Diary entries

Well they asked us to write a paper diary here, and have just persuaded us to type them up. Mine isn't exactly exciting reading, but in case you want to read it, I've posted it on a different blog here: http://freeman-notes.blogspot.com/
Hope you are keeping well!

Photos

Well I've finally managed to get some of my friend here Jake's photos to post up, here you are, hope you enjoy!

You can see the pictures in more detail by clicking on 'all sizes' on the Flickr page.

So sorry about the lack of posts but its so hard to get on the computer here as theres always a big queue and I dont have any time! Maybe I should start getting up in the middle of the night to use it or something. Hope you are all well, peace!


mountain
Originally uploaded by tim_free_man

outside house
Originally uploaded by tim_free_man

P7160065
Originally uploaded by tim_free_man

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Originally uploaded by tim_free_man

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Originally uploaded by tim_free_man

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Originally uploaded by tim_free_man

Nature Education Camp

Really sorry for not writing, I have basically zero free time now, plus the internet here has been broken, but the work here is good fun. I've been doing it for a couple of weeks or so now. Apparently they decided to completely change my placement without telling me anything about it, but luckily it's been for the best. I was originally going to teach English and design websites, and now I'm in a team of volunteers organising a 'Nature Education Camp' for Beijing schoolchildren, many of whom are children of migrant workers. It's good to be out in the countryside and get to meet real rural Chinese people, who stare at me a lot, but then talk friendly-sounding slang and give me enormous spiky cucumbers to eat.

The kids are brilliant, as kids generally are, and the other volunteers are also really cool: mostly from China, two from Hong Kong and two from the US to keep me sane. Most can speak reasonable English which is really lucky in terms of getting things done, though the language barrier makes it hard for us to attend the hugely long meetings, a mixed blessing. As with volunteering in Sri Lanka, it's pretty disorganised at times but the good spirit always holds things together. My camera broke on the day I arrived in Beijing so I unfortunately don't have any photos to post, and can't even post the ones I took before, until get them transferred to CD. Should be able to nab some other peoples' at some point though. They're also making a video of the camp so that will probably be the best way to remember it all.

So the computer is not reliable and I don't have that much time but if I haven't spoken to you in a while please do call me on Skype, (or if you don't have a headset use Jajah http://www.jajah.com/) for about 1p a minute: it's +8613263286675673 , and 9-10:30 is the best time, that's 2-3:30 British time. Hope to hear from you.

P.S. I added three numbers before the last digit so that computers can't get my number by browsing the internet and send me spam texts. Ciao for now!

Currently listening to: Gabriel Teodros and the Blue Scholars. Bookah!

Here

Hello all, apologies to some of you who have been wondering if I was still alive. Perfectionism can mean I take a while to get started on things: I had to lower my quality control standards in order to get something down, so forgive me if it's not the masterpiece you were expecting!

So er.. I've been here for a while now. I flew into Hong Kong on the 21st and met my good friend Justin at the airport, before taking the snappily-named "TurboJet SeaExpress" over to Macau. It was like a small artificial island of supercasinos in the mediterranean, but with a lot of Chinese people and characters, written ones. They looked a bit out of place, especially when inhabiting decrepid Portugese colonial buildings. We met up with the Baha'is, and it was quite incredible to be on the other side of the world, with a load of total strangers, and yet again find them to be some of the most radiantly and actively altruistic people I've met. We stayed with some friends of Justin's, a very kind middle-aged couple who basically adopted us as their children for three days: taking us out around the island, providing us with beds, food and a lot of accumulated wisdom on Chinese culture and society.. it's come in very handy so far.

On Monday we went back over to Hong Kong. What struck me first was the almost absolute spotlessless - if I'd dropped something, I'm sure a cleaner would have appeared out of the wall, run up and caught it before it hit the floor. On the trains, next to the giant billboards there are signs surrounded by hearts which say "show you have a loving heart: offer your seat to others who need it". I began my old favourite pasttime of people-watching: the perfectly efficient metro system was full of the sound of Cantonese chit-chat and laughter, and although obviously in a rush, the people had a) a pint-sized portion of British-style inscrutability and b) a real Buddhist-style serenity, which I've never seen in a city before. I think it was one of the few cities where I could possibly feel at home.

We got the 27-hour train up to Beijing last Thursday/Friday, in the 'posh people and businessmen' class but it was really good fun - everyone was really open and talkative, and forgiving of my poor spoken Chinese. We made friends with a couple of software engineers, and on arrival they led us through Beijing's sprawling sea of people and shouting taxi drivers to book a hotel for us, for which we were quite thankful.

Bejing looked like a giant mesh of motorways, with industrial-sized buildings in between and a thick grey smog overhead, but I guess it wasn't the most beautiful part. Absolutely nobody could speak English there, and we had some fun trying to order something edible from the enormous menu, of which we could only understand the characters for 'meat', 'rice' and 'with'. We then split up to meet our different AIESEC host committees (AIESEC is the student-run exchange-type organisation which set up our work placements) and hung out with them for a few days which was cool.

Argh I don't have any time left. Will come back ASAP with my activities of the last few days!