The Chinese Communist Party has taken away my opening line. A month or two ago, when I thought about how I'd start this blog, this seemed like the best way to begin: "If you're reading these words, you're not in China." (a nice, pithy start that I was extremely proud of.) At the time, the Chinese government blocked access to this website - it had done so for years, for reasons that were never entirely explained.
But several weeks ago the English-language version of ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ News Online was . So now anyone in China can read these words. I lost an opening line - but with luck this blog has gained a much bigger pool of readers. The unblocking of this website shows just how much China is changing - what you say on one day may be entirely out of date by the next day.
So, let's start ...
One hundred days to go before the Beijing Olympics get started (ask anyone in China how many days there are to go - and most will get it right. It's hard to get it wrong when there are giant countdown clocks in Beijing which remind you exactly how many days, hours, minutes and seconds there are before the games begin.) To say that the Olympics are important to China is a bit like saying that oxygen is important to life. The games are the biggest event that Communist China has ever staged. This country wants to get it right - with no room for any mistakes.
That's why it has been a bit stunned by the battered progress of the torch relay on its world tour. What China had in mind was a kind of lap of honour - legions of cheerful fans across the world cheering the torch along its way.
Instead, we've all seen the pictures of protests and disruptions. In China, many people take the torch relay demonstrations personally. One student from Beijing told me that the pro-Tibet protests in and had hurt his feelings. So, he has decided to organise a pro-China rally in Hong Kong when the torch relay gets going again on May 2nd.
I'll be in the crowds to tell you how the relay goes on Friday.
I've been the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s Beijing correspondent since November 2006. I've choked on pollution, had maggots for dinner, been humiliated at ping pong, used binoculars to pick out China's identically dressed leaders, been interrogated by policemen in dark glasses, and had Chairman Mao's grandson jump down the steps of the Great Hall of the People to avoid being interviewed by me.
I joined the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ on a trainee scheme in 1997 straight after university (Cambridge - where I studied French and Spanish). The ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ was the best option after I failed in earlier attempts to become a dictionary maker and a theatre director. (I also once set up a language school that received no inquiries whatsoever.)
I spent the next year working for the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ in the East Midlands, and then in June 1998 I was sent to South America to run the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s one-man bureau in Santiago, Chile. After predicting early on that Chile's former military leader Augusto Pinochet would never be arrested, I then found myself spending the next several years reporting on his arrest and trial. (I learned never to make any more predictions after that.) I also spent time in the rest of Latin America covering earthquakes, elections and coups. Evo Morales (now the president of Bolivia) once invited me to chew coca leaves with him. And a Colombian rebel commander wearing wellington boots told me over some orange squash that his Marxist guerrillas would win the war.
After that, the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ sent me to Jerusalem for five years. I spent much of this time in the back of the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ armoured car, wearing a flak jacket and helmet, trying to report on bombs and incursions. I was taught how to live for several days in a plastic tent in the event of chemical or biological war (the bathroom instructions were not fun.) I interviewed Yasser Arafat - who kept on shouting at me to remember that I was speaking to General Arafat (how could I forget?) I ended my time in the Middle East watching Hezbollah's rockets fall onto the rooftops of northern Israel.
Then, in November 2006, I came to China...
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