Too far to walk...

 

"We begin here then, in the very quick of the nightmare, in the crucible where all values are reduced to slag."

Henry Miller - The Air Conditioned Nightmare

This evening I find myself enjoying the slightly salubrious yet subtly seductive comforts of the 'Jolly Frog'. This particular guesthouse, perhaps more than any other, was responsible for putting Kanchanaburi on the map as a backpacker's destination. That was many, many years ago now, and of more recent times it has become something of an emblem of Kanchanaburi, despite an ongoing process of delightfully delapidating degradation that has rendered its décor somewhat dated by modern standards . To say the rooms are basic is to understate the reality. This is not the place to come if one requires high levels of opulence in order to enjoy a break. On the other hand, its throwback decadence to its glory days of the seventies has an almost timeless appeal to a huge variety of travellers. The clientèle this evening are an odd mixture of the geriatric remains of a peripatetic generation and a cosmopolitan group of footloose and fancy free youngsters trying to reinvigorate the bygone days of backpacking yore.
In short, the Jolly Frog has a rather pleasant way of attracting the outlandish and the eccentric. Its garden is perhaps its most notable feature, sitting as it does aside the River Kwai. Unlike the rest of the establishment, it is always looked after with great care and, perhaps, even love. As I tap out these notes on a hot and steamy Wednesday evening I cannot help but overhear the delightfully bizarre conversations of the youngsters sharing a beer or two and swinging to and fro in the hammocks in the centre of the garden. From the accents I am guessing we have several Spaniards, a Frenchman or two, a young American with a predilection for swearing every time he wishes to emphasize a point and several girls, perhaps one American, one French and one English. They, much like myself, are enjoying the late night delights of a bottle or two of 'Archa', a cheap but cheerful Thai beer that sells for the very reasonable 49 baht in the local convenience store, and the soporific atmosphere of a warm night relaxing beside the river.
Actually, I have to admit to being pleased to be back here this evening after a very unpleasant sojourn into Bangkok over the past couple of days. In my years of travelling I have visited many, many cities from Moscow (very dull) to New York (very noisy), Barcelona to Venice (both fascinating), Cairo to Izmir, and many others far too numerous to mention, but I cannot think of any city over decades of travelling that is quite as unremittingly unpleasant as Bangkok. It is a dirty, dingy, dilapidated dystopian disaster of a city that has few, if any, redeeming features.
I spent last night in a hotel 2.5 kms from Don Mueang Airport, chosen for its proximity. In practice, it took nearly an hour and a half to find said hotel (the Pool House Guest Residence). My first resort was to attempt to hire a taxi, but trying to communicate with the drivers of these vehicles proved to be almost impossible. None of them seemed to recognise the name of the hotel, even though I had it written in both English and Thai. None of them seemed to have the foggiest idea of how to read a map, the very concept seeming to throw them into a state of confusion. None of them seemed to want to go on the metre, even though the law requires them to do so, preferring attempts to arrange a hugely inflated price beforehand instead. 

 
After several efforts that merely resulted in increased frustration, I resolved to walk to the hotel. This was probably a mistake as it took vastly longer than expected owing to the lack of anywhere to actually walk. What pavements there were were invariably broken up to the point of unsuitability, the rest of the journey being a case of either walking through a seemingly endless building site or against the stream of a apparently never ending cascade of recklessly driven motor vehicles.
Eventually, I found a 7-11 store that I knew to be in the vicinity of the guest house. I asked the girl behind the counter if she knew the hotel. She did, but she assured me that it was far too far to even consider walking. Instead, she suggested I take a motor bike. Tired, sweaty and a little fed up (a rare emotion for me), I took what I perceived as a rather desperate option and clambered aboard a Honda 90.
The rider rode thirty metres to the West, twenty five metres to the North, followed by one hundred metres to the east and…. we were there. As an expression of the idea of 'too far too walk' it seemed to be lacking something vital that, in the West at least, we tend to call 'distance'. 

 
To be fair, the Thai conception of 'too far to walk' is very different to the British or American. To those of us in the West, the expression would indicate several miles of challenging perambulation, whereas here in Thailand 'too far to walk' means anything above 40 yards or so. An old joke sprang to mind: question“What do you call a person walking in Thailand?”, answer “A tourist!”.
(Actually, I was tempted to use another, very much similar, line earlier, It was along the lines of 'what do you call someone hopelessly lost in Bangkok', the answer being, obviously, 'a taxi driver').
It is hard to conceive of a form of words that will convey just how hopelessly unpleasant Bangkok is. It consists of street upon street, road upon road, of sheer, adulterated ugliness. Even the centre of town, the area around the Royal Palaces, are notable for just how tacky the use of excessive gold leaf can appear. It comes across as a depressing display of unjustified opulence in a land where most of the population are struggling even to put a meal on the table.

