Stearns in China

Correction of the year

2008-06-14T01:29:00.001-07:00

Sorry everyone, for the typo in my previous message of the word “plaque”. I hope it did not cause anybody any physical problem except a laugh at me and the computer who automatically corrects typos.

Thanks!

[redacted]

Just in case we were wondering why there was a plague awarding ceremony.

The pain of cultural exchange

2008-06-13T17:28:00.000-07:00

Here's Kyle, another illustrious ELC teacher, trying out some sinus medicine that his Chinese mother-in-law gave him.

Swatow typhoon, good. Stinky river, bad.

2008-06-12T10:18:00.000-07:00

At BBQ tonight--the last of my Shantou career--Kyle and Carol, the primary concoctors behind the several Shantou drink mixtures, brought us samples of both the Swatow Typhoon and the Stinky River.

The Swatow typhoon consists of Tuopu (the 'poo) rice wine, which was apparently used in the cleanup of the 19-20 or -30 something typhoon to cover the stench of rotting corpses (up to 60% of the town was killed in the storm. I know... Jesus), Redbull, and Pineapple beer (to give it that tropical je-ne-sais-quois). Distinctly potable.

Next on the menu was the abortive Stinky river. I paid less attention to the ingredients of this one, but I know that chunks of Durian fruit, Coca Cola and satay sauce were among the culprits. Eeewww.

The highlight of the night, drinkwise at least, was when Pat pulled out a bottle of Patron that she'd been stashing since December and poured out doubles to those of us who were lucky enough to be there early. Definitely a nice sipping tequila.

I smell the ELC

2008-06-12T10:12:00.000-07:00

James Fallows, of the Atlantic fame, recently posted this spam he got from a company in Shenzhen that makes many difference kind of batteries. I think I smell an ELC graduate behind these words, and given that Shenzhen is a hop, skip and a jump away from here, I think it's entirely appropriate to assume that we had something to do with the following:

Dear Sir/ Madam,
Good day.
We has started doing research on spiral lead acid battery since 2003.
We are the fourth manufacturer after OPTIMA, CYLON and EXIDE, who can produce spiral lead acid batteries in series.And we are the only one in China up to now.Our products range from 2V, 2.5AH to 12V, 75AH.We adopt automatic production, and got certificate of UL, CE, ect.
We are now looking for strategic cooperator, no matter homeland or overseas, only if you have wished to do business on spiral lead acid batteries, pls feel free to contact with us!
Attached some spec and pictures, pls check it. We are looking forward for your prompt reply.
Thnanks and best regards.
XXXX BATTERY CO.,LTD

I'd be particularly proud to learn that the writer was using etc. instead of 'and so on' as a result of the herculean efforts of one of my colleagues.

Sometimes it's just not better

2008-06-02T19:07:00.000-07:00

to put something into your own words: "he ever experienced a plangent love with a beautiful girl who had blue blood." 'A' for effort.

Technically true...

2008-06-01T16:12:00.000-07:00

Free exchange has a post relating that the price of beer in China "IS SURPRISINGLY low, according to PintPrice.com—only $2.46 per pint. Expect to see joy on the faces of Norwegians at the Olympics, then; they're used to paying almost $12 for the stuff." I think calling beer "the stuff," as though there were some uniformity in the world's swills, is a little misleading. Chinese beer is cheap indeed, but before the Norwegians get all jazzed up over this, they need to do some soul searching and think long and hard about what they mean when they think "beer." I'm not saying I stay away from Chinese brews by any means, but I always have the pretty distinct sensation that I'm getting what I paid for.

And you thought you were weird....

2008-05-31T18:01:00.000-07:00

Here's a blog dedicated to neuroses. Some choice examples:

If I accidently tap my pinky on a table, that’s ONE, and I must complete a 100-count: the four fingers left on one hand (5), the five fingers on the other hand (10), then 10 fingers together (20) and again (30), and so on until 100.

I can’t stand drying my hands with any kind of towel if only one hand is wet. I have to purposefully make the other hand wet and then dry them both at the same time, because the feeling of one dry hand rubbing against a towel makes me want to hurl.

Makes me feel a little better about Wilson, my volleyball friend.

HT:Daily Dish

Vigil for the quake

2008-05-21T08:05:00.001-07:00

Tonight the school held a big candle light vigil for the tens of thousands of people who died and the people who are missing them. Here are some pictures I took of the event.

Predestination

2008-05-21T07:14:00.000-07:00

I guess they've had their eyes on the Olympics for a long time... This is in the sidewalk in the New Summer Palace in Beijing, which was built around 1750.

Seems like a fair enough assessment of the situation.

2008-05-20T00:32:00.000-07:00

Yesterday in class, we played a geopolitical role-playing game to wrap up our unit on the millitary. Each table group was a fictional country and they had to develop policies and strategies in response to new political happenings in the made up world of our class. One of the developments was the discovery of large oil deposits in the CLR. In response, one of the other countries, I think it might have been Watzistan, decided that the CLR must have 'very dangerous weapons' and needed to be invaded for the good of the international community. Kids and their games, right?

