Honey Walk

Unfortunately, I had to cancel this year's Easter egg hunt. I always thought that it would be a hide and seek game with the eggs. But now I learned that it is really called "egg hunt". Imagine the sound of horns in far, dogs running though the woods, horses, gunfire - and this time we are after eggs. Sounds a bit like Monty Phython to me. But anyway since I am in Beijing, the whole world sounds like Monty Phython. So why not that one also?  Not sure, whether it is also a comedy, that North Korea declared yesterday to be in "state of war" with South Korea. Kim Jong Un, commonly known here as "Prince Fatty", is quite a clown though. Let's hope it is just another of his jokes, and we just don't get his humor.

Yesterday I had a nice walk with friends in the mountains West of the Great Nation's Capital. Still a bit overrun, because it is too easy to reach. But it was good to be above the smog for a while. Passed bye a honey farm. The peach trees are not blossoming yet, but was told that end of May the honey here is best. Not really organic. Amazing the bees don't die in the cocktail of smog and pesticides. Must be a special breed. Unrefined honey is said to be good for the immune system. These bees at least must have a "super immune system". So, this honey must be really good. I tried. It's sweet. And yes, it is unrefined. It really is.

If you like to go along the trails, you can download the GPS track by clicking here (in GPX-Format).

Winter and spring in one day

Winter and spring are wrestling with each other these days in Beijing. This morning, surprisingly, winter was back with 15 cm of snow which fell over night. Then in the afternoon, spring was again on top. The walk to the office felt like a Christmas walk, even now we are already coming to the end of March.​

Commencement

Yesterday was their day. The first 14 students of the Tongji-Mannheim EMBA graduated, and proudly received their degrees handed over by the Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany and high ranking faculty of Tongi and Mannheim University. Now our young programme has the first alumni. And this core is going to grow quickly. I have been with this programme from its moment of birth until the first Commencement now and it became an initiative close to my heart, but empowered by the brain. We are getting quite some recognition now, not just on a University level, but also by major corporations. As a very unique alternative to "American Style" EMBAs we have even been covered on a channel of the Chinese Central Television yesterday. It is a diverse and academically rigorous English taught programme made and delivered in Germany and China. It was often described yesterday as a bridge connecting the two economic epicenters in Asia and Europe. But it is of course not about Nations, but about minds and people coming together. My congratulations to the graduates, all the best to the current students, welcome to the newly enrolled participants and thanks to all those who made this happen and support it. I am personally looking forward to contribute on the academic and management side, as much as my schedule allows it. Our "alumni management system", might be simple so far, but it is effective: for example you can just give me a call.

Letter to a small lady

I knew it. Some children are not stupid. Yesterday, I had a conversation with a young lady which started to compile her own little "constitution". She was given a set of Golden Rules by her teacher, but there were major points she did not agree being valid for her. She wanted to define her own rules. But as the topic is complicated and she acknowledged not to have seen much yet, she decided to issue a tender to friends and family and request their proposals. I was really buffed by this approach. And of course, I decided to submit my contribution. I remember reading Earl of Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield's Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming in Man of the World and a Gentleman. But they were written in the years 1753 and 1754 and I was wondering for a  whether today, in the world of Hello Kitty, it is still appropriate to talk seriously to a child. I still decided to give it a try. She requested me to put down a set of Golden Rules for her, preferably also things which she does not want to learn the hard way. And I really had to laugh when I heard that. Proposals should be not longer than one page A4 by today's deadline. So, this is what I wrote.

​Rules for a small lady

1. Your purpose is defined by you; not by society, family, and teachers.
2. Thinking is free and without borders. The driving force is curiosity. Expression is part of thinking. There are no taboos of thought. Stay away from ideologies, superstition and religions.
3. Ask questions. The truth is the assumption that has the highest explanatory power. Never lie. Know what you talk about, but don’t always say all you know.
4. Your freedom may expand as large, as it does not limit the freedom of others. This includes your freedom of speech.
5. Independence enables your freedom of choice, and defines the size of your world. Only depend on those you trust. Have the means and abilities to defend your independence.
6. Be trustworthy but don’t trust easily.
7. You are responsible for yourself and for those whom you made trusting you.
8. The smallest unit of society is the individual. You have the freedom of choice of your community. You have the duty to contribute to society. The human dignity is untouchable. You have the duty to defend anybody against repression, injustice, exploitation, violence and environmental degradation.
9. Do not take full advantage.
10. Manners are important to interface with your community and a symbol of your own dignity. Be graceful. Never be a sucker. Never know the underdressed.
11. You can choose freely who you respect. Do not obey orders without questioning them. Seniority, formal positions, rank, and power are not principles that you have to follow.
12. Health is the foundation of your life. Do exercise and sleep as much as you need.  Walk on foot every distance under 2 km. Do not use escalators or elevators. Never eat things that grandma would not have recognized as food. Also don't eat things where you can't pronounce the ingredients without hesitation. Avoid restaurants, in which you don’t know the cook.
13. Take your time. Do things right. It is better to be effective than efficient. Low efficiency makes hectic, high efficiency makes stupid.
14. Money is a resource enabling to do things and not the other way round. Don’t sell your life for no purpose. Do not waste resources, no matter whose they are.

