Xinnian Kuile 新年快乐 Happy New Year

Oriental culture spread quicker than Swine flu last Sunday as the Chinese community celebrated the new lunar year of the Tiger and displayed to us 'laowai's (Chinese word for anyone not Chinese) the kind of song and dance and noises typical of their flamboyant Spring Festival. Watching neon paper dragons swaying like snake's heads before a backdrop of grey Birmingham skies as I tucked into my Wonton soup, my mind played with memories of last Spring Festival (aka Chinese New year) when I experienced first hand, firecrackers and dancing dragons aside, a more rustic and exclusive insight into what the Chinese get up to on their most prominent annual celebration...

Cycling to Foushi, Guanxi prvince, China. 25th Jan 2009:
66km today. Average 14.6 km/hr, maximum speed 47.7 km/hr, total 4.5 hrs cycling:
So exhausted after climbing 4 hills, mountain passes on top of the hills. Burned out knees. I didn't want to see one more uphill but we kept going towards Foushi, up and down and through egg-box shaped karsts and little farm villages of mud huts, hay stacks and fields of green and gold. Eventually stopped beside a peaceful village and asked a farmer where we could get food..."chur fan, nali?" Unexpectedly he invited us inside his home where his daughter watched cartoons and dramatic reenactments of Chinese folklore on their centrepiece TV. He handed me a few mini oranges and insisted I tucked in. His daughter watched me curiously but unthreatened.

Their house reminded me of Ireland, humble, surrounded by limestone hills with a smoky fire for us all to cotch around. The older brother hurried about sweeping and dusting, preparing to welcome the new year in. I wondered if they would see it as a good omen for two foreign travellers to embark on their home on New Year's, lugging bicycles and pannier bags through such a backwater where not even tourist buses pass through. They certainly were inviting but not fussing excessively over our presence, considering we were probably the first foreigners they had ever seen.

Within twenty minutes we were summoned in for food, into the charred stone kitchen where the man and his wife sat on child-sized wooden stools (the kind that are standard furniture for all rural Chinese homes and even traditional small restaurants), inches off the floor, close to the fire circle that burned beneath a large, heavy, sooty wok. The hot-pot bubbled away, it's steam and the smoke from the flames rose to the drying leg of pork which hung from a hook above our heads. They handed us two large bowls and kept two small ones for themselves. I discreetly picked my way through the chicken, trying not to waste anything or offend, and feasted on tofu, green veg rice and soup until I was finally warm and could feel the protein waking my muscles.

Two little cats, one tabby one black, lapped up scraps of bones and yawned by the fire, sleepy from the warmth and the dim light. The man and wife ate in silence, only looking up from their bowls to offer us another helping. We expressed our gratitude in the only way we could, by smiling and repeating "Hao chur!" (Delicious).

Back in the stony dark sitting room, our hands were again filled, this time with strips of sweet potatoes, which we roasted on the little fire at our feet. The world outside was tranquil and secretive. It was time to see what was over the next hill, although we were reassured with hand gestures and nods that the 'lu' (road) ahead was flat. We feared they were just being polite as not to put a damp mood on our departure and in reality more mountains awaited our aching legs. We discreetly tried to slip the daughter some money, as a new year's gift, minus the traditional red envelope that children receive at this time of year, but the family refused no matter how much we persisted. They wanted to feed and accompany us from the warmth of their hearts, to express their humble hospitality with no expectation of material reward.

As we walked our bicycles along the bumpy dirt path away from the warmth and security of their home, and towards the tough tarmac road ahead, disenchanted with the idea of leaving into the unknown. We turned to wave as the father gently held a shiny and proud cockerel by the neck, firmly and humanely squeezed the life out of it, looked towards us and joyfully declared "Hot-pot number two!"

