big growing country, TONS of pollution

Black days of coalminers in China. The situation is getting worse and there doesn't seem to be too much evidence that the government takes this development seriously enough, and most importantly, that they do so quickly enough. The country is running severe risks of permanently damaging farmland, air and the people on its steady course of becoming strong economic power, but it is not willing to give that up just for the sake of cleaner air. The report (mentioned in the last link) states that China feels that greenhouse gas is caused and must be paid for and repaired by wealthy western countries. Might this be because China is feeling held back when being asked by western countries to take care of their greenhouse gas production?

Then you can start wondering what our primeminister can do to change it. This is from the talks they had when he was visiting China on March 26th:

"Both sides also exchanged views on environmental protection and climate changes. They agreed to set a cooperation framework on environmental protection to better scheme long-term collaboration between the two countries. Stoltenberg said the environmental problems in today's world were largely caused by the industrialization of developed countries which have obligation to fund developing countries to reduce greenhouse gas emission. Norway would like to help China achieve this goal by increasing investment and technique transfer, he said. Wen said China supports the Kyoto Protocol, though it does not set gas emission reduction targets for developing countries. "China has always observed its obligation with a responsible attitude," Wen said, pledging the country is ready to work with the international community including Norway to cope with climate change and green house gas emission, improve energy efficiency and tap clean energy."

When our primeminister says he wishes to help paying for China, will China then ever stop hiding behind this argument and take responsibility for what they are doing?

Farewell party!

So, this is good bye. This weekend we had our farewell party and already now have folks left the country to go travelling.. Except for us who are stuck with writing our final papers. There are actually quite a few of us. I had no idea a term could end this quickly. It feels strange, yet at the same time I am looking forward to leave HK behind and bypass vietnam and thailand in order to reach my final destination - home. Don't get me wrong - I LOVE being in Hong Kong, but it gives you a certain feeling of being restless, not really being in a place that you would stay put in forever. It gives you an exhilirating feeling of fantasticness as well - always giving you input and new impulses - always driving you to move on - which was a feeling I was searching for when I came here in the first place. I found it here and will bring it with me back home.

Nevertheless, it is a little sad to say goodbye to people, but also its left me with many extraordinary memories and experiences that I will never forget. The city has in a way outplayed the role of the people here, but there are a few amazing people I´ve met here that I will truly miss a lot. Having a big whooping final party evening with everyone was soo much fun and a good way of concluding these four months of rollercoaster cultural experiences!

Marcus, meg og Aoife
Sarah og Arnout
Dronning Marcus og Kong fabulous Jamie
Gaelle og Eefje
Meg og Misako

Housearrest for humanitarian work...

I am trying to read up on news of "my" province and I found some news about it today.

"Just this month, in the southern province of Guangdong, police broke up an unsafe blood-selling racket involving homeless people illegally donating blood for cash up to 15 times a month.
It is not thought they were screened for HIV or other diseases."

The quote is on the state of blood transfusions in China and the high risk of running diseases when given blood. It is Dr Gao, an old woman who have been batteling the government to provide better healthcare and blood transfusions to avoid a greater epidemic of HIV and AIDS in China, but who is put in house arrest and keeps struggling to continue her work. She was kept from leaving the country to get acknowledgement for her work in 2001, but was allowed to leave eventually.

The problem is huge in China. It is estimated that 650 000 people have HIV in China.

From BBC on Asian-Pacific conditions.

High death tolls in China industry

It is not the first time I´ve read about it since I first came to Hong Kong, but the article I refer to here states that 127 000 Chinese workers are killed annually in industrial accidents. Not too long ago tens of men were killed in a coal mine accident, and we hear about them almost on a daily basis. It is tragic and disturbing that this many people in a country undergoing so rapid economic development have to work under such poor conditions. This is of course the biggest and one of the many obstacles that China has to face in its transformation towards change and what many people here are worried about. The gap between the poor and the wealthy is only getting wider and it seems nearly impossible to assemble the nation as a whole to prepare for the future. Hopefully the workers in industrial areas will meet a better tomorrow.

