Beijing Blog 3

Can’t leave China without doing the wall. Every guide book advises doing it via an organized tour. The conference has fixed one up for a fee. Which is all very convenient, except that I have a great loathing of organized tours. I’d rather not see the place than have a guy with a raised umbrella mechanically rattle off data and then shovel me back into a bus so he can take me to a jade factory.

Thankfully some research tells me there is a fast train to the Badaling wall. I get to Beijing North railway station and manage to buy a ticket even though the first clerk assures me there is no such train. Spotless platform, convenient though crowded train. Should have got the first class ticket. Anyway, friendly Beijingers make a bit of space for me, and I’m ok. Coming into Badaling, I count 200 tour buses, and that’s only what is visible to me. There is a public section to the wall, and there is a section reserved for officials and VIPs. I muse on the fact that with all the talk of power to the people, only a tiny political elite get all the jam. What’s better - Ration by willingness to pay or by political muscle? Either way, the common man is screwed. I do the obligatory walk up the wall to a few turrets and then return. First class on return and it is all very comfy and swishy.

The sun finally breaks through the sky. A kid wants to take his picture with me, and I oblige. I want to tell him that I am from a place where the people only slightly less numerous than they are, and so he would be impressing nobody. But perhaps he just wants a picture with a dunce who keeps leaving more money than asked for in the bill.

Beijing Blog 2

You can only call it the Forbidden City with a sense of irony anymore. Really, it could do with a lot more forbidding. At the moment, the mantra seems to be to pack ‘em in and pile ‘em high. I am in the middle of the Forbidden City, and the atmosphere is that of a vacuum-packed can of sardines. I have been to greatly crowded tourist spots like the Taj Mahal and Angkor Wat before, but this is something else entirely. Even growing up in India and working in Bangladesh did not prepare me for this. How could they possibly fit in so many people in an enclosed space?! Did I chance to come in on a day when they were preparing to enter the Guinness book, like those zillions squashing into Volkswagen Beetles in the sixties?

My day started in rather more tranquil fashion at Jing Shan park, directly north of the Forbidden City, and notable as an oasis of peace and greenery that the last Ming emperor decided would do as a place to hang himself in after disposing of his pesky family with a scythe. A plaque explains the murky details and is read with great interest by visitors. Something to do with enemies at the gate, palace intrigue, cheating wives and conniving eunuchs – a little bit for everyone, and a sure-fire magnet for crowds. The terraces atop the hill in Jing Shen afford great views of the layout of Forbidden City and I entered the City from the Jing Shen entrance, in reverse to the average visitor who enters from Tiannanmen Square.

The Forbidden City is stunning. Breathtaking. At least I think so, because between the Gate of Heavenly Purity and the Hall of Supreme Harmony, I enter a State of Incipient Panic owing to the thickness of the crowds. Either I am getting too old or have developed agoraphobia. But you do need the imagination of a Zhang Yimou to mentally erase the crowds from the Forbidden City and imagine it in its imperial splendour.

Late evening. I finally track down the Purple Bodhi, a vegetarian restaurant in Chaoyang where I am based. It is beautifully decorated but the waitresses seem surprised that anyone bothered to come in for a meal. The menu has been devised by a nature poet. I choose ‘Moonlight on the Lotus Pond’ (lotus root and button mushrooms in a clear soup) and ‘Eternal Happiness’ (medley of fresh green vegetables) with rice. How could I refuse dishes with these titles? You have to love the nature theme that runs through Chinese culture. A good meal, and and I leave a good tip, which is promptly returned to me by the uncomprehending waitress.

Beijing Blog 1

Fly in on the red-eye Air China flight from Bangkok to Beijing. As the plane hovers over Beijing capital airport at 6:00 am, things look murky, misty and rainy – I might as well be in the UK. We seem to have caught Beijing at the threshold between sleepy weekend lethargy and manic monday-morning explosion of activity. Terminal 3 is massive and gleaming. We are required to fill out a swine flu card requiring self-reporting of symptoms. I wonder which fool would confess to racking coughs and high fever and risk immediate quarantine and a battery of tests.