A moment of sirens

2008-05-20T00:00:00.000-07:00

The government has announced three days of mourning for the casualties of last week's quake. Yesterday, at exactly 2:28 sirens began a three minute wail in mourning for those who died in the earthquake exactly seven days prior. During the three minutes of reflection, it occured to me that there were somewhere on the order of a billion other people doing exactly what I was doing and thinking about the same thing as I was at the exact time I was. It's wierd being somewhere capable of coordinating anything that big. 四川加油！汶川加油！(Add oil, Sichuan! Add oil, Wenchuan!)

Fallows on China's Human Scale

2008-05-17T03:07:00.000-07:00

Fallows has another good China post. Here's the good stuff:

The human scale of almost anything in China is predictably shocking. I go to a city I'd never heard of -- say, Zibo -- and learn that it has about as many people as Chicago. I go to a city I have heard of and learn that estimates of its population are accurate only within a couple million. And of course we now have the staggering figures coming out from Sichuan province and its surroundings -- about 900 children trapped in one school, tens of thousands missing in another town, whole villages being swallowed up by landslides. America has never known mass tragedy on this scale -- or even on a pro-rated version of this scale. China has of course known it many times.

First-hand accounts from the quake

2008-05-13T04:02:00.000-07:00

James Fallows has some long accounts of the quake here. They're worth reading if you're interested, and not if you aren't. Here are his thoughts on the coverage the quake has been getting in the local media:

Most of the channels on the (state controlled) CCTV are running the normal game shows, Olympic warmups (especially torch-relay updates), teen music shows, etc. But the CCTV-1 news channel is having all-out coverage of the earthquake in Sichuan province. Brief cultural notes:

- The coverage included a long segment of premier Wen Jiabao reading a speech about his deep concern for the people of Sichuan, from aboard an airplane en route to the disaster scene. Background: after the country was paralyzed by unexpected snow storms in February, the leadership was criticized for a Katrina-like slowness in dealing with the problem. Prominent coverage now of the main officials responding immediately to this disaster.

- News channels from Taiwan, which we are watching in alternation with the mainland coverage on CCTV, have extensive video footage from Chengdu, estimates of casualties, etc. So far no on-scene video footage that I've seen on CCTV-1, and no casualty figures. (The state news agency, Xinhua, is saying that 7600 people, or more, may have died.) Channel-surfing, we see that the German, Japanese, and Korean networks are also running Chengdu footage. It could have been on CCTV when I wasn't watching, but it's certainly not featured. CCTV is mainly running telephone interviews with correspondents in Sichuan and talking-head analyses in the studio. Possible background: controlling coverage within China until being sure exactly how the story should be presented. (Update: just saw a 20-second video clip from Chengdu on CCTV.)

Bad Mojo in this part of the world...

2008-05-12T07:32:00.000-07:00

Apparently there was a huge 7.8 earthquake in Sichuan earlier today, and thousands may be dead, including many children. I didn't feel any shaking here, but someone said there were reports that it was felt in the Chinese territory of Taiwan and in Hong Kong, so I'm sure someone in these parts felt it. Along with the Burmese natural/manmade disaster, that's the second mega bummer that's happened in this region of the world in as many weeks. My deepest sympathies go out.

Next move

2008-05-09T17:28:00.000-07:00

So with this year starting to wind down, I've been thinking about what to do next. It's a good thing I came across this: NASA will pay $17,000 just to lie in bed for three months. Probably better money than being a baristo, but, then again, I do like my bone density the way it is. Decisions, decisions...

Ecstasy

2008-05-08T18:19:00.000-07:00

I gave in last night and ordered a Dead Guy Ale (from Newport, OR's very own Rogue Brewery) from that bar my friend partly owns. Without a doubt, it was one of the best decisions I've made in a long time. God that stuff is delicious. That is all.

Whoa, Burma

2008-05-07T20:23:00.001-07:00

This has nothing to do with my being in China, but these before- and after-typhoon pictures of Burma are pretty amazing/incredible:

Kyle comes up with one more drink

2008-05-04T21:24:00.000-07:00

Quoting his email:

Swatow Typhoon ***

1 oz. Tuopu mijiu
1 oz. Hakka sweet wine
2 oz. orange juice
1 oz. Red Bull
1 oz. pineapple beer
- Fill mixing glass with crushed ice & pour ingredients over
- Shake & strain into a highball or Collins glass

*** this drink was inspired by a story Carol [Kyle's wife from Shantou] told me last night about how, after
a typhoon killed thousands during the Cultural Revolution (hence the weird Barad-
dur-like tower on the mountain), the workers who disposed of the bodies covered
themselves in Tuopu rice wine so as not to be overwhelmed by the smell of
decaying flesh.