Such tasteless decoration accounts for only a small area though, the vast majority of Bangkok being an endless chaos of cars and cables, broken pavements and unrepaired holes, officious policemen and self-righteous military men. From East to West South to North, inside and outside, over a vast distance, there is barely anything that one could recommend to someone about this truly atrocious city.

Luckily (I survived!), I now find myself back in the far pleasanter environs of Kanchanaburi where, if all goes well, I intend to spend the next couple of weeks reading, writing and learning to juggle. The last being the result of meeting Alex, a professional German juggler who was happy to pass on the basics to me in return for a few lessons of twirling nunchucks (I am no master, but sufficiently competent now to start a complete neophyte on the path towards a level of competence).
The hot season has arrived, with rumours of temperatures in excess of 40C on the way in the coming week. This seems a good enough excuse to me to curtail the more physical aspects of flaneurial activity and to concentrate instead on the process of writing, both this blog and a book I have been planning for a year or so now. The prospect of afternoons spent in air conditioned cafés slowly imbibing Americanos and fruit smoothies whilst tapping away on my netbook seems pleasant indeed in this heat...

How you gonna keep them down on the farm…(after they’ve seen gay Paris)

This week I am indulging in the pleasure of returning to an old haunt, although it seems largely unchanged from a year ago. The Café de Coral in Chang An is one of the few places where the theoretical ban on smoking in restaurants in China is actually observed and enforced, thereby rendering it one of the more salubrious places to relax, think and write. Not all is quite as I would wish it, at this time of the year they do insist on playing endless Christmas songs in the background, usually conversions of Western songs performed by prepubescent children with screechingly high-pitched voices, the Chinese ideal of cuteness (my idea of annoying...). The PRC very definitely celebrate Xmas and not Christmas – all references to Christ himself are expunged from the celebrations and what remains is yet another excuse to justify yet more consumerism (as if there were a shortage of excuses for such splurges already...)

It is somewhat early in the morning, around half past eight or so, a little too early by normal standards to find oneself committed to composing a blog, but the air quality outside is 160+ for PM 2.5s, those nasty little particles which are so small that the body has no defence whatsoever to and allows them to filter down deep within the respiratory system. A mask would need to be about as thick as a brick to stop the inhaling of these pesky particles. Once inside the lungs they tend to sink to the bottom where they are absorbed into the bloodstream and thence into the arteries, causing tiny lacerations to the walls of the blood vessels as they make their way around the circulatory system. Such lacerations then attract plaques which, if unchecked, eventually lead to the blockage of arteries, heart attacks and strokes, and even, not to put too fine a point on it, death.

Chang An is an outlier suburb of Dongguan, a second-tier city in the south of China. It used to be the base for much manufacturing, but in recent years has undergone something of a transformation to become a centre for finance and banking, with very few factories and no coal fired power stations in the vicinity. Nevertheless, on some days here the air quality is bordering on the unbreathable. Some of this is due to windblown pollution from the numerous other conurbations along China’s east coast, but far more emanates from the presence of so many motor vehicles, particularly diesels, belching out huge amounts of particulates, day in and day out.

On a personal level, I like to indulge in at least a little exercise each day; of late that has meant tai chi, qigong or twirling nunchucks. None of these activities is particularly strenuous, but in the current conditions I tend to avoid even such minor exertions, my slightly paranoid suspicion being that one probably does far more harm through the inhalation of the PM10s and PM2.5s than any good that the body could potentially gain through the exercise.

The news in China in the last couple of weeks has frequently referred to the problems in the North of the country where measurements for these pollutants have either been very high or, quite simply, off the scale. This comes at quite a sensitive time for those steadfast guardians of environmental virtue, the Chinese government, as they are trying to run an intense PR campaign to demonstrate just how positive they have been in addressing the problems of global warming and pollution whilst engaged at the Climate Change Conference in Paris this week. If their ever reliable, totally immune from propaganda, manipulation or statistical fixing reports are to be believed, they are the ‘good guys’ who are spending far more than their Western counterparts in the battle to stabilize the climate.

