Don’t know what to say really except that it’s damned hard to photograph. Neither words nor images (sorry) convey the grandeur, the mystery or the importance of this structure (or, more correctly, series of structures) and its setting.

It was a beautiful day and the crowds were manageable. We went to the Mutianyu access which is supposed to be a bit prettier but an extra half hour on the bus.

That’s all – here is The Wall.

Thinking about going to Beijing on National Day was the first mistake. The second was actually doing it.

China holds about a third of the world’s population and most of them travel somewhere during the ‘National Day’ week (the anniversary of the founding of the ‘new China” in 1949). I think most of them went to Beijing this year – the place was crawling with people eager to set foot (or at least lay eyes) on things of significance, like The Forbidden City, Tian’anmen Square, the Heaven Temple, and the Great Wall.  Of course that was my aim too.

Photographs are sometimes inadequate when it comes to illustrating the sheer scale of a city like Beijing and the multitudes that gather there on these occasions. Needless to say it was an extraordinary sight and a humbling experience to be part of such crowds and the remarkable organisation that kept people moving and, dare I say it, under control.

It’s impossible, also, to describe a city of 20 million after being there for only three days – “it’s big” is about all I can come up with right now. The thing that really surprised me, though, was how clean the air was – whether that was just good luck or something conjured up for the cameras I don’t know, but it was a spectacular few days weather-wise.

Here’s some pics – the best I could do with all the senses being bombarded at once.

In a week I will have been in China for two months. In some ways it feels like the time has flown by, in other ways it’s like I’ve been here for a lot longer.

And as I’ve settled in and (almost) got used to people spitting on restaurant floors, eating boiled eggs with 15-day-old chick foetuses inside them, and teaching their kids to piss and shit in rubbish bins, I’ve been able to be a bit more observant about what’s going on around me in a more philosophical sense. The classroom has given me quite a bit of insight into the education system here (it’s a joke) and the town I’m in has given me an appreciation of provincial Jiangsu cuisine (it’s terrible), but for more cerebral matters I’ve been doing a bit of reading.

I recently finished a very entertaining and thought-provoking book called “China Underground” by an American chap who goes by the name of Zachary Mexico (it’s a pseudonym, for reasons which become clear when you read the book). It uses a series of characters and situations he encountered while studying here to discuss or expose some of the more baffling, idiotic, and downright dangerous aspects of Chinese life.

I’ve also been following a few blogs by other laowai (foreigners) in China, particularly one by an Australian called Geoff who seems to be able to explain things in my language (ho ho) or at least ask the same questions as I’ve been asking myself. He also writes bloody well. Geoff recently expounded on the Chinese concept of “face”, something which is very hard to pin down and very easy to ride roughshod over, especially for bull-at-the-gate antipodeans who are used to ‘just getting on with it’. His piece is here – check out some of his other posts as well, they’re really interesting and often reflect precisely what I’ve been experiencing myself in this rather bewildering country.

So, nearly half way there. I wonder what else I’ll learn?

Tired and worn out. Back any day – meantime, here’s me at The Wall.

Went for a ride around the immediate neighbourhood the other day. Every building you see in these photos (except the school and the stadium) is empty. It’s going on on a massive scale all over China, just unbelievable development – impossible to illustrate, let alone explain. I have read that there are about 64.5 million empty apartments and houses in urban areas of the country – look out the bus window anywhere and you won’t go 100 metres without seeing huge cranes and diggers and trucks either beside the road or away in the distance, or both. (Edit – there’s a really interesting SBS piece on the topic here)

Every now and again a class or two – or, like this morning, the entire grade – is summoned to the courtyard in front of the classroom block, lined up, and taken for a military-style jog around the school. The teachers blow whistles and bark instructions and there’s call-and-answer but I don’t know what they’re saying.

Somehow they assemble 1,700 students and start jogging within a couple of minutes. It’s exactly what you’d expect to see in China really.

Had a long weekend so did the tourist thing in Nanjing for 24 hours. It’s a bit different from the old backstreets.

First stop, the Massacre Museum – a memorial to the 300,000 folk wiped out by Japanese invaders in 1937. This is the reason you don’t see many Toyotas or Mazdas on the streets around here. It’s sobering, but to be honest the main attraction for me was the rather un-Chinese architecture and the peaceful haven from the madness outside.

Next port of call, some gaudy riverside market that was recommended as a must-see. The only thing I enjoyed seeing was the exit sign.

The town centre is like any modern city in the world – clothing labels, Starbucks, modern metro, glitzy malls with resident pianists … But one thing they do really well here is plant trees, and the city is peppered with little parks and leafy streets. It really is quite a pretty town.

The first pic is the Xuyi bus station, the last is through the bus window leaving Nanjing.

Now that I’m mobile again I jumped on my bike yesterday and spent about five hours riding around town getting a whole bunch of stuff done.

I got 100 colour business cards printed for $3, had my favourite shoes re-soled and heeled for $6, ate a huge bowl of pork wonton soup for $1, bought a really good shifting spanner and a substantial pair of pliers for $6 the pair, and found a ding-ding bell and front and rear flashing LED lights for my bike for $8.

Big spend-up!

The foreign teachers were asked to attend the school assembly on Friday morning.

So 5,000 students, 400 teachers and a handful of dignataries piled in to the neighbouring basketball stadium, used because there’s nowhere to accommodate that number here at Xin Ma. Of course it was all in the local lingo so it didn’t mean a lot to us other than that one of the Chinese teachers assigned to look after us, Vicky, was awarded a prize for her ‘hard work and good results’. Her gift was a Soybean Duvet.

Following the pricipal, Stanley, and a couple of others, the founder of the school, Daniel, spoke for a bit and then handed over to his fellow investor Livingstone. Livingstone proceeded to tell the students a very animated story about achievement and the power of hard work and all that stuff. His powers of oratory, however, got lost along the way somewhere and the assembled mass was unusually unruly when he was still orating an hour later.

There’s always something interesting, or not, going on in China.

Decided to test my foot today and take one out of the four classes I have scheduled. Apart from fumbling with the data projector for several minutes without success it went pretty well.

This was a class that was inexplicably cancelled last week so it was ‘intro and names’ for them. That is, introduce myself and give them names. English names. They’re all desperate to have one so the class is quite fun, and by the end of it they’ve either chosen from a list or found something on a map that they think might suit (“Brunei”!). The big, burly boy at the back must’ve been looking at the wrong list, so I rubbed out the ‘e’ and replaced it with an ‘s’.

Ross. Much better.