Australian Youth Delegation to China part 1

I remember when I started this blog saying I'd aim for one update each week.

Well, yeah.

Anyway, a few months ago I was contacted by my Chinese lecturer, informing me that I'd been nominated by the university as part of 46 Australian uni students invited by Premier Wen Jiabao to visit China for a week. I happily agreed to it, but I wasn't expecting anything to actually eventuate. It never does.

Except this time, it did! And it was a fantastic trip. We left on the Monday 25th of September, first flying to Sydney, then straight to Beijing.

CCTV was at Sydney airport, you can see the video here.

Watched MI:3 (above average but not good) and Lucky Number Slevin (1st half good, 2nd half crap) on the way over.

We were welcomed at Beijing airport by a Chinese delegation which included Frank from the Foreign Department- very nice guy-, and some other government officials. The girl who I took the flight over with, who was from Beijing, was really impressed with this welcoming group.

Whilst in Beijing, we stayed at the Beijing Hotel. Not a very impressive name, but it was a very impressive hotel!

Here's me on the balcony having just arrived. I love the sensation that you get when you first arrive somewhere far away; that realisation of the distance between where you stand now and where you stood 12 hours ago, around the bend of the earth..




And here's the view onto Chang An Jie (the street the hotel was on, which I believe translates to Long Peace Street).

We went down to the lobby afterwards for drinks, where we also met some of the 'adults' on the trip; The Honourable Greg Hunt MP (member for Flinders), his assistant John Deller, Nick from QANTAS (QANTAS provided both the domestic and international airfaires for the trip, very generous! Thanks QANTAS), and Dr Amy Yeung from Curtain University. And it was also when I got to meet most of the other students on the trip, in particular my room-mate David, from QUT, team leader Henry from ANU, and Laurie, Thomas and Fiona from UNSW. Laurie was in room 008, and I happened to be in room 007...very cool.

It was decided that more drinks were needed, and that we should also go out and hit the streets of Beijing. The solution was to go and drink on the streets of Beijing. This proved to be a portent of things to come, as myself and a consistent group made sure that we didn't waste a single night whilst we were in China. As a result, I only got 5 hours sleep each night, and got sick, but it was worth it. If you're only a country for a week, you shouldn't waste time sleeping.

Nevertheless, it was a very busy schedule. The next morning, Tuesday, we went to visit Tsinghua University, which is one of the top in China. We had a forum there regarding volunteer work and the Olympics, which proved to be very interesting. All of the students at Tsinghua are really intelligent, which I suppose is only natural given how hard it is to enter the university.

I had to ride a bike for the first time in about 4 years, with Diana (a Tsinghua student) on the back! Whilst there were multiple occasions where we were both nearly killed by a car, or my own clumsiness, there was no accident.

The campus at Tsinghua was breathtaking. We were guided by Diana, Thinker and Frank, who were also in our discussion group at the forum. Here's us by one of the lakes.


After Tsinghua, we went to the Australian Embassy. This turned out to be very educational, as we were given an informative speech by one of the diplomats there, Andrew. Everyone at the embassy seemed really attuned to the current events in China (although I suppose I should have expected this from them). We had lunch there, and chatted with the guys who work there, then headed off to the Forbidden City. I'd been before, but it was still good to see.

Then it was back to the hotel to get changed for our trip to The Great Hall of the People.
This was particularly special. The Great Hall isn't open all the time for tourists, and when we went it was after visiting hours, so it was open just for us. It's very opulent inside, and the feeling of walking down those halls with so few people around was almost surreal.

Here's Thomas.


The room we were taken into was beautiful, as was the dinner. We met some other university students there, and Greg met some officials. I believe there was a Central Committee member present, which is no small thing.

We walked back to the hotel afterwards, via Tiananmen Square. They had a pretty cool Olympic and 3 Gorges garden on display, with many neons and flowers. Hard to describe, here's a picture from Thomas' site.

Out drinking that night, to a slightly better pub this time. Beers were 10 kuai, which didn't seem too bad. So in that first day: Tsinghua uni, Australian Embassy, Forbidden City, Great Hall of the People, pub afterwards. I believe we ended up quite late that night, but it was our last night in Beijing. Here's some photos from the the good times that night (taken by Fiona)...

Up again very early Wednesday, firstly to go to the City Planning Exhibition. Sounded dry, but turned out to be really cool, particularly this huge model of the city. My directors eye immediately saw the potential for it to be used to make a new Godzilla-like film...

It was then back to the hotel for a very important lunch with Mr Zhou Qiang, First Secretary of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League of China. I had to give a speech there, Chinese and English. Could have been better, but at least I managed to get a laugh when I translated the Telstra "Too Many Rabbits in China" joke for Mr Zhou, without causing any obvious offence.

After the lunch, we had to go pack our bags, and then it was off to the Great Wall. We only had 30 mins at there (!!!) but I managed to climb a bit with Sehee and Kayli, and take this photo.


Then it was off to the airport to take the evening flight to Guangzhou.

We'd only been in China for barely 2 days, yet already made really good friends and seen some great sights.

I'll post the next half soon.

