China Blog

Hey Zeus! I have been a bad blogger. Too much having fun and doing shit. I am actually now in Australia with the simple people, and since I last posted, much has occurred including the hectic Japan (coming soon!). This bastard internet is costing me an arm and a leg so gotta be quick. Up-and-at-them.

The great thing about China is that you can pretty much just buy shit. Take our one day trip through Qing'Dao for example. We were walking about this beautiful German colonial town when we reached a pier where some old man was selling tortoises. 1pound! Fucking bargain. And that included a plastic home for him. We walked around with him all day and he seemed somewhat unimpressed by everything we showed him. I nicknamed him Orlando (in fact i nickname most the animal friends we have encountered Orlando) because they often share traits. Orlando was similar to Orlando the Human due to the fact that he was a little slow, constantly chewing on something, liked the colour green and was not a great swimmer. After a day of sight seeing, we had to release him cos we had a boat to Japan to catch and Orlando said that he didn't like the Japanese and their fishermen were evil cunts. Oh, that reminds me; just as we were standing on the beach ready to release Orlando back to the wild, a man who was fishing started waving frantically at us. It turns out that Orlando was a land tortoise, and dropping him into the sea would have meant certain death! eeek.

Shanghai was a little disappointing- vaguely futuristic, massive, spread out, lacking culture, somewhat ugly etc. I'll sum it up with snippets. Bartered so hard with a lady that she accused me of being Korean. Crazy street stalls selling all manners of sex toys and sex-related drugs. An under-the-river Willy Wonker-alike flashing "tourist tunnel" which was Balls with a capital B. Crippling ourselves for a day and a half after drinking too much. A sex museum. Having a hard time reading Dickens' Hard Times. What I did like however was the spontaneous dancing that would occur in the streets. You'd find some old dude dressed up in his finest and he'd be dancing on his own. If he was lucky, an old woman may start dancing with him. Sweet.

We hadn't yet encountered pandas and thought that we couldn't leave China without. After a grueling 2hr local bus ride through Shanghai traffic, we arrived to find out we were too late and the zoo was already closed. I was all ready to hulk-out until we realised a way to bypass the security and pretty much enjoy a private night tour of the zoo. We woke up numerous exotic animals by flashing our cameras at them and making mooo/eeeee oooorrrr/squaarrrkk etc noises. When we arrived at the panda enclosure they were sleeping so we did extra flashes and banged on the glass. The lazy bastards wouldn't awaken so we took a picture of its arse and left. When we eventually found legitimate Pandas in Beijing, they were like drunk, fat, lazy, clumsy, drugged bears and spent the whole time sitting down back to camera stuffing their faces with bamboo. They were sweet though :)

Beijing was brillyeent! Big shout out to the big dog pitbull Rebecca McAndrew and her China-loving crew who took good care of us. They live like kings with maids and a plate drying machine. I celebrated my 23rd Birthday (fuck I'm getting old) with Trip (that's a human name) at a Japanese restaurant (in China) followed by shenanigans at other drinking establishments. MyBDay present was one of the best massages I've ever had. Watching TV, eating food while some woman does stuff to my feet- thanks Rubes. Went to the classics such as Tiananmen Square and the Mausoleum of Chairman Mao. We didn't get to see uncle Ho in Vietnam cos he was being touched up in Russia so I was very excited to get a dose of dead, communist leaders. Rumours have it that the Mao-soleum actually holds a wax-work cos the pickler didn't know what he was doing and left the original Mao mangled. What we saw was what looked like Mao with jaundice and my skeptical self was slightly underwhelmed.

The Great Wall of China... absolutely incredible (and I'm not easily impressed). Moreover, so many people had spoken so highly of it that I was dead certain it was going to be tripe. Not the case. We pretty much had the wall to ourselves- walked for 5hrs and encountered two Aussies and one hawker (who sold us some cool postcards). The wall winds over hills right into the horizon, is derelict and run down with beautiful watchtowers dotted every 100 metres or so. I leave you with an image of one of the most impressive things I have seen on this great expedition. Brrrrrrrraaaapp!
Posted by Will Ryan under the categories Travel and China
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Our voyage continues into the main body of China. We started in Xi'an where we saw the impressive Terracotta Warriors. About two thousand years ago, over 8000 stone soldiers were buried in battle formation to help Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi rule an empire in his afterlife (baloney if you ask me). For some reason, this was forgotten about(!), then rediscovered by a farmer about 20 years ago whilst digging a well. They are now slowly being excavated, each solider individually sculpted to look different. Very cool. That's enough history for now.

