Sailing

First, I apologise for the length of this blog entry.  At the beginning there was not much to write about.  Then it started to unfold and then too much was happening.  So now this is a mammoth entry that may be of limited interest to many.

Why go to Xiamen?

One of the reasons for choosing to go to Xiamen was the government had designated it as being for development into a sailing area.  They had made a bay at the north end of the island and built sailing clubs on its shore and given them some boats. 

http://www.whatsonxiamen.com/ent264.html

There are also a clutter of sailing “clubs”.

The Stella Sea Club.

http://www.whatsonxiamen.com/health1711.html

The Wuyuan Sailing Club

http://www.whatsonxiamen.com/ent73.html

This is not really a sailing club. It administers the affairs or the whole Bay.  The company is government owned.  Well, almost everything is actually.

IronRock Sailing Club

http://www.ironrocksailing.com/

This actually is a sailing club. It is not as active as it would like to be but it is sort of trying.  Its fundamental problem is that it has been set up for the rich elite and so cannot sell itself to those who just want to learn to sail.

Also there are University Sailing Clubs. These are affiliated to the IronRock Club.  Students at the English corner do not know about this, but would be keen to try if the opportunity arose. Also there is a need for a Yacht operator’s licence being established.

http://www.whatsonxiamen.com/news11256.html

I read an article on importing into China. There is a market for this even though the Chinese products are cheaper.  There is a lack of trust of things Chinese, but it is not just that.  Many things, and yachts would definitely fall into this category, are about “face”. People need to see that this is something you got from outside.  In Xiamen there is (or soon will be) a facility for Imports:  

http://www.whatsonxiamen.com/news10204.html

One thing that is interesting is that about 3km off shore is an island that belongs to Taiwan. Ie not china!  These neighbours don’t get on very well.  Sailing between them may be problematic.

There is also a boat builder in Xiamen.  They certainly don’t look cheap to me.

http://www.reddragonyachts.com/

Before leaving Coleraine I had emailed the sailing clubs to see what the craic was.  Only one, the Iron Rock Sailing Club, answered.  An American called Hugh told me that things were not as they were presented on the web pages – but it was getting better.  If you have looked at the websites above, you will certainly have been misled.  A couple of weeks after arriving in Xiamen, I adventured up to Wuyuan Bay.  It was a building site.  I could not find anyone there but workmen and nobody who could tell me anything useful.  There were some million dollar motor yachts in the marina   I went next door to a building with “J boats” in big letters on the wall, to find three girls at the bar who didn't know much.  One of them went to fetch a girl called Karen.  Karen immediately identified me as someone who would pay 200,000 yuan an hour to charter a yacht.  I was flattered since I looked like something the cat had dragged in and soaked in sweat (it was hot in those days).  Since I did not have much else to do I agreed to go and look at the yachts and spent the rest of the afternoon making the right noises to all the luxurious bedrooms and fly bridge.  It occurred to me that if you paid that kind of money for a boat it would be crazy to spend the time sleeping anyway (well, I suppose there are some circumstances). Eventually we got to the 42ft Oceanis but still had to see the bedrooms.   She didn't understand that all I wanted was to go sailing.

A week passed before I went up that way again, this time with Naryan.  The building site called Wuyuan Yacht Club had transformed itself into a luxurious bar and restaurant but was still not open.  We went in and were approached by a girl who introduced herself as Tangtang.  She saw that we were hot and so snapped her fingers and water with lemon arrived.  After talking for a while, she explained that this Yacht Club was only and administrative centre for the management of the Bay and to provide food and drink of millionaires.  If I wanted to go sailing, I needed to go to Iron Rock Sailing Club next door.  She decided she was going to take me there but as we were leaving her boss said that she should not tell me where it is because it was helping the competition. Duh!   I see Tangtang often now and she is a good friend.

Anyway, as it was 20 metres next door we found it ourselves.  We found someone who spoke English and called Xi Lu who helped with translation.  I got to explain that we wanted to go sailing and they suggested that association with the university may be a good way to go.  I was also introduced to a guy called Shark who organised everything to do with water events.   Xi Lu was then leaving but gave me his card.  From his card I saw that Xi Lu was interested in old Chinese ships.  Wow.  Web page: http://blog.sina.com.cn/fulongsailing.  Xi Lu was a founder member of this Junk sailing society and had financed built and sailed this Junk to America and back.  Anyway, he was leaving and driving back to the University.  Wanting to talk to him, I took the opportunity to get a lift with him.

I failed to find anyone at the University who knew anything about sailing.  People knew people who might know so I kept leaving my phone number to be given to anyone who may know something.

Next time a week or so later Viny and I went to Wuyuan Bay.  Eventually I would wear these guys down.  I had heard from Hugh Morrow that the Sea Stella club had obtained the rights to train captains of yachts.  Sounds good, so we went there.  The interior of this rather uninteresting building was decked out inside completely OTT.  White piano sitting on a pedestal in the centre of a bar lounge area.  No people there though until we started to call.  A very elegantly dressed lady came out and told us that whatever it was that we wanted, they did not have any and we should leave.  Ok, they probably don’t sail anyway so we left.   We then went to Iron Rock Sailing club and met the guy who I had not had time to talk to before.  His English name is Shark - a really nice guy despite his name.  Anyway, not much happening there.  Shark says that people here are just not interested in sailing but he would let me know if anything happened. 

