Home. I've been back close to a month now, spending my days with seeing friends and family, being amazed by how many things have stayed the same and how many little things have changed and frankly doing absolutely nothing.
That last thing is not completely true, I am busy with some things but I'll come back to that later. The last couple of weeks of traveling were quite hectic and I honestly didn't have enough time do update this website.
But, to leave the Great Escape without it's appropriate ending would be a shame. So, here you have it: my final update.
To give you an overview of my adventures: I went from the middle of China all the way north to Xi'an and Bejing. After arriving in the capital of China I waited a couple of days for two friends that were making their way from Vietnam. Together with Jo and Cath I took the train from Bejing to Ulanbantor, the capital of Mongolia.
After a couple of days of touring the countryside, sleeping in tents and freezing to death, we took another train, this time to Irkutsk, Russia. From this outpost deep in Siberia we took our finally, four-day train to Moscow. And there, after have been away for close to fourteen months I caught a flight home.
I added two more travel updates. Click on the links below to access them.
The End Has No End Part I
The End Has No End Part II
I've been away for to 412 days (thirteen-and-a-half months or over a year), been to eight different countries (not including Hong Kong), seen al their capitals, and according to my own rough caluclations travelled over 14021 kilometers.
A lot of people ask me: what are you going to do now? Well, I like to tell them a little story before answering the question.
Ever seen that 1963 movie set in World War 2 about the Allied prisoners of war trying to escape from a German camp? It's a classic with actors like Steve McQueen, James Garner and Richard Attenborough (nowadays famous for his voice-overs in animal documentaries).
The best part is the character Virgil Hilts, an American officer played by Steve McQueen, who upon arrival in the camp immediately tries to escape. He gets caught pretty soon after his attempt and has to spent a fair amount of time in the cooler, the isolation cell. He is visibly distraught and at one point you question his sanity.
Every time Hilts is released he tries to escape. And every time he escapes he gets caught. And every time he gets caught he has to spend long, lonely days in the cooler. Hence his nickname: the Cooler King. During the big escape attempt (the Great Escape) he manages to get far away – one of the furthest actually, undoubtedly aided by his skills on a stolen motorcycle – but eventually he gets caught.
The movie ends with him being thrown in the same cooler again. You think he will cry and collapse, but he doesn't. He just sits down and smiles. And you know he's planning the next Great Escape.
Thank you for reading this Great Escape. I will be taking a small break, but don't despair. Keep an eye out. Before you know it you'll read about my next Great Escape.
Stephan Meijerhof
donderdag 27 mei 2010
woensdag 26 mei 2010
The End Has No End Part II
Mongolia was the first country in almost fourteen months that started to feel “less” Asian and more Western, in this case Russian. The people are bigger and taller (and the ladies quite attractive) and their dress sense more fashionable.
The capital (the coldest in the world) Ulanbantor is a weird mix between Mongolian architecture – meaning tents or gers as they are called – , ugly Soviet style apartment blocks and new glass and concrete high rises. But the best part of Mongolia is not in it's city (there are only three), but the countryside.
We’re just stopping over for a couple of days and the only reasonable way for us to get into that magnificent countryside was to take a tour. In this case it constituted of two old Minsk-vans, four-by-for and ten guys, including us three (me, Jo and Cath) and two fellow travelers we met in Beijing (Jack and Sherren). The other van was occupied by a couple of cool guys, mostly from Canada but including a Brazilian.
For four days we slept in gers (tents), ate with local families, didn’t shower and take camel and horse rides. The landscape in Mongolia is absolutely amazing. Wide open plains, mountains, deserts. We used to quip that Mongolia had the widest highway in the world, we would often just drive off the asphalt onto the steppes.
But we had a train to catch. This one from Ulanbantor to Irkutsk, a city in the middle of Siberia, Russia. It took us two days – the same amount of time from Beijing to Ulanbantor, but half the distance. Why? Well, I never had a border crossing take this long – twelve frikking hours being stranded in a desolate border station with absolutely nothing to do.
First thing I noticed was how European Siberia felt. I never experienced such a distinct boundary between two cultures. he moment we crossed the border everybody was white and when we got into the city it felt we were in some dingy little Eastern-European town.