Unfortunately for these protectors of truth and integrity, the facts are pretty stark. Whilst most Western governments are reducing their emissions from levels already below China's, the Chinese wish to go on increasing theirs until the year 2030. The justification often cited for this somewhat dubious policy (given that hundreds of thousands of Chinese citizens are dying of pollution related illnesses every year) is that China is a ‘developing’ country, as opposed to the developed nations of the West. From my experience, China is not only developed, it is possibly even over-developed (although often badly developed, as pointed out in a previous blog). Many Chinese people remain very poor not because of lack of development but because of an uneven distribution of wealth. The wealthy are exorbitantly, outrageously, beyond the dreams of avarice wealthy, whilst the poor are abysmally, hopelessly, desperately so. This state of affairs is unlikely to change significantly in the next 15 years, so the rather feeble excuse that China needs to develop in order to care for its people is, effectively, a smokescreen in a country of smokescreens (smogscreens?), both physically and metaphorically. 

Over the years, the Chinese government have lived in mortal fear of threats to ‘social stability’. To remain in power they feel it is necessary to forever go on increasing living standards. As they understand it, this means such things as more consumerism, flats, cars and all the other paraphernalia of Western style ‘developed’ countries. Their belief is that if they can maintain growth at the kinds of levels they have seen in the last 25 years, then all will be well. But even the densest of observers is beginning to comprehend that endless material growth at the cost of the environment does not lead to a better lifestyle. To slightly amend some words of wisdom form the Bible: what profiteth a man if he gaineth the whole world but cannot breathe!?

Chinese citizens themselves are becoming increasingly restive in recent times because of the air pollution problem and the increasingly obvious effects it is having on the health of the nation. Last year, a Chinese journalist Chai Jing, worried about the effects of pollution on her baby girl, created a short documentary on the subject entitled ‘Under the Dome’. This production was originally backed by the Environment Ministry here, but when it was noticed that over a hundred million downloads of it had been made in the first couple of days alone, they were overruled by an even higher authority leading to the film being banned for fear of being too great a threat to ‘social stability’.

(Oddly, readers can easily view the film...as long as they don’t live in China. It is readily available on youtube.com, and very worthy of viewing if one wishes to understand the nature of China and its government as well as the air quality problems here. As a small aside, this week a Chinese minister stated at an internet conference in Northern China that there was ‘no web censorship in China, merely sites that are blocked’. George Orwell would, I imagine, have been amused by such a blatant example of ‘double speak’.)

Criticism of the government in these areas is becoming stronger and stronger of late. One knows that something is amiss when even the official news organs, such as the Global Times, start to criticize the government and their inability to effectively address the problem. The government's reaction to criticism is often to threaten to jail critics for making ‘socially irresponsible’ comments on blogging sites and suchlike. The sheer amount of comments and discontent is becoming a problem now though, and given that the problem is likely to get worse in the next few years, then clearly the Chinese government needs to amend its ideas as to which is the greater threat to social order.

Back in the café, people are going about their business in much the same way as ever, kids run around playing, adults indulge in conversation or stare, blank-faced, into their mobile phones.  One cannot help but notice now though, how many Chinese people are getting into the habit of wearing masks. Previously, here in South China, one saw these on the faces of a few cyclists only. This year, they are far more common and many pedestrians also resort to what limited protection, more apparent then real, they offer. This will probably be my last post from China for some time. Although there are reasons to come back in the not too distant future, part of me is really quite reluctant to do so until they get a grip on this particular challenge.

At the Paris conference, Xi Jingping, the Chinese Premier, made an opening speech during which he lectured Western countries on their responsibilities towards remedying global warming. One cannot help but think that perhaps now is the time that such people should resist the temptation to lecture others and start to put their own house in order.

On the road again...

After a somewhat elongated gap, this blog now continues from the ancient English town of Thetford, snuggled comfortably amongst the extensive forests of North Suffolk and South Norfolk. At one time, the town of Thetford had the honour of being the sixth largest in England but ... that was long, long ago, back in the times of the Angles and the Saxons. One can still find a motte and bailey castle here, built by William of Normandy no less, the bastard King who took over England in 1066 and imposed the archaic system of monarchy and lords that still besets this benighted land to this day. Basically, the system was designed to take as much of the land as possible from the natives and put it in the hands of their Norman conquerors. Oddly, many people who consider themselves patriotic Englishmen will vehemently defend these ancient injustices, apparently unaware that they are not English in the first place, but simply a system imposed by those who vanquished their forefathers in 1066. 