The taxi driver does not speak a word of English –none of the ones I have encountered so far do. Which is a darned inconvenience when trying to explain where you want to want to go. Without written details in Chinese or a map, you have no chance of getting anywhere in a hurry. But the lack of English can also be a blessing. I am no fan of chatty taxi-drivers. The way I see it, once the journey has started, the taxi driver and passenger should pretend the other does not exist. After negotiating a series of highways and ring-roads, we are finally at the hotel. I pay the exact metre fare and get a printed receipt – perfect.

Afternoon – decide to try out the metro system and get to Tiannanmen square. I tell the hotel receptionist I want to walk to the metro station, and she looks at me pityingly as she would a rank fool. Despite her exhortations, I decide to walk to the metro station. This is a European trait I seem to have picked up, choosing to walk whenever possible. Mental note – quickly discard this trait whilst outside Europe. Beijing is a bit like LA, it does not look kindly upon pedestrians. Nothing is within walking distance, and pedestrians are considered target-practice. You are the lowest being in the traffic food chain, and they are lining up to mow you down. The pedestrian green light is not a signal for YOU to cross safely, but rather a signal for THEM to prepare to squash you. After an eternity on foot, get to the metro station. The ticketing is easy to follow. One of the great advantages of being an Olympic city is that the infrastructure is designed to be visitor-friendly. I still manage to make a mess of the simple act of buying a ticket from the touch screen system, until a kindly local helps me out. Beijingers are curious about foreigners, but they just don’t like to acknowledge it. So you will get the briefest of flickers from curious eyes before they return to looking past you.

The metro train is packed to the gills. I try to hold my breath everytime someone coughs, and find out this is a cheap ticket to asphyxiation. There it is, Tiannanmen square, just like in the pictures. Except heaving with people exiting the Forbidden City. Chairman Mao keeps a stern eye from the gate of F City, no doubt marking me out as a trouble-making capitalist pig. The square is an impressive sight, flanked as it is by the Great Hall of the People where the legislature meets, the National Museum and the Forbidden City. I try to imagine 1989 and one man holding his arms out to a rolling tank, but find that it is difficult to think in a thick crowd. A couple of art students engage me in conversation. Their English is quite good, and they persuade me to take a look at their exhibition in a little annex to the museum. Quite good stuff – typical Chinese nature paintings along the lines of Qi Baishi’s, which I am quite fond of. They gently coax me into buying some of their stuff, and I eventually give in, buying a set of four season paintings in watercolour on scrolls. Exiting, I wonder if I have been scammed. If so, they are terrific actors. But I think not.

Here we go again

Ho hum, another day, another state of emergency in Thailand. Same place, different coloured shirts. Although I do have to say the mob looks a bit rougher this time around, and the news keeps showing clips of guys in the crowd firing automatic weapons in the air and crawling on top of the two tanks that seems to have rolled down Sukhumvit. Since the soldiers seem to have been given strict orders not to use force, the mob seems to be having their way with them. I can imagine Private Jack thinking quietly but furiously as a red shirter elbows and abuses him ‘You just wait, unknown rioter, once the signal to use force comes, and by heaven come it will, I’ll be shoving that same elbow, broken in three places, down your throat…’ For now, however, the soldiers seem to be displaying admirable restraint.

We have been located in Sukhumvit for the last couple of days, and I’ve been travelling freely up and down. I’ve had to duck a few times during my forays, but only to avoid being sprayed with water by early Songkhran revellers. Moving around today is going to be a bit more of a challenge, what with the emergency as well as Songkhran in full force. I may even have to default on my resolution to not sample the same cuisine twice during my stay in Sukhumvit. The real question is whether I will be able to get a taxi to the airport tomorrow afternoon. Only time will tell. Watch this space (if you have absolutely nothing else to do).

Merits of the Middle

I'm as pleased as millions of others around the globe about the anointment of Obama. All those weeks of watching the polls anxiously whilst hissing at the perceived distortions of the right wing media. As I've been telling my colleagues, British politics is too boring simply because everyone has moved to the centre, and so you can't really tell the Tories much apart from Labour. It's polarization that makes politics fun, and American politics surely offers that. In life in general, I firmly believe that all truth lies generally somewhere in the middle, but then the truth ain't always much fun!

