A long year around the world.

Good news! The Concordia International office just announced to Sabrina and me that we were accepted for the study exchange program next year. And what is great is that we can go together! But we were accepted only for half a year in Cairo, so they gave us some options to consider, and in the end we decided to go to Hong Kong first and Cairo second. Hong Kong then! Who would have known?

So next year is going to be a long year around the world. It will start in May in Norway, where I will visit my step family and the vikings, then I will drop by France to visit my own family, and then I will go to China in the beginning of June. There I will travel around the Kashgar region on the silk road for a good 2 months. That should give me plenty of time to discover the area [relatively] in depth. I now daydream about Kashgar and its surroundings, the mighty Pamir mountains, the Himalayas, the desert, the half buried 1000 years old fortresses where the caravans on the silk road would take refuge for the night, and the wild camels! And the Chinese government allowing I might get a glimpse at the Tibetan region of Qinghai, and maybe even Xiahe, which was closed last year.

And when I'll be tired of moving around I'll go to Hong Kong for a couple of months. Then it'll be Christmas time and the 6 weeks vacations that comes with it, thus traveling again. And then the American University of Cairo for a semester, and finally back to Montreal July 2010... In short it is going to be similar to my first sabbatical year - 2005-2006 - when I traveled for a year in Latin America and New Zealand.

Mexico!

O Mexico! My love for the Caribe has just reached new heights. In every aspects the contrast with winter frozen Montreal is obvious, enormous and tremendous. The 19th of February I finally got out of this country and flew to Cancun, the spring break paradise for American teenagers. After few rhetoric problems with Veronica Holmes, the Continental Airways customer service witch, Kristina, Sabrina and me finally managed to get to the promised land with [only] one day late. We then had to find a car to rent, which took us some more hours, and off we went to meet Thomas in Merida!

Merida was astonishingly beautiful. The small streets, the single storey houses with their pastel colors, the backyards, the Volkswagen Beattles, the Carnaval, the warm weather, the smily faces; it was the perfect accumulation of goodness! Life is just good there. And for us it was the perfect vacation we wanted. Our hostel -La Casa del Tio Dach- was gorgeous, the owner really kind and helpful. The vacation was starting fairly well, let aside Sabrina's magic eye and the Continental Airways situation.

We then moved to Tulum and Punta Allen to find a beach with white sand, turquoise Caribbean water, Cabanas and coconuts. To fit with the "couple's vacation" typical image we tried to catch the sunrise [almost] every morning and stroll on the beach in the daybreak's soft light. It was the perfect vacation like grown up usually picture it.

And then we entered the second stage of this vacation when we met my step familly in Playa del Carmen. With them we went to Chichen Itza in an enormous Chevrolet Suburban, FBI like car in which we eight people all easily fitted. To finalyze our perfect spring break we got a touch of luxury as we stayed at the hotel next to the ruins. And then after a last day at the beach snorkelling and swimming with turtles, baracudas and sting rays we finally made our way back home, and the 1st of March we were all sadly back to Montreal, its snow and its grey weather.
Why am I not living in Mexico?

Discovering Yakub Beg's "Kingdom of the Six Cities"

The adventurer Yakub Beg ended up founding his own short lived Kingdom of Kashgaria in 1867, liberating the country from the Chinese Qing Empire and reestablishing Islam in the region. Kashgar became the capital of his new Kingdom and Robert Shawn, a British adventurer, visited him in 1968, and I will do the same.

Not that expect to find Yakub Beg still wandering around Kashgar; but I hope to make my own discovery of my own Kashgar and its fantastic history. Halfway between the Tibetan plateau and the heart of Central Asia, Kashgar has historically been a mix of civilizations where Islam and Buddhism met in its own way, almost always under the Chinese governance. What is there left? I hope many treasures... though maybe not what people usually understand by this word.

So be it; Kashgar I am coming,

So be it! CST game me my money, so I can go play at being reporter for National Geographic this summer in Kashgar, China... Though my plans for traveling with a motorcycle seems to fluster away, as I found out that it is forbidden to own any vehicle in China (unless living there or being Chinese, which I am not). So I won't ride. But I can still travel! And my wishes came true, I got the money, I got the time, I got everything I could wish for, so it's just to do it!
Now the harder will be to stay focused on my studies until the damn semester finishes! And then what? A stopover in Norway to visit Sabrina's family, and then China. I will have 2 months or so, enough time to find interesting travel stories to write about I guess!

A hunt for discrepancies

What I wanna do? Am I really going to be journalist? Me? Am I any good at it? Let send this letter to the gods, who are probably playing pétanque if I guess right. Is that what I really dream of? Maybe. I think so, a least. It would be really cool. Really cool. So let's make a move for it, let's go wholeheartedly, without concerns, full time, and at once. But what should I do first? Maybe look on Wikipedia on “how do I become an awesome journalist?”. I should give it a try. Right now.
Ok, maybe not then. First thing I saw was “bad news: media companies around the world are cutting the number of foreign correspondents”. Ok, so it won't be easy.
But what the heck! What is there to loose, except a dream? Well I believe in the Alchemist's story, even though many would say I'm stupid. “If you set yourself a goal and make your best to achieve it, life's gonna help you...” Doesn't it sound familiar? It's nice to hear. It gives hope. It gives me hope. And that's the only thing I need, hope, and will.
If I get money from CST I'll go to China this summer and write about my travel. 要是CST送给我前，很多前，我就回到中国去录性和些报上。 So if CST gives me money should I consider it a kick in the ass from Life? I'll put my faith in that for now, and we'll see. Hopefully I won't have to wait for too long...

Milk'n Melamine: Unpalatable truths in China's food safety

I found this article from Asia Time Online where the author Kent Ewing report some news from the New Zealand Herald, which are quite interesting in the light of the recent trial of Tian Wenhua, the ex-boss of Sanlu (one of the company found guilty of adding melanine to the milk).

Indeed last month (I think...) Tian Wenhua was jugded on a big show case trial and reportedly pleaded guilty to the "charges of producing and selling fake products and endangering public safety and could be sentenced to death". However, a spokeperson from the New Zealand branch (Fonterra) of the milk company reported that Tian Wenhua never said anything the like.

Now who's saying the truth? Along Tian Wenhua, 3 other top executives were also charged and 17 other random people. In total the China Daily report that over 40 000 people are being investigated... Who said big show? Maybe the Fonterra's spokeperson just tried a public relation move in order to save the Kiwi branch's face. Yet this whole situation is peculiarly similar to what Julia Strauss describe; the public accusation and mass denunciation sessions where random people were found guilty of the horrible crime of being a "rightist opportunist", and the accused were blamed of everyone's problem...

But 60 years have passed since the "golden age" of the CCP, as Julia Strauss wrote, and technology now allow people to comunicate and exchange their ideas. The CCP has to play carefully with its public media apparatus on the one hand, and discrete arrests on the other hand. As Kent Ewing reported, last month some of the victim's families tried to reach Beijing to voice their discontent, but they were quietly arrested on the way... The big shows from the CCP aren't finished yet!

New Year's Eve song...