大连的爱尔兰团体 - Dalian's Irish Community

Over the last week I have been reading what I consider an excellent book "The World is Flat" by Thomas Friedman. Amongst things it has totally challenged my concepts of whether I am skilled enough to handle the next 10-15 years of my career, what i can do to make use of the latest information technology that has come along in streams, changed my views on sustainable development and challenged me as to how I will educate any future children. Not bad for one book! READ IT!

Another aspect of this book that I found of interest was that it mentioned Dalian and Ireland amongst other places as shining examples of cities / countries that have embraced the latest technological revolutions and globalisation forces to surge ahead as competitive economies. In fact it helped clarify something that I noticed pretty early on in my stint in Dalian ie that of all the "western" foreigners that are in Dalian, I would say that it would be fair to say that the Irish make up one of the biggest subgroups. What was also surprising for me was that whilst the name "Dalian" rarely registers any form of recognition from Australian friends, it is a well known Chinese city for Irishmen and there seems to have historically been some sort of city to city relationships that has developed this.

My run in with the Irish community here was purely accidental, an Irish classmate did the meet a friend of a friend thing and I ended up meeting a great Irish guy who had lived in Dalian for a number of years, married a local and amongst other things was the captain of the Dalian Wolfhounds Gaelic Football team! Finding out that I had 2 hands 2 feet and could run I was duly invited to a training session to test the water. Although I must admit it wasnt my first preference to play an Irish sport in a Chinese city, the guys were great and allowed me to make up for my two left feet by allowing me to prop up the goals =) My first game out with them saw us play a Shanghai team and we even ended up on TV for a short stint haha. There is apparently an Asian Championship in May next year (yes there are Irish everywhere!!) so that might be something worth getting stuck into for a bit of a laugh.

When I first arrived in China I made a mental note not to make too many English speaking friends as I felt that this might affect how quickly I was able develop my Chinese. However the warmth of this group which has led to other than football, poker nights, Irish bar parties, numerous dinners and the start of a friendship group in Dalian was been an absolute godsend. The latest benefit has been a contact that has enabled us to start looking for a new house. New cities, in new countries with new languages are blardy hard work and yours truly has been truly grateful for what can only be described as a totally random introduction to this great group of people.

上个星期我看完了一本叫《世界是平的》的书。作者是美国人，内容是关于信息技术发展的结果的。随着信息技术的广泛利用，我们的地球越来越‘平’的。发达的信息技术让更多人更容易联系。这本书里面讨论了很重要的话题但是我觉得最有意思的部分是关于大连和爱尔兰的。这本是美国去年的最畅销的书所以当我看到大连的话题我吃了一惊。

因为大连和爱尔兰很重视他们的信息技术，并且这方面也得到了快速的发展，结果这本书关于这个方面写了很多。到大连的时候我也发现大连和爱尔兰的城市有关系。

我偶然间发现了大连的爱尔兰团体。我在大外学习的时候我的爱尔兰同学介绍我和他住在大连的爱尔兰朋友。这个朋友已经住在大连很久了，而且跟本地女孩结婚了。他曾邀请我跟他的爱尔兰足球队一起踢球。那时，我看到了大连的爱尔兰团体。

其实我不太喜欢踢足， 但是因为我原来没有很多朋友，所以当他们邀请我的时候我就接受了。并且，同意跟他们来一场爱尔兰足球比赛。因为我踢球不太好，所以他们让我当守门员。我玩儿得不错，所以比赛以后他们邀请我一起去大连唯一爱尔兰酒吧。

到现在我跟我的爱尔兰的朋友做了很多事情，所以我跟他们越来越熟。他们经常邀请我参加很多活动，比如去踢足球，打牌，聚会，吃饭什么的。而且他们介绍中国朋友帮助我找新的房子。

虽然我没打算找到那么多的外国朋友，但是这个又友好又热情的爱热兰团体让我很感谢。

大连与日本之间的历史－Dalian's History with Japan

I came across a book on the 'Rape of Nanking' during my first week in China. The more I travel the more disillusioned I get with the Australian history curriculum. My reading of this book further emphasised this as despite being overseas Chinese I really had no idea of the details of such an atrocity that has been brought to life with recent news reports of Japanese Prime Ministers refusing to not visit the graves of apparent war criminals and the altering of Japanese history text books to emit this incident from their national history. This stimulated a greater interest in finding out more about Sino Japanese history and ironically I discovered that Dalian is a perfect place to start.

The first truly historical experience came about from Dad and I took a day trip to see the historical city of Lushun which is about an hour from Dalian. Lushun is one of the worlds few natural deep water harbours and its position on the Liaoning peninsula makes it one of great strategic importance. As such at the moment it plays home to a major Chinese naval base. Trusting Dad to brush up on his history he also revealed to me its historic significance.

