Moresby Meanders

Experiencing Public Life in China – A Guide to Finding Yourself as an Uptight Westerner

moresbbb — Tue, 14 Apr 2015 03:37:00 GMT

At first I was a little uncomfortable, a little confused. The old man stood in front of me, looked me up and down and drew heavily on his cigarette. Initially I tried to avoid eye contact; ‘perhaps he’ll go away soon’, I thought. Some time passed and he still hadn’t moved. ‘Perhaps he has something to say’, I considered; ‘words of wisdom, perhaps’. Slowly I lifted my head to meet his gaze - softly and quietly he spoke “Pack up your prudishness and leave your western sensibilities at the door” - or at least that was what I read in his eyes... I finished emptying my bowels into the open-stalled squat toilet, hiked up my pants and walked away from one of the most meaningful exchanges of my time in China.

The Middle Kingdom serves up many a challenge to the average westerner, but also offers many valuable lessons. The lesson I am learning at the moment; many of the things I have found to be a little embarrassing and tried to keep private for most of my life are really just a part of everyday life. Take, for example, the fact that people dance everywhere here, not just in nightclubs, and not just when they are drunk, but freely and for the fun of it. The public parks here are filled with people day and night busting a move, old and young, those with rhythm and those without. Traditional dancing, ballroom dancing, square dancing, and break dancing – they’re all doing it, and not to impress someone, but because it feels good.

Another fine example is seen in the willingness to sing openly, not just at KTV, but anywhere, and even if they sound like (as my lovely wife puts it) cats screwing. The songs that wash the streets, as tuneless as many may be, remind me that singing is not just for the Beyonces and Pavarottis of this world, but for everyone.

Further to this wave of newfound freedom, I have found that despite my mother’s insistence, it is A-OK to slurp on my noodles. Sorry, mums across the world, but just come and live in a country where people eat noodles most everyday; slurping is unavoidable, it is human, and nobody gives a damn.

Finally, in my line of small liberations, my need to judge those who go out in their pyjamas to complete everyday chores like walking the dog, doing the shopping, or just popping out for a bite to eat has now melted away. People here don’t even bat an eyelid, and why should they? The line between what is considered right or normal is only set by the society around you. Can’t we all afford to step back for a moment and just think, ‘who cares if I am not the best dancer or singer in the world, there are many just like me. Who cares if I slurp my noodles, I’m just enjoying my food. And who cares if I am wearing my PJ’s in the street, they are after all just another set of clothes. ‘

I know this is starting to sound like some kind speech about affirming oneself, but the West truly can learn how to be a little more comfortable with themselves just by observing everyday life here in China. So come on and give it a go - dance like no one is watching, sing like no one is listening, slurp on your food if you want to, and wear your pyjamas in the street... but poop like someone is watching, because they might just be.

Dai Minority Dining in Kunming, Yunnan

moresbbb — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 18:35:00 GMT

Turning off the main street, just past the train line, an alley cuts in between a series of squat aging apartment blocks. Steel frames dress the windows above. Potted plants rest on window sills. A small shop stocked with drinks and cigarettes stands by the entrance to one of the residences. Turning the corner, a man washing a bowl on the balcony above stops to peer down as we pass underneath. At the end of the path two doors open into the ground level. An elderly man stands by a concrete basin washing a pile of empty plates stacked on a makeshift bench. A dim glow illuminates the entrance. Inside a man roasts fish in a steel press over smouldering coals in a long slender barbeque. The walls are blackened by soot. The restaurant is full, he explains, there will be a wait. Opting to wait he hands us a menu and pad to note down our order. We take a seat outside on low wooden stools by the kitchen door across the way. A chef toils over a roaring wok burner. Fragrances of citrus, seafood and chilli drift through the open doorway. We hand back the pad and sit down to wait.

The restaurant is family run. Grandma wanders in and out of the dining rooms with a baby strapped to her back in a red embroidered sling. The eldest sibling handles the growing queue of customers as he barks orders to the two small kitchens. Inside we are seated at a low table in one of the three modest sized dining rooms. The room is crammed with people. A large antique red wood cupboard protrudes into the room. The air is lively; students drinking beer, chatting, and smoking. Wait staff circulate, delivering steaming aromatic dishes. Thai and Laotian flags hang from the wall. The restaurant is Dai, an ethnic group originally from southern Yunnan, but closely related to the Thai and people of Laos. Here in Yunnan the influences and tastes of southern Asia are integrated with those of the predominant Han Chinese. Dai cuisine delivers sour and spicy flavours, heavily featuring lime, lemongrass, garlic and chilli.

Our food arrives; long thin golden needle mushrooms with garlic, chilli, garlic chive, and lime juice wrapped in banana leaf and grilled over coals. A small river fish, butterflied, pressed and barbequed, served with a sour, spicy dipping sauce. A whole pineapple hollowed out and filled with sweet sticky pineapple rice, and a salad of green bean noodles with fresh tomato and shreds of carrot in a sharp white vinegar and chilli dressing. Finishing, we pay, and a new group arrives to take our place.

I am satisfied as we walk home back along the train tracks. There is an air of calm. A man burns incense and bundles of replica banknotes by the wayside, an offering to his ancestors. A warm breeze lifts, and the night sets in.

IV's and Cigarettes - Community Clinics in China

moresbbb — Sun, 29 Mar 2015 00:50:00 GMT

I look up at the shiny metal stand next to my bed as the fifth bottle of intravenous drip slowly empties itself into my blood stream. I had planned to let it run its course before I went to the toilet, but the urge to relieve myself has become unbearable. I shift myself gingerly out of the crisp white sheets of my bed, slip on my shoes and drag my IV stand over to the toilet door. The stand won’t fit through the doorway so I step inside leaving the door hanging open. I piss like a racehorse, it seems to go on for ever. I flush, wash my hands, and walk away still feeling heavily hydrated. I am just about to finish my tenth bottle of IV fluid in two days. I decide not to go back to bed; there has been enough lying down in the last days. I choose to sit up to finish the last of my treatment. It is the second case of food poisoning I have had this week. A nurse helps me to find a seat in one of the big old wooden armchairs by the entrance to the small clinic that I have frequented over the last days. I peer into the small booth where they keep the medical equipment; tubes, syringes, swabs, and bandages. I run a brief mental comparison between the booth and my kitchen at home which I have not had the energy to clean over the past few days; my kitchen is cleaner. A man who has been wandering about the clinic the past hour or so, attending to a family member, strolls back out into the reception area. Today the doctor is an elderly gentleman, presumably in his seventies. He has a kind face and a friendly demeanour, as well as a bedside manner that any doctor could learn from. The man, in his forties, strikes up a conversation with the doctor. He lights a cigarette, pulls up a stool and they shoot the breeze. There is a bit of banter and a few chuckles. The man decides to try his luck at a free consultation. The doctor tells him to take off his jacket. He begins to test his blood pressure and check his heart rate. There is a brief discussion of the results, and they both laugh. As I glance up at my IV, I once again take in the airy, high white ceilings and soft natural light that bathes the room. I have become comfortable with this place. The last of the bottle hanging from my stand empties into the vein in my hand. A nurse quietly appears to unhook me and send me on my way. I thank her and the doctor. They urge me to take care and smile and wave as I head back out into the street.

Thinking back over the vomitus ordeal of the last week and comparing my hospital experiences across Asia - with my soft stomach and adventurous tastebuds, I have had a few - I feel glad to have my little local clinic just around the corner. Despite the fact it may not be as clean as the clinics back home, and you can’t go to the toilet while hooked up to a drip without sharing the experience with the whole room, the vibe is local and friendly. You get the sense that the people in there have been coming for years and the doctors have been treating them and their families for a lifetime. While I don’t look forward to my next bout of food poisoning, I feel a bit more comfortable with the knowledge of my local clinic and the sense of community it offers; that feeling that can make a weary foreigner feel a bit more at home.

Photos: China

moresbbb — Thu, 19 Mar 2015 01:32:00 GMT

China 2015

Counterfeit Foods are Choking China's Food Culture

moresbbb — Thu, 19 Mar 2015 01:26:00 GMT

A distinct chemical burn appears in my throat, I start to choke on my sushi roll. I look down at my bowl of soy sauce where a sheen of chemical slick has developed on the liquid surface. What the hell is this stuff? I ask as I examine the fresh tube of ‘wasabi’ the waiter had handed me just a minute before. I screw off the cap and sniff the contents; paint thinner? Hairspray? The fumes make me gag and splutter. Definitely not wasabi… The restaurant owner avoids eye contact as I make sure that everyone in the restaurant hears about my shock and anger at being served a counterfeit and dangerous ‘food’ product. Without question she accepts my fractional payment of the bill for the untainted portion of the meal and I storm out into the night.

Today the genuine nature and freshness of the produce people consume here in China is a central issue. Most of the world has heard of the scandals like poisonous baby milk powder, fake eggs, chemically recycled cooking oil, just to name a few. But perhaps most astonishingly, due to the frequency with which these incidents are occurring, they are now becoming normalised, so much so that some of the not so immediately life threatening products are beginning to be accepted as commonplace. When looking at the enormous number of mouths to feed; around 20 percent of the world’s population, and with only 8 percent of the world’s arable land to produce what they need, it is not surprising that some of the less scrupulous food producers and vendors are resorting to handing off less than legitimate products.

Over a bowl of mi xian (rice noodles) I discuss my concerns with a younger Chinese friend. Hungrily eating she begins to explain in an off-hand manner, that her noodles were probably not “real”. “Not real?” I enquired. “Yes, everyone knows that sometimes the ingredients are not real and not healthy, but they eat them anyway. Lots of things in China are not real.”

The realisation that you are living in a country where you always have to be careful about what you eat, and not just for your figure, but your life, is enough to make anyone feel uncomfortable, but to be fair the overwhelming majority of produce here is good quality, genuine and fresh as it gets and the consumers, highly discerning. Stepping out on to the street from my xiao qu (gated community), each morning sellers of fruit, veg, meats and grain line the street, the produce fresh and direct from their own rural small holdings. Fresh here in China holds a whole other meaning than it does on the shelves of western supermarkets. The produce, for the good part, is harvested the day previous or even early in the morning and sold on the day, leaves, roots and dirt still intact. Vendors display the quality and freshness of their product by various means, such as leaving the stem and leaves of fruit attached, with the level of hydration and waxiness of the leaves adding value and credence to the sellers claims that their product is genuine and as fresh as it gets.

A trip tone of the larger fresh food markets in Kunming offers one of widest range of fruit and veg, fresh (as in, still living) seafood and poultry, killed and prepared to order, as well as a range of ‘weird’ and wonderful things the average western eye would be unable to identify. Here with thousands of shoppers daily, the vendors up the ante to push their product. One man pokes at a mass of crabs in order to rile them up and encourage them to show their energy, strength and vitality. Another man has released dozens of bees in and around the vat of a sweet sugar based drink, exhibiting the irresistible sweetness of the beverage. A woman plucks live hornet lave from their hives and drops them, still wiggling into Styrofoam takeaway containers as punters queue to catch a taste.

China has one of the most fascinating and beautiful cultures surrounding it’s cuisine and the eating rituals, and it is a shame to see it being threatened. Thankfully the reaction from most Chinese has been to demand safer and fresher foods both verbally and through the way that they choose to shop. The government too seems to be working to quash the rise in hazardous food sales, treating all those convicted of unscrupulous activities to heavy handed sentences.

While the problems here may seem far off for most who read this, some important realisations about the future of food are implicit; with a rapidly growing population, global warming, and the decline in bee populations, food safety, production, and availability will soon be a concern for us all, and not just another story from the other side of the world.

Tips on How to Survive London on a Working Holiday Visa

moresbbb — Sun, 9 Nov 2014 11:46:00 GMT

Multifaceted, ever-changing, often fickle; London is defined by it’s pace, density, and diversity. Multicultural and inclusive here, homogenous and exclusive there, but most often both, side by side. Neighbourhoods offering overpriced continental delis, and champagne bars on one corner, offset by fast food takeaways, and scungy off-licence liquor stores on the next scatter the city. Rows of freshly renovated terrace houses front grim council estates. Some corners act as havens to intellectualism, art, and music, while others harbour stiff conservatism, ultra nationalism, and general ignorance. Businessmen and crackheads, cockneys and toffs, chavs and hipsters. London is massive; either you fall in to the right place and love it, or it casts you to the wayside.

