Somehow business moved to the backseat this week, as although I did some media training for a client, the rest of the week I seemed to meet people involved in non-profit activities in China which piqued my interest and at the end of the week I went to relieve the stresses with the Beijing Hikers. 
April 26th was my third month anniversary in China, and the tenth anniversary for Steven Schwankert, and he generously invited me to his celebration dinner. Steve has variously been a journalist, internet entrepreneur, dive instructor and is currently a technology analyst with IDC, and the restaurant’s private room was resplendent with 2 tables of people with a myriad of China tales to tell. I was humbled as everyone was a fluent Chinese speaker, most having studied as early as University. As the Tsingtao beer flowed the tales spilled onto the table: government interference in daily lives, sejourns in remote Chinese villages as the sole English language teacher, and the need to club together for emotional and physical support. The tough times together in pre-WTO China had created an intimate bond – much stronger than those created in the balmy climes of Singapore where one never doubted one’s sanity or security. Among the group of “China hands” was Erika Helms who works for the ‘Jane Goodall Institute,’ one of more than 211 Non-Governmental Groups in China. According to Erika the JGI operates a ‘Roots and Shoots’ environmental program to educate children into the needs of conservation and is working to build teams of Chinese to run the centres 
around China. As China gnaws through its own raw resources and those of the planet in search of development it is experiencing massive environmental and social turmoil. In response to the symptons caused by issues ranging from HIV to Birdflu to Forestry degradation to Human Rights Abuses, international groups are attempting to engage the Chinese government, with some success, investing some US$200m a year on their programmes. International NGO’s have been operating in China since 1904, when the International Red Cross was first established, and while some are tolerated some are clandestine. I took dinner on Friday with a European friend who, the last time countenance. An attractive woman in her 20’s she looks more like a model, but is in fact a producer and had been in Tibet filming clandestine movies with a well known French TV personality. As she described children as young as 14 years old recounting their tales of being jailed and abused while campaigning for a free Tibet, the duck a l’orange lost it’s flavour in the Bistro Parisienne – another example of the surreal life China affords the non-inquisitive foreigner. News that Qinghai-Tibet railway will be opened June 1st will be met with mixed feelings by Tibetans no doubt. Touted as bringing tourism it is also another Chinese lance being driven into the heart of the mountainous region. ‘Does the just linked Qinghai-Tibet Railway affect Tibetan antelopes' migrating?’ is the rhetorical question asked on the China Tibet Information Centre website. Apparently the antelopes have learnt how to use the under passages specially created for them. This illustrates a new Chinese facet to progress; it will go ahead, it will be as they plan, but it will now have a public relations dimension of the kind not previously seen. Apparently the Government views NGO’s as ‘promoting foreign agenda’s’, and of course that is what firms like mine can be seen as doing, which can cause delays in allowing us to set up. This week Jessie from Lee & Lee came over for me to approve the 8 different name options that are to be submitted to the ministry for approval: Consulting, Services, Public Relations, Marketing Entry – all options which apparently under the scrutiny of the ministry will receive more or less favourable reviews. For a language that has multiple meanings for the same sounding word, I am intrigued that they need such specificity, but as earlier in the week a lawyer had counselled me to have a scope of work as broad as possible, I elected for ‘Consulting’ which seems as vague an an open conversation. 
One of the best ways to relax in Beijing is to get out of it, and in 2001 Gary and Huìlín Pinnegar created what has become a get away institution - the Beijing Hikers. Today we went to the Secret Valley – some 25km north of Beijing. Unexpectedly the road had a huge trench dug across it and rocks piled in front, forcing our bus to stop. At the quarry at the base of the Valley a band of old ladies wearing arm bands guarded the trail, blocking our path. There had been an explosion in the quarry and the owner was refusing to repay the local tenants for their shattered windows - our passage was met with suspicision. The Chinese rural folk are the anxiety of the Communist party because of their history of direct action, some 78,000 incidents in 2005 alone, and in what was for us a serene valley there was tension, and as we walked past the roadside trash, husks of millet, and burnt out charcoal I could see how these people had nothing to lose from the conflict. On the hike was an interesting collection of nationalities and people: Paul from Bradford (seen here draining the Tsingtao) who has been working in a department of the China government translating publications for 22 years, who declined to tell any China stories but played a lonesome harmonica, a German doctor working for the Red Cross who worried how he would continue his HIV work now that the Government has declared it does not want their assistance, and Helena, an MBA-studying Beijing woman working for Hill & Knowlton, an MNC PR agency. Our hike was for some 4 hours through extremely dry mountain side, where brambles and anorexic trees were graced with the occasional cherry and wild plum blossom. The Secret Valley was given its name because it can only be seen from within the valley itself, hidden in the folds of the Chang Ping hills, and in a way that is true for China – it is impossible to appreciate all the struggles and beauty unless one is inside the country. Being here is sometimes like a stroll in the park, but more often feels like a thirst making hike. NOTES 2001 China entered the WTO and began a new phase of westernisation. Source: China Development Brief Source: ibid China Tibet Information Centre Source: Article NGOs: the Diverse Origins, Changing Nature and Growing Internationalisation of the Species. Nick Young. Founding editor, China Development Brief Beijing Hikers
