Recently in Life in China Category

Tongzhi Yi Fanren 同志亦凡人 ("Queer as Folk") is a weekly video podcast that discusses LGBT life in China. Informative and interesting, the video series started it's second season in March 2008. Most episodes are done in Chinese; however, in this English-language special, hosts Steven and Jack introduce all things gay in Shanghai.

The QAF Beijing blog offers a bilingual introduction:

《同志亦凡人》视频播客以一种自由轻松的谈话方式与您讨论和分享最新、最前沿的LGBT生活。我们邀请在不同领域工作的LGBT人士，以一种非常个人的态度来分享他们在大环境下自我认同。

《同志亦凡人》第一季从2007年4月至6月播出，期间我们得到了众多网络上下朋友的支持，11集节目在三个主要视频网站（新浪播客、土豆和我乐）的总阅览量已经超过了一百万人次，并且还在递增。

"Queer as Folk Beijing" is a weekly video podcast that provides a forum for wide-ranging and light-hearted discussions on the latest issues affecting LGBT life in China. In each episode we will invite a diverse group of guests from the Chinese LGBT community to share their unique views and intimate stories.

The first season of "Queer as Folk Beijing" debuted in April 2007 and, by the time we aired our last episode in late June, we had won a tremendous amount of support from countless friends worldwide. Eleven episodes shown on three major video-sharing websites (Sina, Tudou and 56.com) have attracted views of one million and counting.

More episodes can be found here.

There are many discussions out there comparing Beijing and Shanghai. I've even written briefly about this myself, although it's a cliched argument. Yes, Shanghai is glitzy, modern, glamorous, etc. Beijing is gritty and "artistic" and "cultural". So be it. People can choose whichever one they like.

Often lost in the discussion is the Pearl River Delta region, which boasts a little bit of Beijing and a little bit of Shanghai, all in one place. I spent the weekend in Shenzhen shooting a television program, and it was nice to be back in the area. As regular readers of this blog will know, I lived for nearly a year in Guangzhou working for the Guangzhou English Channel. I spent many weekends exploring Guangzhou and other cities in the Pearl River Delta, and there are many of them: Dongguan, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Zhuhai, Macao, etc.

I definitely enjoyed my time in the region, and I met many other foreigners who had lived in either Shanghai or Beijing before making the move to sunnier climes. 100% of them -- no exaggeration -- say their lives are far better in the south, and they have no intention of moving back.

I share their enthusiasm. Unfortunately, I am a 20-something slave to opportunity and career-growth. That means, at this point, Beijing is the place to be. In fact, the longer I live here (I lived here for a year and nine months the first time, going on six months this time around), the more I think, perhaps, I could stay. I like cycling around, the weather isn't that bad, things are relatively cheap. Lots of culture, history, and character people.

Then I go to the south and realize that I'm maybe I'm starting to believe my own PR spin.

Beijing will always have a special place in my heart, no doubt. But for lifestyle, nothing beats either Shenzhen or Guangzhou; and you can choose to live in either, because they are so close you can easily go between them anyway. I spent Saturday night in Shekou, in Nansha District, in Shenzhen. Shekou boasts a beautiful square featuring an old cruise ship that has been turned into a restaurant on one end. The other sides feature everything from western retail restaurants and cafes to excellent nightlife options. There was no hustle and bustle, no fancy cars, no talk about the Olympics or politics or business... it was relaxing. Couples walked around the square, kids were rollerblading, and others were enjoying drinks on the patio (drinks, by the way, which were much cheaper than Beijing's). And it seemed so, so far away from what's important in Beijing.

Like Shanghai, the weather is good in the south, the fashion is upscale, the nightlife is above average. Like Beijing, it is unpretentious, gritty (in Guangzhou's case), and historic. It's a good mix of the two.

Imagethief mentioned in one of his excellent blog posts (and he has many) that he left his heart in Beijing. After this weekend, sometimes I wonder if I didn't leave mine in Guangdong.

I'm heading out of town for a few days, off to the sunny climes of Shenzhen and Guangzhou. Most of the time will be spent in Shenzhen, where I'm assisting with the production of a new television program (hopefully much more on this to come).

I've always enjoyed Shenzhen. It's a border town (next to Hong Kong) and has a real pulse. People in Shenzhen come from all over China, and very few speak Cantonese as a native language despite the city's location in the heart of Guangdong. In fact, in one of our few email exchanges (and I don't mean to name drop), Da Shan told me Shenzhen and Zhuhai are the only two cities he really visits in Guangdong, because they are the two cities filled with Mandarin-speaking people who are most familiar with him. Conversely, people in Guangzhou are too busy watching TVB Pearl and Phoenix to care.

