Travelling to Cambodia with our 16 month old daughter, Amity, was a good combination of adventure and convenience. Nearly 2 million tourists visited Cambodia last year to see the Angkorian-era (9th-13th century) Khmer Empire temples at Angkor Watt just outside Siem Reap, and while the town of Siem Reap is becoming more westernized with child friendly food, ATM’s, and the Internet, it still has enough challenges to make it exciting to former backpackers. Getting to Cambodia is fairly painless from Beijing. We flew from Beijing to Phnom Penh on China Southern Airlines CZ324 which departed at 0800 and arrived at 15:05 which meant that Amity traveled during her naptime. You can get a visa on the Internet or pay US$25 on arrival – but take 2 photos with you. We over nighted in Phnom Penh and then hired a driver and car for the 4 hour drive to Siem Reap. The cost was US$65 which was double the cost of 6-7 hour bus journey and gave us the option for pit stops. Once in Siem Reap, population circa 90,000,there is a wide range of hotels starting at backpack hostels at US$12 to 5 star Hotel de Paix at US$750. We elected for Hotel Mysteres Angkor which was on the east side of the Siem Reap river, which was a mistake; access was via a temple and burial grounds, the neighbourhood was noisy and they placed us in a suite with a spiral staircase – not ideal for a toddler! Always ask the question about location and if the room is toddler friendly. Getting to the Angkor Archaeological Park takes 20 minutes from Siem Reap by Tuk Tuk and we planned 4 days to cover the 400 square kilometer park. Tickets are sold for ($20), three-day ($40) and seven-day ($60) visits. To see the park for 4 days but only pay for 3 we took the hot air balloon ride that is just inside the park but for which one doesn’t need a park ticket. From 200m up the tether great yellow balloon gave a fantastic view at sunset (6:40) and it was safe for Amity, who was more excited by the earth bound chickens running around the ticket office. There were also elephants, monkeys and all manner of animals in the park, some to ride. <a style="float: left;" href="http://www.jimjames.cn/.a/6a00d8341f324553ef01156e68c78c970c-pi"> We moved hotels to the Shanta Mani on the west side of the river by the old market. We used the mornings to tour the Park by TukTuk as it was cooler for Amity, returning home each day for lunch, pool and naptime. In the late afternoons we went back to the Park carrying Amity in a backpack. There is a good aircon restaurant in the park opposite the Angkor Wat which serves fruit juice and both western and Asian food and that proved a safe haven on the second day. A tour around the park can take 2-5 hours depending on how adventurous the parents and patient the toddler – Amity stood up to 3 hours before melting down, saved only by the icecream vendor. After 3 days of visiting Temples we had had enough of history and went on a boat tour on the Tonle Sap, Asia’s largest freshwater lake, some 15km south of Siem Reap. We paid US$20 per person (Amity rode for free) for a boat ride that navigated past a Vietnamese boat people floating village including a school. Sunset on a floating restaurant and then back up the estuary to a magical dusky tuktuk ride with Amity fast asleep to the soothing sounds of a tropical evening. We checked into the luxury of the Foreign Correspondents club and felt we had arrived home. Cambodia is a manageable holiday with a toddler but it is worth deciding how much you want to trade convenience for cash. Our holiday for 7 nights amounted to around US$3,000 including flights, car, accommodation, passes and food. It could have been done for half as much but with greater amounts of patience. The people of Cambodia have lived with many more hardships than we did, and the people we met were welcoming and hospitable. We all felt safe both in the daytime and nighttime. For an alternative to Thailand or Indonesia, I would recommend Cambodia - Take suntan lotion, mosquito repellent, and a some shades. For a useful guide www.canbypublications.com

Beijing Diary 3rd August 2008 On my 39th birthday when I landed in China on 25th January 2006 I had conspired to build my empire quickly and easily in readiness for the Olympics and then to make my fortune in these two upcoming weeks. I was very much mistaken on all counts. The Opening Ceremony finds me having made significant inroads into establishing the company here, and two more besides, but it has taken significantly longer and more expense that I had planned, the saving grace being the joys of fatherhood and finding in Wei, a wonderful partner. We’ve spent the last six months wondering whether Beijing would really manage to shape up to expectations for ‘One World, One Dream.’ The controversy surrounding the torch relay was countered by the global sympathy over the Sichuan earth quake. The subsequent immorality of local officials stealing aid monies, and worse still the silencing of parents who are in arms about the substandard quality of their schools which lead to unnecessary deaths, has left observers including me wandering which way to turn. One of the central questions for me is whether the Olympics herald a great change in perception or a great act of self – deception. Opposing reports by the China Daily and Hong Kong Standard of a Hong Kong reporter assaulting a police officer during the latest tickets fiasco were illustrative of the dichotomy taking place in the media. This week when an Olympic official likened the Beijing pollution to sitting in a ‘steam bath’ I think there was an incredulity tempered with anxiety; Beijing really does need the games to be a success. I had made the mistake of believing that these Olympics were about fun and business and sport, but they are about much more than that. They are about China’s arrival on the international scene but at a time when internally the conflicts taking place are huge. I sometimes ask myself why the Government, which is all powerful, needs to pander to the international audience, but then it occurred to me that perhaps this is because the international respectability may come to counterbalance the negative domestic sentiment building around issues such as wealth inequality, inflation and pollution. It is the pollution that is making Wei and I most worried for Amity, as she crosses the 9 month mark and her surroundings become our main consideration. I calculate that we are close the 1,350 diaper’s changed mark, which makes us a net contributor ourselves to the local problem. Fatherhood is great, although I would have to admit to finding the need to put someone else first not easy for me; I have a terrible nagging feeling that I am being left behind all the time. Wei is a natural mother and I think too that women just get their emotional centre wrapped around the baby better than men do; not a pc thing to say but after 40 I resolved to be less defensive about these things. In one of the last great entrepreneurial acts that I had last year I booked a Villa the Commune, and we are going to make good use of a bad decision. As part of it’s amazing security procedures the Government made over 124 visa application changes in the last 6 months, Olympic ticket purchases have been literally a lottery (another one I didn’t win) and finally traffic bans are making logistics a nightmare. Apparently hotels are at 60-70% capacity instead of the 90-95% anticipated, and many people have left Beijing. The Villa is emblematic of my attempt to make money by setting up in time for the Olympics – it was a great idea but logistics and sentiment have left me with an expensive picnic spot by the Great Wall. Wei and I will go, along with Amity and our friends, celebrate our engagement. While in Singapore overlooking the Symphony lake on Thursday 24th July I proposed to Wei. It was a magical moment under the stars. As we travel the world to start new lives we do have only one world to live in and one dream to share it with. I will watch the Olympics with quite a different view to that which I had imagined, but a happier and healthier one I am sure. That is as long as these blue skies remain overhead. Man zou

Becoming a father is at once a uniquely personal and yet almost universal experience when our daughter was born at 03:30 on Saturday 27th October, in a procedure that dates back to Roman times, and which is still a breath taking event. If ever a couple want to discover a level of shared and mixed emotions, then being together in a surgery theatre during child birth has to be one of the most powerful ways to do that. The medical staff at the Beijing United Family Hospital was quick to install an IV drip on Wei’s wrist within 15 minutes of our arrival, but as our birth plan called for minimal intervention Wei bravely had it removed. Suite #7, softened by oil lamps, Buddha bar music and flowers, was a tender place for us to decide at 02:00 that we had no choice but for Wei to have a Cesarean having laboured for 24 hours. I sat at Wei’s shoulder while the 8 green-clad staff followed the masterful instructions of Dr Brooks, although I was unnerved when he implied certain parts of the procedure hadn’t been done prior to his arrival; in fact the nursing staff all avoided calling the imposing Dr Brooks until 02:00 when midwife Sarah eventually insisted that they do so - he wasn’t happy at being called when our baby, LP, was already in distress with a heartbeat racing at 175 bpm, nor I suspect because we had woken him. The Cesarean section is an ancient procedure, one that delivers over 30% of all Chinese (and British) babies. The name Cesarean is credited to Julius Cesar who was reputedly taken from his mother Aurelia’s womb – a story later discredited. Cesarean certainly comes from his ruling that babies were to be taken from the mother who had not survived labour. The first written record of a mother and baby surviving a cesarean section comes from Switzerland in 1500 when a sow gelder, Jacob Nufer, performed the operation on his wife. With Wei under lower body anesthetic, I held her hand and watched Dr Brooks and his Chinese staff use steel equipment that could have come straight from Herr Nufer’s stable; 30 cm long stirrups for pulling apart the cavity, 20cm long forceps for pushing