I had a great time in Hong Kong. I need to go back and spend some more time there.

Nice to know you can get the quality stuff there. A little PBR is awesome.

I was staying on Cheung Chau Island most of the time, so I took a lot of ferries.  This is me and my friend, Callan (son of a couple of my co-workers from Hong Kong), enjoying the ride from Central to Cheung Chau.  It was a gorgeous day.

You can’t take a picture in Asia without the classic “V” fingers.

I had this amazing hotel during the staff retreat.  I pretty much lived with those sliding doors staying open, letting the sea air come in.  It was like having a couple of extra weeks of summer while it was raining back home in Vancouver.

I also got a chance to explore a bit of Hong Kong, itself.  I particularly enjoyed the trip out to Stanley.  It was a very hot, muggy day.  It absolutely begged for a beer at a British-style pub.

I wish I had taken photos of the markets in Kowloon.  Those were such an experience with the knock-offs, the bartering, the naked capitalism… A lot of fun.

Actually, I have no idea why I’m referencing Billy Joel’s classic song, “New York State of Mind.”  I just seemed to fit.

I arrived in Hong Kong this morning after completely skipping Friday. It’s already Saturday here, for those of you that are timezone challenged.  I’m now 15 hours ahead of Vancouver.  But the best part is when I come home and I actually go back in time!

I’m in the city for some ICC meetings and I can’t help but be a bit excited.  As I was in the bus from the airport, we came over the suspension bridge into Kowloon and suddenly the mountain-sides exploded with high rises.  Then I looked to the right to Hong Kong side and saw the epic skyline from the picture above.  This isn’t my pic — I just found it on the interwebs. But funny enough, the weather today is almost identical to the photo.  It’s grey and low cloud, but muggy as hell.

Me and airplanes don’t really mix when it comes to sleep and I just did the Asia equivalent of the red-eye. The plane left Vancouver at 2 am on Friday and landed in Hong Kong at 6am on Saturday. So I still have a whole day to get through… and I’ve had maybe and hour and a half’s sleep in the last 36 hours.  I think I’m going to find some food and then take a nap.

Oh, and a note to Air Canada: Overall, flight AC 017 – Vancouver to Hong Kong on Friday, October 8, 2010 was great and I love flying the 777 as it’s very roomy.  But that food was horrific. I’m just puttin’ it on the record.

In all fairness, I do need to say that Air Canada totally gets it right with the Maple Leaf Lounge. THAT is the way to sit and wait for a flight and well worth the extra bucks I paid to get in since I’m not Elite status or anything.

Almost done, almost home.  24 hours from now I’ll have been in the air for about 40 minutes of the 11 hour flight from Beijing to Vancouver. I’m looking forward to being home.

Today, I met up with a friend of mine from home for a good Starbucks chat in Sanlitun, a very trendy shopping area of Beijing. I’ve known Dan Unrau for about 15 years. The first time I met him was in Russia, of all places. I was with a church group in St. Petersburg and we were touring the Hermitage, probably one of the largest art galleries in the entire world.  My friend, Chris Janzen, was looking at a picture when he heard someone call his name. It was Dan. Dan and Chris had gone to high school together and were good friends. Such an insanely random place to meet up.

So here are Dan and me having a coffee in Beijing, chatting away about China and what we’re doing with our lives. Dan, his wife Kate and their kids live here while he works at the Canadian embassy. He’s my favourite Canadian diplomat. So good to catch up. He also sent me into the shopping centre with all the clothes and whatnot… I wished I had another 1,000 Kuai to spend.

As you can see above, I went and did the classic Beijing tourist stuff.  I went to Tienanmen Square which is absolutely enormous.  For about  two minutes, I considered going in to see Chairman Mao’s tomb but then I saw the line up and changed my mind… I’m not kidding when I say there were probably 40,000 people in line waiting to enter the mausoleum. In the Square is the Great Hall of the People, the national seat of government for China. Some houses of government look inviting or, at the very least, a bit alluring. The Great Hall is nothing like that. Probably one of the most forbidding buildings I’ve seen for a government.

