Archive for the ‘Features’ Category
Goodbye, the Independent. You were good.
On the 13th of January, I visited the offices of the Independent. I was in London for a week. I met the editors of the foreign section, in person, for the first time. I’d been writing for them in Beijing.
They introduced me to their colleagues, bought me lunch, and kindly explained their daily schedule. I was given a tour of their offices. I even had a sit down meeting with the editor of the Independent, Amol Rajan, with whom I took a selfie.
Thirty days later, the owner of the Independent announced that the newspaper was to close.
These two events are unrelated. But seem to be in a series of events in my career where I felt I had seen a new dawn, that I was on the cusp of something — catching one of those all important “breaks” that you hear about.
Alas, it was just the latest in a line of false dawns. A catalogue of failure.
I’ve written before about how success in journalism can be illusory. How being published in a big newspaper, with your byline, can seem fantastic. But the glory quickly fades. And the financial compensation is paltry.
But you do it anyway.
The closure of a newspaper is always sad news and brings with it dozens of newly unemployed journalists. The Independent is and has been for some time the smallest of the national titles in the UK. But it punched above its weight, carrying big hitter writers and was renowned for its bold and agenda-setting front page splashes.
But you can only look to the future and consider where your next piece might be published.
Back in Beijing
I arrived in Beijing last Thursday, 25th February, and have been back for six days.
Right now I am staying on a friend’s couch, while I look for an apartment.
I’ve partied quite a bit since I’ve been back, catching up with friends and meeting new people. It’s been a good welcome back.
I’m also quite poor. I have enough to survive. But surviving in Beijing is a different level of survival, compared to say Paris or London. But I am worried about a few things: whether I’ll have enough cash to pay for apartment rents in advance plus the deposit and all that malarkey; whether I can make more money.
On Monday, I had an interview at a PR firm. I already have a freelance contract with said PR firm but I went to their office to discuss full-time work. I do not even like mentioning the letters “PR” on this blog, but in the interests of honesty I do so.
I mainly edit their copy, for this firm. It pays okay and still gives me plenty of time to freelance for journalism.
I haven’t done any more work on my novel since I’ve been back. But I’ve been trying to think about it and will, I hope, write more chapters soon.
This year I will try to move more into writing, rather than journalism. I’ll elaborate on that in another blog post.
I’ve had two good conversations since I’ve been back in Beijing: one with a young American girl and one with an older young Chinese girl.
It made me think about the promises and problems that arise from the idea of youth. How the promise lies in possibility and optimism and potential which gives youth that irresistible charge.The problem of youth comes from the feeling that you might be wasting it.
I won’t get all philosophical. Although I’m fairly clear about what it might mean. But I’m just living day by day right now, starting to send out pitches and trying to reestablish myself in the city. This city which I’ve come to know as a second home.
February 20th — in Thailand
I’ve been to Thailand before. It’s a fun place.
It’s 5.17am and I’m in my hotel room, just off the road, in some seedy town on the island of Phuket.
I’ve been here a few days and I’m still jetlagged, operating English hours under the hot, Thai sun.
I’m here for a week, making the most of cheap flights and southeast Asian weather, before returning to the grim cold of Beijing.
Today I woke up, went to buy a ticket to go to Krabi (I need to catch the boat in a couple of hours), had some food and then went back to my hotel.
I then slept until early evening, whereupon I took myself to the beach and swam, bobbing up and down until the sun sank into the ocean. I jumped up at that moment, the moment it disappeared, as if I could jump higher than the horizon.
I went back to the hotel and showered, and had dinner and then walked the length of the beach and back. (I did the drinking and the partying yesterday). Then I binge watched the show Californication. I took a break to write the rest of chapter one of a novel I’ve started writing. And continued my binge until I felt the urge to write again, which is where the past meets the present in this blog post.
I’m here alone, traveling solo. Several people have asked me about how it’s been, traveling alone — from the guy at the check-in at Heathrow airport, to the travel operator I bought my ticket to Krabi from, it seems like it’s almost a predicament rather than a position of possibility.
But I like traveling alone. You can do whatever you want. And right now, it’s unalloyed freedom. Balance is important and this week in the sun and the sea and the palm trees and the delicious pad thai and the sense of feeling you get from detaching from “reality” (which is often a reality spent staring at a screen and endless, pointless updates) is a week worth its weight in gold.
It’s a week that will sunny up the weeks to come, and help the creativity flow. I’m a writer and so I chose a week of sun. It seemed like a good idea.
VIDEO: Travel + Journalism in Burma
This video is the story of the time I spent in Burma. I went there in February 2015. I went there to travel and to do journalism. I wanted to see if I could combine the experience of traveling with the challenge of trying to find stories. As a freelancer, trying to travel and hunt down stories while you do so is a fun challenge. This was my first experiment trying to do that.
The benefits of traveling in this way are many. One of these is that you travel in a different way, as you try to get beneath the surface and look deeper than you might normally do. You also meet people, from locals to intrepid expats. The other big benefit of course is financial, as stories you find and sell helps to offset the money you spent traveling.
