Xmas in Beijing

How many Irishmen does it take to screw in a light hulb?
Four. One to hold the bulb and three to turn the ladder!

Old English “joke”

To be perfectly honest, I had all but forgotten that Christmas was on its way. Despite what the glitzy expatriate web sites were saying, I didn’t see Christmas trees and decorations everywhere (not living in the vicinity of Beijing’s Diplomatic area, which of course is the exception). And having lived for the past decade in the Middle East (the majority in Saudi Arabia where anything remotely resembling Christmas is banned by the religious authorities) I can’t say that it is something that I particularly miss.

So I was drawn up short the other day when I walked into a supermarket to the sound of 铃儿响叮当 (What Google Translate tells me is Jingle Bells!) – that age old Christmas ditty played by a Chinese girl band. It was wonderful for me to hear a brand new take on a very old song.

There were, of course, other clues if one kept one’s eyes and ears open, such as this homage to western visitors I discovered in the Hutong area outside a coffee shop.

Amazingly, I thought, it didn’t seem to have much of an effect dragging in the tourists by their thousands. Someone obviously went to a lot of trouble to make the foreign devils feel at home, and that’s all the thanks he got!

Other clues appeared in the most unlikely places. Over the entrance to an office block near the CCTV headquarters, a group of reindeer appeared to be having an identity crisis with Cinderella’s pumpkin carriage.

And walking in the Diplomatic area, instead of the usual "You wan sexy massage yes?" shouted out by the ladies of the night, one was accosted with "You wan sexy Cleesmars massage yes?"

In the shops, lest there was any stock left after the mad Christmas rush, the storekeepers obviously had covered all their bases by being a little ambiguous with which holiday they were actually celebrating – a wise move, since the Spring Holiday (a.k.a. Chinese New Year) falls in January this year.

In some of the touristy areas of Beijing, pretty young girls sporting red Santa hats were now trying to tempt passers by into their shops; and at times the sight of a chubby old man with a red hat and thick white beard was becoming as common as Colonel Sanders, another well known bearded man over here.

In the Diplomatic area, Santa obviously felt more at home, though times are obviously hard (perhaps it is the Eurozone crisis yet again?) as he had left the majority of his reindeer behind. I mean, not a red nose in sight!

The touristy markets, of course, are the exception that proves the rule. Gaudy decorations for Christmas are intermingled with gaudy decorations for the Spring Holiday, and I am sure that there will be many a piece of gaudy plastic left up throughout the whole of January.

Mind you, I haven’t yet seen any mistletoe for sale anywhere in Beijing (a woody stemmed parasitic plant with waxy white berries) – something that you will always find in Europe. According to ancient Christmas custom, a man and a woman who meet under the mistletoe are obliged to kiss and even now, no girl (or guy!) can refuse to be kissed under the mistletoe!

At work, Christmas finally arrived on the 20th December when four Chinese guys took a couple of hours to erect a not-very-big plastic Christmas tree in the entrance hall of our office, complete with flashing lights, tinsel and baubles. Given that the tree is only about 4-5ft tall, you might be forgiven for wondering how come it took so long for four people to set it up?

From what I could see in my various wanderings past the work site, there was heated debate of where to put the star. Should it go in the middle? Maybe there should be two stars – one on the right and one on the left? Another star was procured, from where is anyone’s guess. But someone then had the brilliant idea of putting the first star at the top of the tree. So what to do with the second star? Better put it under the first star, because then it looks “meant”.

As for the fairy lights, it didn’t take long for someone to work out that the nearest power point is used for the office microwave. So now we have a Christmas tree that is lit up in the morning, and lit up in the afternoon, but is strangely dark during lunch hours!

Not to be outdone, the apartment block – which actually belongs to the same company - decided that they too would install Christmas trees on all the floors in which expatriate workers live, but not on the Chinese-only floors, which seems a tad mean-spirited I think. The trees are erected just outside the lift doors and are a warming sight as one steps out of one’s apartment to face another day in this secular utopia.

Downstairs, by the entrance, someone has got hold of a ghastly giant Santa sticker that says “Merry” in big letters, leaving one to search for a tiny “Christmas” that is actually there if one has the patience to look for it!

These ghastly Santas have mushroomed everywhere in the past few days (someone obviously bought a job lot of them) where they sit incongruously in the company of Chinese lions, Pi Xiu and lanterns.

The Hilton Hotel, according to tradition, has one of the largest trees of Beijing’s hotels. It takes up the entire foyer area and whereas before there was ample seating for visitors waiting to meet people and sup a tea or coffee to fill the time, now they have to cram into a tiny corner – and probably miss the people they have come to meet who walk by on the other side of the tree.

Mind you, anyone who likes model railways can enjoy the big boys’ train set whizzing around the base of the tree. I counted 12 trains and seven stations, (although I have to admit I might have miscounted when one of Santa’s mini-skirted helpers walked by serving out coffee).

So “out of practice” as I most certainly am with Christmas festivities, it will make a pleasant change, I think, to experience a Chinese Christmas for the first time. The only question is – where on earth can one buy mistletoe in this town?