Dong Shan.
So, this woman phones me up one afternoon and asks if I would like to go sailing.  “Yes.  When?”, I replied.  “Tomorrow at 8:00am” she says.  So then tells me that we will be away for a week.  I arrange to meet up with her and the guys within the hour.  It turns out that the guys don’t speak any English and so she is just the translator.  So they are going off to a sailing regatta at a village/town called Dong Shan which is a beauty spot some 120 miles away.  We were being put up in a hotel for the week and racing.  So I asked who the captain would be.  Well it turned out it was me.  This is a dubious honour.  The next morning I met up with all the guys.  One of the students, ZiJian spoke a bit of English.  He was going to be part of my crew as he had sailed a couple of times before.  The rest of my crew could/would not speak any English and had never sailed before.  This was going to be a hoot. 

We went down to Dong Shan and established ourselves in the hotel.  As the students couldn’t speak English, when they wanted to tell me that there was a meal, the only food word they knew was “Fish” so they would call me for dinner with “Steve! Fish”.  Unfortunately it was actually fish of every size and type, shell fish, prawns, octopus and things we don’t even have names for.   The next day we went down to a small military base on the water front – I think it may have been a kind of coast guard station but the ship tied up there had plenty of guns.  Six boats were sitting there on trailers.  They were FarEast 26s.  They needed to be rigged waiting for a crane that would lift them into the water.  While we were rigging the boats I had a look at the ship.  A military type person went to the guy in charge of the FE26s and told him that the foreigner could not be on the base.  I then had to stand outside the gate of the base and watch the boats being lifted into the water.  The crane eventually arrived and positioned itself as close to the sea as it could.  It had to reach some way out to clear the rocks near the shore.  When the first boat was launched I took it with a couple of students and Mr Jung, their teacher, out for a sail.  I wasn’t too impressed with the boat.  It felt more like a toy.  On the way back Mr Jung told me, translated by ZiJian, to head directly through the fishing nets to the harbour.  It didn’t look like a good idea to me but they insisted that they knew that was the way to go.  So in I went and came to a sudden halt as I got caught in the nets.   The FE26 has a forward and backward facing bulb on the bottom of the keel.  This is a problem for getting caught in nets so I tried to back slowly away from the nets.  Mr Jung decides to take control.  He takes the outboard and motors forward into the net until we can push no further.  He then decides to turn round … and round … and round.  So I am thinking we are so totally fkd.  At last, the outboard runs out of fuel and Mr Jung sits in a catatonic state at the stern.  We are about half a mile from the harbour and there are no other boats in sight except a fishing boat some miles to the south.  OK, so I take the spinnaker pole and feel around the keel.  I can feel the nets so I hook them and pull them to the surface.  The students get the idea and start to pull the nets in, and the ropes and eventually the anchors holding it on the sea bed.  Seeing that there were no fish in the nets, ZiJuan calls, “Steve! No Fish”. 

So, I put the sails up and off we go.  Mr Jung wants to go down wind to the fishing boat some way off to see if they will give us fuel.  I have had enough of his ideas and am going to sail this thing into the harbour.  I take a route near the harbour wall that is the only place where there are not nets.  Mr Jung is going crazy yelling “rocks”.  I say there is a ship in the harbour that certainly did not come through the nets and this is the only other way.  Finally I sail into the harbour and tie up against the ship that previously I was not allowed to look at.  A guy bought more fuel down and wanted us to go and help the other boat.  While we were out, the second boat had been launched.  They had released it from the harness and the engine had failed to start.  So, the wind blew it back onto the rocks.  I could see that it was hard aground. (tide range about 5m)  The waterline was about a foot out of the water.  Now, Mr Jung and Mr Wu were going to pull the boat off the rocks with the boat we had been sailing.  Not a chance, at least not with a 4hp outboard and not without major damage but I cannot talk to these guys.  So, they get a very long rope and one end is tied to the pushpit of the grounded boat and the other to the pushpit of our boat.  What are they going to do? I ask myself.  Well, Mr Jung heads off at full speed out into the harbour.  Me thinks, “oh dear”, but not those exact words.  When the end of the slack rope comes, this is going to rip the pushpit right out of the deck.  I quickly started to gather as much of the loose rope to absorb the shock.  The guy (FE employee) on the other boat also realises what is going to happen and does the same.  Well, the rope came taught and I held it as long as I could without burning my hands.  The other guy held onto the rope and his hands were caught between the rope and something and took the skin of his hands.  The pushpit survived but the boat didn’t move and the guy in the other boat is curled up in a foetal position on deck with his hands nursed in his armpits.   So, there we are sitting on our boat looking at the guy in the other boat and about 15 people on shore just looking (that includes the crane driver).  I ask to be put on the grounded boat.  “too dangerous” they say.  I say, “just do it”.  I’m really getting a bit fed up with these guys.  Eventually I get on the grounded boat and call to the crane driver to get the sling back down here.  Of course he doesn’t understand.  However, there is something I have not mentioned. Earlier in the day, I am given a beautiful girl by the name of Aiko to act as a translator.  I late found out she also knows words that some sailors use, not the nautical ones, -- the other words.  Anyways, her job is to follow me round for the week.  Eventually, we get the boat slung up and lifted back to the trailer.  Well, that was enough excitement for the day so we all went back to the hotel for dinner.  The next day we got the other boats launched and then we sailed for the rest of the week.  There were some pretty hot racing crews there from HK and Taiwan and Shenzhen.  Needless to say we did not win any races but we had a lot of fun.  Other interesting things happened during the week.  I met up with a guy called Craig that I had been in correspondence with two years earlier. This is a story of epic improbability.  Also, the acid reflux that I suffered from over the previous years as a result of a hiatus hernia stopped completely.  Presumably as a result of not eating bread, milk, cheese, sugar, coffee and all the things I love. But just eating rice and f… Fish! I also lost weight.