Going 33 km on one charge - no range anxiety

We constantly have discussions, which is the best way to move in Beijing. Quickly the topic comes to electric scooters or e-bikes, which are becoming more and more popular. And then comes the question, everybody answers differently: "How far can you go with one charge?"

Today, I did not talk about it. I did it. I went out to drain my bike to the last electron. It is a hybrid, which can be driven fully electric or as a supported bicycle - a so-called "Pedelec". The advantage to a scooter is, that you can extend range by pushing into the pedals and also, should the battery be really empty once, you can at least still get home. The manufacturer does not give information on the battery capacity or the power of the engine. Just the salesman said something like 25 km. So I expected this to be Chinese 25 km, which then should equal about, let's say 12 km.

I started with a full charge of the about 6 months old lithium ion battery and rode off into the haze through the Hutongs of Beijing, passing Tianamen Square and back to Dongzhimen.

Me, my clothes and water bottle made 90 kg payload. There was not much wind and temperature was around 20 Degree Celsius (that defines the battery capacity, which is lower at low temperatures). The route taken was quite flat and speed was sometimes limited by the traffic. As a result, the range was a surprising 33.2 km on electric drive. Then the engine suddenly fainted and I only had to make a few hundred meters on a conventional bicycle. Looking at the GPS track below (red line in the map), there is one outlier in the measurement which goes up to 120 km/h, which is of course an error. You can go quite continously at around 20 km/h and the average moving speed is with 13 km/h about what you can make with a car in Beijing. Quite good. Impressed.

Smiling at the grim Beijing

​Morning view out of the kitchen window. It is a reasonably clear day and everybody and everything alive is awaiting spring, which is on its way. A short transition to summer.

Little journey to the West

One advantage of Beijing is, that you can easily get out. The Megcity has mountains in the North and West, which mark a sharp boundary between 1950s style coal power plants and a beautiful natural landscape. You might want to avoid tourist destinations, but still use public transport. And actually, this is quite well possible.   

For example take the subway to Ping Guo Yuan (=Apple Garden, but don't be confused when you don't see any apple tree). It is the last stop of Line 1 in the West. Then walk 300 meters further West, until you see the bus stop for line 892. The bus service starts at 7:00 o'clock in the morning and runs very frequently. Stay on the bus for about 2 hours and get off at at the Fa Cheng bus stop, at N40 00.113 E115 47.949. This is a good starting point for a hike over the mountains and the decent to Jian Yuntai (N39 56.132 E115 51.110), for the bus 929 back to Ping Guo Yan station. The whole hike will take you around 7 hours. The last bus at Jian Juntai leaves at 17:40. If you miss that, you are (!) in trouble, as this is just a remote village which has no (!) other transportation.

The route gives a beautiful outlook over the mountains. There are nearly no people up there. The villagers do not grow nuts or fruits like in other rural regions around Beijing. Still the terraces along the slopes witness an agricultural past here.   The trails are just kept open by a few hikers per year and you need a thorn proof jacket. Strictly stay on the trails, which are occasionally steep and going along fringes. Hikers here use 435.000 MHz and  437.900 MHz. 

For your GPS you may download the trail by clicking here in gpx-format. 

You have mail?

I am lucky that I have a brilliant service at hand: the China Post. I have rarely seen anything as efficient, reliable and cheap. Try to buy stamps for the price of an iPad. You can send mail for the rest of your days. Sure, the lady behind the counter never smiles. But she brings anything on the way. And if there is no way, she will find one. Then she will still not smile. Smiling costs extra. She has a big heart, so why having a big smile?

My private mail is not going over an electronic "server". It is on paper, addressed with a real location and cleared with stamps. It goes though the hands of real people like the lady behind the counter. It will land on a parking space in the morning where it will be thrown on different piles for local delivery. At any weather. In will be in trains, on Jinbeis and on bicycles, and it will reach you (mostly). Of course I need to know your real address to write to you. But that's what real people have, don't they?

