Hey Hey and a Big G'Day toya,

With seven days off to buzz about here and there it was pretty hard to put any type of plan under the category of A, B or even C when you have a girlfriend in another province but have no passport (VISA) with which to purchase air tickets that will allow you to grab a nice hotel and spend her only three days holiday together.

In the end I received my passport back with my annual Residency Visa the afternoon before both Jiang Ni and I were to begin our holidays.

After checking out buses to Shenzhen city and found that I had missed that afternoons and the next didn’t leave until the following afternoon and with nearly twenty hours travel time which didn’t include finding my way to where ever she lived in Shenzhen the Super City then realistically, we would not have seen each other until the late afternoon or evening of her last days holiday.

After that it would be 7am rise and 10pm return for her.

With passport in hand I quickly began looking at Plan C and after watching the population of my city swell to almost bursting point I decided (like I do most years on China’s 'Golden Weeks’) that it would simply be more relaxing and enjoyable put Plan B into action and to make reality a young Spanish/Chinese girls dream of seeing the village in which she was found. Around this to then pass my days riding out in the fields and mountains watching the rice harvests going on around me and to spend my evenings with friends after which to slowly work through another season of The X-Files.

So came and went my seven days holiday for China’s National Day.

Not much of a blog but I really did have a blast Peddle Temple Hopping with Ting Ting, visiting a new mountain top temple with Jasmine and Jessica and sharing late night beers with Ajin (the local tattoo artist, thus known as Tattoo Man for the past nearing four years).

To read about one of the most amazing days of my life please click and read the following - When Found in a Box She Wore a Small Face

Now For My Version of Chinese National Day
(Yes I’ve used it before but I like it!)

Commemorates the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.

Let’s go back before 1949, the Long March had finished, the Japanese had invaded and by this time Mao Zedong was established as the leader of the Chinese Communist movement.

The man who would soon become Chairman Mao one day thought, ‘HHHmmm, I wouldn’t mind being Chairman for awhile!’  So the big feller stood up on the 1st of October 1949 and said ‘Hey Man I’ve got an idea, let’s become the People’s Republic of China and I’ll be Chairman!’ 

So began the Communist Movement and the beginnings of the Peoples Republic of China.

All the other big guys fled the country taking along its wealth leaving Mao Zedong to become Chairman Mao and massive change soon swept the country. They began land reform by giving back the land to the peasants, women were finally recognised, inflation was grabbed by the butt and the big ‘Five Year Plan’ was introduced.

All seemed pretty good for most during those first five or so years.

People were put into Work Units, the country was divided into twenty one provinces, five Autonomous Regions and two municipalities being Beijing and Shanghai, there was more than enough food and everyone was in a big warm happy snuggle.

Once the Great Leap Forward kicked in China was not heard of for a long time.
Within its walls strange things were happening.

Big people became small, famous people disappeared, special universities were opened, society was changed, people were sent to agricultural communes, blast furnaces were created, people were too busy melting spoons and woks to tend to the crops, famine hit, many people died and Mao said good bye to his job as the head of state.

Of course he was still Chairman of the Communist Party.
Then came the writings of Chairman Mao bound together in the ‘Little Red Book’.

In kicked The Cultural Revolution, thoughts were thrown around and implemented, posters put up, families were split, romance really sucked, the Red Guards began their destruction, smart people disappeared and special things and places such as art and temples were torched and destroyed.

Basically anything ‘old’ was not allowed eg: old customs, old thinking and old culture and due to the introduction of clothing codes in came the famous Chairman Mao suit!

After the big guy died in 76 Deng Xiaoping returned and soon thoughts of modernisation were thrown around. They were tossed here and there and finally the ‘Four Modernisations’ program was released. The new big guy had thought of things like agriculture, industry, science and defense and said ‘hey, we are nearing five thousand years old as a people but where we are globally? The one child policy was enforced to slow down population growth, farmers were given permission to sell surpluses on the market, political reform grew, religions were tolerated and Hong Kong was given back to China.

Soon Shane entered China, left China, went home for a spell and thought to himself, ‘Hey Man, I think it’s time to get me one of those Chairman Mao suites, I’m heading back to China for awhile.

In his wake schools have flourished and new brewery’s opened.
Beers N Noodles toya…..shane

PS: No I'm not going bald, when I got my last haircut the lady was so nervous about cutting a foreigners hair that she forgot to put the No: 2 extension onto the clippers. Afterwards I did my best to hide my Argh, Shock at being an Egghead.

But hey, I am Teacher Egg so what can I expect!
Hahahaha!
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The soundtrack to this entry was by Asteroid B612
The album was ‘Teen Sublimation Riffs’
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