hmmmm..

Due to some diffuculties accessing this site from china...this blog will most probably not be updated any more. As I do respect the chinese government's dicision,,,,I agree that information and pictures found on this site may lead to some serious face loosing among my fellow comrades and most possibly add fuel to riots or mass incidents..

SOme times I do post some pics on facebook taken in the motherland, but this is done in close dialouge with PSB.

Cheers! ARVE

Peking University 北京大学

Hi there everyone!

I guess the fact that I'm back in China, means that my China blog needs an update!

Since last time I was here (not a singel bad word about the governments sensorship program...hmmm), blogspot has been partly banned. It means I can only update my blog, but not see my own site or read any comments.. (for you chinese that reads this: stop writing those political statemens of yours :-) send me mails guys and tell me how you all are doing!

Anyways, this time I'm in Beijing. The biggest village on earth and the heart of political China.

As I'm inrolled in a tip top University here, with a pretty serious curriculum, there's less room for taking big bad trips around the country as I did earlier..in the good old days at Manda school in Hangzhou.

But so far so good. Staying and going to school with over 40 other Norwegians is indeed a different situation then what I'm used to and doesn't really comply with my Anthropological instincts :-)

to be continued...

Trip down South

The largest population in the world, The week were all of them travel back to there hometown, and The most troublesome time to get your hands on these precious tickets. Chinese New Year Festival. Of course I had to get into the lines!

Craig playing/watching Chinese chess. Seemed like everybody sitting next to us had an opinion of how this was to be played:-) We were stuck with the hard seats, since everything else was taken. It sure was social, but considered the 30 hour train ride, I don't regret we spent some money upgrading to sleepers. Those "kuai" were well spent!

Apparantly Guangxi is one of the, if not the most economicly "retarded" province in China.

So we had some pretty rough hours on the bus. But surprisingly we didn't see many accidents. Well.. accept this unlucky guy.

Backward, might be. But it sure was some really nice scenery down there.

This was the first village we stayd in.

Is it? Yes it is! A "skigard" in China..mhh. I thought this was only a true Norwegian phenomenon.

An amazing show we watched down in Guilin, one of the most famous scenic places in China.

It was put toge+ther by the director of "Crouching tiger Hidden dragon" movie. 500 people took part in the event and it was all about lights and people perfectly coreographed together. The mountains in the background are real mountains lit up by some serious lights.

If you find yourself in Guilin some day, this is a must see! Even the Chinese had short brakes when they stopped talking loudly to each other.. Thats a sign of quality!

What are these guys waiting for? Are they waiting for the economic boom to unfold in the region? Are they thinkin of their future lives in the countryside? If there are any?

Nahh they were just waiting for the bus, like we also did for 2 hours or so..:-)

Happy New Year!

Quick update from the countryside. I spent the last days in the village where we celebrated the new year. It was nice, but the thing I will probably remember the most is the fact that I got food poisened. Not to complain too much about my friend's mothers cooking, but it was probably more than a foreigners stumach could take... So it's been a hard couple of days.

In a few hours I'm leaving for Nanning on the border to Vietnam. Roughly a 30 hours train ride, which I frankly don't really look forward to considered it will be spent on hard seats. We will bring a set of chinese chess, that none of us know how to play. But something tells me that we will know the basics after the train ride...

Exercise time!

It sure was about time to check out how the Chinese athletes are doing. Since I didn't bring my sport shoes here, and it is impossible to find a pair in my size, I had to bring my 9.99,- RMB slippers. Though not ideal for the task, I think they did a lasting impression on my fellow comrades, even if they didn't believe me when I said it was the latest from the catwalk in
Europe. (What a stupid foreigner...)

Together with another sudent, Brandon from Australia, I signed up for a "Body-Pump" class.
Our instructor was a cool dude, that pushed us through 45 minutes with intence "pumpin".
I did the classic mistake here, which I kind of knew from earlier sessions. That was: way to much weights. Feels like no problem at all when you lift it a couple of times, but when it's countless repetitions, it's an hole different story! I some how felt like I had to show these Chinese people what we Europeans are made of. In short: It was probably a childish-man thing, and the chinese athletes are in great shape, so so with the guy writing this..
(I guess thats the reason why I haven't been posting anything lately, basically I have been feeling like an old man...)

By the way, body pump was just the same thing as back home, maybe there are some international standards? If there are, I'm pleased to say that China is
(at least in this issue:-) following them.
Well...in the pet store I went to the other day, they where at least not following my standards. Quite a sad thing this, to see how they treat animals in general. In the small cage on the picture, they had probably stuffed in more than 50 small birds. Still I haven't been to a zoo here, it will be too much of a depressing sight I believe..

Anyways....Chinese New Year a.k.a. Spring Festival is soon here, which is the most important holiday for most chinese pople. The climax is reached on the 17th. when it shifts to a new year --> according to the chinese lunar cycle. I'm going to my friend's home village outside Ningbo (between Hangzhou and Shanghai). I'm warned that there aren't any reataurants or hotels there, and really poor. -So i definetely look forward to that!

And finally the sun is back!

The spring has come to Hangzhou, at least from

a Norwegieans point of view. And this is what

HZ is all about for all the chinese tourists coming

to the city. --> WEST LAKE

And the sun is finally back, we haven't seen

it for 2 weeks.

Celebrating Henriks birthday (the danish guy to the left)
As most danish people he has a strong appetite for beer!

