May 20th to July 11th archive
May 7th 8th 9th 10th 11th 12th 13th 14th 15th 16th 17th 18th 19th about support contact
monday 19th may
Overheard coughs (2), No. of times I got a seat on public transport (2/2), Visitors to this page (144)
I got a text message at 7.30am this morning from a friend of mine who works for a transport and logistics firm out on the east side of the fourth ringroad. She gets very little free time, spending all week sitting in an office with little to do, then on her one free day, Sunday, she has to go on the company outings, as that's where all the decision making actually happens. When we do get a chance to meet, it's usually when she randomly decides to not go to work, as happened this morning.
Her company's been taking everyone's temperature twice a day since the end of April. Also, the entire May holiday and all weekends have been cancelled, on the basis that the less free time people have, the less likely they are to get, or be suspected of getting SARS and causing the entire company to be quarantined.
We met up just after nine, after I'd thrown myself out of bed and through the shower. A lot of businesses have cut back their opening hours and there wasn't much open till ten, so we sat in McDonalds drinking coffee for a while then had a wander round the shops. Shopping first thing in the morning is always a bit weird though. You know you've got a decent excuse, but you can't help thinking all the other shoppers should be doing something more constructive . . .
We wound up drinking coffee again, in Starbucks, so I guess any claims I have of fighting corporate empires and supporting small independent businesses went right out the window this morning. I don't like Starbucks, but it frequently have the advantage of being there when you are looking for a seat and an overpriced cup of coffee with too much froth on top 
A quick glance over the news, this time from the news pages of Chinese internet portal sina.com. 12 new cases nationwide, 7 of those in Beijing. These numbers are very low, but the WHO have been querying how these numbers are made up. There's also an article about an expert who's predicted that SARS will be 'relatively well-controlled in Beijing' and that new cases per day will be under 10 from the end of May/start of June, and under 5 per day from June the 10th, or thereabouts.
It's also reported that some Beijing universities have decided to cancel the summer holiday, and regard the time students are spending away from classes now as their holiday. I'm sure this will be regarded with great amusement by the students in question.
Meanwhile in China's southern city Nanning, young men are being shouted at for spitting on the street, and the fine for said offence has been raised to 500Y, approx 40US$. Also, 4 monks have been expelled from Shaolin Temple for staying out all night, thus influencing the normal running of the temple and breaking regulations designed to prevent the spread of SARS.
I've made a decision to spend Monday and Tuesday every week studying Chinese, as all this free time I have at the moment really should get used on something useful. I'm also keeping an eye out for any part-time work available.
Significant increase in the number of feedback form responses yesterday - guess you lot just like looking at panadas. For those of you with godsons in Beijing Middle Schools (yes, you) my latest info, gleaned from yesterdays 'Xinbao', is that students will be returning to school in stages, according to age and location. The first to go back will be students preparing for university entrance exams. Exam timetables and holidays have all been changed.
Columns have been widened, due to popular demand. It's messed up the formatting of some pages, but your wishes are my commands and all that. Also, I know you want more photos. but they add a fair amount of time to the process of getting this page out everyday, and I can only put them in when I have the time and inclination. Someone also asked why it was important to get more people visiting the site (as mentioned in support). Simply put, this site (not just this page, but the whole site) takes up quite a chunk of time and effort, and if nobody is using it there's not much point in my doing it. The more people that are coming, the more worthwhile i feel it is.
I got a phone call just now asking for some help translating company names. It was only when I put the phone down I realised that potentially thousands of letterheads, business-cards and vehicles will now carry the word 'Botanical' instead of 'Ecological'. And I was guessing.
sunday 18th may
Overheard coughs (0), No. of times I got a seat on public transport (4/4), Visitors to this page (133)An extremely pleasant spring day today, T-shirt weather, but T-shirt because you can, not because you have to. I've just got back from DVD shopping on Xinjiekou, and there were just the right amount of people there - enough you didn't feel nervous you were missing something on telly, but not so many you couldn't get in the shops.
Between the lack of crowds and the weather, I have to say that if things stayed like this I could probably get used to it very quickly. In fact, I may have got used to it already. Keep an eye on this page for 'Damned crowds, why don't they stay indoors, bring back the mass panic' rants in the near future. The weather is out of my control, I fear.
A quick selection of three news stories from the 'Xinbao', one of Beijing's tabloids . . .
1) The Great Wall at Badaling (most popular with tourists) is being disinfected three times a day. Workers have to wear masks at work and on the buses to and from work, and visitors are checked with infrared scanners before being allowed onto the wall. Workers are also required to maintain 'a certain distance' from vistors, which must be a little tricky when your workplace can be accurately described as long but narrow. The last two weeks have seen less than 1000 visitors daily, compared to a usual 15,000.
2) 6 people convicted of burning down an isolation center in Hebei province have been sentenced. Sentences range from 1 to 5 years.
