Next chapter

Firstly, an admin note: I have updated my settings to receive an email whenever anyone takes the time to comment on the blog, I'll now respond straight away. All comments are appreciated and I can now demonstrate my appreciation by replying quickly.

So, to follow up on my post at the end of September concerning unemployment - it's over!

I have a great new job.

I don't want to get into the details yet because I need to take a few weeks to figure out what level of division between personal and professional I need to take. It's no major secret, but obviously the Internet is a public forum and some issues are for discussion on a more selected basis.

In generalities however it is in the same field I was working in before I left the UK, but happily a little bit further up the ladder. I really enjoyed that job. It wasn't anything earth-shattering, but it was interesting, I got to travel and my boss always gave me opportunities to take on more responsibilities and develop my career. The pay and benefits were very good as is the case in the public sector in the UK - enjoy them if you've got a job in that sector and don't harp on about the private sector - you're on to a good (although perhaps precarious) thing. I'd had that job for three years though and was certainly at a stage where I was looking to push on, gain more experience and take on more responsibility.

As things turned out, I gave it up for no fixed job. German in Zhong Guo got the job here and it wasn't a difficult decision to give it all up to come with her. She's now missus Geordie in Zhong Guo, so I feel my choice was vindicated. I've never felt a moments regret since making that decision.

In the first place, since at that time we weren't married, I needed a visa. I accepted that I would be the junior partner financially, but I also wanted to earn enough to pay a loan that I'd taken out before we got together. I'm all for integrating our finances, but that didn't seem fair.

With some heavy duty searching, I was able to find a job that fitted both these criteria. Like any job there were some frustrating times as I adjusted to the new system. Ultimately however, that university job grew into something really beneficial and gave me some invaluable management experience and exposure to the nature of bureaucracy in a large Chinese organisation. In the second year of that job I was able to take on some more responsibility and instigate some real change in the development and delivery of the teaching, which was, I think really focused on giving the students more of the practical skills they need to succeed in both British universities and the international work place.

I should also mention the fantastic experience I gained working at a new and dynamic NGO focused on the green economy and micro finance. An opportunity that came up at a party and developed into a totally different, but equally invaluable perspective on working in China.

For different reasons at different times I left both of these jobs, but with no regrets and I recognise 100% that without these two roles, I wouldn't have had either the confidence or the experience to apply for the job I'm about to start.

So, the point of the post is this: I thought I was taking a backwards step (career-wise at least) whereas in fact it has resulted in the best job I've ever had and the opportunity for real progress.

I know that not everyone has the luxury I've enjoyed over the last few months of being able to take the time to find the perfect job and in the meantime, not be too stressed about money, somewhere to live and particularly relevant in China - a visa to stay here.

If I could offer anything from this whole experience though it would be that any new opportunity can be put to positive effect. It sounds trite, but it's true to my experience over the last two years. You may not take a decision or make a move for reasons related to work, but what you learn can still help.

Feast or famine

Typical, you don't hear from us for weeks, then suddenly there are four posts in a week. Well, that's just the way it goes, I make no apologies for our irregularity, we're just too busy / lazy (delete as appropriate).

I've been promising for a while that I would post some info about our new apartment. We've still only been living here for two months, so it does still qualify as new. As you've seen, we have had plenty of socialising events here including house-warming parties, book clubs, thanksgiving and general eating, drinking and wiing.

It's a beautiful apartment and we're both feeling pretty lucky to have such a nice place. It's brand new and we are the first to live here. Which is great, although it does mean there are a few little problems here and there to get sorted; a shower door fitted too high, accidental free drinking water, nothing to serious.

So, first of all, a few links to give you some background on the compound called 当代Moma. Here you can see some nice, professional pictures of the place. It is in Chinese, so for those of us that don't read more than a handful of characters, you'll just have to click around and get an idea of what's going on.

This article on Treehugger (a green website) has a couple of videos linked and explains some of the environmental credentials of the place. These were pretty important to us in our choice of where to live. So we have geothermal heating, water recycling and LEED energy-saving credentials for the bulding.

Finally, this link is to the site of the Architect, Steven Holl. Some great pictures here and quotes about the compound from around the world.

Finally, just to personalise this a little bit here is a video of our apartment:

Also a link, in case the embedded video doesn't work for you.

