I always look forward to the surprises that a festival and national hIoliday in China brings. This particular week the highlight was always going to be the celebration of Qingming, also known as Tomb sweeping day. It is a celebration of spring which falls on the first day of the fifth solar term, unsurprisingly called Qingming. This is the 15th day after the spring equinox.

I had a real sense this week of life moving towards a recognisable normality that has for some time felt absent from my world. Since coming back to live Beijing I have experienced a feeling of unreality and accepting that my current situation is actually my life, is a reality that is too intangible to grasp. I know that the absence of routine has contributed to this feeling along with a lack of purpose and I was discovering that attending play club and the acting workshops at Cozmikk as well as teaching English online were starting to dispel the sense that I am permanently on holiday.

Several times since I returned to Beijing in July of 2024 I have berated myself for losing momentum on pursing a career here. Before I left universal and returned to the UK for three months almost 1 year ago I met with a talent agency called Cozmikk who were very positive and I arranged to contact them on my return in July of 2024.

I hadn’t expected to be scouring the streets of the location I found myself in when I first arrived in China in January 2020. Then, I had booked myself a hotel based on its cost and its proximity to to Beijing Railway station where I was arriving. The streets when were completely alien to me and as often in these circumstances I allowed the taxi driver to take me a circuitous route without any idea of cost or honesty.

I am far from the land and routines of life that for nigh on 60 years I called home. The people, places and pasttimes that occupied me are now completely a thing of the past and when I am compelled to think about them I am thrown off centre. Life in Brighton had been full of creativity and performance supplemented with a strong attachment to a number of friends and people I would see on a regular basis and when it came to performance, the many friends I that collaborated with.

I was joining Peng in Tokyo on Wednesday and when the week started I was very aware that I needed to complete a number of tasks to be ready for the flight and if I hadn’t needed to pay a visit to China Post I might not even have gone out. I spent some time in the morning cleaning and finalising packing before heading to the post office in the afternoon.

I was to be left to my own devices as Peng had business in Hong Kong and Shanghai for a week. I probably could have, should have planned for a trip away but I didn’t have the will power to organise myself, particularlly as the following week I was joining Peng in Tokyo for the marathon. Keeping it simple seemed to be the best choice and that is exactly what we did on Monday 17th.

Fifteen day of celebrating were coming to an end. It hadn't been not stop celebration but there had been much activity and focus on the small rituals which had provided immense fun. On Monday morning and facing the end of New Year on Wednesday we were in the mood for treating ourselves and I went to the market across the road at 7 am to get Jianbing for breakfast.

Of course, there is a reason it is known as the Spring festival, Li Chun, 立春, the Start of Spring is the first of the 24 Solar terms and it falls on February the 3rd. This is an utterly premature claim for most of China as it seems to have transitioned into the coldest period of the year other than the country’s most southern provinces.

I think it may now be untoward to label the Lunar calendar as ‘Chinese’ considering the other countries that follow this tradition. However, UNESCO have recognised the Spring Festival as a Chinese intangible cultural heritage and as such the dawning of the new year seems inextricably linked with Chinese culture. In this spirit I was ready to greet the new year; apartment deep cleaned , hair cut, kitchen thoroughly cleaned and the kitchen god sent off to the Jade Emperor and all that was left was for the new year of the Snake to come slithering along and bringing with it health, prosperity, happiness and good fortune.

When I woke on the morning of 13th January 2025, I sensed a heaviness about my being that made it difficult to drag my limbs out of bed. it wasn't a heaviness of body, or of heart but one of fatigue and aches and demeanour. I did get up though and went to the Post office to send a New Home card to Peng's cousin Jieyu and his wife Cui.

There is not much that I am squeamish about, but when it comes meat I have to confess I am faint of heart. Therefore, on Monday morning when we drove to Fengtai to pick up Peng’s parents for a shopping trip to Xinfadi, Beijing's largest wholesale food market, to purchase food for the Chinese New Year, I was somewhat nervous.

Christmas had come and gone in a blaze of activity and now the New year bore down on us with a rapidity that already exhausted me before its had even begun. It felt like light years had passed in between the end of 2023 and the end of 2024 and though I found myself in the same place on earth, my circumstances had shifted dramatically.

There was not a sight of the seasons in Beijing that surpassed any others than that of autumn, when the ginko trees turn their unique umbrella shaped leaves yellow overnight. No matter the weather, blue or grey skies, the shade of yellow is electrifying and brings out the amateur photographers, the posers, the professionals to capture the vision in its most dramatic moments.

I really do have my explorers hat on. I am not sure if this a tactic to fuel my need to procrastinate or if the passion to discover new places and things is just too overwhelming. Whatever motive lies behind these actions it is getting me out and about in the city and discovering some less popular yet still fascinating aspects of Beijing.

I am often asked, "Do the Chinese celebrate Christmas"? The simple answer is no. The complicated answer is 'kind of'. The influence of the west and its celebrations is present in China, even halloween has wheedled its way into the calendar. Where there is a hospitality western presence Christmas is present, where there are christian Chinese, Christmas is present where there are commercial concerns it seems Christmas is present.

It is without doubt an overstated claim to call myself a prisoner but it was with some shock on Wednesday that I realised I had not left the apartment for four days and with the sun shining and work complete I was determined that day to escape my self imposed prison. I had one more room to paint when Monday 15th of December rolled around; exploding into being with a beautiful dramatic sunrise and it took me another two days to finish the revamp of the apartment.

Living out of a suitcase certainly has it charms and when that suitcase gives you quality time with family and on this occasion with one of your sons, then its appeal is much longed for. This transitory lifestyle though does need to have an ending and on Monday 9th of December that end had been reached, though not before a final meeting and sightseeing opportunity.

It is thrilling to wake up and be in a new country, a new city. And the sense of joy I experienced as I looked out on Tuesday Morning at Taipeis answer to Shibuya crossing in Tokyo was immense. Having arrived in Taiwan at midnight Monday night and not getting to bed until 2pm I took a long time to actually get going, despite waking at 7am…