Back in Xiamen

In the weeks following, Shark called me a few times to help him take customers out.  Some of these were bank employees on their company days out.  As a sailing experience, it was not very interesting.  It more resembled a photo shoot.  Everyone wants to be photographed with the foreigner.  On one occasion, it was a press team that asked me heaps of questions.  To my surprise, an article about me appeared in the paper the next day. 

Also, the University started a sail training twice a week in the Flying Tigers.  That was more interesting.  I spent a lot of time teaching they guys how to tie knots and tacking and gybing, picking up fenders and just messing about.  Late we were having friendly races.  They wrote an article in the local paper about me doing that as well.  

Another guy that I had mailed from NI was Jim Johnstone.  I gave him a call and arranged to meet him.  We discussed how, while the focus was on the very rich, sailing was not going to go anywhere in Xiamen.  As it turned out JJ has an amazing amount of influence.  J boats are not called J boats for nothing.  He’s the man and he has a racing pedigree that goes back to his teens.  Not only that but he now manufactures J80s in Xiamen.  Well, JJ of J boats had a plan.  He donated 8 yachts to a series of races every Sunday, to anyone who turned up, free of charge.  This has turned out to be some of the best fun I have had in Xiamen.  The J80 is an 8m long boat that handles so beautifully.   It’s very responsive and well balanced and fast and then a few weeks ago I managed to crash one into the jetty right in front of JJ.  Fortunately no damage done except to my ego.  I had been winning some races the weeks before so this was a humbling experience.

These pictures show my crew which is mainly girls, and my friend MoLight. 

So, in addition to this, a student sailing club is started at the university.  This is separate from the sailing done with the sports centre.  The sailing club hires the J80s.  We do this once or twice a week.  The sports centre sailing does not allow girls so this is usually more fun.  See photos.    These are busy times.  For a few weeks I am sailing 5 times a week.

Round the island  January 1^st 2^nd

Like with everything else I do here, I did not know this event was coming.  Some time ago I was handed a laminated A3 photocopy of a chart of Xiamen coastline.  “Thanks, what do I do with this?”  – “You will need it.”

One Tuesday, we were going to sailing, but we were meeting at 8:00 in the morning.  “Why are we meeting so early?”  “It’s something else first?”  So I was taken from the university to a place near Haicang Bridge where there were a lot of other people.  We boarded a fishing boat and then started on a 20 mile journey to Wuyuan Bay, and on the way the marks for the race were pointed out. 

On Saturday, myself and two others went up to Wuyuan Bay to bring the boat – a “flying tiger” we were going to be sailing back to Haicang Bridge.  The wind gave us a broad reach and the tide was with us.  For nearly the whole way, up to the point where we had to round the end of the island, we were surfing.  The bow wave was spraying up on either side about midships and we were flying.  It took less than an hour to cover 15 miles.  At one point it was necessary to gybe.  In such a strong wind I thought it was a good opportunity to demonstrate to the newbie crew the alternative to gybing so I decided to tack it round instead ( a sort of 270 degree turn).  This turned out to be a mistake.  As we luffed up into the wind, the boat healed over horribly, the rudder came out of the water and rounded up into the wind.  The waves were quite high and the boat came to a stop before getting round.  The boat has no weight to give it the momentum to get round.  Humph! Ok, we would gybe instead then, so we went onto a reach to try to get some speed up but even with the sails right out, the boat healed over and pointed up into the wind and stopped.  Well we were getting closer and closer to some rocks but we were not going to get round until we got some speed but getting speed took us closer and closer to the rocks.  The fact that I am writing this tells you that we eventually made it but I could now tell you how many barnacles there were on the rocks. (later discussion with FT sailors from Sidney told me that this is one of the endearing features of FT)  On such a wonderful exciting sailing day we decided to take a bit of a long cut wider round the island.  The last six miles to where the boats were going to be anchored was slower as we were in the lee of the island.  The wind was a bit random.  When we got to where the boats were moored, there were 18 boats – flying tigers and J80s - there that had left earlier. 