3) And just so you know it's not all bad news, a grandmother in her 80's from Xi'an has not died as expected, she's made a remarkable recovery and has even grown three new teeth. I'm sure you'll all join me in wishing Wei Huilan and her new teeth a long and successful partnership. And that was the news.
There was also a page of SARS jokes I'd planned to translate and give you, but I changed my mind after discovering that they were all categorically unfunny.
I had to sign into the building when I came back this evening. I asked why. 'Because i have to sign everyone into the building', the guard explained. I don't know if this is another anti-SARS measure, or the building management checking up on who lives here and who doesn't. Considering we all had to go and get going-in-and-out cards (still unused) two weeks ago it seems a little excessive, but perhaps I just don't understand. I don't yet know if this is a one-off signing-in special occasion, or a regular event.
No photos today, as I was far too busy looking at all the new flowers and greenery to photograph any of them. I have however added a new panda pic to the thankyou screen you get after using the feedback form which is of course a pathetic attempt to get more of you to use it.
saturday 17th may
Overheard coughs (0), No. of times I got a seat on public transport (4/4), Visitors to this page (156)
Had to go into Wangfujing today, so went a little bit further to go to the Friendship Store and the Silk Market. Neither is a place I recommend all that highly, the Friendship Store would have gone out of business a long time ago if every tour group in Beijing wasn't dropped off at its doors, and the Silk Market is only recommended for those who want their sleeves pulled out of shape by the Looka Looka Ladies. However, the Friendship Store does have a good stock of English Magazines, and the Looka Looka Ladies can be good for a laugh - 'But you are very rich, 200Y is nothing.' - 'Yes, I am very rich, and I didn't get that way by thinking 200Y is nothing'
The Friendship Store relies entirely on tourist trade, and must be suffering. I didn't go all the way up, but I was the only visible customer on the entire first floor. For those of you who haven't been there, we're not talking a corner shop, this is a full-blown department store on a Saturday afternoon.
The Silk Market is open, I didn't see any stalls closed. I'd heard it had been closed, or had closed due to lack of customers, but either that wasn't true or its reopened. It wasn't the usual crush of
bewildered tourists distracted by cheap North Face jackets, but actually pleasantly busy, neither deserted or mobbed.
Went onto Wangfujing, same old story of 'slightly busier, but not yet actually busy'. Unfortunately this means the already overstaffed shops have even more assistants to help you, and while I know I shouldn't get annoyed, it really does make me want to leave the shop when you are told 'You can try it on' and 'There are other colours' as if these were things you couldn't figure out yourself. Cultural difference, cultural difference . . .
Found a very useful bus to come back on, right from the top of Wangfujing to my door, which means I can ditch the old route of walking back to the subway, changing lines and then taking a bus. It goes along the north of the Forbidden City, which is a nice area to drive through. I got a seat, as the above statistics testify. However, I did see a couple of fast-food restaurants where people were waiting for seats, for the first time since I came back.
Spent the evening in a cafe reading a short story I've been trying to get through for the last few days. It's actually pretty long, all set around a funeral in a small village. For reasons not yet clear one of the grieving daughters bought along 6 employees of the brothel she runs in the city, which gives the story a certain frisson. Having the word 'brothel' on the page should get me a few more odd visitors from Google. If you'd like to see the story appear in the translation section, let me know and it might give me the motivation to dust of the dictionary.
Not a great deal of news today, as I spent the day in the office and am writing this early as I'm going out later. Same story on public transport and the streets in general, but its raining fairly so that'd clear people off anyway. Got a lift home in the company's car, which was nice - just swept right round the second ring road, no traffic.
Feedback responses. Thanks for the thankyous. As for the Canadian gentleman who asked if he should quarantine his air stewardess wife from visiting elderly relatives on her return from China, I can only say that a)airline workers are probably currently among the best protected and most often health-checked people outside of the health-care system; and b) personally, I'd consider divorcing you if you even tried. Perhaps a good idea for piece of mind, but I don't think the Canadian Health Department would consider it necessary, and they're the people you should be asking.
I had a mental Just heard the news, 28 new confirmed cases of SARS in Beijing, I'm now going to pad this out a bit, as the photo is colliding with the header below so I need to put some more text in the way. Dashan is on telly teaching everyone Chinese. I'm inclined to suggest that the reason he's made such a career out of speaking Chinese is because he sounds a bit funny when he speaks English. Of course, this would be a result of jealousy, as the real reason he's made such a career out of speaking Chinese is that he's an infinitely better speaker of the Chinese language than I am, and more talented to boot. Visit dashan.com if you want to know more . . .
Nice, There's little discernable change on the streets. Cars, buses, bikes, three-wheelers and people are all there in small numbers. Restaurants are either closed or quiet, university gates are still closed with guards checking people in and out. There are a few hawkers back in the underpasses, selling DVDs mostly, though they won't be getting much passing trade. It annoys me slightly when they call out 'hello DVD' as if it wasn't plainly obvious what they're selling, but that's hawkers I guess. 