Figured that’s worthy of a drink. -K

Some guys have all the fun (and then brag about it to their friends)

2008-05-04T04:24:00.000-07:00

Here's who buddy Ethan spent a 100-days-till-we-host-the-olympics party in Beijing with. I'm only half jealous, though. Guess which half.

The Theory of Everything Shantou

2008-05-03T23:52:00.000-07:00

On our way into town to check out a bar a friend of ours opened earlier this weekend, John let me in on his unifying theory of the Shantou Experience, drawn from nearly five years of careful observation and journalistic consideration. His formulation of the theory--elegant in its simplicity and awesome in its explanatory scope--is simply: Chinese people love death. It might be hard to appreciate this from across the big drink, but once I was exposed to this idea, it started ordering a good chunk of what I could see outside of the taxi we were careening towards town in. What, besides an attraction to death, could explain why people ride motorcycles with their helmets unbuckled or hanging off the handlebars? And speaking helmets, why would people settle for ridiculously thin construction hats that could at best protect their wearers from small, small rocks falling from directly above? I feel proud to have been able to add my own corollary: Shantou is the land of frustrated suicides. In an earlier post, I mentioned that there's on average one traffic fatality per day in Shantou. That might sound to the uninitiated like they're not that frustrated at all, but to anybody who's experienced a taxi ride here, that number seems impossibly low. I'd estimate that on an average trip into town, our driver's catlike reflexes are responsible for no less than three pedestrian/cyclist/fare deaths averted. There's always someone popping in front of the car to cross the street, and if there isn't it's the cab driver who's playing chicken with giant semis. Drivers in this town (the chaos on the roads is a complaint students from other areas commonly cite first) really do behave as you'd expect someone in the states to act if they were trying to kill themselves, even (especially?) when they're on motorcycles and not wearing helmets.

Of course, I don't actually think Chinese people really like death. The point, rather, is that, from our culturally discontinuous perspective of an observer thrown into this world of the ontological 'other'*, it looks a hell of a lot like they're suicidal maniacs. At the base of it, as far as I can tell, it's just that there's a different relationship with risk at play here. In the states, if you narrowly avoid bodily integration with the grill of a semi, you think to yourself, "SH@!#. That was WAY too close! I never want that to happen again!" If When that happens here, the response seems to be more along the lines of, "I am still alive. I have found a system that works." Sooner rather than later, you stop even seeing near death experiences as such. They just get absorbed into the experiences called 'driving' or 'walking' or 'taking the kids to school'. The maxim "No harm no foul" underlies almost everything I've seen on the road in this town. Even though there's always a bus trying to run you off the road or someone cutting you off, people are remarkably calm so long as you don't actually make contact, which as I said above, happens a lot less than you might think it would.

As for the new bar, it was a pretty mellow spot with a fantabulous beer list. In my humble opinion, Shantou really needed a place like it: not like LA Bar where you can't hear the person screaming conversation at you, and a little more lively than Channel 5, a rather morgue-like establishment. I had a few glasses of a nice darker German beer and a bottle of Coopers Brewery's Extra-Stout and enjoyed some decent conversation. Even though I was tempted by the Rogue Dead Guy Ale, the $8 price tag was a bit too much to swallow. Maybe I should have, though; it could have expanded the poetic dimensions of the night. Unfortunately, in the cab back to the 'poo (the town I live in is actually Tuopu, known simply as the 'poo to us teachers) I'm pretty sure I saw May 3rd's traffic victim. He'd fallen off his motorcycle, and I don't think he was wearing a helmet.

*That, kids, is how you put a humanities education to 'work'.

Shantou Drinks

2008-05-01T03:39:00.000-07:00

Last night at our weekly gathering at the east gate of the campus for BBQ, we came up with a list of locally inspired cocktails. For your quaffing enjoyment:

Dirty Manchurian
2 parts Scotch
1 part green tea
- Combine & stir
- Serve on the rocks

Bloody Chaoshan
1 oz. baijiu
1 tsp. la jiao jiang (hot sauce)
- Mix & serve in a shot glass
- Chase with a cup of gongfu tea

Panda Spleen
1 oz. huangjiu (yellow wine)
2 oz. Gatorade (original flavor)
1 tsp. soy sauce
- Shake & serve chilled
- Garnish with a slice of bitter melon

Stinky River (aka “Chou Jiang”)
1 oz. Tuopu mijiu (local rice wine)
1 oz. Durian juice
1 oz. Pepsi Cola
1 tsp. Satay paste
- Put Satay paste into serving glass & pour liquids directly over
- Stir & serve with a side of stinky tofu or thousand-year old eggs

Sun Yat-sangria
1 bottle “Great Wall” (or “Greet Will”) red wine
2 oz. baijiu
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup dragon fruit, sliced
1 cup mango, sliced
1 cup lychee, pealed **
- Mix together & place in refrigerator for several hours
- Serve in a pitcher

** Any fruits available outside the front gate may be substituted for the above.

Heh

2008-04-29T20:13:00.000-07:00

So it turns out there's a good chance that the 'free Tibet' flag you're waving was made right here in the belly of the beast. Apparently a factory here in Guangdong province has been producing flags in support of the Dalai Lama's terrorist clique. The workers claimed they thought they were just making colorful flags until they saw them on the news and realized the significance of their day's work. Of course, their reaction was to call the police.