For my part, I am very much looking forward to resuming my travels in the coming months. The first port of call is likely to be Dongguan, in Guangdong province, which holds a place in British history as the scene of much of the fighting in the Opium Wars of the mid 19th century. As bringers of culture and civilisation to the rest of the planet, the British sought to insist that the Chinese take opium from Turkey and India in payment for that much sought after commodity, in Britain at least, tea. At the time, due to the social problems that we are only all too well aware of in this day, the use of opium had been made illegal in China. The British, in their beneficence, believed that the importation of this drug was a necessity to improve the rather one sided balance of payment deficit with China.  

The problem for the British was that, despite the industrial revolution, the Chinese felt that they had little to offer China and displayed a somewhat high-handed disdain for the baubles that the UK produced. This attitude was not overly welcome to the British, as they had a need of the tea which was produced in such an abundance in China. When the Chinese refused their entreaties, the British started illegally importing opium into China. When challenged, they organised an incident which led to the opium war, a hopelessly one sided affair whereby a relatively backward Chinese military was easily defeated by the far more 'advanced' forces of the West (the US and the French also felt a need to back the importation of opium into China). 

Interestingly, for those who enjoy the history of such matters, this is how the British came by Hong Kong. It was part of the settlement agreed (read 'imposed') on the Chinese at the conclusion of the First Opium War, as part of the treaty of Nanking. I was in the UK at the time the Brits handed back Hong Kong, yet oddly much of this history remained unreported. I wonder why? 

The journey to China is a long one, something like eleven hours to Beijing, followed by another three to four hours down to Guangzhou. Such gargantuan expeditions have to be approached in a very relaxed frame of mind to make them bearable. The avoidance of rushing and a healthy disdain for the ongoing sense of urgency that queuing in airports tends to engender, is more or less obligatory if one wishes to arrive in a relatively unstressed state of mind.  

This will be my fifth visit to China; each time there seems to be some improvement in the less pleasant aspects. From a purely subjective point of view, the aspects that I have found particularly challenging have been firstly the pollution levels, which can be unbelievably bad by Western standards: the casual expectorating in the streets; and the chaotic traffic which seem to obey just the two rules: Rule one - there are no rules. Rule two - see rule one. 

To be fair though, it has been noticeable that in each of my visits some level of improvement was apparent in each of these problems. The pollution, whilst still bad, seems to be getting better. Xi Jin Ping and his government seem to have made something of a priority out of that issue and the effects of this attitude are readily apparent. It is no Garden of Eden as yet, but every year it seems somewhat better than the previous.  

The expectorating, likewise, seems to improve each time. Maybe it is just me, but the experience of dining al fresco in one of the many excellent restaurants of Chang An was often rendered somewhat less than pleasant by the sound of, or even the sight of, folks indulgently gobbing in the immediate vicinity. Such actions were by no means limited by age or sex. Sometimes one would observe apparently young and healthy females quite unashamedly sharing the content of their bronchial tubes with all and sundry. Last year, the occurrences of such reprehensible anti-social behaviour were much less than in 2013. I am sincerely hoping that this a similar improvement will be observed ... 

Finally, driving. What can one say above driving in China that hasn't been said many, many times before? It has to be seen to be believed. The sheer callousness of the Chinese motorists to all others that share the road and, in particular, to pedestrians is hard to appreciate unless one has actually experienced it directly. They are, not to put too fine a point on it, absolutely awful. Now, as with the other problems, they do seem to be improving, but it is only a relative improvement; they still have a long, long way to go before they reach anything approaching a sensible standard.  

Having said all that, the positives generally outweigh the negatives, and so I find myself looking forward with some anticipation to finding myself in the Middle Country once again (Zhong Guo, as China is known to the Chinese, literally means the middle or central country. This is because, in ancient times, the Chinese considered themselves to be at the very centre of civilization. Oddly, this same irrational belief in the relative importance of one's own land and culture seems to affect almost every nationality around the globe. Something to do with education, I am guessing).  

China has an ancient and venerable culture, many aspects of which one can still see and experience to this day. Tis true that in the rush to 'modernize' much has been laid waste or buried under a mountain of concrete, but ideas, philosophies and cultures often take more eradicating than the clumsy implementation of five year plans can manage, though if persisted in long enough, such short-termism can, eventually, destroy even the most venerable of systems. 

