Mark in Beijing

Mark and I are former London flat-mates. We shared the same home in South London for quite some time. One evening we decided to accept a party invitation in North London and traveled via my Ford Fiesta which had a dead battery and required jump-starting from start to finish.

It is one of those stories that requires demonstration so wait for the video edition.

In the last few years Mark relocted to China to study and teach. Mark tells me this about teaching in Beijing:

"85% of my students already have a degree and are very good at English. I'm only teaching one night a week at the moment but this might increase - its my job to encourage the Chinese not only to open their mouths and speak English, but also to help them to make sure that what they do say makes good sense. I'm not a teacher by nature but I do like to help them. One of my biggest challenges is to fill each class time with interesting activities - such as debating controversial issues and discussing east-west cultural differences."

I asked Mark to tell me about his life in China:

"Every day here you discover something new and you find that China is absolutely nothing like what you or I might have imagined from those sumptuous Zhang Yi Mou films (with actress Gong Li) of the 80s. This country is growing so fast that there is dust and pollution everywhere - disappointing but I guess that's the price of progress. But its a worthwhile experience, and very probably life-changing. You see so much poverty on the one hand, and then you see the latest Mercedes and Porsches on the other side of town. What might seem a worthless plastic bottle to us is worth collecting by the immigrant (from the countryside) workers and beggars in Beijing . They then sell on many of these bottles to make a few yuan for food. Where I live, the rubbish bins are frequently rummaged for bottles and cast-off clothing etc - everything has a value here - even discarded cigarette lighters are emptied of their few remaing drops of fuel to be then used to fill up another. Then you notice that McDonalds and KFC are among the most expensive of the fast foods. For around a twentieth the price of one of their meals you can have a bowl of soothing red bean porridge or some yo tiao (oily deep-fried dough sticks that end up 2 or 3 inches thick and that are then dipped in dark soya sauce for breakfast). But McDonalds and KFC are packed with Chinese every day: why? Because they appeal to the people's aspirations for a higher standard of living...

Whey you go to the doctor the first thing the doctor does is grab your wrist and hold it still for a few seconds. The three 'pulses' that can be felt in each wrist tell the doctor almost all he or she needs to know about the patient's condition, according to the principles of Chinese medicine. Occasionally they may also peer into your mouth. Here, you'll get acupuncture, moxibustion and massage for your ailments, along with a bag of various tree barks, grasses, flowers and thorns to be boiled up and drunk three times a day (it tastes foul but it works!). Chinese medicine is cheap and side-effect free - Western drugs are generally very expensive and not at all popular.

Dentists would rather pull a tooth than fix it because it is cheaper and quicker - and if you can stand the pain (of course, most Chinese can), they will save money by doing away with the anaesthetic. My friend had a tooth pulled the other day - made very distressing when the tooth wouldn't come out - the dentist simply took and hammer and chisel and hacked it out...

But then you take a bus trip or a bike ride and go out to some of the suburbs and sights - Beijing's Tan Zhe temple, for example, stands on a secluded hillside in absolute peace, 35 miles from the bustling city. This largest of Beijing temples thankfully wasn't damaged during the Cultural Revolution and while it might have been repaired, it certainly hasn't been restored (read: 'renewed'). Here, the golden glazed roof tiles and animal roof ornaments are absolutely original, and the whole combines to instill a great feeling of peace in the visitor.

Further out from town you'll find the Great Wall - which offers breathtaking views as it snakes from hilltop to hilltop for as far as the eye can see, and further.

Peking University's 'No-name' lake is a scene of great natural beauty during the summer that becomes a vast skating rink in winter - great fun. Beijing's hutongs (one-storey, narrow alleyway housing for the people, right in the centre of town) are great to escape from the noise and fumes of the traffic, and sometimes you can catch a glimpse of one of the lao tai tai (old ladies) with their visciously bound feet - a reminder of very different times gone by.

China is a land of great contrasts, and as much as you might want to hate it for its rapid no holds-barred development, the ancient culture still exists to somehow balance your experience. Then when you add in the general Chinese zest for life and survival you're left with an astonishing blend of ancient and modern, peaceful and driven. I can't wait to see the Olympics here!"

Our First Snow for the season

The early snow fall created a lot of havoc. It was so early that most trees still had leaves and that extra surface area took more snow so it was detrimental to most trees. Many trees lost limbs because the snow was so heavy.

We heard loud cracking of splitting tree limbs a number of times. It was an experience.

The broken tree limbs took down power lines and many people were in a situation without power. We were over-nighting in Brockport (parts of which also also lost power - and we did too) so we tried to start the generator but it would not start , Dick knew I could not help him at the time so he asked me to go outside and shake the small birch in front of the party house - it was so loaded with snow that many of its (10' plus) branches were within feet of the ground - Just to relieve the birch tree of all the snow weight was quite dramatic. After a good shake and the limbs lifted right up a few feet into the air.

It remains itact.

Phew!

Not so good for other trees in the vacinity.