Even though we were in middle of Siberia it was a bit warmer than Mongolia where the temperatures could drop to minus twenty. Two days of recuperating in Irkutsk gave us the opportunity to check out the deepest lake in the world: lake Baikal.
Bakail is quite a sight. The lake was still frozen and the ice was at least a meter thick. Frozen stiff after frolicking in Irkutsk we made our way back to the last leg of our journey. The four day train ride to Moscow.
It’s quite relaxing being in a train for that long. You don’t have to do anything. You sleep, talk to people, listen to music and smoke. Come evening you eat your instant-noodles and play drinking games with Russian military officers. Though I do have to say that after four days on that train, I was longing to get off.
And there she was: Moscow. An amazing city. Quite expensive, but the girls were beautiful and the beer was good. Too bad I slept in probably the worst hostel that I encountered during my whole trip. Four days on the train and four days in that hostel really made me wish I was back home.
But a little volcano in Iceland was messing things up. I was supposed to fly via Copenhagen, but because of the ash cloud the airspace above Scandinavia and later the Netherlands was closed. My brother had the same problem, but he was flying from Vienna together with his girlfriend.
Not wanting to get stuck in Moscow for any longer I quickly changed gears and booked a flight a couple of hours before I was suppose to leave to my new destination: Vienna. I was damn lucky. A hour and half before the airport in Vienna closed, I manage to arrive. Halfway home. The last twelve hours of my trip were spent in a rental car cruising along the highways in Germany. Dog tired and little bit trippy I finally arrived home around six in the morning.
An interesting way to end a very interesting journey.
The End Has No End Part I
In the last installment I was in Taiwan. That feels like a world away – which, technically is true. I've spent an extraordinary amount of time traveling in the last two weeks, just to get to that particular place at the right time. Hours and hours on end in the train, or the bus, a lot of boredom, but also a lot of laughs and drinks with fellow travelers and friends.
To give you short overview of my travels since then: I got back to Hong Kong, crossed the border into China and made my way to Guilin, famous for it's karst mountains and spectacular views. From there I got a bus to Changsha, a non-descript Chinese city which only claim to fame is being close to the small village where Chairman Mao was born.
The reason I went there was because I wanted to meet up with a very good French friend from Vietnam, Cedric, who was staying in this city with his American-Vietnamese girlfriend Kim. It was a great deal of fun seeing my former housemate and to celebrate my birthday with him. Fortunately, we were taken out for traditional dinners (which in China involves a lot of drinking) by the host family of Kim. They even bought me a birthday cake; I can't remember the last time I had one.
After spending a good amount of time in Changsha, I spent close to twenty hours in the train to check one of the “must-see places” in China: The Terracotta Army in Xi'an. Thousands upon thousands of clay soldiers buried by the emperor that first unified China two millennium back.
Tasked with guarding the his royal highness in the afterlife, they still form a spectacular sight lined up row on row in battle formation. It took the emperor close to thirty years to build this unusual tomb, and thirty years after it's discovery new pits with broken and toppled over warriors are still being found.
The big prize was in sight. After another night train, I finally found myself in Beijing, the capitals of capitals and what a lovely place it was. My time there was defiantly too short for the great amount of sights in and around the big city. In no particularer: Tianemen Square (in Dutch, Plein van de Hemelse Vrede), the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven and a ten kilometer hike on top of a ruined but authentic stretch of the Great Wall.
Beijing was another meeting point. This time two Brits, Cath and Joe, both former colleagues of mine from my time teaching English in Hanoi. We've been together ever since, because all three of us were planning to do the same route back home.
The great Trans-Siberian railway. In general, it's more popular to do it in the eastern direction, from Moscow to Beijing, rather than the other way around. I guess it has to do with logistics, it's quite difficult to obtain Russian tourist visa's, though I got lucky when I managed to get mine in Hong Kong.
From Beijing to Moscow, the train takes seven long, ardenous days. But we were quite interested in Mongolia, so we decided to have some downtime in country best known for it's retarded kids (I know, bad joke) and that great military leader and “barbariannn” Chingis Khan (pronounced as Jingis Ghaan).
For even more adventurous adventures go the second installement!
