China is proving far more interesting than I ever thought it would be. I will post about it when I have time and the inclination. For now all I have to say is that they have the most amazing new Metro that is clean and far better than our rattly old tube system. It is amazing how many people get to move around in the city of Guangzhou using it. The only criticism that I have is that it could be better signposted as to where it is. We lost one Metro station this afternoon as we could not see the signs for it and we did not know how to ask for the metro station in Chinese. One does not say metro station in Chinese but something else. The trick we have learnt is to get someone who is Chinese to write down in Chinese the address or word that you want to use and show that so that you can at least say what it is you are after. It is helpful to have any addresses written in Chinese so you can at least jump a taxis which by the way is cheap to get to your distinction, if you get lost.

I have been away in China for a week now and I am really learning about a culture that is both modern and ancient, the achievements that have happened here are not something that I think the European governments are capable of achieving while under American hegemony. For Europe to be itself it is going to have to find a way of removing itself from the American Empire and to reassert itself while trying to find a new way of engaging the world that does not repeat the mistakes of empire and colonialism that was in my opinion created by the imperatives of early capitalist development.