And finally, a shorter video of the place at night:

And the link.

The Old Barber of Beijing

Another advantage of flying with Hainan Air, other than a direct flight, is the fact that the available movies forced me to watch something outside my comfort zone.

The Old Barber of Beijing (剃头匠) is a film which was made in 2006. It captures the life of an old craftsmen,a barber, living in a traditional siheyuan on a hutong near the centre of Beijing. Many of the scenes are no more than a twenty minute walk from the Forbidden City.

It's a slow moving film, directed in an artistic style, with a focus on the camera work and microphones recording the sights and sounds of old Beijingers living and dying in their traditional environment.

The main theme of the film is the contrast between old and new. Traditionalism and Modernity.

People living in this situation are absolutely still a common sight on the streets of Beijing, but for how long they and their homes will last, it's difficult to say. The debate about the preservation of Hutongs is covered more eloquently elsewhere. The only perspective I would share is that I try to avoid jumping to the conclusion that life in a siheyuan with no bathroom and questionable electricity and water supplies is necessarily preferable to a modern apartment, just because I like to cycle through 'authentic' parts of Beijing when cycling between my apartment and a restaurant.

Anyway, if you've got the patience, the time and the interest, check out these films. You'll see a very different view of our home town than I can easily show. It does have English subtitles.

The titles are hyperlinks in case the embedded video doesn't work.

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3


Part 4

if cool(n) ≠ loaded(l) + profligate(p), what is n?

Maybe some words of interest for our impending guests in Berlin.

We arrived yesterday late afternoon on the Hainan Air direct flight from Beijing to Berlin. The flight was fine although uneventful. However I didn't appreciate their attempts to darken the cabin and encourage sleep on a day flight. It's relatively easy to avoid jet-lag when travelling East to West as long as you stay awake, then go to sleep in the evening as usual.

Anyway, watched a few movies and grappled with an uncooperative controller to play some pointless hands of video poker. The food was fine although average, as was the service.

I must admit ("divvin't call me a mustard mitt") that although travelling through Heathrow is nary pleasant, BA do have pretty damn good service.

Anyway, for our purposes, we couldn't beat the convenience of a direct flight.

So I thought that the theme of this post could be a few observations I have made on the six or so visits I have made here since associating with the blog-betitling tuton.

The weather tends to be warmer than in the UK. I attribute this to continentality, but then any weather I cannot explain which does not affect the UK, I attribute to continentality. (This is the combination of an enthusiastic, but insufficiently focused interest in geography and coming from an island nation). Consequently we have high hopes for a warm and sunny day a week on Friday.

Berliners hate to waste money. Despite being the capital city, Berlin is not a rich place. In fact the BBC last week ran quite a sobering report about child poverty in Berlin. If I've spoken to you about one of the main reasons I like Berlin, I probably said something along the lines of it having all of the culture and vibrancy of a capital city, without the price-ruining effects of having a large finance industry (which in Germany is based in Frankfurt). So the social scene has none of the look-at-how-much-money-I-can-waste-having-funnedness which is certainly prevalent in parts of Beijing for example.

Actually in a brief aside, I've already recognised that I very rarely have a bad word to say about life in Beijing. Now as I've commented before, this is mostly down to my natural optimism, but also becuase it genuinely is a bloody brilliant place. However, in the continued interests of balance, here's another crticism to file next to crap driving. There are too many people in Beijing that think their rapidly acquired wealth awards them some kind of special status and abilities. Actually, it's not difficult at all to see that this criticism is intrinsically linked to the driving problem. Too many people think having a car makes them 'better' than other road users and they act accordingly. You also get a degree of this in bars and restaurants around the city, however, the sad but true fact is, because we are foreigners, it is assumed we have cash to burn and therefore more often than not, we are awarded what I feel is false respect and deference in this regard. This post is not about Beijing, so I'll get back to the focus, but this is a useful point to juxtapose attitudes in Berlin.

