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It’s tiresome to be accused of ‘China bashing’ at the slightest deviation from genuflection towards, or superlative-laden compliments about, the Motherland. Still, lest there be any doubt concerning my affection for both the country and its people, here are ten things, in no particular order, that I love about living in China: 

1. The abundance, despite over a billion mouths to feed, of an amazing array of fresh, cheap fruit and vegetables.

2. The overwhelming hospitality of students, friends, and colleagues and the undying enthusiasm with which they insist I should eat more.

3. The ubiquitous scene of cyclists giving a lift to friends sitting on the saddle rack. In this regard, given that boys are usually expected to do the pedalling, small partners and friends are a bonus.

4. The staggering variety of inexpensive food available from street vendors. It’s an experience just to watch them prepare their offerings.  

5. The sheer scale and rate of development that is happening at every turn in the cities, and the contrasting lifestyles of those living in the countryside. Of course, I don’t ‘love’ the fact that hundreds of millions are still waiting for their slice of modern, prosperous China; but the contrast that a short bike ride can present to you is fascinating. 

6. The traffic. Again, I don’t ‘love’ the shocking casualty figures on the Chinese highway, but you have to be enthralled by the culturally distinct way that Chinese motorists, bus drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians conduct themselves on (and off) the road. The novice observer would be forgiven for frequent wincing at the number of near misses, and for describing the scene using the language of chaos. Once acclimatised, however, it really is compulsive viewing.

7. The incredible number of temples, monuments, ancient sites, and stunning natural beauty that can be found in a huge country with a long, long history.

8. The faces of young children, especially outside the big city, and their innocent curiosity at discovering that foreigners really do exist. Naturally, a few run screaming in panic to their mothers, who have no doubt told their offspring not to get too close in case the laowai bites them.

9. The strong exercise ethic that is evident each morning and evening everywhere in China. Young and old alike flood to the parks, playgrounds, and subways to dance, jog, stretch, practise tai chi, or engage in any number of other traditional activities and games. Many older residents subscribe to the health benefits of walking backwards; for the young and agile, basketball never stops. 

10. The opportunity to work in an extraordinary and diverse country during a period when China is redefining its role in the world.

There are many more reasons why living and working in China continues to be a rewarding experience for me; these are just a few items off the top of my head.  

Let’s consider that most important of ceremonial and symbolic moments - the lighting of the Olympic flame by the final torchbearer. It’s a moment full of meaning and passion. But who should have this honour? Who could Beijing choose to best embody China’s hopes for the Games, to best symbolize China’s regard in the international community, to best represent Chinese culture and history? Can one person achieve all these things? Here’s my shortlist:

Liu Xiang. One of the favourites and China’s big hope to get the flags waving and the anthem playing in the stadium; a reigning Olympic champion and worthy of consideration.

For: my students assure me that he can sing as well as jump.

Against: arguably a bit of a prima-donna and not so recognisable to a wider audience.

Yao Ming. China’s vertically gifted NBA star is another leading contender and comes across as a people’s man with an image recognisable the world over.

For: will have no problem reaching over the rim of the cauldron and has proven more reliable than other Chinese exports.

Against: has developed a tendency to fracture lower extremities under pressure.

Liu and Yao are the hot favourites, but what about the chances of the old guard?

Mao Zedong. An interesting ‘dark horse’. This could be China’s chance to stun the world with its advances in cryogenic technology.

For: everyone knows that lovely smile and history tells us he has a 70% chance of getting it right on the night.

Against: as Icarus discovered, when wax gets too close to something hot there can be disastrous consequences.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama. A rank outsider. Although still very much alive, reliable sources indicate he has less chance than either a Japanese revisionist or the aforementioned Mao. After all, who wants a Nobel Peace Prize winner when we can see a brutal dictator in action?

For:  Loved by everyone except China.

Against: Loved by everyone except China.

None of the candidates mentioned so far create enough of a spark for my liking. What about this man?

Hu Jia. A no-hoper for Olympic flame duties, but more deserving of the honour than any mentioned above. A true winner in life.

For: he’s presently incarcerated and could do with stretching his legs.

