CITS = ?

Well really, CITS stands for China International Tourist Service, and is essentially the PRC’s government tourist agency. In a country like China, having a government-affiliated tour guide could prove to be useful, for securing train tickets and getting problems sorted out.

But this could also complicate things. In every city, the CITS bureau has a list of endorsed souvenir shops. The tour guides receive a commission on all purchases made by their group there, and thus naturally will shepherd their tourists into such shops. This may not sound too bad, and it probably isn’t, but from my experience, one of the defining things in China is being able to wander down a little backstreet and stumble upon fantastic little flea markets where Cultural Revolution era Little Red Books can still be had.

Usually, these little knooks and crannies are not officially endorsed, meaning that you are less likely to be led towards them. Whilst in places such as Fuzimiao in Nanjing or YuYuan in Shanghai, flea markets are neigh unavoidable; they can be hard to find in other cities.

Still, this is not to say that all CITS guides are so heavily inclined to build up commission. For all I know, Mr Ciao will reveal these little curios to us, and most likely it is simply luck of the draw, and this rant isn’t even aimed at the tour guides themselves. This policy just seems a little on the archaic side of things.

And the cause of this indignation? Well this is my first real tour, and to date I have explored China without restriction in the most basic sense of the word. Whilst I’m looking forward to seeing from a slightly different slant, I’m praying those few degress don’t affect my impression of what is without a doubt one of my favourite countries on this planet.

With about 40 minutes to go before landing in Beijing, we’ll see.

UPDATE 14:44 Chinese Time: If my first impressions are correct, then Mr Ciao will help, not hinder us.

Mornin’ from Mongolia

Well 40,000 feet above Mongolia on a Boeing MD-11, to be exact. And on that subject, wow is Mongolia ever dry. One moment, we are cruising above the snow-coated mountain ranges near Irkutsk, the next, we are steadily flying over the Mongolian steppes. The difference is truly amazing. Granted, however, I’m not entirely sure that I didn’t drift off during that moment.

Good news though. So far, I have escaped the…ahem…consequences of Finnair catering. Imagine arriving at your favourite breakfast bar only to be told that today was Omelette, Pancake and Baked Beans. If you can imagine that, then you have a pretty good impression of the _horror delight I experienced after two hours of surprisingly pleasant sleep.

In many ways, Finnair reminds me of Air China. Both airlines are sharp and efficient on short haul routes, with sparkly new aircraft. On long haul however, the fleet age goes up and subsequently the quality goes down. Whereas on Air China, my seat had a constant desire to recline, AY51 brought with it a wonky table. Nothing life-altering, but it didn’t give the greatest first impression.

Still, having a flight that is at most 2/3rds full means we can stretch out considerably, something that is a definite rarity on most “mainstream” carriers such as British Airways or American Airlines. And it gets better. Poor Finnair obviously feels shame at this slightly deficient portion of the international fleet, as there are PSPs and Personal DVD Players to save face until the MD-11s are fully phased out by 2010.

Here I should mention that from this year, Finnair are bringing in quite a number of Airbus A340s as part of their Europeanisation policy. The A340 is known as one of the quietist and most fuel-efficient long-haul jets, so this dedication to environmental awareness is again impressive.

Solely from a passenger’s perspective, the A340 will also be a treat, with powerports for every seat, inflight e-mail, on-demand TV and the ability to hear yourself think. Not a bad deal if you ask me.

Oh and Mongolia looks cool.

Mmm-Kay

So I was just reading the latest edition of The Hockey News. There is a special feature rankings the 31 General Managers of the National Hockey League. Yes, Dallas have two.

For some reason, Brian Burke’s prodigal son, Dave Nonis of the Vancouver Canucks. THN’s reasoning:

- Nonis has shown a post-lockout inability to sign that elusive forward to fill out the top six. Fair enough, but this season players such as Ryan Shannon, Ryan Kesler, Mason Raymond, Alex Burrows have shown that sought-after offensive touch. Combine that with the return of Brendan Morrison from a long injury layoff and the acquisition from Washington of Matt Pettinger for washed-out fan favourite Matt Cooke, and the Canucks legitimately claim to have 9 offensive forwards. There are 5 forwards averaging 0.25 goals per game, equivalent to 20 tallies over the 82 game campaign: Brendan Morrison, Daniel Sedin, Markus Naslund, Mason Raymond and Ryan Kesler.