Gobbing for China

There was a young man from Darjeeling
Who travelled from Barking to Ealing
When it said on the door
Don't spit on the floor
He immediately spat on the ceiling!

Every nationality has its customs and taboos; and what is considered socially acceptable in one country may be shunned in another part of the world. Over the last six months I have come to like my Chinese hosts a lot; but one habit here that is guaranteed to upset practically every westerner without fail is their hosts' penchant for spitting in the street. As one hears the grrrrrrahhhhhh sound followed by their gobbing to the floor, westerners turn away in disgust.

I know, of course, that people spit all over Asia. From India to Indonesia, for instance, those who chew on betel leaf gob out their vile red saliva, staining the streets in the process. But the inhabitants of the Central Kingdom appear to have the greatest need to spit which they do at every available opportunity - women as well as men - and if you are of a more delicate disposition, your stomach will surely turn every time you set foot outside your front door.

Is it so necessary to spit? In Hong Kong, for instance, they have cracked down on this practice - especially in the metro, where notices are prominently displayed banning this foul habit.

Shanghai, too, is slowly getting the message.

But to suggest to a Beijinger that he should desist would be a total waste of time. It is his birthright, nay his duty no less to gob for the glory of China.

I have to remind myself that until around 70 years ago spitting was considered quite normal in Europe as well. But following a particularly bad outbreak of tuberculosis in the 1940s (which can be spread by spitting) the practice was banned in the UK by law, with a fixed penalty of £5 for those caught doing so. I well remember seeing "No Spitting" signs on the buses in London in the 1950s (and Défence de Cracher on the Paris Metro too).

Social attitudes towards spitting have changed greatly in Western Europe since the Middle Ages. A few centuries ago spitting in the street was as normal as tipping your chamber pot out of the window. Then, frequent spitting was part of everyday life, and at all levels of society it was thought ill-mannered to suck back saliva to avoid spitting. By the early 1700s, spitting had become seen as something which should be concealed, and by 1859 many viewed spitting on the floor or street as vulgar, especially in mixed company.

Spittoons were used openly during the 19th century to provide an acceptable outlet for spitters. Victorian cities apparently just stank - people vomited, urinated and spat in the street at will. Spittoons became far less common after the influenza epidemic of 1918, and their use has since virtually disappeared, though each justice of the Supreme Court of the United States continues to be provided with a personal cuspidor.

Now the "educated" public of Europe considers spitting in public a wholly obnoxious habit - a gruesome piece of anti-social behaviour. So it is one item of conversation over here that is guaranteed to get an identical response from all westerners. "How disgusting," they say. "Don't the Chinese know better than to behave like that?"

Even in America the general populace have been educated not to spit. Local bye-laws have been put in place across the country from west to east. "No person shall spit upon any sidewalk, street, highway, alley, the floor of any bus used for public transportation, theater, railway or public transportation depot or platform or the floor of any school house, church or public building of any kind," reads one such law in Virginia.

Sportsmen, of course, are a race apart. There's apparently some lout called Wayne Rooney who kicks a ball around a meadow or three for a living, and is famed for his disgusting behaviour. Tiger Woods, too, has been criticised for gobbing on the golf course. One the other hand, you will rarely see a rugby or cricket player spitting on the soil they are playing on. So why do soccer players do it all the time?

It got me wondering, though, what habits we Europeans have that upset the Chinese to the same degree. For 'as sure as eggs is eggs', I am sure we do some things that offend in equal measure

Juggling with destiny … or crashing the diplomats' party

It pays to have connections. I had nothing planned for Sunday night until I was asked if I would like to go see some Chinese acrobatics. The DRC – the body that runs the Diplomatic compounds around Beijing – had put out a general invitation to the diplomatic community to enjoy an evening of Chinese culture. As the seats were on a first-come-first-served basis and as I certainly looked foreign it would be easy enough for me to get in with no difficulty.

The brochure looked tempting enough. "The national acrobatic troupe with 60 years' accumulation of acrobatic arts, which has owned 45 gold medles in 57 years of wining awards, will inherit traditional acrobatic arts with more than 3000 years history, promot the quintessence of nation's art, show the top acrobatics in the world", it enticingly explained.

The venue for this grand gala was to be the Beijing Dongtu Theater; but try as I might I could find no mention on the internet of how to find this place. Another look at the brochure, however, showed a fuzzy picture of the Dongcheng District Library underneath some red and yellow writing praising the agility, balance and strength of the performers; so I decided that this was where I should be heading.

The library was easy to find – just 150 metres from a subway station, too, which made life a lot easier. And sure enough there were a number of Westerners wandering in through the front portals of this drab building.

Using a technique I had perfected when I was in Saudi Arabia, I stuck in close to a number of families and when asked if I had remembered to bring my invitation with me I just told the doorman that I was "with them", pointing in the general direction of about a dozen people ahead of me.

Now, having been to a couple of other theatres in Beijing where they take away your camera and even your bottle of water, I was surprised to see that here they practically insisted on not only giving you a bottle of water, but also chocolate biscuits and an Orion Pie - a kind of chocolatey-marshmallow-waggon-wheel type of biscuit. (Mind you they did later say no photography was allowed.)

