Hiking mountains in China...

I love Nature. In special mountains. Irony or not, I've lived for the last 2.5 years in Netherlands and Denmark... can you get more flat than that?? ;-)

As I'm in China, I had to explore life outside those 15 million cities like Beijing and Shanghai. Last week I visited Tai Shan, considered one of the best National Parks in China and one of the 5 holy mountains for Taoists and Buddhists. It's easily accessible by train, between Beijing and Shanghai.

I knew that this mountain, as many others, used to be routes for pilgrims for over 3,000 years, and the stair-steps reach all the way to the top. I was also expecting to find "some" visitors, although late March is still low season and a Friday is still working day...

What I found most surprising was the amount of Chinese visitors. The place was full of locals visiting and hiking the mountain. I thought I would be sort of alone and able to enjoy some silence. Ahah! Welcome to National Parks in China.. or should I say "Amusement Parks"? People seemed to enjoy the place almost as much as people enjoy Disneyland, shouting everywhere, gift-shops and people selling all kind of crap literally every 300 meters all the way to the top. Once you reach the summit, you find a little village full of restaurants, more shops, some hotels, cable car and buses to take you down. I must say it was a bit frustrating.

Even though, a little bit of exploration allowed me to find a little path where no tourists found interesting, and I found myself completely alone in the other side of the mountain (which also meant no sounds from humans at all). It was a long 1-hour walk around and back to the croud. I felt satisfied in my own pilgrimage.

I don't want to sound negative or complaining about the tourists, it's just a different perspective on being around Nature. For example, the whole path was surrounded by a dozen temples, where travelers would leave locks, money, candles and incenses for their gods. These locations were absolutely silent, calm, and peaceful, a perfect short stop while walking the way up. I loved it! That also makes me think about what people respect and why...

I met only 1 laowai (foreigner) during the whole day. Ed is from UK and he joined me on the way down, where we searched for some adventure, through the West Route. Basically no path indication, among the trees and crossing small roads, no people there, except a few local farmers...

In the end, my legs were completely destroyed, they felt like jelly... and I reeeeally enjoy the hard-sleeper on the way back to Shanghai!

AIESEC, always there

Being in Shanghai is not only a "dejavù" of São Paulo (see previous post) but also a dejavù of Amsterdam. The reason is AIESEC. Although I left the organization as an active member in 2005, 2.5 years ago, nobody can say we "leave AIESEC"... it's always there. Some people don't make use of it, but it's always there.

Before leaving Denmark I contacted some old AIESEC friends like Jingwei Zhou (which was president of AIESEC in China while I was president in Brazil) and she sent me to the local AIESEC list and connected me to other people in town. As we arrived in Shanghai and the Spring Holidays ended, the gang reunited. Over 20 interns, dozens of Chinese AIESECers and dozens of "friends", or people who became part of the network because they knew AIESECers somehow.

The traditional "De Heffer" Monday night drinks are replaced in great style by "Zapatas" free drinks Monday night - and the regulars even become known as Zapatarians ;-). Wednesday is ladies' night at Barbarossa, Thursday fuss ball night at Tequilaz and weekend partying :) Of course I'm not an intern anymore, as I used to be (a rich abn intern by the way ;-)) I have to be very careful with my limited budget...

Zapatas last Monday - Feb.18

Besides the social events, many interesting connections and opportunities also come from the network... it makes me feel quite proud to see such openness and curiosity among interns and alumni anywhere we go.

AIESEC, always there.

First observations on Shanghai...

... extremely exotic or surprisingly familiar?

I must admit, I felt shocked and amazed by the first views on Shanghai: the dimensions of the Pudong Airport and the elevated roads crossing next to the place we were staying the first two weeks (soon I realized that elevated roads exist all around the city!)...

I also quickly felt a "dejavù" feeling: the permanent noise, anytime of day or night; the pollution; the dust; the fog and the crazy traffic where apparently nobody respects it, including bikers, pedestrians and of course, cars. The city is huge and there are around 20 million people living here. Yes, in many aspects Shanghai reminds me of São Paulo.

Another similarities:

- the prices and the price range. You can find products, restaurants and services ranging from very very cheap to extraordinary expensive. A beer can cost between €0.50 (R$1,30) up to €6.00 (R$20,00)... It seems to be a common reality in rich cities in developing countries.

