Colin Thubron and Me

I was up at the Royal Geographic Society in London this past week for the Travellers' Tales Festival. Luckily (given the cost) it was everything I had hoped it would be, adding up to a huge shot of inspiration straight into the central nervous system of my slightly flagging writing career. There were one or two lessons in humility on offer too. No matter how high up the ladder I may (or more likely, may not) get, I hope that, were I ever to be invited to speak at an event for which the paying public was forking out more than £100 to attend, I would put in a modicum of effort by way of preparation. A textbook example of how to do this was Colin Thubron's, fascinating lecture on Sunday afternoon (which I hope to transpose and post selections of, as I get the chance this week). It was a joy from first to last, peppered with ancient quotes and fascinating insights. Thubron really is that most desirable of hybrid entertainers, a scholarly raconteur, a guy who can charm, and educate and inspire all at once. There were disappointments: Steve McCurry, most famous for his National Geographic shot the famous Afghan Girl, proceeded with his lecture along the lines off, 'Here's one of my pictures, and here's another one, and this was taken in Panama, and this guy was really funny...etc.etc.', though I think this was more to do with the nature of the man, rather than any malevolent intent to jip the audience out of a few bob. Then there was the odd debacle. The Telegraph's Travel Editor, Graham Boynton, conducted an 'interview' with his fellow Rhodesian, Alexander McCall Smith, and it was painful, and fairly boring to boot (through no fault of Smith's, I should make clear). There did seem to me to be a certain arrogance and contempt on display when, after about 10 minutes, Boynton said, 'Mindful of the time, I thought I'd open up questions to the audience', which could well have been translated as 'I haven't got a clue what to ask next, so, go on, do your own work you snivelling wretches'. Few hands went up, and the questions were mainly about the TV version of Smith's books. Literary it was not.


No matter, I still left the RGS buzzing. I swapped business cards with the editor of Conde Nast Traveller, the online travel editor of the Guardian and Time Out's group chairman. I had the great pleasure of running into the man who kick-started my own travel writing career, Shanghai legend Mark Kitto (whose first book, China Cuckoo, was published last week) . However, as lovely as it was to see Mark after many years, the biggest thrill was reserved for last when I got none-ovva-than Colin Thubron himself to sign his latest book for Lewis and Louisa, even managing managed to offload a business card on him in the process. I asked if he had ever been to [my Chinese hometown] Zhaoqing.

No, he said.

I live out there, I said.

Oh, are you a teacher? he asked.

No, I'm a travel writer, I replied, my adoring tone conveying not one iota of the indignation I was now feeling.

Oh, what have you written? he asked, as if in challenge.

Oh, just some guidebooks for Frommer's, the AA and a small American publisher.

Oh, I haven't heard of those, he sniped. Miserly old bugger. No, no - I jest (see, I am still adoring). He was a gentleman and there was little derision in his tone, as you would expect from a man commonly dubbed England's great living travel writer. Competing with a start-out guidebook writer is slightly beneath him and any competiveness implied in the above was merely in my head. Though, as I recall, it was about at this point that I said, 'Well, if I may be so bold, let me give you a business card'.

I actually used those words. If-I-may-be-so-bold.

Poor bloke probably didn't know what hit him - some Basingstoke Barrow Boy talking like Uriah Heap and claiming to live in a part of China that even he, the quintessential windswept English adventurer, had not been to. Apologies Mr Thurbon. And thank you very much for signing my book for the kids. If nothing else, you have two guaranteed future fans. I'll make sure of that, don't you worry:)

Talkee True?

Check out this hilarious and fascinating excerpt from a 1932 copy of Shanghai's Cathay Hotel Magazine which lists some essential pidgin English phrases that all colonials could use to communicate with their native underlings. Language really is an amazingly flexible thing. Stuff like this makes me want to retrain as a linguist - well, that and burn my passport.

Elaine Chow at Shanghaiist makes the point that several pidgin English phrases have entered common usage in the Western World, among them "Long time no see (好久不见)" and "no can do (不能做)". To Elaine's list the expression "chop chop" should probably be added. It didn't occur to me at all that this (rather odd) turn of phrase has its etymological roots in colonial-era China.

