I am not sure why I got to be so lucky. Then again I am not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. So when an unsolicitated invitation came for me to join a delagation to China I did not ask “oh why me?”. I moved fast to sort my travel docs and square it with my colleagues so that my work load was shared out in my absence.

This was my very first visit to China. I spent about 10 days in Seoul, Korea; a couple of years ago.So that was more or less my point of reference; clearly a mistake. I went to China with a lot of preconcieved ideas about the country and its people. I now realised that I tended to liken the country to a huge ant hill. closed off to the rest of the world, every ant knowing its place and accepting its place in society with no question, and working themselves to death just to mantain their place as there were 1000s just waiting to replace them, right in the middle of the anthill there would be a few very very fat worms directing the whole shebang without a thought on the basic human rights of the ant community. The ants were just way too busy to think about such trivial things as happiness and job satisfaction etc. The ants did have the latest high tech tools to perform their jobs all knock offs from original products from all over the world.

So my trip started and ended in Hong Kong. I so loved the energy of that city. I loved the fact that the city came alive at night, literally. With all the shops open until late. It is a shopping mecca. The high street has all the big brands Gucci, Dolce and Gabbana etc. Sight seeing was such a pleasure. I did a boat tour for about 220 buck and it lasted for 3 hours. I bought my kids ipods at a fraction of the price. Of course if you are not careful this is also the city where you can end up with a Bolex rather than a Rolex or a Pensonic rather than a Panasonic.

Then we flew to Shadong a province of about93 million people. We establish a base in Jinning. A calmish, industrialish city. Nice but a bit dusty and beurocratic in my view. Whilst there we visited Qufu the birth place of confuscious and Tain. I loved both cities. Qufu is so steeped in the philosopher’s life that even modern day buildings and lifestyles have been amended accordingly. Outwardly they look very old and prehistoric but are quite modern inside.

We then took a five our bus ride to Qindao stopping for luch at Waifang. Qindao is a coastal town with mountains. I felt right at home there. The city has about 10 million people, which is quite small by Chinese stands, it is quite modern and very friendly. I visited Laoman mountain the home of Daoisin. It was a wonderful experience.

We then took a five hour express train from Qindao to Beijing. travelling at an average speed of 240 ks per hour. Beijing was quite an unpleasant city for me. Dusty, crowded. I felt quite claustrophobic. This is where I got pawed by all and sundry as if I am the first black person they have ever laid eyes on. They touched my braids , stared or pointed, rubbed my hips. They wanted to take pictures with me. I felt quite dirtty and in need of a shower after i had been through the station.They had no clue about personal space. They did have , the great wall, the hidden city, tianan square and the silk factories all of which I enjoyed.
The worst was to discover that SAA’s systems do not speak at all to the chines airline systems. So we rocked up at the airport to be told that we had no tickets even though we had reference numbers. We had to buy new tickets. A friend checked in her suitcae and never saw it again. She has to return to Ctwn without it and still has no clue if she will ever get it back.

Memorable stuff

1. The Chines are quite backwards when it comes to toilets. We learnt to stick to the hotel and conference center toiletts as public toilets and even restaurant toilets were filty squatting down types that ponged to high heaven.
2. Beijing olympics are going to be a challenge for english speakers as very few speak english.
3. Chines are into creativity in public spaces at night all cities sparkled with creative lights. it was quite a wonder to look at.
4. There is a way of handing out business cards. It must be held with both hands with the name facing the person its being handed out to. then you must put it infront of you throughout the meeting. So in meetings of about 20 people you could easily be seating with a row of 19 cards in frot of you.
5. Dog meet when cooked looked just like beef. Nearly ate dog in a five star reestaurant of one of the hotels we were in. It was a gut churning experience. I really did not want to smell it and fortunately they changed the dish for free to chicken. This occured because the waitress could not speak eenglish and the menu was in chinese with pics of the dishes. So I just pointed to a beef dish that turned out to be a dog dish.
6. Most chines are really happy people who just want to get along.
7. It is possible to sell a daily newspaper filled from cover to cover with good stories and not a single crime or death story in print. Woow who knew ???
8. If your public transport is up to speed you really dont need to be driving on the high ways. All busses and trucks use highways.
9. It is possible to run a primary shcool for 4000 kids without a single pen and a piece of paper. They are all on lap tops. woooooow

All in all a memorable trip indeed