For now though, and in the next few days, there are many odds and sods to tidy up before the  re-commencement of my travels. For the last five months this nomadic flanneur has not been particularly nomadic, apart from a brief sojourn to Madrid to visit a friend and one or two trips within the UK. So it is with a tinge of excitement that I find myself once more to be in a position to resume nomadic activities and indulge in the finer flanneurial arts once again.  

Development

Taking due care not to breathe too deeply, I am currently enjoy the delights of the 85C Bakery Cafe in Chang An. The cafe is modern and a little soulless, built to cater for the aspirations of many Chinese  twenty somethings and their desire to be as much like Americans as possible. The coffee itself is imitation Starbucks and, if I am honest, really not too bad. There is little here though to distinguish the place from any number of other coffee outlets which one finds almost anywhere around the globe these days. One of the pleasant things about Thailand, apart from Bangkok, was the rather delightful variety of establishments where one could partake of liquid libations. The same cannot be said of modern China, where all such hostelries seem to be much of a muchness; pleasant enough, but essentially dull and lacking in anything other than the wished for corporate identity.

After nearly managing to miss a plane at Bangkok's Don Meung airport, I find myself back in the day to day turmoil that is life in 21st century China. As readers of my blog will know, I prefer the charms of leisurely travel with huge amounts of space built into the schedule to enable time to be taken for whatever diversions that one takes a fancy to en route. On this occasion however, due to social commitments, I was unable to leave Kanchanaburi until one in the afternoon to take a flight at seven. As ever, when one fails to build in enough slack, anything going wrong will put stress on the schedule, and therefore stress on the traveller. In this case it was the entirely predictable mayhem that is Bangkok's traffic. If one can avoid the busiest periods in Bangkok, traffic will generally flow at a reasonable rate, but … if arriving between half three and half seven, then traffic can slow to a rate barely above walking pace.

'Development' as it is known, was going on apace throughout the northern part of Bangkok, thus adding another level to the difficulties. This generally took the form of improved road schemes, the building of yet more dull glass and concrete monstrosities to clutter an already overcrowded skyline, and extensions to the rail transport system in the city. In theory, the economy here is only just growing, but by the look of certain parts of Bangkok, some people are doing very well indeed.

All this seemed a far cry from my adventures of only two days before. A friend took to their head the notion that kayaking on the River Kwai might be fun, despite the ambient temperature being around 38C. After some persuading, I finally acquiesced. I envisioned being hot, sweaty, overworked and under rewarded for my efforts; nothing could have been further from the truth.

We were taken by van to a point several miles upstream where, in the shadow of a Buddhist temple, we were assisted, by a very helpful group of children, to launch onto the gently flowing waters of the Kwai. After a short lecture on how to control the direction of the vessel, the two of us set out from the shore. Much to my surprise, I seemed to take to it like the proverbial duck to water and was pleasantly amazed at just how little effort was needed. After a couple of minutes of orientating ourselves to the situation, we set off downstream letting, for the most part, the current do the majority of the work.

Down at the level of the river, the temperature seemed surprisingly pleasant. We had taken care to bring along around three litres of water for the trip, and one could easily cool off by dipping a hat into the cool, clean waters and placing it, still dripping wet, back on one's head. The scenery was gorgeous, an endless variety of trees and plants lining the shores with tall, impressive, forest-clad mountains as a backdrop. A huge variety of wildlife was also on view, the bird-life in particular being both stunning in its variety and so colourful in the range of plumage. Cormorants and herons were plentiful, along with a variety of waders strutting the muddy banks on their elongated legs, every  now and again plunging their long beaks down into the shallows in search of tasty titbits.

At one stage, we saw a couple of water monitors. Ostensibly harmless, they are still a little intimidating, being all of two metres long and having the appearance of small crocodiles. These slid into the waters about twenty metres from our kayak and we experienced a nervous moment or two, half expecting them to come bumping into our less-than-completely-stable vessel.

Thailand, despite its crazy politics and archaic systems of governance, can be a wonderful place to spend an extended break. If one escapes the mad busy-ness of the cities then one is often rewarded with beautiful vistas, gentle people and the constant presence of amazing wildlife, both fauna and flora. The sheer abundance of this is hard to take in at times, and almost movingly beautiful at others. As far as the kayak trip went though, the River was lovely indeed until we passed under the famous railway bridge (built by prisoners in World War Two). At that stage, as we re-entered 'civilisation' the presence of humans was all too obvious by the amount of detritus that had been dumped in the river, particularly the ubiquitous plastic bottles, and the need to counteract the wake produced by high speed launches ferrying tourists from the bridge to the main town.