Anyway, posting this weekend (and likely early next week, when I return to work) should be sporadic. Unless Paul decides to do something useful, of course! Before I head off to fight with crowds at Beijing's horrendous airport (the new terminal can't open soon enough), I thought I'd leave you with some thoughts about Shenzhen, written by a colleague of mine based in Hong Kong. If you're depressed already though, you might want to give this a pass...

See ya when I return.

in shenzhen on the weekend joe told me he was on the edge of the planet, SZ gives you that feeling, a border town if ever i saw one, the tattered edges of the world, brimming with god's unwanted children, god's lonely men.

the alley joe sits and drinks beer in is lined with whores from all the corners of china, sitting on stools for endless hours, eating bird seed or chewing sugar cane, their empty faces staring blankly ahead, their over-made-up eyes with fake MK lashes like the glassy balls of some doll you'd see in your grandmother's house. there was some new ones this time, some looked 13 and change, others had a few more years under their belt, but not many.

i often wondered how joe ended up in SZ, what f*cked up moment of inspiration drove him to the shit hole of a whore house he lived in where he was driven insane by the whores he fell in love with and tried to "rescue," or more precisely, tried to make his sole partner.

mae mae was the latest, he was in love, and now he wanted to put another god dammed child into china. he felt he could die happy if he had a chinese baby. i didn't know what this meant to joe, except struggling with what he was doing in life, having lost himself, he wanted to leave a piece of himself in SZ, in the city he has spent so many years in, the city in which he was certain he would die. i still found it amazing to think he used to own two houses in LA and live on mulholland drive.

since the first time i met joe he told me he was on "over time" and every day was extra beyond the point he was supposed to live. that much seemed true. i remember the time joe slipped down some stairs and couldn't leave bed or move for several days. i tried to bring him some pain killers but the stubborn motherf*cker refused, instead insisting on drinking himself back to health.

joe only drank beer these days, and whisky when i bought it at the border. "my brother said, 'die young and leave a good looking corpse'," joe told me, for the first time talking about his family. "well, he died young but he didn't leave a good looking corpse." joe's brother drank himself to death, a gallon of vodka every day until his body was so ravaged that his liver burst, his eye balls burst, and he bled and bloated everywhere for 13 hours until he finally died.

joe was loosing the fucking plot in SZ, but there's not much i can do about it, he's got to live his own life. it's a mix of feelings i get from him, and whilst his I Ching (易經) readings are invigorating, the whole city itself is a f*cking downer and after joe dies i don't think i ever want to go back.

This particular post somewhat ties in with what Cam has previously posted about the black men being targeted in a drug sting over the weekend.

I must preface this post with the honest contention that for the time that I have been living here in Beijing, I have never really felt unsafe. Sure, there may be the odd time when I'm strolling home down a dark alley and my imagination will begin to shift slightly into the macabre, but for the most part I feel I can walk down the streets of this city with the knowledge that no one is really going to mess with me. Not that I'm scary looking or intimidating by any stretch. The only thing I might have going for me is my height. (At 193 cm tall, I tend to stand out a bit) And even in 'seedy' areas of Beijing: AKA: Sanlitun, the fact that there are drug dealers abound and drunken fools out trolling the street at all hours of the night on a weekend, doesn't generally conjure up a sense of insecurity. However, that seems to have changed a bit this weekend.

I don't really know what it was... maybe a full moon or something, but there seemed to be a 'rambunctious' feeling in the air. I and three other friends took to the Sanlitun bar scene this weekend for a little fun and frivolity. Nothing that hasn't taken place in the past. So when two of my friends were later accosted on the street by a group of young, drunken Chinese lads...I have to say that I was a bit taken aback.

Now, to be fair, the confrontation wasn't particularly out of the blue. During our time in one of the establishments, one of my friends decided to make a bit of small talk with a girl sitting down at a table. This, while her group of male friends sat around at the same table, including the man who turned out to be her boyfriend. Ok...not the smartest maneuver on my friend's behalf. However, despite the initial protests and consternation of said boyfriend, I felt I had done a masterful job of diffusing the situation and talking to the disgruntled lover, rightfully pointing out that my friend had had a bit too much to drink, and that he didn't mean anything by it. The boyfriend was still obviously peeved, but he seemed to let it slide, and the fun and frivolity continued.