By 5pm we had hit a Chinese version of a chav town, where all the residents seemed drunk and leery and unwilling to help. We thought it best to keep plodding on and polished off our sugary treats before hitting even more hills. After several uphill bends we cruised along an open mountain pass with amazing views of graceful hills. The forgiving flat road soon gave way to a divine stretch of downhill, the only downhill we'd encountered all day. It was sketchy in the looming darkness at such speed but we were too overwhelmed by finally covering some ground that day. When we reached the tiny valley town and the damp, dark road ahead appeared to go upwards again, we decided to try our luck and ask the house with a truck outside for a lift the remaining 10km to the town of Foushi.

Feeling like an intrepid traveller version of Mary and Joseph on Christmas with a Chinese backdrop, we knocked on the front door, 'any room at the inn' style. We were greeted by a middle-aged man who looked so bemused that we quickly forgot about our vulnerable position and introduced ourselves and our plea, waving and pointing at our phrasebook, our bicycles, the sky, the uphill road ahead and then their truck, until we'd captured the attention of the wife, young daughter and who we later learned to be her husband. Before we knew it we were sat at their table, the buffet was reopened and we were theoretically gatecrashing yet another Christmas family dinner.

The mother/ wife decided it was best that no one would drive tonight and instead we would stay the night - a night that began with shudders of paranoia that we would be robbed, prodded and turned into hotpot, paranoia that eventually sunk into a dazy sleep, disturbed by the firecrackers exploding every fifteen minutes on the street outside.

We awoke, unharmed, half-rested to yet more food, fire and a smiley family, trying to convince us to stay another night and keenly flicking through pages of the phrasebook, pointing to pressing queries such as the all time favourite: 'Are you accustomed to life here?'

We managed to drag ourselves away from the warm home and the equally warm invites, we were getting better at refusing generous offers in favour of pursuing our journey. The road ahead forebode mystery. My bike felt heavier the more we travelled and my knees panged with fatigue, but I was encouraged by the run of luck and hospitality we had been blessed with. The deeper into these backwaters we travelled, the closer we chanced upon human spirit and the kindness of strangers and the stronger my faith in serendipity was becoming.

One more hill, 8 painful but beautiful km up, and a whisking 3km down to the next town where more paper dragons welcomed the new year, firecrackers exploded along the street, leaving behind a trail of coarse red plastic shells, jaws dropped at we peddled by and shouted "Xinnian Kuile! (Happy New Year)". The noise and the neon seemed unfamiliar after such earthy encounters, knowing that after following this road through the town and out the other end we would yet again be in the tranquil expanse of the hills. It was yin and yang. The extreme contrasts that I saw were so present in China: the people, the landscape, the ideas. Everything that battled against each other and lay in harmony side by side at the same time, on the other side of a window, or town, or in this case, as part of the same celebration.

Frozen times

From my diary, 4th May 2009:

I'm sat at the foot of an avalanche which is frozen in time. It has tiny waterfalls rushing from it through the slits in the rock like a threat reminding me that this frozen giant is still alive and it is only sleeping. Every now and then there is a ripping sound that echoes around the U-shaped valley where I sit. It stiffens me. I don't plan on staying here long - something tells me that humans should not out-stay their welcome here, take your photos and keep walking, it's reserved for Mother Nature and her mighty temper. I've never seen layers of ice, snow and rock so rigidly set, then gracefully slipping into a turquoise glacial lake. The only way I am sure that time is still moving is from the sound of the rushing waterfalls that cascade gleefully and gallantly, and the hoarse calls of the white birds that swoop in the cradle of the icy face. My breathing feels like a burden that might give me away, expelling whispy vapor into the hushed atmosphere. This cloud of ice stays completely fixed on the rock like an Andsel Adam's snapshot. A shroud of mist crowns it, eerily concealing the mountain's peak.

I could be in an ancient world before humans existed if it weren't for the faded and torn blues, whites, reds, oranges, yellows and greens of the prayer flags that drape from budding Pussy-Willow branches, and the miniature rock piles that that adorn the shores of the lake, holding the wishes of Tibetan pilgrims.

Right now, this is the closest I can get to Tibet. 60km away from the Tibetan border in the Meili Mountain Range, a 2 hour reckless drive from Deqin ('Derchin') in China's South Western Yunnan province. The Chinese government have rigid restrictions on foreigner access into Tibet, at the best of times you need a paid guide, a permit which only allows you to enter certain areas, plus a load of hassle from Chinese guards. (During the time of me writing this - May 2009 - no foreigner was allowed to get into Tibet.)

