Wow, work has been tough. It’s pretty relentless. Same thing day in, day out. However, it definitely helps the Mandarin, there’s no doubt about that.

My flatmate’s parents were out here for Christmas and my other flatmate’s parents actually live in Beijing so, despite the odds and the Atheism of China not wanting us to be Christmassy, we managed to recreate a very European family Christmas in the end.

Got more exams coming up in a few weeks (ouch) but then after that it’s my 21st birthday (woo!) and then we have a MONTH OFF! During which I’m looking into doing a very, very, very cheap shoestring trip into Vietnam by train or something. No computer, no phone, no distruptions. Just myself, my woman, my camera and my sketchbook! Need to get away.

Part of being an ex-pat means that, when you do meet fellow ex-pats, more often than not they’re very interesting people with similar interests or outlook. Whilst I’ve found this occasionally isn’t the case, (e.g. in France a lot of the ex-pats are just old retired couples who move for the weather) in Beijing it’s another matter. Even ex-pats approaching retirement age would be required to have a certain amount of tough-skinned resilience to withstand the day-to-day excitement and challenges of living in China!

I’m going to sign-off for now as I’m actually supposed to be using this time to learn about a million new words that I’ve been given as homework. I’m annoyed with myself that I STILL haven’t written any new articles yet! I’m still not quite adjusted and into a proper routine yet but, once I am, I’ll blow the cobwebs off the surface of my brain and get writing!

Hopefully doing a race from central Beijing out to the mountains on Saturday morning. That’s if I can get hold of a helmet in time! The lovely student loan company has managed to more or less screw up the admin of my student loan so it STILL hasn’t come through, rendering me a bit pennyless at the minute. Luckily, it costs next to nothing to eat in Beijing and I cycle everywhere so I should survive for a bit longer! Paying the rent is another issue…

I went to the great wall the other day, which was fantastic. Like, really fantastic. I went in 2006 but it was full of tourists and the weather was rubbish. This time however, there was barely another soul out there and the visibility was fantastic. I’ll add some photos later. If you have me on Facebook, check them out.

It’s a week’s holiday for Chinese national day at the minute so we all have a week of university. Just as well since the work load is huge! We haven’t even started classical Chinese yet either and we only just got instructions for the first part of our assignment for SOAS so… better start having no friends!

I WILL write that article soon, I PROMISE.

Off to meet some 北京人朋友 tonight at a rock bar called ‘Mao’. So knackered now…

The other day, I met up with my mate Nick from London (he’s a Beijinger but studies at UCL). Spent the day hanging out in a pretty swanky gym called the ‘Changan Club’, just near Tiananmen Square. Finally got some squash games in and some much-needed exercise. A few days later, we met up to play some street basketball in a nearby court - not an easy task when you a.) don’t really like basketball and b.) consequently rarely play it! Anyway, somewhere between Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, I managed to get something stuck in my eye as I was cycling back to the house. I initially thought nothing of it but it started getting a bit irritating and many attempts to flush it out failed.

I eventually gave in and decided I should see a professional at hospital, even after my friends and flatmates had poked their fingers and towels in my eye over several failed attempts.

Nick took me to a hospital near his place that also happened to specialise in eyes. I’ve got to say, I was extremely impressed. I’d never had to visit any Chinese medical institution of any sort before so I didn’t really know what to expect. I paid 5.5RMB (£0.44) for an appointment and 56RMB (£4.49) for medicines/eye drops etc that I took home with me. I was seen straight away by a very efficient doctor and, once I’d gone back downstairs to by medicine, seen by a nurse 5 minutes later. I’m going to write an article about that (amongst other things I want to write about) as soon as I find the time. I’ve got a test coming up next week too so I ought to remember how to write Chinese in its entirety before that happens.

Anyway, it turned out I had somehow managed to get a fairly large shard of metal stuck in my Iris. Some of it is still in there and I have to take eye-drops for a few days until the rest of it comes out (the nurse was only able to remove part of it).

