Balwant Sanghera
LINK COLUMNIST
Going back to homeland isalways an exciting experience.Our Air China flight fromVancouver to Beijing left YVRon time. It was rather a longflight of eleven and one halfhours. This had an advantage asit gave me a lot of time to scana number of newspapers coveringthe region. The coverage inthese newspapers about Chinaand its neighbours was quiteextensive. One major issue thatseems to be in the headlinesappears to be the fate of theDiaoyu Islands in the regionbetween China and Japan. Anystatement made on this issue byeither of these countries getsimmediate reaction from theother. Take for example, TheGlobal Times issue of January24.Japanese Prime Minister ShinzoAbe had said something in thisregard. The reaction from theChinese government was swift:“ Japan’s Prime Minister nevermisses an opportunity to talk ofthreat…Why would Japan, a littlenation ,try to encircleChina?” Similarly, there was a lotof reaction around a number ofother issues.Beijing’s Capital InternationalAirport is huge. The 2008Olympics have completelytransformed the airport and theCity. It was reported that thiscapital city of China is nowhome to more than 21 millionpeople. In 2013 alone, thismetropolis added nearly half amillion more to its population.This is like adding the entirepopulation of Surrey to it in justone year..More than 8 million ofthese residents were migrantswho have been in the city forover half a year. Despite numerousproblems, Beijing continuesto be a major attraction formigrants and visitors alike.As New Delhi was fogged in ,we had to wait for twelve hoursto be flown out of Beijing andinto New Delhi InternationalAirport. As it was January 26celebrations ,there was a lot ofsecurity visible throughout thecity. Once out of the city, thetraffic congestion became better.We had couple of stopoverson the way to eat. It was adelight again to savour deliciousfood at some of the major foodoutlets along the way. The teawas specially tasty. It took usalmost eight hours to arrive athome. Also the national highwayfrom Delhi to Punjab is infairly good shape.Our relatives were eagerly waitingfor us. It was quite a relief tobe home after being on the road(airplanes and airport lounges)for almost 36 hours. Even oneyear old grand daughter of mynephew stayed up at that latehour to welcome us. We havejust started visiting relatives andfriends . On the whole, thingsseem to be moving along asusual. Everyone seems to begearing up for the upcomingelections to the Lok Sabha. Thisis the prime season for weddingsin the Punjab. As such, NRIscan be seen everywhere. As amatter f fact, in the next coupleof weeks my wife and I will beattending at least three weddingsin the family. It should be a lotof fun.Link Columnist Balwant Sanghera,a retired School Psychologist andCommunity Activist, is currently on avisit to India.
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