Happy New Year

It feels a bit presumptuous to write a retrospective on a year which, from the fag end of December, feels so utterly mired in domestic tedium. List the events and it appears like a perfectly worthy 365-days worth of work: conception and successful birth of second child, decoration and habitation of first home, a living wage acquired purely from freelance means, acquisition of an MA degree, research and completion of two guidebooks, a dash of independent travel, a 30^th birthday thrown in for good measure and, finally, several carefree months spent in our rented home in England. So why do I feel just a touch despondent at this moment, two hours or so from the start of 2009? I guess it’s because I feel a little lost right now.

To be specific, several things trouble me. One is the breadth, or lack of breadth, of my social circle. No, that isn’t right. It isn’t that I lack amazing people in my life. It’s just that through laziness and fear, I have let everyone, and everything, other than (arguably) my wife and kids, retreat right back to the periphery. Even family and friends feel more distant than they should. As much as I love my wife and kids, I feel almost entirely absorbed into the domestic sphere. It’s no great mystery: I have no office to go to. I have no clubs that I belong to. I play no sport. I don't call my friends nearly enough. My wife, too, doesn't have much in the way of her own social circle here in England. The times I have spent among friends I’ve felt troubled by the fact that I have so little in common with so many people. There isn’t anyone else I know living this kind of life. I’m not boasting there. I feel mostly ashamed of my part-time, mortgage-free, commitment-free life. But confidence has recently ebbed away in those very major life choices that I made in the last six years because I now realise that there are consequences to striving to be different. I have so few funny anecdotes, because I’ve ventured further than the front door so little, met so few new people, pushed so few boundaries. Honestly, the prospect of a trip to Lidl, or Basingstoke Library, are among the greatest thrills I get.

But now I remember that I have got away on several occasions this year: all of January was spent in snowy Shanghai, a week in May was taken touring Shenzhen and Guangzhou, June saw 12 days in Hong Kong and Singapore, and there was another 10 days in Shanghai in June/July. Yet my travel inclinations towards isolation now feel false. I used to love being by myself on the road, because I loved feeling like the pioneer, doing something special. I’m now old enough to see through that. Those trips didn’t thrill like they use to. They just ended up being lonely.

Ironically, in witnessing the (natural) birth of my second child, the year provided the unequivocal highlight of my whole life. And yet, right now, my feelings of tiredness and frustrations with the endlessly screaming little guy seem to have sullied even that.

So many cherished habits were lost. Yoga became a more and more distant memory. Music retreated from my life, as did movies. Last year I ventured an opinion of what I regarded as being the top albums of the year. This year I couldn’t possibly comment. My Chinese language studies have lapsed. Creativity has left entirely. There were no funny emails home, or journalistic endeavours. I became obsessed by Radio 4’s Today daily podcast. I absorbed huge amounts of knowledge. My own sense of feeling ‘smart’ possibly even increased but only went to increase the frustration that my talents are, by now, at age 30 so latent as to be totally invisible to any prying eye. I feel as if I have let the best years slip by. I turned 30 this year and celebrated it with 11 hours of work, and a couple of pints of Guinness in the local boozer. I promised to delay the party until September. Then September slipped by and there was no party. Neither was there one at Christmas, or tonight, New Year's Eve. There's the sense of life slipping by unregarded and unmarked. I go into 2009 feeling that I absolutely have to do something else in order to sustain my pride. And yet the greatest pride of them all – playing the role of breadwinner to a family of four – is at risk if I do not choose something immediately lucrative. The years of experimentation are almost over. I guess I feel a bit scared. I thought we were settled in Zhaoqing. But then we came back to England, and I found that I loved the BBC, and English clouds, and occasional trips to the theatre, and I apprehended the lunacy of our situation there, and the possible damage it may do our kids, living in a polluted and, culturally backward part of the world. But that's where we have our home. I thought Zhaoqing made me free, but from here, it feels a litle like a self-built cage. Or perhaps these are just conservative middle age instincts making a first appearance in what has, up to now, been a fairly fearless youth (well, the 21-30 bit was fearless….prior to that I was petrified permanently). Perhaps time and age are grinding me down. I wanted to be the resolute iconoclast until I died. I thought I would be. I doubt that now. But I hope there is room in 2009 for bold decisions. I hope I can make the fact that I’ve never been part of the herd finally pay in some way. Because I am getting tired of feeling as cut adrift from my community, and my country and my family and friends – much like a celebrity perhaps feels – without having any of the benefits of a privelged, 'unusual' situation. I'm an 'expat' without the 'package'. You hear of driven CEOs, or movie stars sacrificing all of the above to their craft, but they get remunerated for it, and hopefully achieve the sense of fulfilment into the bargain I just feel the life choices I’ve made have been either, one, because I am exceedingly lazy and have been looking for a way of leading the easy life, or two, indicate that, deep, deep down, I am running away from something. Hopefully my soul is healthy, but I just don’t know. All I know is that now, at the end of a massive year for me, I should be feeling happy, but I just feel a little tired, and troubled. I must count blessings. I appear to be blessed my good health. I have possibly the most amazing wife in the whole world – fact. My children are healthy, and both appear to be blossoming beautifully. In China, we have a place to live with minimal debt. We have time to spend with each other which is, it seems to be, the most important ingredient in maintaining healthy relationships. But I just feel that I need a touch more in order to make things complete. Maybe 2009 will usher that in.