Becoming oblivious to the earlier tension, I continued on with my freakishly terrible white man dancing. But about half an hour later, two of my friends -- who had absolutely nothing to do with the situation at all -- returned inside the bar after stepping outside for a moment, furious at the fact that they had been jumped from behind by this same group of cowards at the table. One of our friends had a beer bottle smashed over his head and was kicked a few times when he was down. Our other friend then subsequently had this same bottle brandished in his face. Thankfully for my friends, these 'tough guys' turned tail and ran after the non-bottle victim stood his ground. Though there were only minor scrapes on his head, this friend of ours, who was actually a tourist in Beijing, was somewhat disturbed by the unprovoked attack.

So you combine this incident with the rounding up of black men on the same street on the same night, and you have to wonder whether this is a sign of things to come, or whether this was just a weird blip in the otherwise 'harmonious' life in seedy Sanlitun.

It's so cliche for foreigners to complain about life in China. In fact, a whole website has been set up for this very purpose.

When I first arrived, I had my fair share of gripes: the spitting, the pollution, the failure to grasp the efficiency of forming a queue; but now I just feel lucky to be here and have accepted these as parts of the essential Chinese experience.

But there's one thing I simply won't accept: the banking system.

On Saturday, I had the misfortune of misplacing (read: carelessly losing) my Merchant's Bank card. I assume it was Saturday, because that's the last time I used it -- around 11:30am, to be exact. I withdrew RMB 500. I went and dropped off my dry cleaning and paid for that, then checked out the new Cafe St. Laurent at Alfa, which was fantastic (and swallowed up much of that withdrawal).

It wasn't until the next day, when a friend asked me to go for a beer, that I realized my bank card was missing. The general dread and fear washed over me, with questions rushing through my head: Did I lose it? Did I forget it at home? Is it in my other pants? Did somebody steal it? I haven't changed my work-issued PIN number yet, which is 666666, so has someone guessed it and stolen my life savings?

I skipped the beer and headed home to frantically search for the card, to no avail. My girlfriend called Merchant's Bank and explained the situation. They said they would cancel the card and freeze the funds, and confirmed no other withdrawals had been made since Saturday. Whew.

Fast forward to today, Monday afternoon, when I head into the bank to make an actual withdrawal. I'm down to my last 30 kuai, so me and a Chinese colleague walked to Merchant's bank with my passport in hand. We sat down and were told to present my identification to certify the freezing of funds. I showed my passport and filled out paperwork and everything was great. Then I asked to withdraw 1000 RMB. "No can do," the woman said (to the best of my memory, which is a little fuzzy). You see, they had verified my identity enough to freeze the funds, but not enough to actually give me any of my money. So, I was told, my funds would be frozen for a week, and I could visit the bank next Monday for my new card and any cash I might need.

A week without access to my primary Chinese bank obviously doesn't sit well. But then I got the real kick in the groin. They want 10 kuai to process the transaction. Not a big deal, right? Well, I had 30 kuai on me at the time, and didn't want to part with 1/3 of my current cash flow. Take it out of my account, I told them. "No can do," she seemed to say again. They need 10 kuai -- now -- from me.

At that point, I almost began to laugh. Here is the bank, with all my money in there, and they refuse to give it to me. Then they ask me for some money. I'd give them money, if they'd give me my money first. Make sense? Well, not to Merchant's Bank. And they didn't find it funny, either.

I am not a Eurocentrist, and I understand that things are different in China. But surely there is a more efficient way of handling this situation. If you lose a bank card in Canada or the United States, you pop into a branch, and they'll give you a new one in five minutes. Here, it takes a week, and they can't even deduct cash to pay the service charge to get you a new card! If only somebody could understand how absurd this all is.

Anyway, I'll be broke for the next week. Which, I guess, means I can't afford to go to Hooters.

I remember, a few years ago, when the first Hooters outlet opened in China, in Shanghai's Hongqiao area. I was new in China at the time, and when a friend and I visited Shanghai on a road trip we figured we'd better check it out. Truth be told, as a Canadian and frequent visitor to the United States, I had never been to a Hooters restaurant before (honest!). So the Hongqiao branch was the first time I went.

Sure enough, it was kinda what I expected. Although the women weren't... erm... as "well-endowed" as I imagined (possibly as a result of the water in China... no?). When I moved to Shanghai a few years later, visiting Hooters become part of the tourist trip: first to the Bund, then the Pearl Tower, then the French Concession, then Xintiandi, then Hooters. For whatever reason, the Chinese seemed more enamored about Hooters than my foreign visitors did.