apart the cervix, and snauser nosed scissors for cutting. Wei was shrouded by a green tent behind which she bravely withstood the dull pulling and lifting sensations, until miraculously a fully formed and remarkably calm LP was lifted into the bright white theatre lights. After all that labour, the operation was quick. We had expected our baby to be a boy, and I had a hard time looking for my familial genitalia, and I thought that it was my emotions that shrouded the surely large tackle, only to ask quizzically, “Is it a boy?” – Against all the wisdom of every mother and nurse we had met, Wei carried a 48cm, 2.95kg beautiful girl. We had names for a boy, ‘Ghenghis’ was one of my frontrunners, and in the event our daughter does carry what is known as a Mongolian birth spot on her right foot. Naming a girl is tough for a Dad. How to pick a name that is special but not a liability for her; anything rhyming with two wheeled conveyances, fat, pee, smelly etc. are definitely out. So too are names of girls Dad had a good or bad sexual experience with no matter how long ago. Of course one can’t say why one doesn’t like a name, “it just doesn’t suit her,” is the non committal reply. Boys’ names are easier. Apparently some 3,590 Chinese have adopted the name that sounds like ‘Olympic’, “Aoyun” while many are trying to time their delivery for 08:00 on the 8th August 2008. In the event we decided on Huan Huan for the Chinese name which means ‘happiness’, and is part of Huan Ying – “welcome,” because she just smiles so much. Her English name is Amity, for friendship and harmony – virtues she has displayed in her first week in the outside world. See Amity's first week Next in the wonderful turn of events is a mixed culture household, in which I realize that western medicine does baby delivery well but Chinese post partum care nurtures the wellbeing of the mum better. There is a traditional one month confinement period that Wei and I had dismissed, but having Wei’s mum here cooking all manner of ‘mum recovery’ meals noted in a special recipe book I can see why this ancient culture proscribes that time when the mum is not supposed to leave the house or even bathe. One morning Wei was tiring of boiled fruits in sweetened condensed juices and so I prepared a bowl of muesli, manfully warmed in the microwave. Wei’s mum followed me around the kitchen eventually asking me in Shanghainese what I was making – shaking her head she took Wei a bowl of long boiled fruits in sweetened condensed juices. I have to confess we both preferred her recipe. “Chinese mothers are tireless in their care and absent in their demands,” commented Chris Baron, the director of the British Chamber of Commerce, and so it has proven to be as I start to get used to passing my daughter at 03:30 to a pajama clad woman with whom the only common language is our love for this soft bundle of sleep and innocence. As we are now some 260 days away from the Olympics my life has been transformed, and this is also the case for the City, and we are all trying to find our feet. The pollution continues to be appalling, and in response new rail lines are promised. The computer system supposed to manage the 1.5m ticket sales fell over last week as 8,000,000 page views were registered on the website in the first hour, the system surrendering only 9,500 tickets before collapsing. The call centres were no better and eventually queues formed at banks overnight to get tickets. The 8 foreign torch bearers have been selected creating a PR opportunity for the Chinese, and I have been elected to the British Chamber of Commerce Exco which means that I may have a chance to be at a function with Tessa Jowell MP, Secretary of State for Culture, Media & Sport; a solace for the hours in committee meetings. To celebrate EASTWEST reaching 1 million RMB in sales I commissioned a commemorative mug with a modified 100RMB note; but none of the printers would take our money to make them. Marches without prior approval have been banned, and the third runway at the airport which could fly extra protestors in has been opened. Beijing continues to be a place of rapid growth and interesting contradictions. In all of this, for Wei and I, Amity’s healthy birth has truly meant huan yin lai Beijing. Welcome to Beijing. Manzou

21 October 2007 294 days to Olympics 10 days to fatherhood (Photo of west side of one of the two CCTV tower structures taken on my walk to work) Impending fatherhood in Beijing must be the same as the potential arrival of a bundle of joys anywhere, with some extra things to think about at home and in the hospital, both in the short term and as we move into the next 5 year plan of China. One of the matters that Wei and I have been trying to solve is help. Many expatriates have full time nannies in China. Chinese have grandparents take care of babies while parents go to work. We have decided to not have a full time live in maid in the interest of keeping our home life more private although I was tempted by a carefully typed advert in the local shop: ‘Baloy Sitter.’ ‘Liuing in Beiftng, haatthy. Have etpeiirues in Baby Sittny fm Many Yees. Pls Contaut me if yon meed a baby fitter.’ This for me raises one of the key issues around child care here in China, and elsewhere in Asia; ensuring that the child gets a proper environment and example from an early age. I met a teacher of autistic children who told me that she encounters expatriate children who are believed to be disabled but in fact are simply overwhelmed by the number of languages they are surrounded by. Our child will have a British father who speaks bad Chinese, a mother who speaks Mandarin, Shanghainese, and American English, one grandmother who speaks only Shanghainese and one who speaks only English. I pray that the baby is a better linguist than I am. In the run up to the Olympics comments are being printed in the English language papers suggesting that speaking out freely is going to be easier than ever before. At a strategy meeting that the Beijing EASTWEST team held this week Nellie, a former journalist herself at the Beijing Youth Daily, explained how the editors of publications are sent a monthly update of what subjects are not to be covered by the approximately 10,000,000 journalists in China. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists China had 31 journalists in prison as of Dec 2006, including SHI TAO who is serving 10 years for an internet report on the 10th anniversary of Tiananmen square. The Press and Publications Administration apparently has committees in each province populated by party members who read all the publications and compile lists of any contentious articles and who prepare a list of topics not to be written about. The 17th Party Congress ended today (Sunday 21st) and a statement has been issued that the press briefing will be held on Monday, which will cover issues concerning China being a ‘well off society.’ One of the delegates to the Congress was former gymnastic champion Wang Qihong , who no doubt would approve of a notification that we received last week from Beijing Local Taxation Bureau regarding hiring disabled as employees or paying the disabled career funds for the year 2007. The promulgation that takes immediate effect means that all companies must submit documents for their disabled employees, and if they don’t have any disabled employees will be fined on a formula of salary bill x 1.7%. As it is compulsory for foreign firms to make payroll through the CIIC or Fesco, both government agencies, it is impossible to mask payrolls. The penalty for non payment is interest at 0.5% daily on the payable amounts. While applauding the sentiment this latest promulgation comes with news from Xiaolei that the landlord won’t be able to give us official fapiao (receipts) which will increase our taxable income. Perhaps my tax payments will help to pay for the increased expenditure for the Olympics which has apparently been increased from US$1.6bn to US$2 bn, an event that is expected to create 600,000 jobs in Beijing. The city is certainly starting to get ready, at least in terms of the infrastructure, even though we are still not seeing blue sky promised as a result of moving over 167 factories away from the city. The Bank of China and Visa have announced the opening of 25,000 ATM’s across the city which of course is good news for merchants, including the counterfeit DVD shop near my office that has ‘hidden room’ for which the password is ‘no police’ instead of abracadabra. My hopes of carrying the torch with LP have been crushed by Jenny Bowen of America who raised 14,188 votes and Marcos Antonio Torres of the Philippines who drew 13,342. I raised only 64, an embarrassingly poor show for someone in public relations. Still, fatherhood is a week away and self-publicity is far from my mind, instead concerned with the myriad of paraphernalia required for modern parenting. For a two night stay in the Beijing United Family Hospital we have 3 bags packed as if going away for a weekend to Europe. I have finally restrained the Graco baby seat in the back of the car having nearly put my back out trying to juggle the large plastic form in a confined space. Everyone tells me that life is about to do one of many things; end, start, never be the same again, take on a new meaning, have focus, lose all independence, and be one of indentured servitude. As with the Dire straits song, two men say they are Jesus, one of them must be wrong – for now I will settle with an incongruous mentor, Russell Crowe, who just says ‘it’s awesome.’ Now all I do is to pray that the LP is healthy and that we won't 'meed a baby fitter.' Man zou. Jim

