An interesting observation

I have just been told that I am much taller now than when I arrived in Chongqing five months ago.

This is by the same person who told me a while back that I look like Harry Potter.

Chongqing Inaugural International Badminton Invitational

Yesterday I participated in the Chongqing Inaugural International Badminton Invitational.

Inaugural because it was the first tournament.
International because there were Chinese and Australian competitors.
Badminton because we were playing badminton (der).
Invitational because, well, there were only a few of us from our office playing.

Before yesterday I hadn’t played badminton for at least 13 years – since I last took PE in high school. I was a little rusty to start with but was actually quite surprised at how quickly I picked it up again. Perhaps I’m a supreme athlete? Or perhaps badminton is just easy?! Ahem, yeh. A couple of my Chinese colleagues told me that I looked like I was playing tennis. Well, it's pretty similar?

I played a couple of very close matches against two of the Chinese boys and I was quite annoyed not to have beaten them. Mainly for bragging rights. Apparently the old competitive urge never dies? I won my other game to love but apparently the Chinese have never heard of PANTS DOWN.

It was a really fun day and although I didn’t win the tournament I didn’t disgrace myself either. I was actually quite glad not to have won as the championship prize was an electric foot warmer...

Sport Street

The street next to our office is nicknamed ‘Sport Street’, a name derived from the prevalence of shops selling sporting clothes and paraphernalia.

Just about any sporty-type thing you can possibly imagine is available in Sport Street, from tracksuits to table tennis bats, sneakers to shuttlecocks, treadmills to trophies, footballs to floaties, bathers to backpacks, racquets to rollerblades, punching bags, weights, beach balls where is the beach and everything in between. I have shown immense self control in preventing myself from purchasing some fetching 80s-style lycra gym outfits and floral-print bathers with skirt!

At the end of the street there is a sporting precinct with tennis courts, astroturfed mini soccer fields, and outdoor table tennis tables. These tables use a line of wire or piece of plywood in place of a net – more durable and less likely to be stolen I suppose. People play badminton on the concrete and do tai chi in the mornings. Old age pensioners are regularly seen in matching tracksuits with mallets slung over their shoulders, on the way to the croquet ground/field/pitch (?) for a game/match/set (?) does anybody know anything about croquet

The oldies also seem to enjoy the ubiquitous outdoor gym equipment. This stuff is seen in every residential area and is a bit like play equipment for grown ups. In fact it is play equipment for grown ups – they love the swings! It looks to me like an accident waiting to happen but the oldies seem to enjoy themselves and I suppose it keeps them active and is a good excuse to get out for a bit of a chinwag.


The sporting precinct is also home to two large stadiums, one indoor and one outdoor. The outdoor stadium probably seats about 30 000 and has a rubber running track, grassy field and sand jumping-pits. Aside from school kids doing some athletics training the stadium is nearly always empty although perhaps it is used for weekend events.

The indoor stadium seems much busier. Buses are often seen lined up out the front, dropping of teams of young people. From their height and matching tracksuits I assume they are basketball teams, probably from local colleges and universities. Sometimes they’re seen doing warm ups on the 200m undercover running track adjacent to the outdoor stadium. Today a series of brand-new OB vans are set up outside the front of the stadium as apparently there is a big international martial arts competition being staged tonight. There is also a portable mobile phone tower set up so they must be expecting quite a crowd.

The outdoor basketball courts are by far the most popular of the sporting facilities. Unless it is a wet day the courts are full around the clock. In the mornings there are usually just a few young guys having a casual shoot around, although in recent weeks they have been joined by some older men – perhaps because of the Spring Festival holidays. It’s fun to watch the older men challenge the young guys – although they’re a step slower and can’t jump as high they all look like they’re having a great time.

In the afternoons and evening the teams playing look a little bit more structured, often wearing swish uniforms. It is always young men – I’ve only twice ever seen women playing. The first time was a lone woman in her forties or so having a shoot around one morning and the second was yesterday when a very swish looking team of tall young women were doing a proper warm up. They must have been about to play in the stadium because their warmup was pretty swift and they looked as though they knew what they were doing.