Generations before had walked over this mountain range from their homeland in Tibet and when their eyes fell on the lush pastures and dense forest below, they decided their mission was complete and they set up permanent camp. They now speak a Tibetan dialect and the younger Chinese born generation consider themselves Tibetan rather than Chinese. It confused me though to see Chairman Mao Zedong's beady eyes glaring at me from the ubiquitous poster hanging on the wall back at village guesthouse. It was a paradox of their proud ancestral heritage.

I'm amazed at the strength of explorers like these. If to me, this village was remote, then how untame and fierce are their homelands and the pathways they took? My mind conjures images of the Tibetan plateau and all the secret contours and unpassable terrain restricted by dispute and law.

The journey to the green valley village of Yubeng involved a 5 hour uphill hike, followed by a 30 minute descent, dodging the locals that leaped past like mountain goats with their moody mules that stumbled carrying oversized Chinese tourists along the way. Yubeng is the main base for visitors in the Meili Mountains with large log guesthouses on wooden stilts amongst veg patches and chicken huts and views of the foreboding snow-capped Kawagebo peak that broods over the sacred village.

Every walkway begins with rugged prayer flags that flutter across the path and remind the visitor of how much the locals regard this neck of the woods. After weeks of walking through the trechourous beyond, this lush fertile land was a lifesaver for the pioneers of this place. A haunting message is whispered through the flags, asking you to respect the surroundings and be wary on your path. The locals told me of two European girls who took a chance with nature and met their fate whilst swimming in the glacial lake one summer. The frozen avalanche gave way and tumbled down on top of them.

Peering down at the stone piles below, I'm careful as to where I place my feet and how long I hold my gaze. The white birds are like an optical illusion disappearing againt the icy backdrop. I hear one more loud rip and rumble that comes from within and then echoes around the edges of the cove, like a wise old witch bellowing a belly laugh. I'm still feeling my inferiority and unfitting presence.

As I shuffle back down the path to more hospitable and colourful ground I hear the chopping of a woodcutter's tools and know I am not alone in the world, and that time is still moving.

What makes a home Home

On 22nd December 2009, I landed back in Old Blighty after 18 months on the right hand side of the road and of the world map, in lands where my colour and shape caused stares and comments, both innocent and intimidating, where I identified more with physical gestures than with wagging tongues and where people thought I was rich, because really, in comparison, I was.

Since sobering up after Christmas and New Year, I've been sifting through travel journal entries that never quite made it online (my excuse being the fact that for the majority of my time away I was situated somewhere amidst the arse end of nowhere) and rummaging through bin liners of my jumble sale life that at the time of departure I thought I would be parted with forever. Material objects that I knew I wouldn't need on my travels, but still held some significance which exempt it all from bonfire fuel or charity shop donations.

My whole trip combined certainly handed me many anecdotes of the material world - from visiting families living in dusty one bedroom concrete huts in Azerbaijan, villages in China where self-sustainability and community spirit were just a way of life, Hong Kong's metropolis of excessive shopping, partying and pampering, and India's spiritual message of detachment from emotions, possessions and people, where the enlightened way involves rattling around with a tin cup and accepting anything that karma throws at you, such as chapattis. Each society in itself has demonstrated human expectation and attachment and challenged my perception and distinction between what I need and what I want and what is necessary to survive.

If ever you've seen Peter Menzel's photographs in "Material World: A Global Family Portrait", where he travels about the globe somehow convincing families to drag all their possessions out in front of their house so he can photograph them to illustrate the scale of crap or lack of crap that different cultures accumulate, this is what was going through my mind as I was unpacking my bulging backpack and the life I had bin-lined up before I left for my trip. Menzel really puts into perspective how much we take for granted and how much space material objects take up in our lives.