Vive la tristesse (Watch out for the other side of the street)

The one day when the wind started to blow from the North-West is over. Now Beijing is again under South-Westerly slow wind pushing air pollution in the basin. It is a sad picture: can't see far, people vomit on the street and others wearing face masks. Looked at the energy mix of China today. No surprise. Chinese were often fighting for the "right to pollute", as if more pollution would mean more "development". Remembering well the Chinese delegation to the Copenhagen Climate Summit, where they literally were "pissing everybody off" with their arrogance. Not that not also other cities in the developed world were polluted. But treating pollution as a must to become wealthy is a bit missing the point. Nice that copying is a core competence. But must not copy also the mistakes, right? At least not the very obvious ones.

Perhaps I am just a decadent capitalist, who is a bourgeois wimp. Breathing might be even counter-revolutionary. Sorry, if it is. Please then take me just as one of these silly foreigners who does not understand Chinese "Culture". But when I leave the door, it takes me a few moments of holding breath, not to throw up. Everybody moves slowly. Only a few still do exercise. Face masks are sold out. All you can now order online are fake cotton masks which have only the effect of keeping your nose warm.

I guess, when the Chinese New Year is coming it will be possible to cut down emissions finally, as many will leave the city to go home. Perhaps also the wind will fresh up and change direction. Many Chinese cities now have been set targets to achieve PM 2.5 targets of 35. Sounds like utopia, as now we are constantly around 500. The worst time was 700-1000. It might be just a Communist style target again, like being 99.9% being one opinion, or 100% forgetting June 4th, 1989. Wondering why for a while authoritarian regimes have been seen as the ones who "get things done" and contrasting Western democracies as "debating clubs". Right now here, they can not even operate the restrictions of a normal Smog-Alarm. Not even to talk about implementing the rules which they already have. Congratulations for achieving what you asked for in Copenhagen. Enjoy.

The solution for pollution is dillusion

Last night I came out of a movie theater in Chaoyang District and could barely pierce through the smog to see the other side of the street. Breathing was literally painful, my eyes were itchy and it was hard not to cough. It has been like this for more than a week now in Beijing. Even in Chinese wording this was called "hazardous". While I walked through the stuck traffic back home, with no taxi to jump on, I suddenly noticed that I can not see the next building ahead, but I actually can see the stars when I raise my head. The smog was just a very shallow layer above the ground. Just a little bit of wind and it would be gone. Then around midnight the mosquito shatters outside the window started rattling in a breeze. With this I fell asleep and knew, when I wake up, the sky will be blue again. Finally!

Tasting the air of Beijing

As development comes first, and China took the path of making itself the World's Factory, it also turned itself into the world's trash can. Last week the result was a smog layer covering large parts of the country's East. Most monitoring stations went off the scales, and you could actually taste the air instead of smelling it. Environmental laws are strict in China, but there is not much implementation. 

Beijing's three core virtues are corruption, pollution and congestion. And all three have something to do with each other. Living is not cheap in Beijing, but life is. This is a very stable atmosphere to trap emissions and a large incentive to cover things in a foggy environment. Air pollution in Beijing is not a meteorological problem.

Sunday in the Temple of the Earth

It is a quiet Sunday afternoon in Beijing. Temperatures now rise above zero during the day. But the air pollution does not encourage to go out these days. Still in the Temple of the Earth Park, Beijing life keeps going, like it always does - no matter what.

My 47th Birthday

Today I turned 47 years old. I have changed slightly since the photo below was taken in 1966 in Germany. This is the only picture of me being naked on the Internet (I hope). Unfortunately, I caught a fever today. But recovered over a Beijing Duck, Black Forest Cake and Bordeaux wine in the evening. How much more of a East-West and cultural fusion can it be? Great!

Last chance to see

Currently I am thinking about categories and the structure of a new photo website, which presumably comes life in mid 2013. It will be running parallel to this blog, but with a specialized dedication to photography. One of the categories I set up already has the title "Last chance to see", and is of course inspired by the book of Douglas Adams having the same name.

I was re-insured that it is good to take pictures of things, scenes and people which might disappear. So much does in Mainland China, but also elsewhere. On January 1st I opened the South China Morning Post and read, that from that day trawler fishing in Hong Kong waters is banned. This is for good reason, as it depletes the fish population, is indiscriminate and damages the seabed. But still I will miss the trawlers, which for me have been such a typical sight in Hong Kong. For years I watched them passing bye my window when I looked up from my desk, and I got used to the deep sound of their diesel engines. They were often a good object for a photo and I was not aware that when I take them, I record an endangered species of boat and profession.

On the fast ferry from Hong Kong to Macao on December 29th, I still saw many passing the outer island Cheung Chau. At that moment, I was not aware, that this was another "last chance to see".

