She decided that there were too many reasons for her to continue life in Vancouver. I can relate to that of course. So we decided that I should end my latest Dalian venture. On June 3, 2009 I was packed up and moved back to our humble abode at 3660 SE Marine Drive.

Consequently I decided to move my blogging from Spaces back to wordpress.com http://robertg69.wordpress.com and that's where I have been since and should remain for the foreseeable future.

This week Emma (Wen Yuan) and I have been living without Kelly (Yu Wenwen), her daughter. Kelly left on Monday for a 6 day trip to the US, Washington, Oregon and California, with the String Band from Killarney Secondary.

I found a new image from Suzhou this week:

Even the Internet Nanny in China accepts that enough is enough and now I can access my blogspot.com blog. I have tried it out this week and found that it offers better control over the placement of photos and text. So I will move back there.

And I don't have to do the HTML <> stuff anymore! See you at http://robertg69.wordpress.com Many blog stars, Winer, Scoble et al, are now posting regualrly at WordPress.com. Try it, you may like it!!

At 7 AM next Friday (Oct 21), I will be finishing my packing and preparing to take the taxi to the Dalian International Airport. There I will board China Eastern to fly back to Vancouver via Shanghai. Since that plane will be crossing the International Date Line, I will land in Vancouver at around 11AM Oct 21 Vancouver time.

Yuan has been living there since this past August 20. On Sept 1 she moved into our new Vancouver home. (see photo below)

Readers of my blog may be surprised at the brevity of this entry. The fact is that I have been feeling more and more China-ed out since Yuan and her daughter left. It is very humbling for this cynic to admit that I need to be with another person. But that is the new fact of my life. Adventure is not enough anymore, although I can easily make a case that living long term with Yuan and Wen wen, my stepdaughter (photo below) in China, Canada or wherever should certainly be an adventure in life and living. And I look forward to all of that!

Life in Dalian and on vacation trips away from Dalian have kept me busy.

Let's begin with life in Dalian. Since my wife got landed immigrant visas for her and her daughter from Citizenship and Immigration Canada, our life here was clearly coming to an end. Her mind during the month of July and August was focused on her return to Vancouver to continue her quest of Canadian citizenship and a separate (from him) participation in the Canada Pension Plan.

For my wife and daughter the other priority was getting to Canada in time for the new school year and Kelly's registration at a BC high school. So Yuan spent lots of time on the Internet researching rental properties in Vancouver with a view to finding a home close to a good high school.

With one thing and another Yuan decided to leave Dalian on August 20 last.

By then I had to come to terms with the prospect of staying in Dalian until late December 2005 and so live without the pleasure and joy of Yuan's company for 4 months. After telling her that I felt I couldn't do that. I resolved to split the difference by leaving Dalian to return to Vancouver no later than 2005 October 30.

In the meantime I decided to visit more of Shandong Province. So on Aug 21 I took the night ferry to Yantai. During the next two days I visited Penglai and Weihai. Photos below show some of the scenery I saw. Unfortunately I erased a 256MB flash drive by mistake and lost about 200 photos of this visit, especially the Penglai part.

Most Chinese people I have encountered seem to get the best from me.

Last Wednesday - Aug 3 - in the early AM, I picked up on a post in Danwei.com about a call for laowei to participate, all expenses paid, in a Photo Festival taking place in Tengzhou, Shandong, next to Lake Weishan.
 After checking this out in my trusty Lonely Planet Chinapedia, I found zip there about either Tengzhou or about Lake Weishan. But I know now that is not too surprising because few Chinese not from southern Shandong know anything about either the city or the lake.

And then my wife pooh-pooed me saying “”Go on, it’s too early to call that Beijing number!”  But I persisted and got her, because she is Chinese, to complete the call. Eight days later I can say without hesitation that I am very happy that she made that call to Chen Jian, as suggested by Danwei.com.

Yesterday, and about 24 hours late because of ferry interruption due to Taifeng Masta, I got back from a four day stay in Tengzhou for the 2005 Yintai International Lotus Photography Festival from Aug 4 till Aug 7.
 My bottom line here is that just about everybody I met and worked with during that time got the best out of me and I got a great China experience at minimum cost to me.

There was plenty of good food to eat, good drink and they gave me about 200 glossy prints (7X5) of different scenes in and around Tengzhou that I photographed.  

