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CHANGING CURRENTS
20 YEARS of REFLECTIONS
BIRDS IN CHINA - PHOTOS
CYCLING to XANADU
THE CHINESE DREAM
CHINESE NEW YEAR ADS
The MEDIUM, the MESSAGE and the SAUSAGE DOG
ANYONE FOR TENNIS?
VIEWS FROM ABOARD THE CHINA EXPRESS:
1 Zola and Retail Marketing
2 Playing the Waiting Game
3 Beware the Ides of March
4 The county not on a map
5 Chinese Chess in Beijing
6 Build it and They'll Come
7 Riding the Water Dragon
8 The Best of Both Worlds
9 Storming the Great Wall
10 Welcome to the Wangba
11 The Catcher in the Rice
12 The Marriage Business
13 The Crouching Dragon
14 Counting the Numbers
15 A Century of Migration
16 Shooting for the Stars
17 Rise of Yorkshire Puds
18 Harry Potter in Beijing
19 Standing Out in China
20 Self-pandactualisation
21 Strolling on the Moon
22 Tea with the Brothers
23 Animated Guangzhou
24 Trouble on the Farms
25 Christmas in Haerbin
26 Dave pops into Tesco
27 A Breath of Fresh Air
28 The Boys from Brazil
29 Rolls-Royce on a roll
30 The Great Exhibition
31 Spreading the Word
32 On Top of the World
33 Moonlight Madness
34 Beijing's Wild West
35 Avatar vs Confucius
36 Brand Ambassadors
37 Inspiring Adventure
38 China's Sweet Spot
39 Spinning the Wheel
40 Winter Wonderland
41 The End of the Sky
42 Ticket to Ride High
43 Turning the Corner
44 Trouble in Toytown
45 Watch with Mother
46 Red-crowned Alert
47 In a Barbie World
48 Domestic Arrivals
49 Tale of Two Taxis
50 Land of Extremes
51 Of 'Mice' and Men
52 Tour of the South
53 Brooding Clouds?
54 The Nabang Test
55 Guanxi Building
56 Apple Blossoms
57 New Romantics
58 The Rose Seller
59 Rural Shanghai
60 Forbidden Fruit
61 Exotic Flavours
62 Picking up Pace
63 New Year, 2008
64 Shedding Tiers
65 Olympic Prince
66 London Calling
67 A Soulful Song
68 Paradise Lost?
69 Brandopolises
70 Red, red wine
71 Finding Nemo
72 Rogue Dealer
73 Juicy Carrots
74 Bad Air Days
75 Golden Week
76 Master Class
77 Noodle Wars
78 Yes We Can!
79 Mr Blue Sky
80 Keep Riding
81 Wise Words
82 Hair Today
83 Easy Rider
84 Aftershock
85 Bread vans
86 Pick a card
87 The 60th
88 Ox Tales
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2001 to 2007
BIRDING in CHINA
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FROM BEYOND THE WALL
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Of 'Mice' and Men

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Entertaining an odd breed of MICE

They are pampered, well-fed, royally entertained, and ferried around in luxury vehicles.  Brightly coloured swarms of them can be seen at midday running harem scarem on Sanya’s golden beaches.  Contrary to popular belief, they are not afraid of water…  Indeed, many can be seen splashing about in the waves that lap gently on to the shores of Yalong Bay – their preferred habitat.  At night, it’s not unusual to see some of them swaying to the beat of an 80s Brit-pop anthem, while knocking back the free-flow wines, beers, and spirits.  They are known – in the hospitality trade at least – as “MICE”.


  The industry’s somewhat discourteous acronym (I, too, have been one of their millions, and I can tell you that the above description is a bit too close for comfort, for me at least) stands for: Meetings, Incentives, Conferences/Conventions and Exhibitions/Events.

 

  In the first half of 2009, 3.4 million tourists visited Sanya, 3.22 million of whom were mainland Chinese (up 14.5 per cent year-on-year; while the economic downturn in most parts of the world led to a 40 per cent decline in non-mainland tourists).  And a large number of those tourists were MICE – who contribute more profit to the island's tourism industry than the average visitor. (Sorry for not presenting the numbers, but MICE are notoriously difficult to count – at least I managed to find out that there are about 6,000 groups a year of them in Sanya, according to Du Liyin, the director of the Sanya Tourism Development Bureau.

 

  The nature of those groups is extremely varied.  Let’s look at the Sheraton Sanya Resort, for example.  It has hosted the final of the Miss World Contest on three occasions.  It has also played host to the 108 visiting monks from the Buddah societies of the Taiwan Strait, Hong Kong and Macau. 

 

  The Sheraton and the other leading hotels of course love to attract high profile events, but it’s the MICE from their numerous corporate clients that really bring home the cheese.  But the nature of this source of business is changing rapidly.  These days in Sanya, you are just as likely to stumble across an event or activity organised by a Chinese company you’ve never heard of than one paid for by a world famous brand.

 

This evening I was walking past the Crowne Plaza in Yalong Bay, Sanya, when bright lights and the sound of a male’s rich baritone voice caught my attention.  A group of locals were watching the performance, pressed up against the gold rope that marked the boundary of the corporate entertainment area.

 

Naturally curious (well, I was born in the Chinese year of the mouse – aka “rat”), I just had to find out what was going on.  Something in the order of 150 well-heeled guests were helping themselves to the seafood buffet, while the baritone crooned out a mournful song.  They had gone slightly over the top with the special effects, and the dry ice looked more like smoke that was enveloping the performer.  Undeterred, he crooned on.  Behind him I could see the billboard announcing the evening’s sponsor.  It was non other than “Yang Quan Coal Industry (Group) Co., Ltd.”  

 

  Of course I had never heard of them.  I asked one of the bouncers standing by the gold rope who they are.  “From Shanxi,” he told be begrudgingly.  “And what about the guests”, I asked.  “Bosses and their customers,” was his curt reply.  Well fancy that...  There was I thinking that the 100 top coal-winning miners had been flown here on an all-expenses-paid jolly.

 

The plight of miners in Shanxi and all over China is certainly no laughing matter. In 2008, according to the State Administration of Work Safety, 3,215 miners lost their lives. In Shanxi in 2009, 77 men died in one accident at Tunlan coal mine in Gujiao city, which is close to the provincial capital of Taiyuan.  While there is no suggestion that Yangquan company – one of the country’s top five coal-mining companies, and China’s largest producer of anthracite coal – is any way culpable in respect of any of the fatalities, it did strike me as somewhat distasteful that in a year that has been beset by large-scale mining disasters, and in a year when the Shanxi economy was the only provincial economy to shrink (minus 4.4 per cent y-o-y for the first half of 2009), the company had decided to hold a huge end-of-year bash in Sanya. 

  

  I couldn’t stop myself thinking that the money paid out for the large shoal of king prawns being devoured by their employees and guests would have been better spent on improving the industry's safety record, or providing better support to the loved ones of those brave men who so tragically lost their lives. I glanced at the singer again.  The smoky backdrop suddenly appeared strangely macabre.

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