Whilst I was away, less was most definitely more. The most frustrating part about my bicycle trip through China and Laos was everything that I lugged around with me. Every time I hit an uphill bit of road my mind frantically went through everything I could get rid of that might take a gram or two of weight out of my panniers and ease peddle pressure, until everything that didn't come under the category of absolutely key survival gear either got dumped, posted home or disintegrated into tooth floss.

At home, everything and everyone is so familiar it all forms part of a cushty routine even if you're not aware of it, but when you're away, every day is full of questions and inconsistency that can be alluring and exhausting, but always eye-opening. You crank up and challenge your intuition and learn to trust complete strangers in remote and alien places. The less crap you possess, the less you are at risk of losing it, and the more connected you feel to the people you encounter.

One of the plus sides of returning to my cocoon of material crap, is that I now have a laptop and reliable access to the internet, and I plan to celebrate this by actually posting stuff onto my long existing and previously abandoned blog and filling in from where I left off.

The ins and outs of opening chakras and entertaining orphans in India, Lady Boys and lazy days in Thailand, Tai Chi, cycle diaries and chasing goats in China have yet to be revealed...

Your Dinner's the Dog

The Chinese are not known for their tenderness, especially when creatures great and small are concerned. Their indulgence in dog meat is a well-known and unsurprising fact to me now, but I can no longer look into those big innocent eyes of man's best friend in the same way again. This appetite is alien to us Westerners and may seem pretty barbaric, but what is certainly cruel is how they are treated in their last moments before they ascend to Doggy Heaven.

Apparently the meat tastes better when adrenaline is pumping through the dying body, therefore the dogs are made excited before, literally, the hammer falls. Electrocution and drowning are popular methods, but even more disturbingly is death by battering. In Yangshuo market, in full view of shoppers and other dogs waiting for their execution, the dog is wound up before being beaten savagely until it pegs it, ready for it to be skinned and chopped up for carnivorous locals.

It's not just any old mutt that makes a meal, and traditionally dog meat is only eaten in the winter as it has a tendency to make you sweat and your blood rush. The dogs that are in the market are farmed for their meat, and to consume scraps left over from family homes. They look like this one in the picture, golden with no particular distinguished features. This dog belongs to the guard at my school. There used to be two, but one was sacrificed when local government visited one weekend.

It's not just dogs that are menu material, most things with a heartbeat fit the bill. My friend was showing our principle's wife his photos from scuba-diving in Thailand, engrossed in the exotic images and proud of herself for knowing the word for 'turtle' she asked, 'So, do you eat them afterwards?' Why look when you can destroy?

I remind myself that I am on the other side of the world where things are done differently, it's just the way things are, but no matter how much I can turn a blind eye at this stuff, seeing a guy with 20 live chickens hanging from his motorbike with their faces an inch away from scraping the ground, or three men on a motorbike (standard transportation here) with a pony tied onto the back, whining whilst furiously keeping up with them as they took it for some sort of sadistic exercise, still beckons a shake of the head.

In contrast, back at home meat generally consists of either pig, chicken, sheep or cow. We rarely dig deeper than that and so . And most of us don't consider where that even comes from, how it is farmed or how it is killed, if we did, maybe dog meat wouldn't come as such a shock. Only certain parts of the animal are considered edible fro UK meat, the rest is dog food. Brits eat 23 kilos of chicken each year, most of which is intensively farmed in cramped conditions, on a diet of shoddy, high additive feed, killed mercilessly, wrapped in plastic and delivered to our chain supermarkets to be sold at a knock off price, half of it ending up in the bin.

So although the Chinese seem oblivious to the difference between being cruel and humane, there's something logical under the bloody surface. With over 60% of the population being farmers, it's difficult to ignore how your dinner got to your plate. They may have their fingers in all the meat pies, but its their fingers that also do all the work, it may be cruel, but at least it's straight up and honest.

Life is Cheap

China. I just can't quite put my finger on it. Making assumptions about foreign culture is a complete waste of time when the subject country is China, it's far too complex and goes too far back to even try to work out. It always hits me that I am on the other side of the world when I'm singled out as the only Westerner at a table whilst everyone else banters away in Chinese, cracking jokes and toasting something or other before settling back down to their bowls, spitting out fish bones, whilst I can silently observe the army behind the 'next superpower' up close.