However, moving back to the merits of the middle, the race aspect that seems to please most people in the Obama case is that a black man made it to the presidency. Terrific as that is, I am more chuffed about the fact that a bi-racial person became president. I once took an ecological modelling class with a famous professor called Bruce Hannon, who firmly believed that human salvation lay in inter-racial relationships. I remember him marvelling at the genetic mix of a girl in our class who was half-Chinese and half-Mexican. I too silently cheer everytime I see a pale arm entwined with a dark one, or an oriental head resting on a latin shoulder. Whether it is inter-racial or inter-religious or simply inter-national, surely there is no better symbol of crumbling walls!

In Bruges (and out quickly, thank god)

Ghent and Bruges, Belgium

A long gap since my last blog, but since I talk to myself all the time and this blog is just a variation on that theme, nothing much lost. The only difference is that the blog serves as a diary of sorts, and I'm sure it'll help me turn the nostalgia tap on down the road.

The highlight of August was a trip to Ghent, Belgium, with a detour to Bruges thrown in. What a relief to be able to take the Eurostar and not go through more tiresome airport routines. Ghent was charming, the sun was out, and Bee was with me, and so it was just splendid. All canals, cobbled streets and confectionery. We expected picture postcard in Bruges, and we got picture postcard, only with a zillion tourists flashing V signs at the camera. I for one was happy to beat a retreat to the less celebrated but surely more lovable Ghent.

And oh, there was the minor matter of attending a conference at Ghent. But that is always secondary to the town it is held in.

Going, going...

It seems that green spaces and black rhinos are not the only endangered things. Second-hand bookstores are quietly disappearing across the UK. I read of this somewhere, and had to restrain myself from weeping openly. For, if you're into books at all, there is no greater joy than stepping into the cool confines of a second-hand bookstore, delighting in the musty whiff of a thousand dog-eared old volumes, and proceeding to crane your neck for the next hour in search of a hidden gem or two. When the admirable Keegan's bookshop in Reading closed down a year ago, I felt genuine anguish given that three fourths of my books hail from there. I remember well the hardbound copy of 'Portnoy's Complaint' for 50 pence, and the terrific Rabbit trilogy by John Updike appealingly offered at a throw-down £1.50. Even in London, the former second-hand book haven at Charing Cross, the part near Leicester Square tube, seems to be shrinking. There are only three or four shops left, thankfully including my favourite, 'Any amount of books' (seen above). If, as foreshadowed by the arrival of twenty-twenty cricket, test cricket dwindles into endangered territory too, I have marked out a shop in Lambeth where I can buy a handgun (which, it seems, are definitely not endangered) to take care of the needful. That said, my recent discovery of the sensationally good 'Blossom book store' in Bangalore has somewhat restored my faith.

Spleen venting

One of the readers of my blog (I am the other one) emailed me the other day to remark on how I seemed to display a uniformly sunny disposition in my jottings. Don' t you have any bile to expend, he queried. Fear not gentle reader, I only refrain from bilious outpourings because I am afraid that once started I will not be able to stop. So let me see, what are some of my least favourite things?

I have to start with something that riles me at every one of my gym visits - troglodytes who occupy pieces of exercise equipment for ages. A 10 second exercise burst, followed by an extended bout of relaxing on the machine, another 10 second burst and so on. I recall having to wait close to 30 minutes for a machine to free up during one visit. I came perilously close to hurling a dumbell in the general direction of the chap's head, only I couldn't lift one more than waist-high.

Ok, now that I have loosened up. House/Techno and most other forms of dance music. Night-clubs. DJs (I mean, who ARE these guys anyway; why do they get paid enormous amounts of money to spin records and mix bad music that they didn't even create themselves?). Mobile phones (although I do own one). Inconsiderate *@##& who use up seats on crowded trains by placing their briefcases on the seats next to them. Friends. I mean the TV show, and all the characters in it (I would love nothing more dearly than to watch a movie where Freddie from the Nightmare on Elm Street movies or Jason from Halloween takes a chainsaw to the occupants of the Friends house). Quentin Tarantino movies. The fact that it is considered cool to like Quentin Tarantino movies. Cars. Talking about car models and makes. Any dish that mixes sweet flavours with sour/spicy/salty ones. Pineapple on pizza (which genius thought of that one?). Pigeons. Spitters. Litter louts. Those who write in library books. Celebrities. Big Brother. Celebrity Big Brother.

Ok, I reckon I'd best turn the tap off now.

