"You'll miss Christmas!"

That's what everyone said at the airport when I was leaving to take up this contract in China: "You'll miss Xmas!"

They were wrong.

Every tree in Beijing, it seems, sports lights and little fake "boxes" of gifts underneath in shiny paper.

But then yesterday someone told me at work that, for the "light-putter-uppers" that all they do is put Spring Festival lights up early!

It was about that time, as I was digesting that information, that I decided to keep a blog. Not for anyone else, really, just sort of a public diary to let me organize my own China thoughts.