Basketball is massive in China and perhaps the most famous Chinese export at the moment is Yao Ming, the 7foot 6 centre for the Houston Rockets. Women’s basketball also has a high profile with the national league getting prime-time live coverage on CCTV 5, the national sports broadcaster. Which reminds me, the Chinese women’s volleyball team – reigning Olympic champions – can be seen plastered on the side of buses all over town endorsing a particular brand of toilet paper. Far preferable to Lleyton Hewitt if you ask me.

Chinese BBQ

Mongolian bbq is quite well known, as is Korean bbq and even Brazilian bbq in some parts. Americans love a bbq on Independence Day, and we Aussies have never needed an excuse for a barbie.

But have you ever heard of a Chinese bbq?

It's what you get when an electrician decides to replace the meter but does so without turning the power off first. The fireworks are very exciting and it's loads of fun as long as you don't mind the smell of burning flesh.

You just don't see it back home...

I just made a trip to the post office.

The cashier counted out my change using an abacus.

PT in CQ - Buses

Cars are relatively cheap in China (locally made cars, I should say) and car ownership is on the rise as the economy opens up. That said, the cost of running a car is prohibitively expensive to most Chinese and as such owning a car is seen as a sign of status and success.

Of all my Chinese colleagues, only two drive themselves to work. One is an interpreter whose husband is an executive in an IT business. Although he can’t drive, his company gave him a car - a shiny new, locally produced Peugeot sedan. He took three lessons, pranging the car each time, before giving up and advising his wife that from then on the car was hers.

In most cities in China bicycles are widespread although their use is decreasing as the number of cars increases. Chongqing is unique in China due to its dearth of bicycles. Because of the hilly terrain it is too difficult to ride in much of the city and since I’ve been here I’ve only seen two people on bikes. I have found it quite striking when I have visited other cities to see the number of bikes on the road. The infrastructure is very good with dedicated bike lanes on busy roads, as wide as a traffic lane and often separated from the road by a concrete barrier.

Public buses are the most common means of public transport in Chongqing. The vast majority of the population neither has a car nor can afford a taxi on a daily basis and the buses here are a cheap and reliable alternative. A decent public transport system is a necessity in a city of this size and although it is slightly chaotic and disorderly it seems to work effectively enough.

In Melbourne I used to catch a train then a tram to get to work. If I missed my train I would have to wait 20 minutes for the next one, despite it being peak hour. The trains were always crowded and if one was cancelled it would often be near impossible to get on the next, with people jammed in. The trains were often late and the service unreliable.

In comparison the bus service in Chongqing has been an absolute pleasure. I catch a bus to work each morning and I have never once had to wait. There is a constant stream of buses going past and I manage to get a seat every morning (although it probably helps that I travel against the peak hour traffic).

I catch the 109 bus in the morning and my bus stop is just at the end of my street. I am fortunate that it is the terminal stop, meaning that there are usually two or three buses lined up waiting to go. When the first one fills it moves off and the next one rolls up, so just about everyone can get a seat and there’s minimal waiting. The buses don’t work to a timetable, but because I’m at the first stop it doesn’t matter, I never have to wait more than a couple of minutes before one leaves. It takes me about 20 minutes to get to work once I’m on the bus.

There is another bus that I can catch in the mornings (702) which goes past the end of my street. If it happens to be going past as I’m about to cross the road I’ll wave it down – although there is no stop there the drivers will stop for just about anyone, anywhere. I actually wonder whether they work on commission. Because there is no stop, the bus just slows down to allow you to jump on. I’ve had the conductor – always a woman – grab hold of me by the shoulders to pull me up. It was pretty funny considering I was twice her size and just about everyone on the bus had a bit of a chuckle.

In the evenings I can catch any bus home as they all go into the city. I generally take whichever comes along first and because of this there is never much waiting. Buses roll up regularly, about five going past every minute.