And the music never stops

I happened to glance at my CD rack the other day and realised that I hadn't played any of my CDs for over a year. I remember a time when I was quite proud of my CD collection, and now I can barely remember it exists. The main reason, of course, is the quite dramatic expansion in online music availability over the last few years. It is amazing that access is practically unlimited, at costs approaching zero if you are little inventive and not too hung up on pristine sound quality. I usually either have the streaming grateful dead channel, or my Yahoo customized radio station on. Both are absolutely free, and the latter has an astonishing catalogue. Nor am I plagued with adverts on these. With the Yahoo station, I have a preferred list of artistes (Chet Baker, Dave Brubeck, Stan Getz, Paul Desmond, Louis Armstrong, Modern Jazz Quartet, Milt Jackson, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, you get the drift) and the player throws up random selection from these and similar acts in the genre. Amazing stuff, there is barely any repetition. The best part is, I get to record these off my sound card using a simple piece of software that cost me £20. So now I have a massive mix of miscellaneous setlists for when I am offline. Until last year, I was also subscribing to the MSN music jukebox service. It let me play full albums on demand, at the cost of 1p per track. Actually buying the track cost 30p per, but why would you want to do that when you could play it fo 1p and record off the sound card perfectly legally?! I subscribed and recorded until my hard drive was bursting at the seams!

Eavesdropping on the great and the good

A favourite pasttime of mine, typically when I have a few minutes while biting into my mozzarella sandwich at lunch, is to haunt the websites of great academic departmental and personal websites. There is a vicarious thrill in observing day-to-day life in esteemed institutions - the CVs of legends, nobel laureates scheduled to give seminars, etc. A great examples of this is the website of the mathematics department at Princeton University. You go to the page and scroll down, seeking that one name, and reach a modest space with no photo and a single link to 'bibliography'. That's all there is about the dead-set genius that is Andrew Wiles. Andrew Wiles! The chap who proved the Taniyama-Shimura conjecture, and thereby cracked the seemingly insurmountable last theorem of Pierre de Fermat! One is at a loss for words to describe the magnitude of his achievement. Perhaps Professor Wiles felt similarly tongue-tied, and that is the reason for the information on him extending only to a simple 2 page pdf file of his 22 publications, including among them the modest-sounding, 'Modular Elliptic Curves and Fermat’s Last Theorem, Annals of Mathematics, 141, (1995), 443-551'.

Boys of Summer

This is the time when you get to look heavenward and thank your stars you got to be an academic. The academic year has folded to a close, the campus has emptied out apart from graduate students, and the mind-numbingly boring elements of the profession such as grading, marking and attending examiners meetings are done and dusted for the time being. Three tantalising months of immersion in your reserach questions stretch ahead of you. You actually bound out of bed in the morning, looking forward to that exciting-looking paper you've set aside for reading, or the prospect of getting your econometric estimates to converge satisfactorily during the day. There are no appointments of any kind to annoy and distract, just the developing embryo of your next paper and you. You walk across campus for lunch, absent-mindedly observing the ducks while ruminating on the latest set of estimates. How do I fix that troublesome referee comment I can already see coming? Returning from lunch, a germ of an idea forms - why not try first-differencing the equations? Your steps quicken in light excitement and you can't wait to get back and see what those three extra lines of code might throw up. Certainly a time of the year when you wouldn't want to trade with any other profession!

Tea River

Bangkok, Thailand

This time around, we haven't had the time or energy to cast out on to the Chao Phraya river by which we once lived. This is of course, the monsoon season, and a particularly good time to visit the river since runoff from the hills upstream turns the river the colour of a cup of Yorkshire tea with a dollop of milk in it. Many a time have we sipped cups of Yorkshire's finest from our balcony perched right atop the river, while watching a mirror image in the river below. The first picture above shows the river in its monsoon garb, while the second below shows the balcony from we which enjoyed the stunning panoramic views.

There's no such thing as refusing a free lunch

Emirates Lounge, Dubai International Airport

Off on a short trip to, you guessed it, Thailand. Just arrived here from London, awaiting my connection to Bangkok at the frequent flyer lounge. The flight was tolerable. Emirates has a great entertainment system, with about a hundred movies and a large number of TV programmes available on demand for 'free' at every seat. The problem is, I've flown Emiratres so frequently that I've watched a large proportion of the programmes that I do care to watch. Seeing me scroll repeatedly through the choices, an Indian lady seated next to me eagerly pointed out where I could find the latest Bollywood movies. However, I absolutely detest most Bollywood fare. I politely thanked her and settled for a repeat viewing of a Scrubs episode.