And now, Beijingers have no more need to head to Shanghai (or Hangzhou) to visit America's infamous restaurant chain. I think other North Americans can vouch that Hooters isn't exactly highly regarded in America... in fact, the only outlet in Vancouver went out of business. So I can't quite understand why a restaurant associated with low-end American culture seems so eagerly anticipated in China.

I had a talk with my girlfriend the other day about this very topic. She comes from a government family, and is fond of Mao, to say the least. She visited Hooters in Shanghai when I lived there, but was sorely disappointed that it had invaded the heart of China's capital, and her hometown. In fact, she swears she'll write an article on the editorial page of her newspaper denouncing Hooters' presence in Beijing, a la Rui Chenggang's campaign against Starbucks in the Forbidden City. (I'll let you know if she ever gets around to it.)

I live a few minutes walk from the Hooters in Beijing, which is on the northeast side of Worker's Stadium. It's a prime location, and I'm surprised that the government allowed Hooters to erect such large signage and lights around the restaurant -- believe me, you can't miss it. This, for a low-rent kind of chain.

It reminded me of local campaigns (both in my hometown of Sidney, and in parts of Vancouver) to ensure that Wal-Mart didn't set up shop and pollute those communities. Or of other areas in Canada, that fight to keep corporations and chains out of the area. It's clear that China is still having a love affair with foreign brands... but something also tells me that if the authorities fully understood how Hooters is regarded, perhaps they would've toned down the signage a bit - or asked Hooters to move to another location.

Personally speaking, I don't really have a problem with the place. It serves a certain clientèle and makes money, at least in China. Although on the night I was there, we saw an older fellow, with greasy hair flowing out from under his baseball cap, grab the rear-end of one of the waitresses. She giggled and continued talking with the two men at the table, but I couldn't help but feel a bit disgusted about what I had witnessed. My girlfriend was nearly in tears (it wasn't my idea to hit up the restaurant, by the way).

When the girls started dancing and singing songs, my girlfriend mentioned that they have probably been completely brainwashed by the company. She also said that if she ever tried to work at a place like this, her parents would give her all the money she needed just to stay home. She said she couldn't bare this kind of job, and would never be able to tell her family if she worked there.

To be fair, western girls could say this about other western girls working at Hooters. Again, I'm a practical kind of guy, and if there is a willing worker and a willing employer, and everything is above-board and consensual, then I don't see a problem. But yet, something about this rubs me the wrong way.

First, I have visited the Hongqiao Hooters twice, the Pudong Hooters twice, and now the one in Beijing. I have yet to meet a girl in any of the locations who are from Beijing or Shanghai. They are all -- 100% according to my unscientific poll -- from the countryside. Apparently Hooters pays fairly well, so the restaurant becomes a bit of a magnet for girls that need the money.

Second, I can only imagine what Mao would think (if we really care -- and most times I don't). Depending on the perspective, and if I was to spin this in a PR fashion, one could argue that China is selling out its girls from the countryside for the amusement of foreigners. (And yes, I know this has been happening for centuries -- but this situation just seems a little more overt, and with the government's obvious blessing). The fact this is occurring several blocks from China's Forbidden City leaves one with an odd feeling.

I'm not about to get too sentimental about this, because I happen to like the buffalo chicken wings at Hooters and they are now only a 5 minute walk away. One can argue whether Hooters should be here in the first place, and one can argue whether it should be promoted with giant signs and glittery lights next to a stadium honoring China's proletariat. Regardless, I can understand how my girlfriend feels.

I guess next time, I'll go with my buddies.

My name is Paul, and I am a cynic. There, I've admitted it. Only 11 more steps to go now before I start believing what I read in Chinese newspapers and see on Chinese news broadcasts. (Well, I might skip the step about putting my faith in God) But in admitting that I am a cynic, I must also qualify it with the contention that I am open to different theories and interpretations of things.

A recent chance encounter has got me thinking about my own views on how the Olympics in Beijing are going to play out. I have always been of the mind that, as much as the Chinese are pouring their hearts and minds into pulling the damn thing off, that the Olympics next year are going to be a significant disappointment for those outside of the Chinese sphere of influence, AKA: The West. The reasons I have for this general theory are many. Pollution, crowds, a lack of English language, social habits...the list goes on and on. I'm quite sure I've developed this 'glass half empty' line of thought by being inundated with propaganda on a daily basis working for state-run media. But a nice chat over breakfast a few days back has got me thinking.

