My efforts to learn Chinese continue. At least the intent is there, remaining however isolated from implementation. The week flies by and the course book sits sadly undisturbed next to me.
Just read an encouraging article: language experts say it takes 2,200 hours to really speak fluent Chinese – that is 40 hours a week for 13 months. At my speed of 1-2 hours a week it will thus take I will 20 to 40 years. Way to go Gilbert!
But Flemish people are known to be stubborn. Maybe Flemish Capricorn Rats must be even worse.
Serious? Me? Well, some friends confided in me. They said I always look so serious. A real serious businessman. Oh boy. I must have a masters degree in faking it, or better, succeeding in separating my public official life from not-so-serious boy Gilbert. So I go out in disguise just like Spiderman or Batman (what a pathetic comparison!) and nobody recognizes me. Maybe better, some of you might be shocked, hahaha. Anyway, from now on you are warned.
The good thing is (?) the people I wanted/expected to read the blog mostly don’t. So, I can write more freely.

[edited 18 January]
Sad month for the poor US soldiers. The cap of 3,000 casualties was reached and 20,000 soldiers are wounded and scarred for life. What will become of the families left behind and what will happen to the disabled? The Vietnam war legacy is not a good indicator. And for what?
Oh yes, the media are so negative and only report bad news. Iraq has now democracy, sort of. They can now continue to kill each other in a “free” land. So, if “victory” was declared some years ago, why send 20,000 more of troops? Are the hundreds of Iraqi people killed every month also made-up stories by the press?
A war for the wrong reasons, an invasion badly prepared and implemented. All those clever agencies watching the country were either clueless or their warnings were not taken seriously. Probably both. Many people knew the sectarian violence was a huge threat. Is the world a safer place? Surely not.
What to do? Difficult question. Leave Iraq or pour in more young people to be killed or maimed? Well at least the government who messed it all up is still in place and is now facing the music. More Americans finally realize it all went badly wrong. Somebody will have to clean up the mess. Solution: spend more billions of tax payers’ money to develop a new nuclear bomb. Find the logic here.

Not even to mention…
According to the UN in early January, the death toll for Iraqi civilians was 34,452 in 2005, plus 36,685 wounded. Of course some will not agree, just as they did with poor Blix who could not find “weapons of mass destructionwas not credible and could not be trusted”. And for sure, don’t show the body bags being shipped back home, nor (too much) the grieving families. Repeating the horror scenes of 9/11 is however OK. Hmmm. Sounds so familiar to us, looks like here they been exporting not just microwave ovens, but also certain government officials? Sanitizing information, “you are with us or against us (=traitors, unpatriotic, etc.)”, dictated truths. But this time, it’s NOT over here. Guess here some people must be “LOL”. They must feel vindicated in their policies.

This evening the outside temperature is 5C. Oh sorry! I could not write that. According to the government here that’s a state secret: foreigners are not allowed to watch the weather and surely not to forecast it, according to new regulations. A weather observation station set up near the yachting venue in Qingdao was cited as an illegal act.
This might explain why I never succeed to understand the weather forecast. According to the various sources I read – Yahoo weather, SCMP forecast, Chinese newspapers it is going to rain and to be sunny with a clear sky all at the same time. Not that we need it, in Beijing it is simple: it hardly ever rains or snows, the question is simply – is there wind? Then we can guess how bad the pollution could be and which tint of blue we can see in the sky above: gray, a grayish blue or some other kind of blue. This very evening I tried to understand if there were some snow clouds or if it was pollution. I gave it up. Anyway, I wouldn’t tell you. It’s a state secret.

[Edited 19 January – pic added]
Coming back from the USA I was initially denied boarding in Dulles Airport. They said, according to Chinese regulations, you need to have a return ticket (to leave China again) or a “residence permit”. That is what the computer said, “with the latest update”. I have a visa (5 years), valid till early 2008 but that was not enough. They asked for my driver’s license (hey, we are in the USA where they still did not invent the ID card). Unfortunately I did have nothing with me – only my European driver’s license (why should I take my Chinese one along to the US?). I also did not bring my “Green Book” (few people still have this document… except me…), not to take along documents you don’t need and only can lose. Nobody ever asked the question before and I have never seen the Chinese immigration ask for your air ticket. In Thailand this is known so people are supposed to have one. As I live here, I buy a return ticket in Beijing – I never know where I will travel to next time.
Finally they let me go – after 40 minutes of discussion.
Once back, I started checking and found indeed some interesting facts:
– the Green Booklet I had left behind is actually called … Residence Permit
– new Chinese visas issued are now different – they read on top “Residence Permit”. They are also totally different in text and details. My visa is old and at that time only mentioned the category “Z-Visa” (= working permitted), actually equal to Residence Permit… but that is not explained in the information the check-in people have.
So, you know. Better check your visa and be prepared! Or they won’t let you return “home” unless you buy a new ticket…
Exit procedures in the USA are also confusing. Yes, you are to hand over the “visa waiver” stapled inside your passport (as in my case) to the airline staff when boarding for your international flight, so you “officially left” the USA. In principle the USA does not have exit immigration control. Well, kind of.
Well, I had the unique experience of CHECKING OUT IN IMMIGRATION. When waiting for my flight Chicago – Beijing I saw a lonely lady standing between toilets and other booths next to two terminals that looked like ATMs. I asked her what it was. Oh yes, foreign visitors need to check out here, so there I gave it a try for the experience: fingerprint scans plus face picture and passport scan. I even received an (encoded) receipt from the Homeland Security (I keep it as a souvenir! See the scanned receipt, blacked out in part for “security reasons”). She said it is already 2 years there (never seen it anywhere else – did anybody?). I told her the US Government decided to stop the idea to process exits as they found out it was far too expensive to do it everywhere, especially when leaving by land (e.g. Mexico or Canada), they even tried with chips imbedded in the immigration form (RFID) but it did not work so well when people were leaving by car. Otherwise they have to build from scratch new exit immigration facilities. The lady had never heard about this and most probably will be worried now – that she might be out of a job soon. Unless she thinks this foreigner has no clue, yeah, right.

Indeed, in 1996 the U.S. Congress ordered immigration officials to create a system to track everyone who enters the USA and everyone who leaves. The Department of Homeland Security then set up the U.S. Visit Program. The system has been running since 2004. But news came out in mid December that the program monitoring foreign travelers when they leave has been abandoned due to prohibitive costs. So, after spending US$ 1.7 billion since 2003 on the U.S. Visit Program, the administration will keep doing what it has been doing at America’s exits, which is basically nothing (source: IHT – 30 December 2006).
I do read newspapers that teach me more about the USA than most Americans ever know. I think even China Daily is better than most of their crappy stuff called newspapers. Except the International Herald Tribune. But again, their head office is in Paris… As for TV, forget it.
I felt like going back to the information age when landing in Beijing. Here we know what is going on. Hey guys, believe me: China Daily really is not that bad. When they dish up their propaganda it is that obvious you don’t take them seriously. The rest at least keeps us in touch with the world. And of course we have actual news on TV. And the Internet of course. Well, maybe no Internet right now (and don’t forget to have your “backdoor” installed to avoid the “server not available” warning.)