Also, for the 6 or 7 people who found my site while trying to search for things like 'how to write I love you in Chinese', here it is. Hope everything works out ok, and if you were just looking for the character 'love' for a tattoo, it's the one in the middle. . .
Word of the day is 'jiang3 jia4', to bargain or discuss a price. 'jiang' has the speech radical on the left - it's the part that looks a bit like the letter 'i', and can be found in a number of characters to do with communication and language. The tic-tac-toe board bit gives it the sound - you'll see this part in characters with similar sounds such as 'jin' - enter, and 'jing' - well (for water). The second character 'jia' has the 'person' radical on the left, and I'm sure the other part of it can be found in any number of similarly pronounced characters I can't think of at the moment. You'll see these characters on shop walls, invariably next to the words 'please don't' or 'don't even think about'.
friday 16th may
Overheard coughs (2), No. of times I got a seat on public transport (2/2), Visitors to this page (183)
block on word of the day, and planned to simply give you another picture of a panda to appease you. However, I then decided to make 'panda' the word of the day AND give you a picture of THREE pandas, because that's how nice I am. So, 'daxiongmao', or panda. The first character is simply 'big' - think of it as a man stretching out his arms. The next, 'xiong' is bear, and the final one is 'cat'. So there you have it, 'daxiongmao' - big bear cat, or giant panda. What a fantastic language. Incidentally, owls are 'maotouniao' - cat head bird.
with 22 of those being from suspected cases. I think that's the lowest yet. thursday 15th may
Overheard coughs (1), No. of times I got a seat on public transport (3/3), Visitors to this page (133)
almost sunny day today, after a few days of smog and rain. Only almost sunny though, still very cloudy. I was waiting for the bus this morning and spoke to a woman with a snake. It was very
small, more of an impressive worm than a snake. She said I could hold it, but I didn't. A present for her son, after his lizard died.
I wonder
how many people have stopped and said 'Oh, so these are DVD's. I thought they were candied hawthorns, silly old me, how much for the lot?'. Not many, I guess. I might try it one day. They're rarely intrusive, though the ones around Jianguomen can be a little persistent. I amused myself one day by telling all the DVD hawkers I wanted to buy Chinese art and all the art gallery touts I was looking for somewhere to buy DVDs, but to be honest the novelty of annoying those trying to make a living wore off pretty quickly.
Taxi drivers do the same thing sometimes, though not in Beijing, and certainly not the one above who was very interested in my digital camera as he'd been thinking about buying himself one. I once had a taxi driver get out of his cab and explain to me in great detail the concept of my giving him money in exchange for his driving me somewhere, just in case this was an purely Chinese thing that I hadn't yet come across.
New 
SARS cases are still around the 50 cases a day mark - an improvement on 100 a day, but still a pretty stark contrast to zero. The outbreak in Guangzhou appears under control, though not eliminated, and if Guangzhou can do it I see no reason why Beijing can't.
The whole China / SARS thing appears to have dropped off the radar for the foreign media, which is somewhat disappointing if you want reliable news. Most of what appears now is either rehashing of government / WHO press releases, or anecdotal stuff from reporters who saw a dog thrown out a window because someone thought dogs spread SARS (my money says it was an annoying yappy little dog in the first place, but I'm not a pet person). I think the WHO is due to update travel advice soon though, so I expect we'll hear something then.
I spent a fair part of the day working on a translation I've been asked to do. It's actually the first time I've done anything of any length that is likely to have any consequences and it was surprising how difficult it was to bash it into some sort of English-like shape. The ones I have in the translations section are really just by-products of my own reading and study, so I don't pay so much attention to the standard of the English there.
Word
of the day for today is 'nar', third tone. The basic meaning of this is 'where?', and you might here it in 'ta zai nar?' - he at where; or you could ask in a restaurant 'cesuo zai nar?' - toilet at where?. A colleague of mine once improvised the sentence 'xiaobian zai nar' from what her elementary school students said when they wanted to go to the toilet, but got laughed at by the waiter as she'd roughly said 'pee-pee at where?'.
Another use for this phrase is to express negation in rhetorical questions. For example, 'wo nar you name duo qian' - I where have that much money? or 'wo nar zhidao' - where do I know?, or more idiomatically, how would I know? Comments on the word of the day are welcome, especially from people who spot any mistakes. Requests will be granted if possible.
I've abolished the 'Guard's requests for my going-in-and-out card' statistic, as it was remaining boringly at zero. I've instigated a new one, the 'No. of times I got a seat on public transport' statistic. This will hopefully fluctuate a bit more, and also offer an indication of how busy Beijing is. Or possibly an indication of how often I couldn't be bothered with the bus and took a taxi.
wednesday 14th may
Overheard coughs (0), Guard's requests for my going-in-and-out-card (0), Visitors to this page (154)Went into the head office on the other side of town this morning. Was one of only 4 people on the bus at 8.30am, and the conductor just asked us all if we were going to the underground. We all were, so the bus gave up on stopping at the stops and just whizzed past to the underground, like a really big cheap taxi. A rush hour bus with only 4 people on it. In Beijing.
