Working work work but two new chairs
I can honestly say that time has flown, particularly the last year and half since my trip through Russia began in January of 2017. Since then I’ve basically been on the move, even when I was back in Canada I was still moving around quite a bit despite wanting to stay in one place. Well, I’ve finally stayed in one place for longer than a few months. Ahhh, but I need to clarify that. I’ve put my luggage and stuff in one place for more than a few months but I, due to my new job, have been travelling all around China on a weekly basis. Though some colleagues chose to rent cheaper apartments because “we’ll never be around”, I wanted a place to actually “be home” rather than simply staying. So I pay a little bit more for a nicer place even though I only stay in it for a few days a week.
But that will change. Since I started work again here in Beijing I’ve pretty much signed up for all of the work possible. Now, however, I’m starting to make myself unavailable for a few days a months so I can get some other things done both here and in Canada. Many people said there would be a dip or a slow period but I have yet to see things let up at all. All I see is more emails asking for more people to sign up for more work. Eight months of constant work is enough to warrant a break. Anyway, it is good that there is a lot of work to be done.
But going forward I will untick a few days so I can specifically start posting a bit more here in addition to going through some old videos and videos so I can then post them online. I realized that many of my early blog posts don’t have many, if any, photos in them due to the complication off posting such things back in the day. My oh my, how things have changed. Now it’s easy to post from my phone (my main camera) and upload to Instagram or this here blog. I also have a few others posts I’d like to finally put up. So you can look forward to that over the summer months.
The big excitement I had recently was that I finally bought two comfy chairs for my apartment. One office-type chair and another lounge-type chair. Why is this so exciting? Well, I don’t think I’ve bought furniture in a very long time so this certainly marks a different level of commitment to staying in one place. The next thing is to get a larger computer monitor! 😀
Holidays
Not planning any return to Canada just yet not least because I have this bad habit of leaving the country I’m working in and then not returning. This is something I’m trying to stop soooo, no plans to return to Canada (or go anywhere) just yet.
That being said, Guns N’ Roses have announced some tour dates throughout Asia, two of which are in Taipei and Hong Kong (both very reachable from Beijing), so I just might take a trip in November some time.
The Winnipeg Jets
The big news of this year has been that my hometown’s ice hockey team, the Winnipeg Jets, made it all the way to the Western Quarter Finals and faced the newest expansion team in the NHL, the Las Vegas Knights. Yes, the hockey has come to the desert. Again. I could only imagine what the commissioner of the NHL was thinking, in words being diplomatic but silently wishing Las Vegas to win in their inaugural season to justify such an expansion. The move reminds me of the time the CFL expanded into the USA for a few seasons and now, whenever you look at the list of Grey Cup champions, you see the Baltimore Stallions listed as winners int he mid-90s. And that team is no longer around. I can’t help but wonder if the same could happen with the Knights.
However, the success of the Jets was good not only for the team but for the city itself. There does seem to be a newfound sense of pride in the city that wasn’t there even a decade ago. To be sure, some of that old “it doesn’t happen in Winnipeg” attitude remains, made known by a Winnipeg Free Press reporter who tweeted a few cynical remarks about how this current Jets run would also come to an end. He might have been referring to the seemingly superficial support that some of the politicians were displaying, but his remarks still came off as callous towards the team and the city. Winnipeg has always been a very conservative city and not what I would call entirely progressive, but this latest run by the Jets has certainly given people something to cheer about.
But does that mean the Jets are setup for next year for another run? Hard to imagine and you’d probably have to ask someone much more qualified to talk about their chances as I don’t really follow any sports at all. Overall, however, it is now in Jets history that they’ve progressed in the playoffs and that should encourage future iterations of the team to strive a bit harder. Let’s hope one day very soon that the Stanley Cup makes its debut in Winnipeg.
The Common Changes in China
Other than that, summer is here in the capital of China, the heat and humidity is in, smog at reasonably levels, and no major holidays to desert the city. We’re all in until the National Holiday break in October.
Speaking of which, some people might be wondering if Beijing is home. I still don’t think so but I have asked a few of my colleagues and others I’ve met who’ve been here for a decade or longer about what they see has changed the most in the city. The list they give is pretty typical:
- More people.
- More smog.
- More cars.
- More expensive.
- Less things to do other than work.
Furthermore, a couple of the long-standing (think five years, which is long in Beijing time) watering holes have been shuttered largely due to recent policy changes. And it doesn’t look like there are many more sprouting up. It seems that when young Chinese people started going to the pub, the policy changed and all of a sudden these places were no longer welcome in Beijing. Foreigners are one thing, but young Chinese people should go home to be with their family in the evening, not at the pub.
Reading List
And, finally, I’ve found some time to read again. You’ll recall my ambitious Chinese reading list that I wrote about last month which has already fallen behind schedule. However, I’m also reading Factory Girls by Leslie T. Chang and that’s proven to be a good read. The book is about the young women who move from their small towns (think thousands of people) to work in factories in Dongguan, a southern province in Mainland China not far from Hong Kong.
And that’s about it for now. Hope all is well wherever you are!