Chinese authorities nervous about parade

Maybe the Chinese were right to be uneasy about plans to hold Beijing's first St Patrick's Day parade. Even I felt a little uncomfortable about all the diddly-aye music and the jigging girls with their hair in ringlets in the middle of China's capital.
Public gatherings have never been encouraged here and the prospect of a mass procession down the city's main pedestrianised shopping street - Wangfujing Lu - caused a minor panic among officials.
The Irish embassy was warned that there should be no more than 200 people at the first annual green fest, but in the end, there were several times this number. There must have been at least 200 young, frowning police officers rushing around trying to impose some kind of order on proceedings.
In the end, our Minister of European Affairs, Dick Roche, led what must have been the briefest march in the history of Paddy's Day parades. [Surely he should have been in Brussels or seat of the current EU Presidency, Llubljana.]
The short procession strolled about 150 yards from The Foreign Langauges Bookstore to the Oriental Plaza, before doing a loop, retracing its steps and calling it a day.
I found myself escaping through the human cordon where I took many a pic of our 'European' Minister smiling gamely while talking through gritted teeth.
I couldn't very well skip back out of the parade at that stage, so I joined the lads from Christian Brothers College, Cork, and acted the langer so nobody suspected a thing.
The lads from Cork must have been pleased to hear they'd be spending a week in the heart of 'The People's Republic', although some were surely surprised to find that didn't mean St Patrick's Street.
Just because the parade was kept short, didn't mean that the festivities would be curtailed. There was Oirish dancing and trad music blaring out of speakers as bemused Chinese shoppers wondered how their Sunday shopping spree had been hijacked by girls in velvet emerald dresses and boisterous lads in leprechaun hats.
Meanwhile, things were a little different on the streets of Tibet where Lhasa was under lockdown. But we won't ruin our fun by mentioning such awkward political issues - or so said Minister Roche when quizzed by RTE...

All is 'calm' in Tibet

Chinese State TV is reporting that all is 'calm' in Tibet after violence on Friday.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world media seems to think the place is in chaos with over 100 people dead, according to CNN.
However, stories about Tibet on CNN, Reuters, MSNBC and other internet sites are blocked at the moment.
On CNN, half the homepage is invisible, presumably because it mentions Tibet in the headline.
The connection drops when you try to access their Video section. Same story with Reuters. It's fine unless you click on stories about Tibetan violence.
If there really are to be protests about Tibet, Taiwan, Darfur and Lord knows what else at the Olympics, we can expect a total media blackout.

He's lovin' it!

I've just been watching a rater bizarre kids TV game show (there was nothing but 'good news' on CCTV9).
It featured dozens of children dressed in McDonald's t-shirts throwing balls into boxes marked with McD's giant golden arch.
The presenters were holding McDonald's clipboards and the studio was decorated in the company's logo.
In a country preparing for the Olympics, it's ironic that this period will more likely be recorded as China's transformation to a fast-food nation than for its sporting prowess.
Is it any wonder that people are flocking to McDonalds and KFC when Beijing's sporting heroes can be seen on billboards advertising deep fried chicken sandwiches and Coke?
110m hurdler, Liu Xiang, is one of China's best hopes of Olympic glory this year but his reputation was dented following his sponsorship by a tobacco firm.
Olympic medalists don't smoke. But they don't eat Big Macs either - so why is there no outcry over the blatant marketing ploys by fast food companies? Given how tightly China controls the media (see above), regulating junk food advertising to children is something they could do without facing the old 'Nanny State' criticism.
The rate of obesity in China has increased by 97% in 10 years, according to a government report.
The British Medical Journal says that about one fifth of the one billion overweight or obese people in the world are Chinese. As they rapidly catch up with the West on the economic front, they seem to be following in our footsteps when it comes to calorie intake.
Surveys of school children showed that the prevalence of overweight and obesity in children aged 7-18 years increased 28 times and obesity increased four times between 1985 and 2000. Boys are worst affected and things have surely gotten worse since then.
However, since I arrived in Beijing last summer, free outdoor gyms have been springing up across the city. The public loves them - especially older people.
But if kids are staying in watching TV screens covered in McDonald's logos, Beijing might be a good place to open a Big 'n' Tall. Or a stomach stapling clinic. Or a Weight Watchers.
I haven't got it all figure out just yet, but I know there's a business opportunity here somewhere...

Smoking like a Beijing chimney

I'm off the wagon.
Having kicked the habit in March 2004, I'm back to smoking passively again. Sigh. Wheeze.
Earlier this month, students tried to con me into believing that smoking was banned in public places in China.
Their argument went that it has long been prohibited to smoke in bars, restaurants, and universities - it's just that nobody obeys the law.
I bought into their logic on the basis that the police enforce laws in a random, spur-of-the-moment kind of way, and most regulations can routinely be ignored.
I saw people smoking in a hospital waiting room yesterday: smoking and spitting, spitting and smoking; even though there are signs up suggesting that neither are a great idea. These signs are all for show.
In Beijing's bars, you can get a flashback to pre-smoking-ban Ireland - complete with poor visibility and the 'smelly clothes' after effect. Indeed, to drink in a pub here is to journey back well before March 2004. The ventilation systems in the older haunts around here are pre-1980s. And by that I mean simply that they have doors and windows.
Similarly, walking down the street inhaling throatfuls of smog harks bag to the days before smoky coal was banned in Dublin. My favourite nugget of information - strictly from a Fascinating Fact, perspective - is that traffic cops in China have a life expectancy of 43. Forty fricking three. Imagine trying to get life insurance.
All things considered, Beijing is not a great place to bring your lungs.
However, all is about to change because recently (four hours ago, to be precise), it was announced that hotel rooms and taxis will be smoke-free for the Olympics.
Add to that the ongoing efforts to curb industrial pollution and halve the number of cars on the road in August, and my straining lungs have a lot to look forward to.
Whether enforcement remains an issue will become clear in May when the law is enacted.
However, the fines begin at 50Yuan (€5) - less than the price of 20 cigarattes in Ireland.

