The last few days have been in Beijing. Two whole days with educational and health researchers and some sightseeing. This is an amazing city - wonderful reminders of old China such as the great wall, Ming tombs and temples, together with a brash new 21st century capital of 20 million. Despite the massive problems, the sense of purpose and movement is overwhelming, as is the sheer number of people and traffic. The rapid adoption of the substance and trappings of American style capitalism jars with foreigners such as myself, but it is still wiat and see how the society develops. The highlight of the visit was an evening at the traditional Beijing opera - amazing performance. Hospitality here for both of us has been superb - as indeed it has been all over Chine, so we are sorry to be leaving. The final few photos here are some of the things we've seen and done.







A typical traffic jam! Scenes from the Lama temple, great wall, Ming tombs, and from hotel

After a rainy Chengdu, Nanjing has been glorious and very interesting. The ancient capital, it is full of memorials - Sun Yat Sen especially (see picture of mausoleum), and just as crowded as the other large cities we have been to. A lot of enthusiasm for our multilevel work here and a return visit would be very fruitful. Five star accommodation also makes it very comfortable.
Nanjing is a modern city that has seen amazing development over the last 10 years - see the skyline picture. See also some of the old exam cubicles where scholars from all over China came to take the tests to enter the Emporer's service. Today we are off on the last leg to Beijing.

Despite the rain, we are enjoying Chengdu - even though negotiating 2 banquets a day can be exhausting! The bronze mask is from a great museum displaying the recently excavated remains os the ancient Shu at Sanxingdui near Chengdu. And of course the mandatory panda sanctuary.
An exhausting day giving 2 talks and a round table to about 70 staff and students in public health. They are very keen on multilevel modelling, thanks partly to Min Yangs work here over the last fifteen years.

After leaving dali we travelled to Kunming, capital of Yunnan - just for one night with a couple of talks. A small-medium city whose pollution would be terrible were it not for the fact that almost all the abundant scooters were quiet electric ones. Click to see a typical street scene.