The next day 2^nd Jan. was the day of the race.  The biggest shock was just about to hit me.  The organisers of the race wanted all the boats off the moorings at 5:00am.  That meant getting up at 4:00am.  I told them that this is ridiculous because the race didn’t start till 10:00.  Well there seemed to be some sort of reason for this that I could not fathom.  Anyway, the university crew picked me up in a taxi at 4:30 and we went down to a place near the ferry terminal where all the other crews were waiting.  One of my crew from the previous day was going down with a cold so there were just two of us for this boat pickup.  We waited round for half an hour before a fishing boat took us across to the boats on the other side of the estuary.  It was still a dark starlit night and darned cold.  I did not fancy finding my way round all the small islands, navigation buoys, isolated danger marks and ships mooring buoys in the dark.  My intention was to just sit in the boat until dawn.  That plan did not work out.  For some reason the boat next to us decided we were ready to go and set us adrift.  We didn’t even have the engine started – a potential problem since the previous day we were unable to start it.  So, we started off and motored down to the Peace Jetty (where the warships are kept) very slowly.  Then we motored round in circles till 7:00am.  At 7:00 the Mayor of Xiamen gave a speech to the awaiting crews and there was an opening celebration.  They love celebrations here and there is (at least) one for every event.  We took on the rest of the crew so we had seven on board.  The Flying Tigers need a lot of ballast in them so most others has nine on board.  We then sailed around for another hour or so.  Although the race was meant to start at 10:00am, it actually started around 9:00.  I think people just got tired of hanging round. 

The start was a bit unusual.  Instead of starting to windward, the start was on a reach.  Our start was quite good – either 2^nd or 3^rd across the line.  As we passed the committee boat, we were told in Chinese that we had to round the green navigation buoy some 400m to windward nearer the shore.  Well that wasn’t in the sailing instructions but what the heck.  The boats ahead of us tacked early.  I didn’t want to go close to shore as I knew the wind was bad there so I held my course.  Then my crew on the radio was told that it was not the green buoy but a yellow one just near the starting line.  Aaagh! We were way ahead so had so far to go back.  By the time we got there we were the last boat round this buoy.  Then the wind died.  The first six boats that rounded the buoy seemed to get some wind and got away from the shore.  The wind away from the shore was very strong, Force 6/ ish.  The rest of us spent half an hour floundering in light fluctuating wind.  By the time we got going proper, the lead boats were almost out of sight.  So effectively there were two races.  We made up some of the ground and were the third boat in the second group.  Some of the boats gave up.  Oddly enough at least one of these was the ultra keen racing types.  I suppose they thought they couldn’t win so there was no point to it.  It was a tough 4 hour slog to windward against the tide and for a while we reefed the main as we just couldn’t hold it.  When we got to the finishing line at Wuyuan Bay we could not find it so called on the radio but were told to just come home. 

After the boats were put away we were all taken to an event / ceremony at a park that was celebrating disabled people. There were lots of statues of people with various disabilities.  There was a kind of formation dance performed by people in wheelchairs and then a dance group of about 30 girls sang an emotional song with classical choreographed Chinese dance movements.  Then we were given the song sheet and the song was sung again with us singing along.  (of course I could not read or understand the Chinese).  All this time there were some hot negotiations going on amongst the University A-team and the organisers.  We were then bussed to a beautiful restaurant reception area where we were fed and presentations given and then a karaoke evening.  This is where I was given some explanation for heated discussion.  Apparently the university A-team were first to the finishing line.  However, some VIP was in the third boat so the finishing line was moved at the last minute so that the he would be first.  Well that explains why there was no finishing line.  Then the A-team was accused of hitting one of the buoys.  Difficult as most of the marks were light houses. I think this was a threat to not complain. After all that we were taken to a philharmonic orchestra recital interspersed with performances of school children.  A really nice way to end the evening but I was shattered.

Sunday 9^th January was a good day sailing J80s.  Things were not looking too good for the Sunday sail.  Most of my normal crew could not come.  Orchid was the only one but she is not experienced at all.  Most of the Xiada group could not make it either.  Instead the two sports lecturers came.  Mr.Wu and Mr.Jung.  I decided that I would make an effort to impress them with my sailing skills.  One day they may give me a job.  These are quicky races – starting line, out to a windward buoy half a mile away and back to the finishing line. 

As there were only two of us on our boat two other guys joined us.  English names were Fred and Bread (at least that is what it sounded like).  They spoke some English which was cool.  Well they turned out to know what they were doing.  When the crew can sail, you don’t need to speak much.  If something is wrong, you just point and they know what to do.  We got out and started playing with tuning the boat up a bit and getting the spinnaker sorted, ready for speed launching.  The first race, I helmed.  Under the expert guidance of Fred who wanted to be the strategist we crossed the starting line last.  However, we made up through half the fleet by the first mark.  We rounded the mark and the crew got the spinnaker out – and ripped it.  (we pay for any damage we do. Ugh! )  By this time I was feeling really pissed off.  Anyway, the downwind leg didn’t go too badly considering, and we over took a couple of boats using their spinnaker.  Their problem seems to be tacking down wind.  With an asymmetric it is better to tack downwind but these boats were heading way off course and we just went straight downwind.  Well, we were not first but we didn’t do too bad.  The next race, Bread helmed.  The start was mediocre. Rounding the mark was a shambles and we hit the mark.  As per rules we went back and rounded it again.  The downwind leg turned out to not to be a downwind leg as the wind had changed through 40 degrees and was much stronger.  We were now on a reach.  Some of the boats were sailing off into the sunset on a course 90deg to the direction they should have been sailing.  Other boats on the other tack could not keep the spinnaker set and were all over the place.  Well we won!   The next race the windward mark was moved back to upwind.  It was helmed by Bread we did ok, Xiada team won.  The next race I helmed and strangely we won that one.  Again some boats had diffs with the spinnaker.  Xiada boat lost the spinnaker halyard and the whole lot dropped in the water.  Not a good strategy for speed.   Final outcome:  Two wins, and overall winners of the day.  Not bad for not having a spinnaker.  Maybe ripping it saved the day though I will have to wait to see what the bill will be before celebrating.