The traffic is fairly heavy in Chongqing and the streets relatively narrow, and the drivers do a great job of manoeuvring around wayward taxis, motorcycles and pedestrians. I should also mention that at least 50% of the bus drivers are female, a much much higher proportion than back home.

The bus I catch in the mornings costs 1 rmb (a little less than 20 cents) which is paid into a box as you enter the bus. There is also an electronic scanner and you can purchase a rechargeable card which deducts the fare as it is held to the scanner. Most people leave the card in their pocket or bag and just hold it up to the scanner. You get a discount if you buy one of these cards, it’s about 20% I think but I felt it wasn’t really worth the trouble as I would have needed to register, have a photo taken, etc etc. For the sake of 4 cents a day I couldn’t really be bothered.

I was pretty amazed that the buses had this sort of electronic technology, especially considering the state of them. The buses have different ‘grades’ depending on which route they run. The 109 line is fairly basic, verging on grotty. The floor is exposed steel, the windows are dirty and the seats are padded vinyl although generally in pretty good nick. I have caught some buses with wooden benches which are not comfortable, particularly given the poor state of suspension. There are ‘No Smoking’ signs on my bus and passengers generally abide, although I’ve got on a few times to find the bus filled with smoke only to realise that the driver is the culprit. Hardly setting a good example. Although the buses are pretty shoddy and grotty there is no graffiti or vandalism.

There are nicer buses running on different routes, with more comfortable seats, lino on the floor, and often a flat screen tv set up behind the drivers head, usually showing a news or sports channel. Many buses have a conductor to collect the fare, and again depending on which line you’re on the conductor may be wearing a uniform which resembles an old-school 50s style flight attendant (pill box hat, anyone?). The conductors invariably stick their heads out the window as they approach bus stops shouting the destinations. In Beijing they have an electronic recording to do the same job which is equally annoying, if not more so.

The nicer buses are called Middle Grade Buses and are more expensive at 1.5 rmb a ride. Some of the grottier buses also have tv screens and conductors and I’m yet to figure out the grades of all the different combinations. There doesn’t seem to be an overall governing body for the buses, and it seems that different companies run different lines ie. one company might have the sole rights to run the 109 line, another the 702 etc. Not being able to read the characters makes it a bit difficult to know where buses go and where they stop, and I’ve had to memorise route numbers. It’s also made more difficult because different lines will stop at different places along the same road. I’m fortunate to have a lot of helpful colleagues who know the local routes and can tell me which to take if I need to go somewhere particular.

Despite its seemingly chaotic nature, the lack of timetables and the state of some of the buses the system works incredibly well. I’m yet to curse it as I did on a daily basis back in Melbourne – perhaps the Met (or whatever it’s called these days) could learn a thing or two from Chongqing?

Incredible Discoveries #166

Incredible Discoveries - Damper

An occasional series

I always enjoy wandering through the back streets of the city. There is a huge variety of life that takes place away from the main streets. Narrow streets, wide enough only for one car to pass (just), are a hive of life and activity. My street alone is lined with vendors selling all manner of goods – fruit and vegetables, peppers and spices, noodles and rice, fish (in plastic buckets - still alive, just), various animal bits etc. There are stalls peddling everything from socks to batteries to hair brushes to hand-woven baskets, and blokes just sitting around smoking and playing cards with their friends.

Wandering through the back streets earlier this week I came across a truly Incredible Discovery. One of the snack vendors was selling damper!

The Chinese don’t really eat much bread, generally preferring rice. Bread is readily available in supermarkets and cake-shops but it is sweet and sugary. Even some loaves which look like wholemeal bread, as I know it, are full of sugar. That said, nice bread is available but it takes some finding. The nearest to me is in a supermarket that is about a 25 minute walk from my home where they bake massive round loaves daily. They cut it into chunks to sell separately and I will usually go there at some point on a Saturday to buy a chunk of fresh-baked wholemeal.