A perfect night out

Thursday - went out dancing in LKF after being to an incredibly cool jazz concert at the philia lounge seeing and hearing Eugene Pao - apparently one of the best guitar players in Asia?! He was truly fantastic and the band members (a contrabass player and a pianist) were also amazing! After the concert we all went out clubbing and me and Jay danced four hours straight untill they actually kicked us out of the club! =) Had a goooood time!

litt huminf faktisk!

I en artikkel i Aftenposten om spill for skoleelever i Oslo blir det skrevet at utviklingen av læringsspill for skoleelever Oslo kommune foretar seg nå vil føre til mer effektiv læring. Jeg håper de klarer å utvikle noe som faktisk er interessant og bra å spille, hvis ikke vet de ikke hvor mye tid og penger de kaster ut vinduet. Spillmarkedet er ekstremt vanskelig - uten at Oslo kommune skal begi seg ut på det - og enorme summer brukes for å utvikle og teste nye spill. Det sier også noe om hvor raffinerte spillerne er og hvor høy standard de setter før de setter seg inni et nytt spill. At de nå setter fokus på nye læringsmetoder er godt og at digitale hjelpemidler blir tatt i bruk er enda bedre, men jeg håper de har tenkt gjennom en god løsning før de nå begir seg ut på spillteknologiutvikling selv.

(lack of) Easter activities in HK

Vi vara toorristaa
To all of you at home in Norway who have been enjoying horrible snowy, cold or warm sunny Easter weather at a remote cabin in the mountains of Norway - they don´t celebrate Easter in China. It is coincidental that their festival to honor the dead falls on the same weekend as the Western Easter holiday. Wednesday 4th of April was the day when all Chinese go to visit their ancestors graves - og which most of the mainlanders in HK need to go to the mainland to do so - which fell on the same day as we chose to cross over the border to show Camilla´s parents who were visiting, what China is like. Well, needless to say, they got a funny experience of what a crowd of about 250 000 Chinese looks like. They were practically running like "five year olds in an amusement park" (camillas quote) whenever they saw an opportunity to sneak further ahead in the sea of people who all wanted to cross over simultaniously - no queue culture here..

A practical thing about being a city in between two cultures like HK is that they can choose the best things from both cultures - including holidays it seems, a benefit which they apparently are taking advantage of, by adding Easter as a holiday where they can get extra days off from work, but thats about it. So, not too many things that resemble a normal Easter as most Western people might be familiar with except a few weird things imported from our culture such as waitresses wearing bunny ears and stuff. I was pretty happy when Camillas parents presented me with an Easter egg of good tradition filled with Norwegian liquorice! =)

As a result of us lacking a travelling plan during Easter and having visitors, we´ve been guides most of the time (thus we finally managed to take a photo of us with the famous HK Island as background - see the top photo). When we haven´t been guides, we´ve gone out and looked at the nightlife of HK. That lead to some fantastic photos of me and Camilla smoking cigars in a bar called Castro. Behold!

Dance event at CUHK

There was yesterday a big dance show at CUHK - apparently it is an annual thing that everyone in HK know about (fact retrieved from a local CUHK student, so who really knows?! ) Anyway, I went to one rehearsal to be in this show, but realised that I had been put in the wrong class.. Hardcore Hip Hop.. AND I would be away three out of four weeks of rehearsal because of my travelling to china and malaysia.. It was nice going to the actual show to watch it though! It lasted from 7:30 untill 11.30 which a bit too long, but okay and every hour was packed with choreography - not just the dance acts in themselves, but even the two guys talking in between in mandarin, of which we couldn´t understand anything... The whole audience seemed to like it, so I took it as a sign of them actually hitting their target and being funny. So I just enjoyed the show and the bits of things I could extract as wisdom about cultural differences. One pic is of the four best dancers that were on stage performing the coolest hiphop - pop´n´lock choreography to 70s music, and the other one of two excited spectators!

Tribeca

A big big party was arranged at Tribeca - a cool club in HK. We of course attended it, unfortunately Camilla fell ill that very same day (or the one before) and so she couldn´t come! Here are some photos I manage to get hold of from Marcus - a Swede that had brought a camera with him and was willing to use it.