h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

How did you get that past the Moderators?
Will read more of your stuff when I've got more then 5 minutes left on a Library machine, but sounds like some of our philosophies could mesh. Myself, living in Ghana for 6 months only reinforced my attitudes to Capitalism/IMF/multinationals ( but strangely British colonialism wasn't all bad)

Get what past the moderators? The personal space? Just luck I guess...I have a little room at the back of my house where I make luck.

They do say that there is only one thing worse than being colonised...and that's not being colonised!

Look forward to talking to you again.

The bit about 360.com.
I have the recipe book for luck, but all the pages after "Bad", and "Burnt toast" have been ripped out by the previous occupant.
So I 'll just stick to making my own bread, which I am fairly good at.
I think Ethiopia managed quite well without being a colony, except for being gassed by Eyetalians, but then didn't it have cultural colonialism by Lost Tribes of Israel,Arks of the Covenant and later Christians?
I've just discovered that I'm unlikely to be able to access the gud ole Guide from China if I get my wish to find a teaching job there soon, ( actually an excuse for steeping,( isn't that something you do with dried peas and those curious little packets that turn them into "nothing like" peas?)),( I digress),myself in other cultures and being an over age backpacker).
What will I do for left of field intellectual stimulation, ( and ego stroking)?

Good question...I wrote a book about China 12 years ago...so where are you planning to go? If you do have internet connections out there (and I'm sure they must have some by now,) I'd love to hear how you get on.

Luck goes up and down - I had three years where the rest of the book after 'Bad' had been torn out but, looking back, I made some pretty stupid choices too!

I'll be going where the Chinese govt. send me, but hopefully south of Shanghai, ( where it's warm).
There are now lots and lots of Internet cafes, but apparently you can't get onto bbc.co.uk, so I may lose accesss to the Guide which would be a tragedy.
Still got to get the job there tho'!

Good luck! South of Shanghai is one area I don't know about so there will be one interested person this end...

O.k. but I keep the copyright.
Still go to get the job yet, and I'm hoping the U.K. agency will find me something for late September, as my own efforts seem stop start and subject to indecipherable phone calls from Peking. The 2 I've had so far sound like a mobile on a train passing thru' tunnels every 3rd word with a tinny echo sending back everything I'm saying. (Told him it'd be easier by e-mail).
Tell me at length, ( and with possible extracts from your book),about your experiences in China.
Where you on the Long March?
Did you swim the Yangtse with Mao? You piccy doesn't make you look that old

I'm not that old!!

I was in China six summers from 1980 so it was all post-Mao. Still very few tourists however and I went all over the place in the company of the Railway Publishing Department - I was writing a book about Chinese steam engines and travel. Furthest reaches: Xining on the Tibetan border - complete with Yak Butter statues and leopard skins; Outer Mongolia with mare's milk cheese; northern Manchuria (where my first husband proposed to me at a logging railway station!), The Stone Forest in Kunming and Chongking - and sundry other places where I was the first Western woman in town.
Had a love affair with a Chinese security guard; nearly got run over by a steam engine on a river bridge; ate enough sea slug to make absolutely certain that they are the grossest thing on the planet.

etc etc. But at work now so will come back later - if you want to know more!

yes well, what can I say?
Apart from was the affair with the security guard , (so it WAS a gun in his pocket!), before, after, or during the logging camp proposal, ( did No. 1 sing the Montie Python, ( thats pythen for our American cousins) lumberjack song?

I'm actually a Tibetan Buddhist, but useless with Yaks Butter, as it's rarely cold enough to sculpt it, even at Samye ling in Scotland.

Without being sexist, in my experience of Steam, having lived by the Worth Valley railway and spent several freezing cold days and nights as an extra at Keighley station and other sidings, women are usually the ones looking bored whilst men are 6 again clambering over steam trains. I myself heve a love hate relationship with them, the 6'o clock Fish train from Hull always managing to envelop me with smelly steam and the even smellier fish essence on a railway bridge on my way to school.

So what else do you write about?
I'm thinking of writing the first S.F. novel with realistic relationships between men and women , with steamy sex scenes. The only problem is that for years now all I've had is theory, ( of writing that is...)

Still there somewhere? I'm eager for more.

Yes, still here...ran a workshop over the weekend and worked today so totally knackered. More likely to get back to you with any brain tomorrow!!

But tell me how and why you chose Tibetan Buddhism! I've been reading this amazing book called 'The Sacred Art of Dying' about all the different faiths' attitudes to death. I hadn't really taken on board that there were three different types of Buddhism...

You can get the book I wrote with my Dad from the local library - it's out of print now - called 'China By Rail' by Patrick and Maggy Whitehouse (Century). Got some nice piccies of the Tibetan monastries in Xining.

Didn't get all that did you?
I just typed masses on why I became a Tibetan Buddhist, but something dumped me into another site, and then off the Web.
I'll have to type it all another time, but suffice it to say, it is as interesting as I am, and I leave you to be the judge of that.
Out of print hey? So you're not a fabulously rich authoress?

Stop Press!
Seem to have got a job in Nanning , South China,(virtually on the Tropic of Cancer).

Not a fabulously rich authoress yet! But still working on it... China by Rail was written before Tiananmen Square so it got out of date rather quickly...

I've got another book still in print and another at the agent right now..

Congrats on the job!! Wow. Interestingly (well, for me anyway!) 360 is having a push on China because there's a chap called Richard who's planning to fly around some areas giving away free hearing aids. He's on U201194 if you want to go and visit.

So, we're collating as much as we can on China over the next few weeks.

If you feel like re-writing the Tibetan Buddhist bit I'd love to read it. And I'm going to scan in some of my (millions of) photos of China including the Lamaseries in Xining.

Hi again, lost you in the rush of "Things I have to do on the Net, before I leave". Just arranged a( very expensive) set of flights to Nanning. Stopping over in Hong Kong, but disappointed to find out from guide books it isn't so cheap anymore, ( at least not in 1999..)
Haven't heard from the school I should be working for for a couple of days, so I'm currently having mild willies....
AS to your fellow flying roung China, Pardon?( Couldn't resist that.)
Must fly, or at least read up Deep Vein Thrombosis...

When do you leave?

Leave on the 18th, 3 hours changeing in Dubai at midnight, ( won't even see a camel, unless they have headlights), stopover in Hong Kong,( outside our shopping hours), arrive in Nanning on the 20th, knackered!

Ah yes, Dubai airport...I seem to remember it was mostly jewellery shops. Tedium city.

Hong Kong never sleeps. If you have time do go and take a look. At the very least, get yourself a coffee at one of the nice hotels - the Mandarin hotel is the creme de la creme. Can't totally destroy the budget and you'll feel pampered at least!

So have you heard from the source of the job again?

Yes, my worrying was unnecessary, and I've now also e-mailed the signed contract.
My stopover hotel is in Kowloon so I should be visited the market with three syllables and starts with lots of Ts, ( no, it isn't a film...)
Have you flown from the new airport? If so, what's the cheapest way of getting from it to Kowloon, ( don't say the MTR, please)?
Know any cheap ( very) quick, good Indian tailors?

Blimey...I haven't been there for 10 years!

There will be shuttle buses from the airport. You can hitch on one of the hotel ones if you say you are meeting someone there for dinner - the aptly named Hong Kong Hotel used to be very good...The Prince is also good.

Tailors - well, they're everywhere in Kowloon. Try and avoid the indoor shopping centres and find somewhere nearer the water - they're cheaper. They're all quick!