HERLOFF says ...: China, here I come!

I'm going to Beijing on Thursday. We leave at 9 pm and will be back again on Monday at 6 pm. 4 days isn't a long time, but I'm still looking forward to the trip. I'll be going there with my new employer and about 50 colleagues.

If I had chosen the destination, I'm not sure I would have picked Beijing. The city is very far away (about 9 hours on a plane), and people rarely speak of it as one of the most charming spots on the planet. I have heard that it's slightly boring, dirty and polluted. However, I'm really beginning to look forward to it.

As an anthropologist, I chose the former Soviet Union as my regional field of expertise. I did my fieldwork there in 1995. Life in the Communist world fascinated me, as did the population's desperate attempts to find a new foothold after the collapse of the world they knew. Yes, most of them wanted freedom and opportunities. But many found it hard to come to terms with the fact that the values they had lived by had become obsolete. The medal you had received for being "Tractor Driver of the Year", the one that filled you with pride, became meaningless - and in some cases even something you should be ashamed of.

But enough of that.

I'm looking forward to having a peak behind another "Iron Curtain". China. Where a strange type of capitalism is on the rise, while the old icons and the communist symbolism is still to be seen everywhere. And I'm looking forward to visiting a place that is, in essence, so very, very different from what I'm used to. I like big differences. Culture clashes. Going to places where hardly anybody speaks English, German or French.

So ... I'll tell you all about it. In a week or so.