Loaded down with my goodies, I quickly found an aisle seat, for it is a well known fact that Chinese theatres are not generous when it comes to the leg room department.

Well, they say there is no such thing as a free lunch – or even a free Orion Pie for that matter – so I was hardly surprised when we had to sit through a 10 minute presentation on how wonderful the DRC was and about their plans for the future. Interestingly, the presentation was in both English and Japanese, which must say something about the influence that the Japanese have in diplomatic circles.

Next up we were asked to give a big round of applause for the assembled dignitaries. I have to say that the Ambassador for East Timor looked especially fetching in her duffle coat; while the Ambassador of Bahrain looked from her figure as though she was already an ardent connoisseur of Orion Pies.

And then we were ready to begin.

Chinese acrobatics is said to have started during the Warring States Period two thousand years ago, though some claim it is four thousand years old on the basis of the mythical Yellow Emperor, Huangdi, having started a martial form of acrobatics at a victory celebration in Wuqiao some 300 km south of Beijing.

Acrobatics became refined during the Han Dynasty (221 BC-220 AD) by which time juggling, fire eating, knife swallowing and tight rope walking were regular features. In the Tang Dynasty (618-907), acrobatics received royal patronage with shows performed for the imperial court and soon spread to the gentry. But eventually, the performance arts lost favour in the Imperial court and most acrobats performed in the street.

During the end of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), it regained popularity with the Imperial Court and after the founding of the People's Republic in 1949, the art form gained further respectability. Following the policy of "Let a hundred flowers blossom and weed through the old to bring forth the new," there was a spectacular renaissance of the old acrobatic theatre. Troupes were created in each province and major city, and many were given their own theatres. The teaching was (and still is) done within the troupe, old performers training the new generation.

Nowadays more than 10,000 people are involved in the acrobatics industry across China. Children begin their training as young as four or five, spending the first two years learning the basic skills such as dancing and tumbling, before moving on to specialised roles.

So it was not surprising that in the first act there were four young girls, who can't have been more than about 10 or 12 years old, being thrown bodily between muscle-bound guys, who at the same time performed human towers and other acts of daring-do.

These girls were so flexible that they could bend and fold their bodies to a position where their feet clasped their face while wrapping other parts of their anatomy around bits that were never designed to be seen in that way.

The tempo, however, went decidedly downbeat after that when we had five minutes of some guy juggling. The problem is that everyone has seen this a thousand times over, so clever as it undoubtedly was, everyone was waiting for him to stop playing with his balls and make way for the next act – a collection of girls, wearing silly hats with feathers, who used ropes to throw diabolos high into the air while turning cartwheels and generally throwing themselves around before the diabolos followed Newton's law and were expertly caught by the girls, who would also juggle them between themselves and do other amazing things that you never imagined you could do with a diabolo. (Maybe I have led a protected life up until now!)

(BTW the secret of doing somersaults with a silly feather sticking out from the top of your head is to grab the feather in your mouth before you do the roll and then open your mouth as you land to accentuate the overall effect as the feather springs back into place!)

Next up was a group of girls who had perfected lying on their backs with their legs spread apart down to a fine art. They were bouncing umbrellas from their feet, turning them over and catching them with their toes and then throwing them to one another again from their feet. I'm sure it was awfully clever, but after they had done a number of variations of the same thing it was time to move on to something a bit more exciting.

Hoop diving - originally known as "Swallow Play" because the performers are supposed to imitate the movements of swallows as they jump through narrow rings piled upon one another – was next. The Chinese call it "Dashing Through Narrows" which just about sums up what it is all about. Dead clever stuff. You certainly would never see me bouncing off a springboard, doing a couple of mid-air somersaults and going feet-first through a bamboo ring. But then, I suppose, each one to his own….

Chinese acrobatics took a nose dive during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976); but it bounced back pretty soon afterwards as the government replaced the bureaucrats who were heading the troupes with senior leading acrobats, thus further encouraging their artistic development. When China eventually began to open up to the West in the 1980s, the acrobatic art form was packaged as a complete theme show.

Naturally, no acrobatic show would be complete without someone walking along a tightrope. Except the rope on this occasion wasn't tight, and it was more like a ribbon, but then who is quibbling? Rolling backwards and forwards on a monocycle was of course de rigueur as was doing a backwards somersault onto the 'wire'.

But it's a fine thing when everyone becomes so blasé, having seen it all before, that they get impatient for something a little different.

The next act seemed like a good way of reducing the traffic on Beijing's streets. The group bicycling act went down a real treat with ten girls cycling round the stage doing things that would have surely made the bikes' manufacturers cringe.

Cycling acrobatics were imported to China in the nineteenth century, but the Chinese have made it a specialty of their own. The most spectacular figure in a Chinese bicycle act is of course the "peacock" finale in which a large group of acrobats riding a single bicycle organize themselves in a tableau representing a peacock fanning its feathers. So eventually all ten girls ended up on one bicycle, as we just knew they would; but it didn't spoil the enjoyment as they tottered around the stage until the bike finally ran out of steam.