The End Has No End Part II
dinsdag 9 maart 2010
Out of the Blue
Taiwan. When the Portuguese “discovered” this island roughly the size of the Netherlands off the coast of China they aptly named it Ilha Formosa: the beautiful island.. Nowadays it's also known as the “other” China. That's Taiwan summed up: beautiful and democratic. And also ignored as a sovereign nation by the world, though paradoxically at the same time being in the spotlight of international relations.
I've been staying with the family of my good friend Wai for the last two weeks in Hong Kong. But we both agreed that staying in the city for such a time would be a bit boring. So, taking a map, we decided to make a little detour to somewhere close and easy.
Taiwan is only on hour and half away from Hong Kong, no visa problems, the weather is good and flights are plenty (it's still difficult to fly directly to or from mainland China – flights get redirected through “neutral” countries first).
I didn't know what to expect when we arrived at Taipei International Airport. I knew I was going to a relatively well-off country. Something akin to South-Korea or Japan; neither country I visited before though. People would have money, skyscrapers, big cars. The electronic consumer good manufacturer of the world. All of this was true, and a bit more. Though less clean and less organized than Hong Kong, but more expensive.
Taiwan is a really unique country in that, apart from two dozen “important” nations such as Tulavu and Benin, it isn't officially recognized by the majority of the world. Also, Taiwan is the only country in the world, apart from Vatican City – but even the priests have a special observer's status –, that doesn't have a seat in the United Nations. One other big surprise were the people. The Taiwanese were the most friendliest, open en genuinely nice people I've met in a long time.
How come? I would have expected otherwise: shunned by the world, isolated, David versus Goliath. But here you have it. Proud, friendly people. They don't consider themselves Chinese anymore, but Taiwanese. They've been apart from China, being de facto a completely different country for close to a hundred years. First as a colony under the Japanese and then after the Second World War and the “reinvasion”by the Kuomintang lost out against the communists in the civil war of 1949, as the Republic of China.
It's a beautiful island with plenty of places to discover and a climate that's surprisingly quite tropic. Taiwan was formed by two continental shelves pushing against each other and upwards. Much in the same way the Himalaya's were formed a plenty many years ago. On one hand this gives the Taiwanese a beautiful mountain range covered in lush jungles through the middle of island. On the other: frequent earthquakes.
Now I do not know how Hong Kong manages to be a lot colder and still lie further west and a bit to the south. Guess it has to do with an island being out of the blue. That beautiful sea, the Pacific Ocean, manages quite impressive to give Taiwan a pretty good climate all your around. For the history buffs there's plenty of old temples and monuments to visit. My personal favorite: the old VOC-forts in Tainan. Though I didn't really the like the giant statue of the Dutch surrendering to the Chinese.
One other thing I noticed where the frequent fly-overs of military aircraft in almost all the cities we visited on the island. F-16's, older generation fighters and AWACS aircraft could be counted on to disrupt the peace and quiet almost every five minutes. Just after we left, there was a training accident and three pilots got killed. And of course a earthquake struck in the south injuring close to a hundred people.
I can honestly say Taiwan was the nicest surprise in Asia. Unfortunately we only time for a very short stay. Wai had to go back to the Netherlands and I had to take care of some business in Hong Kong before heading back into China. Luckily when we came back to the big city the weather had changed favorably. No more rain or cold. The sun started to shine and the people began to smile and let me leave the subway before barging their way in.
Secretly, between you and me, I think it was a bit of that Taiwan spirit that manage to sneak on board the plane before take-off and flew back with us.
I've been staying with the family of my good friend Wai for the last two weeks in Hong Kong. But we both agreed that staying in the city for such a time would be a bit boring. So, taking a map, we decided to make a little detour to somewhere close and easy.
Taiwan is only on hour and half away from Hong Kong, no visa problems, the weather is good and flights are plenty (it's still difficult to fly directly to or from mainland China – flights get redirected through “neutral” countries first).
I didn't know what to expect when we arrived at Taipei International Airport. I knew I was going to a relatively well-off country. Something akin to South-Korea or Japan; neither country I visited before though. People would have money, skyscrapers, big cars. The electronic consumer good manufacturer of the world. All of this was true, and a bit more. Though less clean and less organized than Hong Kong, but more expensive.