When I first arrived in London two years ago to start my two year working holiday visa, I had never set foot on UK soil. From there I lived in one of the most impoverished boroughs of London, and did a brief stint in one of the most affluent. My work life encompassed everything from the most atrocious to the most enjoyable circumstances I have experienced. I rode with the ups and downs of navigating this vast city. Met some its kindest inhabitants, and argued with a few of its most obnoxious. Many a night on the town was spent on disappointment, while others revealed the sweet juicy hedonistic indulgence of the best that London has to offer; fine food, art, music, and some of the best beer in the world.

A city of this scale has a lot of lessons to teach and most of them come the hard way. For me it took a good year and a half to feel settled, find a decent job, good friends, and scope out the places I liked spending my time - six months later it was time to pack up shop and hit the road…

Could it have all gone a little more smoothly? Could I have found my place sooner and enjoyed a few more of the fruits this city has to offer? Sure, but as we all know, hindsight’s 20/20. So, now with a small slice of experience with this city under my belt, I thought it advantageous to humbly offer a few nuggets of advice for those considering making the move to London to live on a working holiday visa.

First and foremost, take a few weeks to scope out where you best fit in the city. Greater London covers a huge area and it can take hours to travel end to end. It can take even longer if the area you are living in or traveling to is poorly serviced by public transport. Living in or close to the area(s) where you work and socialise is important. Finding a place where your needs and obligations can be met on the back of a bicycle comes second best. The cash, time, and general sanity spared in minimising time on the bus and tube pays back in dividends! Look out for jobs that cooperate with the cycle to work initiative, and find access to your local Greenway if there is one nearby. Just be sure to strap on a helmet, because London is yet to become fully bicycle friendly, and drivers still have a tendency to mow down anything not motorised.

Finding a place to call home is not easy. There are lots of share houses in London, and many spare rooms online. Check the average cost of a room in the area before taking up an offer. Landlords are notoriously unreliable, agents shady, and it pays to have a good hangout with potential housemates before moving in. Horror stories from friends and workmates include months without hot water, finding that the room rented is also shared with another five people, and being stabbed in the leg by a less than friendly housemate.

Websites such as uk.freecyle.org and Gumtree are a great source of free furniture. In addition there are more meet-up and personal interest groups in London than you can poke a stick at. Yes, some things are free in London.

In terms of work, don’t immediately look in the city centre or famous areas like Camden and Notting Hill. Often establishments in these areas are overwhelmingly profit driven with little care for their staff. Service in these areas is high volume and stressful, and you will often have to deal with grumpy, rude customers. Looking for work on the outskirts of central London will often garner better results in terms of work satisfaction.

Look out for employers with zero hour contracts, and beware that a salary, when counting the hours the role actually entails can result in earning significantly less than minimum wage.

Obviously when finding work, sometimes you just need to get some cash coming in. When doing a trial for a hospitality job, always check with workmates about working conditions. A few establishments will give you a free meal during your shift but the majority wont, and this can make a real difference to surplus cash at the end of the week, or alternately how emaciated one looks at the end of the month. Tips are not guaranteed and if you get them, they are taxed… If you end up taking a job that is no good, don’t feel bad about dropping it. There is a lot of mobility in the hospitality industry in London. Make some connections, don’t burn your bridges, and in the meantime just drink as much discounted beer as you can.

Most importantly, think about the travel you want to do while you are in the country. If you are coming from Australia or somewhere where the living wage is higher, try to save as much money as you can before making the move. As discussed, wages are low and living expensive, so any extra cash you may have will disappear quickly. Before you know it, the dream of that trip to Dublin, the weekend on the beach in Brighton, and that Interrail trip around Europe have all but evaporated.

Granted you have planned and saved well, London is a great home base to travel European and other countries, but be sure to keep a log of the dates that you exit and re-enter the country. You will find that when it comes to tax time HM Revenue and Customs want to know where you have been, and for how long. Some evidence that you have or haven’t been working in these countries may be required for tax purposes. Also, when planning trips be sure to check carefully the flight times for cheap tickets from all airports. The cheapest and/or earliest flights can often require hours of travel on public transport to arrive at the airport. Sometimes it’s best to just pay the few pounds extra and take a later flight.

If you are planning to travel through the UK, do it early. Many would argue that if you are going to move to the UK on a working holiday visa, your time would be best spent divided between London and another city, or even skipping London altogether. Truth be told, you might just find that another city in the UK is more your cup of tea - but for the most part, London is where it’s at, and for good reason.

The essence of London is found in the definitively urban nature of the city, the people’s intense individualism, the vast contrasts between rich and poor, the proud culture of true Londoners, and the many colourful characters that drift in and out of it’s populace. For young people the borough of Hackney in the East and places like Brixton in the South abound with restaurants, pubs, clubs, galleries, and trendy pop-ups. For the quieter life, the North and Western suburbs offer some sanctuary. For me satisfaction was found in grabbing a beer in one of the many great tap rooms such as Mother Kelly’s in Bethnal Green, or a meal in one of the top notch, but less pretentious restaurants like 10 Greek St in Soho, catching the Sunday night Jazz at the Haggerston in Dalston, or just soaking up some summer sun in one of London’s many parks.

Basically, if you want it, you can find it in London. There are a few pitfalls to watch out for, but at the end of the day, if you look hard enough, anyone can find a place in this city to call home. Keep the aforementioned tips in mind and it should all fall into place fairly easily and you are bound to find your own slice of the good life that London has to offer.

Heatwaves, Spiders, Bastards, and a Pick and Mix Australian

moresbbb — Sun, 10 Aug 2014 21:36:00 GMT

This year’s summer here in the UK has found me considering questions of identity, challenging “facts” about myself and where I belong, as well as taking advantage of a few opportune moments along the way to fall back on my Australian heritage for personal gain.

Having lived abroad for around four years now, I am beginning to notice some changes in the way I identify with my home country. In fact, Australia, Australasia and that whole southern side of the globe are becoming a thing of myth or legend for me. I am, I feel, beginning to loose my Australian identity. Of late I have found myself taking on what stereotypes and features of my upbringing fit my purpose as a traveller, while distancing myself from the parts that don’t; a bit of a pick and mix. Despite being very aware of this transformation going on, those who have not known me so long are of course not so in the loop. This means that I am still able to ride the back of many old Australian stereotypes. There is a list of these that stick to you in most parts of the world, some true, some not, some desirable, some repellent. A few of the more positive (if not a little light on evidence) that make this list are:

- It is always summer in Australia and therefore temperatures of 35 degrees upward are easily tolerable, no matter how long you have been living outside of the country.

-All Australians are equipped with a fearless and innate ability to capture and dispose of dangerous/pesky animals and insects.

-Ozzie’s are friendly by nature and always easy-going.

I have spent the last few months of this particularly hot English summer working in a veggie/vegan kitchen in East London, and have found the atmosphere intolerably hot. While fending off my colleague’s assertions that I am soft and a sorry excuse for an Australian, I began to grapple with the idea that perhaps its true. I have it seems, accustomed myself to the European climate in more ways than one. Apart from the fact I now struggle with temperatures of 25 degrees upward, I can honestly say I like the cold. As the Norwegian’s say, “there is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing”…Actually, scratch that. There is bad weather and it’s in the UK all through the winter, but the summers can still be pretty damn hot.

With the heat have come spiders, cockroaches, and other creepy crawlies, all of which allow me to show off my apparent macho “Australianness”. This works particularly to my advantage when my wife, of Norwegian descent, turns in to a quivering mess at the sight of anything with eight legs, allowing me to ride gallantly in to capture and dispose of the offending arachnid. Unfortunately for me, apart from the adulation of my other half, there is little to no gratification, not even a flutter of the heart. Having grown up with some of most dangerous and aggressive spiders in the world, European spiders are comparatively benign, making the job more of a chore. Those large enough to appear in any way threatening, seem to have been lost in some evolutionary black hole when pitted against their Australian cousins: slow, cumbersome, and so unused to people trying to catch them to put up any fight. I often like to recount Steve Irwin-esque tales from the old country to my European friends; such as the time I in an epic battle splattered the abdomen of a particularly aggressive funnel web and then had to continue fighting the sharp end while it writhed and snapped in my general direction until I delivered the finishing blow. Little do they know I spent a good part of that “epic battle” hopping about squealing like a man-child.

Finally there is one aspect of the Australian archetype that I am particularly happy, like the pet kangaroo of my childhood, to hitch a ride on. As an Australian you are immediately thought to be friendly, easy going and a generally tolerable as a person without passing any of the essential stops and checks. While I do my best to support this illusion, I guess it is only a matter of time until the world realises that despite being from the land down under, Aussies can be complete bastards. Luckily for me our current prime minister is working hard at administering a dose of this reality to the world, so I don’t have to.

This summer has thrown up a few big questions like: “Why am I so sweaty?” “Should I start a pest control company?” And “why does everyone think I drink Fosters?” but more than that it has made me question my identity and whether I should return to Australia to get back in touch with my roots… And the answer to that at the moment… I am having too much fun being a pick and mix Aussie, and finding out where I might really belong.

Tax, Visas, Immigration, Bureaucratic Red Tape and other Certainties

moresbbb — Sun, 1 Jun 2014 04:20:00 GMT

A recent interaction with the UK’s HM Revenue and customs has reignited my underlying sense of contempt for bureaucratic organisations. It seems that no matter how far and wide you travel there are a few certainties:

Whatever new country you choose to live you will pay taxes, and no one will inform you of how to go about doing this.
You will fill out a stupid amount of paperwork and pay a stupid amount of money between the time you decide you want to move to a country and the time you leave there.
You will have at least one painful run in with immigration or another government organisation, and you will almost certainly encounter at least two people within that organisation that have no idea what is going on with anything.
God help you if you get married, or start a family with a partner of another nationality. Living together in either of your home countries is never a given, and it will be a long, trying and financially straining process to stay together, but if your marriage endures this, you are sure to withstand anything the world has to throw at you after that.

Aside from this, there are certainly some positives associated with the process of coming to terms with these organisations in a new country. These encounters develop patience, analytical, social, linguistic, and anthropological skills far more effectively than any textbook ever could, and these are some of the most beneficial skills you can gain in life.

My most recent interaction with one of these institutions, HM Revenue and customs as mentioned above, was as it goes, relatively painless. It took only four phone calls, two pieces of misguiding information and five weeks to have my tax settled for this year, but it was enough to get my heckles up. Even at home people complain about the gates, byways and brick walls one encounters when dealing with government organisations. Answering “these questions three” can be difficult enough in ones native tongue, let alone a foreign one; so when attempting to tackle this issues in your new home country, make sure to be well slept, centred, and prepared to be stretched to one’s nerves’ end. Between the three countries other than my own that I have now lived in, my best, or should I say worst anecdotes in regards to this come from Norway. While I don’t like to bash the country I love so much, the systems there are enough to drive even the most patient and saintly of people to the edge of insanity. Here are a few examples to illustrate my point…

Having arrived fresh faced and bushy tailed in Oslo, I took my papers, as directed by the Norwegian Embassy Canberra to Oslo Police District Department of Immigration to have my visa issued and stamped. As it would happen there was no record of my working holiday permit having been issued and I was for all intents and purposes stuck in one of the most expensive cities in the world with no means of generating an income until further notice. This revelation was followed by two months of back and forth between Norway’s Immigration Police and Department of Immigration with an approximate 20-30 hours spent in waiting rooms, telephone queues, filling out paperwork and realising that there is little to no direct communication or commonalities between these two organisations, and anyone is lucky to get a visa to live in to the country at all. While this whole experience was testing, it did in the end buy me an extra two months stay on my visa and taught me a range of Norwegian words appropriate to dealing with said organisations, apart from the implicit expletives. There is nothing like pure frustration to nail new vocabulary into place for a lifetime.

As with most countries I am sure, once checked in with the correct authorities, I was sent along my merry little way, no handbook, no list of important dates, or deadlines to meet, no indication that one might need to check in or register with one organisation or another, just let loose in to the beyond. This in fact turned out to be a good thing. I don’t believe in having your hand held, and the ensuing challenges that arose from my general ignorance schooled me in not only the day to day workings of the Kafkaesque bureaucratic systems of the country but also in the nature of Norwegian society and many of it’s individuals. One of the more pronounced lessons was (and perhaps it is part of the wider Scandinavian psyche; that seemingly organised, functional IKEA kind of look you see in Sweden), Norwegians love to compartmentalise things, stick labels to them and file them away in to what sometimes I imagine to be infinitely large filing cabinets, towering off in to the heavens somewhere near the arctic circle. But, I guess if waiting for someone to ski up, swim their way over to Svalbard and pass a few particularly grisly polar bears to access said filing cabinet is the greatest frustration one need encounter to live in this lovely well organised social democratic country, so be it. But is it?