North Eastern China was granted to the Russians after the Opium Wars. The Japanese had other ideas and after first taking over Korea, first attacked the Chinese at Lushun just before the turn of the century to gain control of the area. They won but the Russians not being happy used international pressure to force the Japanese to give this back.

In 1904 the Japanese had had enough and then attacked the Russians in a Pearl Harbour dress rehearsal where they pre-emptively took out the Russian Navy at Lushun and then proceeded to storm the city. They won in a pretty bloody campaign.

From Lushun, the Japanese then planned their entire offensive into North Eastern China where the end result was the overthrowing of the last emperor and the establishment of the puppet government of Manchukuo of which Dalian was a part of. Dad and I spent a good hour in the old Japanese house that served as this headquarters. It blew my mind that the entire campaign of the Japanese occupation of China during the 20th Century was planned from a small town just an hour from where I lived (although don’t go saying this to any Chinese from the area). This continued up until the end of the Second World War with the Japanese surrender.

What was sad to see was that an area of such historical significance to both China, Japanese and Russia, is mainly sealed off to foreigners (Dad and I got in cause of our Chinese looks haha another bonus) and the museums and historical sites are badly preserved and exhibited. In fact the significance of the area remains unknown to most despite the fact that it is only 1 hour from Dalian. However once again, the complexity of history comes into play cause it depends very much on who you talk to and the perspective changes whether you talk to Japanese or Chinese. It does provide an insight however into the nature of the relations between these countries.

The ironic thing about Dalian is that despite their distrust of the Japanese, there is a very significant legacy in Dalian from those times. Japanese architecture, shops, restaurants and companies are abundant and you could be forgiven in some areas for thinking that you were in a Japanese town. However whilst the Chinese here understand the reliance on Japan (a significant number of university students here speak Japanese or study it) whilst they may accept their existence here in Dalian, in many cases there is no forgiveness of the pain that past relations brought.

当我刚来大连的时候，我买了一本书叫《南京大屠杀》。尽管我是华侨，但是直到现在我都还没听说过这件事，所以我感到很意外。我越来越明白为什么那么多中国人不喜欢日本人。看了这本书以后，我对中国的历史有了广泛的兴趣。

我的爸爸告诉我，大连的附近有一个县级市叫旅顺。他说这个地区也有很多中国历史。所以他来大连的时候我安排我们一起一次去旅顺旅行。旅游以前我研究了一下旅顺的历史。我发现旅顺的很多地方经常不让外国人进去看. 但是我的中国朋友告诉我，因为我们的样子都像中国人如果我们不说话的话他们肯定不知道我们是外国人。

如果你开车的话，从大连到旅顺只需要两个小时。尽管旅顺离大连很近，但是我发现很多外国人没有去过。因为他们不知道旅顺有什么地方值得他们去看。去旅游的时候我们发现这个地方拥有很多关于战争的回忆。

十九世纪末的时候中国东北有俄罗斯来治理。但是日本不喜欢这个情况所以在1904跟俄罗斯发生战争。因为旅顺的重要地位，所以日本率先攻占了旅顺。日本赢了但是却有很多人死了。

日本计划将旅顺做为它进一步攻占中国东北的基地。所以去旅顺的时候我和我的爸爸看到很多有中国和日本历史的地方。因为旅顺是日本第一治理的地方，所以旅顺在中国历史中非常重要占有的城市。大连也是。

直到今天大连仍然有日本的影响。在大连市内，日本的建筑，商店，饭店和公司都有。而且很多大连的大学生会说日语或者要学日语。不过当我跟我的中国朋友聊天儿的时候，他们告诉我，虽然中国人接受日本人存在于一个城市但是大部分中国人不会忘记那么可怕的历史。因为他们的家人曾经被深深地伤害过。

我觉得如果你出生在和平的国家，你不能全部明白这样的情感。我也是这样。可是我相信中国政府需要让别人知道这个历史。我不理解为什么他们不让外国人看看像旅顺一样非常重要的地方。我认为，如果更多人能知道和明白这样的历史，可能我们的世界会变得更好的地方。

我去北京旅游 - Going to Beijing for "Business" =)

Well it had to happen I guess eventually, staying in China for now nearly 5 months and a week ago I get to hit China’s Imperial Capital. Thanks to the help of work in Dalian I managed to get to attend the 4th Annual China Shopping Mall Conference which was plushly situated at the New Nikko Century Hotel. Well I was excited about the chance to revisit 4 star luxury until I found out that the hotel was literally in the burbs! You know the Beijing 3rd Ring Road, yeah well keep going haha. And for those who haven’t been to China believe me ring roads here are rings like you have never seen!