It appears that anyone can learn the art of acrobatics, given enough will and determination, if they apply to the Beijing International Art School, formerly known as the Beijing Acrobatic School - the largest secondary art school in China teaching circus arts, martial arts, dances and arts of other categories.

The acrobatic courses focus on such skills as flexibility, tumbling and handstanding, following which students learn to master advanced skills such as controlling their bodies, aerial techniques, tightrope walking, hoops, cycling, bowl/cup balancing, poles, equilibrium, contortion, pyramids ... in fact just about anything you can find in a modern circus. Most acrobats practise Qi gong, the Chinese breathing and mental art which helps focus attention, and the body and mind to work in harmony, or so they claim.

Graduates of the school have won over 20 'golds' from international circus festivals, and have performed in over 50 countries. Many students from the Americas and Europe have graduated from the School and became professional performers.

Not that you would ever catch me even thinking of subjecting myself to such torture! For starters, the Acrobatic Major has six days of study every week, including four days of speciality training and two days of academic study. You start each day at 6.30 doing an hour of exercises. Classes are from 8:30am - 12pm, and 2:30pm - 5pm, and again from 6:30pm - 8:30pm. And all for a mere US$5,000 a year. OMG! The Chinese surely put masochism into a league of its own!

Suddenly the whole show was over bar the shouting. It had lasted just an hour in total and it was clear that the performers – as they made their way back out onto the stage – were pretty well knackered. One would have felt quite a heel demanding an encore.

Instead, depending on nationality, the audience made a rapid bee-line towards the exit as the performers carried on waving to a fast emptying hall. The Americans led the charge, followed by the German contingent, while the rest of us carried on with the applause since there was no possible danger of missing the last train.

It seems a tough way of making a living, but as they say, I suppose someone has to do it. One thing's for sure, though; I'll never again complain about the physical demands of my job, or the hours worked… until perhaps the next time that is!

“I love talking about nothing. It is the only thing I know anything about.” (Oscar Wilde)

I don't know if you have ever had one of those moments when your response to being asked if you could do someone a favour is: "The answer's Yes! Now, what's the question?"?

Your favourite blogger had just such a moment a couple of weeks back when out of the blue he was asked if he would be willing to give a lecture to some students at Beijing's Renmin University. Now, I know this will totally faze some of my best friends, who won't believe this for a moment knowing the shy and retiring sort of person I am; but I have to admit to being one of those guys who just loves the sound of his own voice. (Yes, yes I know. Incredible, but true!)

So before I even knew what it was they wanted me to talk about, I heard myself saying "Yes of course; I'd be delighted" – or words to that effect.

Naturally I assumed they wouldn't be expecting the lecture to be in Chinese. And I was right on that score. What I hadn't been expecting, though, was that they would be wanting to hear my loquacious tones for a full three hours… and more!

It appears they knew I had been in the BBC for more years than I cared to remember. Would I talk about the independence of the BBC and how the BBC earned its enviable reputation over the years?

A simple request, of course; but for three hours? I mean I could say what I wanted to say about the BBC's independence in – what? – five minutes? How was I going to fill the remaining 2 hours and 55 minutes?

They wanted me to deliver the speech in two weeks' time. And the killer: because my "day job" was from 1330 to 2300, they could "squeeze me in" at 8 o'clock in the morning, "which would give me plenty of time to get in to work before the allotted hour".

8 o'clock? That would mean that if I had to be there by, say 7.45, I'd need to leave home at around 6.45 just to make sure I wasn't late. … which meant getting up at 5.45 …. Oh Lord! What had I got myself into?

Too late to worry about that now. I feverishly set about seeing what Mr Google's henchmen could dig out for me in the way of FACTS.

I look up Wikipedia; I search the BBC's web site; I trawl YouTube (through a proxy server, of course); I find web sites set up by geeks and web sites set up by radio amateurs; pictures of car stickers and of QSLs, not to mention transmitter masts and defunct pieces of studio equipment. And before long it is no more a case of how am I going to fill the time, but what on earth can I possibly cut to allow me to squeeze in everything I want to say.

The fortnight's preparation is pure bliss; going down memory lane; revelling in nostalgia (though I still maintain that nostalgia just isn't what it used to be). And finally the big day approaches. I decide to have an early night and set my alarm clock to 5.45 just in case.

But what happens if I sleep through my alarm? Or the dratted thing fails to go off (it has been known for me to set the alarm to a pm setting rather than am, you might be surprised to hear).

So I set another alarm to 5.40 and climb into bed; and worry that even with two alarms set to wake me up, I might keep on sleeping through them at such an ungodly hour. So just for good measure I set a third alarm to 5.30 which will allow me to hit the snooze button and then not be so fast asleep that I don't hear the following two alarms.

I wake up at 5.25.

Outside it is pitch black. Outside it is also minus five degrees. I crawl into the shower and soak under a jet of hot water deciding what shirt I can wear for maximum impact. My blue, turquoise and black one today I think.

I wrap up really well and creep out into the freezing night air and make my way to the subway station to catch one of the first trains of the day. Of course, this being Beijing, there are absolutely no seats to be had (despite the early hour) until three stations before I have to get out.