I just returned from a banquet that my local government official landlord and landlady threw for us tenants. It's Tuesday evening and for the first time in my life I have to conduct oral exams tomorrow with my English learners, and I am sat at a table with 12 Chinese people and an Aussie, necking baijo (rice wine) because it makes the host feel he has done a good job at throwing a party if his guests merrily stumble home. They won't take no for an answer and risk looking like a boring, stingy host. It's all about saving face. Reputation, reputation, reputation.



As a child I would have to finish what was on my plate before asking to leave the table. Dessert was for special occasions and wasted food meant children in Africa would starve. Tonight, like most RSVP occasions in China, platter after platter (of mostly some part of some animal - foot of the duck, throat of the pig) was presented to the table. Toasts were made in between mouthfulls, obliging everyone at the table to rise to their feet and listen to some slur about how we are all family, and if my bowl was nearing empty the Lazy Susan would spin in my direction and my bowl was topped up for me before I could say 'this MSG is killing me.' See, back in the UK, you can happily sit down to a meal, eat until you are full, not feel hungry again until at least four hours later, sleep like a log and not risk developing early diabetes. Not in China. They sprinkle the nerve shattering powder about like Russell Brand does with his bedroom commentary. Reasons why Monosodium Glutamate got kicked out of the UK include that it makes eating an addiction and hypes up your brain at the most inconvenient of times, like an hour before your alarm goes off.


Back at the table the dishes outnumber the mouths, following Chinese obsession of never been caught dead not having ordered enough food to fill everyone's grease-drizzled mouths. Spoiling their guests even more than themselves makes them visibly gleam with pride. In England, we might see this a symptom of only-child syndrome, 'look-at-me and see how I'm better at impressing you than everyone else at the table'. Well China is a country of only-childs, over a billion of them, sat with their poker faces on at every formal meal and opportunity to show off.



Of course I'm not ungrateful for this generosity, and neither is my appetite, but once you've been to one you've been to them all. Being a government official, my landlord only has to mutter a few promises to the restaurant manager and they trip over themselves to make him look like a king at little, if any cost to him.



Every Westerner's enemy in Yangshuo, the Big Bad Mr. Bing is a prime example of small town corruption. If you need an extension on your visa, this cartoon-like villain with a temper like a fire cracker is the man who you have to deal with. It helps to know he is an alcoholic and with a bit of schmoozing and heavy drinking nights paid for by one of the school principles will ensure that their foreign teachers will get his approval, when he is not suffering one of his notoriously hostile hang overs.


One half-caranaged table top, pissed-up government officials chucking back the baijo wheeling deals under the table and a national obsession with excess, am I really witnessing the recipe for the next super-power? So everyone seems to think...

Gone for Gold

When I ask my Chinese students what they think the Olympics did for China, every one of them sits bolt upright with gleaming eyes, and tells me how the big games opened China's infamously bolted gates to give the world a glimpse of 'the real China'. In their opinion China has shifted its image of being an oppressive bully, pumping out pollution and poor quality goods, to being a proud, fair and green nation.

The financial hardships that come with being an overcrowded, developing country were given the elbow for the 2008 games to make way for a dazzling impression on the world, which is reported to have cost billions of dollars. After all it is Chinese culture to splurge for your guests. A new airport terminal the size of Heathrow, a new subway system, more disabled access, a new sewage system, as well as planting more trees are bound to make dent in your wallet.

Unlike England, China has a reputation to throw new buildings up in a jiffy. Because of cheap labour and an abundance of employees, what was scaffolding one week is a booming hotel the next. Yes, homes and business spaces were demolished to make way for the extravagent Olympic village, but they don't waste much time with paperwork or human rights here so there wasn't really enough time or freedom to protest.

However being thrust into the spotlight meant that restrictions on media were mildly lifted. The press is state owned and edited here and foreign press need permission prior to reporting. Even some websites are barred here for fear of them promoting anything anti-patriotic. Although some restrictions were lifted for foreign reporters here at the time of the Olympics, it is still down to the guard the reporter was dealing with on whether the authority was going to acknowledge these new rules.