Best of all I met some of the nicest Chinese women I have known since arriving in Dalian 10 months ago. BTW I met my wife, who is the light and love of my life in Vancouver many months before I came to China.

I also met 4 interesting and amusing laowai, including a Shuchat from Montreal, Canada and a “beautiful American”. So thanks for the post and great tip Danwei!
 
Since there were 55some Chinese expert photographers from Beijing, Ji’nan and Tengzhou involved in the event, I felt that I was one of the most photographed personas in Tengzhou during those 3 days of photo shoots, some for the contest and some for plain fun. They liked my multicolored bandanas and my good humor. So I won no money prize, but the experience was the best prize for me.
 
Tengzhou is a lively provincial city, which can boast of a largish industrial base of the non-rust belt variety. Clearly, municipal administrators there work hand in hand with industry players to enhance the city and the attraction of Lake Weishan, with its extensive lotus ponds and wetlands. Waters of the lake look relatively clean. I tasted some of the fresh water fish from the lake and it was yummy.

Yintai Foods, a prominent employer in Tengzhou, has built a very attractive botanical themed restaurant and is adding at least one hotel and other leisure features in the area.  

Tengzhou is just an hour or so farther on the Shandong Expressway after Qufu and Tai’an. If you focus on the good things in Tengzhou, you will enjoy the visit.

Clintonian naivite

There are so many synctactic tricks in the neo-con playbook that it is not too useful to only discuss one of them. But this latest one has to be a dead give away of how fundamentally puerile their thinking really is. In fact, their main weakness seems to be that they suffer from an elephantine memory and a post-adolescent's fixation on a pet peeve. Or they don't forget much and they obsess about that that they don't or can't forget!!

Is there anything more puerilely naive than the neo-con approach to Iraq and the Middle East? But they facilely fasten (nice alliteration there!) on their obsession with Clinton & Co, which paid political campaign dividends for them last time out, to deflect our attention from their disastrous policies and execution thereof by reminding us how "ineffective" and even how "downright Un-American" the naive Clintonites were. They actually read and knew history! How naive of them!

The Shrub and his pretentious crowd of neocon intellectual supporters have never seen a book they couldn't ignore. And the world pays for their deliberate ignorance. Oh they say it's their strategic strength. Not getting distracted by all the trivial details is what makes for an efficient and hard-hitting executive!! The crassness of it all.

Their puerile hypocrisies may be catching up to them, but their commitment to and discipline about message are not going to go away easily, because that will mean they will be on their way out of political power.

Diogenes dixit!

Mafiae,

The main text below comes from Crooked Timber 7/23. I added a comment at the end. It summarizes my thoughts about US vs. China's foreign posture these days!! I contend that the US posture sucks!!

1. One other thing that tends to get forgotten is that the (Italian) mafia is a terrorist organisation. In the ‘war against the state’ the mafia planeted bombs, terrorised civilians, and generally did its best to impose its political views on the rest of the population. It also had (and has) strong links with the Vatican: in other words, it is a religiously orientated terrorist organisation.

   I am not even going to comment on the hypocricy of Berlusconi who has appeased (and, some say, worse) this organisation. I have also been searching for quite some time amongst the ‘pro-invasion’ weblogs for condemnation of Berlusconi’s corruption and appeasement of terrorism, perhaps even an acknowledgement that Chirac’s corruption (no small matter) pales into insignificance when compared to Berlusconi’s.

   However, of course, Berlusconi had the ‘right’ attitude to the invasion of Iraq, and like the Vatican, the pro-invasion blogosphere now has the ability to absolve him of his sins.

   Berlusconi’s antics also put the question of Turkey into perspective. Huge amount of ink has been spilled on the subject of whether Turkey ‘meets our Western standards of democracy’, avoiding the salient fact that there is some doubt as to whether the mafia ridden, Berlusconi owned state of Italy would actually meet the EC’s criteria for democratic process were it to apply for entry.

   Posted by Brendan · July 23rd, 2005 at 12:43 pm

2. In traditional China the state did not effectively guarantee law and order at the local level, which was maintained by vigilantes organized by the local gentry. There were also bandit gangs of the Mafia type which sometimes fought the gentry, sometimes worked for them, and sometimes cut deals with them. Sometimes they were Robin Hoods and sometimes they were Pinkertons. Ultimately they were a predictable part of the system. At one key moment in Shanghai, one of the big gangs allied with the Kuomintang and massacred Communists.