I took a bunch of pictures of the Square but they look like it’s a cloudy day out. It was actually a gorgeous day, 30 degrees celcius and humid… that’s the smog that’s perpetually on the horizon coupled with the classic Chinese far-off horizon haze. I don’t think this picture does justice to just how many people were there.

The picture at the top of the post is a panorama of the first proper square inside the Forbidden City. Again, it is enormous and there must have been 100,000 people inside. I’m not kidding. It was a crush of people, completely a madhouse.  But, what an amazing place. So rich and old and beautiful. I couldn’t help but keep pinching myself that I was in Beijing, inside the Forbidden City, walking around something that is something in the range of 600-700 years old!!!

Quite the city, Beijing. I have to come back and spend more time here next year.

I’ve just arrived in Beijing.  It is the sixth city in China that I’ve visited in the last two days.  I have been on planes, I’ve been on trains and I’ve been in many automobiles in these last two days.  I don’t think I’ve ever done this much hopping around before.

Since about noon on Tuesday, my boss, Dave Gotts, and I left Hengyang by high speed train back to Changsha.  We met up with two of our China staff, Heng Khee Tan and Bruce Regier (who, incidently, comes from Langley), and we flew to Zhengzhou (roughly pronounced, Jang Joe, in case you were wondering), the capital of Henan province.  Henan province is so populous, if you took it out of China and made it its own country, it would be the 12th largest country after Mexico!  We picked up two more ICC staffers and then met up with these government people who wined and dined us with a very fancy meal as we were there to sign a contract to partly run a facility in Sanmenxia.

We then hopped another high speed train that evening to Sanmenxia.  The next day we visited our new facility, signed the contract with the provincial government (which was like sitting at the UN), got treated to two more VERY fancy meals, then a tour of an ancient city and then we hopped another high speed train to Xi’an.  Then this morning, I went out to see the Terra Cotta Warriors, caught a flight in the late afternoon and then made it to Beijing.

I’m exhausted.  Soon, I head to bed. I wish I had the energy to edit some photos to put in this post (lame).  Friday, I’ll do a bit of touring around and then meeting up with an old friend, Dan Unrau, who works at the Canadian embassy.  Saturday, I’m on my way home.

I’ve spent just about two days in Hengyang, which is about 40 minutes due south of Changsha by high-speed train. I have a few hours in the morning before I go back to Changsha and catch a flight north to get to Sanmenxia. We’re due to sign an official agreement to operate another facility there.

I suppose I should give some context to why I’m in China in the first place, if you don’t already know.  Almost exactly three months ago, I joined a non-profit organization called International China Concern.  Our primary function is to work with children in China who are disabled and have been abandoned by their families.  Many of these kids are born to poor families who have not suddenly gotten rich as the Chinese economy booms.  These are families that make up the vast majority of the population of 1.5 billion (officially) — lower class people who live hand-to-mouth and can’t afford to care for a disabled child.  Many feel the only alternative is to get rid of the baby, consigning it (not so much by commission as by omission) to state care.  And let me tell you, Chinese state care for abandoned kids with major disabilities is absolutely awful.

So, I joined ICC as the Director of Communications.  It’s my job to tell the story of these kids to those outside of China — the other 4.5 billion on this planet.  Prior to seeing the ICC facilities, I was able to read the stories of these kids and see their pictures and come up with an emotion or a feeling about what it must be like. Nothing could have prepared me for seeing it in person. I’ve been emotionally overwhelmed for days now. Not in a bad way that makes me want to run away, but being here has brought feelings to the fore that had been somewhat dormant til now.

While I’ve been moved and saddened, I’ve also felt a lot of happiness and optimism.  Our workers give these kids a lot of love and attention and basic care.  Its what determines whether a 5 month old with heart defects lives or dies, like the one I’m holding in yesterday’s post.

Then there’s the story of Tey Tey (they like to repeat their names here, sort of like saying Chai Tea at Starbucks… think about it).  Tey Tey actually became a bit of a local celebrity when he was found a few years ago floating in the river in Hengyang in a large bucket stuffed into the centre of an old truck tire.  He was five years old at the time.  He’d been brutally exposed to the elements for several days and all of his skin was severely sunburned.  He didn’t talk as he was physically and emotionally traumatized.  The local welfare centre tried to find his parents and eventually he came into ICC care.  This is a picture of him today with Dave Gotts, my boss. Tey Tey’s a beautiful boy, lots of energy… but he has some brain damage. Hard to tell whether that was a result of his river ride or an earlier issue that caused the abandonment. But it seems so little that I can’t imagine why he was abandoned.

