Year of the Rat

melfeasance

Way back last year I met a really nice guy at the Breakfast Club for a Likemind event/Russell's coffee morning crossover who listened while I waffled on about how the internet gave us an opportunity for the planet to voice its opinion and instead of smiling as most people do when I blather on about this subject he fully agreed. Well he emailed me this morning about a project for the world to participate in the forthcoming U.S. elections and break down each countries votes for issues like say Iraq.

Rob has very kindly posted about it over here. I hope we all get a chance to say more about things like this in the future. If you know a way that you can contribute or spread the word that would be great because there is going to come a time shortly when it will be difficult to ignore people's opinions on the internet. Its happening already and I hope the developer of 10 questions gets this off the ground. Your support in publicizing it would be terrific.

Spring is in the air

I managed to slip out of the office yesterday for a very quick lunch and on the way I finally got to walk past the recently opened Beijing Opera House or officially titled National Centre for Performing Arts. It's surrounded by a moat like affair, giving the arts a sense of protection for which Beijing's reputation kicks Shanghai's dollar loving ass over. So forgive me if I slip a couple of pics from the Nokia N95 in because I've dropped this baby a couple of times now and it's miraculously past the flying battery and spinning battery-cover test which is always received with gratitude when it survives that particular tumble, and is indeed the first quality about Nokia that really turned me on to the brand. That and the banana shaped ones that we first got at HHCL which were iconic and still are in a retro way. But really, Its not meant to survive this kind of abuse so its like a second life for me which is worth a few hundred euros in reality.


But what I wanted to say is that even though I cannot bear the cold, I moved to Beijing knowing that I need to sacrifice some things to achieve others. However, even though there will be cold days ahead, spring has definitely sprung and there is a whiff of fast paced tarting up going on in Beijing in the last days before the entire planet thinks more about China than it has ever done in the history of this incredible country destined for a legacy that is even larger than its geographical size or population, because that is exactly how the numbers game works. Here are the flowers being planted in time for the arrival of the sun.

And many of the boulevards are going through intense tree planting each morning with entire sections of previously tundra like frozen mud now being dug up and prepped for beauty. China knows how to throw a few hundred thousand workers at a project. Like no other.


This is no time to go into the whole construction boom thing versus planning a city for 2050 but I will do at some point. There's something interesting going on here and I haven't quite found the words to embrace all of it.

The Office (Party)

Well you live and learn. I've always had a problem with planned entertainment. Spontaneity makes me happy and when I was informed that we were having our office party some weeks in advance and that a 'committee' was being formed to organise entertainment skits for different account teams I thought it was going to be more of that teeth pulling obligatory presence that I put up with a couple of months ago at the 4A's advertising awards in December.

I filmed that particular fanfare they put us through for each award, including say best banner ad in B2B public infrastructure project tenders - you get my drift. Here it is because you can't make this stuff up when it comes to the levels of delusion in the advertising business.

So that's my view on organised fun. However our annual party morphed into everything I could have wished for. We headed for the great wall of China via coach and stayed in some architecturally really interesting lodgings called the Kempinski Commune. The proceedings began after a meal that was perfectly balanced and proportioned for an event of this nature (I loath wasted food at events) and then the skits began. As a rule we Brits have to get lathered up on the juice to have a good time but in general the Beijingers know how to have really good fun with just a glass or two to help things along, and this they did promptly with all their entertaining.

I expected amateurish good humoured attempts to entertain but what I saw was a transformational effect both by and of the people who I work with on a daily basis. It was pure planning porn and that included the film parody of the Hong Kong star who kept pictures of naked starlet conquests that were subsequently discovered by those guys who fix broken notebooks. So I learnt lots and had heaps of fun too. There was some senior management dough giving ritual thing that I didn't fully understand but that too turned into a kind of competitive egalitarianism and I was close to giving it all away right there and then, because I loved my colleagues so much in that moment being an emotional sort. You can't buy that kind of passion even if you neck a Red Bull or Three.

So at the end of it all my colleagues started to sing this song and I don't know why but it was sung with the sort of pride that is not about solipsistic nationalism but about a collective and mutual respect for each other and an optimism for the future. Well that was the feeling of it for me and I'm sure there is more but it just felt good and I got it on Qik so here it is if you don't mind me giving you a quick slice of Beijing life which has so much more substance than Shanghai in many ways.

Sorry about the sound quality but that is live to the net streaming so it's still being improved. I've got lots of footage of the entertainment skits but I'd like to leave you with what really is the moment that sinks in deeper than any other so far which is The Great Wall of China. The folks after the descent told me that you aren't a man until you've visited it, but I was unaware of that when I arose early to climb a section of it where it's evident that despite stiff competition from Bagan in Burma, Angkor Wat in Cambodia and Borobodur in Indonesia is easily the most lasting and physical testament to what a people can achieve with brute force, vision and resources that put the goal way ahead of the cost of its execution. I look forward to the day when we collectively apply that determination to reducing consumption, applauding frugality and worshiping that which we are blessed with for an infinitely short time in the big scheme of things. The chance to live a life on this speck of a seemingly lonely planet. So here is the Great Wall and Great it really is.