   I’d like to see the “monopoly of legitimate violence” definition of the state applied to XIXc China. The Ch’ing state seemed to subcontract legitimate violence. They only became alarmed when tax collection became impossible, or when someone set himself up an an Emperor (symbolic politics). And even in the best of times, local authorities skimmed a high proportion of the tax revenue.

   Posted by Bertrand · July 23rd, 2005 at 1:02 pm
3. Your comment is awaiting moderation.

   Well I wonder when some bright creature will undertake to analyze the current US govt in the same terms that the commentors above have done of Italy, France and traditional China?

   It is my modest contention that China today is freer than most Western states. But many will point to various Human Rights limitations and suppressions in China and I can’t deny that they exist. However, on the level of everyday life incountry and abroad my image of China is society, diplomacy and political force working to continue economic growth, harmony incountry and with other countries, even with Taiwan, their old bugaboo!!

   Now what can I say about the US, mired in Iraq, Afghanistan et al in pursuit of precisely what aims, other than legitimate violence???????

   I rest my case for now

It's here ... our web portal site!

As of yesterday, 2005/7/23 we have the beginnings of our Services portal. It is at http://sinowesterngroup.com. Very modest beginnings, but it's that the first step on the next "long journey".

This is an important point in our time. I will likely use that portal to publish some of my writings and use Google and Yahoo ad clicks to make it visible to the world!!

Right now it's early in the AM on Sunday, the day after, and I am not feeling very voluble. So I will forego more comment here, but I do feel something special has started. But if it is to be, it will be up to us.

Another thing happened yesterday! Kelly may have another entry point to her "music career". That has to do with a telephone conversation I had with Sanford B and Gordon Gray, one of Sanford's Beijing buds. Gordon G is in the music business, in an underground way. He has a sound studio and also has a 16 yr old daughter who has ambitions for a music and TV career. She wants to collaborate with a maker of original pop music who is close to her age and does her music in Eng/Chinese. And that's Kelly with a little help from me for the English composition part, or so I think right now. Time alone will tell what this means Stay tuned!!!

And I got a neat new camera phone, made by Lenovo, which cost about $200 CDN!

Does it work or not?

That is a question that I was asking myself about my sexuality until this time last year. That's when I met and got infected by the Yuan virus. And then I married her. If you are wondering about Yuan and me, look below for a recent photo of us.

Today she and I laugh often about having an overactive libido, both she and I. We have each of us discovered that unconditional love leads to lots of release from the interior prisons that our minds and bodies lived in before we met and decided on our own intuitive sense that we could commit to each other unconditionally.

I did it first. She learned to accept it over the last 12 months. The real transformation began after we married in China last October 20. That seemed to give her a better feeling about my degree of commitment to supporting her in life.

Recently in my primary school teaching here in Dalian, China, I used a short story about the secret to happiness. According to that story, the secret lies in "helping others" not after doing a needs test or thinking about what you will get out of it. No, you just accept that it is good to help others. Living that way conditioned me into accepting myself better and being able to be in the moment and enjoy it for itself with no after or before thoughts!!

A new way to happiness and libidinal health. Oh you thought that I was going to tell you about some mysterious Taoist potion or China secret. Well the good news is that there is no such thing. And the better news is that you don't need any of that magic stuff. The secret is inside your own mind and soul.

In fact, I believe more and more the statement that it isn't those other people that are the problem because they can't or won't understand me. No I am the problem. And when I learn to accept that, I find the way to the secret to happiness.

Libidal re-birth then happens if you are lucky enough to be with and have a good loving partner.

I am certain that anyone who reads this will think, "what a cliche ridden cretin". Simplicity and elegance is said to be the secret to good science. Why can't a simple and elegant formula for better living also be the path to happiness and good sex, loving sex?

I think Jesus would agree about this also. In fact, I think most honest men and women would as well.

It is so nice really!

The first photo below shows the blossoms/flowers on trees in D called cottonrose hibiscus. The trees are all over the place, on busy lus (roads), in our hua yuan (garden complex) and in the forests around town. Just delightful like a lot of roses, peonies and such in the most surprising and normal places in and out of town. China is a flowering Middle Kingdom. My kinda place!

