i bought a copy of the China Daily yesterday, after almost 3 weeks’ of self-boycott, and saw to my amusement that what hit headline was the student protest in US about the Iraq war. there were mentions of the Tibet riots on the inside pages, but it was about how the innocent han chinese and muslim minority were lamenting about theirs and their families’ poor fate to be victims of the riots. there were a lot of “why did they do this to us”.
since saturday, the government has shut down youtube, restricted the contents on Google and Yahoo news. bbc is inaccessible permanently. the news don’t report on the riots. and it was quite an eye-opener when my interviewers (local chinese), tell me that the censorship on the media is extremely strict.
we were discussing about this the other night. it’s obvious they are covering up their acts. but the truth is quite obvious. i’m keen to know what Straits Times is reporting. and now that olympics is drawing just less than a hundred days away, the government must be anxiously shifting in their seats.
i’m excited to see how the outside world is reacting to this. thing is, i can’t see it and there’s no hype about it on the streets. everyone’s just going about their daily affairs, as if there wasn’t some massacre going on just next door.
joa woke up exclaiming that it was raining. and i was in disbelief. it’s the first time since I’d arrived that it’d rained in beijing and it’s certainly chilly as anything. i prob need to put on my thermas again.
having said that, i ought to break a good news. i got a job! yep, in the end, i received a total of 5 job offers. of which i accepted the one with the highest pay and of most prestigious corporate status. they were really spontaneous about giving me the immediate confirmation within one interview followed with one phone interview with a counterpart in shanghai. two hours later, before i’d even made up my mind, the HR rang me and asked me to start work on monday.
it’s gonna be a busy weekend. we move house tomorrow and i’d already bought new sheets, kitchenware and some nice chopsticks. today i have to shop for some work clothes to tide me till half my wardrobe from singapore arrives. on sat, we’re getting up bright and early, pack some luggage into a cab and head to the new apartment for a mass cleanup. and then we’ll pick up more things from the old house and spend the rest of the day packing. joa said he’d cook me a romantic dinner :) on sun, we will go to a massage parlour to ‘rub’ off all my bad luck and aches so i start off my new job with a clean start. and meeting I’anne and her husband for dinner.
in a way it all sounds exciting but i’m really dreading the days to come because joa will be off to shanghai on wed and won’t be back till two weeks! we argued like crazy about it the past week because i felt he didn’t even ask if i’d be ok with it. but it’s all ok now. he’s all excited about his first-ever ‘business trip’ and it’s prob good for me to try living alone here for 2 (god-damn) weeks.
but oh well, i hope he brings home a nice lil’ gift for me from shanghai. it’s the least he can do now.
need to continue to write ‘rejection’ letters. oh, i’m such a good catch, aren’t i?