- Security awareness. Buildings are surrounded by walls and fences, with security men in front gates, and first floor windows are generally covered by fences. As I was told, people brake-in houses and apartments to steal stuff, but they would never carry weapons or use of violence on someone else.

- Tall apartment buildings. Shanghai looks a gigantic forest of buildings, very very high. The old traditional neighbourhoods being bulldozed for the new buildings to rise.

I was going to write about the public transportation system in Shanghai, but I will wait until tomorrow, when millions of people come back from holidays to work. I'm very curious to get the metro in the morning! :S

Chinese New-Years... the year of the RAT!

Last Wednesday evening we celebrated Chinese New-Years, as part of the Spring Holidays in China. I didn't know much what to expect, after spending New-Years eve in 5 different countries in my life.

First of all, Spring Holidays is "THE" holidays in China. For two weeks, over 300.000.000 (yes, 3 hundred million) people go back home to see their families. As people work a lot in China and many of them live far away from home, this is the only opportunity in the year to see family. For that reason as well the snow storms last weeks were so devastating, because it made most trains and airports slow down or close while millions were on their trips.

New-Years eve seems to be like Christmas eve in Brazil, a moment for the family-at-large get together and eat a lot. In our case here in Shanghai, we also had a fantastic dinner, but with bunches of internationals and expatriates who didn't go home or didn't spend time with Chinese friends (which is also something not very common, but I will write about that later when I figure out more on that).

After dinner we went to a local club for the party, and at around mid-night we went outside to see the fireworks and firecrackers. I must admit that I prefer the Brazilian version, it's noisier and more beautiful, usually. What called my attention was the risks involved with setting up fireworks and firecrackers in the streets, by local Chinese people, while taxis try to go around and people cover their ears for the noise and try to protect themselves against possible accidents. The whole street looked like a war zone with bombs, smoke, fire and people running all around... peaceful, happy but still not very safe, at all...

Later on after a couple of hours I got tired of the music and expensive drinks and together with some colleagues we found a private party, someone met someone and there we went, partying at this amazing flat in a rich building, rented by a French guy who is the marketing manager for another famous top club in town. We left his home at 7 in the morning when the sun was rising, and the year of the rat was just starting...

Last night I was trying to go to sleep, and I was surprised by the fireworks and firecrackers outside... really noisy, actually it seemed even more than during new-years eve... today we asked and indeed it was more noisy. The logic behind is that Chinese people celebrate the 5th day of the new-year (as part of the spring holidays) as much as new-years eve, and by setting up fireworks they "welcome the new to arrive"... so now I can say the year has started!! Or maybe I misunderstood the whole point, which by the way might be very possible :P

Anybody have seen the film Lost in Translation...?? Yeah, that's me!

Shanghai? What the f... are you doing there????

I have arrived in Shanghai yesterday afternoon and I realized I "forgot" to tell some people about it. Not nice... :D

I came here to spend three months, until end of April, and this is part of my Education at the Kaospilots. Every class of students (called Team) goes abroad for three months during their 4th semester, with the goal of exploring new trends and movements outside Europe. Previously the Kaospilots have been to Durban in South Africa after the end of the apartheid, in San Francisco during the Internet boom, Havana and Vancouver. This year the choice was Shanghai, China, with the overall purpose of studying and researching Social Innovation.

Shanghai is believed to be a "mover" in this early 21st century, capable of create changes that would influence east and west societies. Sort of London, New York, Paris of this new millennium... with over 18 million people and being the financial and economical capital of China, host of the World EXPO 2010, we can assume this statement might become true. Anyway, many challenges and many opportunities, and a bunch of young creative hippies from Scandinavia are here to find out - and publish it - in the 12 weeks...

Besides researching on Social Innovation, we will be working for 4 weeks on projects with local clients, which gives both funds to travel to China and also opportunities to work together with Chinese people and learn with them. The project I'm involved with is together with HaPe International, a toy company who has created a unique line of products based on bamboo. Our task is to use our creativity and idea development capabilities and create a new toy for their 2009 catalog, using sustainable materials such as bamboo, cotton, wood... very challenging and pretty interesting task. We will have the chance to visit their factory, their research & development department and even the Anji bamboo Forest near Shanghai.

I made a promise to write at least once a week in this blog, and I am sure I will have a lot to write about. Keep in touch, more to come... :)