Hong Kong

And then there was the trip to Hong Kong over the Chinese New Year // Spring Festival.  I had to go there for three weeks and so I thought I would see if there were any sailing opportunities in the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club.  I emailed them and the secretary there forwarded my mail to each division of the club.  I got about 20 emails back.  Most of them invited me to something or other.   These included a four peaks race and a race to Macau, racing in Macau and a race back.  Unfortunately, I was only able to accept two sailing days around Hong Kong but they were great days.  This club is so inviting and hospitable.  It is also enormous.  There are some 2500 sailing members.  The main site of the club is in Causeway Bay and there are a few yachts there.  This is misleading as there are also two other sites in Middle Island and Sheltered Cove where there are hundreds of yachts.  And there are other moorings hidden amongst the islands also.  Much to say about this but it will have to wait.  

Visas and Kinmen

When we planned to come to China, I was delighted to see that there was a one year, multiple entry visa available that wasn’t there the year before.  We applied for that and heard nothing for quite a long time.  

 Natasha phoned the embassy and asked why we hadn’t heard from them.  They told us that they did not want to give us a one year visa but we could have a six month visa.  I asked therefore for double entry six month visa just in case I had to go back to Coleraine for any reason.  Last time I had a double entry visa, I was able to go out of China any time I wanted and then come back in (but only once).  When we got our visas, we found that what we had was a double entry visa that stated explicitly that we had to be out of China in 90 days, though we could come back.  Well, it wasn’t what I wanted but it was better than a smack round the head with a wet fish.  

So, yesterday we have been in China for 90 days and so we have to go out of the country leaving Naryan behind (he has a student visa) to look after the homestead.  As it happens, when we look out to sea, we see an island seven miles away called Kinmen//Jinmen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinmen ) which is a small island (22x15km) not part of Mainland China.  The explanation for this is complex so I won’t/can’t explain but you can look it up in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_China ..  Enough to say that Kinmen is an arsenal and makes the troubles NI look like a picnic.  So Kinmen is not China and going there constitutes being out of China, we decided to visit the island and as I had heard that Kinmen was a place well worth visiting we decided to go for a couple of days.  We can stay in RoC for 30 days without a visa so that’s cool.   

We took a morning ferry to the island and found accommodation in a traditional village 1km from the ferry terminal.  The house was traditional hutong Chinese style with an inner courtyard with rooms coming from that courtyard.  The house was beautiful, cool, stone building with round timbers in the roof.  Yet it was also modernised so had up to date emergency lighting and wifi (not blocked).   The lady came and opened the place up for us and showed us where everything was.  We had the whole place to ourselves.  She then took us to a place where we could get bicycles.  She then had a better idea and went and got a car and took us into the town bus station where we could get one of four guided tours around the island.  This cost about £3 and given that two days was not long enough, we thought this would be our best option. 

There are three main aspects to the tourism on the island.  There is the war, the history and the nature reserves.   The tour started at the bus station because the bus station is an entrance to a network of tunnels that run right through the town, emerging at various gun emplacements around the town.  We walked for about 1km through these narrow tunnels with sounds of shelling being played to us.  Then to a military museum where we had a battle of 1949 presented to us.  Some 10000 Communist troops invaded the island but were defeated.  The last shelling from China took place in 1979.  So many shells landed on Kinmen that the island has its own steel deposits and there is a local industry based on the recycling of the shells into high quality knives.  Finally marshal law finished on the island in 1998 (I think) but the island is still a kind of military base.   Later in the morning we were given bicycles and rode round a nature reserve.

As it happens, the ticket for £3 turned out to be a 24 hour ticket that allowed us to get on any bus on the island, tour bus or regular bus.  So the next morning we thought we would go on another tour on the same ticket.   This tour included the village where we were living and our accommodation was part of the guided tour.  We also went to see some tunnels that were cut under the hill to accommodate about 40 landing craft and keep them safe from shelling.

So what to say about the island.  After Xiamen, it reminded us of Ireland.  There were very few cars.  Why would you need one; there is nowhere to go.  There are scooters but unlike China (PRC) scooters are proper vehicles with licence plates and they have to obey regulations like driving on the right.  On the whole the place was very quiet with few people and very peaceful.  Walking along the main road 5 minutes may pass between seeing a scooter. The village was also silent except for occasional animals – like one of those western movies.  Another spurious comparison with Northern Ireland was when local people asked where we are from, we told them that we are from NI and their response was that we are alike, Kinmen and Northern Ireland.  I don’t know what they have heard about NI that gave them that idea.