On our exit from Xi'an we couldn't get the normal 'white tourist' class, so had to settle in the 'hard seat' section for the 24hr journey. The first thing we see is some Chinese woman using the carriage sink to chop fruit and veg and a fat, topless chinaman lying across 4 seats snoring. There were also hundreds of other Chinese doing equally inappropriate shit. Sensing that this class wasn't for us, we went searching for an upgrade. We gambled the wrong direction which meant a 2km round trip through the pandemonium with Orlando's 3 tonne bag. I could sense people thinking "who are these royal-looking cunts" especially after waking up a number of people for the second time by slapping them in the face with my bag. On the journey, we also met a computer science-looking American guy who was obviously in China for the easy pootang. He produced my favourite quote of the trip: "Being in the East and white is what I imagine it to be like being a hot blond in the west". Despite Orlando and I agreeing, we are an exception to this rule, accumulating a big fat zero between us :(
Went to a beautiful town called Fenghuang which was only marred by an army of Chinese tourists in boats wearing really bright orange life jackets. 30 adults, 1metre deep water- all non swimmers? You avin a laff!? Went on a bike ride to discover rural China only to find a coal mine and a power station. To pass the time on that little excursion I enjoyed pelting Orlando with various fruits and berries that were conveniently growing by the road side. Also spent many hours working out how to escape the town using google translator as my proxy. The Chinese-English translations were constantly littered with the word "pakistan" which confused the hell out of me; the Chinese recipients of my English messages often gave me funny looks or burst out into hysterics.


In Yangshuo, we learnt how to cook some stuff and hired an Electric motorbike to visit various things. I also discovered that if Orlando is irritating me, I can deter him by wearing my nut necklace or spraying him with my milk/beer-filled water gun. Brilliant. Another piece of Orlando news: yesterday, he managed to confuse a waitress to the point where she brought him three meals. During the meal, there was a large piece of crab meat that had somehow managed to find itself nestled above his eye brow. Extraordinary.


Have been really missing my Premiership football lately as well as other western media. This crisis has been solved over the last 10 days after visiting Macau and Hong Kong (currently watching Man Utd Blackburn). The games are on at really inconvenient times: last night, was up till 4am watching Liverpool Fulham which killed this morning. Champions League is even worse. Onwards. Macau is really sick. Portuguese colonial architecture alongside the Las Vegas of the East. Construction is on an unprecedented scale and will rival Vegas within a few years. Just like Vegas, you get free drinks when you're gambling which always reminds me of Bouce. Two years ago, we found ourselves in Vegas where free drinks only come when you're on the tables (where you blow a minimum of a fiver a minute). When Bouce joined a table and got offered a free drink he replied "I'll have two rum and cokes, and Will- what are you having?". Classic.



Hong Kong has been really fun as well but everything is way over our budget so we've pretty much adopted a look and don't touch policy. This is fine cos the landscape and skyscrapers are very impressive. We're staying in a place called Chung King mansions which is a massive 16-story block, packed to the rafters with Africans, Pakistanis and Indians- it's very similar to New Jack City. It's dirty, stinks of curry and easy to get a sexy massage and we're breaking the bank to even stay there!

Oh yeah, before I forget, my lovely sister Alice has been busy in the last few days. After purchasing a house in the Hamptons about 4 days ago, she announced yesterday that she was getting engaged which has made me very happy! She is marrying Mr Kirk Miller who is an American. On the positive side, he is very British at heart, an excellent footballer and owns a passport :P George and I agree that he is a quality guy and gets the Ryan family seal of approval (and more). When I get back to London in mid-January I plan to chill for a few days before visiting Edinburgh (to visit the various fans I have up there) and then I'm off to New York for a while. I suppose after that I should consider employment... No promises though! I hate exclamation marks! Bye!


Posted by Will Ryan under the categories China and Travel
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Our adventures continue in China and started on somewhat of a low point. I saw Luba take our Lonely Planet to the bathroom obviously for some toilet reading. However, I didn't understand the concept of toilet reading when all you have available is a squatter (think hole in the floor) but I let it fly. Two minutes later I hear commotion in the bathroom, followed by Lubes returning from the loo with a guilty look on his face. Without being too crude, cap'n clutz had managed to drop our vital guide (in a land where few speak English) into his own faeces (crap). Normally, this would be fine cos we'd just buy another one, except Lonely Planets aren't sold in China. In fact, they are often confiscated at the border since it recognizes Taiwan as an independent country (a major faux pas). Therefore, Rubes spent the next hour hacking at the book with some pocket scissors removing the offending pages, meanwhile I no longer touch the book without gloves on and the China history section is a no go.

The second low point was our first meal. English menus are usually unavailable so you just point and hope for the best. When we did our best charades impression to work out what we'd just eaten, it turned out to be pigs tail (very chewy, curly, cavity of fat running down the middle- it's obvious in hindsight). mmmm. The toilets in that restaurant also made me gag- to be honest, most the toilets in China have made me gag (worse than India!). One toilet which i recently encountered on a backroad in the badlands of Tibet was fully open plan with three squatters. As I entered, I nearly chundered, the smell was even having an effect on my eye sight, but when I saw a middle aged Chinese man taking a full frontal shit, that was my signal to leave. Bring on Japanese toilets I say- I heard they ain't bad. I realise that the opening to this post has mostly concerned shit, so I'll try to up the brow...