Taiwan is a really unique country in that, apart from two dozen “important” nations such as Tulavu and Benin, it isn't officially recognized by the majority of the world. Also, Taiwan is the only country in the world, apart from Vatican City – but even the priests have a special observer's status –, that doesn't have a seat in the United Nations. One other big surprise were the people. The Taiwanese were the most friendliest, open en genuinely nice people I've met in a long time.
How come? I would have expected otherwise: shunned by the world, isolated, David versus Goliath. But here you have it. Proud, friendly people. They don't consider themselves Chinese anymore, but Taiwanese. They've been apart from China, being de facto a completely different country for close to a hundred years. First as a colony under the Japanese and then after the Second World War and the “reinvasion”by the Kuomintang lost out against the communists in the civil war of 1949, as the Republic of China.
It's a beautiful island with plenty of places to discover and a climate that's surprisingly quite tropic. Taiwan was formed by two continental shelves pushing against each other and upwards. Much in the same way the Himalaya's were formed a plenty many years ago. On one hand this gives the Taiwanese a beautiful mountain range covered in lush jungles through the middle of island. On the other: frequent earthquakes.
Now I do not know how Hong Kong manages to be a lot colder and still lie further west and a bit to the south. Guess it has to do with an island being out of the blue. That beautiful sea, the Pacific Ocean, manages quite impressive to give Taiwan a pretty good climate all your around. For the history buffs there's plenty of old temples and monuments to visit. My personal favorite: the old VOC-forts in Tainan. Though I didn't really the like the giant statue of the Dutch surrendering to the Chinese.
One other thing I noticed where the frequent fly-overs of military aircraft in almost all the cities we visited on the island. F-16's, older generation fighters and AWACS aircraft could be counted on to disrupt the peace and quiet almost every five minutes. Just after we left, there was a training accident and three pilots got killed. And of course a earthquake struck in the south injuring close to a hundred people.
I can honestly say Taiwan was the nicest surprise in Asia. Unfortunately we only time for a very short stay. Wai had to go back to the Netherlands and I had to take care of some business in Hong Kong before heading back into China. Luckily when we came back to the big city the weather had changed favorably. No more rain or cold. The sun started to shine and the people began to smile and let me leave the subway before barging their way in.
Secretly, between you and me, I think it was a bit of that Taiwan spirit that manage to sneak on board the plane before take-off and flew back with us.
maandag 1 maart 2010
Year of the Tiger
It's a special day today. On this day, exactly a year ago, I left for the great unknown, taking a plane and flying half-way around the world to Southeast-Asia. It's been one year on the road. Happy anniversary to myself!
Back then I didn't know what to expect, nor did I know where I would end up in a year's time. There was a real possibility that I would have been home again. When I left, I didn't have that much money on me. But, in the back of my mind, I knew I would try to make it whatever the odds. And I did it.
Two years ago I visited Hong Kong for the first time and you could say it was love at first sight. It took me a while, but I made back to this bustling city. How much I try, I'm still awestruck by the place. It's clean, modern, energetic, busy and the vista's are unbelievable. The second time around the admiration has only deepened.
Driving from the airport to the city you see huge skyscrapers, apartment blocks three times higher then anything you see anywhere else, green mountains, huge suspension bridges and in the waterways and bays countless ships, in all forms and sizes. At night, Hong Kong lights up. The skyline is still the most beautiful I ever seen.
As you may know, it's officially the year of the Tiger. Chinese (and Vietnamese for that matter) don't celebrate the New Year the way the Western world does: on the 1st of January. No, they do it according to the lunar calender. And the new year started in China with a big bang on the 13th of February. The only downside was the weather: unusual cold and rainy for the time of year – though not as freezing as back home, in Europe.
Being fortunate enough to visit Hong Kong for a second time, I was especially lucky to see the city during it's new year celebrations. Together with my old friend Wai (remember him from Vietnam?) and his family we saw the amazing fireworks spectacle in Victoria Harbour, had front line seats during the annual Night Parade and witnessed traditional “lucky” Lion dances on the street and in shopping malls.
I haven't only been in Hong Kong for the last two weeks. I just got back from a little detour to the “other” China: Taiwan. The beautiful island left a lasting impression. But to make things a little bit more manageable, for me and for you, you can read all about that in the next installment.
