Well it's a shame that I can't be home this year to celebrate Christmas in Aus but I'm sure you'll be thinking of me while I'm working a 6 day week over Christmas - taking a training course which is going to be delivered in Chinese. I wish I could say my Chinese was that good but sadly after two years it's not and I'm probably going to be very very bored.

Now given that this email is going to reach such a varied audience, I'm not really sure that I want to be publishing all the crazy things that happened in 2007. However, at the risk of writing a boring letter let's just say that at least one of the stories in this letter is not true to allow my parents the comfort of denial :)

I think I've become a little more superstitious since living in China and I'd have to say that 2008 is promising to be a lucky year given a new Australian prime minister who can speak Chinese (I've listened to him on youtube and I'd have to say he's pretty good), a bunch of friends who are coming to visit me, the Beijing 2008 Olympic games and of course my sisters wedding (albeit to an Englishman - haha).

First let's backtrack to late 2006 when I was emptying my friend's bed pan in a Chinese military hospital. The hospital is located in the lesser known town of Dali in the western province of Yunan. At the time I was just concentrating on not letting the urine spill out over the top while I was walking it down the corridor, however after I tipped it down the squat toilet with no door, I realised that China was proving to be a very interesting place and I should try and stick around for another year.

Things worked out because my friend Nemanja managed to live through his third world hospital experience and I managed to negotiate a somewhat reasonable (by Chinese standards) contract with my employer which committed me to another year in Beijing.

My house mate in 2006, Ben, finished up at the end of his 1 year work contract and I moved 25 floors up into an identical apartment with a guy named Pete from Idaho, USA who I met in a bar a month earlier. This is where I was going to stay for 2007 (almost, but let's get to that later).

I've been on a few travelling adventures this year, 1 week in Korea, 3 weeks in Thailand, 2 business trips to London for a month, a weekend in Paris and some domestic weekend trips to Qingdao, Harbin, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Ningbo and Cixi - geez I'd forgotten how much travelling I'd done.

I went (actually lucky to get there) to the Harbin ice festival with my house mate Pete in January. We were out on the town for the whole night before we were to leave, arriving home feeling very dirty to be watching the sun come up. We sat around for another couple of hours drinking some beers when I asked Pete

Trevor: "hey mate what time is our flight today?"

Pete: "8:30, why? What time is it now?"

Trevor: "8 o'clock".

Pete: "shit start packing"

We packed very fast but only managed to get to the airport at 8:45am and had well and truly missed our flight. As we were preparing to get out of the taxi I realised I only had 20RMB and the taxi fare was 80RMB. I asked Pete to fix up the difference but he had no cash on him at all. The taxi driver started to freak out and Pete told him not to worry, I was to stay in the car and he would go inside, get some money from the ATM and return within 5 minutes. 1/2 an hour later and Pete still not back, the taxi driver had me on the sidewalk searching through Pete's and my bag looking for change. Not finding any the taxi driver just gave me his business card and told me to call him when I get back to Beijing to fix up the difference. Feeling really embarrassed and somewhat seedy I walk into the airport but couldn't find Pete anywhere. I searched both the domestic and international terminal and he wasn't answering his mobile phone. I decided to give him one last call and if he didn't answer I was going home. Surprisingly he answered and said he was back at the apartment. He said that he'd walked into the terminal, got some money, returned back outside and the taxi had gone. He then decided to hop in the next taxi and go home. I'm pretty sure he'd just got confused on his way out of the terminal and returned back to the wrong location. He'd left his mobile phone in the apartment which is why he wasn't answering it. After a few stern words we'd sorted out our differences and he decided to get back into another taxi and head back to the airport so we could try to catch a later flight. He flagged a cab on the street, jumped in and directed the driver to take him to the airport. As he said that the taxi driver turned around and said "hey I know you, you owe me 60RMB from the taxi fare you didn't pay me to take you to the airport the first time round". Out of the 60,000 taxis in Beijing Pete had managed to get into the same one he'd screwed over 1 hour earlier. After paying back the money owed to the taxi driver with a nice tip he was back at the airport and we caught the afternoon flight to Harbin. The ice festival was amazing and I'm going to go back again in 2008. I think it's true that the best part about going somewhere is the journey.

Another interesting trip this year was down to Ningbo in October to celebrate my friend Chris's 30th Birthday. He's been living down that way for a year and put on a good few days to mark the occasion. While we were there I got myself a tattoo on my right shoulder and Chris decided he'd get the number 30 tattoo'd on his right arse cheek. A funny tattoo which he likes to show off to anybody who asks his age, but I'm pretty sure it's only going to be cool for about 1 year. Haha, never mind it's a funny story and I don't think he plans on exposing it much in the years to come. Also congratulations to him and Jane for getting engaged this year and I'm happy to have you both living in my room at the moment while I'm sleeping on the kitchen floor until you guys manage to find some new jobs and your own apartment in Beijing :) - actually I really am happy to have you guys back in Beijing.