This brings me to the issue of marriage, family visas and immigration, and perhaps my biggest gripe of all; it seems that across many governments (including Norway and the UK), while people are more than welcome to marry someone of a differing nationality, they have another thing coming to them if they had expected to live with one another. Governments wish to exercise some kind of sadistic stress test on relationships before they are deemed genuine enough to be carried out in the one country, and that is of course only if you are financially “viable”. While my wife and I were not granted the pleasure of even going through the process of proving our love for one another or our financial feasibility for the Norwegian state, we were granted the joy of being privy to another bureaucratic bungle of great proportions. This occurred when due to lack of availability in bookings to submit our application with the immigration police before the expiration of my current visa, we were assured that submitting these forms after its expiration was not an issue. To our dismay, after submission of the forms and payment of fees it was revealed that this advice was unfortunately inaccurate. We were, as it turned out, never eligible to lodge the application in the first place, and despite the fact that they had accepted the application and taken the associated fee of 3750 Norwegian Kroners by mistake, this fee was non refundable, because why? As my friendly representative from the Department of Immigration explained:

“The immigration authorities charge a fee to process residence permit applications. This fee is required to cover the expenses connected to the processing of an application, no matter what the outcome of the application is. Hence, if an application has been processed, the case processing fee will not be refunded.”

So, as if straight from the pen of Kafka himself, the fee accepted for the “processing” of the application (ie. mistakenly taking the application, looking at it and realizing it should not have been accepted), could not be refunded because the application and fee had been accepted.

We live and we learn.

I put this all out there in an attempt to console and connect with other travelers who have experienced, or are in the throes of experiencing these kinds of issues. Coming to terms with the functioning of other countries and their systems has made me, I believe, a bigger and better person, though a little dismayed with the nature of some of the government bodies that by way of their convoluted and sometimes overcomplicated guidelines occasionally inadvertently damage the interests of the citizens they are set in place for.

I would like to wrap it all up with a big congratulations to my sister Jess, her husband Mike and their lovely daughter Flux who have after a long battle with British immigration and many months separated as a family finally gained the privilege to live together in the UK. I wish good luck to all you others out there dealing with these same issues. Keep your chin up!

A Foodies Guide to Home Cooking in Oslo

moresbbb — Sun, 18 May 2014 22:15:00 GMT

Like clockwork the deciduous trees had begun to yellow and drop their leaves. The days were visibly shorter and the autumn rains were moving in. It was damp under the forest canopy, a rich musty smell rose from the undergrowth. I picked my way gingerly over mossy rocks and old tree stumps. We had taken a day trip in the woods on the outskirts of Oslo in order to pick mushrooms and were filling the last space left in our plastic shopping bags that now bulged with fresh Chanterelle. The brightly coloured yellow orange, fleshy looking fungus smelt rich and a little peppery. My stomach grumbled hungrily at the prospect of tucking in to freshly hunted elg (moose) thoughtfully delivered by my friends’ mother on a visit from their home town just an hour north; stewed in a steaming casserole punctuated by the rich colour and pungent flavour of the mushrooms we now held in hand.

I thought back to the weeks prior to my arrival in Oslo. My friends, who had travelled there previously, aware of my passion for food, warned me of the impending disappointment I was to experience. The outrageously expensive supermarkets, stocked with wilting produce imported from around the globe. The endless fridges and freezers filled with highly processed, pre packaged, premade meals. I had shuddered at the thought. I had even found an online lesson about Norwegian culture, which included a video of a young Norwegian man explaining Norway’s love affair with frozen pizza, detailing how he relished the great variety of toppings that could be found on this local delicacy. As feared, and forewarned, I found that many of the culinary horror stories were more or less true. Unfortunately many Norwegians consider cooking to be opening a packet and applying heat, and a lot of what is found in the modern Norwegian supermarket is less than exciting, especially to a chef and self-professed foodie. These facts were driven home to me shortly after arrival in the country when a friend expressed shock and horror that I would choose to waste my time making mash potato from scratch while there was perfectly good powdered, freeze-dried “mashed potato” in the cupboard… Needless to say, that relationship did not last long.

Despite the above, soon, and by the grace of the Nordic gods, I found that it was not all about bland pre-packaged foods. The great big refrigerator of Norway is stocked with many fresh and exciting items if you know where to look.

For the everyday home cook, all the extra things, aside from your supermarket staples are found in three places; the international grocers, garden colonies and allotments (or your own backyard), and out in nature.

In Oslo, those with a passion for international tastes can head to the eastern edge of Oslo central. On and surrounding Torggata you will find a range of Asian supermarkets stocking a good range of Vietnamese, Thai, Chinese and Japanese ingredients. These shops are reasonably priced and will bring a bit of spice back into your life.

On Grønland Torg, you will find the largest and best stocked of the international grocers, with food from all corners of the globe. If you can’t find it here, you probably won’t find it in Norway. Just be prepared to line up; the queue is fifteen to twenty people deep with five cash registers running most of the day. But hey, at least you get what you want.

When looking for veg in Oslo, always look to buy local produce. With little arable land and the harsh Norwegian climate, the farmers need all the support they can get, plus the fact that everything grown in Norwegian soil tastes incredible! When this is not possible, which is often, Oslo’s collective gardens can provide enough space for small time agriculturalists to produce fresh, organic veg for their families and perhaps a few friends or neighbours. There are around 1000 gardening allotments and 1000 garden colony spaces that can be rented by Oslo residents from the local government, but the waiting lists are long and growing.

Finally there is the great larder that is the Norwegian natural environment itself. Wild beast such as deer and moose can be hunted by those who can demonstrate proficiency in shooting and obtain a permit. Successful hunts can provide enough rich gamey meat for months. Fishing and gathering other seafood from the fjords, coastline, rivers and lakes is a national pastime, while for those of the vegetarian inclination, berries, mushrooms and other native flora can be gathered from the forests throughout summer and autumn.

To my relief, after an initial struggle I found that, despite the rumours, it is possible to live in Norway and run a respectable home kitchen. I also found that good hearty, traditional Norwegian food could still be found and to my great pleasure and excitement, those who still made a point of cooking these great old style meals, also took the time to hunt, gather and fish the ingredients from their local surrounds when the seasons permitted.

There is a lot to be learnt about Norway and its people through the contrasting foods they choose to fill their bellies with. In today's Norway a lot of what people eat is governed by convenience, time constraints, and a landscape that severely restricts the amount of fresh food that can be produced; hence the “Grandiosa” (frozen pizza) culture. But, also Norway has a changing demographic. Their generous asylum policy is pumping a new wave of tasty international flavours into the country and people are beginning to eat more widely and enjoy the difference of international cuisine. But when it came down to it I found that the most exciting food for me was the traditional Norwegian meals; fresh produce hunted and gathered in from the great big backyard of Norway, and this was the food that the locals were most proud of.

"This is not Scandinavia" - 16 Things to do in Oslo and How I Came to Relate to a Sidewalk Poet

moresbbb — Fri, 16 May 2014 05:40:00 GMT

Some eight years ago walking home through the inner city suburb of Macdonald Town, Sydney, I stopped to read a few words etched in the cement.

“This is not Scandinavia”.

The fact that someone had chosen preserve these precise words puzzled me. “No shit”, I thought to myself. This was a given. But then it bugged me. What was so special about Scandinavia that someone would be compelled to draw such attention to the fact that they, and indeed everyone reading this semipermanent memo to the Australian public, were not in Scandinavia?

Today, married to a wonderful Norwegian woman, and having spent two and a half of my best years living in Oslo, this little etching means a whole lot more to me. Now I look back and imagine this frustrated poet, hot Australian sun overhead, knelt before the wet cement, stick in hand, longing for alpine forests, snow capped mountains, midnight suns, and dramatic fjords of the north. Now I feel this person’s pain.

Having moved away from Oslo almost two years ago, a recent trip back has stirred up a whole lot of nostalgia for me, so I thought I would share a few of my favourite places and things to do in my favourite city in the world.

So, here are four things for each of the four seasons that I miss about Oslo.

Spring:

Oslo Botaniske Hage:

The Botanic Garden in Oslo is a great place to visit at any time of year, but with the sun returning, the ice melting, and life springing back in to this beautiful city; this is a great place to start.

Tom Waits Løpet:

The Tom Waits Run is an annual pub-crawl that draws thousands of people each year. Participants congregate at the medieval ruins in Old Oslo early on the first Saturday of each May to make their way through each of the years designated pubs demanding beer and Tom Waits to be played on the stereo. While this tradition developed alongside a real sporting event named after Norwegian marathon runner Grete Waitz, those who ran this literal piss-take alongside the real sporting event did so with such enthusiasm as to spawn a cult following and their own official event that has outlived the original marathon.

ÆreslundenGraveyard:

This is the final resting place for many of the greats in Norwegian history including Henrik Ibsen, Edvard Munch, and Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson. The peaceful atmosphere and historic headstones are enough to keep one occupied for hours.

17^th of May:

Norwegian National day is celebrated on the 17^th of May. Clad in national dress, thousands of Norwegians take to the streets. Flags are waved, pølse og lompe (sausages in potato bread) are eaten, and the king speaks and waves for an incredibly long time from his balcony. It is a time to catch up with family and friends and appreciate being Norwegian. This is the day Oslo is at its best.

Summer:

Oslo Fjord:

With almost continuous daylight at the peak of summer Oslo turns in to vibrant paradise and sleep becomes optional as the desire to fit as much as you can it to one day grows. One of the best places to enjoy summer is on the Oslo Fjord. Whether taking in the view from Akershus Festning, hopping on the ferry to visit the many Islands, or swimming off the beaches on Bygdøy peninsula, the fjord is definitely the place to be.

Getting out in Grünnerløkka:

With the sun in full swing the streets are full in the trendy suburb of Grünnerløkka. Outdoor seating in the many cafes and restaurants becomes prime real estate. Sofienberg Park is a hot spot throughout the summer for young people with picnickers and sunbathers leaving few patches of grass untouched. Get in early for the all day park hangout, there is music games and partying at all hours because the sun just doesn’t go down. The Birkelunden second hand market every Sunday is also a draw card.

The bars:

Summer is time to socialise. A lot of time is spent partying. If bars are your thing here are the best ones during the summer:

Dattera til Hagen

The large colourful beer garden in this well liked watering hole is a winner. Chilled out café style service is offered from breakfast through lunch, turning to a bar vibe for the evening with great tapas. Regular events including club nights and stand up comedy make this one of the most popular and versatile night spots in Oslo.

Oslo Mekaniske Verksted

Stylish interior design and a spacious backyard make this a favourite. No food on offer, but patrons are welcome to bring in a bite to eat. Top spot to enjoy an afternoon beer.

Blå

This entertainment space and artist cooperative is hard to beat. Sitting by the Aker River in the east of Oslo, the large music hall hosts the Frank Znort Quartet every Sunday night for a free concert. If there is anywhere you should be on a Sunday night it is here. The band consists of 18 regular musicians, playing a range of instruments including keys, guitars and brass, making for a big band sound that leaves the crowd begging for more week after week. Be prepared to dance and sing along with an always enthusiastic crowd.

Sukkerbiten

This makeshift restaurant/bar pops up in May for the summer months and closes in September. Discretely positioned out on the far end of the wharf behind the opera house, Sukkerbiten is a sweet spot that offer cool drinks and good eats right on the fjord. Fresh air and outdoor beats make this a local favourite.

Festivals:

There is more live music during the Summer in Oslo than you can poke a stick at. Festivals include Øya Festival, Norwegian Wood, and Oslo Jazz Festival and more, plus stacks of other free shows in bars and public spaces.

Sitting on Ankerbrua:

Anker Bridge running over the Aker River links Grünneløkka and the central city. On the right day it is surreal in its perfection. Just sit on the bridge and appreciate where you are.

Autumn:

In the forest:

Autumn is a great time to get back to nature. Walking in the forest, picking mushrooms and grabbing the last of the summer berries is a great way to kick things off. With its many pockets of forest and leafy disposition there are few cities that put on an autumn display like Oslo.

Fishing:

Get back on the fjord; it is time to catch some Cod!

Elvalangsvandring:

This torch walk celebrates the autumn equinox. Driven by community groups, the annual wander along the Aker River has a warm atmosphere on a usually chilly night. Hear music, watch performances and check out some local art. A great night out.