Resolutions run as follows:

Yoga. I want to bring yoga back into my life. Once a week, at least. Preferably twice.

Music. I must pick up the guitar on a daily basis. I want to have written a song – no matter how bad – by this time next year.

Chinese. I must spent at least two hours each day immersed in a Chinese language environment. In England, this must mean speaking in the language to Ling. In China, I may substitute that with watching a movie in Chinese, or watching the TV.

Phone Calls. As nice as a carefully worded email (hopefully) is to receive, I know more and more clearly that relationships are only really solidified by picking up the phone and showing a friend that he/she is worth at least that. I pledge to call someone close to me once a month. That make sound like a pathetic pledge, but in the context of the last ten years, it’s really not. I’ve been bad. And now I’m going to be better.

Note-taking. I want to return to 2003/4 habits of obsessively collecting notes with a view to writing a single monthly piece (of something). I’m going to keep a notebook by the bed and record dreams. More importantly, using my PDA, I’m going to note down interesting ideas that pass by. It may be a funny situation, or scene, or a metaphysical thought, or a character that I’ve come across. Every month, I would like to spend at least one afternoon trying to develop one of those ideas into something – a song or a short story, perhaps.

Not much to ask, is it.

The whining can only end with the assistance of wine, methinks, so I’m off to drink some. Oh, hell, I’m a lucky sod, and I have so much to be grateful for. I know that. I’m just greedy. I don’t want a ‘better’ 2009. I just want a more decisive year. More decisions, and more action. That’s all.

Happy New Year.

The Wanker Within

There are things that must be experienced to be believed, and this audio recording is one of them. In the recording, a North American expat relentlessly harangues, abuses, intimidates and bullies a Chinese operator at the popular Shanghai food delivery company Sherpas. Despite the threadbare, utterly inconsequential nature of the subject, and the stoic refusal of the operator to rise to the (very considerable) bait, this total twat stretches the conversation out more than five minutes. Needless to say, despite taking place in China, the conversation is entirely in English.

Ostensibly the caller is calm and rational – he only outwardly loses control once (calling the girl a ‘fucking bitch’, for the record) – which only goes to make his pursual of her seem even more sadistic. The man seems to regard himself as superior in every conceivable sense and ends up convincing himself that he has selflessly given up his time to teach this cretinous Chinese some valuable lessons about the world. Self-delusion and arrogance are the overriding characteristics of this wanker’s rant, but a huge amount of racism is stirred into the brew. Ah, I need not commentate too much. Just listen.

I did want to say two things about this episode. The first, as I commented on the Danwei thread, is that this dialogue seems to be a perfect encapsulation of why, geo-politically speaking, an angry, confused, frustrated USA is on the decline, and will very likely pass a level-headed, perfectly-poised China heading in the opposite direction, smiling beatifically as it goes. Optimists might say that the events of the last few months have ended the era when this kind of macho-capitalist bravado was acceptable. I certainly hope so.