Any lesser mortal might have thought the obvious station to go to is the one for Renmin University (on Line 4).

 

But not being of the lesser mortal brigade, I take it upon myself to find out where the school of journalism is located. "To the right of the west gate" I am told in an eMail, seeking to confirm that I haven't forgotten my appointment, nor that I am thinking of doing a runner.

A quick check of my trusty Beijing map, courtesy of my Samsung Galaxy Tab confirms that the western gate is actually nearer another station on Line 10 – the same line that I am already travelling on,

 

which in some ways is a pity as it means I won't be going past one of my favourite Pi Yas located within spitting distance of Renmin Uni station.

But to make up for it, Renmin Universty itself has a lovely pair of Pi Xiu right in front of its Admin block and I snap away at the cute beasties in order to add them to my web site..

 

Renmin University, otherwise known as the People's University of China (中国人民大学 or Zhōngguó Rénmín Dàxué), was officially established in 1950, the first national university of the People's Republic. Its predecessor, established in 1937 during the Second Sino-Japanese War, was Shan Bei Public School (陕北公学), and this accounts for the 1937 date prominently displayed around the campus.

Naturally I find I have arrived half an hour too early, but this gives me plenty of time to wander around the place and get my bearings. The large map at the entrance, alas, does not prove to be that useful to me as I stupidly forgot to look up the Chinese for Journalism School. But having been told that it is located to the right of the West gate I head off in that direction.

There's no sign of anything remotely looking like a journalism school, but instead I get to see some of the 22 other schools, 13 research institutes and the graduate school.

They say that one of the university's most famous quirks is something called The English Corner where, every Friday evening, people gather at the Qiushi Garden near the east gate to practise their English.

It being only 7.30 in the morning I am surprised to find a group of students shivering in the morning cold, shouting out lines from a play in English. Perhaps they are getting themselves ready for an evening performance?

Just a little further on there is another group warming up for the day with a spot of Tai Chi. Don't you think anybody normal would just stay in bed for an extra half hour rather than face the bitter cold that has been gripping Beijing for the past two weeks?

 

The campus itself, though, is quite charming. With ponds and trees and sitting areas, someone has gone to quite a bit of trouble to make the place welcoming and attractive.

 

They even seem to have taken a leaf out of the Beijing Olympics area with their "witty" notices…

… but I fear that yet again Google Translate has let them down somewhat. (I worry that Mr Google's translation machine has a lot to answer for in this country!)

Wikipedia tells me this area is a good place to "meet and communicate with the students of the university and the common people of China"; but there aren't that many common people around at this early hour, let alone any of the "1,165 international students, many of them from South Korea". (In fact there are apparently so many South Korean students that the International Students Dining Room has a separate Korean menu aside from the traditional Chinese one.)

Renmin University is a popular destination for visiting foreign dignitaries too. During his state visit to China in January 2008, the then-British Prime Minister Gordon Brown visited Renmin with Premier Wen Jiabao to talk with students, scholars, sportsmen and entrepreneurs. Thank God I arrived in Beijing 30 months too late. What a dreadful thought to have bumped into that Scottish moron. I pity the Chinese students who were probably hand picked to feign politeness to old Gordie.

I am awoken from my reveries as I walk past a sculpture of immaculately dressed students hanging onto every utterance of their wise old lecturer; and for a moment I imagine myself pronouncing to the masses from my vast store of locked up wisdom…

 

But the dream soon fades back again into reality as I mentally clock up another lamppost to add to my database of the world's best lampposts.

 

Time marches on, though; and with no sign of a journalism school anywhere remotely near the right of the western gate, I am glad that I have already agreed to be met by a student who goes by the name of Da Wei.

I've hardly had time to text him that I have arrived before I am greeted by a smiling face and escorted from the west gate in a leftwards direction. The School of Journalism is ahead of us, but we veer off into another building, walk up two flights of stairs and find our way to Room 307 immediately opposite the communal loos.

Amazingly my little laptop works straight away when plugged into the A-V system of Room 307 and I am told how cute my bright orange loudspeakers look protruding out from behind my red PC.

The students stifle yawns as they drift in to find a seat and I feel positively sorry for them – to think I am responsible for disturbing their beauty sleep. But I guess if it hadn't been me, they would still have had to haul themselves out of bed to listen to somebody else. Amazingly they are smiling; all 25-30 of them; and they continue to smile, even when I open my mouth and they realise they have to cope with an English accent, rather than an American drawl that Chinese have been brought up to believe is the "real English".

 

I tell them about Marconi. I play them an extract of Jeremy Paxman bullying Michael Howard; I play them an extract of Robin Day bullying Sir John Nott. I play them extracts of Maggie Thatcher being bullied by a common person whose name she forgets; of Dame Nellie Melba (still clutching her handbag as she warbles), of Radio Normandie, of 2MT, of Lord Haw Haw, of Caroline and 270 and Big L and Veronica; of Capital and LBC, and of course of the Empire and General Forces and World Services.

And before I know it my three hours are up before I have even got to the end of my beloved PowerPoint Presentation.