The next photos show aspects of Dalian taken from a 400m above sea level vantage point known as Tai Xiao Shan ( little mountain).

I managed to scramble up an informal dirt trail and experienced some awkward moments as one does during a scramble over an unknown steep space. By the time I got 2/3rds of the way up, I was soaked by sweat and dewdrops on the bushes and trees I brushed against on the way up!!

Musings about being Canadian in China

There is definitely something special about being a Canadian on July 1 singing O Canada to grade 3 & 4 Chinese pupils. And my heart literally felt it last Friday at Toayuan Xiao Xue (Primary).

Don't tell the Yanks, but I also sang Oh say can you .. after repeating O Canada yesterday, July 4.

But that's not really what I am posting about this morning. My very good buddy Gerry C has asked me to comment about human rights in China before and this will be another of my feeble attempts on getting this right and authentic.

Let me begin by saying that my personal position in China, earning modest money as a primary school teacher, is that I am a guest of a great state that has more than 5,000 years of recognized civility. Not always appreciated by the alleged "freedom" promoters in US and Canada, but civil nonetheless.

So vibrant emotions about being a proud, strong and free Canadian got my noodle to thinking and this morning I read this from Stanley Crouch, an eminent US journalist and human rights critic.

"By Stanley Crouch, black American

America's dark history sheds light on future greatness

We should all be proud and happy to live in the United States because ours is a history of increasing human recognition. We are forever moving against our limits and being forced to face our shortcomings. We remain within the orbit of those American dreams, like sword points, that keep pushing us beyond what Mr. Jefferson and his boys thought, but which would not be possible without them."

I feel deeply that some Chinese human rights critic,  officially accepted or not, would espouse the same thought and feeling about China that Crouch does about America. It's not what happened before that is most important. It is what could happen, if we get things right and do the right thing more often in the future, tomorrow, next week or next year!

There is serendipity!!

I went to the web site for quotations and found this random selection:

The way to final freedom is within thy self.

The Book of the Golden Precepts

This sounds somewhat biblical. I wonder if GW Bush reads enough bible stuff to have found this one!! In the end the only freedom worth considering is surely the "final freedom".

Contrarian Robert

Michael Ignatieff, sometime Canadian, intellectual gadfly/interviewer in London and now professor at John Kennedy School says in the NY Times of June 26:

"There is nothing worse than believing your son or daughter, brother or sister, father or mother died in vain. Even those who have opposed the Iraq war all along, who believe that the hope of planting democracy has lured America into a criminal folly, do not want to tell those who have died that they have given their lives for nothing. This is where Jefferson's dream must work. Its ultimate task in American life is to redeem loss, to rescue sacrifice from oblivion and futility and to give it shining purpose. The real truth about Iraq is that we just don't know -- yet -- whether the dream will do its work this time. This is the somber question that hangs unanswered as Americans approach this Fourth of July."

My own view is that there are dreams worth pursuing but since when is one man, GW Bush, empowered to pursue a dream by spilling the blood of thousands including American/British/coalition men and women, mothers and fathers many of them!!!

Pursuing the dream by fighting a tyrant in one's own country is one thing, but what is going on in Iraq is hardly worthy of "the pursuit of happiness for the greater number".

I don't hate Bush and his fellow travellers down that dreary path of death and mindless destruction, but I hate what they have done and continue to do in the name of freedom/liberty. It's dead wrong!! Very dead!!

"Dalian Sucks": My feelings and thoughts Thanks to Derrick Chang and Ryan I read about this sad reaction to Dalian and China. And I am reassured by the following "A lot has been written on that BBS about Dalian. It's pretty much an abandoned thread ..."

The following comments are only mine and are deeply felt. I have interlaced many of his words with my own and tried to show the attributioin with quotes"".

I do not agree with Derrick's following thought: "Coming to China, for many foreigners is a step down in terms of civility and modern conveniences. You have to accept that fact." I did not at any time feel that kind of "step down". My own sense is that every city I have lived in or visited, regardless the continent, had good and bad sides. And that includes Victoria/Vancouver and certainly Toronto, ugly Cabbagetown for me!!!