For the moment I'm staying for a couple of more days in Hong Kong, organizing my onward travels. Not that I mind at all. Big city, bright lights.
Back then I didn't know what to expect, nor did I know where I would end up in a year's time. There was a real possibility that I would have been home again. When I left, I didn't have that much money on me. But, in the back of my mind, I knew I would try to make it whatever the odds. And I did it. 
Two years ago I visited Hong Kong for the first time and you could say it was love at first sight. It took me a while, but I made back to this bustling city. How much I try, I'm still awestruck by the place. It's clean, modern, energetic, busy and the vista's are unbelievable. The second time around the admiration has only deepened. 
Driving from the airport to the city you see huge skyscrapers, apartment blocks three times higher then anything you see anywhere else, green mountains, huge suspension bridges and in the waterways and bays countless ships, in all forms and sizes. At night, Hong Kong lights up. The skyline is still the most beautiful I ever seen.
As you may know, it's officially the year of the Tiger. Chinese (and Vietnamese for that matter) don't celebrate the New Year the way the Western world does: on the 1st of January. No, they do it according to the lunar calender. And the new year started in China with a big bang on the 13th of February. The only downside was the weather: unusual cold and rainy for the time of year – though not as freezing as back home, in Europe.
Being fortunate enough to visit Hong Kong for a second time, I was especially lucky to see the city during it's new year celebrations. Together with my old friend Wai (remember him from Vietnam?) and his family we saw the amazing fireworks spectacle in Victoria Harbour, had front line seats during the annual Night Parade and witnessed traditional “lucky” Lion dances on the street and in shopping malls.
I haven't only been in Hong Kong for the last two weeks. I just got back from a little detour to the “other” China: Taiwan. The beautiful island left a lasting impression. But to make things a little bit more manageable, for me and for you, you can read all about that in the next installment.
For the moment I'm staying for a couple of more days in Hong Kong, organizing my onward travels. Not that I mind at all. Big city, bright lights.
vrijdag 12 februari 2010
Halfway Home Part II
Note: because of the accumulated backlog, I'm updating The Great Escape in two installments. This time, it's less about my travels and more about the unique country, it's problems and virtues I'm currently travelling in. The first part can be read here.
One thing can't be denied. Chinese are getting more and more aware of their country's power and influence. They don't accept critism from the West anymore. They are telling the rest of the world: we are doing it our own way.
Internet censorship? That's for social stability. Tibet? Internal matter. Domestic market closed for international corporations? Chinese companies first. Some of it is understandable and maybe some of it rightly so.
On the other hand, too many times is China hiding behind the excuse of being a “developing” country and shying away from it's international responsibility. Or they retreat back behind their Chinese Great cultural wall: we have Confucius; our culture is different; we have five thousands of years of history; so we play a different ball game.
If that doesn't work, they can always revert back to the most childish one: the West doesn't have the right to say these things after years and years of abuse, neglect and bullying.
You can see all of this travelling around. There are the obivous signs of economical progress. Big, wide boulevards, huge construction sites, fast food restaurants, department stores, gleaming, new super highways, big SUV's and all-terrain vehicles. Money, status, pleasure girls, corruption, poverty and a serious lack of respect for the environment.
And there obvious signs of the “different” attitude of the Chinese. They find it kind of strange that the white monkey's (that's me) don't speak Chinese at all. Go anywhere else in the world and the traveller will find it strange that the local population doesn't speak English.
The last couple of weeks I have travelled and stayed with Frank. Together with another Dutch friend, he lives, works and enjoys himself in Kunming, the provencial capital of Yunnan. The so-called “City of Eternal Spring” has a population of six milion. That's as big as Hanoi or Saigon in Vietnam. It was a great base for exploring the province.
Frank speaks the language, immerses himself into the culture and country and has plenty of Chinese friends. Chinese people don´t really talk about politics and I actually haven´t had any discussions about censorship or democracy. He was an invaluable help showing me the “real” China. Going south, to small cities, talking with the people from the street, going to kareoke bars and sauna's, tasting genuine Chinese food. Without him I wouldn't have had such an valuable experience.
