I arrived in Beijing last night and will be in China for 17 days, if anyone wants to gt together. The itinerary will be Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu. If my VPN keeps working I’ll try to make periodic updates. Nice to be here, pollution and traffic and all.
Update: Forgot to add, Fuck the firewall. Nastier than ever.
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A peculiar hybrid of personal journal, dilettantish punditry, pseudo-philosophy and much more, from an Accidental Expat who has made his way from Hong Kong to Beijing to Taipei and finally back to Beijing for reasons that are still not entirely clear to him…
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1
By In SF, missing Kunming
I’m envious Richard. Wishing you safe travels. BTW I finally got around to reading your book that has been languishing in my Kindle for a few months. It’s very well written and engrossing.
April 13, 2013 @ 8:14 pm | Comment
2
By Mike Goldthorpe
I see your book is mentioned in the Guardian newspaper 🙂
Don’t think the Guardian is banned in China. I really didn’t enjoy the winter trip I recently did.
Anyway, the article http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/14/chinese-gay-lovers-seek-wife
April 15, 2013 @ 10:45 am | Comment
3
By narsfweasels
You know I’m always good for a Shanghai meet.
April 16, 2013 @ 8:58 am | Comment
4
By Clock
There’s Always a Mystical Force Blessing the Chinese Communist Party
1989, on the cusp of such a disaster for the CCP, America had the most Sino-Frienly President in Bush senior, plus the Saddam invasion of Iran. CCP dodged a bullet.
After Bush senior stepped down, the highly China-unfrienly, highly ideological Democratic party took power. It seemed then that CCP was doomed. Yet, Europe announced the Euro. That would’ve killed the US dollar dominance. American of course had no time for China, and in turn bombed Yugoslavia. CCP passed another tribulation.
Then the century turned, seemd Bush junior was gonna really have some free time to deal with the CCP. And then of course Brother Laden came about and made a mess for America. For the next 10 years, CCP was safe again, silently building, silently improving.
Now, that 3rd fatty of North Korea seems to be putting CCP in a bind again, and yet the Boston explosion took place, once again CCP is left alone.
TMD, some mystical force always saves the day for the CPP.
Good.
April 17, 2013 @ 8:02 am | Comment
5
By slim
Shit, the fenqing movement has really lowered their standards with Clock.
April 17, 2013 @ 8:49 am | Comment
6
By Atticus Dogsbody
He’s off with the fairies now.
April 17, 2013 @ 10:09 am | Comment
7
By FOARP
@Slim – LOL: it’s like that scene in Starship Troopers where a bunch of losers turn up to replace their loses in the previous battle, “we got reinforced”.
@Clock – That piece was just awesome, more please! I totally respect your one-man crusade to destroy the Fenqing movement from within!
April 17, 2013 @ 1:34 pm | Comment
8
By Keir
Goodbye to all that- pollution, censorship, arbitrary laws…
Oh, and child-raping paedophiles. Apparently a guy I taught with for five years has been wanted by British police for having raped a 14 year old and disseminating child pornography online. The school denied, admitted having him in its employ and now says to contact the ‘manager’ who is on holiday until May 6.
With the people I had to work with for eight years, it’s no surprise that a number have been sociopaths, pathological liars and other degenerates who would have had no chance to gain meaningful employment in the West. I also know how difficult it is for Chinese schools to get sufficient background checks, especially when laowei are needed ASAP to fill a vacancy after the usual turnover. But it sickens me especially, now that I have my own child since leaving China, that they are allowed to teach students for years, even when wanted abroad.
By the way, Richard- congrats on your book! Great reviews all around. Will have to keep in the loop more regularly…
April 27, 2013 @ 6:34 pm | Comment
9
By FOARP
@Keir – Yeah, heard about the same case but don’t know any of the people involved. The guy was up on the Crime Watch website all the time – presumably if you just Googled the guy’s name you’d have come up on it, normally that’s the level of DD needed to catch these scumbags, but no-one does it. As I know from my run in with a certain ‘university-graduated’ ‘lawyer’ with ‘government connections’ and a China ‘practice’, the problem is that a lot of people don’t check up when contacted who even the slowest amongst us can see are about as genuine as a 12-pound-note.
I’m also not surprised to see a paedophile working as an English teacher. Realistically speaking they’re everywhere, but teaching English in the 3rd world is such an easy gig (you just have to be able to speak English, and sometimes not even that) that it attracts some real pond-life. Teaching English I met convicted criminals fresh out of prison, people who had just been released from insane asylums etc. etc.
April 29, 2013 @ 3:00 am | Comment