Secondly, I must reluctantly concede that the foreign community in China should cast this guy as a pantomime villain at its peril. Shanghai has ‘matured’ into a classic ‘expat’ city of late, and at least half the foreigners that I have met harbour many of the attitudes articulated by this particularly disgusting human being, though they are rarely as explicitly or as clumsily expressed. Shanghai, like so many other great expat centres of Asia, is full of people who have no interest in the specifics of the city, or country, in which they dwell, but are present purely to make money while developing their own ego at the expense of a race they see as innately inferior. The ‘lifestyle’ that so many celebrate in Shanghai is absolutely predicated on the availability of an underclass of poorly educated workers which the visiting ‘experts’ can, on the one hand, exploit for cleaning/massaging/sexual services, and on the other patronize by making a pretence at ‘helping’ or ‘teaching’, consolidating the sense of their own magnanimity and graciousness while reinforcing the idea that they are, indeed, a better breed of human being.

As much as I would like to, I don’t necessarily exclude myself from this unpleasant camp of people in China. I’ve done more than my fair-share of China-bashing over the years, much of it totally justified (heehee) and, while I am in China out of choice, rather than at the whim of corporate overlords, I too enjoy the fact that I can live a couple of social classes above my station, eating out, getting massages. I think that my respect for China, and the Chinese character (by which I mean people) does outweigh the contempt that does, undoubtedly, lurk within, but I can’t be too sure. I do believe that I would never, ever be as hostile, unkind and hurtful as the chap on the tape was, but in terms of those deep-seated prejudices, I think few foreign folk in China (Shanghai in particular) would be able to claim complete innocence. Is that fair?

You're not from round these here parts, are ya luv?

There is every reason to believe that by spending the next 15 minutes writing about last night’s X-Factor result, I am cheapening Brand Bond and possibly causing mortal damage to my self-esteem and sense of intellectual worthiness. I hate reality shows. I mean, Really, Really Hate. I hate anything that places cruelty at the heart of its enterprise. Or I thought I did. Turns out shadenfreude is a basic human (possibly male) reaction that cannot be resisted. After successfully ignoring all the audition shows and the ‘boot camp’, I have now watched all of the ‘live’ shows, desperate to see talent find its outlet and justice done. I’m totally hooked. Only justice never gets done. And perhaps that’s the real hook (or the blatantly contrived and manipulated hook, depending on your level of cynicism).

Anyway, what happened last night was ridiculous. Rachel, feisty former crack addict and hapless single mother of 15 million, turns in an abdominal performance after the judges last week conspired to save her, (quite unjustly in my opinion). Yesterday morning, on the day of the live show, the Mirror runs a front page story in which the OAP who was once robbed and assaulted in her own home by Rachel (during the crack days) is interviewed. Rachel looks dispirited and pissed off. Sings appalling. She has to go.

Only she is the first person to pass through to the next round. Instead, the two singers facing the sudden-death sing off are Laura, likeable chubby northern lass with a scintillating voice and obviously one of the top two singers in the competition (though her weight potentially prevents her being the TV executive choice for the show’s ultimate winner – though one of the executives was reported to think her good enough to shag, apparently). Poor Laura hasn’t put a foot wrong so far but, ill-advisedly as it turns out, decides to sing her Mariah Carey song by actually playing the piano accompaniment herself. And she does it very well indeed. It wasn’t her best performance, no doubt, but wasn’t at all bad either. Ruth, Spanish lass who is very good, but you know hasn’t quite got what it takes to win (mainly on account of being too old) sings fairly poorly, arguably deserves to be in the bottom two. They sing the face off and both turn in absolute belters, Neither puts a note wrong. Both look equally determined to make it through. Passionate stuff, compelling viewing (am I really writing these words?!?).