- THN also ranted at Nonis for refusing to forfeit Alex Edler and Ryan Kesler for Brad Richards, then of the Tampa Bay Lightning. Richards won the Conn Smythe trophy in 2003/2004, but since then has done little, and before being acquired by Dallas had a league-worst -17 and was on pace for approximately 60 points, and was also burdened with an $8 millon salary. Conversely, Alex Edler was named to the Western Conference YoungStars roster, is considered to be a dark horse candidate for the Calder Trophy, and is also projected to become a franchise defenceman. Likewise, Ryan Kesler is considered by many to win the Frank J Selke trophy, possibly as early as this year. Individually, those players are hardly worth trading for Richards, so it conversely to what The Hockey News thinks, it would be insane to trade Edler and Kesler for Brad Richards.

This isn’t even Eastern bias, this is just plain stupidity.

Harping From Helsinki

Well, if I’m honest, I’m not actually in the Finnish capital, I’m about 4km over the Ural Mountains, but Harping from Helsinki just sounds better. My overall impressions of the trip so far?

- They really ought to tidy up security at Heathrow Terminal 1. The atmosphere was very temporary, due mainly to straggling wires here and there.

- Helsinki is dark. I was expecting a suave, European capital. Granted, it is difficult to get an accurate impression from the air, but it definitely had a dull, dark ambience to it. To summarise in one onomatopoeic word, Brrrr...

Still, as I sit here aboard Finnair 51 to Beijing, I am filled with a pleasant apprehension as to what awaits us in the Middle Kingdom. One of the participants in this tour last visited China 30 years ago and is nervously anticipating what will to her look like a different country. Whilst I left only 18 months ago, that same fervour has beset me. For instance, have modern… no wait, sorry, space age trains been instituted on the Central China routes yet? To what extent has old Xianlin University and College Town been developed? Most importantly, will this still be the China I knew and loved?

I’m not sure I’ll know it, but I feel confident that I’ll love it, albeit from the sheltered perspective of a prope tourist. Still, for me the funniest thing about China is that is impossible to talk about it in the present tense, for when you do, you’re already out of date.

However, I don’t know what tense, let alone what language I’ll be talking in Monday evening after over 40 sleepless hours. Should be fun.

"I want in!"

Despite the recent unrest in Tibet and other parts of Western China, our tour is still going ahead, and I'll be blogging from various locations around China for the next few weeks, providing Blogger is not blocked by the firewall to end all firewalls.

Below is my itinerary:

Day 1: Helsinki Airport (lets pray for free wifi)
Day 2: Beijing
Day 3: Beijing, Train
Day 4: Taiyuan and Pingyao
Day 5: Pingyao, Train
Day 6: Xi'an
Day 7: Xi'an, Train, Luoyang
Day 8: Luoyang, Longmen Grottoes, Shaolin, Zhengzhou
Day 9: Zhengzhou, Plane, Nanjing
Day 10: Nanjing
Day 11: Nanjing, Train, Suzhou
Day 12: Suzhou, Bus, Hangzhou
Day 12: Hangzhou
Day 13: Hangzhou, Shanghai
Day 14: Shanghai
Day 15: Shanghai, Helsinki, London

Don't get your hopes up, as I probably won't have time/ means to blog every single day, but do check back every now and then for photos and that little thing that makes the world go around, musings.

Warning: Tread Carefully!