Redemption post

2008-04-29T19:38:00.000-07:00

Just so you don't get the idea from my blog that my students are always trying to cheat to get higher scores, I should note that after handing back the test yesterday one of my students came up to me and pointed out that I'd added up his score wrong and that instead of 38/50, he'd actually scored a 28/50.

Phallic Delights

2008-04-28T04:25:00.000-07:00

Spiegel has a review of a Beijing penis restaurant. I don't know if it's an isolated case or whether there are more. From their article:

Whole yak penis or sheep testicles on a bed of curry, anyone? A Beijing restaurant serves painstakingly decorated gourmet dishes for the fearless. They're supposed to increase male potency, but women should try a bite, too: Eating penis is good for the skin, apparently.

A platter of ox and dog penises. The consistency and taste remind one of overly bitter rings of calamari, apparently.

The tomato on top seems a little garish to me.

I'm glad someone thought of this

2008-04-24T20:31:00.001-07:00

Well, I thought it was at least kind of funny

2008-04-23T22:41:00.000-07:00

We're talking about feng shui and superstitions in class this unit. I told them this story:

Professor Niels Bohr, a famous Applied Mathematician-Physicist, had a horse shoe over his desk. One day a student asked if he really believed that a horse shoe brought luck. Professor Bohr replied, "I understand that it brings you luck if you don't believe in it."

Nobody even smirked.

Throwing Clarity to the Wind

2008-04-21T20:36:00.000-07:00

From my trusty Oxford Concise Chinese-English dictionary:

"迎风 ying(2) feng(1) 1 against the wind 2 with the wind"

I swear this language was designed to be as context-dependent as possible.

Cirque de la sécurité

2008-04-21T06:42:00.000-07:00

Going through airport security at the Peking Airport gave me a nice lesson in how not to inspire confidence in your ability to keep dangerous articles off of planes.

I was exactly the sort of security threat they were looking to neutralize, with with a half-full tube of toothpaste and a contraband stick of deodorant that I was attempting to sneak on board my flight, both dangerously loose in my bag rather than in an anti-explosive Ziplock security bag. I'd tried to sneak them through not only for the purposes of sowing mayhem and destruction (as you do with toothpaste and deodorant), but also because Tom's toothpaste is more than a little hard to come by in this country and I like knowing I'm not brushing my teeth with anti-freeze. So as the woman monitoring the x-ray machine perked up when my bag came on screen, I knew the jig was up. I understand that rules be rules and I knew the risk I was taking when I walked by the display at the beginning of the security line making it painfully obvious that fluids of any kind were not allowed on the plane.

The first clue that I wasn't dealing with the most professionally organized security team was that instead of telling someone else to inspect my bag, the monitor quit her station to come riffle through my bag personally, stalling the entire line of passengers. I figured it was the toothpaste she wanted, so I took it out and put it on the table in front of her. Then she reached in and took out my camera case, putting it next to my toiletries but not actually looking at whatever was inside of it. Then she sent my bag for another go through the machine, but there was still something deemed suspicious inside. Now she had another TSA doppelgänger ask me whether I had an electric shaver, an electric toothbrush, or anything of that nature, to all of which I answered, "没有 [don't have].” Frustrated, and without taking anything more out of the bag, she decided to retry my luck with the x-ray monitor and sent my bag through again. Third time was a charm, and my bag was deemed safe enough to pass. Then she put my bag in front of me and watched as I replaced my camera, toothpaste and deodorant back into the bag and walked off.

So there you have it: if a bag looks like it's carrying something dangerous, let the passenger take out any offending articles and try scanning it again. If it still looks like a dangerous bag, ask them if there's anything innocent that might explain it. When the perp explains there're no such exonerating items in the bag, just keep sending the bag through until the screener doesn't see anything wrong. Then let the passenger replace whatever it was that they took out earlier (without bothering to actually inspect said articles) and be relieved that every single bag on the plane has been passed on by trained security personnel at least one out of three times inspected.

Small note on the angel in a wheelchair

2008-04-18T01:50:00.000-07:00

Under Chinese law, disabled people are not allowed to attend university. I wonder if they'll make an exception for Jin Jing.

Words that give me the warm-fuzzies

2008-04-16T19:42:00.000-07:00

Last night after class one of my students, Ivan, came up to me and said, "Thank you for your work. I love it." Sometimes the Chinese blindness to corniness has its perks, I guess.

Better than fiction

2008-04-15T22:51:00.000-07:00

BEIJING, April 11 (Reuters) - A wheelchair-bound Chinese torch bearer has
rocketed to national fame after fending off protesters in Paris, becoming a
symbol of China's defiance of global demonstrations backing Tibet.