The long sunsets:

By the time it comes to Autumn you are glad to get some proper nights sleep in and the long sunsets coupled with the autumn colours are a great way to bring in the cooler months.

Winter:

Vigelands Mausoleum:

As Oslo freezes over for the winter, escape from the cold into Emanuel Vigelands Mausoleum. Dim lighting and echoing acoustics lend a sense of drama to this hauntingly beautiful piece of art.

Winter sports:

Even in the capital city every winter sports you can imagine is available. Just grab your board or skis and get on your local train or bus to Oslo Vinterpark Tryvann. With 18 slopes and just half an hour from the city centre, a cheeky few runs each day of the winter is a real option. For those who like it a little more laid back, grab your skates and head to Karl Johan Gate, the main street of Oslo where the pond adjacent to the National Theatre is converted to a free public skating rink.

Back to the Pub:

With temperatures dipping down to around minus twenty-five degrees, nobody wants to be outside, but if you must, just make sure you are running between these bars surrounding Yungstorget in the city centre.

Mono

This great rock bar offers warmth and respite from the cold outdoors, with regular bands, a fifties style diner, and a good crowd.

Fisk og Vilt

Got to dance? Duck across the road to Fisk og Vilt. Packed after eleven, get down to house DJ’s in the backyard of this small but rocking club. This place gets loose.

Internasjonalen

Want something a little more refined? Head around the corner to Internasjonalen. With a wide range of whiskies and bar tenders who know their booze, take a chilled drink in comfortable surrounds.

Tilt

Found that energy again? Head across the square and up to Tilt. This bar is jammed with old school arcade games, pinball machines and shuffleboard tables. Hours of entertainment.

Cinemateket:

With a mixture of classic, cult, art house, and old favourites Cinemateket is a film buffs wet dream. Cheap tickets and a comfortable cinema make this the perfect escape from the winter blues.

Photos: Oslo

moresbbb — Fri, 16 May 2014 04:44:00 GMT

Sitges, Michel, Michel, and Bar La Locacola

moresbbb — Wed, 7 May 2014 18:07:00 GMT

As we sat in the police station waiting to file a report we reflected on the week that had been. Despite it being the middle of spring we had been treated to nothing but rain. The hours of queuing for over-priced attractions were wearing thin, and as indicated by the line ahead of us at the station, we, along with half of the other tourists in the city, had managed to get robbed… It was time to get out of Barcelona.

Hoping for a bit of local insight we decided to have a chat with the man working the desk at our hostel about a good destination for a daytrip.

“Sitges” he replied immediately. “It is a beautiful sea side town, only 40 minutes on the train. You will not be disappointed”

Sitges it was. The sun, which had decided to show its face for the first time in days, glistened off the sea as the train coasted along the Mediterranean. We gazed out the window, passing quaint villas and seaside towns. Finally, the sultry female voice on the trains PA announced our arrival. “etsa estación es Sitges”.

The sun was warm and the narrows streets were filled with smiling faces as we made our way south from the station towards the beachfront. Bars, restaurants, and a few curious boutiques lined the streets. According to my research, Sitges was a hot spot for the rich and famous to make a getaway from the big city. Emerging on the beachfront I could see why. With the pristine sands, blue water, and beautiful sandstone architecture of the Church of Sant Bartomeu I Santa tecla perched on the promontory above, it was prefect. Sitges was also renowned, I had found, for its annual Film Festival, Carnival, gay pride march, and being one of the most gay-friendly destinations in the world.

Having taken a brief stroll along the beachfront, my wife and I had already decided we loved the place. It was decided, we must find a hotel and make this day trip into a two-day trip. But first things first, we needed to eat.

A couple of streets back from the beachfront we found a small French restaurant with an appealing menu. A group of French people sat outside eating. We figured this was a good sign and pulled up a seat. Our waiter, a friendly young Frenchman, took our order and we began to search for an available room for the night. As it turned out, there was next to nothing left in town in our price range... Perhaps our friendly waiter might know of a place, I suggested. As he waved goodbye to the French-speaking customers and began to clear their plates, I beckoned him over.

“Err, excuse me. We have decided that we like it here very much and we want to spend another day here before heading back to Barcelona, but there doesn’t seem to be much vacant in the way of hotels that we can afford. Do you know any cheap places that might have a room? I plied.

“Well, yes, in fact my friend who was just here owns a hotel around the corner. I will call him and find out if he has a room.”

Dashing off for a moment, he soon returned.

“I am afraid he has none of the regular rooms left.”

Our hearts sank.

“But, he tells me he has one room that he does not usually rent out, that if you want, you could stay in.”

He quoted a price and it sounded more than fair. We finished our meal, tipped well, and made our way down to the hotel. Inside, one of the French men who had sat across from us at the restaurant, sat at the hotel desk. He smiled with recognition and introduced himself as Michel. Taking us up to the top level he opened an unmarked door and showed us in. The room was a little peculiar. The walls were lined with religious iconography and it smelt a little musty, but otherwise it was comfortable enough and we agreed to take it for the night. It was a strike of luck and we thanked him for the opportunity to extend our visit.

Dropping our bags we made our way back to the beachfront, bought a couple of towels, had a quick swim and reclined in the sun. I grinned as we lay back on the sand and looked over at my wife who grinned back.

Later in the evening after dinner, it was time to head out for a drink. After passing a series of particularly average looking watering holes along the esplanade populated solely by wealthy looking, leathery skinned middle aged couples, further pickling themselves over another bottle of Airén, we decided we would have to try a little harder to find something to our taste. Something less pretentious… We needed to find a gay bar.

Wandering north back up the hill, away from the beach along a quiet street we noticed a pink glow emanating from a window ahead. The sound of Abba, drifted from the open doorway as we approached, followed by a flamboyant cackle, the clinking of glasses, and the deep voice of a rather tall and broad shouldered lady with a five O’clock shadow calling after her boyfriend as she stepped out for a smoke. The couple giggled mischievously and fondled each other by the doorstep as we stepped inside.

Inside, the bright pink and yellow walls sparkled as a disco ball rotated overhead. Colourful posters and pictures of semi naked men dotted the walls. We were greeted by a cheeky looking older barman. He was particularly friendly. We struck up a conversation and ordered a couple of gin and tonics. There were two seats at the bar sandwiched between a row of chattering patrons. I asked the man to my right if he minded if I sat next to him.

“Of course not. You are the Australian no?” He replied. A little taken aback I looked around at him again. “And your wife, where was she from?” What the hell? I thought to myself. Who is this guy? How does he know who I am? As our eyes met, I immediately recognised him. It was Michel, the owner of our hotel.

“Oh, yes, Michel, I’m sorry, I didn’t recognise you there for a moment. Hilde, my wife, she is from Norway”

We settled in and began chatting. The bartender and Michel, as we found out, were friends. Both part of the small but proud French community in town. It was plain to see that this place was a paradise for anyone who chose to live here.

“Why would you want to live anywhere else!?” Exclaimed the bartender.

Soon Michel’s partner arrived. He introduced us with a flourish “This is my partner Michel.”

“Wait you are both called Michel?” I clarified.

“Yes, Michel and Michel. It is easy to remember our names no!? It is good for the hotel. All we need to do is tell our guests to ask for Michel if they need anything.”

We all laughed.

Michel and Michel talked of their move from France some years back in order to escape the grind. All three men spoke fondly of the town and how they had found their place in life here.

“You should come back for Carnival some time, Sitges is at its best then.” Explained Michel.

“Yess, Caaaarnivaaaal!” The bar tender cried out, shaking his hands in the air.

“Ha, yes, and he looks fantastic in a dress.” remarked Michel.

“And yooou look faaaabulous in a dress too darling” Fired back the bartender.

After a while, Michel and Michel conceded that they must throw in the towel for the night.

“We are old married men, we can’t party like you kids any more”

They bid us farewell.

“We will see you in the morning anyway.”

The wife and I stuck it out for a few more drinks, a couple of which were insistently “On the house”.

On the way out the bartender handed us a business card.

“Go on our website, there are photos of carnival. You can see us in our dresses. If you like it, maybe you will come back next year for the party!”

We thanked our friend for his hospitality.

Some months after returning home, I emptied my wallet and noticed the card from Bar La Locacola. I smiled to myself, logged on to the Internet and typed in the URL.

Beware the Cockney Chinwagger

moresbbb — Tue, 6 May 2014 01:55:00 GMT

Making a beeline past the hipsters and young professionals of trendy Hackney, deep into East London, towards regional Essex, you will find a slice of the old school. Yet to be gentrified and still, on a London scale, fairly affordable to live in, boroughs such as Newham, Barking, and Dagenham still offer safe haven to the working class, as well as that very special breed; the old cockney chinwagger. Out here in the land of classic English “chippies”, and working class diners, you can still get a taste of how it used to be. While I have become fairly well adjusted to the lively, humorous and often unpredictable nature of the cockney, I, like many, am yet to understand much of what they are saying. Luckily for me, the conversations that I do get caught up in are for the most part with my neighbour Bob; a kind and often hilarious ex-tube driver, who loves to rattle off stories of the good old days. In addition I will come across the occasional old codger down on the local high street, who gaining ones attention, will insist on reciting a series of jokes in rhyming slang. While the enthusiasm thrown into these spontaneous stand up performances is entertaining, it can become a little awkward when they work out that you can’t decipher a damn thing they are saying. I have learnt to laugh politely in the pauses left by the expectant eyed, toothless codger, after what one can only assume to have been the punch line. Then, feigning having something/anything important to do, I make a hasty exit.

“Ha, yes the tea leaf in the jam jar ended up in the old bucket and pail! What a situation eh, ha ha…” - Glancing at my watch -“Look, I have some really important stuff to do. Nice meeting you but I have to run.”

As a result of many an awkward situation, I have taken it upon myself to learn a few phrases here and there. Here is a cursory list of words and phrases in rhyming slang that may help a little for anyone planning to visit London anytime soon.

“Chitty chitty bang bang” = Cockney rhyming slang

“Hey, take a butcher’s at this.” = Hey, take a look at this. (Butcher’s hook = look)

“Close the burnt!” = Close the window. (Burnt cinder = window)

“I don’t Adam and Eve it!” = I don’t believe it!

“My almonds aren’t matching today” = My socks aren’t matching today” (Almond rocks = socks)

“Alright China?” = “How’s it going mate?” (China plate = mate)

“It’s a bit David Bowie today” = “It’s a bit windy today” (David Bowie = blowy)

“I’m Lee Marvin” = I’m starving

“I can’t pay the Duke of Kent this week” = “I can’t pay the rent this week”

“Give us a pint of Gary” = “Give us a pint of bitter” (Garry Glitter = bitter)

While this list only touches the tip of the iceberg, there are extensive listings and dictionaries available on line for those of you who want to learn a little more about this curious British dialect. As for me, I’m off to the lollipop to buy the Michael Winner, before my love and kisses finishes with Captain Kirk.

The Farcical Case of the Chicken Bought at Sunrise

moresbbb — Sat, 19 Apr 2014 03:22:45 GMT

It was dark as we clambered over the tall, iron gate at the foot of the mountain. A guard stumbled out of a small hut, shining a torch in our direction.

"We want to see the sunrise on top of the mountain", my friend explained. He waved us on.

At the top we sat to take in the view, sunrise over Hangzhou. We sipped at a bottle of rice wine leftover from the night’s festivities. A few elderly folk appeared on the ridge. Morning exercise. A couple stopped to practice tai chi; the other came to chat with us. There were not often foreigners on top of the mountain at this time, he explained, as he shared a drink with us.

As the sun climbed higher, we decided to head home. Descending the other side of the mountain, farmers held a makeshift market, one vendor with six terrified chickens stuffed in a cage. I felt they knew of their impending doom. In a moment of compassion (or inebriation), I decided one should have a new lease on life.

"How much for a chicken?" I asked.

I paid as they shoved the animal head first into a blue plastic shopping bag.

Returning home I greeted Xifu, the master of our building. The chicken clucked nervously from within the bag. Rounding the back of the building, we released the bird. It strutted about happily. Xifu, usually calm and gentle, appeared at the corner of the building. Spying the chicken, he began waving his arms hysterically.

"No animals allowed!" He screeched.

We were to dispose of it immediately, but our feathered friend was not about to give up its newfound freedom easily. Squawking frantically, feathers flew as we dove, tumbled and snatched at the frenzied creature. Finally, sweaty but triumphant I clutched the bird by its legs. It flapped wildly as I reached over the tall concrete wall at the back of the block, releasing it into the tea fields beyond.