Answers
to feedback form queries - a couple of people asked for comments on what is / will be open in Beijing at the moment / in mid-August. As for now, the city is certainly a bit of a strange place, but it's by no means a ghost town. Hotels, bars and restaurants are mostly open, albeit mostly empty and while you'll probably find some tourist attractions closed, there should be enough open to keep yourself entertained. Large chunks of Beijing can be happily wandered about without actually visiting anything, so even if lots of things are closed there is still plenty to see. Plus, I reckon you could get some great discounts on hotels. Get your hotel to phone ahead and check stuff is open for you, and keep an eye on the Lonely Planet's Thorntree if you don't already.
As for mid-August, it's way too early for me or anyone else to say. However, I would assume that the situation will be better than that described above and you shouldn't have too many problems. If this isn't true, then the tourist industry here is going to need some serious help.
I won't usually answer travel queries here, that's what the Thorntree is for. However I'd forgotten all the fascinating and amusing things I was going to write about today.
Someone asked if I could put the content into two columns to make it easier to read. The answer is no, because I don't know how to do it, and it would probably be too much work if I did know. However, I do hope to make photos available at a bigger size when I have the time to do it, but at the moment I'm either working on this diary or ways to squeeze money out of all you visitors (see recommended reading, movies and music, guides and phrasebooks and textbooks, which are currently earning me an average of 75 British Pence a week)
And
now for a new section, the Chinese Word of the Day. This may be a regular feature, but given the extraordinary lengths I have to go to in order to create that simple jpg when I'm working on this old laptop I picked up for a few hundred quid off ebay last time I was home, with its mish-mash of English and Chinese software, it might not be all that regular. Have you ever tried to work with Photoshop when the menus are all question marks and Chinese characters? Anyway, inspired by the results of falling asleep at work with my legs crossed, today's word is 'fa1 ma2 ', which translates as 'tingle' or 'pins and needles'. Use it well . . .
It's damned near impossible to get a dial-up connection at the moment. Too many teenagers not allowed out to play, I reckon. Internet retailers are one of the few to benefit from the current situation, along with disinfectant salespeople and those clever enough to have the words 'Beijing' and 'Sars' appear frequently in their webpage . . .
Still waiting for a connection . .
tuesday 13th may
Overheard coughs (14, due to old man in park), Guard's requests for my going-in-and-out-card (0), Visitors to this page (233)A notably busier Beijing today, and for the first time since I came back I noticed the noise of traffic sweeping past my window.
I went
in to pick some stuff up from work today and wound up having lunch there. They've
bought in a couple of portable . . .er . . . not really sure what you call of them, kind of pans that plug in and you
can boil stuff in them. Look a bit like a rice-cooker thing. Might be a rice cooker actually. Anyway, dumplings for lunch
and a conversation about the Tangshan earthquake for no reason I saw. Tangshan, a port city by Tianjin, was hit by a huge
earthquake in the 1970s (76, I think). One of the people I was speaking with was in one of the first army units to arrive
after the quake. He said many of the survivors believed they'd been hit by a Soviet nuclear bomb, and had to be convinced that
China and the USSR weren't at war. Another woman said the son of a colleague had been put at the wheel of a truck full of the
injured and told to drive it to Beijing. He made it, after reversing into a tree.
It's one of the great things about having been here for a few years and having made efforts with the language - I can now follow conversations like this, that would have been impossible not so long ago.
The number of new SARS cases daily
in Beijing is a lot lower than it was this time last week, and there's a definite air
of relaxation about the city now. As I said, there's more traffic, the park was busier, and so on. I noticed today though,
that there are no beggars about, and there haven't been since I got back. I presume they've given up in the face of empty
street rather than been scared off by SARS. Fruit and vegetable sellers are also scarcer than usual, though they're starting
to reappear. There had been reports a couple of weeks ago of a shortage of fresh fruit, but I suspect it was more a caseof there being a shortage of people selling fresh fruit, due to a shortage of people going outdoors to buy fresh fruit. Shoppers
may also have chosen to head for one-stop supermarkets rather than go to a number of outdoor vendors.
Businesses are also starting to reopen, and the number of 'temporarily on holiday' and 'stopped working' signs is on the wane.
Thanks for the feedback that's been coming in. As requested, there are some more photos today. If you hold your mouse over them you'll get some more information, when available.
monday 12th may
Overheard coughs (1), Guard's requests for my going-in-and-out-card (0), Visitors to this page (209)Don't really have any news today, spent most of the day supping iced tea in a cafe and working on a few new bits of this site. Visit the front page for a run down of what's new. Very pleasant summery evening, lots of strollers and badminton players about.
