Back to Beijing

After 22 continious days of working, I'm back in Beijing.

I miss the warm weather of Guangzhou, I miss the uni dorm life of Shanghai, I miss the challenge of running conference sessions for hundreds of people and I miss the Latino parties.

However, it's good to be surrounded by the team again, it's great to have a day off and it's amazing to catch up on sleep. There's also things to look forward to: playing either Birtan and Dexter in a really competative badminton game, debating with Juan, cooking Italian in the house, making sarcastic jokes with Natalie that no-one else understands and Juan and I teasing our other two housemates Susan and Yuan. Also I have a new female interest, however we'll have to see if the interest is both ways.

I'm happy to be back in Beijing. I just wish it was warmer!

Impossible is nothing

6 months ago I suggested to AIESEC China that we should run some projects on HIV/AIDs, as this problem in China is becoming an epidemic. However I got told this would be impossible: "students won't attend, as their parents won't approve", "this isn't something Chinese students will be interested in".

In Shanghai and Beijing we had optional sessions at our induction conferences that our new members could attend to learn more about HIV/AIDs in China.


They cried. Over 50 members (all uni students) attended and many were shocked, and some had tears rolling down their faces. Many have learnt more about this problem, and some of them are going to start running awareness projects on this.

Impossible?

Travelling around China

In the last 3 weeks I've been travelling around China!

Guangzhou
(pronounced "G-wang-joe") Firstly a 23 hour train trip from Beijing to Guangzhou, which is on the south coast of China, near to Hong Kong. While it seems Guangzhou has the same pollution and transport problems as Beijing, they are very different.

On the university campuses I treated myself to plenty of cheap and fresh fruit drinks, as the province grows plenty of it. As the city is further south, it's also much hotter, so I was walking around in shorts and a t-shirt, with many of the students needing the air conditioning on during the evening! The students also seem to be much more creative and entreprenerial, which is very different to conservative, political Beijing.

It was really nice to visit and work with their AIESEC team for the first time (12-16 hour days), meeting their new members and getting to know what life is like for them.

Shanghai
Next was a 27 hour train trip to Shanghai, on the East coast of China. It's far more diverse and international compared with Beijing and Guangzhou, is a little cleaner and as it's latitude is kind of inbetween the other two cities, it's warmer than Beijing but still a bit chilly as Autumn sets in.

It was fantastic to stay in a Chinese uni dormitory for my 4 day stay. Four students share a room, with beds (similar to bunk beds) above their desks, which may help to explain one of the reasons why Chinese university students have very little sexual experience compared to their British counterparts. While it seems at first to be a very innocent atmosphere, it was really nice chatting to the guys about their lives, about cultural differences and teaching one of the guys (Paul) some typical British phrases to prepare for his English oral exam!

Again I worked hard: 12-16 hours a day running training sessions about marketing, sales and projects; attending their committee meetings and many one-to-one coaching sessions for their leadership team.

Like Guanzhou, I worked hard but it was very worthwhile and I enjoyed it.

The pictures are of the park in Fudan university where I had a lot of my coaching meetings (photo coming soon) and the two presidents of AIESEC in Shanghai, Jolin and Justin, who are far from innocent!

My sister's birthday!

Today is the 5th October, my sister's birthday, and I can't get in contact with her! I've been trying to find her on msn the whole day (as i don't have any international phone credit) but I can't get hold of her. She normally online every day as well, which makes this even more frustrating.

So Vicky, if your reading this...

h a p p y b i r t h d a y ! ! !

She's at university now, and we're all really proud of her. Enjoy your birthday sis, and sign into msn dammit!)

Wednesday morning

6.30am. I'm halfway up a mountain.

As the sun starts to rise, it brings the mountain to life, illuminating the green surroundings, creating an orange glow on the rocks, trees and shrubbery ahead, and the birds begin to sing.

My destination is a rock that looks out across the valley, overlooking the entire mountain range. When I finally sit on this rock, the hits my face, the wind rustling the plants around me, birds singing, flies flying and strangely I can hear Tibetan-style music from the village below. I meditate, relax, draw and write .

This could be anywhere. I've seen similar scenery in the UK, Ireland, Colombia, and I presume you can see this around the world. However, after 3 months of 'playing hard, working harder' in crowded Beijing, this is incredibly relaxing. I feel part of nature's world again.

8.30am. Time to leave. Not a bad start to a Wednesday morning.

Beijing 2008 Olympics

This week is a national holiday in China, and so on Monday I borrowed a housemate's bike and spent a few hours riding around north Beijing.

The National Stadium for the Beijing 2008 Olympics is about a 20 minute ride from my apartment. Although the whole site is guarded because it's still being built, its going to be amazing. The design is breathtaking up close, and the national swimming pool next to it is just as impressive.