Retiring upstairs, I was woken by a knock at the door. Xifu, having earlier lost interest in our protracted pursuit of the offending fowl, peered enquiringly in the apartment door.

"Where’s the chicken?" He probed.

"It's gone, I threw it over into the tea fields"

He eyed me disbelievingly, as he pushed his way through the door.

"No chickens in the apartment!" He insisted, making his way between the rooms, opening doors and cupboards and peering under beds.

Finally, after a thorough investigation he relented.

"Ok, no chicken"

From that day Xifu would greet me with a wry smile, both of us never to forget the farcical case of the chicken bought at sunrise.

Monkey Drum – An Unsettling Introduction to Chongqing

moresbbb — Mon, 7 Apr 2014 11:04:00 GMT

It was muggy disembarking the intercity train from Chengdu. Crowds of people pushed through the gates exiting the station. Emerging the other side, we made our way down to the subterranean leg of the metro network, Chongqing. Underground, the air was thicker in the enclosed space. I gathered with my family as we rested our packs. My father joined the queue to purchase tickets for our onward journey to the city centre. A pearl of sweat crept down my forehead. I understood why they referred to Chongqing as one of the Three Furnaces of the Yangtze River.

The ticket hall was dim, aside from the glare of a few artificial lights. Despite this we stuck out as tourists, a group of iridescent white sore thumbs, sweaty, impeded by our travel packs, hindered by lack of experience in the city. Locals milled purposefully about, up and down the tunnels to and from platforms. A tall man, casual, but well dressed in jeans, and a collared shirt, a sports jacket hanging open around his slim form joined the queue behind my father as he keyed our destination in to the touch screen of the automated machine. He paid and took the tickets. The man glanced across at my family as we readied ourselves to move. We locked eyes for a moment, a curious, wide-eyed stare. His hands fidgeted as he spun, unconsciously, a monkey drum between the palms of his hands. The timbre of the drum travelled a little through the white noise of the bustling crowds; tick-tock tick-tock. Odd, I thought. We picked up our packs and headed off towards our platform. Seeming to have changed his mind, the man stepped out of line and slipped off into the crowd.

The carriages on the metro were clean and modern. We found seats together easily and settled in for the first leg of the journey. The train sped off down the dark tunnels. As we reached our station we gathered up our baggage and clambered out of the carriage to make the change on to the next leg of our journey. Disembarking ahead of my family I turned back to check we were all there. While they assembled on the platform I cast my eye up and down the length of the train. The last few people exited the doors as I noticed a tall slim figure step out from the next carriage, head down; his jacket blew loosely around him in the wind from the train as it disappeared down the tunnel ahead, in his palms rotating from side to side, a monkey drum.

My senses were tingling, then again I am always hyper-vigilant arriving in a new place, at least until I have got the feel for it. I tried to push it to the back of my mind so I could enjoy the rest of the trip in to town. At the station we made the change on to the monorail. It was a bit more packed than the underground and we struggled to find a seat together in our carriage. My mum pointed down the train, there were seats available on the other side of the joint between carriages. We moved down and settled in our seats. Placing my pack between my legs I looked up. Tucked in next to the pillar at the joint between carriages, directly across from me sat our curious companion. His wild, wide eyes darted quickly down to the ground as his hands fidgeted nervously with the wooden stick of his shiny red monkey drum. This was beginning to feel like too much of a coincidence. I looked around at my family as the train set off, weaving its way through the mountainous terrain of the outer suburbs, towards the great metropolis of central Chongqing. No one seemed alarmed or even to notice as they spoke amongst themselves. A young man sitting beside us struck up a conversation with my father and between the chatter and the dramatic scenery outside the windows everyone seemed happy enough, I decided I should be also.

To my relief as we pulled in to our final station, our peculiar companion sprung up from his seat, out the door and off down the platform, disappearing from sight. Glad to see him go, I began to loosen up a little, thankful that it had all just been in my head. We followed the tunnel up a flight of stairs towards our exit. At the top of the stairs the tunnel swung to the right and diverged towards two exits. People milled about us as we stopped for a moment to check for a sign indicating our exit. Scanning the space at the landing of the stairs my eyes came to rest on a tall slender figure. I looked him up and down; jeans, sports jacket, his back turned as one hand pointed at a map on the tunnel wall, the other rotating methodically back and forth the stick of a shiny red monkey drum. This was it. I could know for sure now. Was he following us? If he took the same exit as us it was confirmed and something needed to be done. We moved towards our exit. His back remained turned. At the top of the stairs we emerged through the exit and in to the jostling streets of down town Chongqing. I kept my eyes fixed ahead, my whole body charging with adrenalin. If he was behind us, I didn’t want him to know that I knew he was there until I could be a hundred percent sure he was on our trail. We sauntered up the street and rounded the corner. I walked next to my sister as we climbed the incline towards our hotel.

“Jess, have you noticed a man following us on the metro?” I asked.

“No, why? What are you talking about?”

“A man with a monkey drum. He has been following us since we got on the metro”

“What seriously?”

“I am pretty sure he is behind us now. I haven’t looked back yet because I want to be sure he is following us, but I am pretty sure.”

“What the fuck.” My sister stopped dead in her tracks and swung around. I turned at the same time and there he was. He stopped, motionless in the middle of the footpath, like a deer in the headlights. “There, him”, I pointed, “with the monkey drum”.

“Right!” My sister growled defiantly as she stormed back down the street in his direction, “Jess, wait!” I called after her. Without hesitating she came to a halt just centimetres away from our pursuer. Fluent in Mandarin, and tougher than a box of nails, she launched in to a tirade that would make the staunchest of men quiver in their boots. Pedestrians stopped to take in the sight of this pint-sized foreigner laying down the law. She finished her piece, the man nodded his head obediently and scuttled off across the road, up a side street and disappeared in to a throng of people.

My sister made her way back up the street towards me, while the rest of my family stood around dumbfounded, unaware of the circumstances surrounding the altercation.

“What the hell did you say to him?” I probed.

“I just told him, I knew what he was doing and that if he didn’t stop following us I would call the police. He agreed, and said he was sorry”.

“What? Are you serious?”

“Yeah, people here, if they know they are doing something wrong won’t usually argue about it. He knew he was busted, so he just admitted it.”

I stood there bewildered for a moment. My family gathered around as we recounted the events leading up to the incident. It was for all of us, an unsettling introduction to Chongqing.

Shrunken Heads, George Washington’s Hair and Other Curiosities - A Look at London's Museums

moresbbb — Tue, 1 Apr 2014 08:17:00 GMT

London boasts a phenomenal number of museums, around 240 in total. Included in these monuments to the wonder of human accomplishment and our natural world are such greats as the Tate Modern, the Natural History Museum, the Victoria & Albert Museum, and the mother of them all; the British Museum. With a plethora of displays on offer, it is possible to find an exhibit for everyone, even down to the most banal of tastes, such as those found at the gripping London Public Transport Museum, the enthralling British Dental Association Museum, and the slightly more curious if not a little exclusive, Kennel Club Art Gallery (exhibiting a collection of dog paintings to be viewed by appointment only). It is fairly safe to say that tucked away somewhere, there is an exhibit to suit even the most particular and refined fetishist.

Admittedly, collecting is a pastime not peculiar to the British people. Around the world people toil to bring together items related to their own odd obsessions; tea sets, stamps, ornamental spoons, porcelain figures immortalizing the acrobatic nature of various sex acts etc. But, for the British, collecting is more than just a pastime; it has become over the centuries an obsession. The most staggering example of this compulsive behavior has been amassed within the walls of the 75000m2 goliath the British Museum. With an impressive 80000 articles on display one peruses the great halls in wonderment until realizing that the articles on display to the public amount to only 1% of the total hoard. The remainder of the collection, stashed away in vast storerooms, brings the total number of items in their possession to around 8 million, with the oldest piece dating back some 2 million years.

When thinking about the great lengths gone to in order to glean a collection of such enormity, one can only start to wonder if there is something fundamentally “wrong” with the people who chose to put their lives’ work in to assembling this mass of stuff. Frankly, it is hard to ignore the parallels to compulsive hoarding, a disorder linked with other conditions such as psychoses, dementia and autism, that often leads to ostracism and social isolation; take the proverbial Cat Lady for example. Thankfully, the majority of Museums in London focus on the assemblage of pieces of educational, artistic and scientific value instead of old newspapers and worn underwear, though surely there is a museum for that tucked away somewhere.

Having noted the above, two of the most fascinating exhibits on show in London today - the Wellcome Gallery and the Huntarian Museum - and the collectors who assembled them draw a thin line between professional interest and full-blown obsession. Henry Wellcome and John Hunter were not your average car boot sale curio hunters. These fascinating characters, both renowned for their work in the field of medicine, were wealthy, influential, and fanatical enough to take their search for the scientific, weird and wonderful to the road, not just in the UK but around the world.

Sir Henry Wellcome was born in the United States but lived from the age of 27 in the United Kingdom and died at the ripe old age of 82. A British Knight and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons England, he collected over one and a half million different objects and books relating to the history of medicine from around the world in his lifetime. Such was his obsession with collecting and documenting everything medical, at the peak of his hoarding he had a network of buyers that he dispatched across the globe to acquire objects on his behalf. Boxes containing books and objects of interest from around the world flowed in to his London property at such a rate that many of the items were not properly catalogued until after his death. In 1936 his personal collection was larger than the majority of museums in Europe and approximately five times the size of that possessed by the Louvre.

The Wellcome collection, while being largely composed of items relating to medical history also includes a range of non-medical items, from furniture to torture implements, a shrunken head and locks of hair from George Washington and Napoleon Bonaparte among others. He also collected many versions of the same item in order to catalogue the forms and development of different tools and technology. Eventually his collection became so vast and varied it was criticized for having little focus. Wellcome’s ultimate dream was to construct an all encompassing “Museum of Man”, but after his death it was decided that his dream would never come to fruition and the display was eventually simplified to concentrate on the science and history of medicine.

John Hunter too was a passionate man. His life’s assemblage of around 15000 specimens focused on anatomy, pathology, and osteology, but was not limited to just humans. He was fascinated by the effects of disease on the bodies of humans and animals alike and preserved slices and sections of anatomy affected by various ailments and injuries in order to form a greater understanding of how the body combated, adapted and compensated for physical damage caused by these factors. He saw the commonalities between all living creatures and endeavored to learn and teach stronger surgical techniques garnered by the study of his vast collection from around the world. Unfortunately, a good portion of his collection was lost during bombing in 1941. Today the Huntarian Collection contains around 3500 pieces. This slightly eerie display of skeletons, human fetuses and animal entrails is not for the fainthearted but is immensely interesting and educational for those who are less squeamish.

Thanks to People like Henry Wellcome and John Hunter you would be hard pressed to find a wider range of captivating items in any one city around the world. While the motivations and methods employed to bring together the great wealth of artifacts on display in London today may be questionable, there is one thing that cannot be questioned; it would be near impossible to view and truly appreciate all of these pieces in just one lifetime, and for that we should be thankful.

Songpan - A bad Trip on an Otherwise Good Journey

moresbbb — Thu, 27 Mar 2014 02:51:00 GMT

Behind the glass window in the ticket hall of the bus station at the northern end of Songpan in the Aba prefecture of Sichuan, a middle age woman methodically typed information into her computer, printed and stapled together a two-part ticket and exchanged it for a few crumpled notes. Two men in front of us jostled for position, received their tickets and sidled off. We arrived at the window.

“We want two tickets to Liangmosi”.

The woman behind the glass stopped for a moment.

“liangmosi?”

“Right” I nodded.

She looked up at a man standing to our left; they exchanged a meaningful glance and the man scuttled out of the room.

“Wait a moment”.

The man reappeared, they swapped a few words I didn’t catch, and she again turned to me.

“No busses to Liangmosi”

“Tomorrow”? I pressed.

“NO BUSSES TO LIANGMOSI”!

Confused, my wife and I stepped out of line.

We had made an impromptu decision the previous day to head north to the Tibetan border town. It had come highly recommended by some travellers we had met heading in that direction a few days earlier, as well as the hosts at our previous homestay. There, we were told, we could witness life in a genuine Tibetan town, as well as join a horse trek through the surrounding mountains and plains, staying along the way with Tibetan nomads. It sounded too good to miss. With no tickets available north from our previous stop in Jiuzhaigou, we were told to head south to Songpan. From there it would be ok. Yet, here we were, ticketless.