But they want me to go on. They demand that I go on. I am not to be allowed to stop.

I continue spouting forth, filling the room with pithy insight into the independence of the BBC. I answer their questions.

They want more.

I tell them about being arrested in Saudi Arabia after broadcasting on Saudi TV.

They still want more.

I tell them about smellavision, about foldable video screens, about thought transference experiments.

Finally the dinner bell goes; I am already into my fourth hour of performance. But these are students through and through. Food beckons. Finally the dulcet tones of your favourite blogger start to lose their appeal when weighed up against the thought of lunch.

These are Chinese students, though, through and through. No rushing off the way British students would undoubtedly have done. They clap, they thank me (while looking at their watches) and edge out of the room leaving behind a hard core of half a dozen who have obviously been hand picked to ensure that I am able to find my way off the campus.

But first I must pose for the obligatory photographs with the professor who has originally invited me.

I tell the hard core six that I will be unlikely to lose my way over the 150 metre walk in a straight line to the west gate; and bless their cotton socks you can see the cogs turning over in their brains that on the one hand this foreign devil probably speaks the truth, but on the other hand they were volunteered to escort me out. But reason finally prevails. They don't want to find their portion of chow has been dolloped out to someone less deserving, and as I accelerate my pace to put distance between me and them, they wave goodbye and turn on their heels toward the canteen block.

On the sports track, a whole load of students are already warming themselves up for a marathon afternoon session of study as I slope off to the subway station and head for home. It's been a good morning. I've decided I like Renmin University and I like its students.

Being single on 11.11.11 is not all it's cracked up to be

Last month I met a Chinese lady who, it turns out, is 28 years old. (Let's call her 'Miss E' for the sake of anonymity in this blog.) I have met Miss E on only three occasions all told, together with two or three eMails on a work-related topic travelling back and forth over the ether. Each time we talk, one of the main topics of "conversation", apart from work, has been her asking me if I knew of any single guys who were looking for a girlfriend. Perhaps nothing unusual in that, except she told me it was imperative that she finds someone – anyone – before the second week of November.

Why the hurry, I ask her. You're still young; your biological time-clock still has plenty of shelf life; what's the big deal? OK, so I'm still relatively new to China – you can tell. Otherwise I would be all clued up as to that special date in the singles' calendar – 11th November. Singles Day. 光棍节 – guāng gùn jié.

The name of the 'festival', for want of a better word, can roughly be translated as 'bare branch' – a tree with no leaves representing a person with no better (?) half. And for many, this is regarded as a single day of shame for singles. Certainly my new acquaintance was mortified that at 28 years old, she was already 'on the shelf', likely to spend the rest of her life as a lonely old maid – or so her parents would have her believe.

This year, having six '1's in the date – 11/11/11 - is likely to see a larger-than-usual 'celebration' – Super Singles Day, as some are calling it. Not, as some might suggest, a day of fun and friendship, but in reality, a day of pity, emptiness and a search for romance.

The symbolism of the six lonely 1's needs no further explanation. Pity the millions of poor bare branches who are forced to receive Singles Day cards from their paired-up friends, attend Singles Day dances with hundreds of other desperate love-seekers or listen to their parents, for the umpteenth time, telling them that it is high time they found a partner.

It is said that Singles Day was started down south in Nanjing by some single college students around 15 years ago. Tradition has it that you eat four fried dough sticks to represent the four ones, and one steamed bun to represent the dot in 11.11 and all being well you might just be lucky enough not to be celebrating Singles Day next year. Presumably, then, our single friends will need to eat six dough sticks and two steamed buns this year, (and hope that it doesn't go straight to their hips?).

While relatively obscure in most other countries, Singles Day is likely to increase in prominence as more single men in China are unable to find female partners. According to a recent study by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, more than 24 million Chinese men could find themselves without spouses by 2020; whilst the Beijing Statistics Bureau estimates that there are already 104 men for every 100 women in the capital. The number of one-person households in China has gone up a staggering 29% in the last five years alone. The one child policy and the tendencies of many couples to prefer to have a boy rather than a girl haven't helped matters here either; and it's instructive to note that there have recently been a number of discussion programmes on state-run CCTV about the negative impacts of this one child policy.

In an online survey, 35 percent of respondents said the main reason why people are single in Beijing is the narrow social networks they are able to build up. With education being viewed so highly (something that many westerners could learn from?) the pursuit of academic advancement comes at a cost; and with many dormitory rooms having eight or more pupils in one suite, it is not conducive to having one's soul mate round for the night.

Similarly, dating in restaurants can be expensive. And this is just one of the reasons that on any night of the year you will see couples sitting together – sometimes shivering together – on park benches as they build a virtual protective wall around their common oneness. As one commentator noted: "Western couples drink and dance together. But in China, we study together."

Of course, there are two sides to every coin; and profitable business opportunities seem to be everywhere around this time. Indeed, if anything, this holiday proves to be a fine example of modern day 'capitalist' China. All sorts of featured gifts for Singles Day have swept the internet shopping stores, such as T-shirts with the characters 不孤独 (I'm not lonely) printed on them. Taobao, China's largest online retail platform, reported a transaction volume of 900 million yuan during last year's 'Singles Day' promotion and many more online shops have joined the campaign this year.