Against: he’s too good, too selfless, too honest, too pleasant, too humble, and too hard-working in campaigning for the rights of the disadvantaged, the dying, and the dispossessed. Clearly not the sort of person China wants as a symbol of the nation. 

Did I miss anyone?

Updated to say that the wise men of Beijing have decided to jail Hu for three and a half years - an unjustified, undeserved, petty, senseless sentence. Hu Jia should be held up as an example of how far human rights have come in China, not a victim of its suppression. I suspect this will turn out to be a regrettable move, and not just for Hu himself. 

China Daily’s Olympic spotlight page brings us news of the latest security measures to be implemented at the Games’ venues. Let’s take a closer look:

Guns, drugs, explosives, and poisonous and radioactive materials will be banned from Beijing’s Olympic venues, a security official said Thursday.

Now really!! How can we be expected to enjoy ourselves without a bit of unstable uranium isotope to elevate the spirit? OK, alright, yes, yes, fine! I can live without an encounter with critical mass, but what’s all this nonsense about banning poison, guns, drugs, and explosives? These security boys are a bunch of real joy killers. Must be a cultural thing.

Animals, drinks, radio equipment, and banners and oversized flags will also be prohibited…

Australians can be totally out of control, and we don’t want any kangaroos putting Liu Xiang to shame in the 100m hurdles, so fair dinkum to that policy. Oversized flags could be more problematic. Given that colour contrasts can produce optical illusions and security personnel will have two decades of anti-Japanese rhetoric behind them, it may be that a red circle on a white background suddenly looks bigger than it really is. We’ll see.

What next? Radio equipment. I’m not sure about this one. Many people attending venues, both foreign and Chinese, will want to keep their own record of events. Some may have some pretty fancy equipment unfamiliar to security staff. It’s possible that a South Korean’s state-of-the-art minidigicam type thingy could be a Chinese police officer’s idea of sabotage electronics. This will be win-win for China, whose top reverse engineers will be on hand to ‘take good care of things while you’re enjoying the synchronized swimming.’ 

That leaves drinks. What’s to say? August in Beijing: a seething cauldron of humidity and trace elements and no water to wash it all down with. Lunacy. Total fucking lunacy. Or greed. There will, no doubt, be drinks available inside venues at ten times the price of the identical items withheld moments earlier by security. If this suspicion is anywhere near the mark, the BOCOG would do well to have a rethink now. That assumes, of course, they’re not in on the scam.

And finally ….

If everything is okay, a person can pass through a standard security check in about five seconds. But that might be longer for media workers if they are carrying a lot of equipment. 

So, to be clear: if you are not in possession of firearms, drugs, toxins, grenades, plutonium, livestock, electrical devices, big flags, or drinks, you’ll be through the turnstile in a jiffy. Unless you’re a reporter, in which case anything more than a notebook and pencil is going to result in a messy confrontation. This will provide entertainment and photo opportunities for the spectators kept waiting by those thoughtless bastards who brought their own water to the stadium on a day when it was only 90 in the shade.

Just a few thoughts.

Some readers have complained that they want less political commentary here. It’s certainly not my intention to make this a political blog, so I’ll regress to some writing that’s about 16 months old.

Those that know the story already will have to forgive the repetition, as I have not been lucky enough to break any bones recently.

In November 2006 I broke my arm while playing table tennis. I decided to undergo the required surgery in Luoyang rather than go home for a less interesting experience. This is my account of the first of four days incarceration in a Chinese hospital.

Day 1

Not unexpectedly, the novelty of foreign flesh to carve up on the operating table and the connections of the Dean pushed my name further up the hospital waiting list than my injuries warranted. There’s absolutely nothing I could do about this other than to refuse treatment altogether; or perhaps that’s just the rationale of a guilty conscience. Either way, they found me a bed almost as quickly as they began charging. Be advised, exchanging informal greetings with a doctor in a Chinese hospital comes with a consultation fee. Even the simplest requests find their way onto the bill, a fact that would have bothered me more if these expenses had not been met by the medical terms of my contract. For the vast majority of people in this country it’s a ‘pay or die’ health care system, and most of them can’t raise the extortionate cost of treatment when ailments are life-threatening. Hospitals are strictly profit making organisations.

