Colinfuscius Say

Beautiful womany bike ride-aah many times scootity scoot by on scootity scooter. Colinfuscius pedal, pedal lickety split but no catch womany beautiful. Womany bike scootity ride-aah no look back. Colinfuscius sad.
Editor's Note: Need to work on your philosophy of what makes you happy Sunny Jim. Or buy a scooter dumb dumb!

The Seven Wide Men

The Chinese government has decreed that certain types of signs be in both Pinyin and Chinese characters. This helps foreigners of which there are still relatively few, but I'm not sure it does a great deal for the average man in the street. It does help me though. The pronunciation of Pinyin still leaves me baffled and what it comes down to is memorizing certain sequences of letters and what they should sound like. For example the Gardens of Suzhou near Shanghai and Guangzhou (Canton) are pronounced SueJoe and GuangJoe respectively. This province is Hebei (Huhbay) but there is another Hubei (pronounced Hoobay), so you have to watch when you are getting your train tickets! The need for Pinyin is well and good but often there is an attempt at English. Fortunately I can claim none of the following sign makers have graduated from my class. Here are some of my favourite mistakes. Visiting the Handan Congtai Pavilion on Sunday, home to Emperor Qin who unified China in 200 BC, the sign for the 7 Sages section read "Seven Wide Men." A startling medical clinic caught my attention yesterday claiming to be the "Stomacoligical Medical Centre". If I need car repairs I know where the "Aotombile Repair Shop" is. And by the way China had an Empress so this is not just the land of Little Emperors.

The Little Emperors

China has a one child policy as many of you know. The family I am with has one twenty year old daughter, Bo. For a few days I thought she had a sister in California at Stanford but it turned out Dad, Yong Chao, was using the word sister for cousin. Alto-gether though our communication is pretty good considering. Despite the one child policy the population still seems to grow and I was told will probably reach 1.6 billion before a noticeable decline is observed. The math behind that somewhat puzzles me. However I have noticed that several families have twins. While shopping at the market we ran into two sets within five minutes. Apparently parents wishing to circumvent the law use fertility drugs which are readily available at the drug store, ironically. No matter, the one child families are predominant and parents often dote on their kids. Not always a good thing in the long run and articles in the China Daily have been musing on the psychology of this long term for society. Several times I have been tricked by large crowds in the streets thinking from a distance there was a major happening. Each time it has turned out to be a mass of parents waiting at the shool gate to collect their dear ones {ha ha ha}. The little emperors (and female equivalent if there be such a thing) do work hard though since school sometimes has classes at night and on the week-ends. Yesterday I was guest of some friends of the family who took us to the site of the stronghold of the Tang Dynasty Emperor Qin who unified China in 200 B.C. I got a great photo of a little emperor all decked out in yellow in his communist Easter Sunday best.

Xu You

I have been graciously given the name Xu You (pronounced zoo yoe), that is to say I am part of the Xu family and my given name is You. I am told because of my travels and displacement my first name means something akin to “water moving around a lot.” Last Monday Yong Chao, my family’s father who is a year younger than me, took me to the Public Safety Building to get my resident’s permit. Certainly we ran into the officialdom one might expect of a communist society. My presence posed a problem and caused quizzical faces because despite being only 400 km from Beijing they see few foreigners here. But the stern faces soon evaporated when at what seemed like an appropriate moment I wrote my name in chinese characters. Well one character to be precise, the other is too complex. There was laughter all round and I got my permit. Supposedly I can not go beyond the city limit to the rural area without another permit but that is old China and I am assured by some to ignore that directive. As for progress in learning Chinese I still drink bread and eat water. My stomach doesn’t really notice the difference as far as I can tell.

Colinfuscius Say

Chinese bike ride-aah no likey honky honk four wheels. Bike ride-aah must be magnetic for no bumpity bump other many many bike-ride-aah. Happy Easter in land of God.

Chinese Puzzle

So to get to the Far East from the Americas one goes west you say? Sounds like a contradiction which many navigators have pondered. Question: If you leave Vancouver at 12:30 pm Wednesday and fly west for 11 and a half hours what time (local) do you get to Beijing? The answer is not 12 midnight should that come to mind.