Jin Jing, a 27 year-old amputee and Paralympic fencer has been called the "angel in a wheelchair" and is being celebrated by television chat shows, newspapers and online musical videos after fiercely defending the Olympic torch during the Paris leg of the troubled international relay.

This incident, described in more detail here, does a lot to help one understand why the chances of protests along torch's path changing Chinese policy one iota are virtually nil. The fact that the protesters decided to pick on an amputee gives the incident a rather poetic flair, but the effect would have been essentially the same monoped or no. So far as anyone is concerned here, the protests are sinister pranks guided by the dark hand of the Dalai Lama's clique with the sole intention of embarassing the Chinese people and fomenting domestic unrest. Here's more on why calls for a boycott are silly and are more likely than not to be incalculably counter-productive:

For the Chinese Communists, the responses from western government, media and citizens are immaterial. If German Chancellor Merkel won't attend the Olympic opening ceremony, it only means tickets for some others who want to come. It won't impact their existence. The paramount goal of the Chinese Communists is to retain control of China, and therefore it is the response from the Chinese citizens that matter. Thanks to the protests, the Chinese Communists may have consolidated support by its citizens for years to come...

...Faced with the beautiful heroine with one leg, how is any liberal dissidence on behalf of Tibet independence going to work inside Chinese? This was a bonanza handed to the Chinese Communists by the pro-Tibet protestors...

More here.

I can't remember if I've already said this in earlier posts, so I might be repeating myself, but here goes anyway. My basic thoughts are that nothing at all has changed so far as the Chinese government's behavior is concerned, so it seems a little late to become incensed. Their attitudes toward Tibet, Taiwan, and XinJiang for that matter were all well known when the Olympic Committe made its decision, so let them have the games in peace. Boycotting is incredibly unlikely to do anything other than strain relationships and make everyone more entrenched in views they already hold.

Dispatch from the Ministry of Truth

2008-04-03T23:43:00.000-07:00

Pew just published research finding that around 84% of Chinese approve of government censorship/management of information on the internet. This lines up squarely with the impression I've gotten from my students. I always get the feeling that my students are a little incredulous when I tell them that in the States, we actually think that the ability to criticize political leaders is a good thing. There's a really strong visceral discomfort with open dissension here. A couple weeks ago, a couple students--journalism students, no less--asked me how it was possible for the press in Western countries to be so brave as to criticize the government; it was almost inconceivable to them that the government wouldn't 'fight back' at such an affront to their eternal wisdom. I've had other students ask me in complete seriousness how things would improve if there was more openness in the government.

Here's part of an e-mail I sent to the blogger who pointed me to the Pew research that explains my thinking on it a little:

Your last line--"The greatest trick of state controlled media is getting the population to demand its own censorship."--is a bit of a stick in my craw. It oversimplifies the situation and implies that the demand for censorship is something that common people have been duped into from the top down. This might have been true thousands of years ago, but by this time the negative attitude towards dissension permeates the culture to such an extent that I think the top-down framework needs to be jettisoned. The deference to superiors, government officials not least, is deeply ingrained in the culture here. Many positively believe that allowing more criticism would be an act of weakness on the part of the government, a failure to protect the public from pernicious ideas. I have a hard seeing that the people here have been tricked into something that they positively want and demand.

My buddy John, who's been here for five years, said it best when he recounted one of his first-year epiphanies: "China's very un-free and it has almost nothing to do with the Communist Party. It's just cultural." It seems to me to have more than a little to do with the Confucian strain that is still alive and well in much of China's intellectual and political life. Just look at the current leaders' mantra of maintaining a 'harmonious society' [i.e. 'don't rock the boat']. That's a deeply Confucian virtue. This is a country that has been ruled for thousands of years by emperors who have putatively been appointed by heaven. While the Mandate of Heaven is no longer a belief that anybody takes seriously, the habits of mind that spring from it are still very much a part of the thinking here.

Allow me one last example, if you're not sick of reading about this by now. Mike, an English teacher at the medical college, is married to a Chinese woman. He told me of a vacation they went on where they saw in passing protesters holding banners condemning Hu Jintao and demanding freedom for Tibet. He thought it was pretty amazing to see such a protest; she was enraged that anybody would have that kind of gall and wanted to call the police to report such unacceptable behavior. When they passed where the protesters had been on their way back, there were no more protesters to be seen, only police cars. His wife was relieved. I don't think her reaction would be uncommon.

The separatist cur, Dalai Lama, says:

2008-04-02T22:46:00.000-07:00

"So my approach is, don't talk about the past. The past is past, irrespective of whether Tibet was a part of China or not. We are looking to the future. I truly believe that a new reality has emerged. The times are different. Today different ethnic groups and different nations come together due to common sense. Look at the European Union … really great. What is the use of small, small nations fighting each other? Today it's much better for Tibetans to join [China]. That is my firm belief."