There is also Beijing's first 'love supermarket' (爱情超市) in Xi Zhi Men where singles can pay 99 RMB to hang their photo on a wall for other singles to view, along with vital statistics such as age, salary, occupation, hometown and height – all of which must be verified.

Trawling the Internet, almost every click on 11/11/11 takes you to a dating site, one of which - http://www.jiayuan.com/ - boasts over 26 million users, and holds an annual party for singles with an entry price of 111 RMB.

Of course, some actually do strike lucky on this day. And some actually hold their wedding on November 11th because the four (or six) '1's of the date can also be read as 'you are my special one' or 'you are the only one for me'. In fact, in Hong Kong the date is special for lovey-dovey couples, as the two elevens are spelled out as one by one, side by side. (I wonder if this year's six ones means that someone is going to be saddled with an interfering mother in law as well?)

We all know, however, that the grass is always greener on the other side. Which probably explains why Singles Day is not only applicable to single people, but for married people too. Some couples choose to divorce on this day and turn back to being single. In fact in a recent survey, some 70 per cent of married office workers in the capital said that they miss their single days. The online survey, which was conducted during a two-week period among 1,000 office workers from Beijing and 2,000 white-collar workers from other big cities, shows that nearly 58 percent of married respondents miss being single, a fifth of these saying they miss the old days frequently.

As Wikipedia wryly points out, Romeo and Juliet dated, but it did not end well!

I was somewhat taken aback, though, when I read in a newspaper report that was headlined 'Ten famous single men in history' that third position was taken by Queen Elizabeth 1st, and 7th place was held by Jane Austen. This might have explained why they remained single all their lives. I think someone might have told them, don't you?

Mind you, if you think that finding love is difficult in China, consider what a guy in the Nyangatom region of Ethiopia has to go through. First, he has to build his own house, store lots of tobacco and dry coffee leaves for the girl's parents and have a large number of cows and goats. Disaster if he falls for a girl from a wealthy family as the dowry given to her parents can be worth between 200 to 500 cows, about 1,000 sheep or goats, five camels and three rifles. Huh! These Chinese kids don't know they're born!

In modern times, it would seem that no matter what your status, happiness always appears to lie on the other side.

Meanwhile if anybody knows of any guy going spare, please let me know and I will pass on his details to Miss E. Just so long as he has personality, wit and charm; a modicum of money in the bank; and he isn't likely to do a runner at the first mention of the word marriage!

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Judge Not Others Lest Ye Be Judged Yourself!

The invitation came unexpectedly out of the blue. Would I, your favourite blogger, care to participate as a judge in the forthcoming New Media New Future contest that is to be held in a month's time? Being a man of the world, maybe I know a thing or three about new media, Web 2.0, SNS and the like?

It sounds like fun, but being (relatively) new in China I wonder if the powers that be appreciate the fact that my Mandarin runs only as far as buying vegetables in the market and telling the taxi driver how to get me home.

No worries, I am told; the proceedings will be in English. I will be one of six judges of whom three will be Chinese, one American and another Brit. Well what do I have to lose? I sign up on the dotted line straight away.

What are the rules? What do I have to judge? We'll tell you about that nearer the time, I am told. I try to contain my excitement as the big day approaches.

Meanwhile I discover the contest is the offspring of China Daily's web site with a plethora of sponsors, not least the BBC who are taking an active role.

The day before the competition I go for a briefing in the China Daily offices where I meet my fellow judges. One of them is Raymond Li – the Head of the BBC's Chinese section who has flown in from London. Although he joined the Corporation three years after I left the Beeb, we find we have a number of mutual friends. As they say, once a Beeb man, always a Beeb man.

The "New Media, New Future" contest, the first English speaking competition to test participants' perception and operation of new media platforms in China, will provide the top three contestants with a free trip to study at the BBC in London and the Missouri School of Journalism in the US.

Come the next day my alarm goes off at the ungodly hour of 6am. 6am I ask you! I didn't know such a time exists until today. Outside it is still murkily dark as I stagger to the bathroom for a hot shower (actually I just love cold showers, but being the masochist I am, I always have a hot shower instead!).

Out comes my smart grey suit from the wardrobe, brought over in case I ever need to present myself in a respectable light. A double-cuffed black shirt with a stunning red and black tie complete the ensemble and I feel the very essence of suave sophistication as I set off for the University of International Business and Economics, where we are due to meet at 7.30.

The campus is easy to find…

… being right across the road from China Daily's main offices…

… but I am glad we are to meet up at the west gate as I wonder if I would ever be able to identify the right building to go to.

Inside the hall they are putting the finishing touches to the set. It looks like a game show on a TV channel, which in a way is exactly what it is.

The entire proceedings are to be broadcast live over CNLive mobile TV and on the Twitter-like micro blog site Sina Weibo. The equipment in use is the rival of any TV network's.

Excitement is at fever pitch. Tweats – or to be more precise – Weibos are filling the ether with live reports and pictures…

and the entire show is being hosted by two presenters who chatter away in a mix of Chinese and English, bouncing off one another in professional fashion.