The conference was attended by a mixture of leading business people, government ministers and university professors and included a smattering of speakers from all over the world including my boss over here Michael Lloyd. Being an ex Lend Lease man he has managed to grace the stage here for the last 3 years, this year being no different. Attended by over 200 ppl and with speeches being held in 2 languages I managed for the first time to participate in a conference with the help of a translator device which boomed the voice of some poor bloke in a box that attempted to keep up with the occasional ramblings of Chinese shopping centre “experts”.

As these things go, some speeches got you thinking, others got you sleeping but on the whole was definitely a worthwhile couple of days and confirmed for me my choice to pursue this industry and also what I have managed to pick up in the last 5 months. Biggest points of amusement amongst other things were the confused looks from my fellow delegates when the English speakers swapped to Chinese ones which resulted in them promptly removing their translation earphones whilst I fumbled to don mine.

Well all work and no play wouldn’t be a very Terence Koo like adventure at all so naturally the nights were filled with partying of sorts. Yes AIESEC exists in Beijing so it was great catching up with an old friend Tzzy Wang for Thanksgiving Turkey and cranberry sauce and an old boss from PricewaterhouseCoopers as well. Upon talking to them they noted that him and his wife although English had had relatively few problems settling into a black haired city of 20 Million which is testament I believe to the globalisation which is happening in what I consider a pretty cool city.

I was showed just how cool after the conference where I first accompanied my boss to eat French Fusion at the Forbidden city and this made my way over to night club central to catch up with some friends from Dalian. Upon arriving, I was heartily greeted by 2 bottles of Bombay Sapphire and a bottle of red which the 4 of us during the night proceeded to finish off. The confidence building effects of these cocktails were more than welcome when we ran into 2 stunning models from Dalian but unfortunately my primary school level Chinese was only able to engage them for a period of 15 minutes before they left me for the much more attractive dance floor =) They can say ‘When in Rome..” but when you don’t speak Latin you don’t get too far haha!

Well all good weekends come to an end and all wallets also wear thin with trips such as this so going back to Dalian was more than welcome by the Sunday night came around. Might be swinging past there in January next year so something to look forward to aside from -20C!

因为工作的原因，上周末我去北京参加了中国购物中心国际论坛第四届年会。这个会议在北京新世纪日航饭店举行。四星级的饭店所我来说不错！我的老板已经连续三年在这个会议上作报告。今年也是一样。

我参加时听说与购物中心有关系的题目。做报告的人种，有些是从美国，欧洲，亚洲和澳大利亚来的。还有些人是中国人。除了公司老板，中国政府官员和大学老师以外会议参与者大部分是公司的雇员。跟我一样。一共，会议参与者差不多两百位，这个会议举行了三天。它是政府安排的所以比较重要。

虽然我应该跟我的老板一起参加会议，因为开会的时候他还没好准备他的报告所以我就一个人参加。有的报告有意思有又用但是还有既没有意思又没用。听起来很想睡觉！可是报告者大部分说的内容很有用所以我学到了很多。我听中国人的说话的时候我需要用翻译机，不过听西方人说时刚不用。别人看着我觉得很奇怪，哈哈。为什么这个中国人需要用翻译机听汉语报告。

但是我这次去北京的感觉非常好。因为现在我中文水平有很大的提高，经验也就随之增多。我到了北京机场我可以告诉出租车的司机去哪儿。不用让他看名片儿。然后坐车的时候我能跟司机聊天。我以前来中国感觉很难受但是现在很幸福。我上次来北京是2004年。聊天的时候我知道了现在北京改变很大。发展也很多。比如今年北京的汽车到三百万。我的司机说，为了准备2008年的奥运会，政府已经决定将于明年把旧得出住车全部换掉。他说要像发达国家一样。

尽管会议期间比较忙，晚上的时候我也有机会去看我住在北京的朋友和我以前的同事。周六晚上我先跟我的老板一起去一家很有名的法国饭店。然后我以前在大连的朋友邀请我去一家非常受欢迎的迪斯科。我到的时候他们已经买了两瓶杜松子酒还有一瓶红酒。晚会结束时我们四个人把酒都喝光了！哎哟，醉得很厉害啦。而且我很幸运，我们碰见两个从大连来得特别漂亮的模特。不过我汉语不够流利所以十五分钟后已经没有题目跟他们说。我很遗憾.

周日我跟我以前的老伴和他的老板去吃午饭。他还在PricewaterhouseCoopers北京的公司工作。我们见面的时候我有点儿惊讶。虽然他们都是英国人可她们告诉我住在北京没有问题。很容易习惯，可能北京比大连更适合外国人居住。
虽然北京实在是好玩儿的地方可是我还是很想念大连。如果明年一月有机会再去的话，我会高高兴兴地去北京。