After settling in to the only Western-style restaurant in my neighborhood for breakfast before starting my day at the propaganda factory, a chatty fellow from the United States wandered in to the virtually deserted establishment with a Chinese fellow in tow. I live in a tourist area around Forbidden City. As such, there are always a few locals rumbling around who will come up to you and speak to you in English in an effort to visit said art exhibit or tour you around said historical sites. And my poor new American friend was being dogged by just such a person. So after the would-be art purveyor left, Steve from Queens, New York and I began to chat.

Now after enduring that particular annoyance, I would have been well primed to spit venom at all things China. However, Steve from Queens, New York was quite the opposite. Steve from Queens, New York had a lot of questions for me about what it's like living in China. I answered as honestly as possible, trying to put my cynical nature aside to be somewhat diplomatic. During our entire conversation over the duration of my eggs and sausage, Steve from Queens, New York waxed on about how impressed he was with China, and how he had expected everything to be a lot worse. Of course, in the back of my mind, I'm thinking to myself the entire time of just what he expected. And then it hit me: Steve from Queens, New York could be seen as a microcosm of the type of person we can expect to see at the Beijing Olympics next summer. Steve from Queens, New York is in the international shipping business. He's got money to spare. Probably has about 1.5 kids and a mortgage. (I didn't get into family details with him) And he's never been to China before, and has gleaned all his information about this country from the US media.

Now granted, the US media does a pretty good job of covering all the crappy things that happen here in China. Of course, the Chinese government hates that, and would be happier than a pedophile at a kiddie pool if the US media was more like the good little subservient drones working in the Chinese media. But it's not in the US media's mandate, or nature, to talk about good things. That's just not what we do in the west. So when Steve from Queens, New York arrives in China and finds a Western-style restaurant and people who speak English and invite him to art displays, instead of the torture camps, people brushing their teeth with tainted toothpaste and marching droves of people wearing Mao suits, Steve from Queens, New York is going to be pretty impressed.

So are the Olympics going to be as big a disappointment as I had originally thought? At this point, I just don't know. But I'm sure that before the Games roll around, something will happen to force me to start back at step one.

I'm never one to buy into the terrorism hype. I mean, in reality, the odds of being killed or injured in a terrorist attack (minus, of course, being in either Iraq or Afghanistan) are pretty much non-existent. You're more likely to get snuffed out by a wayward seagull. But sauntering through various Beijing subway stations over the past few days, I couldn't help but wonder why there are now portable bomb disposal units attached to every station. I'm sure the suggestion from the government will be that this is just due diligence in the preamble to the Beijing Olympic Games. Sure, makes sense on the surface. But is there something more sinister in the offing here? We all know living here in Mao's utopia that information is dolled out at the whim of the government. Anything deemed to be something which may upset social stability is kept out of the media. You know, things like serial rapists roaming the streets, SARS, Bird Flu... all that fun stuff. So what's to say that there isn't some disgruntled ex-civil servant, Tibetan, Mongolian or Uigher who has told the government that he or she is going to pull a Tim McVeigh. You and I are never going to know about it until it happens. And even then, the odds of you hearing about it -- unless you're there to witness it yourself -- are about the same as being killed by a wayward seagull.

As one of my friends and colleagues rightfully pointed out, this government is completely reactive when it comes to dolling out information. Now, I'm no expert. But I do fancy myself a bit of a historian. And as such, I have come to believe that the past is merely a window into the future. As such, one would think that the lessons of SARS would still resonate with the government, and that being proactive in the dissemination of information would probably be helpful. But, as I've mentioned in previous posts, history is something the Chinese government is not particularly interested in reviewing.

With the spotlight now starting to beam down on Beijing as the Games approach, there are undoubtedly going to be more and more nut jobs out there coming out of the wood work to vent their various frustrations with this regime. The question is...just how far are these various lunatics willing to go???

Well, perhaps it's more, but who's counting?

The China Law Blog wrote an interesting post about things foreign companies should consider when opening in China, one of them being superstitions. We all know that superstitions exist, even in western countries. I still avoid walking under a ladder, for example, and don't have any fond desire to smash a mirror. That being said, if I did happen to walk under a ladder, I wouldn't be too concerned.

It's different here, it seems.

I work at a boutique public relations firm in Beijing, and the manager of the firm is very superstitious. We have fish in bowls and tanks around the office for good luck (perhaps somebody can explain this further?), we've had the place vetted by a Feng Shui master, and the number on our door is 1808. In fact, due to the smallish nature of our office, we are planning to move to another building. But after securing an arrangement with the managers, decided to forgo the move because the address of our office would not contain a single 8. It's amazing what opportunities we let pass on the basis of superstition.