In May I went to Korea on another trip with my housemate Pete. You think I would have learnt my lesson from the Harbin trip but I guess Harbin was kind of fun so I thought Seoul could offer some more excitement.

Our flights were upgraded and we flew business class for the first time in my life - kind of cool. Once we arrived I quickly realised how poor our planning had been as we were standing in the middle of Seoul with no hotel booking, map or anyone to help us. We walked around for a bit and I asked Pete "hey Pete, I think we really need to ask someone for some help", before he had a chance to reply an attractive Korean women appeared and in perfect English asked if she could help us with something. To which Peter replied "yeah we're looking for a love hotel, do you know any good ones around here?" She was a little stunned and explained how she doesn't need to use those sort of places but obliged by calling one of her friends for advice. We couldn't understand her Korean phone conversation except for the laughter, although I'm pretty sure she was saying that she just bumped into a gay couple on their honeymoon from the west. We explained to her that the only reason we were looking for a love hotel was because we heard they were cheaper. Not really buying our story she led us to the loca Ibis hotel.

That night we went out with one of Pete's friend from Idaho and her friend from Canada who lives in Seoul. It started with Korean BBQ, Soju (Korean alcohol similar to Japanese Saki) and ended with a lost credit card, lost camera, a lost jacket and me hopelessly lost on the streets. To make things more difficult, Pete had mysteriously disappeared and taken the business card with the address of the hotel with him.

As the sun came up and people were heading to work, I (still a little incoherent) checked with the locals to see if anyone knew where the Ibis hotel was - where was that Korean lady with the perfect English when you really needed her. Eventually a hotel concierge was able to understand what I was saying and pointed me in the right direction. I made it back to the hotel around 9am to find Pete in a deep sleep in his bed. I guess he didn't have as much trouble as I did.

On a different note, I don't have a girlfriend at the moment but I did manage to meet someone at the end of last year which lasted until roughly the middle of this year. It then became an on again, off again thing but now it's definitely an off and not to be on again thing ? All and all nothing really that exciting to report on this front.

I did however have an ex-girlfriend from last year come back to Beijing for a visit. She went to France to work as a nanny and I'd met up with her earlier in the year in Paris. When she left me and China behind, she was a lovely stable women, however when she returned she was anything but.

When I met her in Paris she was fairly poor and was living in a small apartment on the suburban outskirts with 7 other Chinese. Her bed was the couch that she shared with another woman. She was supposed to be working in Bordeaux as a Nanny but the family had accused her of being a paedophile and threatened to take her to the police. I'm not exactly sure what the story was but she fled to Paris and took refuge in this share house. Without any work or qualifications, she found odd jobs sticking advertisements on walls around the city. The hours were long and the money was not good. I was only in Paris for a couple of days but it was obvious to me that her personality had changed a great deal from when I knew her before. I think the harshness of poverty and being in a foreign land had taken its toll on her. Anyways, it was nice to see her and I kept in contact via email when I returned to Beijing.

A month or two later I was sitting in the office and I got a message from an unknown mobile number that said "hurry up and come home, I'm waiting for you". Not knowing who it was I called the number a man answered. I asked him if he'd sent me this message and he said that a women had borrowed his phone and she was waiting outside my apartment for me. I went home and found my ex-girlfriend sitting out the front of my place - she had just flown back from Paris. I started to talk to her and she told me that after I left Paris she found work in a Chinese massage parlour and was earning good money now and had come back to Beijing for a holiday. I enquired as to the nature of the work and she said that it was not the most reputable establishment - but I shouldn't worry because she was not involved in any of the shadier sides of the business. I wanted to believe her but I didn't.

It shocked me that she returned to Beijing and didn't give me any forewarning. I asked her how long she was going to stay and she wouldn't tell me. Even though we were still friends, it was clear to me that she was no longer the person I knew the year before and I didn't offer for her to stay at my place. In fact I didn't really want to see her at all. Over the next week she kept calling me but I didn't make time to meet her. She became more and more desperate and one day waited outside my apartment for 5 hours. I finally went out to see her and explained that I didn't want to see her again. It was a twisted conversation and I ended up just walking away. She continued to message me and I responded intermittently. Some more days passed and then she sent me a message warning me about living in China. I took it as a threat and stopped communicating with her. I got a message a week or two later that said she was on the way to the airport and would like to apologise for the messages she'd sent earlier. I haven't seen her since.

On a more jovial note, I had a brush with fame this year and I didn't even realise it. I was at a work function that I'd been invited to by a media company customer of ours. I was just there as the token white guy and really had no clue who I was mingling with. I think that kind of worked to my advantage as I struck up a conversation with a lady who was voted best actress in China 2006. I think she was refreshingly shocked by my complete lack of understanding of who she was and obliged with a nice polite conversation. After the conversation ended I moved on to talk to my Chinese workmate (who was sitting in the corner, too intimidated to venture out) who gave me the rundown on everyone's profiles.