This is from a Newsweek interview with the Dalai Lama. He has repeatedly said that in his opinion, Tibet is a part of China. He's also threatened to resign if the protesters continue to pursue violence.

The official view of the Dalai Lama:

Zhang Qingli, the Communist Party chief of Tibet, said Wednesday that “The Dalai is a wolf in monk’s robes, a devil with a human face but the heart of a beast,” in comments reported in the Tibet Daily Wednesday, according to AP, adding that “We are now engaged in a fierce blood-and-fire battle with the Dalai clique, a life-and-death battle between us and the enemy.”

I wonder why the CCP is so intent on labeling him as the fomenter of all the unrest there, given his denunciations of violence and his view that Tibet is part of China. Seems to me like they should be more conciliatory. Maybe their dissatisfaction turns on his claiming that Tibet should "join" China. From the Chinese perspective, this is anathema to their view that Tibet has always been part of China. Could also be because he wants increased autonomy and wants to make sure that Tibetan culture is preserved. I don't know the specifics of what he means by this, but it sounds plausible the level of autonomy he means is above and beyond what China is willing to grant them. Of course, it's unwise to assume that the Dalai Lama is above having his own, invisible political agenda. Just because Richard Gere believes everything he says doesn't mean you should, too.

Attitudes toward Tibet

2008-04-02T21:13:00.000-07:00

For any of you interested in how the Chinese view the Tibet situation, here's James Fallows:

Hype aside, my impression is that it is hard for people outside China to appreciate how strong and unified is the view on "the Chinese street" about the rights and wrongs of the Tibetan tragedy. From this internal perspective, Tibet has always, obviously, and indisputably been an integral part of China. And just as obviously and indisputably, through 50-plus years the people of Han China have sacrificed time, treasure, and manpower to bring Tibetans out of the feudal age and into modernity. And the thanks they get is.... this destructive outburst?

Americans might consider this blasphemous, but I think the prevailing Chinese view is about as dominant here as was the view on "the American street" about the rights and wrongs of 9/11. In all this is the potential for trouble between China and the outside world, not to mention the trouble for Tibet.

Update: This story by Howard French in today's NYT very well describes the gulf between Chinese and outside perspectives on Tibet, the Dalai Lama, and "splittism."

Satisfy your eyes on this:

2008-04-02T06:13:00.000-07:00

The famous turnip bird

A simple question?

2008-04-01T16:28:00.000-07:00

Why can you say, "I like to watch TV" but not "I enjoy to watch TV"? You just can't, right? Sometimes I feel like being a native speaker makes teaching this language harder.

I was wondering why I look so good...

2008-03-31T08:32:00.000-07:00

Another piece of information I really had no desire to know, but now I do thanks to Kitty's blog:

"When an American caterer working for the U.S. Olympic Committee went to a supermarket in China last year, he encountered a piece of chicken - half a breast - that measured 14 inches. 'Enough to feed a family of eight,' said the caterer, Frank Puleo, who has traveled from New York to China to handle food related issues.
We had it tested and it was so full of steroids that we never could have given it to athletes,' Puleo said of the chicken meat that measured about 35 centimeters. 'They all would have tested postive.' "

So innocent it hurts

2008-03-31T07:40:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend, one of my students won a prize at a food presentation contest for a bird she made from turnips (it's more impressive than it sounds). During break today she downloaded a dozen or so pictures from the contest to show me her prize-winning avian tuber. She was obviously proud of her triumph and a little frustrated that she could only find a picture taken from above to show me. She assured me the bird looked much better in profile, but that she couldn't find the right picture. After class she asked me if I had some time. I told her I didn't. Disappointed, she said, "Oh, I just wanted to invite you to my room to satisfy your eyes." [Moment of stunned silence before realizing she was just talking about showing me a turnip bird.]

In another instance of student innocence lending itself to corruption in Western ears, this is from an e-mail Elly sent me:

Shortly after hearing your classic story [see above], I was treated to a presentation that included more or less these lines: Our space tourism company will have a cosmonaut. She must be female. Her job is to service our passengers.

At least I don't think they could mean what they're saying...

The Olympic problem

2008-03-28T07:20:00.000-07:00

With the situation heating up as it is in Tibet and the international attention that's invited, I've been thinking recently about some of the things that seem to me to be at stake for China in hosting the Olympics. Of course, for the Chinese the Olympic Games are a huge symbol of China's vault into the countries of the world that actually matter. Everyone here is, understandably, very excited about China's hosting of the games. Most of my students dream of going to Beijing to be Olympic volunteers. China dearly wants to be seen by the world as a modern country; students are constantly using the catch phrase "as the society develops," and noting constantly that things are changing, always for the better. One of the refreshing things about this country is the pervasive feeling that things are looking up and will continue to do so into the foreseeable future. The Beijing Olympics represent Chinese progress to a great extent.