Beijing Countdown - 312 Fatherhood Countdown – 28 days The 1st of October is the 58th National Day celebration in China which falls just after the Mid Autumn Festival, and the start of a government mandated one week holiday that will see tens of millions of Chinese clutching Moon cakes for family and friends, with many tales of their lives away from home. In my office I have been sent half a dozen boxes of moon cakes, an indication of the growing number of people to whom I owe money, but sadly haven’t been sent one of the most expensive which apparently retails at RMB310,000 (US$40,000). Moon cakes are the Chinese equivalent to Xmas cake, rich in fruit and steeped in tradition, and the commercialization of these innocuous densely packed and individually shrink wrapped sweets are causing some people concern. One writer in an English language newspaper bemoaned the 600 trees being cut down for each 10 million moon cakes, placing the total tree loss at several thousand. As people are increasingly concerned about quality control the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection, and Quarantine (AQSIQ) said it has checked a total 425 types of moon cakes made by 378 firms in 29 provinces and found them to be 99.5% safe. As moon cakes have no lead in them I feel pretty sure that there won’t be any recalls to worry about. One of the topics apparently being worried about by the Government though is technology; an issue discussed at the British High Commission briefing this week. One of the embassy staff explained that for the Chinese Government about to start the 17th National Congress of the CPC in two weeks time there is a realisation that the 25 year policy of technology transfer is not working. The Government now wants innovation to drive growth. This is a similar refrain heard in Singapore 5 years ago. Apparently a recent promulgation announced that it is now officially ok for people to fail in new endeavours. Chinese scientists issue more technical papers than all countries except America, Japan and Germany apparently, but many of these have been essentially copy cat theses. The British official suggested that the Chinese Government will be encouraging scientists to publish pioneering research without the risk of some kind of ostracism or lack of prestige that apparently accompanied failures. During the week EASTWEST helped to announce a Centre of Excellence at the British school which is using Promethean Activboards for interactive teaching, a British innovation avidly watched by an audience of Chinese school teachers. Interactive whiteboards give children of all ages the opportunity to investigate subjects very quickly and in a non linear fashion; the teacher becomes a facilitator more than a master of the subject. One of the questions from a westerner in the audience was the freedom that teachers had to customise the content away from the syllabus. The technology is creating interesting possibilities and as master of ceremonies I watched the eagerness of the local teachers. The question will be if the new promulgation on taking risks and failing applies throughout the education system. Many people are taking risks in China and succeeding. A friend told me of his 39 year old one armed army officer who is his new landlord. The property agent exclaimed how brave and reliable the officer must be as all army are trustworthy. Asked by my cynical friend how many properties this officer held, the agent paused gently as she quoted the figure ‘five.’ It is obvious that this young officer has already read Monday’s People’s Daily that will intone people to "Stride forward on the road to build socialism with Chinese characteristics" to mark China's 58th National Day Anniversary. The CPC 17th National Congress is expected to address the issues of continued economic openness while retaining these Chinese characteristics, and repudiating any separatist movement by Taiwan. Taiwan was denied being part of the Olympic flame route, in a snub to one of the Confucian quotes that may adorn Beijing, "All men are brothers.” There is a move by the home town of Confucius, Jinan, to have many of the ancient philosophers edicts placed around the city including: "Do to others as you would be done by", "Virtue is not left to stand alone. He who practises it will have neighbours", and "In carrying our rites, it is harmony that is prized.” Another one should be ‘Patience is a virtue’ for those who are lucky enough to watch the 3 ½ hour opening ceremony. Another ancient edict, "When a friend comes from afar, is that not delightful?" may be truer for those that travel here next year as 3 runways were operating concurrently last week as part of the plan to increase capacity at the airport. The new north south subway line also opened and the train to the airport should be completed soon. It feels as though the pieces of the party that will be Beijing 2008 are coming together, and if there is a shortage of things to eat the Olympic Committee could always bring in the world’s largest ever moon cake, at 8.15-meter in diameter weighing 25,000-kilograms it should feed few atheletes. Manzou Jim p.s. If you haven’t please vote for LP to run the Torch at the Opening Ceremony. Do pass this on – one Japanese has over 2,000 votes! http://pub1.chinadaily.com.cn/olympics/torch/members.shtml?mid=171