A few minutes earlier, one of the Hong Kong producers had asked me if I knew any foreigners (code for white people) interested in working for a new film distribution company that she was starting in Beijing. Not thinking much of it at the time when she told me, I now realised that this is a good job opportunity. At that time my house mate Pete was looking for a new job, so once I got home I passed the info onto him and he chased it up and managed to get an "executive film distributor" position with this start up company. If I only knew what was to happen with my job in the near future I wouldn't have been so keen to pass this opportunity on.

That brings me to my working situation for 2007. Working and living in Beijing this year has been a little difficult. Had I known how things were going to turn I'm sure I wouldn't have signed on for that extra year with Sinocode. The quick story is 6 visa changes, 3 different jobs, 2 house moves, 2 compensation payouts, a bank account balance reaching 10RMB (2cents) and a pending investigation from the Chinese Public Security Bureau.

The longer story starts with the company that brought me over here, Sinocode. This was a tough job as I was running multiple projects on tight timelines, had a lack of resources and was constantly working overtime. Not to mention spending a month out of the first three of 2007 living on a shoestring and being paid a Chinese wage in London, while my company billed me out at over 300 pounds a day. Things were definitely coming to a head. I decided to sit down and explain to my boss that I was going crazy in the job and I needed to get some work/life balance if he expected to keep me from going crazy. I was literally losing my mind and being paid a pittance for it, I didn't see the value in this. His response was that there is to be no recreational leave in the next 2 or 3 months as we were way to busy. I lasted another two weeks until I handed in my resignation.

I was supposed to give 2 months notice according to my contract however I tried to negotiate for 1 month without penalty. The company wouldn't agree to this so I told them that I'll leave after 3 days and pay out the compensation for breaking contract. It was going to cost me at least AU$3000 but I really couldn't keep going any longer. Things got really sour after I made the decision to pay out as I think they thought I would stick around for the 2 months. The office environment was becoming even more tense then usual. The final straw was a public office email that involved an argument between me and the CEO. It was petty but messages were shooting back and forth with "Reply to all". Not willing to take any more, I made an emotional decision and picked up my belongings and walked out. On my way to the elevator the CEO chased me out yelling and arguing trying to get me to stay. I still vividly remember the elevator doors closing while he continued to yell through the closing gap. The short trip down seamed unbearably long and silent as I noticed the other office workers in the elevator who had witnessed the whole thing. After paying out the contract I decided to take 3 weeks R&R in Thailand.

Not really realising it at the time, but not having a job is a little bit worrying. Actually I think the worst thing about being unemployed is the feeling of no self worth which comes from the feeling of having nothing to offer. I just assumed that getting a decent degree and a few years of related work experience would guarantee employment - as it turns out, not always. I was unemployed for over a month (and nearly on my way home) before I came across a nice little job working for a foreign mobile software development company in Beijing. I was to work on projects associated with the supporting infrastructure for their long distance mobile VOIP service.

The job was good and the people were good, the only problem was that it was taking me 1.5 hours to get to work every morning. I decided to move closer to the office, however not having much money after paying out my previous employer, spending 3 weeks in Thailand, a month of no income and another month ahead of me before I was going to get paid. I took a loan on my salary to put down the 4months rent necessary to rent a place. I moved myself by taxi and I was surprised how much I had accrued in just over 18months since I arrived carrying all my worldly possessions in my backpack.

I worked the first 3months of the job and things were going very well until one day when my workmate came into the office looking a little flustered. He took me out for a chat and explained that the company had been a little slow getting my work visa processed and the police had found out that the company had an illegal foreign employee (that illegal employee being me). After getting some legal advice the boss said that I'll have to work from home until the situation gets sorted out. I worked a couple of days but it was proving almost impossible to get anything done from home. So I met with my boss again and asked if he could just pay out the early contract termination fee and I'll be on my way. I was now really pissed off as I'd just stretched myself to find this job and move closer to it. I couldn't bear going through the unemployment thing again so I gave myself 2 weeks to find a job or I'll be on my way back to Aus.

Three days later I found myself in an interview with a German company who had just started up in China a year earlier. A little hesitant of working in a start up company again I became more interested when they said they wanted to deploy me as a consultant project manager to their biggest customer BMW China. The next Monday I was on the job and very quickly thrown in the deep end. It was tough but given my experiences working for Sinocode I now feel like I'm in work heaven.

The funny thing about this job is that it's located just down the road from where I used to live 3 months earlier, so it was again taking me a long time to get to work. I wanted to move back down there but my old house mate Pete had filled the room that I used to occupy in our old apartment, I had to start looking for something else. A week later I was ecstatic to find out that the French guy who took over my old room wasn't really enjoying it that much and was going to move! I jumped at the opportunity and a week later began moving back to my old room in my old apartment! Actually I just finished moving the last load of stuff earlier today.

So to finish up, I'd like to say that 2007 has been an interesting year and I've definitely had a rich set of experiences. The highs have been really high and the lows have been really low. Things have worked out for the best though and I'm really looking forward to 2008.

I hope this letter finds you well and I'm going to leave you with this quick little cartoon that shows you how the design was created for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!