Quickly answer a query that came through the feedback form. What's China like at the moment for foreign teachers and students? The answer to that one has to be not great. Those who haven't left are finding that a number of restrictions are being placed on them in the name of SARS, and I've heard of people having to report their temperature twice a day, maids being sent into rooms to disinfect twice daily and even teachers being told they aren't allowed out of their building except to teach. However, these measures are by no means universal - it's likely that only those under these restrictions are writing into bulletin boards and mailing lists to complain about it, and those whose lives are continuing unaffected are keeping silent.
Finally, apologies to whoever it was who entered the phrase 'interviewee sex' into Google and ended up visiting one of my translations. I'm quite sure you were very disappointed. I have to admit though, I'm kind of curious as to exactly what it was you were looking for. If you're still visiting, get in touch and let me know.
sunday 11th may
Overheard coughs (3), Guard's requests for my going-in-and-out-card (0), Visitors to this page (84)A friend and 
I had planned to go to the Summer Palace today, but the weather was grey and overcast, as it has been the last
few days. We decided to head for Beihai park instead, and save the Summer Palace for a better day - it's worth saving for
good weather as its huge and a little further away.
Waiting for the bus we talked about what Beijing's like just now. We agreed its strange to be outside at the moment. There's a constant 'but where are all the people' feeling in the back of your head. She'd just come back from a visit from her hometown, where nobody had wanted to visit her as she'd come from Beijing and could therefore be carrying SARS. Even her mother found people avoided her when she went to the vegetable market.
Beihai, 
like Houhai yesterday, was lively enough to convince yourself that things were at least somewhat normal. I love
Chinese parks, there was one old guy who'd just bought his flute along and played, gathering a crowd. Another group of people
signing traditional songs, etc, etc. I once came across about 50 elderly ladies all sitting in one of the long corridors you
find in Chinese parks, happily knitting. Retired people will spend the greater part of their day in parks sometimes, get up early
and go in for the T'ai Chi and dancing, go home for an early lunch and a nap, come back in the afternoon for a sit-down and
a sing, then maybe back again after dinner.
The streets and restaurants are still quiet, of course. We had lunch in a small restaurant, which was good. I've been avoiding restaurants not because of SARS, but because everyone else is avoiding them and its not much fun to be the only diner in the place. There were a few customers there, perhaps seduced by the 'everything disinfected twice' sign on the door.
We walked up past Houhai where I'd been the day before, under a heavy sky that drizzled but never managed to rain properly, and into Xinjiekou to do some DVD shopping. We talked about how now should be an excellent time to go shopping - places where you'd normally join a scrum and wait for your turn to flick through the thousands of plastic-bagged DVDs are now virtually empty and you can browse at your leisure. However, there's still that constant sense of something not being right, as if you've forgotten something.
We saw one small shop which had gone so far as to put a plank of wood across the open door, with a sign reading 'To prevent SARS, please keep your distance.' They didn't have any customers, but that's not unusual these days. It's even less unusual, I suspect, when you ask any customers you might get to stand out in the rain and shout in their shopping lists . . .
The conversations 
you overhear now are much less about preventing SARS, and more about how long this situation will last.
Few people believe that SARS is going to go away and stop bothering us. As I was told at work the other day, Beijing is
fighting a battle just now, but there'll be a 'smokeless war' for a lot longer. It seems likely that certain measures will be
in place for quite some time, maybe quarantining all university students for 10 days at the start of a term for instance. I think it
may have some kind of long term impact on life in China, and the paranoia people from Beijing face as they travel around
China is one example of that - though it won't always be Beijing that has the worst of the outbreak, so it won't always be
the people from Beijing on the receiving end of that paranoia. I think it will in some way change the culture,
even if its just a very subtle change, such as a tendency towards more frequent hand-washing as happens in Japan.
Spent longer doing this than I intended to, with the result that I've now missed the supermarket. Instant noodles for dinner then . . .
Feedback form is still here, thanks to those of you who use it.
saturday 10th may
Overheard coughs (0, perhaps wasn't paying attention), Guard's requests for my going-in-and-out-card (0), Visitors to this page (277)Will be even briefer today, as I've spent too long playing with my new copy of Photoshop. Went into Wangfujing today, to see if the bookshops had any decent Chinese textbooks I could use in all my spare time. Didn't find anything worth getting, but had a walk past the train station - I know it sounds daft, but everytime I go to a new place I'm amazed at how quiet it is. The square in front of the station is usually a permanent mass of people, now its a few stragglers and no more. The travel agents at the train station was advertising plane tickets at 40% of usual cost, despite the fact that lots of flights have been cancelled.
Plenty of 'sale' signs on Wangfujing, but very few customers. Now's a great time for bargain hunting. I walked up to Houhai (lake) and that was a lot busier, plenty of boats out. Still quiet for a weekend, but about normal for a weekday I'd guess. There's a slight increase in the number of people out and about every day.