'My Chinese Hospital Hell'

Well, not really. I just enjoy racy headlines.
In truth, my trip to a Chinese hospital was not remotely hellish. If anything, I was pleasantly surprised by the standards of hygiene imposed by the staff.
Given that my own dear grandmother is carrying MRSA around a Dublin hospital as I write (get well soon Nana), it struck my how often everyone washes their hands. And there are sinks everywhere.
Even the cashier has a sink beside her desk and I witnessed admin staff routinely scrubbing their mitts every time they left the room.
Alas, the patients have yet to follow the good example set by staff. Standing in a queue waiting to hand over 84Yuan, the woozy-looking woman in front of me cleared her throat forcefully and spat a thick phlegmy spit onto the floor. Moments later, a teenage girl casually hacked up as she headed down a corridor. Delightful. Some Chinese people spit all day every day, but surely they could give it a rest in hospitals.
As usual, I was quite the talking point among the locals, who listened carefully as I told the clerk what I wanted to have done. Nor were my fellow patients shy about craning their necks around the door frame to observe my consultation with the doctor.
There are too many people in China for me to bother expecting confidentiality, so it's a good job I wasn't there for a syphilis test.
I was in hospital to have my cholesterol checked - much to the amusement of the medic who more or less suggested it was ridiculous for one so skinny to be so worried.
I had the same thing done in Ireland publicly and privately in the past 18 months and it took longer to be seen, cost more (if you include the GP referral) and the results weren't in for a month.
I'm getting my results from Tsinghua University Hospital tomorrow morning.
The fixtures and fittings in the hospitals here are aging, but they keep the place spotless. Most importantly, the needles and other disposables are, thankfully, disposable.
However, they don't dab your arm with cotton wool and put a plaster on you after you give blood, they just jab a tiny cotton stick dipped in iodine onto your wound, and tell you to hang around for five minutes. No mollycoddling can be expected in Beijing.
Shockingly, I left feeling like Ireland could learn a lot from Chinese hospitals. They would be perfect if only the patients would stop spitting.

'Carbon guilt' - ideal for lapsed Catholics

Lately I've been feeling regular pangs of a distantly familiar feeling which I've struggled to identify until now.
It happens when I book long haul flights or take a taxi instead of the subway. I get it when I forget to bring my own plastic bags to the supermarket and when I leave the TV on standby.

I now recognise this phenomenon to be 'carbon guilt'.

It's the nagging voice that scolds me into apologetic submission for leaving my computer on or using air-conditioning.
This new form of eco-guilt is to be warmly welcomed.
Not only will its net effect on the planet be positive, but it's a perfect antidote to the post-Catholic blues: it's somewhere to channel the guilt.
Al Gore, the high priest of this new religion, should get most of the blame/credit because it was his inconvenient film that really got me (and millions of others) into this self-flagellation. And it's no coincidence that the nagging voice in my head speaks in Gore's baritone.
Fortunately, you can buy carbon credits - the equivalent of 'indulgences' in this new-age non-religion. A UK company will wash away the guilt accrued from my upcoming flight from Beijing to Melbourne for £45.75, which is about €60.
The funny thing is, I don't think I want to be unburdened completely. I'll do what I can to quell that tut-tutting voice within, but I might take the occasional taxi just so I can indulge in a little guilt...

The day my toes froze

Harbin's location in north east China has facilitated a strong influence from neighbouring Russia.
This means Russian architecture, cheap vodka, queues for bread (I'm not joking), and dozens of little shops selling Russian tat.
As well as Russian dolls, hip flasks and kitsch soviet memorabilia, you can pick up vicious knives and taser guns. These might be handy if you find yourself in a dodgy Russian bar surrounded by scar-faced mafioso.
The ice sculpture park (see pic) is by far the highlight of the colder-than-freezing city. It includes illuminated frozen art on a scale that can't be imagined until you see it up close.
Not for the first time since we came to China, a Chinese girl stopped us and gestured towards her camera. We presumed she wanted her photo taken but, as usual, she wanted her photo taken with us.
There must be scores of photos of us in the houses of people we don't know and will never see again.
I ended up buying a pair of snow boots because my toes were literally freezing. Naively, I had turned up wearing a pair of wafer-thin-soled Asics runners.
Harbin is a unique place, not just for its -20 degree temperatures, but for its mix of Chinese and Russian cultures. I'd recommend it - but bring three pairs of socks and two jackets. And decent snow boots.