It is rumoured that the Thais and the Chinese have agreed to a high speed train connection that will pass through Kanchanaburi at some stage in the not too distant future. This, it is believed, will lead to more 'development'. What this basically means is more hotels, more factories, more people, more rubbish in the river, more species disappearing, more damage to what it is that is beautiful about Kanchanaburi and its environs.

The beauty of the Kwai above Kanchanaburi was but a memory by the time I reached Shenzhen in Southern China. Everywhere I looked beyond the new airport were new buildings, new roads, new everything. China seems to be fast disappearing under concrete. From Hong Kong to Guangzhou, a distance of some sixty miles, it is hard to tell where one city ends and a new one begins. This area is home to some 115,000,000 people. At climate talks, the Chinese often claim concessions, saying that their country is still 'underdeveloped'. If this is underdeveloped, I would hate to see what overdeveloped looks like …

The Chinese, like so many other countries around our planet, measure their success in terms of economic growth. What this growth has created in reality is a country where the air is nearly unbreathable, the water undrinkable and the food bordering on inedible (pesticides, dubious production methods, genetic modification, all unbridled and unchecked) and cancer rates sky-rocketing. If this is the fruit of economic growth, then one has to question the underlying assumption that such growth is necessarily a good thing.

Indeed, it seems that many thinkers in the past have done so. One often hears it said that we need economic growth to raise the standards of living of the less well-off. Oddly though, there is plenty of evidence that in many countries where growth has occurred in recent times, it has actually led to a worsening of economic inequality, not an improvement (the UK, the US and China all being obvious examples). In many economies what is needed is at least the intention of addressing the inequality of wealth distribution, rather than endlessly trying to grow economies to the further enrichment of the super rich, with all the subsequent damage to the society and the environment.

Back in the 85C Bakery Cafe, a couple of hours have passed and the place is now crowded with smokers, much to the detriment of the air within. Often smoking is banned in such places but, as ever in China, such rules are rarely enforced. In many ways, one can understand the fatalism of the Chinese smoker. Perhaps they rationalise that the air is so bad anyway that one might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. I find myself looking back to the joys of the kayaking on the Kwai and the feeling of fresh air in the lungs. Sadly, it may be some weeks before I get to experience the latter once more ...

Every breath you take...

This week's flaneurial reflection comes from a rather comfortable seat on a rather comfortable train that is comfortably travelling at very nearly 200 miles per hour. All is smooth and quiet as we whisk along the track between the cities of Zhuzhou and Guangdong through the somewhat continuously grey Chinese countryside. The coffee on board is a very reasonable 20RMB a 400ml cup (about $3). The subjective realisation of speed only occurs when one chances to glance out of the window and watches endless hills, roads and rivers flashing past at a truly alarming rate.

          I am on my way back from attending a Tai Chi tournament in the City of Liling. The event was rather successful for my friend who managed to win a gold and a silver medal and come home with an 18” plate and a rather large china vase. We had travelled to Liling on the invitation of the Hunan Tai Chi Association, who generously supplied hotel rooms, meals and transport for the both of us from the Friday evening  to the following Monday morning.

          This generosity was much appreciated, as were the facilities of the four star hotel we stayed in. The food was copious and prepared in the local Hunan style (very greasy, very salty, very spicy) but, unfortunately, was not particularly to my tastes. There was something typically Chinese in the way the food was presented though. The dishes, usually a dozen or more, were set upon a glass revolving disk in the centre of the table and one chose from the offered selection whatever one took a fancy to. This style of eating is very communal in nature which is not atypical of the culture here in general. There is a great willingness, almost an expectation, of sharing. If someone orders a bottle of the local alcohol, an horrendously strong brew that fair took my breath away, it is expected that it will be shared by all at the table.

          There seems to be an etiquette to turning the glass centrepiece, an etiquette that stresses the needs of others at the table above oneself. Generally on such a table there is a huge pale of sticky white rice in the centre. Here too there is an etiquette – one makes sure everyone else is supplied with rice before filling one's own bowl. Even within this there is another level where the status of those waiting is to be recognised, with the higher status individuals going first. In practice, this generally implies a respect for age, with the elders being given preference over the youngsters.