Beijing Countdown - 312 Fatherhood Countdown – 28 days The 1st of October is the 58th National Day celebration in China which falls just after the Mid Autumn Festival, and the start of a government mandated one week holiday that will see tens of millions of Chinese clutching Moon cakes for family and friends, with many tales of their lives away from home. In my office I have been sent half a dozen boxes of moon cakes, an indication of the growing number of people to whom I owe money, but sadly haven’t been sent one of the most expensive which apparently retails at RMB310,000 (US$40,000). Moon cakes are the Chinese equivalent to Xmas cake, rich in fruit and steeped in tradition, and the commercialization of these innocuous densely packed and individually shrink wrapped sweets are causing some people concern. One writer in an English language newspaper bemoaned the 600 trees being cut down for each 10 million moon cakes, placing the total tree loss at several thousand. As people are increasingly concerned about quality control the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection, and Quarantine (AQSIQ) said it has checked a total 425 types of moon cakes made by 378 firms in 29 provinces and found them to be 99.5% safe. As moon cakes have no lead in them I feel pretty sure that there won’t be any recalls to worry about. One of the topics apparently being worried about by the Government though is technology; an issue discussed at the British High Commission briefing this week. One of the embassy staff explained that for the Chinese Government about to start the 17th National Congress of the CPC in two weeks time there is a realisation that the 25 year policy of technology transfer is not working. The Government now wants innovation to drive growth. This is a similar refrain heard in Singapore 5 years ago. Apparently a recent promulgation announced that it is now officially ok for people to fail in new endeavours. Chinese scientists issue more technical papers than all countries except America, Japan and Germany apparently, but many of these have been essentially copy cat theses. The British official suggested that the Chinese Government will be encouraging scientists to publish pioneering research without the risk of some kind of ostracism or lack of prestige that apparently accompanied failures. During the week EASTWEST helped to announce a Centre of Excellence at the British school which is using Promethean Activboards for interactive teaching, a British innovation avidly watched by an audience of Chinese school teachers. Interactive whiteboards give children of all ages the opportunity to investigate subjects very quickly and in a non linear fashion; the teacher becomes a facilitator more than a master of the subject. One of the questions from a westerner in the audience was the freedom that teachers had to customise the content away from the syllabus. The technology is creating interesting possibilities and as master of ceremonies I watched the eagerness of the local teachers. The question will be if the new promulgation on taking risks and failing applies throughout the education system. Many people are taking risks in China and succeeding. A friend told me of his 39 year old one armed army officer who is his new landlord. The property agent exclaimed how brave and reliable the officer must be as all army are trustworthy. Asked by my cynical friend how many properties this officer held, the agent paused gently as she quoted the figure ‘five.’ It is obvious that this young officer has already read Monday’s People’s Daily that will intone people to "Stride forward on the road to build socialism with Chinese characteristics" to mark China's 58th National Day Anniversary. The CPC 17th National Congress is expected to address the issues of continued economic openness while retaining these Chinese characteristics, and repudiating any separatist movement by Taiwan. Taiwan was denied being part of the Olympic flame route, in a snub to one of the Confucian quotes that may adorn Beijing, "All men are brothers.” There is a move by the home town of Confucius, Jinan, to have many of the ancient philosophers edicts placed around the city including: "Do to others as you would be done by", "Virtue is not left to stand alone. He who practises it will have neighbours", and "In carrying our rites, it is harmony that is prized.” Another one should be ‘Patience is a virtue’ for those who are lucky enough to watch the 3 ½ hour opening ceremony. Another ancient edict, "When a friend comes from afar, is that not delightful?" may be truer for those that travel here next year as 3 runways were operating concurrently last week as part of the plan to increase capacity at the airport. The new north south subway line also opened and the train to the airport should be completed soon. It feels as though the pieces of the party that will be Beijing 2008 are coming together, and if there is a shortage of things to eat the Olympic Committee could always bring in the world’s largest ever moon cake, at 8.15-meter in diameter weighing 25,000-kilograms it should feed few atheletes. Manzou Jim p.s. If you haven’t please vote for LP to run the Torch at the Opening Ceremony. Do pass this on – one Japanese has over 2,000 votes! http://pub1.chinadaily.com.cn/olympics/torch/members.shtml?mid=171