The frequent flyer lounge is a pretty good place. They do great warm and cold food - plenty of pasta, cheese, halloumi sandwiches, fruits and vegetables, etc. etc. I'm always intrigued by how everyone absolutely gorges themselves when offered 'free' food, whether on the flight or at the lounge. No one seems to refuse the tiniest cracker. Plates in the lounge seem heaped well beyond the point of zero marginal utility for the average person. Sauce drips down mouths as belts are loosened. God forbid one should miss out on yet another slice of cheesecake. I often try to sleep through red-eye flights, taking care to carefully affix the 'Do not disturb' sticker to my seat. Yet, almost every single time, the hostess will wake me to offer me food. Jaws drop when I weakly smile and say I am passing on the grub. The hostess stiffens and proceeds flight deckwards, doubtless to report to the captain that passenger Shankar is behaving rather suspiciously.

Woody

Amazon offered some great deals a few months back, and I snapped up three Woody Allen movies for £10 - Mighty Aphrodite, Crimes and Misdemeanours, and Husbands and Wives. The first I had not seen before, and the last two I first saw such a long time back that I remembered little. It must be the best £10 I ever spent. These movies are really just collections of conversations woven around themes concerning marital relationships, guilt and middle-age crises. But they are absolutely riveting.

As a jazz fan, Woody's films are especially dear to me, as the soundtracks invariably contain some exquisite pieces married perfectly to on-screen happenings (for example, 'You made me love you' by the Harry James Orchestra in 'Hannah and Her Sisters' comes in just as Michael Caine is shown ducking out on to a Manhattan street to make a rendezvous with his lover. For reasons hard to describe, the tune matches the scene brilliantly).

The inconsistency of genius is the hardest bit for a fan to take. Woody has also obviously made some real clangers - Cassandra's Dream to name one. You wonder how someone who could rise to the dizzying heights of 'Manhattan' could wallow in the dank depths of 'Curse of the Jade Scorpion'! Thankfully, 'Match Point' seemed to indicate some sort of return to form (although some critics hated it, and it was somewhat surprisingly plot-oriented for a Woody film). Here's to the hope of a born-again Woody!

Let it grow

Mint, Coriander, Chilli (Cayenne as well as Jalapeno), Tomato - that's going to be the crop for this year. The exotics like Okra and Aubergine have been given up as pipe dreams. They asked for hot and dry, and we could only guarantee cold and wet. We offered partly cloudy and 50% chance of showers, but they wouldn't bite. Given their dismal performance last year, we finally took all offers off the table.

Planting has been delayed due to travel, which is a bit of a bother. But the tomato seedlings have germinated already, although the chillis are taking their own time. It's a strange thing; you can always buy some of these plants at a slightly grownup stage for not much money, but that's not nearly as fascinating as watching them go through their entire life cycles.

Days have already grown considerably long. I am already able to take the shortcut through the woods back from work even at 7:30 p.m. The woodpeckers in the woods are really hammering away rat-a-tat-a-tat for their spring worms. You can hear the sweet crack of cricket bat hitting ball as you pass open fields. Everyone seems just a little bit more cheerful with all the regeneration in the air.

A Detour

Bangalore and Madras, India

Just back in the UK after finishing off a last leg of travel in India. The pace of change there is dizzying. Materially, there is virtually nothing you cannot get anymore in India. But all the old neighborhoods are gone, apartment blocks are everywhere, and the traffic jams look set to rival legendary Bangkok. Yet, as they say, the more things change, the more they remain the same. An upcountry weekend break with family shows clearly that relatively little has changed in the hinterland. Lying on hammocks at night by the riverside, we watch the night sky heave with stars, a visual treat that one seldom gets to enjoy in Northern Europe. Fireflies provide a parallel show at ground level. Hidden between the layers, the India I knew still exists, it only takes much more looking for.

Hibernation mode

Khon Kaen, Thailand

I am a hermit and this flat is my cave. Since the weather is hot outside and I don’t have a means of transport when Bee is at work, sometimes days may pass before I venture outside. The laptop is up all day, and I get to chip away at accumulated work without much distraction.