I also “did” the tourist route, going north. It was a bit different from the typical, banana pancake trail in Southeast Asia. Tourism in China doesn't mean Western tourists, but domestic tourism. So a lot of Chinese taking a lot of pictures of unimportant things. It was nice though, and eventually I did manage to get to Shangri-la, high up in the mountains, close to Tibet.
Travelling like this was a lot harder. China is not easy, especially not when you don´t talk the language and when you can´t read the characters on signs and buildings. Walking through the streets, or trying to get a bus to a different city or ordering something at a small, dinky street restaurant almost felt like trying to access websites that before were easy to get on, but now were behind a closed door, the key thrown away. The feeling of being disconnected is frustrating.
Coming back to the Great Firewall: it serves two purposes. Not only does it blocks websites that are considered detrimental to the Chinese cause, but equally important, it enables Chinese companies and websites to set up shop and copy succesful concepts without having to worry about foreign competition.
An interesting pattern can be seen here. China is not only known for the being the world's workshop, manufacturing everything from shoes to oiltankers, but also the leading nation of counterfeiting consumer goods. China is the world's greatest copycat.
As far as the Chinese are concerned – they don't give a rat's ass about possible complaints or what the rest of the world thinks about this. Or them. Because for the Chinese, China is the world.
On a personal note: as you might have guessed from the title of this post, I have decided to head back home. After being on the road for more than a year, living out of my backpack, I'm starting to feel tired and the strain. I feel the definite curse of travel fatigue. Though I can't say exactly when, I'm planning to be back home in the near future. How? The long way of course.
And at the moment I'm in Hong Kong, that lovely city, finishing up celebrating the Chinese New Year. Welcome to the Year of the Tiger! Grrrraaauw...!
One thing can't be denied. Chinese are getting more and more aware of their country's power and influence. They don't accept critism from the West anymore. They are telling the rest of the world: we are doing it our own way. Internet censorship? That's for social stability. Tibet? Internal matter. Domestic market closed for international corporations? Chinese companies first. Some of it is understandable and maybe some of it rightly so.
On the other hand, too many times is China hiding behind the excuse of being a “developing” country and shying away from it's international responsibility. Or they retreat back behind their Chinese Great cultural wall: we have Confucius; our culture is different; we have five thousands of years of history; so we play a different ball game.If that doesn't work, they can always revert back to the most childish one: the West doesn't have the right to say these things after years and years of abuse, neglect and bullying.
You can see all of this travelling around. There are the obivous signs of economical progress. Big, wide boulevards, huge construction sites, fast food restaurants, department stores, gleaming, new super highways, big SUV's and all-terrain vehicles. Money, status, pleasure girls, corruption, poverty and a serious lack of respect for the environment.
And there obvious signs of the “different” attitude of the Chinese. They find it kind of strange that the white monkey's (that's me) don't speak Chinese at all. Go anywhere else in the world and the traveller will find it strange that the local population doesn't speak English.
The last couple of weeks I have travelled and stayed with Frank. Together with another Dutch friend, he lives, works and enjoys himself in Kunming, the provencial capital of Yunnan. The so-called “City of Eternal Spring” has a population of six milion. That's as big as Hanoi or Saigon in Vietnam. It was a great base for exploring the province. Frank speaks the language, immerses himself into the culture and country and has plenty of Chinese friends. Chinese people don´t really talk about politics and I actually haven´t had any discussions about censorship or democracy. He was an invaluable help showing me the “real” China. Going south, to small cities, talking with the people from the street, going to kareoke bars and sauna's, tasting genuine Chinese food. Without him I wouldn't have had such an valuable experience.
I also “did” the tourist route, going north. It was a bit different from the typical, banana pancake trail in Southeast Asia. Tourism in China doesn't mean Western tourists, but domestic tourism. So a lot of Chinese taking a lot of pictures of unimportant things. It was nice though, and eventually I did manage to get to Shangri-la, high up in the mountains, close to Tibet.
Travelling like this was a lot harder. China is not easy, especially not when you don´t talk the language and when you can´t read the characters on signs and buildings. Walking through the streets, or trying to get a bus to a different city or ordering something at a small, dinky street restaurant almost felt like trying to access websites that before were easy to get on, but now were behind a closed door, the key thrown away. The feeling of being disconnected is frustrating.