The video was shot using a Canon S120 and edited in Windows Movie Maker.
Related:
- Burmese Days — this is the written companion to the video above
- How I learned to love life and reporting again while in Burma
- After Burma, now I’m broke
The CNN article mentioned in the video is here.
The previous video I made is: A Year In The Life of a Freelance Journalist Abroad
Choices: how to make them in an age of anxiety
When I made the decision to go to Beijing, after graduating university, it was an instinctive decision. I knew that it was a choice that would have deep and long-lasting effects. And it has. It’s been a blast.
But after three years of Beijing there will come a time when I will want to make another decision. Whether to continue doing the same thing, or to branch out and pick another fig, and experience something completely new.
But how will I know, when I come to make that decision, that the choice I make, will be the right one?
The first couple of months I spent in Beijing were miserable. Lonely. Hard. This was autumn 2012. You won’t find any posts about those months on this blog because I wasn’t blogging back then. But I do remember looking at the ceiling, in my little rented bedroom, at night, feeling quite alone, and wondering whether what I was doing made any sense.
I didn’t know back then whether the decision to go to Beijing would pay off. I had no idea. I couldn’t predict the future.
The second year was better. There was more momentum, more serendipity. By the third year though, things waned. Got a bit stale. Some of that initial motivation had worn off. And I wondered why that was.
The clue was that I finally understood what the phrase “the struggle is the reward” meant.
Those initial months in Beijing were hard, but I was struggling towards something. That struggle gave a firmer narrative to life and a meaning to the misery. The struggle itself made everything rewarding, even the hardship — especially the hardship.
There was purpose in it.
A person I admire is Casey Neistat, a filmmaker. He recalled his first years in New York City, after moving there from small-town New England:
The hardest part was the loneliness, like I didn’t really know anyone in the city when I moved here. I remember going home after work to my tiny apartment and it was like, I had no-one to hang out with, I had no-one to call, I had nothing to do. And that lasted for like, I feel like years, of that kind of loneliness.
I spent a lot of time in my head, dreaming and fantasizing about the life in this city I aspired towards.
Elsewhere, on his YouTube channel, he talks about how he lived in closets, in tiny apartments, in his early years in NYC, sharing with illegal immigrants and ex-convicts. All in the pursuit of his dream, of making it in the city.
He’s now wildly successful, with two million subscribers to his YouTube channel, a tech company he founded, and what he calls a golden age, of his present situation.
But there is a sense I feel, from him, that there is a part of him that maybe misses the young, crazy, suffering, part of his life, when he was starving, and all ahead of him was wild potential and possibility.
I am not successful, not to any degree to how Casey Neistat is successful anyway, in my own field. But I’m no longer that young kid scrapping in Beijing, hungry and desperate for bylines.
So there needs to be a re-framing, a different narrative, as I transition toward a different period in my life.
Is there a conclusion to any of this?
Not really. I’ll let you know in a year or two.
I can’t predict the future.
A very thorough review of my university journalism degree course
Introduction
I did an undergraduate degree at Bournemouth University, where I studied from 2009-2012, leaving with a B.A in Multimedia Journalism.
Bournemouth University has one of the UK’s best media schools, and its journalism course is one of the top three in the country. I place City University’s journalism degree at the top simply because it’s in London and has a closer connection to the industry; enjoying the best speakers, guest lecturers and professional links. Rounding out the top three is the University of Central Lancashire (UCLAN), whose journalism course is one of the most venerable in the country.
I did not go to City University because at the time they did not do just a journalism degree, it was Journalism with History, and because Bournemouth Uni happens to be by the sea and didn’t look as depressing a location as Preston, where UCLAN is situated.
11th January — in Ninfield
I have been at home, living at my parent’s house. They live in a village called Ninfield, in southeast England. It’s about half an hour’s drive from Hastings, the seaside town where I grew up. Round here it’s green fields, country homes, and little churches.
It’s been raining a lot. Daffodils bloom outside due to the warmest December in Britain on record.
I’ve not had much to do. I do some editing for a PR firm. Wrote a couple of travel articles for an Aussie website which will pay well. Sent a couple of pitches out earlier this week.
But January is usually a quiet month for freelancers. Although if I was in China, I’d have quite a bit on my plate as there’s a lot going on right now.
There is not much to do in Ninfield. It’s a village so it’s a very small place. There are no cafes and just a few shops. There are two pubs and a post office. Mostly I’ve been at home, exercising a little on a camping mat I bought, and reading the internet and watching TV.
Occasionally I go out for a walk. It’s muddy and wet and the grass is very green. I’ve enjoyed the British weather and the countryside. I went walking one day and I was taking photos on my phone of the scenery. In front of me there was a field that sloped downward toward the horizon, with a farmstead at the bottom, and horses in the field.