All in all there are 30 contestants who have been whittled down from more than 2,000 students from nearly 100 universities and high schools across China, including Peking University, Sun Yat-Sen University and the high school affiliated to Renmin University.

Although they are being judged individually, they have been paired up into teams of five and given the task of working as a team where teamwork is as much a necessity as individual skills.

At the end of each team presentation, we judges have the opportunity to lay into the students with pithy questions designed to ferret out the good from the bad, the brilliant from the no-hopers, the quirky from the straight-down-the-middle.

Should I act the part of a Simon Cowell, I ask myself? But I guess I am too much Mr Nice Guy and instead I try to come up with a pithy, intelligent-sounding question or three.

One major problem that none of us judges has thought about is the fact that it is already feeling like winter. But this being China, it is not yet officially switch-on-central-heating date yet (that's two weeks away, I gather). So the hall is icy; and despite the fact we are all wearing warm(ish) clothes, the combination of starting at 7.30, it being freezing cold and the fact that there are no breaks for the first four hours means that I am not the only one who is DESPERATE for a pee by around 10am, as I shiver to try to keep myself warm.

Our shivering is noted by the organisers (bless their cotton socks) who arrange for cups of hot coffee to be smuggled over to each of us. A lovely thought, but I am now in even more of a quandary. Do I warm up with coffee and feel my bladder complaining even more? Or do I carry on shivering and put up with my bladder complaining for another two hours?

Luckily the proceedings break into a spot of Chinese, and I grab the opportunity to climb over the judge beside me and make a dash up the aisle to the loo outside the hall. Oh… BLISS!!!

On my return I find I have started a trend as some of the others make a similar bee-line up the aisle. Finally we can enjoy the warm coffee and the next two hours fairly whiz by.

At midday there is an hour's break for lunch and we all traipse over to the university canteen. Despite the fact it is a Sunday, the place is almost overflowing with students. What on earth is it like on weekdays I ask myself.

We grab a tin tray and have tepid meat balls, rice, green veg and a pear dunked onto it together with a pair of metal chopsticks. I wonder if the army's catering corps is making a little extra money on the side.

The afternoon session runs through at an even faster pace and suddenly the competition itself is all but over as our mark sheets are collected and we make polite conversation while the marks are totted up.

I knock back a can of Red Bull to give my energies a boost and grab a couple of bites of chocolate – a rarity for me in China. And then the prize winners are announced as Yang Chunya, Managing Editor-in-Chief of China Daily Website, together with some other good-and-great make appropriate speeches to honour the occasion.

Each of us judges is asked to present some of the certificates and goody bags that each contestant receives, and we then all pose for a group photo.

As the event draws to a close, I have a bevy of – mainly female – contestants come up to me asking to have their photograph taken with me. I reckon it must be a combination of my stunning red-black tie and my British accent that is such a babe magnet. One of the girls even asks if I would like to attend a performance of Peking Opera at her college. Shame that I am (almost) old enough to be their grandfather!

To end the day in style, we are taken to a celebratory meal in a hotpot restaurant close to the university campus.

The meal is lovely and with a liberal amount of Baijiu (白酒), or "white liquor," flowing, the proceedings are lively to say the least. Now, Baijiu is a clear drink usually distilled from sorghum, and is normally around 80 to 120 proof, or 40-60% alcohol by volume.

At the table are nine Chinese who are determined to have some fun with these foreign devils and hardly a five minute interval passes before someone is making yet another toast. Little do they know that I am good at holding my liquor! (But little does your favourite blogger know that Baiju is lethal stuff!)

By the time I have finished off my fifth wine-glass I can feel the first indications that the time has come to call a halt to knocking back the clear liquid. I carry on with the toasts, drinking tea and I doubt anyone notices, as most have gone way past the point of no return long ago.

Eventually it is time to draw to a close and as I wander out into the cold night air, having made my fond farewells to all and sundry, I suddenly feel as if I have been smashed in the face. I also notice that during the time we have been inside enjoying the meal, someone mean and nasty has altered the curb of the pavement.

As it is quite dark, I have difficulty seeing the actual pavement itself and miss my footing a couple of times as I step onto where there should have been pavement, but which that mean and nasty person has actually removed.

My head feels as if it is about to explode, but I manfully stroll along the main road in a slightly circuitous route and safely make it back home before…

… I wake up at around 2am still in my smart suit sprawled across the bed. My head is pounding and I am so thirsty I stagger to the fridge and grab a bottle of ice cold water which I down in seconds.

I spend the night drinking water and feeling sorry for myself. By the time that dratted 6am comes around once more I am just nodding off to sleep when my alarm that I forgot to switch off yesterday wakes me up with a shrill blast.

I throw it across the room and bury my head once more into my pillow. But time waits for no man, and eventually I stagger out of bed to the kitchen, make a strong coffee and a large plate of porridge and dowse myself under the hot shower before being able to face another day.

Who on earth was it who said Judge not others, lest you be judged yourself!? I will know for next time. I may now be one day older, but I reckon I am certainly the wiser for it.