China and India [Australia]

A neat article on the situation and rebuilding. Just waiting and poised.

Here is the poster to download.
ci-2009-poster-4.pdf

I am back to working on the Book about the Great Civilizations Project. And have reloaded the Wikispaces - http://greatcivilizations.wikispaces.com/

I have made a plan for the book - which has a majestic 210 images - and have sought, nay solicited texts form all the partners. I have lived with a bit of trepedition - will thay all write I have wondered. But Fiona was the first off the bat - and she said ‘of course soumitri’ or words to that effect. Good on you Fi I says to myself and the spring sun.

But Fan was actually the frist to write in. He is a good man that Fan.

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This is the title of my lecture on China. The lecture sets the stage by showing these videos. And then talks about a love and fascination with China.

The Real CHINA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2jscuaENW8

Short History of China (1949- 1989)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzax4KkQ4ug

Brits in China

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_n4pTMJLnE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neNuyzPe1Rw&NR=1

Or

http://www.youtube.com/user/opportunityinchina

Releasing the Dragon

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beafUK40CkM

Made in China

http://www.theatlantic.com/slideshows/made-in-china/

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In Research Methods this semester (At RMIT) five students are looking at China. This is additional resource for that exploration.

china-bibliography.doc

Recently Raph asked me about the SIM card system in China on facebook and I thought perhaps I could also answer here for the sake of others involved in the upcoming China trip.

In China, there are 2 major phone companies; China Unicom and China Mobile. They are not hugely different however China Mobile does offer better coverage and it seems their credit is slightly more available. For this reason I have always used China Mobile however many universities get good deals for their students through China Unicom so one should check with their local classmates on this regard.

SIM cards are sold in many places and often from a lone man or woman on the side of the road. When you make a SIM card purchase you can usually chose from a selection of phone numbers and most sales people will have some plan options. Most people do not get extended plans however there are what would best be called prepaid plans which involved the phone company taking a pre-set amount of money out of your credit balance once a month in exchange for special calling rates or deals. Due to certain aspects of the phone system in China this can be quite convenient. One issue in particular is that receiving calls usually costs money and making international calls is sometimes not possible from a particular SIM card. By using these prepaid plans one can enable things like cheaper SMS or more free SMS and no cost for receiving a call from users on the same network. These plans usually charge less than 20 RMB a month however many of them must be done at the time of purchase of the SIM card and not after. I strongly suggest taking a local along for this purchase, even if you speak Chinese, they will get you a better deal.

In regard to the issue of international calls one can set up a kind of phone card called a IP or IC card which will re-route international calls using a cheaper service. Not doing this will waist a lot of credit but keep in mind that not all instructions are in English so if possible get the person selling the card to set it up. Cards of this kind are likely to cost at least 50 RMB and possibly several times that. Once the IC card’s international credit is used a new one can be bought and set-up with the phone.

Buying credit is quite easy however putting it on the phone may not be so simple. Where I was living there was no option for English in the voice prompts to add credit so I would usually ask the vendor to do it for me. This is not at all difficult and can be done with only two Chinese words. “Jia Chen” literally means add money and is the phrase most people use to buy credit. If when they have sold you credit you point to your phone and smile and act bewildered they will probably then do it. Alternatively you could say “Ni Jia Chen” or “Ni Qing Bang Wo” which mean you add money and can you please help me respectively, once they have sold you the credit. Credit comes in 20, 50 and 100 RMB blocks usually.

Just a note on dialing out with a typical phone, it is not as simple as it could be, as most dormitories (including the one for international students in Foshan) and hotels do not have real phone lines. To use these phones you need an IP card to make local calls and an IC card to then initiate international calls. These cards should have a language option which will allow you to use them more easily.

Skype does not work too well in China as the connection is often not direct.

If there are any unanswered issues, please hit the comments.

Tiger Airways has started operating from Australia. Darwin for now - but from Dec 1 this year they will fly to Melbourne. On my recent trip to Vietnam I travelled Tiger- and was impressed. So I looked up what they had on offer today to travel to china.

1. Singapore to Melbourne 112 AUD. This is in December this year.
2. Singapore to Guangzhou: 45 AUD
3. Guangzhou to Singapore: 45 AUD

Which adds up to 202 AUD. Except for a little leg from Melbourne to Singapore -which is 511 AUD one way by Malaysian. Adding up to a total of $713!!

sing-to-melb.pdf

tiger-sing-guang.pdf

If you want to do something a bit simpler. Say you are not a wordpress fan - and much prefer blogspot. Then you can post to blogspot/ blogger by email. Doesnt do images but is a breeze.

1. Get a blogspot account. http://www.blogger.com/create-blog.g
2. Once you have a blog. Go to ’settings’, then click on ‘email’.
3. Type in your email address. Then type in the name of your blog in the space for the Mail-to-Blogger Address.
4. Copy the “mail to blogger address” into your address book (mac), somewhere convenient ( PC)
5. Compose an email, and sent it to the ‘mail to blogger address’.
6. Check the blog to see the new post. See the email I posted: http://warm-up-now.blogspot.com/

But you cant post here by email. But I can always make a link to your blog here.