One approached me after I had stood there for a while taking pictures. He probably was wondering what I was doing and wanted to take a look.
I am starting to get antsy cooped up at home. Wanderlust fills me. I am kinda glad I am not in Beijing right now. I know it well enough to know that Beijing in January is a dangerous place and I’ve always tended toward a bleak and depressed mood in the city at this time of year.
*
On Christmas eve, my old school friends and I will usually meet at a pub and have drinks. It’s a kind of tradition. We’ll also meet up at one of our friend’s houses for a catch-up and we’ll go play football. That’s also become a tradition.
We don’t see each other very often. Sometimes just once or twice a year.
One is in the army, having returned from Afghanistan. Another works for a medical company with wife and newborn son. Another works for a water company up north. Another is well traveled and often abroad.
*
Tomorrow I go to London. And the day after I go to a national newspaper’s office to meet editors with whom I’ve corresponded but have never met.
I’m also reading a book by a Norwegian. I’ve not read him before. I came upon a passage, in which the author writes about his experience having just moved to the north of Norway, to teach at a school, while he writes, at the age of 18. And I remembered a little how I felt at that age.
“All the books I liked were basically about the same topic…Books about young men who struggled to fit into society, who wanted more from life than routines, more from life than a family, in short, young men who hated middle-class values and sought freedom…Everything they wanted I wanted too”.
2016: things I should do
- Write a Novel
Even if it takes two years, the sense of completion I’d feel would be worth it. That I started and finished a novel. More than that, I think of how much I’d learn.
I am increasingly convinced that strong storytelling is the key, whether it’s in marketing, advertising, speechwriting, blogging, journalism, or “content creation”. That a deep understanding of narrative, story, and essence is the fundamental skill needed.
I already have a “model book”, that is, a book which I’ll study chapter by chapter; analyzing line by line what’s going on, after which I’ll produce my version. It’s writing-by-numbers you might think, but by learning the infrastructure and superstructure of a novel like this I think I’ll indelibly absorb something useful.
How do you tell a story, what are the mechanics of narrative, constructing a plot, creating a character, developing a character, describing a believable person with spark and breath on a page — dialogue, mood, and tone. All this I have some sense of from the dozens of novels I’ve read but I won’t know until I do it myself.
I think I’ll be able to better tell a story, write an article, design a campaign, once I understand the bones of something as large as a novel intimately.
2. Be a more global writer
Go to South Korea. Tokyo. Bangkok. Around China. Taiwan. HK. Try to be an Asia correspondent. Join the dots. Put the pieces together. How things relate. Write and report more from more places. Have a different experience.
3. Work on one or more “big stories”
An inspiring, romantic title, a journey, an adventure, a deep study of a subject worth exploring, something inspiring.
4. Consume less
I won’t be buying more clothes, unless I genuinely need it or I really love it. I won’t spend extra and indulge in food unless I actually feel like it. Spending–buying stuff are just boring, displacement activities that don’t mean anything. So I’ll cut down on this.
5. Connect with more people
Just put more effort into meeting more people, making genuine effort, and getting to know people.
6. Go to America
It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, especially checking out the national parks, the landscape and some of the cities. If anyone wants to be my guide, let me know. In general, I should do more of the things I’ve always wanted to do.
The disadvantages of being a freelance journalist…
…As it applies to me currently
I don’t get to have a “normal” routine. I don’t get a decent, comfortable salary. I don’t get benefits. I don’t get to meet celebrities. I don’t get as much access. I don’t get a clear path of progression. I don’t get to move to other countries, on someone else’s dime. I don’t get to have office chitchat and work friends. Or a regular sense of togetherness. I don’t get company trips or parties. I don’t get to take part in the editorial meeting. I don’t get to report daily. Or to be in that press conference. I don’t even get free coffee.
But I do look forward to Mondays more than most people.
I do get to wake up on Monday the 4th of January and idly wonder what the day will bring…
While you were gone
Some might think going abroad and living somewhere strange is full of fear.
And they wouldn’t be wrong.
I spent my early to mid twenties in a polluted, giant city. And I would be lying if I said there weren’t some hard, lonely and depressing times.
But I learned things.
I grew.
I became more of myself.
I got to know people — from China obviously, and from Italy, France, Germany, Japan, Australia, Korea, Canada, and other places. I got to know Americans. Quite a number.
Some of them became friends. Some of them became friends and then became not.
Some were just people you knew, had a great time with, got drunk with — pushed together by fate and circumstance. We didn’t know what was in front of us, in the future, or the significance of what we had just left behind.
We might have had plans. We might have had ambitions. We might have had more beers.
We didn’t know what was in store, whether it was ruin or reward.
We didn’t know if it was the best decision. Or the worst mistake of our lives. We didn’t know if we were forming memories, to be remembered long afterward, or just passing through, the next day obliterating the one just gone. But there was one thing we could be sure of at least.
We really did know how to party.
To all souls about to embark on 2016, good luck and have a happy new year
Lu-Hai Liang 