China in extremes

After a week, well 5 days, in China you would think I would be back with tons of stories about all the strange things which can only happen in China. Unfortunately, not this time.

As I already predicted, this was one of my most intense work trips so far. Usually I have at least an afternoon to sightsee, or I arrive a day early to get a feel for the city. This time sightseeing was limited to staring out the car window on the three hour drive from Guangzhou to Shenzhen. My one day in the Pearl River Delta was actually, from a getting-to-know-China-perspective, the most interesting part of the trip.

The Pearl River Delta is the main economic region in China and the two main cities, Shenzhen and Guangzhou, are the richest cities in the country. We spent the day driving to see some extremes of China - a good change from being in meeting rooms in Beijing for the four days before.

Shenzhen actually surprised me. The city has transformed in 30 years from a small fishing village across from Hong Kong to a major, modern city filled with high-tech companies. It was the first Special Economic Zone in China, announced in 1978 as part of Deng Xiaoping's Open Door policy. It sparked tremendous growth for the region and ultimately made the Pearl River Delta into the production powerhouse of the world. A lot of the cheap toys and computer components which are 'made in China' are likely to have been made here. So in my mind Shenzhen would be a very industrial, factory-filled, dirty & grey, chaotic city. Similar, in fact, to surrounding cities such as Dongguan.

Surprisingly it was much better than that. In fact, we visited Shenzhen to meet with an architect from OMA who is working on the construction of the building for the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. And this is only one of many buildings under construction with some other top designed buildings close-by. The wealth of the city is clearly showing.

But to show me that China isn't all about amazing growth rates, spectacular buildings and more, my colleague also took me to the biggest shopping mall in the world. I guess it's another symptom of China's development where everything needs to be bigger and better. But bigger doesn't always mean better, as the New South China Mall clearly shows.

At first we thought we were in for a disappointment. Driving up to the mall we saw shops, people, lights and, well, activitiy. This wasn't what we were coming for. Because apart from it being big, we were told it would also be empty. When we walked in behind the McDonald's we were relieved to see this was true. Five floors and corridors going off in every direction, but no shop in sight. It was clear that there had been some shops at a point in time, but everything was gone apart from the Spar, the McD's and the local drugstore out front. A ghost shopping mall - and an example of how it can go very wrong as well.

Haphazard investment clearly doesn't automatically guarantee growth and further investment. And that ties in nicely with a presentation I attended on Wednesday on the Chinese economy. That presentation closed off with the prediction that the current level of high investment is only going to have a negative effect and that China's economy will crash within the next few years. That set the stage nicely for that afternoon's discussion on our organisation's strategy in China for the next few years....

Ah.... Asia

Life is very busy right now. But the good part about it: I'll be in China as of Monday. Yay.

Can't wait to get a quick fix of Asia again. It's been a long time.

Unfortunately (and that's the bad part of the chaos right now), it's a work trip. I have a feeling this is going to be one of the most intense work trips I've done so far. Incredibly full schedule, but with some very interesting meetings.

I do wonder how much I really will get that China feeling.....

No news is good news?

I just noticed that my last post is from two months ago. Wow.

And it's true - I haven't been inspired to write at all. Even though there's a lot in my head I can't find a way to get it down on paper (well, screen) in a way that makes sense.

Some things that I have been occupied with:
Den Haag. Trying to make this 'my' city and discovering what it has to offer.
Sustainable living. And realizing that it's not so easy as it seems. And also: do I want to make those choices that are necessary to do so?
Politics. Local elections coming up this week (and yet to figure out what to vote), a government that fell apart last week and trying to figure out if this is a good thing.
Traveldreaming. If all goes well, as of next month it'll be London, Berlin, Paris. Not bad huh.
Work. Office politics and internal reorganizing has been taken to the maximum over the last few weeks. Not great. At all. Am learning how to be okay with less control. But it's tough.

My last post was on the beginning of a new year.
Weirdly, I have a feeling that this year is going to be a year of stability and domesticness. And maybe not writing here for two months is a reflection of that. Life is good - I have a great new house, a new city to explore, steadily building up my career without any major changes expected.

Boring? For the readers out there, yes - but I'm sure I'll have my share of drama at some point this year.

2010!

Vuurwerk
Originally uploaded by macchi.

Wheeeee! Happy new year everyone!

2010.... a strange number. As someone already said: it's The Future. Can't wait to see what this year will bring (apart from flying cars).

Didn't have any 'new' firework pictures of this year's fireworks extravaganza (we were almost in front of my place of work - a quiet residential/office area; felt strange being there) but figured this one is festive enough.

I've been on a two-week break (still two more days to go, yay) and it's been a very reflective two weeks. Lots of insights, new ideas, inspiration, energy - so there are some stories to follow but don't seem to have them quite written up in my head yet.