Beijing also fine-tuned customs that may have offended the forigner or make Beijingers seem uncivilized. Dog meat was taken off the menus, beggars were shoed away from central streets, spitting beckoned a fine, walking to your neighbour's in your pyjamas was strictly prohibited and wearing socks with sandals was a officially unlawful.

For a Westerner in Beijing, the Olympics were a pretty light on the pockets too. Back seat tickets cost just under three quid, one Subway ride cost about 16 pence, even the overpriced and undersized refreshments in the main arena weren't a burden. For an Easterner in London for 2012 is going to be a pretty sad story. I can't imagine a 5 quid Oyester card daily top-up is going to go down too well, or a six quid bottle of Coke.

Walking around the lavish Olympic village, as crowded as Beijing is, I didn't feel caged in and every few seconds there was an English speaking volunteer to direct me. With a municipitality the size of Belgium, Beijing, unlike London, had a lot of space to play with, but at the expense of homes and livlihoods of the less fortunate. Shutting down the factories was another knock on local jobs, and eventually the country's economy post-Olympics. But the ugly smog that constantly blankets the city wasn't a healthy option for international athletes, visitors and media. Residents told me they could never before see the moon so early in the evening when it was low in the sky as it was always concealed by the pollution until it was directly above you.

It seemed they had got it all down to a tee, comitted to the point of obsession at projecting the right image no matter who had to foot the bill. The Olympics have been tagged as China's coming out party - a hefty excuse to celebrate their country's leap towards becoming an international superpower. They are eager to mask their bully reputation of minorities like Tibetans and with nations like Burma and instead to direct the global focus to their new found stardom. What extent will us Brits have to go to to live up to Beijing's star performance and who's going to take the blow? As China basks in the Olympic's fading spotlight, London crouches in the shadows. Does she have it in her to pounce and give us Brits the same pride and enthusiasm that my students display?

The Birth of Li Xiang, Beijing to Guilin

A 28 hour solitary train journey where no one speaks your language is a perfect setting to eat your way through a long abandoned novel. Hiding horizontally on my top bunk with two beds below me and inches of space above me, was the only escape from noodle-slurping families and unrelenting stares. It could have been home-sickness kicking in, or just claustrophobia, but somewhere in limbo between sleep and awake, I mistook the muffled chit-chat of other passengers as Brummy talk. In my docile state I swore I was hearing stuff like, 'Pass us the McFlurry Bab.'



The monotonous journey was eased however on my encounter with Cindy, a teenage Chinese girl who took a shine to practising her English with me. Now I know Cindy isn't the first name that springs to mind when you picture a giggly Chinese 16 year old, nor was it to me. Assuming that her parents were going through a rebellious hippy phase when they had her, I quizzed her on her unconventional name. It turned out that Cindy wasn't her birth name, but the name she was dubbed with when she started to study English, 'so that foreigners can remember easily'. How considerate!

Amused by this being a completely a new concept to me, Cindy asked if I had a Chinese name. Being from the other end of the world where the English language is the bees knees, it had never occurred to me that I might need one, but as I am travelling in their country, it seemed only fair that I play their game (a similar rule to that of always learning at least, how to say thank you in their native tongue). Nominating herself to formulate my new name, Cindy compiled a list of common Chinese surnames for me to chose from: Wang, Chang, Wu, Li, Liang...And so I was hired into the family of Li.

The second part of the equation to create my given name was slightly more complex:

Cindy: 'What do you like?'

Me: 'Hmmmm...Lots of things...'

Cindy: 'Well do you like singing? Or mountains? Or the sea?'

Me: 'Ummmm, I like stars!'

Head tilted, dashing her pen this way and that to form intricate characters, she nodded and revealed my new name to be Li Xiang. And that was that.

I've since learnt that choosing a Western name is standard procedure for English students, and that their chosen names get even more eccentric, Cocoa, Summer, Sunny, Crystal, Misty, Patience and my favourite, Yo-Yo are not girls you would find luring you into the backstreets of Soho, but are regular English students of mine.