Anyway, long story short, Laura goes home. Gutted. Her ‘expert’ mentor Cheryl Cole is so devastated she can’t talk. It's clearly been taken as a personal affront to a repulsive woman unused to not getting her own way, 100 per cent of the time. Anyway, I didn’t write this to narrate proceedings as, for once, anyone reading this is likely to be intimate with what I’m droning on about. I merely wanted to offer three possible reasons for why such an obvious injustice took place.

1) Most obviously: the show is crooked. While some level of audience participation seems likely, ITV executives retain basic control over the number of votes allocated to each participant in order to ensure they get the ‘characters’ necessary for creating good ‘drama’ (ie. future injustices and heartache). The judging panel supports this effort by ignoring the realities of the singing face-off, and instead tactically voting to create controversy.

2) The show is genuine, but the kind of folk voting are those who are likely to have taken exception to the Mirror’s story, and see Rachel as some kind of folk hero, unfairly targeted by the snobby London press. Despite putting in an obviously inept performance, Rachel gets sympathy votes because of that nasty bully, the Mirror. Let's call it a chav rebellion.

3) British folk don’t like show-offs. They see Laura’s playing of the piano as an attempt to unfairly distinguish herself and they punish her for her presumptuousness. How dare a chubby northern lass who sings like an angel presume to posses the necessary talent and skill to play piano. The temerity. Bitch. Deserves to lose.

Option three is almost certainly the most likely explanation (although I wouldn’t be surprised if elements of one or two creep in there too). Funnily enough, I did actually wonder if any of the contestant would play their own instrument at some point in the show, and concluded that it would be deemed unsporting and unfair on those who couldn’t. Turns out I was wrong, and yet it produces a counter-intuitive result. Clever Little Miss So-and-So is sent home for daring to be to be good. I think this says much about the British character. And don’t take this as a criticism. I like this element of Britishness – a distrust of life's show-offs. Remember all that bullshit after Beijing 2008 over how we should learn how to celebrate our Britishness and not to drag down our stars to the lowest common denominator. Rubbish. This capacity for understatement is at the heart of the national character.

So it ends for Laura, who gave a stunning rendition of Somewhere Over The Rainbow in her final performance. Poor lass. If only she knew her country, her culture (and possible herself) better, she'd know that us Brits are incapable of forgetting that over that rainbow there's a world of hurt, disease and misery. Only our American cousins are allowed to dream - and then go about singing songs about it. So come on Laura: stiff upper lip lass. You'll get over it.

This Feels Good

The election Tuesday of Barack Obama as President of the USA was as uplifting a political moment that I've ever experienced. My response, much like the euphoric global reaction, must in some way be similar to the mass public outpouring of emotion at the death of Diana Princess of Wales. In one night Obama became some quasi-religious figure in whose being everyone was able to find some reflection of themselves, and in whose story, everyone was able to find some fundamental inspiration. Sober me will say that it must be mostly irrational, and largely imagined. And yet though Obama’s fund-raising strategy, whereby millions or ordinary low-to-middle earners pledged small sums of money, millions of people do have some real, tangible investment in this amazing person.

Nevertheless, the question remains how could I have yesterday despised America, in its brazen arrogance and its, almost, cherished ignorance, and now find myself joining the masses in believing that this nation, and this man, can somehow deliver justice and hope and order to a world tearing itself apart. It is true: I went from finding a trickle of affection towards the US, quiescent at the base of deep, dark emotional well on Wednesday morning, to getting goose bumps and feeling of actual love as I listened to his speech on Wednesday afternoon. Some commentators have regarded the address as ‘sombre’ and lacking in fire, or emotion. Granted, Obama struck a cool pose. But, hell, this man is Hawaiian of African stock. It is his birthright to be cool. And, my oh my oh my - what a speech. It was soaring. It reminded me that, for all America’s flaws, and injustices and problems, it is precisely because the US set its stall on such high moral ground, that the world feels bitter and aggrieved when promises are broken. But when American idealism is concentrated in a man of obvious character, and expressed with eloquence, in a register that blends modesty and self-effacement with confidence and belief, well, it’s an irresistible siren call – it sends shivers down the spine. I’m thinking particularly of two of my great American heroes – Kurt Vonnegut Jr and Mark Twain – as I write these words. The speech also had echoes of Martin Luther King, I guess. The I Have A Dream speech never fails to get me, no matter how many times I hear it. I’ve spent my life hating America, criticising America, railing against America, and yet my most cherished books, films, writers and thinkers come from America. My current country of residence, China, has produced words and ideas of staggering brilliance, but they can only ever move you in quiet, internal, academic ways and are rarely personally delivered with any great passion or theatre. It’s just not the same.