On the whole I do agree with these words of his: "But China has other things to offer that these 'globalized cities' don't: great Chinese food, friendly local people (for the most part), cheap prices on just about anything and 5000 years of culture. Coming to live in China is not an easy transition on foreigners. Some people come here, hate it at first and learn to adapt (because China won't adapt to your liking), while others come here, hate it and hate it more the longer they stay. Fair enough. It's not a place for everyone. I'm probably a rare bird amongst the foreign population in China. I came here and liked it, still like it but dislike what goes on 'behind the scenes' of what most foreigners can see and experience. That's why I don't like many aspects of the country and culture. It must be stressed that overall, I don't hate the country at all, just many aspects of the culture and it's leadership. Most foreigners in China either don't know or understand what goes on or simply don't care as long as they are making enough money and enjoying a comfortable living. They have the right to be this way, of course."

I am happy to say that I too feel that I am the kind of rare bird that Derrick refers to above. But unlike Derrick I have a lot of respect for the leaders of this gigantic, quite disparate and largely peaceful country and society. The culture is different than my Euro-Canadian culture but that's the attraction for me. Vive la difference!!

..

Again I agree with the words below: "I think it would be best for you to take advice from people who live in China and have traveled to many parts of it. Most of the foreigners who don't like China I find are ones who haven't traveled around much in China and really only compare it to their hometown or other countries they've been to. They don't bother learning Chinese or making local friends. If they do make local friends, they have no clue what the Chinese are into. Chinese people are into things like going to sing karaoke, playing badminton, going for walks, eating at restaurants, watching movies and cartoons, playing cards, etc. Instead, China-hating foreigners spend most of their time in western style coffee shops, bars and restaurants eating western food and complain about how they are lonely, it's dirty outside, they can't meet Chinese people and it's not as good here as it is back home. Basically, they're not having a good time because they want the same life in China that they enjoyed back home in western countries.

As a foreigner living in China, the more you embrace the local culture, language and food, the more likely your enjoyment of life in China will increase. The same thing happens to some Chinese who head to foreign countries to study and/or work. Many don't integrate themselves into the local culture and only band together with other Chinese. Many aren't too happy moving away from China because things are more expensive and the culture is so different from their own."

Amen!!

He continues: "Of course the China-hating expats are entitled to their opinions..."

I accept that but I deplore their bad grace and lack of simple courtesy towards a people who have much to teach the western world. I completely agree with the following: "When it comes to the actual city of Dalian, I have few complaints. I left Toronto and basically the western world in search of a more interesting, livelier and challenging way of life. I found it here in China. When I go back to Toronto later this month, most of my friends will be working in the same job, same office, commute the same distance every workday, go to the same pubs/clubs/restaurants and be thinking the same thing: 'damnit I have to get out of this rut.""

I will feel the same when I go back to visit Vancouver, because from here on out I will likely split my time between the Canada/US West Coast and certain parts of China, including certainly Dalian!! And then he closes with this to mind very accurate description of Dalian and China.

And I completely agree with the following: "Dalian is a city of contrasts, as most other cities in China are. The downtown core is beaming with skyscrapers and well manicured streets and squares. Out near the airport and special economic zone 开发区 it's a bit dirtier and uglier because of the industrial activity. There are pockets of the city that aren't beautiful of course, but the shoreline of Dalian, especially the coastal road I always talk about Binhai Road 滨海路 is very scenic and beautiful.

xI laughed when the original poster wrote that Dalian has a "very short coastline path and a few green hills". Binhai Road is upwards of 30kms long!!! How long does this guy want it to be? He obviously doesn't know the city very well, out here in the software park where I live there are many green hills and they extend further down towards Lushun. Out in Jinzhou there's a big mountain that I've mentioned a few times, Big Black Mountain which can provide a nice day-long climb and hiking expedition.

The beaches are gravel and small stones, don't come to Dalian expecting Thailand in terms of beaches. The water isn't even warm enough to swim in until early August! Chinese don't like to sun tan (white skin is considered beautiful in China) and lie on the beach anyway, so it's not a big deal for them if there isn't fine white sand.

Chinese rave about Dalian because it IS one of the best cities in China to live. Perhaps not the most modern or happening cities (Shanghai), not as rich in culture or historical as others (Beijing/Xi'an) but in terms of general cleanliness (air/water/ground), scenery, low cost of living and laid back people, it's hard to beat. The top communist party members in Beijing like to vacation on a resort in Dalian and I heard rumours Jiang Zemin was vacationing (read: hiding out) at the resort during the SARS outbreak of 2003!