So when I strolled past a snack vendor last week who was pulling oval-shaped pastry looking treats out from the coals of his 44-gallon drum ‘oven’, the last thing I expected was a traditional Aussie bush bread. The drum has a hole cut in one end and the dough was placed inside to cook on the hot coals. When they’re done they’re pulled out with what looks like a long pair of scissors and kept warm on top of the drum until sold. The one I bought had a sweet syrup inside it, I thought it might have been jam but later found out it was simply sugar which had melted. There was another variety which looked savoury so I’ll be giving that one a go next time. At 5 jiao a pop (less than 10 cents) I might even have two.

Where I have(n't) been

This makes me realise just how much I haven't seen...


The countries highlighted in red are the ones I have visited. It reminds me of a game Chris and I used to play when we were working at the bank in Ireland. Apparently I've been to 11% of the world's countries. That leaves an awful lot of places I've yet to see...

You can make your own map here.

Too Close For Comfort: Stinky Tofu

Afternoon observations

I made a few observations as I wandered home from work tonight…

The Weather is Improving
In response to my bitching and moaning about the weather, the locals told me it would improve after Spring Festival. I didn’t really believe them but it was certainly the prevailing view. Spring Festival falls on a different date every year and this year it was particularly early. How could they make such a definite prediction about the weather? Not even Rob Gell is that good.

Turns out they were right. And it makes sense. Chinese New Year is based on the lunar and solar calendars so technically it rings true that the weather would improve with the new year. We have had a few clear days recently and on Saturday we even had some blue sky and sunshine. The fact that I chose to walk home from work this evening suggests that the weather is on the up. I don’t think I’ve walked home since before Christmas.

School’s in
I had to make my way through a couple of bus-loads of primary school kids as I headed home. They were old enough to know not to point but there were certainly a few nudges and ‘Laowei!’s.

My friend Anna has allowed her 15 year old daughter to stay at home for the first week of school. High school students spend the first week of the new year undergoing ‘military training’. From what I gather it’s not to bolster numbers in the armed forces but more to teach the kids discipline and respect. They spend five days learning how to march in time and run around a track. Anna (and her daughter) seemed to enjoy the concept of ‘chucking a sickie’.

Spring Festival is over
In mid-December workers swathed the streets in strands of fairy lights and red lanterns. All the main roads were lined with these decorations and they looked really pretty lit at night-time. With the Lantern Festival marking the end of Spring Festival last night, today the fairy lights and lanterns were being pulled down. So efficient.

Stinky Tofu Stinks
Street vendors line the streets in the mornings and evenings to take advantage of the peak hour foot traffic. Deep fried bread is a local favourite, as are noodles and grilled potatoes (chopped and mixed with spring onions, chilli, and a spoonful of MSG). I enjoy trying most things but one I just can’t bring myself to sample is Stinky Tofu. This is a literal translation of the Chinese name for a deep fried tofu snack. It smells like a decomposing carcass and it can be smelled about a block away. Apparently it is delicious but it really stinks.

The Lantern Festival

Yesterday was the Lantern Festival, the final day of the new year celebrations. To mark the end of the 15 day Spring Festival, children traditionally parade through the streets carrying red lanterns. I didn’t see any lantern parades and it seemed more like another excuse to go wild with the fireworks.

The Lantern Festival is also the final opportunity for a family get-together during Spring Festival and I was fortunate to be invited out to dinner with a local family.

A friend of mine, Anna, invited me to her brother’s apartment to celebrate the Lantern Festival with their family. Their apartment sits right on top of the Jialing River, directly across the city from where I live (my apartment looks out over the Yangtze). With fireworks banned in the city centre, the local government permits them along the water-front, so we had a birds-eye view of the festivities. We were quite literally right on top of the action.

Once again the Chinese went mad with the fireworks – it was again like being in a warzone. The sound was incredible, an absolute cacophony. Fireworks of all sizes were being launched left-right-and-centre and I was thankful to be up in the apartment looking out over it, rather than down in the thick of it.

I was a little concerned at the prospect of having to walk through the city to get home after dinner but I found that the city itself was almost peaceful in comparison to the waterfront. The topography of the city, being built on top of a hill overlooking the two rivers, meant that the noise was shut out by the tall buildings surrounding the city. Everyone seemed to be abiding by the firework restrictions in the city so it turned out being a very safe trip home.