Facts You Need to Know: Although 8 time zones separate the two cities in the shortest way between them (across the Pacific) in fact the International Date Line requires the time difference between them be calculated starting in Beijing and going west. So in reality there are 16 hours between them. So, if one departs Vancouver at 12.30pm then it is already 16 hours ahead in China, that is to say 28.30 hrs or 4.30 am the next morning. Add to that the 11 and a half hours and one derives 16:0 hours, 4 pm Thursday afternoon local time. I have been invited to teach my first class in the middle school next door and if the English don't gett'em the math sure will!

The Two Colins

I arrived at Beijing on Thursday in the late afternoon. It was not without an amusing incident. The airport itself is monolithic and threatening on the outside but friendly and modern on the inside. Customs and Immigration was a breeze. It seemed this smooth entry was continuing when I was met as I exited by a girl holding a hand held card with my name. All according to plan. After an exchange of a few questions we set off in a taxi for downtown. A pleasant conversation was interrupted twenty minutes later by Helen’s cell phone. We had reached ring road one, well towards the centre (number six is currently being constructed). What transpired to prompt the phone call is that another passenger on my plane, a professor from Washington, D.C. had called his academic contact to say he had not been picked up. Julia, the girl supposedly meeting me had not meanwhile found me. A quick call to her cell confirmed she was still waiting for me back at arrivals. Julia is very detail oriented and was somewhat frantic. We put her in the loop, figured out which answers to which questions had been misunderstood and did a U turn. Two hand held signs, two Colins on the same plane and poor communications. Each man got his girl but not the one the Great Helmsman (see preceding post) intended. We all met up at Starbucks on arrivals level. Welcome to China Professor Colin Forbes, and hey why not me too?

Kicking Up My Heels

Where better to be for St Patricks Day than China? I have landed and feel very good in my skin. The beer was not green yesterday but heck you can't have everything. Time is not my own right now so I am having to rush to post this. Already I am to meet my new host family and they arrive to take me to Xintai any moment. I have had an adventure first day so will tell you more ASAP.

Stepping Over the Line

I am now in Vancouver. Left Ottawa late, arrived early. Way to go Air Canada. Ground transport connections worked very smoothly in late evening so thankful for that. Have visited my 88 year old mum this morning. To-morrow I have a date! I'll be stepping over the International Date Line. Ray (a girl) will meet me at Beijing International. We will then be off to Shijiazhuang, 300 km south and diagonally across the city. Whether we go over, under or through Beijing time will tell. I hope I recognize my name in chinese characters on her flashcard. Learning Mandarin may be beyond me but I do intend to master useful phrases. Until modern times it was a felony for a native to teach a foreigner Chinese and indeed for the foreigner to learn. Seems like a ready made excuse not to try hard. Hope to have photos soon if I can download the necessary software at my point of access, an unknown at this juncture.

Servants of the Public

The Daily Telegraph recently reported that China now has 46 million government employees. Somewhat reminiscent of Ottawa, the federal capital of Canada and a government town! However that is still 15 million more people feeding at the public's expense than the entire poulation of Canada. They say an excessive and corrupt bureaucracy brought an end to the Qing dynasty in 1911. Yet as a proportion of the population there are now 35 times more pulic servants. If imperial rule collapsed then for these reasons do you think China will collapse in on itself now while I am there?

Great Circle Route

I double checked the projected route from Vancouver to Beijing on my globe, using string joining the cities, and it seems we go up the British Columbia coast and over Alaska. Last night I attended a travel presentation on the subject of Alaska put on by Gladys the agent who made my reservations. The scenery was magnificent and I wonder if I will catch a glimpse of the famous Mount McKinley from 38,000 feet (only 18,000 higher than the peak)? Like the miner who sparked the Klondike Gold Rush said, "There's gold in them thar hills!" I will settle for some golden sunshine on this mother mountain.

Mount McKinley, Alaska, highest peak in North America  

The Great Helmsman

Mao was affectionately known by this title. I hope he can steer planes equally as well as ships across that big wide Pacific (although with the Great Circle Routes in play who knows how much of the Pacific will be under us).

Colinfuscius Say

Happiness rarely walks alongside, usually it is behind or well out in front.

Middle Kingdom Here I Come

I now have my visa and tickets. It could be said I have already been to China, at least the little bit in Canada, since I have now visited the Embassy on three occasions.

The Embassy of the esteemed People's Republic in Ottawa 

The Great Helmsman in conversation with Bethune 

Home of the legendary Dr. Norman Bethune in Ontario