People speak pretty standard putonghua too, which helps with language study. Dalian feels a lot like my home in China; whenever I traveled around China, returning to Dalian has felt like returning home. Dalian and Chengdu are the only two cities I'd prefer to live in if I had to choose:

Dalian for the cleanliness, climate (a tad windy in the winter but nothing a born/bred Canadian boy can't handle), language (good pronunciation of putonghua), northeastern food (did I mention before I love dumplings?), oh and the pretty girls.

Chengdu for the ancient history, spicy food and close proximity to the most beautiful parts of China (Jiuzhaigou, Tibet, Xinjiang, etc), oh and the pretty girls.

Comparing any Chinese city (excluding Hong Kong/Macau or anywhere in Taiwan) to any city in the west just isn't really fair. No city in China would probably rate up there with London, New York, Singapore, Paris, etc., not yet at least. But if Shanghai is the 'international city' that China is aiming to present to the world, all hope is lost. HAHA I'd rather it be Beijing..thankfully they'll be having the Olympics in 2008 and hopefully Beijing can show the world more Chinese culture and history than Shanghai ever could!"

Amen Derrick Amen, I couldn't have said it better.

And to those expats who can only bitch, complain and act as if the Chinese are a sub-class of humanity, "You most probably didn't have much of a life when you left "home" and if you continue acting as you do, you won't find much to go back to in the end. Try to open your mind to a bit of civility and a better sense of human values!!!"

And my last word to you is "your words and thoughts suck, so try to get a better grip on yourself and live a little"

I guess that I should have opened another category for this post, but I am lazy and won't do that.

In mid-February this year we got an envelope telling us to be at the Immigration Section of the Can Embassy in Beijing on June 16 at 9AM. Note the advance notice seen by us as delay in the process for us!

During the first few minutes of that interview we learned that our sponsored by me visa application was considered straight-forward, on paper, by CIC. But there was the awkward fact that Y is 41 and I 69 going on 70. Now it is our own joke that I am younger then she. But that's our joke and bureaucrats don't really get that!

So the young CIC visa officer did ask Y, when I was invited to step out to the waiting room, if she worried about my "old age". In her usual style, Y took over the interview from the 3 CIC staffers who were behind protective glass and simply said that she loves and I love her and that's the whole story.

Well the long and short of this session was a positive conclusion, which I accepted at first! They gave us a ticket that was IDed as a Status Check and we were told to come back for the visa documentation no earlier than 1:30PM. We went off to a much enjoyed lunch of cold beer (2 bottles) and roast Beijing Duck. The food was good as was our mood, until we got back to the CIC "waiting room" at the Embassy.

Of course, we didn't expect to get our stuff right away, but when the clock ticked over to 2:30PM and our invisi number seemed elusive on their summoning board, our mood slipped from good to worried and as time slipped by grim. Yuan considers that CIC officers are more biased against Chinese applicants than neutral, as they claim to be!! But proving the case is not only sticky it is not the done thing in China!

I had set up a 3 PM meeting with a possible publisher for my word scratching. 3PM glided by and it wasn't until 4PM that we finally summoned by the anonymous invisi voice and electronic waiting ticket number to room 8, where we got our much anticipated and very large envelope. In it we found, in spite of Yuan's worst fears, all the right documents and there were more than just two visad passports. There was that large multipart form that the landed immigrant must produce on original entry to Canada.

I guess they are convinced that they know what they are doing. The new legal immigrant wants to get that plastic re-entry card. And the form is the only way to get it. So be it!!!!

Luckily for me that publisher was a Chinese gent and rec eived graciously at 4:30PM. It was a good interview and we finished our day in fine style at Tiananmen Square, a Boatse resto, Starbucks at Cofco Plaza and then that great place the Beijing Train Station.

Then she got me a soft sleeper berth on the night train (10 hr ride) back to Dalian while she used her upper triple deck hard sleeper. Wasn't she sweet? But the main thing is that once again our good karma held and All's Well that Ends Well, as Shakespeare famously wrote!!