New big sign on the front of my building -
"Strangers, Please Don't Come In"
Keep the feedback coming, it's appreciated.
friday 9th may
Overheard coughs (1), Guard's requests for my going-in-and-out-card (0), Visitors to this page (66)Probably be
a little brief today, as I'm in the middle of a film. Went across town to work today, the trip by bus and subway was
just more proof of how dead Beijing has become. Where I live is a residential area, and you can kind of convince yourself
that everyone is inside watching China go 3-2 up against Brazil in a World Cup Qualifier or something. However, when there are
empty streets and echoing subway stations downtown at 8.45am on a weekday, you know something's not right. Or it's gone to
penalties.
Work was ok, didn't go to that meeting, the big boss wants me to be his family's pet English teacher (nothing surprising there) and work on a new website for them. Unfortunately they want me to work on the wrong website - if they got me to revamp the main one for customers I'm sure I could bring in a hell of a lot more business, as it's dreadful just now. However they want me to make a small website for other businesses they deal with.
They're working on a rota at the head office, and there are virtually no customers. Most people are sitting around gossiping and looking suspiciously at anyone who coughs. One woman had a minor coughing fit and was looked at like she was about to start swinging an ax.
The biggest event of the day is the release of yesterday's new SARS figures at 10am. Todays were average, 94 new cases I think. About half of these come from suspected cases or those in quarantine, but that still leaves 40-odd new cases springing up out of thin air. This was the main topic of conversation in the morning, though the afternoon drifted onto badminton and massages.
The building management committee (I really must go and meet these people sometime) have posted a notice asking for residents to volunteer to help the guards keep an eye on people going in and out of the building. I'm not sure of the need for this, and I think it's a lot more to do with being seen to do something that with doing something. I'm half-expecting people to start coming around checking temperatures. All businesses in the district have been told they need to check their employees daily.
A couple of notes
on the website. Firstly, I got a couple of feedback form responses saying that it appears my life has been
taken over by SARS, as that's all I write about. There's a couple of reasons for this. Firstly, SARS has had a pretty major
impact on my life, as it has on many peoples (most of all those on respirators). I've gone to part-time hours, all the
foreigners I know in the city have left, my favourite restaurants are closed, all the Chinese people I know are reluctant
to so much as go to a restaurant anyway, I
can't invite anyone to my flat anymore, and I can always get a seat on buses and the
subway (Did I say it was all bad?). Secondly, I think that's what people want to know about at the moment - have a look
through a newspaper and see how many articles about China don't refer to SARS. Not many. As the situation changes, I expect what I
write will also change. However, I'll make it clear that Beijing is still functioning, in case I've given the wrong
impression. People are still going to work,
there is still food on the shelves, and the fabric of society has not torn.
Also, sincere and heartfelt thanks to the wonderful person who visited my Chinese textbooks page and purchased two books from Amazon. The princely sum of 3 British pounds in commission will shortly be deposited in my account in the UK, and may just about cover the cost of a dry, underfilled egg mayonnaise sandwich at the airport next time I fly home. Thanks again. You can also buy guidebooks and phrasebooks if you choose. I know this site will never turn a profit, but I see no reason why it shouldn't contribute to its own running costs.
Thanks also to those of you who've taken the time to use the feedback form, it's appreciated.
As I say, a little short today.
thursday may 8th
Overheard coughs (2), Guard's requests for my going-in-and-out-card (0), Visitors to this page (50)A pretty 
lazy start to the day. Spent too much time in the morning checking the Chinese news on the internet (the foreign news
seems to have it's attention distracted) which didn't yield much information. There was one article about a system of fines
being introduced in Jiangsu for people who enter the province but don't report to clinics for health checks - yet another case
of minor mandarins jumping out of inaction - and another about a SARS sufferer who ran away from hospital because he couldn't afford
the 5000Y bill. Sensibly he waited till he was cured before running, and in a way this actually shows how seriously SARS is
being taken, as a few weeks ago he would have either had to pay up front, or go away and suffer. Despite being cured, they've
quarantined his family and friends, just in case . . .
Had a breakfast of fruit and museli, all part of my new SARS inspired health-kick, which will almost certainly not last as long as the SARS epidemic itself. I'm even going to try running again, when the blisters from the last pathetic trot round the block have worn off. There've been reports of sales of vitamins, fresh-fruit and sports equipment rising over the last few weeks, perhaps as people start to worry more about their health, and if that's both true and sustained, SARS may inadvertently save more lives than it takes. However, as far as the sports equipment goes, it must all be indoor sports.
Took the time to read a big notice outside the building as I left. It was a whole list of anti-SARS measure, including instructions to inform the building management committee if you develop a fever. Personally, I'll go to the hospital first and tell the building management later. They'd probably just burn all my possessions, for safety's sake, and I'd have a lot more faith in the disinfecting and quarantining skills of whatever organisation the city government has set up. Apparently the neighbourhood has also agreed to 'cut down comings and goings' and 'reduce the visits of family and friends'.