Hope this will be a fabulous year for everyone out there. XX machi

Karsu Dönmez - MISTRESS

Latest musical discovery

Snow Snow Snow

As in a big part of Northern Europe I think, the weather had been insane here - it's been snowing on and off for four days, but today has been the heaviest snowfall yet. I can't remember a time when it stayed for this long. And there's more expected. My mum just called to tell me to bring my iceskates when I go to their place for the holidays this week as people are already iceskating on natural ice! Insane.

Anyway, some snowy pictures from my new town.







Oh, and there are more at flickr of course.

Vegetable Overload

One of the things I started doing when I moved into my new house was take a 'subscription' on a weekly vegetablebag from the local eco-supermarket (unrelated to the No Impact Week, even!).

I'm really enjoying it. Although I don't mind cooking, I'm not very creative in my kitchen and usually make something standard with mushrooms/leek/zucchini/bell pepper.

For the past month or so I haven't been able to cook with that combination at all - I can't remember when I had my foolproof, unimaginative pasta-with-veggies-and-sauce for dinner last. Because at the moment I'm forced to cook with parsnips, brussel sprouts, endive, winter purslane (winterpostelein in Dutch, no idea what this is in English), cabbage, beets etc etc.

This means that most nights when I eat at home I need to find a recipe and work with that. And it is actually working!



Or rather, it would really work if I'd eat at home more often. I realized today that I really have an overdosis of vegetables at home right now. If anyone has any bright ideas on what to make with all this food that can freeze? I'd love to hear! (and yes, I down-graded to a smaller selection as of next week)

Still, fun though!

No Impact - how it ended

Uhoh - I realized I never continued my daily No Impact posts.

I guess part of it is due to guilt - the last couple of days became a lot harder to properly 'do'. Day #5 was 'energy', day #6 was 'water'.

But on those days I was also pretty much constantly out of the house which made it almost impossible (excuses, excuses - I know). But fact is, I can't turn off the lights in my office - they are always on in every room. And I need my computer also.

Then again, I could've done better: planned my dinner instead of rushing out of the office to pick up some snacks before jumping on a train to an evening event. And drinking coffee from plastic at that event! Eek!

Complete failure. Right?

The water-day, I'm embarrassed to admit, wasn't much different - I suppose it is also to do with not wanting to sacrifice some things: like a dishwasher and a washing machine.

But it's not all bad news - even now that I've finished, I do pay more attention to what I do: not buying unnecessary plastic, buying biological food and eating local as much as I can, taking the stairs instead of the elevator - and of course doing the usual things that make sense: turn off the light in rooms I'm not using, keep the doors closed so the heat won't leave the different rooms etc.

And I think that's what I wanted to get out of it also - a better sense of what you can pay attention to, and awareness of what you can do (even if I'm not losing my washing machine).

Another good thing: I sent out the manual to loads of people, spoke to a lot of colleagues about it, and did a speech on it last week. So: Impact. I hope :)

Day 4: Food

Today's challenge: eat local!

This was actually difficult, and I don't think I've kept to the challenge very well. Part of the reason is that my work seems to limit my commitment to this week.

Being in the midst of another manic week, I don't have much time to stop and think about other stuff while in the office. So when I only have 20 minutes to have a quick lunch, even if I take care not to pick anything wrapped in plastic, I don't make the effort to ask the kitchen staff to find out what from the different food choices were produced locally. And I wonder if they would even know....

I did better for dinner: all the main ingredients were locally produced - endive, potato, milk, cheese, and I think also the mushrooms. Courtesy of this week's vegetable selection ;-)

And one good side-effect: I'm making others stop and think about this as well. Colleagues who look at me strangely when I am agonizing about how to take down my lunch if I can't use a plastic throw-away plate. But also friends, and it seems some of them might be taking this up themselves :-D

Day 3: Transportation

Ah... an easy one! I don't have a car, and since I had no out-of-town appointments I could happily cycle to and from work. I've not been in an elevator either today, but that's helped by the fact I never have to be higher up than the fifth floor, which is still somewhat manageable.

The trick is everything stacking up. Today is not just about transportation, but also about not creating any trash, and no consumption. Whereas yesterday was fine without trash, that was partly lucky: dinner was Sunday's leftovers. Today, however, I did need to shop for new food. I had to go to the eco-shop anyway to get my vegetables for the week (only one thing in there I didn't recognize this week luckily). But it's amazing to find that even in that supermarket almost everything is wrapped in plastic!

So it becomes a choice of either eating very very basic meals (and even then it gets tricky) or just trying to stick to a minimum usage of plastic for biological products (such as parmesan cheese for tonight's risotto...).

Tomorrow is food - no clue yet what the challenge is exactly. And am curious to see what comes after that.

So far I seem to be coping. Or maybe I'm not strict enough on myself?