I work with a number of Grown Up Aussies who live in serviced apartments across the river in a slightly more residential area. Apparently it was not so peaceful over there. Fireworks had been launched from the windows of the apartment building next door to their own, and later in the evening fire trucks were heard racing down the street. It turns out that the building had been set alight by a stray cracker. It was not a small fire and the building was gutted. Watching from next door the Grown Ups described quite a spectacle and were thankful in the end that the fire had been contained to just one building. Apparently on New Year’s Eve the Fire Department had been called out to control 191 fires in Chongqing city alone... that’s an awfully busy night. There were, however, no official reports of injuries. Yeh right.

Back to the dinner, and Anna told me that her sister-in-law used to be a professional volleyball player. She was quite tall so of course we compared heights – she is two centimetres taller than me. She had been a centre blocker and now works for one of the Government sporting departments at the new stadium being built in Chongqing - some of the early rounds of the Olympic soccer will be played there in 2008. Everyone was quite surprised to hear that one of my former coaches was a Chinese national player. They laughed when I told them how she used to berate us in broken English... “that not volleyball, that shopping!”

Once again everyone played “Guess how old the laowei is!” and results ranged from 18-24 (yay!). People in China are constantly telling me I look young and at first I thought they were being polite. I have since learned that Chinese people generally think foreigners look older than they are, and anyway, the Chinese don’t really do polite. They have no problem speaking their minds about such things and are not at all afraid to ask you how old you are or tell you that you’ve put on weight. I know from first-hand experience.

Once dinner was served Anna pointed at a particular meat dish and with a mischievous look in her eye asked whether I knew what it was. “I don’t know” I responded to which she replied “pigs ears” with a laugh. I pointed at the next dish asking what that was, again she laughed before answering “pig’s hearts”. The next dish? “Pig’s lungs”. The next? “Dofu (tofu). You can eat that one”. Uh, thanks. There was also some delicious baked fish and lots of vegetables including an apple-potato-tomato salad. It certainly contained more potato than the potato salad Reggie and I had ordered at a restaurant in Chongqing... not a potato in sight.

I also had to try baijiu for the first time. I had managed to avoid the god-awful stuff so far much to the annoyance of some of my other AYAD friends. Baijiu is the local spirit, the literal translation being “white wine”. Wine it certainly is not. At 53% proof it smells like rotten socks and tastes like rocket fuel. Chinese men drink it with gusto, by the shot, often ending up red-faced and giggling by the end of the evening. Anna’s husband and brother drank a bottle between them over dinner, and I managed to get away with just a sip rather than a whole shot of the stuff. They told me, numerous times, that they were drinking the best, most expensive brand available. It was in a nice ceramic bottle so it must have been more pricey than the stuff I’ve seen at the local supermarket – in a pop-top plastic bottle (sporty!) priced at 3 rmb (ie. about 50 cents) for 500ml.

It was a lovely evening, aside from the noise, and I felt very fortunate to have been invited to join a Chinese family for their celebration. The evening ended, as they often do in China, with the family gathered around the tv - the women chatting, the men smoking and the kids glued to the telly watching a variety show of some description.

Der Brain

Just to prove that I am not a complete and utter nerdburger, this afternoon I managed to DELETE MY ENTIRE BLOG.

I spent most of the evening trying to figure out how to get it back. Most of the evening, that is, bar a brief interlude for dinner... pig's ears... baijiu... fireworks...etc... ie. just a regular Sunday night in China.

It's a little bit difficult here to be entirely sure (because of not being able to view blogspot properly... see previous nerdy post) but I think I've fixed it sufficiently. If anyone finds any problems please email me to let me know.

Nerd Alert

This post is dedicated to all the nerds out there...

Recent goings on with Google have highlighted the lengths to which corporations are prepared to go to in order to get a slice of the action in China. In a nutshell, in order to enter the massive Chinese market Google agreed to censor results on its new Chinese search page. An example, as pointed out on another site, is the result when you type the word ‘Tiananmen’ into Google China versus Google.com. Quite an incredible difference.

