea why 4.30am, as that’s 9.30pm UK time, but that’s jetlag for you. My Dad never believed jetlag existed (then again, he never believed stereo existed either) and I so wish he was around for me to set him straight.

Anyway, due to this it was somewhat reluctantly that I flew up to Harbin with Peter on Wednesday so that I could see our new flat. A couple of pictures above. It’s the most extraordinary place I’ve ever seen, with décor like something out of a 1960s sci-fi film and a whole host of gadgets, including an all-singing all-dancing shower complete with lights, massage jets and sound system, of which the owner guy was immensely proud. It’s got 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a central air-con unit and under-floor heating throughout. The contract should hopefully be signed today, and with any luck it’ll be available for us to move our stuff into within a few days – if not ourselves, as we have to go back to Shanghai next week to sort things out, so it’s a couple more weeks in hotels unfortunately.

Our goods which we sent out by air freight have arrived and look very strange and surreal sitting in the corner of Peter’s office. The rest of the stuff (19 boxes thereof!) will take about 3 months by sea, so we took the precaution of flying out our winter clothes, as it’ll be below zero in Harbin by mid-November. It’s still in the mid-high 20s here now (not counting this afternoon’s sudden torrential storm), but public buildings have had their air-con switched off as of 1st Sept as it is now officially ‘cold’, having been up into the high 30s in July & August. Then in winter it’s minus 15 by day, minus 30 by night. Actual proper seasons; that’ll take some getting used to.

Peter’s job is going well and they are busy building the team for the new business. All are apparently very impressed with his couple of sentences of Chinese. Getting lost walking back to the hotel and a trip to the supermarket on my own have almost been enough to shock me out of my denial with regard to learning the language. If I can at least master ‘I don’t speak Chinese’ it’ll be an advantage!

Before you go, scroll back to the top to check out a couple of the spectacular photos which Peter managed to take from the plane over, we think, Mongolia at dawn.

Keep us posted on all the news from home.

Love
M&P