Other news; I got involved with the Beijing Fixed Gear Crew the other day and went on a night time ride on a borrowed Fixed Gear bike to the Bird’s Nest stadium where we became a bit of a tourist attraction with our fancy bikes. I don’t have a fixed gear bike out here yet as you can’t get them in China but I’m hoping to import from Hong Kong soon.

I’m off to watch Wheelchair Rugby tonight! My flatmate managed to wangle some tickets through a football contact so we’re off to see Australia vs. New Zealand and Great Britian vs. Germany.  英国加油，英国加油！

Articles will follow, there don’t seem to be enough hours in the day at the minute!

I’ve been in Beijing for 5 days already. Today, the weather was absolutely amazing. Best I’ve ever seen in Beijing, it has to be said. Temperature was a lovely 28C or so and there was a nice light breeze. Shame that every single day before that had been very, very smoggy and not particularly pleasant. I went for a run around Jianwai SoHo (near one of the ring roads - it’s where I’m currently staying before I move into an Apartment) and had to come back after 10 minutes, the air was so bad. Today was definitely better though. You could see the mountains around Beijing from Houhai (in the city centre). I seriously hope it stays like this.

After lots of hoop jumping and flat-hunting, my flatmates and I finally settled on an apartment. Funnily enough, it was the first one to respond to an ad I put on the internet a while ago and the first of many that one of my flatmates and I looked at! Unbeknownst to us, another flatemate (there’s 4 of us in total) had gone to look at it through an agent, without realising it was the same one. So it just sort of had to be in the end! We’ve absolutely fallen in love with the place - we’re in an amazing location, just 3 minutes walk to the north of Houhai and 5 minutes walk to the West of the Drum Tower. Incredibly central. We’re also situated within a compound that’s in a real Hutong so we should get a chance to mingle and interact with as many true ‘Lao Beijing’ locals as possible. 

Check out some pictures here: http://gallery.me.com/jamespearson

Once we’re settled in, I should be in a better position to keep the site updated. For now, I’m just looking forward to not living out of my suitcase anymore.

I’m also planning to write an article on finding a flat in Beijing for Laowai (foreigners) like us which should be useful for those of you planning on doing the same thing as us next year. We had some good adventures whilst flat hunting, including finding ourselves in a really famous Chinese singer’s house! This guy’s as famous as in China as Pavarotti was in the West. It was a bit like a surreal version of MTV’s ‘cribs’.

Over the last few nights out, I’ve also had the chance to get back in touch with a few people from my last trip to Beijing, including Cho, the legend behind ‘Cafe Sambal’, conveniently just near where we live! He also runs Bed Bar in the next block which is known for doing the best Mojitos in town and therefore will consume most of my student loan no doubt. I’m planning on doing a little write up on this site at some point. 

More news to follow, probably next week.

I’m flying from Paris CDG to Dubai tomorrow night. Getting more and more excited about Beijing now. 

So, the first live travel post on this china blog is likely to be all about Dubai. I’m pretty sure that’s easy to tie in though when you look at construction, pollution etc! I’ll leave it at that for now - I don’t want to get censored before I’ve had the chance to get off the ground.

Watch this space.

I’ve posted the first article of the site (work in progress), dealing loosely with the issue of looking forward, post 2008. There is more I want to say but I’d prefer to keep the politics part of the site as impartial as possible.

你好 to my good friend and coursemate John to the site as a contributor. John lived in China for 6 months before we met at SOAS and he has a witty and insightful view on what it’s like to live in mainland China. I’ll look forward to publishing what he has to say.

For now, I’m tired. I’m still in France and I’m writing about China, in English. It’s all very confusing. To top it all off, tomorrow I’m going to be strapped to the back of a tractor planting beet-root in a nearby field for one of the local farmers. As if I couldn’t do anything more un-related to blogging, modern technology and analysing world super powers. 

The articles section is the next big move but that’ll have to wait for another night when I haven’t spent ages working out how to get the site to display the local times in Beijing and London! Also, a big welcome to my 好的朋友 Richard Hong who’s agreed to share some of his cultural wisdom with the rest of us. Richard was recently interviewed by the BBC regarding the role of social networking sites in the exchange of information within the Chinese community in the wake of the Sichuan earthquake. Watch the interview here.