A Week of Passing

We've had an extremely tragic week, with both Steve Irwin and Peter Brock dying.
Two rather iconic Australians, in my mind, and both dying in circumstances related to their vocations. They'll be missed by everyone around the world. It's a good time for reflection upon our own lives, and surely it must remind everyone that we shouldn't waste what time we have.

The exception is Germaine Greer and her wild-eyed, wild-armpitted followers.

From ninemsn

Ms Greer said Mr Irwin had not treated animals with the respect they deserved.

"He would tell you how dangerous they were and he would proceed to intrude on their space and humiliate really - treat them with massive insensitivity," she said.

That was from A Current Affair, so we can't say how reliable it is, but whatever.

Sounds rather like Germaine Greer in regards to men, come to think of it. Read her Enough Rope interview.

Thus, if Germaine Greer is ever killed by a 'partner' (which would apparently likely be a young boy, hairless and feminine), I think it only appropriate that we respond by saying that
'the hairless boys world got their revenge'. It'll be, like, poetic justice.

In other news, A Current Affair is hate-mongering again, this time against Muslim taxi-drivers.
Is that really needed?

A night of XS

Had a fantastic evening yesterday, as Paul was in town and offered me a ticket to go and see INXS!
I've never been a fan of them, but I've always been aware of their status, and their drummer is quite well known. And considering that I wasn't a fan , I was really very impressed with their performance. They played a great set and the new singer of theirs seems to have all the requisite energy for the job. The opening act we saw was Killing Heidi, and though they're past their heyday, they played solidly too.

The only downside was the rain, but given that we're in such a bad drought it's hard to see that as such a bad thing.

In other news
Q: "What are the good movies coming out?"
A: The Science of Sleep, The Prestige, The Fountain, Sunshine, Marie Antoinette, Art School Confidential, Zodiac and Inland Empire will all be great in my opinion. Check out the trailers for some of them if you have time and tell me if you agree. Time will tell, but these are my bets.

Hilarious

I was scrolling along through my bookmarks and by accident clicked onto the blog of my schoolmate Tristan. Well, I decided to read through his lengthy posts, in particular his soppy post entitled "Fate it may be called". Poor guys had a run of bad luck with the ladies, it seems.
Got into a relationship with a girl who had to go overseas. A sad story indeed.

Then I read the comment on that post. Enter 豪. Another schoolmate of mine, a very good one in fact- it's Tommy Wong, 豪 is a part of his Chinese name. He's a very sensitive, passionate young man, and he was obviously very moved by Tristans tragic turn of events.

So struck with woe was Tommy by this post that he was implored to comment:







"Tristan you are still an idiot...."

Oh Lordy. Lordy lordy lordy.
I'm still in hysterics with laughter.

I've gone on to read Tommy's blog, which he updates with stunning regularity. It's in traditional Chinese, unfortunately, so it's an effort for me to read. He does inject occasional English in there too, so I'm doing my best to figure out what precluded Tommy to say:

"I am good at women and he is good at gambling...WTF..."

From what I can make out he's saying he's like a brother of his friend Paul. Thus Paul is the gambler, and Tommy is the ladies man (coloured wolf, as we say in Chinese). Surely not my friend Paul...but then again...call it a coincidence, but taken from my friend Paul's blog:

"I'm not a huge gambler (probably because I don't have the dosh?). I can't see much enjoyment in it, and I've heard too many bad stories for it to arouse any sort of interest/addiction in me. But I have tried it. Twice. Both times, I ended up with more than I put in! Both times, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing."

It's all connected, I'm sure of it. In fact, call it a pre-mature conclusion, but if you observe these two photos, I think you'd be hard pressed to say that they weren't in fact identical twins, albeit with different lusts; one loves women, the other loves money. But isn't that really two sides of the same personality? Food for thought, in any event.


THE LADIES MAN

THE GAMBLER

The Stupidest Forums in Existence

Well, before I post the next episode in my Chinese serial, I have to bring to everyone's attention the hilarious debate going on over in the Internet Movie Database forums for the film Memento.

I should probably warn people who haven't seen the film not to read on, not because I'll spoil it, but because you probably won't get the point of the post.

The IMDB is famous for gestating some of the most ridiculous and moronic comments on the net. If there's a film you love, or hate, just visit its page on the site and see what the web's collective idiots have to say about it. You'll be fuming in no time. There's some smart people who post there, but they're certainly the minority.

Nevertheless, if one can keep this in mind, it's usually very entertaining to see the latest threads.
I watched Memento again the other night, with a friend who hadn't seen it. We both agreed it's a fantastic film (a favourite of mine in fact), but try telling this to some of the posters in that forum.

In particular, some half-wit created a thread called Anybody ever told this guy about this Invention called a Video Camera?

Indeed. Some guys went on to suggest Leonard should have carried around

a) A mini-dv camera with an LCD screen and audio playback
b) A hidden spy-camera which would be uploaded to a laptop (voice activated, of course)
c) A mini-disc recorder with 'secret microphone'
d) a PDA

As opposed to his notebook and polaroid. Apparently a man who will murder an innocent man, steal his expensive suit from his dying body and then take his Jaguar (with two hundred thousand dollars in the boot) will have a problem obtaining film for his polaroid camera, because it's too expensive at $1 a shot- this is according to one of the posters. Apparently it makes a whole lot more sense for Lenny to be using a high-tech camera of some sort. The same moron also claimed Lenny should have gotten parking tickets; nevermind the fact that he's driving another man's car.