I spoke to Kath today, but wait thats not it. I called at Melbourne time 12.44 - should be about right to catch them at breakfast I thought. And the first call was to Fiona’s phone - it always an issue who to call and speak to, cant be seen to be favouring one over the other - and there was no answer. So I called Kath’s phone - it rang and rang and then a sleepy voice answered. The point of the story is that NID is a social place- they stay up will 2 or 3 AM and have to sleep in late to catch up on their sleep. And one sense their time in India is going to work out - especially if they are so sought after. And so on this count - being social - I dont need to worry.

Thats from left, Fiona and Kath posing for the ‘we arrived’ picture at NID.

But worry I did - as the fact of sending a student to spend 14 weeks in a ‘cloister’ from a more ‘open’ Melbourne is significant. Every day is like any other in the campus - same food, same faces, and repeated crossings. Its fantastic for a bit - a week - and is great if you are to spend two or four years there. Also the ‘city’ in Ahmedabad is the public and external engagement, and is often a venture into the space of the ‘other’. Something that can be confronting to a non-Indian, and for a woman - quite daunting. So NID then serves as a refuge and a sanctuary - which is a phenomenon quite dramatically different from Melbourne. Then there is the ‘city’ and the relative porosities of Ahemedabad and Melbourne. Indian visitors to Melbourne often talk about how quiet things here are. They then dwell on the population - 3.2 million - as insignificant. In a similar vein moving from Melbourne to Ahmedabad throws up different comparisons not the least of them being that you dont have to be on your guard in Melbourne. So you relate to your body differently. Your sense of self is different.

I would repeatedly point out to K/F - a girl speaking to a security guard - and the elaborate softening of the tone. The voice speaking to the ayah - the plaitive tone that needs to be put on to speak to a class or more below. I asked that both of them learn the ‘ways’ of speaking - the plaintive voice for the ‘other’, the teasing voice to draw someone of ones own social standing closer, the limp body inviting the other to speak, — different bodies and different communication protocols. Each of us in this way becomes aware - an amplification of ‘ways’ and the notion of the ‘normal’.

But outside the campus there is no social contract - yet the desire to connect is all powerful. This then takes the form of: The gaze, the taunt, the jibe, the cat call, the continual transgression of your personal space. You either get used to it, stop seeing it, develop ways to deal with it - or become aware in different ways. When you return the sudden cessation of all this attention can have the other effect - like Rob speaking of the quiet, somehow desolate - which only slowly becomes comforting. You can signal an ‘invitation’ - defy convention in small ways, wear something startling, wear less - and create an opening, a space of violation. Or let it stop at the gaze.

I went with Praveen to the pharmacy outside NID - and the lady at the counter asked Praveen where I, even though I was in my kurta-pyjaama, was from. I looked hard at her and asked how she had arrived at this conclusion - that I was ‘foreign’. She shrugged and said she just knew. What do we reveal about ourselves I wonder. A continual transmission of information - of which we are only vaguely aware.

Image from here.

I am sitting in the Departure lounge of Bangalore airport. Its 10.30 PM and I have 45 minutes before the plane is airborne.

Its Saturday – and the whole of Bangalore is very excited and running around to do a bit off shopping, to go out to eat and generally hang out on the streets in traffic. It seemed like the word was out that i was heading for the airport to catch an important flight and so everyone turned out – and lined up in front of me. The taxi took an hour and bit to get me to the airport. What me worried? A bit maybe – but I looked around and everyone else – some may even have been heading for the airport – was sitting in their cars and having a decent time of being relaxed. 8.30 PM, an hour from RMV saw us turning on to MG road – time to get seriously worried – but I just stretched a bit. Mildly cool.

India is beautiful in little ways and quite a full on experience if you want to take the whole thing in. As Indians in the east are fond of starting their sentences – ‘the whole thing is that’ and then follows a pronouncement. For me it was the little ways this time. I was quite happy to avoid the traffic in Mumbai and Bangalore and privilege the conversations. And I poked about asking questions – and received familiar answers – that was comforting. It was also comforting that things hadn’t changed so much.

I order an Americano from Coffee day just to be different – he warns me its just a lot of mild black coffee. I say ‘uh huh’ just what I am looking for – will keep me from nodding as I wait for the flight. I pick up the coffee and as he said it is quite unremarkable – just like I am feeling at that moment. I down the coffee with loads of sugar – wonder why the sugar – just to pep me up I guess. I walk over to the book stall – and browse and chat to the man there. He looks like an erudite sort – to be manning a book stall. I pick up an Amitav Ghosh – and ask if he has a better copy as this one is folded and the pages are badly trimmed, the cover has a bit of ‘flash’ of the laminate – he says no. And adds its Orient Longmans and they used to make text books so no point asking for a better quality product from them. I smile and say I will take it.

I buy a wifi card – 113 Rs with large A4 sized bill. And go looking for a socket – I chose the one next to the garbage bin and sat down on the floor. Then for the next 30 mins I hammered out a blog post – and said publish. The screen went blank and I saw the wifi Tata page. The next ten minutes was me sitting with the chap at the counter trying to figure out what had gone wrong. I deleted history – and then he asked me to delete cookies ( which I did in Firefox – though I was using Safari – but some cookies were gone- hungry lap top now?). And then firefox refused to load up. But suddenly Safari did. So I went back to the admin interface of the blog and tried to find the gorgeous prose I had written. Gone – all gone. No more happy guy! Its 10.30 PM by this time and the lounge is restless – people begin to pace. The lady announces the departure – but please be seated she says. Most are up. Time to packup. Battery charge 75 %. Not enough juice for Singapore. But maybe time to switch to my note cards.