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2005-05-12 - 12:03 a.m.

Havana, Cuba

I�m being tailed by Mr Yang. He�s a Chinese businessman out here to see how he can become even more of a billionaire than he already is by exploiting a country he tells me �is like bloody China fifty years ago lot of poor people and that�. His pursuit isn�t sexual in nature � Mr Yang has embraced the rampant heterosexuality of the west � it�s more of an economic interest, which is laughable when you think that I�m balking at even Cuban prices half the time.

He thinks that because I�m on the trip, I must be some kind of jetsetting tourism magnate and he keeps saying things like �I want very deep meeting with you for money�. I swear he�s not gay. We did a hotel inspection this morning and he initiated some kind of weird soft porn photo shoot with his pretty young �personal assistant�, much to the extreme bafflement of all who witnessed it.

The society here is hard to get a handle on. It�s more profitable to be a hotel doorman than it is a heart surgeon, and it�s only just less profitable to do nothing at all, and there�s lots of people seemingly happy to just stand around stretching on the street, moving slowly but very deliberately and thinking about the socialist struggle. T�ai Che anyone?

Even if you do accumulate wealth of any kind, there�s not much you can do with it apart from go and wave it in Mr Yang�s face. It�s illegal to buy or sell property, and you�re pretty much stuck with whatever crumbling pile you grew up in unless you can find some unsuspecting chump and pull the old switcheroo.

On one hand, I�m all for a country that can tell the USA to go flip itself for three decades, and there are lashings of culture. Literacy rates are sky high and healthcare is fantastic when the surgeons aren�t moonlighting as hotel doormen. But the cost is high, and food rationing, insane amounts of prohibitive legislation and a compulsory interest in salsa dancing seem a lot to pay.

Mr Yang has is own theory about the delicate balance of ideology and social welfare. He pulled me aside in the Museum of Cuban Art and whispered: �They should forget bloody communism! Just like in China��. Easier said than done, I offered, and I thought maybe I�m wrong, but I think only the Chinese that have already trousered several bajillion dollars have �forgotten� communism. I would have taken it up with Mr Yang, but he was already getting his girlfriend to pose suggestively next to some arty propaganda. Perhaps he sidelines as staff photographer for Revolution Slut Monthly or something (�Putting the �Red� in �Unbared��).

The general level of musicianship is astounding, though, at least it appears to be. I was on the verge of buying a CD of a particularly charismatic bunch of street musicians, even though they were playing �La Bamba�. Some Brit yob came up next to me, CD in hand, and said �Play track four�. They looked at each other sheepishly, and whatever track four was, all they could do was apologetically churn out La Bamba.

The rest of the forty strong group are shunning the three Brits, even though we haven�t even done anything apart from show a blatant disregard for attempting any foreign languages and constantly glowered at them all from the back of the bus. Some people, eh?

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