China

After lunch I suddenly got very dizzy and felt like falling off my chair. When this feeling continued for about a minute it drove me crazy and I decided to go for a walk to get some green tea. My boss walked out of her office, looking around and seeming pretty confused, too. I asked her if she felt something, since it seemed we both had a similar inexplicable anxiety. We concluded that it was probably an earthquake. (I think Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome is not that acute.)

I checked USGS, which confirmed that there was indeed an earthquake, albeit ~1500km SW of Beijing. A score of 7.8 is indeed a serious earthquake, but I'm still amazed that we were able to feel it at such a distance.

Turns out it was indeed serious. A couple of buildings collapsed, about 100 dead, but that number will surely rise.

It's about time the Olympic Games started. It feels like everybody is keeping their breath, hoping nothing serious will go wrong. The T-bet riots were a nightmare scenario, but by the time the games actually start in August, there will have been other, more worrying issues keeping "the west" busy.

EDIT: 5000 feared dead, 80% of buildings destroyed.

It's obvious that Great Wall Motors' Peri was, ahum, inspired by the Fiat Panda, but it seems it itself has been copied by another Chinese car maker. I saw the ChangHe Ideal parked in front of our block today. I wonder what it costs.

EDIT: Some more info. Apparently it was designed by Bertone and it's being built with Suzuki. A new one costs around ~5500 euro, if I'm not mistaken.

I just received the latest issue from The Economist. A colleague dropped it onto my desk and quickly walked away. Considering the cover page, I'm amazed this issue actually arrived. Perhaps the freedom of the press isn't that bad after all?

This should have something for everybody.

Just two days after protesting outside Korean bakery Tous Les Jours, French-embittered Chinese mobs took to the streets and burned a Yugoslavian flag, “as punishment for their ignorance!” cried one protester.

...

Sarcastic chants of “Allo” and “Salut” could be heard over dance mixes of the song “Dragostea Din Tei,” by Moldovan pop band, O-Zone.
“I used to love this song,” said Tang Jingjing. “Those days were gone.”

Funny stuff, I hope they keep it up.

Interessant interview op VRT deze week met een Chinakundige over de kwestie Tibet. (Link doet het niet in FireFox.)

Gevonden via Sargasso.

I can't help feeling a bit frustrated when reading the coverage of the riots on most 'free' news sites. I will not comment on the issue directly (way over my head), but I do believe this article does a great job explaining the frustrations here in China.

My Chinese bike broke down again: the chain snapped. New chain: 25 RMB + 2 RMB for labor.

So I'm sitting in a Macauan restaurant, minding my own business. Thinking about one of those egg tarts I heard so much about. They are supposed to be squishy and smell good, I heard. When suddenly I hear this.

When - does - the - hurting - stop!

We ate tonight. It was dish with meat, tofu and spinach. I particularly love spinach, but had no idea what the was. The restaurant we were in only served dishes that had in their names. The people at the table next to ours where eating something that looked tasty enough so we ordered the same thing.

It was very tasty. The meat was dark and tender. Although we packed a dictionary and were anxious to know what we were eating, we decided to wait. And now I'm pretty sure it was a good decision. (gou rou in pinyin) is dog meat. Yes, we ate dog meat, and frankly, it tasted OK. It tasted like mutton, a bit between mutton and beef, to be more exact. Dog meat has a very distinctive flavor and once we knew what it was, we were sure we had it before. (I bought some meat at the market last week, just by pointing to it.) It's also sometimes called the fragrant meat.

There you have it. If you plan on visiting us, memorize those two characters. The first is for dog, the second is meat. By the time you're visiting, we'll probably eat anything.

We went to the zoo yesterday, where I saw my first real Panda. I don't know what I was expecting, but I left rather disappointed. Perhaps because they're not as cuddly as they make us believe? The aquarium was much nicer and satisfactory and it had at least 100 samples of every species present. The tanks seemed rather crowded, not unlike Beijing I suppose.

Anxious to see more of this huge city, we bought two bikes at Carrefour yesterday, costing about 300 yuan = 30 euro each! For 30 euro you get a frame, two wheels, two brakes, steering, pedals, and a nice basket. No lights (nobody has them) and no gears (obviously).

Today we took our new bikes for a ride. Immediately, Ine's bike had a flat tire. The pump we had bought proved up to the task and in no-time we were on our way. First stop: a bicycle repair man, to get the saddles altered. Fortunately, there's a bicycle repair man on every street corner and apparently it costs 2 yuan to get your saddle adjusted.


After a nice ride to the last remains of Beijing's city wall (and a short stop for one last adjustment to my saddle, another 2 yuan) Ine's front tire went flat again and it was soon clear that pumping air in it was not going to fix the problem. The quest for another repair man began, this time on foot, through a shady Russian neighborhood (mink furs, anyone?). After a 30 minute walk we found our bicycle repair man, the third one today. The inner tube had to be replaced, bringing the total of this repair job to 50 yuan.


We were riding again, but soon it was my bike's turn for some attention. The rear wheel started to make a loud ticking sound and suddenly gave up altogether, leaving us stranded in a hutong. Turns out, a hutong is the place you want to be in when your bike breaks down. The rear gear (the clutch thingie) had to be replaced and our (fourth) bicycle repair man showed us the bad quality of the original brake and replaced that as well. Price: 64 yuan.

In Romania we've often joked that cheap products should be bought in pairs: one for immediate use, and one for spare parts. And now we wish we had bought one extra bike; we could have shared its parts.

(more pictures on Ine's picasa page)

Finally, after I've waited 6 years for a good opportunity, I decided to hang this poster on the wall:

Starting next Monday, Ine will start working at The Learning Center in her new job as their marketing and communications director.

From BBC World:

Eight-year olds compete to be voted class monitor:

"Cheng Cheng ensured that his classmates shouted down Xu Xiaofei before she had even started to speak, and she found it difficult to recover.

The next day he told her it had all been Luo Lei's doing, and then proceeded to boo Luo-Lei off the stage."

Amazing. Get the torrent here.