Update!

It’s interesting here, Beijing is like Scarborough times 10. It is huge, fairly well laid out but huge. I’m OK with having my picture taken by people, or the staring that they will do its kind of fun to try and catch them doing it. But life here is fairly normal in some aspects, quite different in others.

Sitting at a Starbucks drinking a coffee brings the normal part out, lots of well off middle class youth doing the same. Dressed in jeans and business suits all texting on cell phones. But try going around the corner for some BBQ’d chuar, (think kabobs, the mutton is my favourite) and it is a whole other world. The menu if there is one is all in Chinese so the only way to do it is to point to another table and hold up as many fingers as the number you want. If I’ve been there before with one of the guys from work I just grab a menu and circle the number for what I liked, that way when I go back, point and count. It’s a bit of a crapshoot but so far now intestines or heads of fish have shown up on my plate. I’m working on the language but it will take sometime.

One thing there seems to be is a lot of staff. Right now I can see 8 cleaners from where I sit. Everything from sweeping the sidewalk with what looks like a homemade broom made from tree branches, to a window cleaner and 5 or 6 people with rages wiping every surface they can find. They’re not moving at a rapid pace, but they don’t stand still very long.

It will be interesting to see how the economy here fairs. There are huge malls that have few customers but plenty of staff. Factories are closing in the hinterlands putting 20 Million out of work. So as the economic wave ebbs and flows it will be an interesting year. 20 million out of work seems to make the government a little edgy. Seems that many people getting disgruntled could cause some problems. In Canada we can change the government when we don’t like the way they are handling things. Here, not so much.

Hillary was just here for a little visit to talk economy and climate change. Not much was said about human rights. Reports say that may people where detained at guest houses outside of Beijing to prevent any protests. There was a small one at the silk market Sunday morning, but was quickly dispersed by police. The only comment on human rights was more of statement. Hillary attended church in a county where Christianity is only allowed in state run churches. Apparently the Chinese where not thrilled with the idea so the place had about a 1 mile radius of a police presence to quell any notion of a demonstration.

I take possession of my apartment next week so I will post some photos when I get moved in. On the work front, we have not been able to travel much do to economics with the ongoing CanWest financial situation. I hope that changes for the better soon.