I also took the time to chat to the guard, which I've resolved to do more of. They're not as friendly as the ones at my last flat, but they're not so used to having foreigners around (I'm the first in the building) and I think they expect me to start to cause problems at some point. For all I know, I might. They're remarkably cheerful though, considering that their job consists of sitting and sleeping in a tiny room watching people walk out to presumably interesting and fulfilling jobs and back into comfortable flats and families. They've got it easy compared to the lift attendants though. At least the guards can go and sit on the steps and watch the traffic if they want. The lift attendants sit in the lift for 7 or 8 hours pressing buttons. It's not as if it needs manual operation, all they do is press the exact same button I would press myself. There's something depressing about hitting the lift call button and seeing the doors slide open to see a woman staring back at you. I usually take the stairs, as it's only the sixth floor and I feel guilty about the attendants. Admittedly, I don't see why refusing them the stimulation of pressing '6' for me and then taking the car back to the ground floor should assuage that guilt, but that's psychology for you. It wouldn't be so bad if they did something, but apart from the occasional magazine they don't even bring any hobbies with them. Maybe they're not allowed to. Perhaps one day I'll press the call button and interupt a yoga session or some short-range archery practice.
Spent the 
afternoon in a cafe working on the site - see translations
of an article on a mass poisoning incident in Liaoning Province (not yet quite finished, but almost)
and a short story about a conman caught in a small village. I also put a feedback form on the bottom
of this page, to cater to those of you too lazy to click through to it. A month ago I'd have described the cafe
as pleasantly quiet, though now it seems unpleasantly so.
The number of people on buses and on the street seems to be slowly increasing - there must be a limit to how long even closely-knit Chinese families can spend in cramped apartments disinfecting each other. I think an ignorant newcomer to Beijing might now find the city surprisingly quiet, but not really notice anything amiss. In comparison to its former self though, there's still a hell of a long way to go. Masks are still very much in evidence, and most businesses are insisting employees wear them.
I work tomorrow. Apparently I'm going along with my boss and the company owner to visit 'a big company we will cooperate with'. This happens fairly often, although actual cooperation happens a lot less. I also suspect that 'cooperate with', if I ever actually see it happen, will turn out to be a lot more accurately described as 'profit from'. It'll be interesting to see what my actual role is. I could well be the foreigner taken along to demonstrate what an international company we are, especially when most foreigners have fled. If I'm lucky I might actually have a useful function to perform.
At least going over to head office in the morning will give me a chance to see what the business district looks like at the moment - something tells me I'll get a seat on the subway.
The government is predicting that new SARS cases will start to fall off in a week / ten days, though not bottom out for some time yet. Even that hopeful estimate means another 500 or so cases, or half of the beds in the new flatpacked hospital they've chucked up on the north side of the city. Then you've got those who will be quarantined due to contact, however fleeting, with those 500 patients. Things could well get worse before they get better, and I'm constantly reconsidering my decision to stay. However, returning home would mean just sitting and waiting till I can come back, which wouldn't be a great deal of fun.
up to wednesday may 7th
I got back
to Beijing last Saturday, after a trip to Tibet. When I left on the 18th of April, Beijing was a little nervous and a fair number of people
on public transport were wearing masks. The change in the two weeks I was away was huge. I'd obviously been aware of what was
happening, and the two days before I got back had seen me have my temperature taken more times than in my entire life to date,
and I'd prepared myself for the chance that a hot forehead or a badly-timed cough could see me spending two weeks at Lhasa's
No.2 People's Hospital. I made it back though, to find Beijing not just nervous, but sitting in the corner rocking.
For starters, the airport was deserted, even for 9pm. All staff, and the majority of passengers were masked, and our temperatures were taken with infra-red pen-type things pointed at our foreheads on disembarking. Nobody was held back and the luggage popped out as normal. The airport bus had just left, and rather than wait an hour for the next one (they usually run much more frequently) I took a taxi. Talking to the taxi driver, it sounded like Beijing had been abandoned, but then I've yet to find a taxi driver who will say 'Yes, business is great actually'. Coming in the 4th ring road there was an eerie lack of traffic and beeping . Even at 9.30pm, the airport to the west side of Beijing in 15 minutes is good going.
I wasn't sure what I'd find at the apartment. There'd been rumours of neighbourhood clean-ups and disinfecting squads, and I
half-expected to find someone'd picked the lock and cleaned my flat. As it was the door guard took me aside and told me about
some new 'going in and out card' I had to go and get from the building manager's office,
which I promised faithfully to go and get the next day, thinking I would never hear of it again. Apart from anything else, I
didn't quite see how another piece of card justifying my existence would prevent SARS.