Since the dawn of modern diplomacy, domestic silence has surrounded contentious issues involving China. This trend wanders on after exiled Tibetans rallied and protested in the streets of Lhasa.
Their anger at China's staging of the Olympic Games this summer was apparently no match for local military forces, as two of the protesters lay dead in the parade streets surrounding Potala Palace and Jokhang Square. Predictably, organizations such as Radio Free Asia, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International were all up in arms over the turbulent incident, seemingly throwing caution to the wind regarding their purportedly pacifistic rooting.
Still, several thousand miles to the East, it was work as usual in Beijing as preparations hit full throttle in the run-up to the Olympics. Not a word of the Tibetan unrest is spoken amongst the marching band practicing on Tiananmen Square. Whilst gales of unrest sweep Lhasa, barely a breeze of notice is detectable over Beijing. Such a paradox is only possible in China, a country where, bizarrely, rampant capitalism, Communist doctrine and censured media all go happily, hand in hand.
However, Beijing understands that negative press is only going to sour the Middle Kingdom's shiny status as international dish of the day. Whilst the West screams for deliverance of freedom of speech legislation, China cowers behind the world's largest media firewall. But just why does the world's most powerful nation feel so vulnerable? All thats for certain, is that its another unnerving paradox that China could do without.
Ironically, though, the PRC is home to many bloggers, webmasters, so long and so forth, but if the Politburo was to officially condone the practice of citizen media, then much material would be lost. So on some level, it is a lose-lose situation for China's bloggers.
So where does that leave Tibet? Well, in short, Xizang, as the region is known in Chinese will be still be bound by high unemployment and isolation from the main currency flows of the Eastern seaboard. In that respect, it is difficult to understand what exactly the protesters were protesting. True, China should not impose its will on Tibet, but independence will hardly help matters. Its not as though there is money or diplomatic support in place to facilitate a transformation (see Kosova), so essentially Tibet is acting like a whiney little brother, wanting what it can't have and shifting blame on what is its essentially its big brother. And, as my little bro can attest to, that's a move that can come back to bite you. Hard.

Asking for Trouble

In the UK, common sense and logic has it that you just don't accept a ride in a private vehicle from a stranger. At times, this may seem like an over the top piece of parental advice, but is usually regarded as a sound tactic. Overseas, however, we lose this common sense for some reason.

Case in point: Scarlet Keeling, a Devon teenager living in India with her family, accepted a lift home from a stranger and wound up dead on a beach. Goa, India, where Keeling lived with her mother and siblings, is no London or Liverpool, but as a city of 1.5 million, similar precautions should be taken there as you might expect in the UK. However, as I can attest to, exotic countries can nullify one's sense of judgment. For example, when I was living in Nanjing, China, I thought nothing of flagging down a black cab. Well not nothing. I thought they were a cheaper alternative to licensed taxis. Granted I am a 16 year old male and Keeling was a 15 year old female, but the start of the sequence was the same. Whilst I usually traveled with several of my equally male friends, none of us were experts on the local road map and so could easily have been led into uncomfortable situations. Nothing untoward ever happened, but looking back, I was probably a bit foolish.

As the Keeling case proves though, foolish, naive decisions can bare consequences that are deadly serious. Unfortunately, Scarlet's problems were compounded as her mother and siblings were visiting another area of India at the time. The bells of the McCann case of last May are ringing whole-heartedly in my ears. Gary and Kate McCann left their 3 children, all under the age of 4, alone in a holiday apartment whilst boozing it up with friends. Fiona McKowen, Scarlet's mother freely admitted that her daughter had been dating a 25 year-old. In adulthood, a 10 year difference is not unheard of, but at that age, it is pedophilia. Pedophilia which the mother appears to have condoned. Whilst teenagers making naive choices is the global norm, parents need to be responsible in a foreign environments and avoid being lulled into the false sense of security that so often floats over foreign holiday hotspots. Otherwise fun in the sun will no longer be such a lethal tourist trap.

