For convenient management a unified leader is recommended.
Taken completely out of context, and automatically translated from Chinese, but such a brilliant summary of political ideology!
My first Chinese article
Today I wrote my first proper article in Chinese! It’s very short and very simple, but it still made me very happy when I finished it! Here it is (after a few corrections from my teacher…)
颐和园 — The Summer Palace
It’s the little things
It’s strange what seems strange from the outside. We’ve lived in China for almost five months now and there are still little things that suddenly bring home that our new home is not our old home.
Today it was cups. I must confess to enjoying coffee, and a nice espresso or americano and a comfy chair is one of my indulgences when I want to feel Western for a bit. China has plenty of coffee shops, both Western and home-grown (the shops, not the coffee).
So that’s all lovely. But why are there only paper cups? No one else seems to mind, but it seems so weird to me, to be in such a familiar place but missing my familiar mug.
I know it doesn’t matter, but it just reminds me that I’m a long way from home.
Houhai Lake 后海
Alternatives to Flickr
Since moving to China, I’ve had to move a lot of my internet around:
- Search: Google -> Baidu
- Email: Google -> iCloud
- Maps: Google -> Apple/Baidu
- Chat: Facebook -> WeChat
- TV: BBC iPlayer -> Sohu
- Files: Dropbox -> iCloud
- and so on…
Now I’m looking for a home for my photos.
My ideal is the iCloud Photo Library: all my photos online, seamlessly available to stream to iPhone, iPad and Mac, and all backed up. This is exactly what I want. At the moment I’m trying to get it for free—as my photo library is over 50GB I would have to give Apple some money each month to look after my photos for me. I may end up having to pay as I haven’t found a viable alternative…
In the UK, I was using Flickr. This is great because it has the automatic backup, it has 1TB free storage, and has very nice sharing features. Sadly it’s not available in China.
I’ve just spent some time looking into 500px and Photobucket. Both look pretty good, but the free accounts only have 1GB and 2GB of storage, respectively.
So here’s my question: is there anything as good as Flickr, or better, in China, for free? My guess is: no.
Hutongs and Hotels
On Friday I took my day off class to walk around inner Beijing. I got to walk around the financial district near Xidan, the hutongs from Qianmen Xiheyan to Yangmeizhu Xiejie, the Dashilan commercial district, the surroundings of Tiananmen Square, the old legation district around Zhengyi Road, the shopping centres of Wangfujing and the touristified hutongs behind them. It was been a lovely day, although my feet were aching by the end of it…
I was struck by all the different parts of Beijng. There are the giant gleaming office blocks in the financial district, showing off their wealth and style and space. There are the run-down apartment blocks where people are happy to live but the landlords are not interested in keeping up appearances. There are new mansions for the new upper-middle classes with giant gates to keep out the riff-raff. Continue reading “Hutongs and Hotels”
Beihai Park and Tiananmen
Beihai Park and Tiananmen, a set by Matt Easton on Flickr.
Yesterday we went on a little trip to see the Tian’anmen and Beihei Park. It was very beautiful.