Thus China basking in a large degree of international attention. They're eager to put blunders like the cultural revolution and the great leap forward behind them and turn to important things like engineering a better bridge and making the country richer.* China understandably wants all the attention it can get, but only so long as that attention is focused on booming industrialization and rising standard of living. When faced with outsiders asking after Tibet, imprisoned journalists, or what-have-you the general response is defensiveness and a firm admonition to please butt out of China's private, personal, domestic matters. I'm not sure China's going to be able to have it both ways.

The Chinese style of governance just doesn't avail itself to too much scrutiny. I'm not sure that the powers that be really thought through how all of the consequent international attention will play out in terms of other political issues facing the country. The standard Chinese response to potentially embarrassing problems is to simply disappear them, whether those problems are inconvenient ideas or inconvenient people. I’m thinking SARS here. It was just denied and minimized until it became absolutely impossible to continue doing so. James Fallows has a pretty good post about the ham-fistedness of China's dealings with dissenting views and unpalatable facts. The China Daily had a full front-page article about the torch-lighting ceremony in Greece without once mentioning the pro-Tibet protests that disrupted it. I think that the Olympics are going to make it impossible for the Chinese government to simply publicly pretend like its problems don’t exist, temporarily at least.

I don’t want to say that the current unrest in Tibet is directly caused by international press scrutiny emboldening the Tibetans (I’m not saying anything about the causes of it, because I don’t have any idea what triggered the Tibetans), but it has to be constraining how the Chinese are reacting. I wonder how many other disaffected groups are going to take advantage of the spotlight to get their message across.

The leaders here just aren't used to being exposed to negative inquiry from the press. In this country, dissension is widely viewed as equivalent to betrayal, to an attempt to subvert the Harmonious Society. Last semester, I showed my students a joker card with G W's face pasted on and asked what the reaction in China would be to a similar joke at the expense of a Chinese official. Big, big trouble. You. Just. Don't. Do. That. I think it's partly because in a really hierarchical society, e.g., say, China, if you're calling to question the wisdom of the people at the top, you're in effect saying "This plane has no pilot. We are going to crash into the mountain." Criticism coming from the outside is even more anathema, I think. As a commenter at another blog puts it:

Attempts by the West to influence the Han are very likely to backfire. Chinese culture has always maintained a strong element of xenophobia, particularly with respect to the territorial integrity of China... The culture here has a built in "foreign agents trying to sabotage the greatness of China" narrative that allows the Party to get away with almost anything so long as they can pitch as standing strong against foreign aggressors.

One of the memes I’ve heard here is that the riots in Tibet were incited by the Dalai Lama with the express purpose of embarrassing China and ruining the Olympics. I think that if, as I’ve heard suggested, athletes or other foreigners make a big deal about Tibet at the Olympics (I’ll reserve judgment on the virtues/vices of that tack here), it will be taken very much in the way that the above quote suggests that it will be: as a foreign intrusion into matters solely Chinese. China really needs the Olympics to go smoothly, and I’m really not sure how confident I am that it's going to happen.

*For the record, I think that these are great goals for the country to have. Poverty sucks, and I think it's truly remarkable how many of my students have parents whose livelihoods come from small family plots and who can reasonably look forward to a reasonably middle class life in a booming city like Shenzhen.

Shantou fact of the day

2008-03-28T00:11:00.000-07:00

There is on average one traffic fatality per day in Shantou. I learned this last night from a Swede who's friends with someone who plays Mahjong with Shantou's head traffic cop, who has to go to the scene of the accident in the case of a death, so it could actually be one of the few reliable statistics about China that you're likely to hear.

The Black Smoke of Progress

2008-03-25T05:44:00.000-07:00

It's been smokey at Shantou University lately. Something about setting the hills on fire to honor your ancestors, or something. While I'm on the subject of unbreatheable air, here's the Onion:

China Celebrates Its Status As Worldâ��s Number One Air Polluter

Run-in with the Cantonese accent

2008-03-17T02:05:00.000-07:00

During "Where are they now" interviews in class, a student was asked about his future plans. He answered: "I'd like to find a girl; many, many children." I heard: "I'd like to fight and kill many, many children."

Mok Pa: Fish steamed in banana leaves

2008-03-12T09:05:00.000-07:00

Another recipe from Tamarind: A Taste of Laos in Luang Prabang, Laos. Ingredients:
3tbsp of sticky rice, soaked at least 4 hours
5 shallots
3 cloves of garlic
1 chilli
3 kafir lime leaves
1 tsp salt
3 tbsp chopped dill
2 tbsp chopped basil
3 small spring onions, chopped
4 tbsp water
1 tbsp fish sauce
300g white fish fillets, cubed
8 banana leaf rectangles (21x25 cm)

Method:

Drain the soaked sticky rice, and wash well. Allow to dry. Pound it in a mortar and pestle to a fine powder. The longer it has soaked, the softer it will be and the finer powder it will make.
To the powder, add shallots, garlic, chilli, lime leaves and salt. Pound it to a paste.
Add dill, basil and spring onions. Pound further to incorporate.
Add water and fish sauce. Stir it up.
Stir in fish pieces.
Run the banana leaves quickly over a flame. As they soften, they should become a little shiny.
Take two banana leaf rectangles and place one on top of the other, at right angles.
Put a quarter of the solids on the center of the leaves. Fold each side up, securing with a toothpick. Spoon on a little of the juices.
Gently steam them for about 20 to 30 min.