A little irritated by the situation I began to walk away from the window when a young Tibetan woman stopped us and began speaking in English.

“You cannot go to Langmusi. No foreigners allowed. The roads are closed to foreigners. Even if you’ve got a ticket, the police will check the bus at roadblocks. They will send you back. That is why they will not sell you tickets. Maybe you can go by private car, but not by bus.”

My natural instinct was not to trust this woman. Past experience while traveling had taught me not to trust people trying to push private cars, in English to foreigners at remote bus stations. “Really?” I said disbelievingly and began to walk away.

“Really, too much trouble on the roads up there, too many people burning themselves. The government doesn’t want foreigners to see.”

I stopped dead in my tracks. I had heard that self-immolation had been an increasing problem throughout the region in recent times, but was not aware of the extent of the situation. I introduced myself to our new friend and we began to chat about different ways we could make it north to the border.

Having gathered some further advice, we decided that if we were to make the journey it certainly wouldn’t be until the next day, so we checked in to a guest house and got on the wifi in order to do some fact checking. There was one thing for sure; finding concrete facts on travel within the region is not easy. The best source of information was found at www.http://thelandofsnows.com travel advice site, where the pollitcal and social issues surrounding the region are discussed in depth and the associated road closures and restrictions updated as regularly as possible.

Our options were to try and take a bus north part of the way to Zoige and attempt to get a connecting bus from there, or hire a private car and travel through the dark hours of the early morning and try to slip by the road blocks undetected. I was determined to make it… But first we needed some lunch and to get some more cash out in order to fund the journey.

In town we grabbed a bowl of noodle soup and discussed our options. It seemed with our time and money constraints we should try for the ticket to Zoige first and if there was no luck with that, we should be able to take out enough money to pay for a private car up and back, and fingers crossed, we would not be detected by the police on the way.

On the way back to the bus station we stopped to take out some cash in the main street of the town. There was no service. “Check with your card provider” the screen read. On to the next bank. Same result. And again. My card must have been cancelled. I had just RMB 1500 cash in my money belt, which would only cover the cost of the car one way. That was it, the last remaining hope; try to catch the bus to Zoige.

I wasn’t sure if it was the stress of the uncertainty but I was starting to feel a little off kilter. As we headed back yet again to the station I began to feel unmistakably out of sorts. My head swam and a feeling of dissociation came over me. I asked my wife if she was feeling ok. She reported the same sensations. Food poisoning? I didn’t feel particularly sick to the stomach and I felt no urge to run to the toilet. I decided it was best just to ignore it and try to secure the tickets.

Back in the station, we approached the service window once more. The woman behind the glass tried to ignore us for a moment and then, realizing we weren’t going away, she turned her head and scowled.

“Two tickets to Zoige please”

Something seemed to snap inside her head.

“No bus to Zoige. No bus to Langmosi. No bus!”

“OK, thankyou”, I replied sheepishly, as we slunk off, tails between our legs. Feeling a little shaken and very much defeated, we returned to our hotel. Sitting in bed my vision began to blur as the feeling of dissociation increased. I felt decidedly unwell and began taking extended visits to the toilet, shortly followed by my wife. Mild hallucinations set in. The unfriendly tone of the town became amplified by the bizarre, mind bending effects illness and I began to feel more than a little unsettled. I decided I didn’t like it here in Songpan, my wife agreed. Things were not going to go our way.

After a restless sleep, we awoke, packed our belongings and headed down to the station one more time. The early morning air was cold and the town was shrouded in an ominous darkness as heavy clouds hung overhead. The woman at the service desk seemed relieved when we ordered two tickets back to Chengdu.

I still today fantasise about what it would have been like to make it to Langmosi, slipping through the night like a couple of fugitives. If the cash had been available, I would have happily chanced the journey north to experience the beautiful grass plains extending across the foothills and up the mountians in to the clouds of Tibet. I guess it just wasn’t meant to be this time, but there is always the next.

A National Health Nighmare?

moresbbb — Thu, 20 Mar 2014 23:26:00 GMT

Entering my local NHS doctor’s surgery it resembled a news report on the latest strain of bird flu. There was an air of ailing disarray. The waiting room packed with patients, children squealing, clinging to their parents. When registering I was handed a pile of reading material, mainly rules and regulations, an extensive list of circumstances under which I was not to attend the surgery as well as a detailed guide on (if it was absolutely necessary for me to set foot in the surgery) the various degrees of abuse and/or assault I was expected to not carry out on the attending staff. As I took a seat an irate patron demanding to see a doctor bashed at the thick glass panel (presumably bulletproof) between them and the rather jaded looking receptionist… welcome to the NHS.

The GP was a portly woman sat at her desk as I entered the room. “Hi”, I greeted her. “Have a seat please” she replied. “Alright?” she continued. I faltered a moment; “alright?” as in the greeting/inquiry employed by Londoners to assess whether someone is in good shape or humour? Or was this the first step of her diagnostic technique? Much the same thing, I supposed. “Alright,” I replied hesitantly. Seeming to have picked the right reply she smiled, “what can I do for you? I explained that I had recently developed an intolerable pain in my right hip. “Oh, so you can’t walk right innit?” She exclaimed. I confirmed that yes, yes it was… or is..or...? After a brief investigation it was established that I should visit a radiologist to have an x-ray to ascertain if there was any mechanical damage to the area, because as she explained “you is too young to have hip pain”. The whole process had consumed no more than three minutes and left me baffled as to what service, if any, I had just received. I took my referral and limped home to ponder how I felt about the experience.

As it turned out, I, perhaps based on a little prejudice towards a doctor who uses terms such as “alright” and “innit” decided to let further investigation in to the situation slide for a while. I would, I decided, see how I pulled up over the next week and then decide whether I would let a “radiologist” employed by the “NHS” point their ray-gun at me. Some time passed and I decided the pain was in fact tolerable enough, for the time being.

I am no stranger to the doctor’s surgery, nor am I for that matter unacquainted with the emergency room. My travels have seen me hospitalised from amoebic dysentery in Bangkok, Salmonella in Beijing, and disc prolapse in Kyoto, but I suppose something was different at those times. I was more or less unable to communicate with the doctors and nurses on any real level, some due to my waving consciousness and the others to language barriers. I had surrendered myself to these doctors in far away exotic lands previously and had walked away relatively unscathed… In fact, in at least two cases they had saved my life so, what was my problem with seeing a doctor in the UK!?

The matter has been one that has preoccupied me for some time now so I decided to put a little cursory research in (thanks Google). This combined with a few subsequent visits to the doctor (I seem to get sick in this country), as well as compiling anecdotal evidence from family and friends’ visits to the service I am starting to form a better understanding of how I really should feel about the services available here in the UK.

Recent data taken from a range of sources including The World Health Organisation and The World Bank published by Bloomberg in 20013 ranked the UK as 14^th most efficient health-care provider in the world showing the population to have an average life expectancy of 80.8 years, the cost of this care as a percentage of GDP came to 9.4% and the total cost per capita in US dollars was $3609. This is actually not so bad an outcome when you start to compare this with outcomes in other western countries. Canada for example ranked 17^th with an average life expectancy of 80.9 years but a greater spend from GDP at 10.8% and a total spend USD$5630 per capita, a significant rise in expenditure and a poorer total outcome. These figures are then trumped by the US who with a ranking of 46^th and an average life expectancy of 78.6, spend a whopping 17.2% of GDP and a total per capita of USD$8608. The only former British colony that outranked the UK was Australia, coming in 7^th with a life expectancy of 81.8, spending 8.9% of GDP and a total amount of USD$5939 per capita. As I am no expert on anything really, I wont begin to speculate on how or why one country is doing their job better than the other, but with a significantly lower total spend in the UK, it suggests that the money spent is going to the right places and is being used well when it gets there, at least in comparison to some other countries.

From my own more tangible experiences, I have found that the common complaints about the NHS have a basis, yes you do need to wait a long time to see a doctor by appointment, in my own experience as long as 3-4 weeks just to see a GP and depending on which hospital you choose to attend just as long to see a specialist, but these services are without extra cost to what you pay in your taxes. You can of course get a “walk in” appointment with your NHS GP quite easily and always have the choice to pay to see a private specialist. As with anywhere, money talks. Other common complaints include a lack of privacy and a poor bedside manner, but this I see as one of the side effects of having a socialized health service that attempts to bring care to a large population while not taxing the population at such high levels as for example in the Scandinavian systems. In addition to this and most likely to the surprise of most non-Britain’s there is a standardised cost of £7.85 for scripts issued by doctors, if you do not already qualify to get them for free. For a country where the tax-free threshold is for the majority of the population around £10000 and the average income is £26500 for 2014 it starts to seem like a pretty good effort and not a bad deal for the everyman.

As it stands I am yet to have a truly terrible experience within the NHS, in fact I am quite pleased. Sure the experience here is not quite as comfortable as that in Australia but lets face it, this is proving to be a great exercise in understanding how privileged I have been in my life and a fine lesson in how different countries and cultures choose to provide health-care.

My next move will take me back to China (ranked 37^th) later this year, where I gear up to deal with a system that left me basically pooping myself on a camping chair in a crowded hall of a Beijing hospital for 15 hours. While I am ready to take on this challenge again it does make me wonder what it is like to be part of the system in the US, ranked another 9 places below, let alone the rest of the world with systems less efficient than that... In the mean time I will count myself lucky and remember that the NHS just ain’t that bad.

Passport & Plate - Gong Bao Zhi Ding

moresbbb — Thu, 13 Mar 2014 10:39:03 GMT

Ingredients
2 Chicken breasts cubed
2 Large spring onions thick sliced (can be substituted with celery or leek)
200g raw peanuts
A handful of whole dried chilies sliced in half and deseeded
1 small piece of ginger sliced
3-4 cloves of garlic sliced
250ml Shaoxing rice wine
1 cup water
1 egg white
1 Tbs Sichuan Pepper
5 Tbs pea starch
2 tsp sugar
vegetable oil
Soy Sauce
Chinese black vinegar (can be substituted with balsamic vinegar)
Salt

How to prepare this recipe
1) Place peanuts in pan and cover with vegetable oil. Heat pan and stir steadily. The peanuts will make a “popping” sound while cooking. When the popping stops remove the peanuts and oil separately and set to the side.

2) In a bowl mix together 2 Tbs pea starch, 100ml Shaoxing rice wine, 1 egg white and a pinch of salt. Coat chicken cubes with mixture. Fry in pan with a couple of Tbs of vegetable oil. When finished set to the side.

3) Place the spring onion, dried chilies, garlic, ginger and Sichuan pepper in pan and fry until fragrant

4) In a bowl mix together 3 Tbs pea starch, 150ml Shaoxing rice wine, 1 cup of water, 2 tsp sugar, and a dash of black vinegar and a dash of soy sauce to taste.

5) Add chicken and sauce to the vegetables and spices in the pan and stir. Finally mix through peanuts and serve.

The story behind this recipe
In May of 2013 I spent six weeks visiting family and traveling in Sichuan Province, China. One of my goals during the trip was to learn some local dishes and pick up a few tricks to add to my cooking repertoire. As a birthday present from my sister, it was arranged for me to spend a day with Mrs Du, the patron of a cozy “supper club” style home restaurant in the back streets of Tong Zi Lin, Chengdu. Mrs Du and I worked our way trough a list of local and seasonal dishes including; Mogu Shaorou (Mushroom and Pork Stew), Papa Cai (a summer veg soup), Liang Ban Cai (a cold dish consisting mainly of radish topped with a spicy sauce), Lao Ya Tang (Old Duck Soup), and Gong Bao Zhi Ding (also known in the west as Kung Pow Chicken), the recipe I have chosen to submit.
Gong Bao Zhi Ding is a traditional Sichuan dish, composed mainly of cubed chicken pieces, peanuts, dried red chilies and slices of a large spring onion (often substituted with sliced celery or leek). The characteristic flavors of the dish are provided by the addition of Hua Jiao (Sichuan Pepper), and Shaoxing rice wine made from fermented glutinous rice. The composition is delicate and well balanced in terms of colors, flavors and textures. Though the dish may appear spicy, the whole dried chilies are ornamental and are not traditionally eaten. The end result is a slightly sweet dish with hints of spice and an undertone of the numbing Sichuan Pepper that characterizes much of the regional cuisine. This dish has a wide reaching appeal and can be found in restaurants across China and the world.
Mrs Du was warm and welcoming and despite my broken Mandarin we connected over the food and turned out a tasty banquet. It felt as if the experience was meant to be when we found that the Chinese name I use while traveling in the region, the name of an ancient Chinese philosopher, is the given name of Mrs Du's daughter and the restaurants namesake. The day was completed sharing the meal with my family and local friends.

