The 2013 Chinese Super League Winners - Guangzhou Evergrande

Just 2 days ago, Guangzhou Evergrande won the Chinese Super League for the 3rd consecutive year. Evergrande staff just released this image with the quote "be the best forever" but just how long will their dominance last?

However, this doesn't come as much of a surprise seing as they have players such as Dario Conca, Muriqui, Elkeson and Gao Lin. Furthermore, their coach, Marcello Lippi won the 2006 WC with the Italian national team, quite an impressive résumé for the coach of a Chinese league team. His move to china may have been slightly influenced by the two and a half year deal that Lippi currently has with the club, worth around 30 million euros, whereas Conca is earning around 12.5 million euros a year, placing him within the top 20 highest paid footballers of 2012 (above Ribery and Buffon).

Within the Chinese super league, Guangzhou Evergrande make clubs such as Monaco and PSG seem stingy when taking into consideration the amounts invested by surrounding clubs within their league. Not surprising when taking into consideration the fact that Evergrande Real Estate Group Ltd., the country's leading property developer, has the been the owner of the club since 2009.

The club has greater ambitions than just their relatively simple dominance on domestic turf. They are currently in the final of the AFC champions league and are due to play the first leg vs FC Seoul on the 26th of October  with the 2nd leg taking place on the 9th of November. Thus, the international stage is their new target, however it may still be a while before they're ready to take on teams such as Real Madrid(click here to see the highlights of the 7 - 1 bloodbath vs RM that took place in 2011).

Jimmy Kimmel Youtube Challenges

I don't personally watch the guys show, but these challenges he sets to parents on youtube are hilarious. He seems to be making it his mission to become america's kids most hated celebrity. It's literally impossible to watch one without watching the others.

I told my kids I ate all their halloween candy

I told my kids I ate all their halloween candy again

I gave my kids a terrible present

I gave my kids a terrible present again

Football in China

The current state of Chinese football

The above occurred at China's national sports meeting, it is probably quite an accurate decryption of the state of Chinese football. As you are probably aware the Chinese do not have the best of reputations in football but just how long will this reputation follow them? Last year the Chinese super league welcomed players such as Nicolas Anelka and Didier Drogba whom were playing alongside one another for Shanghai Shenhua. After 6 months of being there, Drogba only managed to drag the team from 13th to 9th place with 8 goals in 11 games , and Anelka maintained his impeccable reputation of being a lazy french bastard(just in case anyone forgot about the strikes in the 2010 WC) with 3 goals in 22 appearances.

It's not all doom and gloom

They currently have a couple of initiatives going to stimulate the growth of this sport within their country. One of them is could Vision China which is an attempt to set Chinese football standards as the highest in Asia. 

"At present, it is a 10-year plan, during which China wants to become a superpower in Asian football and rank in the top 20 in the world"

Not exactly achieved yet considering the state of its national team when compared to that of South Korea and Japan. Furthermore, North Korea managed to qualify for the world cup whereas the Chinese national team will be watching at home. However, if the Chinese business tycoons keep chucking ridiculous sums of money at some of the big names in football, it won't be too long til the next generation are nurtured within a football loving culture. When you think about, with a population of more than 1.3 billion, there's bound to be one or two Chinese Messi's lurking out there(but then again, there are countries like India whom seem to be athletically retarded).

My experience in Changzhou

Upon arriving in Changzhou I was pretty keen on playing some football, and after a week I managed to meet up with people through facebook for a quick 5-a-side kick-about. Needless to say, the level over here is a bit of a joke compared to England, but when surrounded by the right people, you can get some decent games going. There doesn't seem to be too much 11-a-side activity, and the 5-a-side's I usually play tend to mainly be with laowai(what the Chinese call us foreigners). Most of the locals who play here seem to be around 30 years old and up. This further illustrates the issue that most Chinese youngsters are simply not interested by the sport.

Shopping for football supplies in China

In terms of purchasing any football equipment, if you walk into a Nike or Adidas store, at the very best, they will have a Bayern Munich or Chelsea shirt on display, but it pretty much stops there. There's a wonderful website called taobao which sells everything and anything (you just need to know the pinyin for the item you want). I managed to purchase a 2012/13 Ajax away kit on it(not because I support the team or anything, just because the kit is awesome) for 88RMB which works out at around 9GBP(pretty sure it's fake but can't complain as I can't tell the difference). I haven't been having as much success with food shopping though, I can't seem to find creme fraiche anywhere in this country.

The greatest Bachelor party in the history of mankind?

A brilliant montage of an extremely important moment in this guy's life. The ingeniousness of his friends must be on par with the bond they have created with the bachelor. Take a couple of minutes to watch this beautifully inspiring video, you won't regret it. Just in case you do regret it, I will not refund your lost time(I warned you in my initial post to not listen to my advice).

Living in Changzhou, China

Where am I?

I've been over here for about 2 months so far, i'm living in a city called Changzhou, just East of Shanghai.

The city of Changzhou doesn't have much going for itself in terms of touristic attractions (apart from its dinosaur park if you have young children). However, its location is pretty convenient as it is within an hour or two from cities such as Suzhou (the little Venice of China), Nanjing (where the rape of Nanking occurred), Shanghai (well, shanghai...) and Hangzhou (has a huge lake and is surrounded by some lovely temples and mountains).

Arriving in China

As I had never traveled to Asia prior to this, I didn't really know what to expect from China. The first thing that surprised and affected me the most was the fact that it is extremely rare to find English speakers. Once arrived at the Pu Dong airport of Shanghai we were trying to contact the individual whom was supposed to pick us up. However, using Chinese phone booths and buying a Chinese sim card wasn't as easy of a feat as one would expect. Even the people at the tourist information desk only spoke 1 or 2 words of English. I've only really got myself to blame in this situation though as I was the one in a foreign country armed with only a handful of words in their language:

• Nihao = Hello
• Xie xie = Thanks
• Wo bu dong = I don't understand

My Chinese has since evolved and I can proudly say that my Chinese cursing is second to none(but I still can't ask for bananas from my local supermarket).

The second shock was how developed everything was. Before coming over, I had this image of China having men running around carrying people in carts everywhere such as the guys on the right here (slight exaggeration). But as a matter of fact, the cars on the roads were all decent, quite a few BMWs and Mercs driving around and it's not uncommon to see the odd pink Bentley continental or pimped out Audi tt drive by.

I jumped on the tube to the other end of Shanghai to catch my train and was amazed by the fact that wifi was available throughout the whole line, something that we have yet to achieve on the London underground. Needless to say, the dates at which the two systems of transportation were built are decades apart, but it was not something I was expecting.

Once arrived at the station, Ticket lines were extremely long and I had to display my passport in order to purchase a train ticket(apparently this is to avoid mass purchases from one individual whom will then resell the tickets at a greater price). Queuing is something that is embedded deeply within the British culture, however the way they queue in China is quite different. You literally have to have your belly touching the person in front of you in the queue, if not some sneaky Chinese man will come along and squeeze into the slightest gap of opportunity you give him. 

Another baffling difference in culture between the English and the Chinese is that over here they do not wait for you to get off the train/tube/elevator/bus before jumping on. It seems quite backwards to me because it just lengthens the duration of the stop seeing as it slows down the whole process of disembarking -> embarking. At first it angered me, but by now I have embraced the madness and treat every disembarkation as a rugby scrum.

On the train itself, it was quite noisy, there seems to be some kind of resistance against the use of headphones in this country. Everybody was watching movies on their ipads with loudspeaker on. Some passengers had brought this spiky fruit called durian on the train with them, which was releasing some of the worst odors. If you're ever given the opportunity, do not eat that fruit.