A well known Chinese saying (it seems!) 计划赶不上变化 It means, more or less, that the plans can't keep up with the changes. People are always talking about how when you live in China you need to have a lot of patience - patience with adapting to the lifestyle and the language,. This is all certainly true. But nobody told me about the ancient and prevelant Chinese culture of 'Nowism'. This means that the Chinese have a real aversion to planning - AN...

Things have stating moving forward now on setting up the volunteer centre. The project has finally realised why I have been sent here. My issue now is not waiting for something to happen but to slow things down a pace and persuade them that this will take time. We have a management team who will do this in addition to their day job and who desperately need the skills to develop thier roles. We started that process with a volunteer management workshop for the te...

Well I am now a resident of China (at least for the next year). After approx 20 hours of queue, interview, form filling; 1 inch thick pile of forms and papers; I have been given my resident's visa. It does mean that I can go in and out of China as many times as I like and I won't need additional visa if I travel to Hong Kong. (Chinese citizens have to have a visa to get from the mainland to HK and back again). I think the world supply of red ink is in grave dang...

Today I have been 'interviewing' staff and volunteers to assess their level of English (something for which I am not qualified) so we can divide into groups for English discussion classes. It has been a good opportunty for me to get to know some people I have not spoken to before and the answers to the question on why people like ot work at Canyou are genuinely inspiring and offer one of those moments when you know why you are here. Very strong words like power, ...

Well it is the end of the week long holiday here in China and after the weekend things will get back to normal - not that I have figured out what that is yet. I have been spending some time with those staff and volunteers who did not go home for the holidays so I can learn as much as I can. They have taken me to the movies and to the main square which seems to be the place to go in the evening. very lively. Getting 20 disabled people, half in wheelchairs across t...