Dear All,
Welcome to my next edition, and firstly would like to thank all ofthose whom made comments on my previous blogs.
I'm still working in Xi'an, its fairly relaxed paced of life, and where i am staying is nice, so after a busy day i usually just crashout...
Yesterday i went to c the terrorcotta worriers with the group, for those who don't know about it, it was a army made of clay of 7000 people, its quite imposing, and each person is different, and all the soldiers and all the artists were killed when it was completed, and buried with it or something random like that, its the 8th wonder ofthe world.
Someone told me how Bill Clinton came to Xi'an as his first place on his tour in 1998, and when he came he asked to see the guy who found the warriors(it was found in 1974 by a farmer, but its been buried for2,200 years) and then he asked him for his autograph but the guy didn't know how to write, because he was just a farmer, so he just put down three circles, anyway after this incident, the Chinese government felt proper shame, (its a big thing here about losing face, its like at all costs you must maintain honour and face), and so they got the best calipaghers in the whole of china and taught him to write beautifully so he can sign his name, and now that guy is one the governments pay role getting 600RMB a month, and sitting at the museum, signing books for 120RMB but looks so depressed....
Xi'an has amazing history and if anyone does visit china they must put it in, its quite a rich area, and you find all the designer shops that you would in the west, and this is possibly down to the fact it was the start of the silk road and so has always been accustomed to high levels of wealth throughout history...
I have realised the reason I'm allowed to go to sites such as the independent and the guardian but not the BBC is because its a news organisation where as newspapers are allowed, don't quite c how its that different but it is, and therefore i can get my dose of the news!! I just read Robert frisks article in the independent(http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article1219457.ece), it was a fairly interesting read but more of the same about the middle east and my friend Fern wrote on his blog at(http://amateurviews.blogspot.com/) about how the media just concentrates on the topics of things like the middle east and notthings like aids, read his blog if you have time to see what he said...however i disagree with some of the things he said, i mean yeah Aids conference wouldn't get the same coverage as a conference on Terrorism or Middle eastern affairs, however i think that is because, Aids is something that is harder to combat as a problem where as terrorism is something that can be overcome, and therefore people feel more able to discuss it and feel the ability to make a difference to the topic and therefore that empowerment allows people to become more impassioned...anyway that's wot i think...
Oh and something else, I wish to Welcome the Iranian President, apersonal hero of mine, to world of Blogging. Supposedly he has startedhis own blog!! I think in 50 years time, like Winston Churchil, GeorgeBush, we will be using his quotes because some of them are classics and just ridiculous.
By the way my title for the blog comes from the following headline in the mirror newspaper(http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/cricket/tm_objectid=17562533%26method=full%26siteid=94762%26headline=saj%2d%2di%2dm%2din%2dthe%2dmahmood%2dfor%2dashes%2dtriumph-name_page.html)
Also SK I want to make sure you OK, and i hope your doing well and not getting up to to much mischeif pigglet! And Bilal good luck for your exams, and for anyone else whom has exams....
Take Care
Sheikh Asif Mahmood
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1 comment:
Thanks for the plug...
However, in response to the criticisms, which are fair, I would say that I wasn't making a case for the media to shift its focus, but a more general point about how we have no perspective on these things.
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