My ‘ward’ turned out to be a two-bed holding room for emergency cases that was situated next door to the nurse station. The other occupant, Mr Du, appeared to be in more pieces than a jigsaw. ‘No can du’ would have seemed more appropriate, somehow. During the first two days, before his transfer to another ward, Mr Du was a picture of suffering, especially when his wife was giving him his daily scolding. She would saunter in at about lunchtime and begin a hands-on inspection of her husband’s injuries. Mr Du was audibly distressed but in no condition to demand that his wife give him his trousers back. Thankfully for the unfortunate Du, his nephew was an always present and helpful companion.

Xu Shao Lin, a thoroughly delectable nurse with zero English (or zero inclination to practise), was the first of several to take my blood pressure and temperature, after which she performed a gentle massage above and below the limits of my plaster cast – a sort of rub down from a woman in uniform without the sleaze factor. A promising start, I hear you say. The dream was soon shattered, as I knew it would be, when I made my first visit to the tenth-floor facilities. I held on to the vision of Xu Shao Lin for as long as possible, but we all have to go in the end.

Emptying the bladder was possible with extreme focus and determination. However, if you are anything like me, the prospect of taking a very open dump in cold, damp, unsanitary conditions surrounded by curious onlookers is enough to close the door of even the most relaxed orifice. Inadequate numbers of urinals and only a couple of holes in the floor drove patients and visitors (not that they need much encouragement) to do whatever, wherever. Every receptacle was overflowing with the sludge of a thousand mixed samples. Cleaners periodically soaked up the excess with their mops before using the collected moisture to wipe footprints from the corridor, a most effective way of killing two birds – and possibly a few patients – with one stone.

Thankfully, fortune occasionally favours the desperate. Opposite the hospital was a small hotel that I felt sure could solve my bathroom requirements. With Monica’s help and my insistence, a deal was reached for the use of a room for three hours per day (no visit, no fee) for the duration of my residence in the hospital. The hotel was seedy at best, but room 308 seemed like a vision of paradise compared to the hospital facilities. With the exception of the day I chose to shave, I’d emerge from the room with a satisfied glow in less than one hour, an expression that I’m sure was misinterpreted by the numerous maids eager to see what state I’d left the room in.

The first night was an ordeal of boredom rather than discomfort. Family Du favoured lights-out before nine o’clock and snoring until dawn. He was in bad shape, so I wasn’t about to compromise his need for rest with my need for entertainment. Consequently, I took to wandering the other hospital floors and departments, finding amusement in the faces of the countless patients in the bed-lined corridors. I think I frightened a few of those for whom the existence of foreigners was confirmed for the first time.

Coming soon: more Tibetan intrigue or next hospital chapter (response dependent).

Last week one of my former students from Luoyang wrote to me expressing concern for my safety. What was the nature of her concern you ask? Bird flu outbreak? Contaminated water? Rising pork prices? None of these. No, the source of her worry was that pesky bit of turf across the Taiwan Strait, and their outgoing president’s push for a referendum on whether or not the island should seek UN membership under the name Taiwan rather than its formal name of the Republic of China.

I’ll leave CNN to fill you in on the background and details, not to mention Beijing’s predictable threat to make Taiwan “pay a dear price” for any move perceived as pro-independence.

Gripping stuff, indeed. And of course the Party elite whip up the rhetoric and the feelings of the people at such times like turning on a tap. The result is to put the population on heightened alert for imminent war, with many expressing a desire for a missile launch to teach their disobedient neighbours a lesson.

My former student’s worry was that Taiwanese hooligans were about to storm the beach at Xiamen, break a few deck chairs, and demand ice cream at discounted prices. I reassured her that the Chinese government was ‘all talk’ on the possibility of invading Taiwan in the run-up to the Olympics.

If China were to scratch their military itch between now and August, the opening ceremony in Beijing will look like this: Burma, China, North Korea, Sudan, Zimbabwe, and possibly Venezuela. After the Games I suspect Beijing’s urge to flex their military muscle might prove irresistible. If it comes to that I’m sure all foreigners will be rounded up and secured in five-star accommodation. So, nothing to worry about.