Nahh..I don't really know this guys, but from their

expression I can sure tell they were lovely people..

(This guys were actually from Japan, which is a

fact you don't really want the Chinese to know.

So first they said they were from Singapore....

and then the truth came for a day. Most Chinese is

indeed not very friendly to Japanese, more on

that thing later....)

Hard to believe...

It's all about burning DVD's in China. At least that's what the government said they will work especially hard on this year. I was offered Windows Vista here the other day before the official realease date, so guess there is a lot of burnin to do then!!

Been a while since my last post here.. The extremelly slow internet speed all of China has experienced lately, must certaintly take the blame. ok...and also partly the fact that I have found "Bai jiu" (a chinese vodka type) on those sports-squeeze-bottles :-)The fact that they cost 3.99 RMB pr. bottle doesn't make it better.

Let's take a closer look on this: This actually means that you can by3 bottles of this "excellent" drink, for the same price as 1 bottle of "Imsdal" water back home. That fact is actually quite amazing. 10 kroner (Norwegian oil dollar), can then buy you 1.5 litre with 50% Bai Jiu or 0.5 litre with pretty average drinking water in Norway. As I'm in the middle of discovering the wonderful world of Joseph Stiglitz and his microeconomics, where he dicribes the rational choice of individuals, I can't help myself from thinking that I'm acting very rational here. I don't save any money for buying overprized water back home, ->instead I spend it all on Bai Jiu.
(Hmm it should also be mentioned thatfor those of you that have tasted this fine fine product, YES I agree it does taste really crap. But the fact that you can get it on those bottles make the
hole experience much better.. )

Another ex. of these sometimes "nah-that-must-be-wrong-price" experiences was these slippers I bought here the other day. Warm and comfy as they looked, even close to my size as they were, I were ready to pay whatever it costed. And 9.99 RMB it was! After paying with my Mao 10 note, I walked happily out from there with a big smile on my face. The kind of smile you put on when you have just made a real bargain.
Even if I have got somewhat familiar with the price level in this country, still I get really amazed of how little something costs over here.That often also includes realizing how much things costs back home.

Back to my slippers again: Couple of days later I walked into the same department store to buy some groceries. Now the slippers where on sale! They now costed only 4.99 RMB. Ahh and there went that bargain...hehe

Getting local with Mr.Wang

Yes..Now I have been here for 3 weeks or so. My chinese is starting to pick up again, and I'm definitely back in the "chinese mode" of life. For the time beeing, I'm sharing an apartment with 4 other students at the school. It's a pretty good life, speaking chinese in the school and english in the evenings. But something says me it's a little bit to convenient. I might going to switch apartment soon, cause it's not really a big winner for my chinese this, to live with to many foreigners. It's time to get"local".

Speaking of "getting local", last weekend was really good. Me and Jean went to this restaurant were we got to know Mr. Wang and his family (yes the family were only 3 people hehe). After some local beers Wang insisted on taking us this village outside Hangzhou the following day. We didn'treally take the guy serious in the beginning, cause if there is something drinking has taught me, is that what ever deal is made during the late hours, it aint gonna happen. But this was obviously not the thing with Mr. Wang. The next morning he called at 8.30 and was still very excited about taking us there (this is so far still the earliest I have got up from bed here, and it was a Sunday...say no more). But something told me that this Wang guy was worth a shot. And he sure was! During the day we visited some huge caves, which Wang insisted was the biggest in the HOLE WIDE WORLD.

Well.... they were big for sure and really amazing, but on this fact Wang probably got a bit too carried away.. We followed up by having some food and beers in a shady restaurant in the small town. Wang was obviously not too pleased with the food his friends in this restaurant prpared for us. He WANTED chicken. There is a small note to be done here though, the place didn't really have any chicken, but that didn't stop Mr. Wang. He took a quick look in the backyard, and came cack with YES a chicken! So after tapping it from blood, he got the feathers plucked off and the chef chopped it up and fried it in a big fat wok pan.
So eventually..... Chicken it was!

Thats what I like about this country, when all hope would haved been gone back home, it can be fixed in CHINA. So in that way, this is the land of opportunities...

Getting settled in Hangzhou

So now I have been around here for a week or so. Havent really had time or opportunity for updatin this "sweety". Apparently there was an earthquake in Taiwan or somethin, so it has been quite a hassle to enter any western web sites. Hmm, those Taiwanese people are always screwing things up arent they?

...well together with the japanese of course, maybe that was somewhat like a joint venture going on there? hehe..
I was livin with this guy Jean (yes the guy to the left!) for about a week or so, really nice guy, but he didnt have any heater in his flat, so I had to move somewhere else...The biggest change this city has seen since last time is that it has become pretty damn cold...brhh*@^¨
Yes it is colder back home in Oslo, but the high air humidity here makes it feel very cold though, its only about 5 degrees or so.. I didnt really believe you Linjia when you told me it was cold in Shanghai during the winter, but I guess you were right after all then,.:-)


___________________________
This is Jean an me sippin some "cha" (yes its all about the tea!) in an old fashined place

Back in Hangzhou

Well then I am finally back in HZ again, after spending some days in Shanghai. After over 3 months in Norway, my Chinese has seen a serious downturn. Though its still more than good enough for ordering those "jiaozi" (dumplings), along with a cold beer...mmmmhh
Hopefully it will all come back to me in a couple of weeks.