Olympic countdown: 473 days It’s springtime in Beijing. New life is blossoming throughout the city and my life could not be more different than a year ago. Olympic tickets went on sale last week, the first leg of a seven million ticket lottery. I went online to the Beijing Olympic Ticketing Centre and made my bidding for the opening and closing ceremonies, as well as for basketball, table tennis and swimming. Prices range from RMB500 to RMB5,000. If my name is not pulled in the first round, I will be entered into a cascading lottery that takes me to the next price category. The limit is 1 ticket per person per ceremony; I can't imagine the chaos as 100,000 look for their friends at the magnificent National Stadium. Each ticket will be embedded with a wireless chip and sprayed with special paint to avoid counterfeiting. As the combined revenue from ticket sales is believed to be US$140m, faking tickets will be a lucrative business. The EASTWEST business is now firmly on track, but not without its hiccups. This last week we received 8 new leads from as far afield as Australia and America, but as the agency is still small and in only one city, we can’t realistically pitch to win all of them. Xiaolei, ever on top of things, told me that the Government has changed the law again and we could have remained in the old office. Now my issue is people. This week Nellie decided that she would rather work in a Chinese company in the children’s culture industry. In truth, her abilities with the media were good, but attention to detail and client counsel were proving to be mutually recognized weaknesses. Last spring I was just finding my feet in Jian Wai SOHO; this year the office is all set up, we have potential business and the challenge is attracting qualified consultants away from the multinational agencies or finding talent to train. One mainland Chinese candidate I interviewed was earning more money than her equivalent in Singapore – such is the demand in an economy growing at 11%. Wage inflation is a real problem here, as people like Nellie are able to command greater salaries without improving their skill sets. As the wage gap narrows, China’s competitive edge is being eroded. One edge that China doesn’t want to lose is that of being a fundamentally safe place. This last week the English and Chinese papers were dominated by the tragedy of Virginia Tech, in which a South Korean student shot and killed 32 people. At first, papers were concerned at the anti-Asian sentiment in the USA; not least because people seemed unable to distinguish between Chinese and Korean. By the end of the week there was a photo in the China Daily of a steam roller crushing illegal weapons. Owning arms of any kind is illegal in China and in cases punishable with death. This appears to put off a significant number of people as only 178,000 guns, 3,900 tons of explosives and 7.77m detonators – the latter of which are probably used for illegal mining – were confiscated in 2006 . Apparently selling an illegal handgun can earn a farmer twice his monthly salary, and they fall victim to smuggling rings looking for fences. The authorities are keen to tell visitors that this is a safe country and Beijing will be a safe haven in 2008. Certainly spring is a lovely time in Beijing with plenty of government attempts to plant new life, and couples in China planning on having babies this year as it is Golden Pig Year, which only occurs every 60 years. Among the lucky couples who will apparently compete for hospital beds in this auspicious year will be Wei and me. We are now 12 weeks into her pregnancy and according to the ultrasound scans last Friday we have a healthy 6.3cm Eurasian baby. The scan was undertaken at the United Family Hospital, which resembles a 5 Star Hotel and I suspect costs more. A poster in the waiting room reminds prospective parents that babies of both genders have a right to life. I understand that, as a safeguard, doctors aren’t allowed to tell the couple the gender lest they decide to terminate a female fetus. At the Sino Japanese hospital the doctor told Wei to eat fruit and get fresh air and to return at week 15, but at the UFH there is an American attitude to antenatal care which includes thoughtfully having golf magazines in reception and attractive receptionists who smile while extorting the cash from one’s credit card. It has been in large part the knowledge that I will become a father that has separated me from writing this diary, as time supporting Wei while carrying forward the business have been priorities. A decade long relationship with Asia has finally, perhaps inevitably, resulted in having a love affair with a Chinese woman and the beginning of a new chapter in my life. I am not the first Englishman, and doubt that I will be the last, to be drawn to China. As the world becomes more interconnected, the distinctions between east and west become less perceptible, and having a Eurasian baby is the ultimate expression of the two cultures coming together. On Saturday Wei and I went to listen to the acclaimed pianist Zhang Lu and the China Philharmonic Orchestra play Piotr Illyich Tchaikovsky' Piano Concerto No. 2, followed by Symphony No.4 in F Minor. After several discordant weeks of coming to terms with fatherhood, listening to this magical music in the Forbidden City was just the ticket. Man zou.