She twisted and turned to the last, especially when the envelope that we expected to get before 2:30PM finally got to us at 4PM or thereabout. She insisted on tearing the large brown envelope open. After all she set out on her quest for it in December 2002. How could anybody blame her for sweating, twisting, turning and doubting until it was whole and entire in her own hands?? Not I, who accepted to support here in this and all ways!!

I had celebrated over Roast Duck lunch, but her heart wasn't in it. So I am very happy for her and her daughter now.

Who is she? Just my lovely wife, Yuan and her sweet very cute daughter Wen wen (photos below)

And now we are waiting for mid-July or earlier to book our return to BC. This time I return fully loaded with Yuan and Kelly. So BC watchout for us!!

But our stay there may be short, or about 50 days or less. Although there is a plan B that involves Y & K staying there while I return to Dalian for the beginning of the next school term or March 1, 2006, or something like that.

Our decision is conditioned by what happens to Kelly for her high school entry here in China. If she gets into the special actors High School in Beijing, then our stay in Vancouver must be as short as we can make it. Maybe they will return while I stay in Vancouver to finish our business there.

Of course, the length of our stay in Van will condition where home will be in Dalian when we return. If Y and I return to D then we will be looking to buy a place here. Yes, back into home ownership in the long Chinese tradition of not wasting money on rental.

I will be making a much longer post about our visit to the Immigration Section and to Beijing with some good photos added. But that will be a bit later. So look out for it.

Meanwhile yours truly will be working on my trip to Nanjing/3 Gorges and Shanghai in August, some other China biz stuff, and prepping to be published (hope springs eternal, in China!!) in the quality mag, That's China. If that gets started then my future career as a paid travel writer begins sooner than I expected!! Who knows what lurks in the minds of men?

Well the big news last week according to the official propaganda newswire in China was that MSN China had been formed by including some Shanghai based media partner or two or three!

The week is just over and we are into the reactions to that big news from the Redmond-based Giiant $$ machine. And here is the new lede not from China this time.......

"The Financial Times is reporting that Microsoft's new Chinese internet portal has banned the words "democracy" and "freedom" from parts of its website in an apparent effort to avoid offending Beijing's political censors."

Posters on Slashdot are, predictably, blaming Microsoft here -- and it sounds reasonable enough, especially if (like most people on Slashdot, the internet in general, and perhaps most users of Microsoft products) you don't like the company to begin with. To be fair, though, they can't be blamed here: China's Great Celestial Nanny is a capricious beast.

Words that are fine one week will be blocked the next, and sites that are acceptable in Shenyang may not be in Shanghai. Microsoft's removal of what it fears may be red-flag words is an attempt to play it safe (perhaps too safe -- 'democracy' and 'freedom' can be found in any number of governmental documents, to say nothing of the collected works of Mao Zedong) in an environment characterized by uncertainty. MSN is an important part of their internet presence, and if they don't want it blocked at the whim of some pimply-faced 'netcop in Zhongguancun, who can blame them?

So Microsoft isn't the bad guy here. Who is?

Well, for starters, there's Cisco and Nortel. They're the ones who sold routers and firewall tech to China, helped them set it up, and provided and continue to provide technical assistance in the construction of the most advanced real-time filtering system in the world. "

Oh well, who gives a damn which Western based company is the calloborator in the maintenance of this "authoritarian state" definitely not "free" and definitely not of the demos! As if the Internet ever was a place for the expression of "free thought" or "a beacon of liberty". After the Republican Party doen't control the Internet, yet!!

Well blogospherers, I finally have lined up my first meeting with a magazine to confirm whether or not I do some free-lancing for them. Here is my email message:

"Dear William K Wong and Mr Wang, This will confirm that I will be at your office in Beijing for about 3PM on Thurs June 16 next to discuss writing for That's Magazine. I will bring three hard copies of my writing that include photos in some cases. I look forward to meeting with Mr Wang"

I know that this is a first small step, but as the sage said "Every long journey begins with one step". Yes, I would like to enhance my writing journey in life by being published. But I must always remind myself that I am writing for myself and to myself. If my audience should get larger, God willing and good Karma allowing, I will enjoy my writing a bit more and then more and then more!!

But the exercise is mainly about doing the research, thinking and organizing of my thoughts to set them down into e-print or hard copy as the case may be.

Onwards on my writing journey