Now, to end up with, here is a quiz.  Spot the difference between these two girls.

The girl1 was on the Friday tour and Girl2 was on the Saturday tour.  They were both from Taiwan, both travelling alone, both had exactly the same behaviour and could say the same words in english.  Both spent the entire tour photographing themselves and asking others to photograph them.  They reminded me of the Life of Brian scene chorus “yes, we are all different”

Shopping

Well, Xiamen is a city and I have visited cities before but I have never lived in one.  Cities are quite exciting and that is the way Xiamen is.  There are lots of things to look at and do and thousands of shops that are open from early morning to late at night.  Viny and Natasha like shopping and I go along to make sure they don’t get lost – something they do really well.  The first thing to know is that the more major the street, the less interesting it is.  There are lots of fashion boutiques and big shops.  Not a tig welder in sight.  There are also lots of supermarkets and the ones that are of particular interest are the western ones.  There is a glimmer of hope that they may sell marmite but I have never seen it.  Some sell real cheese but at 4 times the price of UK.   The western supermarkets do sell milk and yoghurt, processed cheese and a thing that they call bread.  It is sweet, more like cake and often is oily and/or has things inside it.  Sometimes you can be really surprised by having something like a piece of meat or something else quite incompatible with the like cakey stuff.  Interestingly, since the diet is not bread-based, there are few things that you would eat with bread.    Then there are also all the other things that make up our diet, like cornflakes and other cereals that are nothing like what we have at home. 

There are a number of western style supermarkets, Tesco, WalMart, TrustMart, RTMart, Rainbow, Carrefour and the big one METRO.  However, they all sell pretty much the same things and at much the same prices. (also some independent ones).  Also there are shopping Malls that have hundreds of independent stalls. 

Some of these supermarkets are pretty darn big.  200m x 150m but as a vegetarian (something you acquire when you see the meat here) there is very little that you would want to buy.  It’s meat with everything.  Even if you go to a restaurant and explain that you do not want any meat, you find bits of pork in your noodles cos they cannot conceive of anyone not wanting meat.  Either that or it was something left over in the bottom of the pan.

The next thing I learned is that there seems no legal requirement for a product to do what it says on the tin.  Or at least not the English bit.  For example, here is a pillow.  It removes liver heat and improves your eyesight.  In the UK there would need to be some sort of justification for this; a sort of first order causality.

Other things, like 100% orange juice one would expect to be 100% orange, but you only have to taste it to know that this is not the case.  Maybe they meant that 100% of the orange was dissolved into a soup of chemicals.  It would be interesting to know what the Chinese says.  This is another issue.  You have a packaging that is opaque and covered in Chinese characters.  What is it?  What kind of food is it?  If I bought it, how should I cook it?  (silly question: you deep fat fry it, like everything else here.)  Then there is the packaging.  On the whole, china is very environmentally aware.  All lights are high efficiency, many of the busses are LPG, all motor bikes are electric – at least in the city.  But many of the foods are double or triple packed.  The biscuits that I am eating at the moment for example; the outer packaging is thick plastic and as strong as polycarbonate.  No hope of getting through that even with your teeth.  The next layer is thinner clear plastic and then inside that, every biscuit is individually wrapped but the wrapping is quite tough. You start by trying to tear it, and then you try with your teeth, then more extreme measures until you eventually succeed and a pile of crumbs falls out.   On the positive side all our rubbish is sorted and recycled.   

Last year I bought a 32Gb pen drive.  I kind of didn’t believe it but it was £4 so I thought, what the heck.  At home, the computer confirmed that it was 32Gb.  I tried reformatting it and 32Gb of it was formatted.  So, the big test.  Stick 32Gb of stuff on it.  After 16Gb it kept going but after that the first 18Gb was garbage.   Well, it was 16Gb of memory, with a controller that told the computer it was 32Gb.  I thought that even as 16Gb it was worth £4.  However, being a messer, I thought I could write to the memory controller and tell it that it was 16Gb.  I did this but it never squeeked again.

The point is that a great deal of effort goes into fraudulent products but some products are both fraudulent and crap  (Viny has authorised the use of this word).  Natasha tried 10 headsets before finding one that worked and a power supply that didn’t work.  They all look like top brands but when you read the small print that says that they are authentic, you see spelling mistakes that tell you that it is a fake.  However, if it is cheap enough and it has a warranty, then why not. 

Here is another interesting thing.  In some mega shops – that is shops that have floor areas of just under a square mile, there are no customers!  One such shop for instance is B&Q though not big by Xiamen standards; it is about twice as big as the one in Coleraine.  There were no customers but many uniformed staff.   It seems like there is no need for the staff to pretend that they are busy.  They just sit round playing cards and chatting.  However, if you divert you eyes from straight ahead to look at some item, the staff rush to you to be of assistance.  They must be bored out of their minds.  Other places like a shop called Oriental Homes has a floor area of maybe 200m x 200m and three stories high.  The bottom floor is things like tools and building materials and the next two floors are exquisite and very expensive furniture.  But there were no customers; the whole place was empty except for us and the staff.   How do they justify their existence? An amazing coincidence though, just as we were leaving, a friend of ours arrived.  This is about 10 miles from where we all live.