It is a tiny third floor flat in a concrete block in a row of identical concrete blocks. I suppose it sounds like one of those horrendous Stalinist apartment buildings ubiquitous across Eastern Europe, but thanks to the Thai touch, it is spotlessly tidy and very cheerful. The rains have arrived rather early this year. Around sundown, more often than not, clouds gather, frown darkly for an extended period, and then let loose a tremendous deluge. It never drizzles as in the UK, it only ever pelts down in fury.

I am out of touch with the semi-communal living of such blocks, but staying here brings many childhood memories back. Always, the sounds – someone splashing water on themselves from a bucket next door, the vegetable vendor playing an electronic tune to announce himself, the children laughing and screaming up and down the stairs. In Asia, you are never alone, and it is sometimes quite a comforting thing.

On the road again

Khon Kaen, Thailand

At it again, my trusty laptop and I. My tattered passport overflows with Thailand entry and exit stamps, and so it is difficult to tell exactly, but I calculate that this is my 21^st trip to the land of smiles. Considering my average trip here lasts 3 to 4 weeks, it is hard to tell which place I should call home.

Two days of work in Bangkok. If there is one thing you can count on in this unpredictable world, it is that Bangkok will always have yet another impossibly glitzy shopping mall coming up in the Siam Square area. The streets are teeming and the weather is ridiculously hot. I note with interest, and not a little glee, that the forecast for Sunday is Max 4C and snow in London, and 34C and wall to wall sunshine in Bangkok.

A coach trip to Khon Kaen. We could have flown, at £40 apiece, but decide to try the £8 coach that gets you to Khon Kaen in 6 hours. Only the Thais could provide such outstanding value for £8 (which is what I pay as cab fare from home to Reading station). The air-conditioned coach has private entertainment screens in front of every seat, with a range of movies (with both Thai and English audio options) and games (I learn to play Super Mario World). Each seat has a dozen settings and can give you a back massage. The road versus skies equation never looked better.

Ensconced in Bee’s tiny but much-loved flat in Khon Kaen University, writing this at 3:00 am in the throes of the usual jet lag.

Birdsong

'If you hear that same sweet song again, will you know why?
Anyone who sings a tune so sweet is passing by'

I had noted last week that I was yet to hear the blackbird sing this young year, but that has since been put right by a lovely chap I found hopping and cooing in my backyard this morning. I know that I tend to go on a bit about the blackbird's song, but truly, there is no sound that gladdens the heart more. William Henley said it much better than I ever could:

The nightingale has a lyre of gold,
The lark's is a clarion call,
And the blackbird plays but a boxwood flute,
But I love him best of all.
For his song is all of the joy of life,
And we in the mad, spring weather,
We two have listened till he sang
Our hearts and lips together

Yes, the joy of life sounds about right. If you have real audio, you can hear a sample here.

I would love for the interloper in my garden to stay and sing all season, but Robert Hunter speaks the truth, anyone who sings a tune so sweet is only passing by.

Here comes the sun

It is early March, and there is the faintest whiff of spring in the air. I know, it was only last week that a light snow could be seen falling, and the temperature is still hovering in the early teens. However, the daffodils are already reprising their role as harbringers of spring, and the birds can clearly feel it coming in the air. It is too early yet for the blackbird to fill the air with its liquid tones, but a pair of Robins have already started raiding my backyard for tufts of grass to line their nest.

As spring approaches, a man's thoughts inevitably turn to his garden. Long someone who held gardening in about as much esteem as outdoor jogging or taking long walks in the countryside on weekends (very low, to clarify), I was converted last year and found myself browsing seed catalogs and devising devious methods to keep the evil pigeons off my cherry tomatoes. With the resounding success of my green chilli crop last year (see picture), the plan is to double the metrage this year, moving along from the increasing returns to scale spot that I currently inhabit on the chilli production function. Chilli is also a patently risk-reducing crop choice, since the squirrels, pigeons and myriad other pests won't go anywhere near it. Given the relatively low labour requirements in growing it, and the daily demand for it in my kitchen, chilli is just about a perfect crop for me. I reckon I'll also have the usual tomatoes and various flowers, but cut out the attempts at exotics like okra and aubergine this year. However, all planting will have to wait until I return from Thailand and India in April.