          Toasts are often drunk, complete with the usual expression 'gumbei!' (empty glass) proceeded by a chink of one's glass with all and sundry. Again, one needs to make sure one includes everybody who cares to be included and, as a mark of respect, holds one's glass slightly lower than those of higher status (usually best just to presume everyone else is – my personal 'fail proof' method!).

          Throughout my stay in Liling I was treated with great respect and a rather lovely inclusivity.  This is one of the loveliest aspects to the culture here. Once accepted within a given group, one is treated with a great deal of friendly and good natured indulgence. The Chinese, in this way at least, are a very hospitable people.

          The time spent in Liling was enjoyable on many levels bar one, but that exception makes the thought of my upcoming trip to Thailand a pleasant prospect. The quality of the air in these medium sized cities has to be seen to be believed. I use the word 'seen' advisedly. Of course, as soon as one gets off the train, one is immediately aware that the air quality is not all it should be. My first bout of coughing was on the station platform itself, but what is most noticeable is the dreary grey smog that hangs continuously over the town.

          We arrived at the hotel just before five on the Friday evening and I took a photograph of the somewhat uninspiring view from our seventh floor window. Grey and dank and almost sulphurous, the blocks in the distance disappearing into the smog:

          At nine on the following Monday morning I took a second picture from the same vantage point:

          Comparing the two images, one would think that they had been taken one after the other. This was not the case. In the three days we were there this view did not change at all except for the coming of the night. Just one long, dreary, greyness that hung over the city continuously from dawn to dusk. Never a glimpse of the sun, never a shadow beneath one's feet, unless you chanced to go inside a building.

          Many of the more industrial Chinese towns and cities are like this the whole winter long. Dreary, dirty and, in the air quality sense at least, really quite disgusting. To experience this is really quite oppressive, the feeling of not knowing when you will next see a patch of blue sky or where your next breath of reasonable air is coming from. In Liling's case this was particularly disappointing as the town itself looked to be rather interesting with a huge pottery market and some lovely old architecture.

          Last year, as happens many a year, there was some particularly bad smog in Beijing and Shanghai during the winter months. It became so bad at times that some people, having unwisely decided to venture out for the evening, were reportedly reduced to using the satnav apps on their mobile phones to find their way home again!

          A few years back, the Chinese government became quite annoyed with the American consulate in Beijing for publishing air quality figures on its website. The American staff had become increasingly worried over time with the deterioration of the environment. As far as the Chinese government were concerned, all was fine and there was no problem as long as no one made a fuss about it. The fact that millions of Chinese people were dying prematurely each year because of the effects of pollution was not particularly concerning, but 'losing face' in such a way, particularly at the hands of the Americans, was definitely not acceptable.

          Eventually, they relented and started publishing their own figures but this caused another problem. The PM 2.5 figures (fine particles below 2.5 microns in width that your body has little or no defence against) were truly atrocious. The World Health Organisation recommend that these should be kept at levels below 20 micrograms per cubic meter of air. Hardly anywhere in China could meet these standards so the Chinese government did what the Chinese government does best in such circumstances; it moved the goal-posts. The Chinese national standard calls for a 'healthy level' of 35 micrograms per cubic meter of air. It would appear that Chinese lungs are 1.75 times better than lungs elsewhere on the planet at dealing with this problem...

          Even with these much lower standards, Chinese air quality in most major cities fails to achieve these levels. Examining one of the websites that publishes this data, I see that today in central Beijing the level is 309, ie., some eight plus times their own, rather liberal (nice to see them liberal in some ways at least...) limits and fifteen times the WHO levels. Some Northern Chinese cities are at levels well in excess of 500. Sad to say, this is not an unusual occurrence.

          Back in the train a couple of hours have passed and we are now within just a few short miles of Guangzhou. This technology is very impressive, as is much of the new infrastructure of modern China. At times though, these achievements have been made at a tremendous cost to the environment. Apart from the truly awful air quality, 70% of China's rivers and lakes are polluted, not to mention 90% of their groundwater (which makes up most of the 'potable' water used for drinking, cooking, etc.). The widespread and indiscriminate use of pesticides and chemicals means that the soil is very unhealthy in China too. The pace of economic growth has been truly amazing but, to paraphrase, and slightly amend, a saying from the Bible: What does it profit a man if he gaineth the whole World but cannot breathe the air, drink the water or eat the food?

                      

Beware of drinking hot coffee in close proximity of impatient Chinese train passengers...