Table manners revisited

When I was taught table manners as a child, I learned that I should never cut potatoes with a knife. Manners make a lot of sense as they make life in a society more enjoyable for everybody. Though I never understood my social contribution by not cutting potatoes, until I was told that old cuttlery knifes corroded when they were exposed to the starch in a potato. This made sense, because of course nobody wants to put extra work on anybody cleaning oxidized blades. Strangely, I never questioned this rule until now. 

The photo below shows a high carbon steel knife of the manufacturer OPINEL. These knifes are very sharp and corrode by just looking at them. So, such a knife is the ideal object to test to impact of potato starch. The knife you see on the picture has been stuck in a potato after dinner for a whole night. Before that the knife was cleaned from all oils or other additives which could have protected it from rusting. But no sign of corrosion at all. Ergo, the origin of this rule stays a mystery for me.

Christmas Walk

At night the mercury drops down to minus 20 Degrees Celsius. The days are clear and already 50 kilometers North of Beijing the sky turns blue. In this area chestnuts are grown and this is the only connection point with Christmas in Beijing. Christmas is of course not a Chinese festival, and it is here about on the same spiritual level than Helloween. But some people wish each other Merry Christmas in Beijing, and sometimes even take it as an opportunity to be a little bit less rude to each other. That's nice.

The region around the Shuyiyuan Dafoshan Area is nice for a Christmas walk. The trails lead through the villages and chestnut plantations and in the North West you have a very nice view on some sections of the Great Wall. You will not see any tourists here and the only people you meet are local farmers. The trail marked on the map below is about 12 km long. It is a bit tricky to find, but if you want to follow it by yourself I can send you the GPX file which is tracking a route (to use it you will need a real GPS, not a smart phone).

Nine Years in China

Where ever I stay in the rest of my life, I will always feel homesick to China. Now I have been here for nine years. It is a vast country, nearly a continent of its own, reaching from Central Asia to the Pacific. My China is not about the Megacities and becoming rich. My China is about the hidden corners and the things we might have the last chance to see in this rapidly developing country. And the deeper I go, the more there is to explore. One day, I will leave. And I know this time is coming. And I might go it even by foot. I will walk away from the cities, the cars, the factories and all these things which are increasingly shaping and changing the country. But I never walk away from my memories, and neither from my China of the hidden corners, nor from my friends and the people I love. Also I will not go to "my country". Because I have no country. I never carried a flag, neither on my rucksack, nor in my heart. I just know places - many of them. And there are many more to come.

White surprise again

The year of 2012 is slowly coming to an end. As always a lot of things have to be finished before people go on holidays, so except the (dreadful) decoration there is not much to remind me, that Christmas is coming and the old year ending. But today snow flakes came and put some icing on the city of Beijing. This is the sure reminder: another year has passed nearly.

Immortal Valley

The Immortal Valley Loop is a very nice hiking route which brings you up to a peak of 800 meters, overlooking the North-Eastern reservoirs of Beijing, as well as the mountains around. It takes about 4 hours walking to return to the starting point. 

The route contains a few steep sections which are equipped with metal staircases. At this season the waterfalls, are frozen into amazing sculptures of ice. Amazing in overview and detail.

Jeju (South Korea)

The first time I heard about Jeju was about 10 years ago, when I saw an advert in The Economist to invest in the self governed Pacific island province of South Korea. I remember there was a map showing how good it is located and which places you can reach in a radius of three flight hours. And  there were ambitious plans to develop it into a "Second Hong Kong". Today Jeju is a very nice weekend escape for me from Beijing. It is a self governed province of South Korea and also Nationals of the People's Republic of China can enter on a landing visa. First I thought then there is the chance that the island might have already deteriorated into a "Chinese Mallorca". But not at all. Most Chinese travel companions coming from Beijing, strait went to the Casino and the shopping malls and do rarely appear in the rest of the island, except in the form f a few tour busses which are easy to be spotted from far and avoided. 

The island itself is very pretty and mainly shaped by Mount Hallas, a very picturesque shield volcano and many other volcanic structures. The sea is clear and has some nice dark sanded volcanic beaches. All together the island is a very good destination for hiking, swimming, cycling, or just to get away to a quiet place. Historically, Jeju received unfortunate fame for the 1948 massacre, and the violent confrontations with communist insurgence. The society has been shaken, by troops and paramilitary units killing men and forcing the widows to marry the murderers of their husbands, so that they take legal ownership of the land.

Jeju also has a University and a Science Park and it makes a very good diaspora for example to finish up some writing in a nice environment. I have not made further plans yet, but I keep the option in mind for now.