There's people who argue against this stupidity, but unfortunately they seem to suffer from room temperature IQs themselves.
The weird thing is two of the main debaters claim they each possess a phD! The one arguing against the stupid suggestion is apparently holds a doctorate in Organic Chemistry, whilst the proponent of the hi-tech shit claims a doctorate in Computer Science.


I really hope they're both lying. Because it's a scary thought indeed that phD graduates could be this fuck-witted.


You can see my response, in which I hypothesise a revised script with their suggested changes.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0209144/board/thread/47597605?d=51917749#51917749

You can also read their earlier claims, but it'll take you most of the day, and their shit-brain-syndrome might be contagious.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0209144/board/thread/47597605

UPDATE:
I have since realised it was just as stupid of me to get involved....which makes me the stupidest BLOGGER in existence. Well, damn.

Crouching Rabbit Hidden Onion

For Written Chinese this semester I'm required to write a short passage each week, and it supposed to be continuous. Almost everyone else in the class are doing diaries of their lives, which are mind-numbingly boring to read, and one can only guess that to live such a life would be even more pointless and depressing. But I could be wrong.

In any event, I thought it was a great oppourtunity for a story told in weekly installments.
The first chapter was called Crouching Rabbit Hidden Onion, because in Mandarin it sounds similar to Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Whilst my Chinese no doubt has a lot of errors in it, I'll publish it for the public to ridicule, and I'll give a translation too. So without further ado..

<<卧兔藏葱>>

莎士比亚就是说:什么在名字？

其实，名子在生活里的有很多重要性.

兔子有很多兄弟姐妹。 连父母亲也不知道每个兔子的名字。 虽然，有一天下午一个小兔子在森林，正在吃草。 他突然看了一个葱。 出乎意料，这个葱会说。

葱说：你叫什么名字？

兔子就说：我？我。。我忘了

葱说：那我给你新的名字。 您叫。。。兔深

兔深说：兔深？很好名字。 你呢？你叫什么名字？

葱说：我是聪明葱。再见啦

突然葱就消失。兔深说“再见啦？他一定是从新加坡来的”

<>
Shakespeare said: "What's in a name?"

In fact, names have great importance in our lives.

Rabbits have lots of brothers and sisters. Even the parents don't know every child's name. Although, one afternoon a small rabbit was in the forrest eating grass. He suddenly saw an onion. Strangely enough, this onion could speak.

Onion: What's your name?
Rabbit: I...I...I've forgotten..
Onion: Then I'll give you a new name. Your name is... Rabbit Deep
Rabbit Deep: Rabbit Deep? Cool name. And you? What's your name?
Onion: My name is...Intelligent Onion. Bye bye lah!

Suddenly the onion just disappeared. Rabbit Deep said "Bye Bye lah? He's definitely from Singapore".
-The End

Well, it's not quite Pynchon or Kerouac. Yet. But believe me compared to those diaries, this is full-blown excitement.

In other news, my good friend Paul has started a new blog. He's an old timer of blogs, and a man of great wit, so I advise everyone to read it. He's not in Japan, but that just means he'll be sour and funny in Cairns.

A Review of the Arts

I've been rather fortunate recently to have been impressed by that which I watch, read and listen to.

I saw Miami Vice this evening, and it was all that I'd hoped. Michael Mann has always been a favourite director of mine, especially with his film Heat. This film version of Miami Vice doesn't seem to really pay too much of a homage to the t.v series, from what I understand, but I think that's probably a good thing. A 1980's period film wouldn't have worked very well unless it was a comedy. Perhaps the only thing that remains is awesome vehicles, because the automobiles are certainly very, very impressive. The film is hyper-realistic, in the same way that Heat and Collateral were. And even more so in the photography, which is now handled entirely by Dion Beebe, who shows his ability to work with digital here. I remember some friends of mine cynically suggesting this film would be just another action film, to which I replied, simply, "It's Michael Mann". And it seems I was right, because although there are some spectacular action sequences, they are few. The film is instead more concerned characters, particularly Sonny.
The storyline moves ahead pretty fast and there's no simplification, so in that aspect it's similar to Syriana. But it also has some very poignant moments, and it is these which I love the most.

I bought The Soft Bulletin by The Flaming Lips yesterday, and it's an incredible piece of work. The orchestrations in it are beautiful, and Wayne Coyne's lyrics are simple yet very deep and thought provoking. In each of their albums they create a universe of their own, and in The Soft Bulletin it's the nicest of them all. The Flaming Lips now have reached my top 4 favourite bands. From what I've read, their live shows are stunning. I'd like to see them very much.

And I started reading Crash, by J.G Ballard. It's quite shocking, but it's also beautifully written and has a very interesting commentary on modern society. I'm enjoying it tremendously.