Another kind of shopping is the old town.  You can find bits of the old town interleaved with the new town.  In these ancient alleys there are all kinds of shops selling stuff.  Food can be bought either to take away or to eat in.  An egg noodle could be as little as 50p but a proper meal maybe £1 - £1.50.  The shop and the houses are sort of the same thing.  The shop will sort of be in the living room with the granny propped up in the corner and the kids eating their supper watching the telly, and you browsing through the fruit stall.  This is not really that unusual even if the house isn’t a shop.  Many people would have their evening meal on the pavement.

So not much more to say about shopping at the moment.

Getting About

In Xiamen, busses play a large part in your life.  As it happens we live near the coast where the mountain comes closer to the sea than anywhere else.  Whereas this would normally cause a lot of traffic congestion as cars go from the centre of the town to the university area and onward up the coast, here a dual carriageway “bridge” has been built along the shore out at sea so not many cars come down our road.  All the busses do though.  This means that we can walk out of our apartment block and in 200m we are at the bus stop for some 20 busses that can take us almost anywhere in town or up to the north of the island.   The cost of the busses is 1 yuan if you pay cash but 0.9 yuan (about 9p) if you use a swipe card and you can stay on as long as you like.  So, ok, the busses can be a bit ropey but you rarely have to wait longer than five minutes for one and they are air conditioned.  Everyone uses them.  Service people use them to come and fix your electricity or CATV internet connection.  One incident that flummoxed Viny was when she bought a microwave.  She asked the supermarket sales person if they would deliver it. They agreed that they would.  Viny then wanted to give them her address but the man said there was no need.  “Why is there no need?” asks Viny.  “Because I will be on the bus with you.” He says.  They can get a bit crowded at peak times.  As well as the seating of 35 there is no limit to the number who can squeeze in.  Well, the physical limit seems to be about 50 people standing.  There are techniques for dealing with this.  When the front door is jammed solid, ie standing all around the driver, then people cram into the exit door.  The problem then is that those people have not paid so they pass the money forward from person to person till it gets to the front and it is put in the pay box.   

It is interesting that the busses are definitely run as a “service”.  I have not yet seen anyone just miss a bus.  If the driver sees someone who is running for the bus, he will wait for them even though they may be some distance away.  Sometimes the busses start and stop four or five times at a stop to pick up stragglers.

 The other thing which is notable is the etiquette on the bus.  An old person or a person with a child always gets a seat.  From what I can tell, this is the rules which are not enforced but are instantly adhered to when an old person gets on the bus.  Occasional “arguments” occur when a young person gives his seat to someone who doesn’t consider themselves to be old.  

So how do you know where busses go.  Simple - google it. The google map of Xiamen has all the bus stops and what busses stop there. Also a route finder that gives you the route plan. 

Driving generally in Xiamen is pretty scary.  Bus drivers are ok, though I do see some of them getting road rage when stuck behind an idiot driver.  Cars seem to pretty much drive wherever they want, drifting from lane to lane regardless of anyone else. Sometimes they do a U turn in the middle of the road that rarely works out and ends up as a 5 point turn.  Other drivers don’t give them room to complete the turn – the concept of giving way to someone has not been invented yet.  Pedestrian crossings don’t mean much but it does seem harder to get knocked down on one.  One general problem seems to be that pedestrian crossings are often near cross roads with traffic lights so when the green man says go you tend to assume it is safe to cross.  Well there are two problems with that.  One is that there is a traffic turning right rule (remember they drive on the right) which says that cars turning right can go through the red light.  This is quite sensible as they are not getting in anybody’s way.  The other thing is the things that travel on two wheels are not “vehicles” as such so don’t have to obey any traffic rules.  Also as many of them are electric, they are silent so hum past you at high speed out of nowhere.  They can travel on the pavement or on the road and do not have to drive on the right.  They can carry as many people as they can (rarely more than 4) or carry heavy loads of long steel piping looking more like a jousting match or 10 big gas cylinders – a rolling bomb, and of course helmets are never seen.   I have often seen an electric bike driving against the traffic flow on a multilane road, between the lanes.  I see accidents every day but I have only once seen a fatality and he was under a bus.  He wasn’t moving and people standing around did not seem to be attending to him.  I suppose the traffic does not move very fast in the city so accidents are usually not bad.

Starting Life

Saturday, 4^th Sept.

We were introduced to a girl called Jasmine who is a teacher and would teach us chinese. Also help us with lots of other things.

Jasmine came round at 2:30. And we started Chinese lessons by going over the tones. They are different from what I thought - easier. After the hour, Viny says all the western cues for Jasmine to go. “well, we mustn’t keep you” but Jasmine doesn’t understand and wants to help. We need so much help that I cannot understand why Viny is pushing. I suggest that we go for some shopping so we then engaged on an orgy of consumerism. Bought a microwave, water dispenser and an electric hot plate also a load of Chinese nibbles. After getting them back to the apartment, we had a brief recuperation and then went out for a meal. An opportunity for Jasmine to show us what the Chinese eat. But I would give anything for a cheese sandwich.