I, of course, don't believe in this kind of thing. That was until the manager of the company invited a certified (?) gypsy-cum-palm reader-cum-fortune teller to give us some foresight into the company's future. After a meeting with our founder, she came over to me and pointed at my chin. I needed a translation.

"She says you have a long chin," the translator said. "So you will be rich."

My next thought was to go home and relax, because my success is assured.

One of my good friends wrote this article... most likely having a "bad China day"... (we've all had them, right?). Anyway, he is a media personality in China and asked that his name be withheld. But he wanted his work published somewhere, and here it is.

I learned my lesson last year. I missed out on the latest craze to sweep China - the 'peaceful rise'. I should have acted sooner. It was all over the news for months. Every time an official opened his mouth, the words "peaceful rise" came spilling out like commuters from a Beijing subway car at rush hour. The peaceful rise was everywhere, and everyone wanted it. It was government endorsed, and the whole world was buying into it. The entire developed world wanted China's peaceful rise. They were reassured by its double-digit increase in military spending and safe in the knowledge that the Qinghai-Tibet Railway was making tracks straight across the roof of the world. Yak herders are now getting harmony by the train-load. Anything standing in the way of its peaceful rise, like an evil weather satellite, was quickly eliminated. I could have made a killing on China's peaceful rise. This year things are going to be different. This year I'm going to open up a sidewalk stand on a busy Beijing street corner and I'm going to start selling this year's hot ticket - harmony. "Harmonious Society", in case you've been hibernating in a Ming Dynasty tomb lately, is this year's officially endorsed new craze. It's sweeping the nation and I'm going to get me a piece of the action. I'm going to sell harmony any way I can get it. I'll sell it in bottles, boxes, tubes and tablet form. If I could sell lemonade at 5 cents a glass when I was a runny-nosed 5-year-old, I can sure as hell sell harmony at 10 kuai a pop! Harmony is going to make me rich.

Successful entrepreneurs all have one thing in common. They are able to glimpse into the future by predicting a new need among consumers and then being the first to fill that need.

Random House defines harmony as, "a consistent, orderly, or pleasing arrangement of parts".
Ha! They might as well be talking about a Chinese train station during Spring Festival as far as I'm concerned.

It should be easy to find harmony. I see it every time I walk out my front door. The other day I decided to go look for some harmony in my local bank. But after waiting in line for 2 ½ hours to speak with the friendly bank teller, I had completely forgotten why I went there in the first place. Not a total loss though. Those Tom & Jerry cartoons are hilarious.

I thought about trying to extract some harmony from the earth, but I've noticed that every time 100 Chinese miners head into a mine shaft, only about 50 of them come out. Harmony is great to have, but getting it can be dangerous.

I accidentally bumped into a woman on the street a while ago. (Probably my fault - I should have been walking backward as well) I was about to ask if she knew where I could find some harmony, but I suddenly detected that she was leaning to one side. Then I noticed the mobile phone in her left hand had about 35 toys dangling from it. I decided to move on.

Later, someone else stopped me on the sidewalk and told me that I could get some harmony just across the street. But by the time I dodged the gridlocked traffic, sidestepped the spit, and accepted a few coins from a scruffy old man offering me money from his tin cup, the harmony had vanished. Perhaps it was still there and I just couldn't see it because of the eerie orange veil of carbon dioxide being swept around by the Mongolian dust storm. (Sorry, I mean 'fog')

Eventually I did end up finding some harmony in, of all places, the Beijing West train station during Spring Festival. But before I could grab it, I found myself swept into a mass of humanity that pushed me forward like a bunch of customers at the Silk Market scrambling to get their hands on the last bag of fish-flavored candy. In an instant, I found myself crammed into a passenger car heading for a 36 hour journey to the outer reaches of the harmonious kingdom. None of the other 683 passengers in my particular car had a chance to pick up any harmony before they left the train station either.

Despite these minor setbacks, I'm convinced my quest for harmony is not in vain. The world is being assured that there is plenty of harmony in this society, and when I do find it I'm going to sell it - lots of it.

I'm already looking ahead to next year's big potential craze. The business plan is still being finalized and I don't want to give anything away, but let's just say it's got something to do with having 'strategic dialogue to strengthen common development, deepen exchanges and expand mutual trust in an all round way'. As the old saying goes, "When life gives you lemons..."