Coming back to the Great Firewall: it serves two purposes. Not only does it blocks websites that are considered detrimental to the Chinese cause, but equally important, it enables Chinese companies and websites to set up shop and copy succesful concepts without having to worry about foreign competition. An interesting pattern can be seen here. China is not only known for the being the world's workshop, manufacturing everything from shoes to oiltankers, but also the leading nation of counterfeiting consumer goods. China is the world's greatest copycat.
As far as the Chinese are concerned – they don't give a rat's ass about possible complaints or what the rest of the world thinks about this. Or them. Because for the Chinese, China is the world.
On a personal note: as you might have guessed from the title of this post, I have decided to head back home. After being on the road for more than a year, living out of my backpack, I'm starting to feel tired and the strain. I feel the definite curse of travel fatigue. Though I can't say exactly when, I'm planning to be back home in the near future. How? The long way of course.
And at the moment I'm in Hong Kong, that lovely city, finishing up celebrating the Chinese New Year. Welcome to the Year of the Tiger! Grrrraaauw...!
Halfway Home Part I
Note: because of the accumulated backlog, I'm updating The Great Escape in two installments. This time, it's less about my travels and more about the unique country, it's problems and virtues I'm currently travelling in. The next installment will be in a couple of days. Enjoy the read!
For once, I am not to blame for the lack of updates on this weblog. Ever since I set foot in China, I haven't been able access certain websites such as youtube, facebook and even this site, blogspot. This is not a new phenomena and I'm not the only one who has this problem. I'm currently being denied access by the Chinese government thanks to the so-called “Great Firewall” a pun on that famous Chinese feat of engineering The Great Wall.
It's internet censorship and technology in it's greatest form. Not only normal websites, such as facebook.com or blogspot.com which enables your average netizen to start a blog, get blocked, but also websites the Chinese government deems offensive (such as pornography), the Chinese version of BBC, websites that belong to outlawed groups like Falong Gong and even individual search strings.
It doesn't matter if I'm on Google or Wikipedia looking for “subversive” material. For example, if I would look for Tianamen Square (Plein van de Hemelse Vrede) or Tibet or the Daila Lama, the search result will automatically get blocked.
There are ways to get around the Great Firewall. Using proxy servers, little software tools, or in my case, hopping over to “that other” China: Hong Kong. Because, even though this magnificent, former city state is nominally a part of China, it's still independent in many ways. And one is internet access. And Hong Kong is where I'm currently at.
The Chinese government calls it “monitoring and control” to safeguard the social security (whatever that means) and to keep all those evils and propaganda spawned by the Western cultural world away from the pure and innocent Chinese. For all intents and purposes, it means that China (with it's 360 million internet users) is outside “the internet” and using it's own, domestic version.
A lot of the blocked sites are renowned English digital domains, which is for the average Chinese internet user no big concern. According to some sources an astonishing amount of ten million Chinese speak English. Sounds alot? That's 0.77 percent of the total population (of 1.3 billion people – 1.3 miljard voor de Nederlanders). Everything in China's version of the internet gets replicated – in Chinese. So Google becomes Baidu, Youtube Tudou and the copycat of Facebook is Xiaonei.
This is just to show that China is big. Very big. I've spent the last month in the southwestern most province, Yunnan, and even now I've only scratched the surface of this magnificent province with it's diverse landscapes and people. And that's only one region. Travelling through Yunnan made me realize, maybe really for the first time, how big China actually is and the ridiculous amount of people that live here.
The last couple of weeks I have travelled and stayed with a Dutch friend from the old days. Together with another Dutch guy, he lives, works and enjoys himself in Kunming, the provincial capital of Yunnan. The so-called “City of Eternal Spring” has a population of six million. That's as big as Hanoi or Saigon in Vietnam. It was a great base for exploring the province.
Frank, (check his excellent Dutch blog here, and his English blog here) speaks the language, immerses himself into the culture and country and has plenty of Chinese friends. Chinese people don´t really talk about politics and I actually haven´t had any discussions about censorship or democracy. He was an invaluable help showing me the “real” China. Going south, to small cities, talking with the people from the street, going to karaoke bars and sauna's, tasting genuine Chinese food. Without him I wouldn't have had such an valuable experience.