So if cool(n) ≠ loaded(l) + profligate(p), what is n?
(That's awfully geeky I acknowledge, but amusing too, so there we are).
Mostly the social scene here seems to comprise knowing where the fleeting zeitgeist (see what I've done there?) is currently denoting as 'the place to be' and then being there. Dressed casually to indicate that no effort has been made and then drinking delicious and relatively inexpensive beers, supplemented by weg biere or biere der faust - literally (on the) way beers or beers of the fist, bought in local convenience stores. Smoking remains almost obligatory, although having a dog-on-string and 'white-boy dreadlocks' are optional but encouraged. (Think the Tanners Arms) The drinking speed is slow, to allow for involved discussion, but the road is long, night out being a literal term. Warning, this is something that has caught me out, specifically on NYE 2007 when I reached my drinking zenith far too early, brought up as I was on 23:00 hoying out times.

Reggae is popular, with home-grown bands doing some good stuff and happily seeming to avoid the burning gay people obsession that characterises the music actually coming out (not in that way - don't burn me!) of Jamaica these days. But the music scene is pretty eclectic of course recognising that Berlin is the spiritual home of Techno.

Food is always a regular feature of this blog and this post is no different. The food here in Berlin is very good. There are a large number of reasonably-priced restaurants serving food from all over the world. Just in case you were unaware of this urban (not-)myth, the döner kebab was actually invented in Berlin. Currywurst and bratwurst are two other 'weg snacks' to be enjoyed, both on a night out and when exploring the various parts of the city for sightseeing, shopping and checking out the museums and galleries.

As a student of politics, it is difficult not to be enthralled by Berlin. It has played a momentous and difficult role in the political history of Europe and the rest of the World. Walking around the city, even for the first time it is easy to feel like you recognise some of the sights and streets, whether from fiction or the news.

It remains something of a split city, the East and the West are no longer physically divided, but in people's perceptions a gap still remains. Don't be distracted by the superficialities of which 'green man' tells you to Walk or not, despite having visited a number of times, the only time I've been to the west of the city was to visit KaDeWe on Ku'Damme. Not that Caroline is at all prejudiced... (she'll probably knack me for writing that).

If you want some visuals to accompany this über-lightwieght introduction, then check out this set of mine on flickr.

Assuming you're coming to our event, I hope this whets your appetite a little. We'll provide you with more detailed information, suggestions and recommendations when you arrive. If you're not able to come, then I'll be on here ruminating, fulminating and cogitating in the build up and summing up and posting pictures in the follow up.

Follow up to "What's Going On".
Just in case anyone is interested, the Guardian have posted this fairly balanced video report on the troubles in Xinjiang. But although things seemed to have calmed down and despite reading as many reports, commentaries and analyses, I remain far from an understanding of what happened and why.

(This is my relatively uninformed thoughts on the city, helpfully I have avoided getting any detailed input from any of the three hospitable Berliners I am currently staying with.)

In case you were concerned...

about our social lives in Beijing, this here blog seems to suggest we will have no trouble.

In fact reading some of the posts reminds me of some of the nights out we had in China last time.

Obviously this will only be a small slice of our life in China, but it's nice to feel that the fundamentals are in place.

Next onto the luxuries, like finding somewhere to live. So far I am liking this place. It's the indoor/outdoor pool combo that's selling it.

Only 7 days left at work.

Our Leaving BBQ & preparing to move

So, ... this is the first of (hopefully) many blogs from the German. After Mark has showed me the beauty of making this page our own, I thought I straight away use the opportunity to just summarise our leaving party last Saturday. Many many people came (even some we didn't invite and thought they could just steal a sausage without even knowing us. What has the world come to?). Food was plentyful and thanks to Ben, the Master Chef, we had a constant supply of grilled goods, to (even ones we didn't own).

The night ended at our house (no neighbours in sight) with Water Pipe (strawberry and apple flavour after loud discussion) and Tamey's wedding DVD. At 4am, Kerry, Richard and Ben got a taxi and I went to bed. Mark and Steven managed to stay up even longer (I'm clearly too old for this these days).

So, what is to come? Well, on Wednesday we will move out of our pretty little flat and seek asylum at Mr & Mrs Henderson's house. On Sunday, I will fly back to Europe mainland and enjoy the German sun, Mark is to follow on the 18th. And then, .... off to Beijing!!!!!!!!!!

Introduction to Beijing

The blog is far from finished, so expect some changes.
In fact it hasn't even really started.
However, I did see this page on the Guardian and thought it might be a useful link for anyone who doesn't have a clue what Beijing is like.
Obviously stay tuned and you'll get a better description straight from the horses mouth.
Or mine, if the horse is tired.