April 26th was my third month anniversary in China, and the tenth anniversary for Steven Schwankert, and he generously invited me to his celebration dinner. Steve has variously been a journalist, internet entrepreneur, dive instructor and is currently a technology analyst with IDC, and the restaurant’s private room was resplendent with 2 tables of people with a myriad of China tales to tell. I was humbled as everyone was a fluent Chinese speaker, most having studied as early as University. As the Tsingtao beer flowed the tales spilled onto the table: government interference in daily lives, sejourns in remote Chinese villages as the sole English language teacher, and the need to club together for emotional and physical support. The tough times together in pre-WTO China had created an intimate bond – much stronger than those created in the balmy climes of Singapore where one never doubted one’s sanity or security. Among the group of “China hands” was Erika Helms who works for the ‘Jane Goodall Institute,’ one of more than 211 Non-Governmental Groups in China. According to Erika the JGI operates a ‘Roots and Shoots’ environmental program to educate children into the needs of conservation and is working to build teams of Chinese to run the centres 
around China. As China gnaws through its own raw resources and those of the planet in search of development it is experiencing massive environmental and social turmoil. In response to the symptons caused by issues ranging from HIV to Birdflu to Forestry degradation to Human Rights Abuses, international groups are attempting to engage the Chinese government, with some success, investing some US$200m a year on their programmes. International NGO’s have been operating in China since 1904, when the International Red Cross was first established, and while some are tolerated some are clandestine. I took dinner on Friday with a European friend who, the last time countenance. An attractive woman in her 20’s she looks more like a model, but is in fact a producer and had been in Tibet filming clandestine movies with a well known French TV personality. As she described children as young as 14 years old recounting their tales of being jailed and abused while campaigning for a free Tibet, the duck a l’orange lost it’s flavour in the Bistro Parisienne – another example of the surreal life China affords the non-inquisitive foreigner. News that Qinghai-Tibet railway will be opened June 1st will be met with mixed feelings by Tibetans no doubt. Touted as bringing tourism it is also another Chinese lance being driven into the heart of the mountainous region. ‘Does the just linked Qinghai-Tibet Railway affect Tibetan antelopes' migrating?’ is the rhetorical question asked on the China Tibet Information Centre website. Apparently the antelopes have learnt how to use the under passages specially created for them. This illustrates a new Chinese facet to progress; it will go ahead, it will be as they plan, but it will now have a public relations dimension of the kind not previously seen. Apparently the Government views NGO’s as ‘promoting foreign agenda’s’, and of course that is what firms like mine can be seen as doing, which can cause delays in allowing us to set up. This week Jessie from Lee & Lee came over for me to approve the 8 different name options that are to be submitted to the ministry for approval: Consulting, Services, Public Relations, Marketing Entry – all options which apparently under the scrutiny of the ministry will receive more or less favourable reviews. For a language that has multiple meanings for the same sounding word, I am intrigued that they need such specificity, but as earlier in the week a lawyer had counselled me to have a scope of work as broad as possible, I elected for ‘Consulting’ which seems as vague an an open conversation. 
One of the best ways to relax in Beijing is to get out of it, and in 2001 Gary and Huìlín Pinnegar created what has become a get away institution - the Beijing Hikers. Today we went to the Secret Valley – some 25km north of Beijing. Unexpectedly the road had a huge trench dug across it and rocks piled in front, forcing our bus to stop. At the quarry at the base of the Valley a band of old ladies wearing arm bands guarded the trail, blocking our path. There had been an explosion in the quarry and the owner was refusing to repay the local tenants for their shattered windows - our passage was met with suspicision. The Chinese rural folk are the anxiety of the Communist party because of their history of direct action, some 78,000 incidents in 2005 alone, and in what was for us a serene valley there was tension, and as we walked past the roadside trash, husks of millet, and burnt out charcoal I could see how these people had nothing to lose from the conflict. On the hike was an interesting collection of nationalities and people: Paul from Bradford (seen here draining the Tsingtao) who has been working in a department of the China government translating publications for 22 years, who declined to tell any China stories but played a lonesome harmonica, a German doctor working for the Red Cross who worried how he would continue his HIV work now that the Government has declared it does not want their assistance, and Helena, an MBA-studying Beijing woman working for Hill & Knowlton, an MNC PR agency. Our hike was for some 4 hours through extremely dry mountain side, where brambles and anorexic trees were graced with the occasional cherry and wild plum blossom. The Secret Valley was given its name because it can only be seen from within the valley itself, hidden in the folds of the Chang Ping hills, and in a way that is true for China – it is impossible to appreciate all the struggles and beauty unless one is inside the country. Being here is sometimes like a stroll in the park, but more often feels like a thirst making hike. NOTES 2001 China entered the WTO and began a new phase of westernisation. Source: China Development Brief Source: ibid China Tibet Information Centre Source: Article NGOs: the Diverse Origins, Changing Nature and Growing Internationalisation of the Species. Nick Young. Founding editor, China Development Brief Beijing Hikers