Of course, the euphoria is exaggerated. The enormous pathos of the culmination of a civil rights struggle that has lasted centuries, and involved some of the most despicable episodes in human history is great, very great, no doubt. But it’s also the sheer horror of the last eight years that has led to this irrational outpouring of emotion, and hope. There is something fairly fateful – and Chinese, if I may put it that way – of America’s least able, intelligent, articulate and competent leader being followed, immediately but a man who has the potential to be the perfect antonym – and the essential remedy. You can only sense that cosmic forces are at work and that a natural realignment was necessary, at some fundamental level, because of the nature of the last eight years, and the nature of George W. Bush. In this sense, Obama’s election does genuinely feel as if it has a religious, transcendental overtone. Seeing the images in the press of the crowds and the stories of celebration almost moved me to tears on Thursday. I castigated myself for not realising what was going on; for not ‘getting’ just how important this moment was, and for not trying to involve myself in some more direct way with this movement of people and ideas. I read Jonathan Freeland’s excellent summary of Obama’s life story in the Guardian yesterday and felt more inspired than I’ve felt in, literally, years. A man of mixed blood, mixed ethnicity and – let’s face it – of a ‘mixed up’ family, who spent his childhood between a small island in the Pacific and Suharto’s Indonesia, whose first job was doing community work in Chicago’s impoverished South Side, who shunned the opportunity to earn big money in law for the chance to effect change through politics, eventually emerging as the post powerful man on earth. If nothing else it has me thinking of Obama has a harbinger of fortune for my own daughter, a girl who will share a similar melange of language and cultures (and a feeling of insecurity in exactly who she is, I daresay). But more than these personal, selfish reflections, reading Obama’s story created a deep, deep hope that we do have a man in White House who, one, knows, two, cares, and three has the brilliance, the tenacity, the confidence, the determination and the political will to push through real change. I read Alice Walker’s wonderfully lyrical open letter to Obama in the same Guardian supplement and felt tingles……“it is the soul that must be preserved, if one is to remain a credible leader. All else might be lost; but when the soul dies, the connection to earth, to peoples, to animals, to rivers, to mountain ranges, purple and majestic, also dies. And your smile, with which we watch you do gracious battle with unjust characterizations, distortions and lies, is that expression of healthy self-worth, spirit and soul, that, kept happy and free and relaxed, can find an answering smile in all of us, lighting our way, and brightening the world.”

But a day on and there is a creeping sense that we must not get caught up. Change is coming, an improvement is coming, no doubt, but Barack Obama is not Jesus Christ incarnate and America has created deep, deep problems that no one man can possible undo. Nevertheless, like so many around the world, I wish him all the luck in the world trying and, for the time being, he has done the seemingly impossible. He has made me love America again. Instantly. Like so much about America, it’s probably too good to be true, but let us enjoy these Hollywood moments.

First Post In A While...

Hello world. Well, here it is. First post in a year. Acutely aware I’m talking to myself, but have to slip in a self-referential line at this juncture, just in case someone out there has me on their XML feed.

I’m reviving this blog with no great manifesto or mission – other than a vague sense that after a year and a half of fatherhood and guidebook tedium, I’m rather out of real writing practice. So call this a 'kick-start' to an old, dearly missed habit. And don’t expect much quality or fireworks. I’ll build back up slowly, if that’s OK?

I believe I can point to the odd indication of progress. My photography has come on leaps and bounds, I believe, in this past year; my career is advanced, though I have neither the money, status or future prospects to show for it; I am the slightly ashamed owned of a MA; and I did do some vacuuming recently, proving that I take my fatherly role seriously. However, in general, my life station is not greatly altered from one year prior: still shopping at Lidl and counting every penny.

