Beijing Diary June 13th
Beech Tree Cottage – Gushmere, Kent.
Today is a special anniversary for me, as I sit here on a Sunday morning in a brilliantly fresh summer morning in Kent, with time to reflect on the last nine years. It was on the 13th June 1995 that I first boarded the plane and set off to Singapore to set up EASTWEST. I could never have imagined what an adventure my life would be, and that I would end up living in China contemplating opening an office in Beijing.
I enrolled at the Beijing Language and Culture University with the principal aim of learning Mandarin, and I would have to give myself an ‘F’. I can now get myself around Beijing without having to hand the taxi driver a piece of paper or my hand phone to get instructions. I can order food and drink, but don’t understand all of the varieties of vegetables or preparation the waitress sometimes offers me. I definitely get the pricing, and can bargain a bit, even being given lower prices because of my Mandarin. What I can’t do is understand all that the upright news presenters say, nor the lyrics of the selection of Chinese music I loaded onto my laptop. Frustratingly I recognize some 60% of the characters in the newspaper, but can’t make any sense of the sentences, as I always seem to lack the key noun or verb. Can I write? Only using the computer software, and my handwritten characters evoke a wince or titter from a Chinese person that might be watching. So after four months I am ‘F’ for Functional.
On the last Thursday in Beijing I organised a leaving party, and was touched by how many people came out. The anxiety of organising any event is the fear of sitting alone at a table booked for a crowd, but we had 26 of us and nearly as many nationalities. Those of us that had skipped classes for the last month were a bit embarrassed to see teachers Dan Jiang and Wang at the Bla Bla Bar waiting for us, but it felt good to leave the BLCU on good terms with them. We went to the Two Pigs restaurant. Nicole came, along with Daisy who coached Sabine, and Eleven and Jodie – the girls who had come to nurse me in my first month, came bearing gifts – I was so touched. The excellent dinner at cost RMB500 – the princely sum of US$2.40 each. China really is insanely cheap for the quality that one enjoys. Conversation was a mixture of English and Chinese, topics about what each of us would do next: The Argentian lads will travel overland to Europe, Megan will take her gall stones back to America, Sabine will open a restaurant in Hong Kong, David is trying to get a job with Venture Capital company in Beijing. For three months we embraced the challenge of learning Mandarin together, now we will all scatter to the four points of the globe.
For me, the four months have been a real tonic. I have so enjoyed a respite from the competition of work, feeling the stimulation of the selfish pursuit of knowledge. Of course not everything in China is wonderful, and on Friday 4th it was the 15th Anniversary of Tiananmen Square. I remember that I was in a small town in Mexico on the 4th June 1989, and was trying to translate the Spanish article that showed a young man facing a tank. Although there were apparently some protesters at the Square on Friday, it was not covered in the papers. The move for democracy is being overrun by the chase for wealth, and the Government is criticized in private, but as long as the economy brings benefits for a sufficient number, factions demonstrating against the leadership will not be tolerated.
By contemplating returning to China, and opening an office, I am tacitly endorsing the system, and hoping to benefit from it. The time that I have spent in China so far has been enriching, and I have enjoyed the selfish pursuit of knowledge, although I do wish that I had not elected to juggle study with work, always concerned that I was neglecting the team and clients, while frustrated that I haven’t learnt more Mandarin. As I sit here overlooking my recently completed barn, reflecting on the costs and rewards of my choices, it with a mixture of excitement and fear that I contemplate the second chapter – being driven to start EASTWEST PR in China.
I won’t write another diary until I go back to Beijing, which should be in the first week of August.
With love.