“T1bet, T1bet.” There! I said it. And so, more infamously, did Bjork during the performance of her song Declare Independence at a concert in Shanghai last week. I’ve been waiting for the dust to settle before writing anything on the subject, being of the opinion that there really shouldn’t have been any dust at all. If you think your sensitivities can withstand the offence, you can listen to this grave insult here .

The rather stereotypical online outrage contrasted nicely with the silence of the Chinese media, leaving it to the western press and some of the more intelligent Sino-bloggers to discuss the issue with a modicum of objectivity and common sense. Danwei’s blog on the issue drew many interesting comments and a few stupid ones.

Needless to say the dust was created by the predictable foot-stamping and petulance from Beijing. Was there really any need for an official response to this tiny piece of artistic anarchy? Bono used to call The White House to diss the president during concerts; Bjork cries T1bet. So what? Surely there was no need for condemnation and reprisals.

Alas, the Ministry of Culture (acting under orders, no doubt) showed us the way of the tantrum by promising to tighten controls on future visitors’ artistic expression. Although China’s official media didn’t mention Bjork’s performance, this broadside appeared in the state mouthpiece China Daily. Here’s a snippet:

The Dalai Lama has never stopped plotting to separate T1bet from China since he betrayed the country, Zhang, secretary of the T1bet Autonomous Region Committee of the Communist Party of China, said on the sidelines of the ongoing session of the National People’s Congress, the top legislature.

“I have never heard that the Dalai Lama has refrained from wanting to split T1bet from China … We will never tolerate those who are set on such activities”

So now it seems that Bjork has been identified as an agent acting on behalf of that epitome of cosmic evil, His Holiness the Dalai Lama. And Secretary Zhang appears very comfortable using the word T1bet without fear of trampling on the sensibilities of 1.3 billion people. Yes, alright, there’s the context surrounding Bjork’s utterance to consider - and she’s a foreigner - but for pity’s sake; will China’s top brass please grow up!

In the spirit of maturity, might I also suggest that Beijing seriously reconsiders using the phrase hurt the feelings of the Chinese people whenever a foreigner expresses an opinion that differs from the party line. Sure, it once provided light entertainment on quiet afternoons in the office, but this pathetic line of text has a fun curve that leveled off two decades ago. More importantly, perhaps, it’s simply not true.

Let’s take a trek into the foothills on the outskirts of Lhasa and ask those living there if their feelings have been hurt by this shameful outburst. Then let’s pop over to Urumqi and interview the locals about how terribly upset they must be with Bjork. Finally, choose any province at random, ride out into the sticks and ask the villagers and farmers how they can live with the pain and anguish caused by Icelandic insensitivity.

It’s testament to Chinese stoicism that anyone in the Middle Kingdom has been able to complete a day’s work since Bjork’s shocking verbal insult. A nation convalesces. If I had any of her albums I’d burn them in the name of solidarity. I’m beginning to get upset just thinking about it. Really, my feelings are hurt. Life will never be the same again.

As for T1betan independence, only the dreamers and those under the influence of mind altering substances can visualize that as a reality. I’m not sure whether or not His Holiness draws on a spliff in the evening, but I’m certain he’s smart enough to know that T1bet is firmly in Beijing’s grip, whether the T1betans (or anyone else) likes it or not. This is why he has himself acknowledged as much and sought dialogue with Beijing over the degree of autonomy that T1bet should enjoy as part of China.

Sadly, I can’t see a homecoming for the great man being allowed anytime soon. The fiercely jealous CCP couldn’t tolerate the outpouring of love, respect, and attention that would be waiting for His Holiness when he touched T1betan soil for the first time in half a century. For the same reason, any citizen caught displaying an image of this Noble Peace Prize winner in T1bet can be certain of suffering punitive consequences.

The solution? Adorn your monastery walls, your prayer flags, and your living room tables with images of the Dalai Lama’s singing disciple. After all, who in their right mind could possibly take offence at Bjork?

Update

Hundreds of monks have taken part in demonstrations to commemorate the anniversary of the 1959 uprising against Chinese occupation. There were some clashes with police and many arrests. Read more here. Where was Bjork when they needed her?