Lots has come and gone since I lasted wrote seriously. It’s with a tinge of regret that I have to confess to a couple of major trips in this past year that I’ve failed to blog. I recently looked back upon my blogged tales from Inner Mongolia and realised just how much I have let slip through the net by not taking the time to write up my trips to Tibet (last summer), Shanghai (this winter) and Singapore and Hong Kong (this past summer). So many adventures consigned to the dustbin of my memory (and believe me, that billowed black bag runs deep). I guess I hope this blog will allow me to crystallize some of the events that currently tend to pass me by. Like language learning, it takes telling a story in order to remember it, so here I go attempting to capture the passing of time (even if I never bother to look back at it ever again, as it often the case).

What else? Tibetan riots, Beijing Games, Credit Crunch, New Apartment, Another Guidebook Written. Ah, so many forthright opinions, kept mostly to myself.

My daughter is growing as well as any parent could hope. There are images at: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/grahambond and a sound slideshow at: http://www.grahambond.com/multimedia.htm. Just for the historic record, she is currently down with Hand, Foot and Mouth disease which rather conjures unpleasant images of frothing mouths and farmers with shotguns, but I am assured that ‘all’ British children get it these days – dirty bastards that they are. All I can say is that if I discovered a minor viral infection in humans, I wouldn’t name it after an illness that has been widely reported as causing cows to behave like 80s acid house ravers. Why not cloak it behind an sterile, academic reassuring name, like most infections, Banard-Jackson Disease, or some such like. Or perhaps that sounds even more sinister?

Two thoughts on life. My life in particular….

I’ve come to the conclusion that I may have taken a couple of phoney life turns. In virtually every aspect of life, I’ve had this weird sense that I’m destined to be different. In seeking to stray away from the well-beaten path, I’ve enjoyed some spectacular moments, but my innate need to be different, to be away from the herd, has – I believe – tricked me. My manner of expression, my schooling, my loner behaviour, my travelling habits, my current choice of home, my career path, my aversion to popular culture (though I did watch the X-Factor last weekend) – all are indicative of a need to feel special. And just suddenly it’s occurred to me that in behaving this way, I’ve gained very little and potentially sacrificed a huge amount in terms of a relationship (or at least an easy relationship) with my peers, and my family. I’m proud to have taken the path I’ve taken, I’m proud that I’m not some cosseted, fat, sleazy expat in China, I’m proud to never have purchased a new car, or owned a credit card, or taken a mortgage. But I am increasingly aware that I have very few people in my life who I can share my ideas with, united in a common understanding.

In a similar vein, I believe it’s possible that my life over the past 15 or so years may have so prioritized a non-materialist perspective (I mean in terms of my lack of aspiration towards recognition, or status, or wealth) that I have possible sacrificed ambition into the bargain. I stand by the idea that my seeking a salary rise, or a new car, or a bigger house, you are worshipping false Gods. However, I also believe that ambition is a necessary thing in life. One must be sustained by a belief there is more to come in life, and though my family, and my love of learning mean I am never bored, I do believe I have plenty to gain by being slightly more competitive, and ambitious in my outlook from here on it. So let it begin.

I’m sure there’ll be more ramblings of this nature in the days and weeks ahead. Let me apologize here and now to anyone attracted to this blog by the title. The picture attached gives a clue as to my current whereabouts, and this necessarily means China won’t feature as much as usual in the upcoming five months. Yes, I’m in deepest, darkest Northeast Hampshire (England) and won’t be back in Jolly Zhongguo until next March (I’m salivating at the prospect of my next bowl of la mian already). In the meantime, I have to content myself with wonderful autumnal vistas like this one, shot from my daughter’s bedroom window a couple of mornings ago. Ah, if only little Lulu could appreciate it. As it was, she was listening to the ‘Tiger Who Came to Tea’ for the six thousandth time when I snapped this.

Oh, and since I’ve been away I’ve noticed that the blogs that I tend to read are stating some kind of opinion on global events, rather than masquerading as illustrated diary entries, so I shall try and be a little more focused in my musings in the days ahead – though there’ll be plenty of personal stuff too, no doubt.

That’s all for now. Thank you.