First They Came for My Electricity
Not a lot of blogging this week thus far. Because of the National Day holiday, my FDI Law class was postponed one week, and yesterday kicked off the first class.
In addition to the expected six hours of lectures this week, I have an additional five hours of lectures on FDI and IP law for a law school delegation from Thailand.
All in all, a busy few days. The good news is that after tomorrow’s marathon schedule (six hours in the classroom), I will have a few days off and can catch up with the news.
Changing the subject, you may recall that due to poor planning, I spent the National Day holiday with no electricity. That was entirely my fault.
I found out late last week that, through no fault of my mine, there will be no hot water at the apartment complex where I live for an entire month. The management office claims that this is out of their hands and has something to do with repairs being overseen by the Beijing municipal government. Interesting that they failed to mention this to my wife and I when we rented the room less than two months ago.
Lucky for me that I recently joined a gym here, and the good news is that they supply their own hot water. So I can still take hot showers, which is nice. I’m sure my students will appreciate this as well.
I wonder what will be shut off next? If they touch my Internet, blood will be shed.
By tomorrow night, I may not be able to speak any more (I am already losing my voice from too much lecture time), but hopefully I will be back blogging.
I have a question. How many of the China blogs that are for example on English language China blog aggregators that comment on China law are: (1) Actually written in China (2) Are written by lawyers that are not students or studying law (3) are written by US lawyers or students who are now studying in China (I think this applies here from what I see) and (4) are finally written by people that actually live in China, have experience in legal work actually conducted in China, and have actually themselves invested in China?
If its alright, I thought I’d ask for the sake of some clarity.
Uh, I haven’t done a survey, so I’d say that there are some of each out there. The question I have is why you care so much about those details.
The issue for me is: 1) is the information in a blog accurate?; 2) is it easy to read/entertaining; 3) is it updated on a regular basis (at least weekly); is it relevant or interesting to my job/hobby/school. If all those work for you, then you should read the blog.
For the record (and you can see my bio), I live in Beijing, am a practicing lawyer, I’ve been here since ‘99, and I guess I’ve “invested” a lot of time and energy to this stuff.
Note on students: a lot of students out there write great stuff, either because they are specifically studying Chinese law, or they simply have the interest and a lot of time to research and write. Some of my favorites are either written by students or were started by students. (I wish I had that much free time to devote to my blog!)
i lived in fuli cheng over 4 years ago and they used to pull the same stunts with the hot water.
So YOU’RE that proverbial/mythical guy who uses the gym as his personal bathroom!
At the moment, yes I am. More’s the pity, too, because the facilities at this particular place remind me of a bathroom at a Greyhound Bus terminal.