It’s been fairly well documented that the Chinese Government censors internet content and I can admit that when I first arrived here I experienced it first hand. I was irritated to find that I wasn’t able to access my own blog (ie. the site you are now reading) and a number of other sites.

Some sites that I have found that I can’t access in China include:

- Anything in the blogspot.com domain (ie. this website that you're now reading)
- Anything in the BBC News domain
- Wikipedia
- Richmond Hill Clinic (my GP in Melbourne... goodness knows why?)

Of course others are blocked including sites about Tibet, Taiwan, Falun Gong, other religions and anything at all critical of the Chinese Government. There is talk that Skype may be barred in the near future - some even suggest it already is in certain places.

Some call it the ‘Great Firewall of China’ but like the real wall there are of course ways around it. I am able to post entries on my blog because the editing page is in a different domain (Blogger) to which access is not barred. I discovered that I was able to continue reading my favourite blogs by subscribing to rss feeds (I use Bloglines) and recently I have even found a simple way to actually access the barred sites.

Doing a Google search I found that there are various sites which offer online proxy cover. To put it simply (ie. the way I understand it) these sites redirect users through an external server or use code to disguise the origin, allowing a round-about way to access any website. There are a number of these websites around but I’ve been using Stupid Censorship and Hide My Ass which are very reliable and don’t insert adlinks into the text of the site you’re visiting. Stupid Censorship disappeared for a few days at one point but it's back again now and from what I gather it's a contant, on-going process trying to stay a step ahead of the censors.

I have broadband access in my apartment and having it connected was incredibly easy. The building I’m in is brand new and all apartments are broadband-ready. All it took was a phone call and a tech was out here, fiddled with a few switches in a panel outside my front door, handed me a cable and away we went. It has been incredibly reliable and the service has been great. On one occasion I couldn’t connect and within an hour a tech arrived at my apartment (it was a Saturday mind you!) to fix the problem. Turns out a fuse or something had blown in the operations room and the whole building was down.

The broadband is also incredibly cheap, certainly by Australian standards. It costs 100 rmb a month or 650 rmb for 12 months unlimited access. This equates to less than $20 a month or about $120 for the year. It is 100mbps which I believe is faster than we get in Australia though in real terms it doesn’t seem that much quicker.

The Chinese love their mobile phones and reports suggest that about one third of the population owns one. In fact many people own two, each on a different network. The other night I saw a girl at the gym jogging on the treadmill while chatting on the phone, only having to put her conversation on hold when her other phone rang. It was a fairly bizarre sight to see someone running while conducting simulataneous conversations with a phone in each hand!

Post Script... in a case of good timing Andrew sent me this link just as I was about to publish this post.

Where's the cheese?

In my fridge, it seems.

I realised last night that I have four different types of cheese in my fridge. And they're all from different countries. The Chinese don't like cheese and it's pretty hard to come by. Seems like I've been stocking up when I get the chance.

My current stock is:

Brie ... Denmark
Grana Padano ... Italy
Feta ... France(!?)
Tasty ... NZ

I have also managed to source some coconut milk - from a chef at one of the big hotels. I have a few packet mix things from home so I'll be able to make a green curry and a tom yum soup. Yum indeed.

More on the movies (oh yeh and censorship)

Further to my previous post, I've just learned that the film Memoirs of a Geisha has also been banned in China.

I bought the dvd about three weeks ago.

A Shopper's Guide to Chongqing - DVDs

The movie Brokeback Mountain has been banned in China because of its homosexual content. That said, I managed to see it last week. The Chinese Government can control many things, but dvd piracy is not one of them.

Pirated dvds are readily available in shops throughout Chongqing. Often there is some pretence to being a legitimate dvd business with legal dvds lining the shelves during business hours. But after 6pm - and on weekends - out come the pirated movies. I've seen shops pull down the shutters or cover up their stash with a sheet of plywood when a raid has been called. This, however, is a rare occurrence.