Changing of the Guard

In recent years, Arsenal have been an indomitable force on their travels to Milan's San Siro stadium. In 2003, they rebounded from a 3-0 home defeat courtesy of Obafemi Martins and Internazionale to win 5-1 in Italy. Now they have the second scalp to complete their Milanese footballing collection.
The Gunners dominated the Rossoneri for huge swaths of the 1st half, but were unfortunate to return to the dressing room without recording a tally, after enigmatic midfielder Cesc Fabregas pounded the bar from the edge of the area. Likewise, Hleb was unfortunate to be booked for diving after being clearly taken down just inside the penalty area.
The second half picked up largely from where the first half ended - with lots of hat if Arsenal continued to press but fail to score, then Milan would bite them and bite them hard. So, as if answering the pleas emanating from Islington and beyond, Fabregas came up with the goods, beating 6-7 Australian Zeljko Kalac to the bottom-right from 30 yards out. The always fervent atmosphere of the San Siro became ever the more poignant, with the Gooner faithful singing the famous "1-Nil to the Arsenal."
Yet that jingle soon became outdated, as substitute Theo Walcott broke down the right-hand wing, skipping past the challenge of Khaka Khaladze to thread a pass along the 6-yard line to Emmanuel Adebayor who, in thumping an emphatic finish into the roof of the net, broke his Champions League duck.
The youthful Arsenal had done away with the reigning European Champions, but, strange though it may sound, it was so much more than that. The Gunners had struggled of late, being run off the field against Man Utd in the FA Cup and struggling to a draw for the second successive week, not to mention Eduardo leaving the field in 3 pieces against Birmingham City.
2 years ago, Arsenal went desperately close against Barcelona in the Champions League Final. But on 21st May, could Arsenal make history in Moscow?

Plain Smart or Plain Lucky?

Much to the bane of Canucks Nation, Dave Nonis has filled the bottom 9 forward spots with "pluggers and grinders." Hardly eloquent vocabulary, and when the Canucks face off against the NHL's more talented offensive sides, the boys in blue and green will find themselves in hot water. But thankfully Gary Bettman arranged the schedule so each team played 32 times a year within its own division, and none is as gritty as the Northwest. See, the last 9 games of the regular season are against divisional rivals, and with 3 points separating 1st from 4th, the battle to make the playoffs could legitimately go down to the wire.
And this is where the genius/ luck of the Canucks management core shines through. Never do our loathed pluggers get up for a game more than versus rugged divisional rivals such as the Calgary Flames or Edmonton Oilers. And with 9 North American grinders leading the way, the Canucks stand to destabilize the calm that has swept over St. Paul Minnesota.
Its no surprise that the Canucks' two best games this season have come over divisional rivals. Namely 6-2 against the Wild, and 4-2 versus the Oilers. Both teams challenged the Canucks physically, but in both cases, Vancouver answered three-way, with fists, shoulders and pucks to the twine. A winning combination right there, and if that slot machine gets lucky over the stretch drive, the Canucks will be well-set for the playoffs, because thankfully pretty hockey doesn't win Cups. Grinding hockey does, and hopefully Vancouver will be the next beneficiary of that philosophy. Boy will that ever make Dave Nonis look smart!

Time to face the facts!

I, more than most, find it difficult to listen when Naslund and the Sedins are described as "soft Euros." Previously, this was because I didn't think they were soft, and because I consider Euro, as a Euro, to be a derogatory term. After having to close my eyes for most of Sunday's pathetic encounter with the Chicago IceHogs/ Blackhawks, my pain derived from the former abated. When Henrik and Daniel managed to get the puck within 10m of Lalime's net, they were usually on their knees. Naslund? Was he really dressed for that game? Looking at the stat sheet, you wouldn't think so.
So, as the title indicates, the time has come to face the facts. Whilst the Canucks would be best served by effectively calling in the season, nobody in Vancouver, apart from the contingent of Albertan fans would be happy with that. So with a cattle prod getting ever closer to his backside, Alain Vigneault has to rally the troops. There is a delicate balance calling out your players and creating a locker room rift. But right now, with the playoffs advancing fast, Viggy has to ignore that fault line. When $13 million worth of hockey talent doesn't net a goal in 4 games, AV needs a big red phone to the Vancouver Sun and the Province. Somehow, he has to light that fire in the bellies of Pinky and the Brain, because right now they sure are looking more like the Sedin Sisters. So if the Canucks manage to turn it around after the apocalyptic scenes at the United Center, then Vancouver will have Ed Willes and Brad Ziemer to thank.
Indeed, thus far Vigneault has walked the potentially volcanic ridge that is the Canucks locker room with finesse. If he can continue to do so, he stays. If not, he's out of GM Place faster than he was out of Centre Bell.