Climbed on the plane right after completing my 7th Charity Marathon on 8 December for Xinjiang and Beijing, the land of the Great China Firewall and could not update my blog as I did not have VPN set-up there.
Anyway, a few things learned in the last 14 days to share:
1. Chairman Xi and his team are serious about the anti-corruption campaign that is going on dealing with the 'small flies and the big tigers' and the PEOPLE I met seemed pretty happy about it. It seems that the leadership realised that if the cancer of corruption is not stopped now, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) may go to oblivion and the country of PRC may face total destruction from internal strife!;
2. If you have never been to Xinjiang, you would not truly appreciate HOW BIG is China PRC! Xinjiang is 1/6 of the land area of China PRC! It took me 2 3/4 days to get from a town in Southern Xinjiang to a secondary city in Northern Xinjiang covering 1,400km!
The unrest and tensions caused by the Uyghur Muslim Separatists are real though the normal life in commence and ordinary folks STILL continue without too much worries.
The mutton there indeed are the best I have tasted! Bar none!
3. I did come across military convey, columns after columns of them, performing their 'on the road' drills or exercises in my travel. At certain stops, you do see armoured military police and swat teams members brandishing heavy machine guns at sentry posts here and there.
Still, by and large, the ordinary people go about their daily life normally. Having said that a few times, I have to admit that my local Uyghur guide in Kashi (Kasghar) did mention that the number of internal and international tourists to some of the 'famous touristy places' have dropped by more than 80% after some of the senseless 'masked in the name of Islam' violent and bloody killings had taken place.
4. The Chinese are very hardworking and resilient people as they curved out a 550km desert (Talimakan) highway to their first oil and gas field in the middle of Tarim Basin. A first almost 20 years ago. It was quite a feast to drive on the Desert Highway. Awesome view especially with white snow covering the yellow power-like sand domes!
5. Glad to be able to catch up with many long times Chinese friends on this trip. Many of they I had known since 1994! Am very glad to see many of them developing into fine professional managers and leaders in their respective career and fields.
6. In this last 14 days when I could not get to blog, MUCH had happened in the international scene too:
a. the tragic and too-close-to-home Sydney crazed self-proclaimed Muslim hostage incident showed how such deranged and confused people can take away innocent lives in the most unexpected and innocuous place! Personally I don't even want to give him the sexy name of: 'a lone wolf'. He is NO WOLF but just a pathetic muddle-headed person hijacking the name of Islam to commit a cowardly crime against humanity! ALL humanity, Muslims included!!;
b. the 'conspiracy theory' of 'US and its allies cornering and punishing Russia for Putin's unacceptable action in stirring the annexation of East Ukraine with OPEC keeping the oil production high as oil prices plummet and dragging the Russian Rubbers with it! How would you like to see your currency depreciated by more than 50% in just a few short months??
Interesting to see how far and how long can Russians accept this price due to Putin's insistence to want to restore the 'glorious past of USSR'?;
c. Clearing of the 'Occupy Central' Movement in Hkg SAR finally. Will the wounds be mend? Actually one should not pay too much attention to this as the 'Occupy Central' Movement lost the critical supports of the majority when it developed into impediment of the rights of the majority to live a normal life! Perhaps this should never had taken more than 78 or 87 days for the government to clear what was definitely an illegal occupation of public places that infringed on the right of the majority peace loving commerce oriented Hkg SAR residents to go about their ordinary lives. May this never happened in Singapore though someone will caution me that: 'never says never!'
Let me get back into the NORMAL routine starting tomorrow as we count down to the end of 2014.
Anyway, a few things learned in the last 14 days to share:
1. Chairman Xi and his team are serious about the anti-corruption campaign that is going on dealing with the 'small flies and the big tigers' and the PEOPLE I met seemed pretty happy about it. It seems that the leadership realised that if the cancer of corruption is not stopped now, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) may go to oblivion and the country of PRC may face total destruction from internal strife!;
2. If you have never been to Xinjiang, you would not truly appreciate HOW BIG is China PRC! Xinjiang is 1/6 of the land area of China PRC! It took me 2 3/4 days to get from a town in Southern Xinjiang to a secondary city in Northern Xinjiang covering 1,400km!
The unrest and tensions caused by the Uyghur Muslim Separatists are real though the normal life in commence and ordinary folks STILL continue without too much worries.
The mutton there indeed are the best I have tasted! Bar none!
3. I did come across military convey, columns after columns of them, performing their 'on the road' drills or exercises in my travel. At certain stops, you do see armoured military police and swat teams members brandishing heavy machine guns at sentry posts here and there.
Still, by and large, the ordinary people go about their daily life normally. Having said that a few times, I have to admit that my local Uyghur guide in Kashi (Kasghar) did mention that the number of internal and international tourists to some of the 'famous touristy places' have dropped by more than 80% after some of the senseless 'masked in the name of Islam' violent and bloody killings had taken place.
4. The Chinese are very hardworking and resilient people as they curved out a 550km desert (Talimakan) highway to their first oil and gas field in the middle of Tarim Basin. A first almost 20 years ago. It was quite a feast to drive on the Desert Highway. Awesome view especially with white snow covering the yellow power-like sand domes!
5. Glad to be able to catch up with many long times Chinese friends on this trip. Many of they I had known since 1994! Am very glad to see many of them developing into fine professional managers and leaders in their respective career and fields.
6. In this last 14 days when I could not get to blog, MUCH had happened in the international scene too:
a. the tragic and too-close-to-home Sydney crazed self-proclaimed Muslim hostage incident showed how such deranged and confused people can take away innocent lives in the most unexpected and innocuous place! Personally I don't even want to give him the sexy name of: 'a lone wolf'. He is NO WOLF but just a pathetic muddle-headed person hijacking the name of Islam to commit a cowardly crime against humanity! ALL humanity, Muslims included!!;
b. the 'conspiracy theory' of 'US and its allies cornering and punishing Russia for Putin's unacceptable action in stirring the annexation of East Ukraine with OPEC keeping the oil production high as oil prices plummet and dragging the Russian Rubbers with it! How would you like to see your currency depreciated by more than 50% in just a few short months??
Interesting to see how far and how long can Russians accept this price due to Putin's insistence to want to restore the 'glorious past of USSR'?;
c. Clearing of the 'Occupy Central' Movement in Hkg SAR finally. Will the wounds be mend? Actually one should not pay too much attention to this as the 'Occupy Central' Movement lost the critical supports of the majority when it developed into impediment of the rights of the majority to live a normal life! Perhaps this should never had taken more than 78 or 87 days for the government to clear what was definitely an illegal occupation of public places that infringed on the right of the majority peace loving commerce oriented Hkg SAR residents to go about their ordinary lives. May this never happened in Singapore though someone will caution me that: 'never says never!'
Let me get back into the NORMAL routine starting tomorrow as we count down to the end of 2014.
No comments:
Post a Comment