The conversation then inevitably turned to boys, English boys and Chinese boys, which ones I preferred; English girls and Chinese girls, and which ones I thought were more beautiful. A Western nose is apparently more desirable in Cindy's opinion, as she lifted her head to reveal a scar the size of a paper cut where she had paid - what would be peanuts to the Western pocket - for a nose tuck to reshape her pretty oriental face. Then the camera came out and we posed - peace sign prominent, so she could prove to all her classmates and tutor that she had practised her English on the train with a Western girl with a small nose.

Beijing Grubs Up Nicely

Reminiscing Central Asian cuisine doesn't exactly make my taste buds tingle. In the barren nothingness of the Steppe, there was not much on offer in terms of vegetation, hence the inhabitants' age old love of mutton... Bad news for a vegetarian.

On leaving Mongolia and entering China on the Trans-Mongolian Express, the train swapped its wheels and its restaurant carriage to that of Chinese compatibility and I finally saw the back of stinky mutton fat and rock hard bread. Breaking my chopsticks and looking out the carriage window, it was clear that I was still in the arid and relentless Gobi desert. But beyond this desert, this landscape which I had become so acquainted with on my road trip to Mongolia, China's lush environment was abundant with crops, every inch of land seemed to sprout veggies and the wet and warm climate apparently makes cultivation a speedy process, 'Like boom!'. It's a far cry from the bleak and harsh Mongolian terrain.

Beijing's noodle bars and food markets dominate the streets serving copious meat (like Scorpion, Sea-Horse or Silk-worm on a stick), vegetables and fruit - a stark contrast to Mongolian culinary variety. The best and cheapest I found nestled in some of the Hutongs - quaint little alleyways of cobbled paving stones that are littered with resident's laundry hanging out to dry and the sound of moped horns. Dodging the puddles, bicycles and taxis and taking in the aromas drifting from the many street stalls and cafes down one of Beijing's Hutongs is enough to get your taste buds jangling. Halogen-strip lighting beckons you into the local joints which offer some really interesting delights such as:

'The hashed meat mixes the surface'

'The stem burns the delicate chicken'

'Dryly stirfrys before stewing the cow'

If you're just peckish, of course, you could just go for the 'One article fresh and one small sheep leg', and, unlike Mongolia, there are also options for us veggies, 'The Joss-stick mixes needle mushroom gold'

'Fierce appearance point pepper'

Or simply, 'Harsh Cabbage'.

Feeling experimental? Then go for the, 'Fragrant imperial concubine mutton strip'. If like me, you can't stomach the Mongolian favourite, you could try the curious, 'Xinjiang does not need criticism red'. Sounds spicy...

What's depressing about this contrast of Mongolian mutton vs. Chinese chopsticks is knowing that at the time I left Mongolia, the weather was about to drop below zero and stay that way until Spring - the most unpredictable and dreaded season on the Mongolian calendar. Winter in Mongolia is probably what gives Mongolians their robust reputation and open minded outlook. Temperatures drop to -40, and stay below freezing for up to six months, making it impossible to grow any vegetables and tough to keep livestock living. Many Mongolians don't make it through the winter. City dwellers in Ulaanbaatar have it slightly easier being within civilisation, which is why more and more Mongolians are giving up their nomadic ways and pitching up their gers in the capital, if they can afford a ger and a 'Hasha' - a family ger enclosure costing $15. The city has an employment rate of around 40% and is becoming more crowded every year with not enough business to accommodate the new arrivals' job hunting. There is a high level of alcoholism with the men and there are hundreds of street children, many of whom live underground to escape the cold and get warmth from the heating pipes that connect with the city's buildings, when they are switched on. The poorest families in the suburbs survive only off sheep's heads and often have to chose between buying fuel or food, to starve and be warm or eat and freeze?

Of course China has its own problems with poverty also, but since the Olympics came to town, beggars have been moved along out of sight from international tourists in Beijing. Just one of the many alterations Beijing and China has made to scrub up for the big games...