Legitimate dvds are generally Chinese films (although there are some Western films) and they come in plastic wrapping and are more expensive. By expensive I mean about 30 rmb. Pirated dvds cost between 6-13 rmb depending on where you buy them and the type of disc. You can check the conversion rates here.

There are dozens of dvd shops around but I have two particular favourites. Both have a good range of recent films but my preference for these stores goes beyond that. It’s more about 'The Experience'.

The first shop I favour is one I discovered on a previous visit to Chongqing a few years ago. It is very obviously not a legitimate business, as it is hidden in the back of an indoor electronics market. It’s the sort of place you’d never find on your own as it’s so well hidden. I take visitors to this shop because it’s such fun to get to.

To get to this shop one must enter the market and walk past the stalls selling all manner of funky electronic equipment like laptops, cameras and mp3 players. Walk past the used computer dealers and turn left down what looks like an abandoned indoor alley. Old furniture is stacked up on itself however if you look closely you will find that it’s arranged much like a maze and you can follow a track through it. At the end of the little maze is a door which leads into another small room… with shelves lined with hundreds of dvds. This store sells only recent films and because of its ‘secret’ location is always well stocked. There were a series of raids in Chongqing about a month ago which shut down all other dvd stores but this one remained open – with additional security ie. a woman guarding the entrance to the maze, which was locked. When anyone approached she would unlock the padlock and move a piece of furniture, allowing access to the maze. It was all very cloak and dagger.

My other favourite dvd shop is a legitimate store just down the street from my apartment. In the daytime is has a very limited supply of local films but in the evenings and on weekends the shelves bulge with all the most recent releases. The girls working in the shop have befriended me (apparently I am quite memorable?) and make a big fuss whenever I come in. It didn't help when I brought a Chinese friend along and she told them that I am in Chongqing working to improve the economic development of the city. One of the girls speaks a tiny little bit of English and between us we try to have little mini bilingual conversations. Whenever I come in she gives me a little hug and leads me past the magazines and cds to the dvd section, as if I didn’t know where it is. She always gives me a discount and won’t let me buy any bad copies.

A few years ago about 30% of all dvds I bought were bad copies, meaning the discs would skip around or wouldn’t work at all. Thanks to the improvements in technology these days about 98% of the discs seem to work. Most movies are actual digital copies, although a small percent are still some bozo sitting in a cinema with a hidden camera. The AV quality of these films is below par but I always have a giggle when I see silhouettes of the audience walking past the screen or people laughing or coughing.

Other movies are preview copies sent to media etc for review. Some of my recent purchases such as Memoirs of a Geisha, Brokeback Mountain and Jarhead have had an intermittent disclaimer running along the bottom of the screen proclaiming that ‘This disc is for Award consideration only and must not be redistributed’. Evidently this doesn’t translate well into Chinese!

In addition to movies, boxed sets of television series are available. Many of the series just beginning in Australia are out on dvd here already, such as Prision Break, Rome and Commander In Chief. I have purchased and begun to watch CIC in the hope that it would provide a suitable replacement for the recently-axed West Wing. I was a little concerned when I popped the first disc in to find that the menu provided images and the theme from West Wing! The episodes work fine though I’ve found (as reported in the Green Guide) that Commander In Chief really is just West-Wing Lite.

At least it won't get scurvy

I arrived back into the office yesterday after a week off, only to be greeted by chaos. In our absence the friendly office mouse had had a field day, eating just about anything it could find and generally making a big mess.

It's a brave mouse, every now and then we see it scamper across the office to disappear into a tiny crevice somewhere. My Australian bosses have suggested we get some Ratsac. I'm all for getting an office cat but the Chinese are not at all interested in getting rid of the mouse.

While we were away the cheeky little thing ate the lid off a glue stick that was sitting on someone's desk, a few of the electrical cords on the floor and it's begun to eat through the cable that connects my monitor to the computer. It also attacked a bottle of vitamin C that was sitting on the desk of one of the Chinese girls. It ate through the plastic bottle and then consumed the entire contents.