Antisocial Interactions - Using Public Transport in Merry Old London Town

moresbbb — Sat, 11 Jan 2014 07:56:00 GMT

Coming from Sydney I am thankful if my bus or train turns up at all. Years living in one of the most poorly serviced parts of the world for public transport has made me a little more forgiving than the average Londoner. While London's public transport system is on a world scale a commuter’s wet dream, there are a few things to gripe about. The majority of the service is carried on the back of the Tube, National Rail, Overground, DLR (Docklands Light Railway), bus and taxi services. Tube and train services cost a lot in comparison to the average income. Seven-day travel passes for the tube start at a cost of £30.40 to travel within zone 1 and range up to £79.20 for travel between zones 1-9 with the National Rail services costing a touch more. Sure there are more expensive systems in the world but if you are to consider that the minimum wage in the UK currently is £6.31 per hour for people over the age of 21, to buy a tube ticket for zones 1-9 each week could eat up as much as a third of the income for a full time worker on minimum wage per week. Perhaps this is why tube users are as a general rule of thumb either aloof, irritable, or just plain antisocial. Conversation between passengers is rare and when it does occur it is usually either to warn other commuters to stay out of their personal space or to complain about delays, track works, or yet another “trespass on the tracks”. I know I shouldn’t joke about it but with the cost of travel so high I am surprised that more people don’t end up on the tracks. The average trip is spent avoiding eye contact staring quietly up at the advertisements conveniently placed just above head height or gazing silently downward at a particularly interesting scuff mark on the carriage floor in mute recognition that we are all in the same boat (or train) but we most certainly don’t want to talk about it.

My best anecdote to date on the fiercely antisocial nature of tube patrons takes me back to when I started using the tube on a regular basis between the city centre and my home in East London. This night, tired and hungering for home the train pulled in to Liverpool St Station. As we sat motionless an alarm rang out. A pre-recorded message began to cycle; “This is an emergency. Please make your way to the nearest exit. This station is being evacuated”. The words sent a pang of terror, my heart began to race, my body charged with adrenalin. The people who had exited the train doors on to the platform scurried in a panic towards the exits. The train sat painfully motionless. “Are we just going to sit here?” I thought to myself as images of the London terror attacks I had seen on TV some years previously played over in my minds eye, looping over again and again with the rhythm of the message still piping through the now empty platform. I cast my eyes about the carriage. I noted a couple of other uneasy faces but could not make any eye contact. The other passengers as usual sat stone faced. There seemed to be some kind of, “if we just ignore it, it will go away” mentality that my fellow passengers were clinging to. Maybe if we collectively pretend that this is not happening, it will just turn out to be a figment of our imaginations and we can return to the monotonous trundling of the train and screeching of the of the tracks as we each make our way home. The tension for me was becoming too great. My Australian sensibilities screaming to come forth, I looked around the carriage one more time, just to catch an eye, just for the chance of contact with another fellow human being, the chance to let one wry comment out, to get a little laugh, to take the edge off, to know I wasn’t alone. A woman across the way glanced up momentarily and I began to open my mouth, but at that very second the doors closed, the brakes of the train released and we moved off from the station. The recorded message, continued to loop as it faded quickly in to the distance. A sense of relief came over the carriage, we were going to live and more over we had gotten through the whole harrowing experience without acknowledging our collective terror or even each other’s existence. Phew, that was close!

One thing I can say for the busses in London is that they attract a different brand of commuter, that is they are a lot more vocal. The system is slow, and many routes impractical, but they do service those otherwise unreachable spots in London that the train lines forgot. The service is cheap and it costs only £19.60 for a weekly pass that can be used all over the network but this does not stop the all too frequent muttering, shouting and tantrum throwing aimed at the drivers who in my opinion all should be nominated for sainthood but others believe should be burned at the stake because they are “too f***ing slow”.

Honestly I cannot say whether I prefer the train or bus services, the major cost of the tube network is a big downer but the efficiency is unrivalled. It is rare to have delays and most of these occur over the weekends during planned track work. One sticking point though is the fact that tube services stop around 1am most days which seems a little early for one of the great metropolises of the world. I have been employing the bus services for the past six months in order to travel to work and have found it to be in general a much more relaxing experience, fettered only by a couple of pet hates; the amount of rubbish that people leave on the bus, the occasional and inexplicable diversion of the bus during a planned service and the fact that people insist on clogging up the lower level by piling in on top of each other instead of taking the vacant seats on the upper deck, though at the end of the day this usually means I can take my whole journey kicking back with two seats, reading my book, without some smelly maniac breathing down my neck the whole journey.

Taxis are without a doubt the final resort for transport one should consider when planning journey in London. There are two forms of taxi available for the everyday traveller; the famous London Black Cabs and the Minicab services, both as repugnant as each other in their own way. Black Cabs are clean, comfortable and available to hail on the street or book over the phone. The drivers are as a general rule amiable folk, polite and helpful, it is the cost of the journey that is for most either repellent or prohibitive. Rates are based on a combination of factors including the day of the week, time of day, distance covered and time taken to complete the journey with for example a trip between London Heathrow and the city centre cost between £45-85, a convenience afforded only by the wealthy and/or carefree. Minicabs on the other hand offer a much more affordable service. Fares are based on simple flat rates to cover a certain distance as agreed when booking the cab at the office or over the phone. These flat rates are usually then upped or argued by the driver throughout the journey as they feign being lost, the failure of their GPS or simply demand more cash due to the unjust low pricing or miscalculation of the fare by head office. On the plus side, each time you walk away from a ride in a Minicab apparently having just avoided being beaten or knifed by someone who could very well have doubled for Deniro in Taxi Driver, you do appreciate being alive a little more.

New to East Ham - Getting Acquainted with the Ghetto

moresbbb — Mon, 6 Jan 2014 08:37:00 GMT

If not for the usual high street signage like Sainsubry’s, Argos, Primark and the old Lloyd’s Bank spanning East Ham High Street, one would be forgiven for forgetting for a moment that they are in fact still in greater London, or even the UK for that matter. For the most part the stretch resembles a marketplace or bazaar. Shop frontages spill on to the streets, cheap colourful toys and knick knacks, knockoff phone cases, spruikers selling call cards, men with tables lined with bowls of fruit and vegetables calling to passers by “banana one pound, one bowl of bananas one pound! Tomatoes one pound!”... In fact one pound seems to be the going price for a lot of things in “The Ham” (as I affectionately dub this part of town). In no more than six hundred meters, there is nine Pound or 99p stores providing budget goods guaranteed to break on day of purchase. My best find to date in one of these shrines to the shameful misuse of the world’s resources was a battery powered shaver that noted on the packet “this product has been deemed unsafe for sale in California due to high levels of carcinogenic materials”. Not so appealing? Check out what the other stores have on offer… Other shopfronts do a mixed business. Combinations such as Internet café/phone shop/newsagent/Western Union/takeaway food/ fruit stall are not uncommon; your local one stop shop, granted you can find the guy who owns the particular sub business you would like to purchase from, or the Western Union people aren’t using the phone line that the newsagent needs to use to sell you your phone top-up voucher and you end up waiting half an hour and being late for work… but that is another story. Finally, and for the real bargain hunter, a small black market trade is also done along the strip with the fencing of stolen phones and bicycles, cheap Eastern European cigarettes and pirate Bollywood DVD’s. What more could you ask for!?

East Ham is part of the borough of Newham an enduring working class centre of East London, and despite being brought to the world stage in 2012 as the borough holding the majority of the London Olympic sites and Olympic stadium and despite even the vast amounts of money that were invested in to the area in the times leading up to the games, Newham still tops the tables as the lowest income area in London as well as one of the worst areas for child, poverty, unemployment, overcrowding and other housing issues. Notwithstanding the stats and the lingering smell of dope in the streets, and if one turns a blind eye to the knife disposal bins that advise the local hoodlums to “get a life, bin that knife” Newham does rate as only the tenth highest centre for crime in greater London and the general feeling on the streets is safe and communal. The nights are quiet and there are few people in the local pubs, partly due to the fact that no one has much spare cash to spend at the pub, but also, a lot of the locals just aren’t the drinking type.

While there are still remnants of the old white British dominated East London of days gone by like the St Georges flag flying patrons of the White Horse (a local watering hole favoured by the paler more shaved-headed folk of the area) East Ham and Newham as a whole seems to be a fine example of an ethnically diverse community working at its best. Sure people have their differences but there is rarely much bloodshed over it. The 2011 census shows Newham to be the most ethnically diverse centre in London, with large numbers of South Asian, Afro/Caribbean and Eastern European residents. This makes for an interesting, vibrant community. Green Street for example is the largest shopping centre of South Asians in London. On religious festivals such as Diwali the Hindu festival of the lights, the street is packed with revellers, families and friends and the celebrations go on in to the night. On this same strip, once every week or so the greatest community draw card for the borough is also played or plays!? the great West Ham football club. Trailers and pop up chippie and burger stands appear as if from nowhere, maroon and blue jerseys take over the field of vision as pub patrons flow over in to the streets to suck down a few pre game pints. The streets buzz with cockney banter while pies and mash and jellied eels are consumed in good old east end fashion. The united bloodthirsty cries of Newham locals can be heard from miles around.

All in all, I can’t complain about living in East Ham, While it is a little further from the centre of the city than I am used to, The Ham has a great community and much more to offer than first meets the eye. There is a true family vibe and many friendly and interesting people knocking about. While there is not much more for visitors in the area to do than wander about, take in the atmosphere and grab a good curry, it is worth checking out to see how those who haven’t yet secured that Thames River view apartment in Westminster actually live.

Photos: UK 2012-2014

moresbbb — Sun, 5 Jan 2014 09:20:00 GMT

A Prelude to Writing on the Subject of Life in London

moresbbb — Sun, 5 Jan 2014 09:03:00 GMT

Back in the nineties young people from Australia used to flock to London on the promise of earning good money (in ever strong British Pounds) which would then pay for the travel, adventures, parties and a series of hazy but satisfying remnants of memories built on booze, cheap cocaine, ecstasy and general debauchery. As a young Sydneysider it sounded like a dreamscape. The girls, the parties, Europe at your doorstep, cash flowing effortlessly in to ones open wallet, taps of ale flowing just as effortlessly down ones throat.

That was the nineties. This is now…

I will preface the following discourse on my experience to date of living in London with the following;

I am in the process of settling my differences with this city and am working on a more positive and balanced relationship. Come the end of 2014 London and I will part on amiable terms.

London is not a city that I slot comfortably in to place with. At the end of 2012, newly married with my wife Hilde, we moved sight unseen to East London to settle in our new home with my sister Jessie, her husband Mike and our angelic niece Flux. The move was not so much by choice but more by default on the back of a visa denial from the fairy tale snow-capped socialist dreamscape of Norway. We had met by chance a little over a year previous during a late night “nachspeil” (after party) at the club where Hilde was working in down town Oslo. I, in the following weeks pursued/harassed her until finally and somewhat reluctantly she fell for me. A year later we married in a move to cement our lives together… As it turned out our lives were cemented together on that lovely Norwegian summer day, and then unceremoniously dumped in to the North Sea.

Surfacing a short time later over the pond in the UK, we found ourselves coming to terms with a new and very different environment to cosy, slow paced, sedate Oslo.

London was for me as a newcomer vast, over-crowded, ugly and inhospitable. The first six months were difficult. Dragging myself out of bed each grey winter morning, heading out in to the cold and wet to share an over-crowded tube carriage with a group of equally disgruntled, mostly distant though at times aggressive suburban commuters. At work I would spend fourteen mostly stressful hours, five days a week busting my arse for about four pounds an hour, maximising profit for a boss whose redeeming qualities showed as often as he was sober and/or personable ie. never. The work situation coupled with problems finding people of like mind to socialize with and my wife’s unemployment meant that at the end of a working week after all the bills were paid and money set aside for food and travel, not only did we have just ten pounds extra to spend on “something nice” but also very few friends to share this treat and a bit downtime with. Levels of dissatisfaction with the way our new life in London was heading came to a head in May of last year when the wife and I sick of struggling took the last of our money and fled to China in order to to take some time off, reset and see if we could take another year or more if living in this unforgiving city.