Had the Chinese lesson a couple of days later then went to Gulangyu Island with Jasmine. Jasmine's family come from the island and she knows lots of people there. Easy to get too. You queue for a boat the same way you queue for a bus. You pay for it with the travel card that works for all transport in Xiamen and it cost eqiv 60p return. The island is beautiful. Full of old buildings of most elegant design and proportions though many of them are derelict there seems to be some process of renovation. Also lots of art work and museums. Would really love to live there. Being Sunday the place is crawling with tourists. Next time I will go weekday. Met a guy called Sam from Florida/Indonesia. He just arrived in Xiamen and is thinking pretty much the same as us. Cool place – may stay.

Then on to buy a printer from the computing place in town. This is a place that has 5 floors. Each floor has about 150 stalls selling almost anything to do with computers. Adjacent to this shop there are many (countless) computing shops of less reliable kind but easier to haggle. A kind of Naryan type place. Anyway after looking at three stalls we bought a HP1050 for 390 yuan from the first one that was originally the most expensive as Jasmine thought that they expected to buy from them. However, Jasmine chastises them for trying to overcharge us. Anyway it cost about the same as in the UK but then it was made in Ireland.

Last week I bought a power supply for my Dell laptop at this place. No problems, just reached under the counter and produced one. The original seemed to be running very hot and I kept turning it off to let it cool. Eventually during a Naryan session it burned out. I think it was that it couldn’t lose heat fast enough. Similar problem with Viny’s hair dryer. It over heated and tripped out after 10 seconds. The max/min digital thermometer also buggered itself.

This new apartment is beginning to grow on me. We are still looking at apartments for Naryan and we are seeing some pretty grotty places so maybe this is not so bad. It is modern, (our apt. Had never been lived in before) but surrounded by “old town”. My first impression of old town was slum and that also did not please me to be living here but now I am spending more time shopping in the street markets and that place is growing on me too. The street markets are a bit like a walk through anatomy class. All sorts of animal are being killed and chopped up. Takes some getting used to. I think my issue is that I want my meat to be happy before it dies. For the moment, I will stick with veg.

One thing about the back streets in the old town is that they are so quiet. Up on the 19^th floor of this apartment block we can see the old town, the dual carriageway along the shore, the sea and the harbour and the park/mountain behind us; but we can also hear everything. There is always a background hum of the town and we can hear the crickets in the trees and dogs barking half a mile away and the tour boats passing and the cars, and the street vendors, and kids playing. Kind of strange.

Sunday, 05 September 2010

Viny went to deliver her open day class at the school that she is courting. Still no internet. The man should come today (if her were going to come in 48 hours) . But I have no money to pay him anyway so I need to go to find a hole in the wall. But if I do that and he comes, then I will miss him. Naryan is in but he may not hear the knock on the door. Quite surprising since he has such acute hearing.

Friday, September 10^th. Decided to find out about this Wuyuan Bay Sailing Club. Took a 22 bus to the exhibition centre and then walked miles looking for a 49 bus. Eventually went to the offices of this extensive development for the obscenely rich to ask where the 49 bus went from. This development has villas with car parking at the front and yacht parking at the back. See google sat image of the development.

I was a sticky mess of sweat and grime and I went into the offices and girls at the desk immediately recognised that I needed a glass of coke. Then one of them went to fetch someone who spoke English. I found there was no 49 bus but I could get a taxi. We also discussed the new development scheduled for completion in one year. It will contain a sailing centre. Umm!

Went out and hailed a taxi. I pointed on the map to where I wanted to go. He suggested that I wanted to go somewhere else. I said “no” and pointed again. He suggested another place I could go. Eventually he phoned a friend who spoke to me in English and she said there was not such place. I said it didn’t matter cos where I wanted to go was this place on the map – whatever it was called. So the taxi took me to the second place he suggested. I told him to just drive and I would direct him. Eventually we got to the place and there was a kind of complex of boat related companies all in various stages of completion. The taxi driver was surprised. Maybe he had never been there before. The taxi fair was 20 yuan – for that much, why didn’t I just take a taxi the whole way.

The club seemed to be being built and I could not find anyone there but workmen. So, I went next door to J boats to find three girls at the bar who didn't know much and they didn’t look like boating types, more like a place of ill repute. One of them went to fetch a girl called Karen. Karen immediately identified me as someone who would charter a multimillion dollar yacht. I was flattered since I looked like something the cat had dragged in. Since I did not have much else to do I agreed to go and look at the yachts and spent the rest of the afternoon making the right noises to all the luxurious bedrooms and fly bridge. She told me that the fees were 200,000 yuan an hour to charter. (the Chinese often get their zeros confused. She may have meant 20,000). I made the right noises there too but she quickly assured me that I would get a discount for a full day. I couldn't understand what the bedrooms were for. Surely you wouldn't pay £2K and hour and then fall asleep. The term “sailing boat” didn’t seem to mean anything to her. She kept repeating “sailing boat” in exactly the same tone as I had said it. (tones mean something in Chinese so they repeat exactly). I drew picture of a yacht with sails and she got the idea. Eventually we took a rib to a 42ft Oceanis but still had to see the bedrooms before sitting on the foredeck with a drink. It didn’t seem like I was going to get sailing.