One thing you notice quite quickly in China is the tight grip held by the government on the people. From day one, I was shocked by the blatant propaganda spewing from the television channels (the state ones ironically known as CCTV1, 2, 3 etc). Lines emanating from box are unrelentless and are of the tone: "China has made great improvements over the last 5 years in the areas of Science and Technology all thanks to the Communist party based on Marxism with Chinese characteristics"- this mindless babble bombards you constantly. We have recently made the discovery that "Chinese characteristics" roughly translates to capitalism but anyway. The internet is censored, albeit poorly (see my other post) and some areas of the country have a severe lack of freedom- Tibet being the worst. The people are unable to talk negatively about the government as they believe informants are on every corner. They are not able to talk about the Dalai Lama (the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people); a prominent monastery is currently closed after the current Dalai Lama met with George Bush and travel throughout the region is highly restrictive to say the least. Those who break the law in these respects are sent to jail. One good thing is that the Tibetans are highly aware of the oppression they are under (grumblings are quite apparent), whereas it seems that many of those in the rest of China have never known any different therefore do not question it. Disappointingly, the Tibetans don't seem at boiling point (Burma-style), as if they have rolled over to the Chinese government after so many years of mal-treatment.

Forgetting the negatives... TIBET! Wow. I love it. The people here are really, really, really nice. For example, I just got back from a gym which had an attached Dojo of sorts. I was just doing my own thing before some karate-looking people came up to me and asked me if I wanted to try Taikwando. I was like sure, so they kitted me up with boxing gloves, shin pads, a sword etc. After embarrassing myself in front of about 15 people (my flexibility is atrocious as already proven when I tried Yoga in India), they invited me to their dinner table, plastered me with beer and then challenged me to a game of Counter Strike 3. Tibetans are very welcoming, not driven by money and will go out of their way to help you which is really refreshing.

Tibet's landscape is really breathtaking with vast mountain ranges enclosing you from all sides. Huge monasteries cast a shadow over every city and traditional cultures are something that the Tibetans are not going to lose any time soon e.g. month long pilgrimages over hundreds of miles where the partakers must crawl. The highlight of this region was definitely our 5 day trip to Mt Everest (locally called Mt Qomolangma) base camp. Words can't describe how it feels to be so close to one of the natural wonders of the world. A video might be more appropriate...


The worst thing about the images, is that it makes Everest look quite small... when you're next to it, it's fucking gargantuan! Altitude was a major problem aswell cos at 5300metres your body ain't happy- the brain starts to swell which can give you a mecca headache and nausea. This meant oxygen canisters and various medication were a must but I'm happy to report that Orlando, although going a new shade of white, survived the trek. We also met the oldest man to ever have climbed Everest (69) who was just about to try again at the age of 75... don't want to sound morbid but I reckon body bags should be at the ready. Qomolangma dudes!
Posted by Will Ryan under the categories Travel and China
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Ofcourse, the first thing you (or maybe just I) do when you find an internet cafe in China is to search for "Tiananmen Square".

Originally, all i got was a load of gobbledegook Chinese characters, which I thought might be some sort of crazy restriction message from the Chinese government. After translating it, I saw that this was just the standard 404 error: not found or currently unavailable. This made me think it was some kind of DNS filtering (which would have been my first guess anyway as it seems most simple to implement). However, on trying some other sites, I realised that the page would sometimes flash up before disappearing with that same error message. The partially downloaded page could be reached through the cache so I thought that something must be interrupting the connection at the packet level.

After a bit of research (very hard to research about the Chinese firewall from behind the Chinese firewall) I found out that this is exactly what does happen. Reset packets are sent to both client and server which terminates the page download [see Ignoring the 'Great Firewall of China']. Some sites are banned outright at the DNS stage but otherwise it is a fairly forceful and primitive way of achieving internet censorship (hopefully the Chinese government doesn't read my blog: lonely planet tells me that 27 executions occur every day (including us foreigners!)). I suppose I can't suggest a better method, since intelligent search of 1.3 billion people's traffic without introducing horrid latency would require a google-scale amount of processing power! That being said, the Great Firewall of China is more penetrable than you'd imagine, especially at busy times of the day (I'd imagine) ;) .

I would be (temporarily) fine without wikipedia and other anti-Chinese sites, but when they outright ban the bbc site and its subsidiaries (including BBC football), they must be ‘avin a laff!?! Therefore, I shall be proxying most my internet content while I'm in China, and if the authorities sniff anything, hopefully I'll be out the cafe by the time they arrive (the internet cafe man being hung instead eeek ).

A posting about my time in Vietnam coming soon... Zaijian!
Posted by Will Ryan under the categories China and Travel and Computing
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