"A given particle appears equally likely to move in any direction, further motion seems totally unrelated to past motion, and the motion never stops." That's the definition of Brownian motion and these last two weeks I have felt as though I was one of the particles in Robert Brown’s experiment. The net effect of the AIC promulgation of August 2006 has been that I have had to search for a new office. In 2005, there was according to Colliers 788,000 m2 of office space in Beijing and by the end of 2008 there will be an additional 2,000,000 m2 within the 30 hectare CBD where we are based. (source: Int'l Herald Tribune.) Offices are springing up in Beijing like mushrooms, with developers racing to meet the Dec 31st deadline for ending construction so that the dust will settle before the Olympics. Owner confidence is so strong that the US$25 – US$35 per square metre for prime offices is not being discounted by more than 5%. Prices are quoted in US$ per day per metre, not in RMB. And strangely much of the space is owned by individual people, prompting suggestions that they are simply proxies for government or army officials. The impact on EASTWEST is that we must have the ever sacred ‘fapiao’ or receipt, to prove to the AIC that we are renting a real office and to prove to the tax bureau that we are making good on the commitment to spend US$25,000 in 12 months. However, individual landlords have no desire to issue fapiao because they will be taxed on the income at rates up to 40%, although one can of course buy non-traceable fapiao at 3-5% of face value. All of this has made office hunting rather more stressful than it should be, and when I finally met my future landlord, a blacken toothed Mr Zhang, I was reminded of something that I had read in two different places about the relationship Chinese have with us foreigners. In his illuminating book ‘One Billion Customers’ James McGregor writes about the ‘schizophrenic’ nature of China -- ‘confident, reasonable and eager to become a world class competitor, while also paranoid and insecure about the outside world.’ I thought this a bit strong until I read a recent article in the Shanghai Daily claiming ‘ Chinese Civilization can help cure Western ills’ which went on to write ‘since western powers forced open China’s door by gunpowder (invented originally by Chinese for a wholly different purpose), opium, and exotic industrial products, there followed decades of humiliations for Chinese…A liberal dose of Chinese outlook would cure Westerners of their towering ambitions, their worship of efficiency, their belligerence…’ Mr Zhang looked up at me with a piercing look; his cheap shoes covered in dust, and prodded “Which country are you from?” I resisted being impolite, as the Chinese believe Englishman are gentlemen, and responded with a question about his own origins which was met with a measure of disdain “Chinese”, he grunted. After nearly 12 months I have to admit that the fatigue of being simultaneously respected and undermined takes its toll. We will rent the office in Hua Mao, subject to Mr Zhang managing to provide us with fapio, which he said he could do for 3 months and then after that for 9 months after we have completed the tenancy. For me, failure to demonstrate a proper office to the authorities will mean no re-registration. For Mr Zhang my money means the cache of having a trustworthy foreigner but with the irksome truth that we are present in his country. I have made no mention to him that if his fapiao are insufficient, I will resort to gunpowder. To get some fresh air and some slow motion today I went for a walk with Wei, a Chinese friend, in Chaoyang Park, just to the east of the third ring road and the venue for the ‘eastern Disneyland.’  The 320 hectare Park recently had US$75m spent on it and contains some large man made lakes and a theme park. Wei and I wandered to the central dome, a 75ft high red affair the size of a conservatory for stargazing. The sign announced ‘Space travel is a kind of large scale recreation machine of sliding car, it is a domestic pioneer project Disneyland…you feel novel, stimulate, happiness.’ With this invitation it seemed churlish to pass up paying RMB20 to enter the ride. ‘Hold on and Look up’ we were instructed by the signage, before we slid off on the toboggan into a what looked like an upturned teacup with lightbulbs on the ceiling and a large planet earth which appeared to be melting into the floor. We held and looked up for 20 seconds and the ride was done. ‘No staying or photograph’ intoned the sign at the exit, which was just as well as we had no intention to do either. The Olympics are some 18 months away, and one can only imagine the progress being made to create an ‘eastern Disneyland’ away in the north of the city, but it does seem as though China is wrestling with adopting the best parts of the West while retaining the core elements of the East. For EASTWEST we have the same challenge, to bring our own culture and ethics to China, when doing business in China challenges the viability of these values. I have hired two new staff, Nellie Wang who was formerly a journalist and joined as an Associate alongside Ben, and Zhang Xiaolei who is taking charge of the finance and administration. Nellie wanted to be called her English name because it is easier for foreigners to remember, and Xiaolei wanted to be called Susan for the same reason. I want to honour their Chinese identity but am respected enough to be given the choice which essentially denies their Chinese character. There is so much change both within the Agency and China, that so often motion becomes commotion and the challenge is to keep heading in a straight line; at least until we hit another obstacle.