I think what’s devastating is that the parents have to make this horrible, horrible choice. Some are made by the father alone without the mother knowing, the hospital staff telling her the baby died in its sleep. The mother never knows and mourns a life lost that really isn’t lost while the father keeps this awful secret and carries guilt for the rest of his days. Or both parents are relentlessly abused and marginalized by their community because they have a “cursed” baby. Or they think no is there to help them…

I know that’s a long-winded story. If you’ve got this far, well done and I hope it’s made you think a bit.  Maybe you want to donate to ICC or sponsor a child or join a short term team. If you do, go and do it. I can tell you it is making a HUGE difference in the life of real kids.

From here on out, my trip becomes a little more business-like and a little more touristy. I’m off to Beijing at the end of the week and them I’m home on Saturday. I’m enjoying this trip, but I also miss home and my girlfriend.

Absolutely mind-blowing how large this station is. Much like the Beijing airport, they build everything huge here.

5 months old. Holes in her heart. Light as a feather.

I’ve always wanted to see a market like this.  This is where western consumerism hasn’t intruded into community life and it’s something I wish we had at home.  Although, imagining people selling live eels in a tub of water or cages of live chickens on the streets of Walnut Grove is pretty funny.

Today is my last day in Changsha before I go to Hengyang. It has certainly been an amazing experience to be here in this city of 10 million people… which is considered a second- or third-tier city, by Chinese standards.

Last night, the entire Changsha team, international staff and board members got together for dinner.  I ate stinky tofu. I wouldn’t probably want to eat it again, but it wasn’t as bad as some said it would be.

In the morning, I went with my co-worker, Tanya, to visit the local DVD market and computer market. The DVD market was impressive. The computer market is an experience all in its own.  Four floors in a department store-sized building that is essentially a flea market crossed with Best Buy.  If you want to build a computer or get parts or hard drives or USB stuff or speakers or GPS systems or cables or cameras or iPhones or iPads or cases or bags or blank DVDs… it was a little overwhelming, to be honest.  And that was just one of the markets in a four or five block area. There apparently are several more.  Prices were pretty good.  I especially like the software area that had Windows 2005 for sale.

I’m going out to the Walking Street a little later to have dinner and people watch. Should be fun.  In the meantime, I’m in my hotel room watching TV.  You would lose your mind with the ads, they are so funny.  Consumerism here is something to behold and has its quirks.  Like the fact that they always stick some Chinglish into their ads or signs.  So, I’m watching this ad for a cell phone that is an Omega… er, Omeca brand that is supposed to resemble an Omega… er, Omeca watch that you can buy locally.  As the various models seductively move the cell phone around their faces (WTF?), flashes of text appear in Chinese as well as English on screen. “Beautiful sun predicts perfect storm” is one of them.  That’s followed by some guy hopping into his Porsche 911.  I… Must… Buy… That… Phone…

Now there’s some sort of documentary on state TV (one of about 50 state channels, it appears) about how the government has such a difficult time relocating rural farmers despite it being in the farmer’s best interest. If only the farmers would understand that the beneficial government only has their best interests at heart. My goodness, TV here is awesome.

Not really a lot to report as I’ve been in meetings for the last couple of days.  But, I’ve a had a chance to sample some more of the local cuisine and it’s pretty darn awesome.

There’s another aspect to China that I didn’t know about until getting here.  Massage.  Not the weird type, before you get all worked up!  But honest-to-goodness massage that works you over like you’ve never been worked over before.  The people who work there have fingers of steel!  My masseuse — No. 72, because all customer service workers have number tags instead of name tags in this country — damn near killed me when hitting this knot in my back. One of my co-workers was on the other side of the room and she asked if the massage was too hard and did I want No. 72 to ease up a bit.

“Maybe,” I mumbled back as No. 72 kept working away.