I am now based on experience a firm believer that it takes a minimum six months to find your place in a new city. And if it doesn’t work in the first six months, take stock, take a break, come back, put some changes in to action and see how it treats you then.

Nowadays six months after our return from China I find myself much more at peace. Continually I grow closer to and more affectionate of the cluttered, colourful, charismatic cultural crush that is London. I feel now that I have come to terms with the fact this crazy town owns us for one more year… All drama aside, I do for the most part enjoy living here. But, falling in love with London, or more accurately, falling in to a tolerable state of symbiotic co-existence with London was not easy and was mostly dependent on finding that corner of the city where the brand of living and the pulse of the area and the people matched my own. I at least have found a home away from home, for now. The coming stories of the people, places and events of the last year will detail how I found and came to terms with my little slice of London…

Earth-Porn, Injury, and a Touch of Tibetan Hospitality

moresbbb — Thu, 30 May 2013 17:56:00 GMT

Heading north from Chengdu into the Tibetan Autonomous Region of China, signs direct traffic up a winding mountain road to the not so aptly named Jiuzhaigou “Scenic Area”. Frankly, passing off this extraordinary UNESCO world heritage, AAAAA rated, World Biosphere piece of earth-porn as a humble “scenic area” does not do it justice.

To my dismay, having spent only a matter of hours marvelling at the rivers, waterfalls and iridescent, sparkling jade blue lakes, I found myself riding out of the park in the back of the park ambulance. Sore, demoralised and tired, my wife with a badly swollen ankle that resembled a grapefruit with toes, and me with a sore back from piggybacking her out, we made our way back to our home for the coming days; Zhou Ma’s.

In the hills above the Shansi Zhai village, about a ten-minute drive from the gates of the national park, sits a traditional Tibetan home stay. On our return, Amma (Zhuo Ma’s mother) rose from where she had been chatting with a monk, and began to coo with gentle concern. Assessing the swollen ankle she produced a bottle of liquid tiger balm, gave a short demonstration of the appropriate massage technique, and sent us off to our room to tend to the injury.

Swinging open the carved wooden windows, afternoon sun and crisp high altitude air flowed in to the room. Dutifully I massaged, bandaged and elevated the swollen ankle. Outside I heard the creaking of stairs as someone climbed up to the first floor. I poked my head out the door as the monk we had briefly encountered downstairs sat himself in the chair by our open doorway and produced a long rectangular book from the satchel hanging over his shoulder. As I returned to the bed to sit by my wife, the deep throaty tones of Buddhist prayer reverberated from the hall. I cast my eyes over grassy hills and the scattered rooftops of the surrounding village to the mountain ranges beyond. Brightly coloured prayer flags flapped in the distance as the soft clucking of chickens, and the bleating of wandering mountain goats carried from the road outside. The dramas of the day started to melt away and I slipped off in to a deep, relaxing sleep.

The following days were spent wandering (or, in my wife’s case, hobbling) about the house in the company of Amma, and her son Ke Zhu. Whereas being grounded due to injury in a hotel or hostel can be downright depressing, here felt like home.

The house, built from flat stones in traditional Tibetan style, was two stories high, with an attic nestled under a pitched roof. Inside, the ground floor comprised of a bathroom, bedroom for the host family, lounge room and kitchen. Meals were served in the lounge room around a low, square wooden table. Wood panelling, painted in patterns of dark red, blue, green and gold encased the internal walls of the room. On one panel a mural depicting the tall white buildings and temples of Lhasa. Aromatic pine smoke drifted from a wood stove. Up stairs, the bedrooms, simple, sparsely furnished with firm Chinese style beds.

Outside a gravel road lead up to the house, piles of firewood neatly arranged by the side. Goats, sheep and the occasional yak wandered freely. A weathered wooden fence surrounded the property. Prayer flags spaned the eaves of the house. Opposite the front door a low fence encircled a small patch of young barley. Beehives, fashioned by hand from sections of tree trunk lined a wall carved in to the steep hillside opposite.

Amma dressed in a full-length skirt that hung just shy of her toes allowing glimpses of red cloth moccasins beneath. A long-sleeved shirt, white, with overlapping lapels held in place by a creamy leather belt studded with polished orange and turquois stones set in elaborate sliver studs. Large rings and bracelets adorned work worn hands. A hat fashioned from red material and white sheepskin sat over long thin black braids. Her aging face was defined by the wrinkles around her kind brown eyes. Outside she would feed the chicken and new born chicks, chase away a boisterous rooster, meticulously maintain the crop of barley and tend to the beehives. Inside she would prepare the daily meals and complete other small chores. In her spare time she took visits from family members and the local community, sit in the lounge room and discuss matters in her mother tongue.

Ke Zhu was his mother’s son, dressed in a casual western style, blue jeans, t-shirt and a cap, his smiley disposition obviously a genetic trait. In the morning he served breakfast. “Eggs!” he would announce, as the bleary eyed guests filed in to the lounge. Small plates each with two eggs over easy, fried in the wok would be handed around the table. “Tea!” would then be poured in to drinking bowls from a large ladle dipped in to a steaming kettle sitting over the wood fired oven. “Bread, yak butter and honey!” (all home made) would be placed in the centre of the table and consumed by hungry mouths. After breakfast, lunches of thick hearty barley bread filled with slices of lettuce, tomato and yak meat were distributed. Driving about in the family’s shiny 4WD he would facilitate the day’s activities, dropping off and picking up the guests, and arranging tickets for transport and events as they were requested. In the evening Amma and Ke Zhu would serve vegetables, yak meat and barley noodles, washed down with tea and a dark vinegary barley wine for dinner. They sat by the stove chatting with the guests, ensuring everybody’s glasses were topped and stomachs were filled.

By the end of our stay, due to a perhaps fortunate sprained ankle, the extra time we had to spend with Amma and Ke Zhu had allowed us to strike a rapport. We were privy to stories, photo albums, and that brand of kind concern that makes you feel truly welcome. But, as with all good travels the time came to leave. We hugged and thanked each other mutually for the stay and exchanged good wishes as my wife and I set off down the gravel road to catch the bus south to Songpan.

A Monk From the Future

moresbbb — Fri, 17 May 2013 19:38:00 GMT

As I sit in a vegetarian restaurant in the Tibetan district of Chengdu, chewing on particularly tasty chunk of imitation lamb, I observe a Tibetan monk on the table opposite, thumbing messages in to his smart phone with one hand, lips moving silently as he counts prayer beads with the other. He stops only momentarily to sip at his can of coke before he continues. I smile to myself as I marvel at the complex, dynamic melding of ancient and contemporary that is modern-day China.

In 2006 I spent six months living in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Provence studying Mandarin in an effort to reinspire my love of Traditional Chinese Medicine, which I had spent two years studying at the University of Technology in Sydney some years previously. Rooted in Taoist and Confucian philosophies, this unusual induction to the study of Chinese culture and practices (for a middle class white boy from Sydney’s North Shore) had painted a rosy, nostalgic picture of China in my minds eye. Unfortunately the curriculum had not closely examined important elements of recent history such as the Cultural Revolution and the plethora of other influences that contributed to the modernisation and birth of contemporary China. Although I was very much aware that China was a growing superpower with all the mod cons of any western country, I had to some degree still expected to walk off the plane and find aged men in flowing robes stroking wispy beards while they imparted words of ancient wisdom to my expectant ears… No such luck.

Now on my fourth visit to China, I know that I, as a western tourist, can observe the practice of ancient rituals and hear the rhythms of age-old mantras as they are chanted in renovated and re-built temples, surrounded by the majestic skyline of skyscrapers, after a woman behind a glass window imparts those few re-furbished-ancient-gate-opening words; “20 RMB entry”. Jaded somewhat?

Don’t get me wrong; I love China, for what it is. That is why I keep coming back here. I find it remarkable how this great nation can manage to cradle the stories, philosophies and practices of an age gone by under one arm while it relentlessly bores, builds and business deals it’s way in to the future with the other. This is truly a land of surprise and inspiration. In fact to my surprise, by the end of my visit in 2006 I had returned to Australia inspired not to get out the old herbs and acupuncture needles but instead to enter the world of business, but that is another story.

China leaves different impressions on different people, and for me each subsequent visit has had a distinctly different effect as I visit new cities and regions at different times. So far I am enjoying Chengdu and the impressions it is making on me and I am looking forward to the experiences that this visit to Sichuan will offer up in the coming weeks.

Anyway, before I get too carried away I have some fake lamb to finish, a temple to visit and a dwarf village to track down.

Finding Love in People's Park in the Time of Internet Dating

moresbbb — Mon, 6 May 2013 04:51:00 GMT

Among the frenzied ruckus of blaring music, ballroom dancing, opera singing, and endless chatter in Peoples Park Chengdu is found a network of paths intersecting through the trees. People young and old gather here and shuffle up and down the pathway looking for love… or at least a sensible solution to filling that vacant spot in their (or their eligible, unattached family members) lives. Chengdu’s marriage market is kind of like a low-tech Internet dating site. It consists of a series personal ads, A4 printouts laminated for longevity mounted on bamboo sticks lining the pathways. They detail the qualities of an assortment of local vacant hearts. Some carry photos, others descriptions of the suitors. One reads;

“Female, born Otcober 1979, height 163cm, weight 51kg, Master of Economics, Symmetrical facial features, dignified and generous, honest and kind-hearted, shows respect for family, behaves amiably, thoroughly reasonable, works in a bank, stable employment, owns an apartment.

Seeks man born between 1971-1979, over 168cm tall, not too thin, a degree from a recognised university, important that he shows a sense of responsibility, has a career and is someone who is optimistic and generally excellent.”

While attracting a partner with a piece of paper dangling from a stake containing your particulars as well as wishes and expectations for a life partner down at the local park may seem strange to a non Chinese, this practice is common place in China. Despite this method drawing the attention of fewer potential companions than a profile on an Internet dating site, it certainly has its charm in its quaintness. One could argue it has its advantages in that these notices should draw a good wholesome type, one who chooses to make their way down to the local park and be a part of the local community. Either way it is an ongoing tradition that seems to work. So next time you are in China seeking a life long love but your Internet is down, do it the old-fashioned way and head down to your local park, you never know your luck.

Photos: Chengdu, China

moresbbb — Mon, 6 May 2013 04:47:00 GMT

Chengdu 2013

A Moment in Meherabad

moresbbb — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 08:48:00 GMT

I sit, focus drawn upward, eyes fixed on the colourful pattern adorning the fabric that stretches over the roof of the giant marquee. A group of men sit on a small stage. Sliding, pounding hands produce a complex series of rhythmical syllables on tablas nestled against their crossed legs; the tones varying with the timbre of each drum and the manipulation of their masters’ hands. One man keys a harmonium as he pumps a meandering tune through the vibrating reeds of the organ, one long hypnotic exhalation after the other from within its’ bellows. The music floats out over the, parched semi-arid plains of Meherabad, Maharashtra.

It is day two of the festival Amartithi, the anniversary of guru Meher Babba’s death. The fields here, empty only days prior are now filled with countless marquees and market stalls. Tens of thousands have gathered, a cross section of race, religion and social backgrounds from around the world. It is late in the evening. I watch the endless cue that quietly shuffles toward the shrine and burial place of their guru, their god. In turn they kneel at the open doorway and lower their heads fervently to the foot of the shrine, muttering words I cannot hear.

I wander out from under the main tent and return to the man from whom I have bought my last two cups of chai. He smiles with recognition. A ‘Nestle’ coffee machine sits on a camping table. He places my cup under the machine. It spits forth fragrant chai. The scent of crushed cardamom pods, cinnamon and cloves carries from the blend he packed in to the machine earlier.

Inside the ashram the courtyard is dimly lit. A small crowd has gathered to partake in the music that has unfolded. The musicians are Iranian; Sufis. The men are dressed in long white robes; the women wear western style clothing and headscarfs. Two men beat large drums, hide stretched taught over large circular wooden frames. They shake them jingling a series of metal rings fastened to the insides. Another man plays a violin, as a man and woman stand central to the group exchanging a lyrical banter that brings cheers of affirmation from the crowd. People sit and clap in time. Again I am drawn in to the music, submerged in the atmosphere.

Soon it is early morning. I emerge into the surrounding fields to usher in the final day of the festival. I find an abandoned flat top building. There is no one around. I sit on the roof, taking in the waking day. I feel at peace. Caught in the moment.