I spent most of the next day cleaning clothes, the flat and me (not because of SARS but because all of us were dirty) and didn't see much of Beijing. A quick look out the window at 8am was enough to see that things had changed. There was traffic, as always, but it was moving. Freely. Bus stops normally attended by three or four buses at any one time were deserted except for a handful of the masked. Bikes came past like solitary sharks, not the usual shoals of packed sardines. A trip round the corner to the supermarket, normally elbowing-room only on a weekend took a third of the time, and a fraction of the irritation. On the way back the guard asked me about the new card again, and told me I'd need to go with the owner of the flat.
I went 
walking the next day. This was when the novelty of the new Beijing wore off and it just became spooky. Businesses have
rolled down the shutters, and those that are still open were empty, staff outside playing masked badminton. 'On holiday'
or 'temporarily closed' signs litter restaurant windows. There are still people about, but mostly people going places, nobody
just strolling or chatting. I browsed a few shops, but it's not so nice when people jump as you come in, and then jump again as you
leave, disinfectant sprays at the ready. Rather than try to find an open restaurant and then force the entire staff to
down raquets and come inside, I ate at KFC, which was the busiest place I saw. Guard bent my ear about the new ID card again
when I came back, and I came to the conclusion I wasn't going to get away with ignoring it.
I went into work yesterday morning, though my boss wasn't back and there was nothing for me to do - we're pretty much closed for the next three months. The entire campus was silent apart from a team of people ripping up the paths. In the afternoon I went with my landlord to the building managers office, where I had to pretend I couldn't speak or understand Chinese while my landlord took care of the talking. It was pretty interesting, as I found out I've only been living here for one month (not four), I'm my landlord's cousin (it's possible. I guess) and most interestingly, I live with her husband while she stays in the dormitory at her work (I have to admit this one surprised me a little. I assume he stays in the kitchen as I don't use it much). I suspect my landlord might not be quite as legally entitled to rent out my flat as I thought. The card itself is a work of art, just my Chinese name (which I never use) and a photocopied photo of me. I've come to the conclusion that the only way it's ever going to prevent SARS is if I use a finely-sharpened needle to prick bigger-than-air but smaller-than-a-virus holes in it and strap it to my face.
Work again
this morning, though still nothing to do - I spent the time sorting out the digital camera pics I took on holiday -
some of them should appear on here soonish. My boss got back in the afternoon, and told me I'd be working two days a week,
for half my salary, for the next three months. I can't argue - plenty of people have been laid off, and half my salary
is still more than enough to live on comfortably. Hopefully I'll be able to use the extra time to study Chinese, and if
this site continues to get good feedback, work on it too (so why not give me some
feedback )
. I don't know what I'll be doing at work for the next few weeks, but
the boss was sure there'd be stuff to do. There seemed to be fewer people wearing masks today at the bus-stop and on the bus.
I'm not stubbornly sitting in Beijing refusing to leave, like an 87-year-old man determined to watch the flood come up to his windows. However, I've been in this country too long to leave lightly. I have a passport and enough cash to leave in a hurry if I need to, and at the moment I'm content to sit it out and see what happens. It's not all that pleasant though - there's a shell-shocked air to Beijing at the moment, and knowing that a suspected SARS case at my work or in this building could see me confined to my flat for a few weeks isn't great.
People at work are claiming things will be back to normal in a month. We'll see.
what this is
I had never originally planned to have any kind of weblog / diary on this site. However, with the continuing SARS crisis, and the uncertainty it brings, a number of people have suggested it might be useful. Although Chinese statistics are now accepted as more or less accurate, and foreign journalists in Beijing are filing regular reports, there still seems to be a demand for information about what effect SARS has had on life in Beijing. I'll try and supply that demand.
I'm not a reporter, I'm not going to go around work units and hospitals asking questions, it's just going to be what I see and hear day-to-day. Therefore, this is not news. If you want news, try Google's News Search or indeed any newspaper. This is just comment and description from Beijing about what it is like to live in Beijing right now.
Two notes. I've turned the page upside down, newest stuff is at the top (thanks to kimire.com for that idea). I've also chucked in a few more photos, mostly from my recent holiday. They're larger files than they should be, but they shouldn't slow down the page as the text loads first.
support
The simplest thing you can do is use the feedback form below to tell me what you think about the site, and what will keep you coming back.At the moment the most important thing is to get the number of visitors up - if you know anybody who might be interested, or you know of a forum or mailing list whose members might be interested in this site, let them know. If you have your own site, a link to this one would be appreciated.
While this site will never make a profit, I do hope it will repay some of the costs (minimal) and time (substantial) that go into it. You can help do this through using the Amazon links in the recommended reading, movies and music, guides and phrasebooks or textbook sections, or just clicking on one of the logos around this paragraph. And if anyone wants to just send me a check (hey, stranger things have happened, though mostly in movies) use the feedback form and I'll be happy to help you out.
Tell me how I'm doing
If you've got any comments on this page, or the site in general, let me know. It'd be nice to know people out there are . . . well, it'd be nice to know people are out there. If there's anything you'd like to ask, know or tell me then let me know and I'll see what I can do.
top and links