The Chinese have a feeling that they are going somewhere for the first time in recent history. The big question is: are they going forward , to being a respected, international player, into the future or are they going to go inwards, closed off, unwilling to deal with the big, bad (Western) world, much like previous incarnations of the Chinese empires in the days of yore.
Like I said before, I am in Hong Kong staying with the family of a friend from previous travels (remember Wai from Vietnam?). Chinese New Year is just a couple of days away. It's been a while since I've been in Hong Kong, but this place is magical.
Don't worry, I'm back from the internet void. Expect Halfway Home Part II in the next couple of days.
For once, I am not to blame for the lack of updates on this weblog. Ever since I set foot in China, I haven't been able access certain websites such as youtube, facebook and even this site, blogspot. This is not a new phenomena and I'm not the only one who has this problem. I'm currently being denied access by the Chinese government thanks to the so-called “Great Firewall” a pun on that famous Chinese feat of engineering The Great Wall. 
It's internet censorship and technology in it's greatest form. Not only normal websites, such as facebook.com or blogspot.com which enables your average netizen to start a blog, get blocked, but also websites the Chinese government deems offensive (such as pornography), the Chinese version of BBC, websites that belong to outlawed groups like Falong Gong and even individual search strings.
It doesn't matter if I'm on Google or Wikipedia looking for “subversive” material. For example, if I would look for Tianamen Square (Plein van de Hemelse Vrede) or Tibet or the Daila Lama, the search result will automatically get blocked.
There are ways to get around the Great Firewall. Using proxy servers, little software tools, or in my case, hopping over to “that other” China: Hong Kong. Because, even though this magnificent, former city state is nominally a part of China, it's still independent in many ways. And one is internet access. And Hong Kong is where I'm currently at.
The Chinese government calls it “monitoring and control” to safeguard the social security (whatever that means) and to keep all those evils and propaganda spawned by the Western cultural world away from the pure and innocent Chinese. For all intents and purposes, it means that China (with it's 360 million internet users) is outside “the internet” and using it's own, domestic version.
A lot of the blocked sites are renowned English digital domains, which is for the average Chinese internet user no big concern. According to some sources an astonishing amount of ten million Chinese speak English. Sounds alot? That's 0.77 percent of the total population (of 1.3 billion people – 1.3 miljard voor de Nederlanders). Everything in China's version of the internet gets replicated – in Chinese. So Google becomes Baidu, Youtube Tudou and the copycat of Facebook is Xiaonei.
This is just to show that China is big. Very big. I've spent the last month in the southwestern most province, Yunnan, and even now I've only scratched the surface of this magnificent province with it's diverse landscapes and people. And that's only one region. Travelling through Yunnan made me realize, maybe really for the first time, how big China actually is and the ridiculous amount of people that live here.
The last couple of weeks I have travelled and stayed with a Dutch friend from the old days. Together with another Dutch guy, he lives, works and enjoys himself in Kunming, the provincial capital of Yunnan. The so-called “City of Eternal Spring” has a population of six million. That's as big as Hanoi or Saigon in Vietnam. It was a great base for exploring the province.
Frank, (check his excellent Dutch blog here, and his English blog here) speaks the language, immerses himself into the culture and country and has plenty of Chinese friends. Chinese people don´t really talk about politics and I actually haven´t had any discussions about censorship or democracy. He was an invaluable help showing me the “real” China. Going south, to small cities, talking with the people from the street, going to karaoke bars and sauna's, tasting genuine Chinese food. Without him I wouldn't have had such an valuable experience.
The Chinese have a feeling that they are going somewhere for the first time in recent history. The big question is: are they going forward , to being a respected, international player, into the future or are they going to go inwards, closed off, unwilling to deal with the big, bad (Western) world, much like previous incarnations of the Chinese empires in the days of yore.
Like I said before, I am in Hong Kong staying with the family of a friend from previous travels (remember Wai from Vietnam?). Chinese New Year is just a couple of days away. It's been a while since I've been in Hong Kong, but this place is magical.
Don't worry, I'm back from the internet void. Expect Halfway Home Part II in the next couple of days.
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