This is super delicious. You could also do it with tofu, or chicken. If you do it with chicken, extend the cooking time so you don't end up with salmonella. Salmonella is bad.

Various China news items

2008-03-12T08:27:00.000-07:00

As if it weren't bad enough that biofuels turn out to cause more greenhouse gases than good ol' fossil fuels, it turns out there might be good reasons feel bad about supporting solar energy too. Chinese manufacturers of the polysilicons necessary for solar cells are cutting all sorts of corners when it comes to properly disposing of the industrial wastes properly:

The first time Li Gengxuan saw the dump trucks from the nearby factory pull into his village, he couldn't believe what happened. Stopping between the cornfields and the primary school playground, the workers dumped buckets of bubbling white liquid onto the ground. Then they turned around and drove right back through the gates of their compound without a word.

This ritual has been going on almost every day for nine months, Li and other villagers said.

In China, a country buckling with the breakneck pace of its industrial growth, such stories of environmental pollution are not uncommon. But the Luoyang Zhonggui High-Technology Co., here in the central plains of Henan Province near the Yellow River, stands out for one reason: It's a green energy company, producing polysilicon destined for solar energy panels sold around the world. But the byproduct of polysilicon production -- silicon tetrachloride -- is a highly toxic substance that poses environmental hazards.

It's high time someone started thinking seriously about an easy fix without any of these damned catches.

In other news, the world-record holder for the marathon has pulled out of the event in this year's olympics in Beijing because of concern about the air. Can't say I blame him.

"Head on" by Cai Guo-Qiang

2008-03-11T21:14:00.000-07:00

But what is he trying to say?

The best response to a question I've gotten all year

2008-03-10T08:14:00.000-07:00

Q: Is this art?
A: Yes.
Q: Why?
A: Because it leaves room for the imagination. I can think it is a bed and going to sleep. Or I can think it is a door.

This was just one of the smart things my students had to say about art today. It was a good day. I also had a student who argued that art was whatever we say is art. Her name, perfectly, is Dada.

Something I learned last week:

2008-03-10T08:04:00.000-07:00

Seeing the second moped crash of the day happen a few yard away from me while I was riding on the back of a motorcycle at night made me wonder if I should start believing in bad omens. I guess I could chalk up the funky juju to my parents' visit (was Shantou just not ready for them?), but either way I think I'll stick to four-wheeled taxis from here on out.

Lao Recipe #1: Jeow Mak Keua: Eggplant Dip

2008-02-26T05:32:00.000-08:00

Lao food I think just eeked ahead of Thai and Khmer food in my book of great foods. This might just be because I'm a salt addict, and when our instructor told us to add a "Lao pinch" of salt to something, he meant about five normal pinches. Overall, the food has really strong flavors, relying a lot on cilantro, chillis, lemongrass, and garlic. I'm really glad the course was toned down for tourists, though, because some of the stuff we saw in the market was really, really gross. E.g.:

blocks of clotted blood
unwashed tripe (yeah, unwashed)
dried rats (still furry; ingredient in some soups)
pig face (just the skin, lying on the table in a really eerie way)
buffalo skin (like the rats, still hairy; used in some salsas)
bile (for marinating meat)
fish poop (sold by the bag. Yes, it's for consumption)

The Lao people also have really cute ways of referring to food. The round Thai eggplants they call 'testicle eggplants.' The long ones we get here in China are 'horse testicle eggplants.' There's a local cookie in Luang Prabang that's adoringly called 'cat droppings' because of their appearance. All that said, though, remember that I still thought the food I had there was some of the best food I had on my entire trip.

So now that your appetite is no doubt worked up to beastly hugeness, I'll tell you about Jeow Mak Deua (I have no idea how to pronounce it either). This was one of the simpler and more delicious things I made in the course. If you do it on real coals, and with enough chillis, it gets a really nice smoky and spicy combo of flavor going on in your mouth.

Before I let you in on the secrets of this awesome dip, I should plug the cooking school whose recipe I'm plagiarizing: Tamarind: A Taste of Laos in Luang Prabang. Continue reading only if you promise yourself to take their course if you're ever in their neck of the woods.

Ingredients:
2 small Lebanese or Japanese eggplants or one medium sized standard eggplant
chilles (pick the number according to the size of your aubergines)
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 cloves garlic
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
1 scallion

Procedure:

Poke holes in the eggplant and put it near fire (in the course we put them directly on hot coals).
Put the chillis near fire.
Garlic: fire.
(If you want you can take some tomatoes and put them near fire, too.)
Once everything is nicely blackened, add distance between everything and the fire. Peel eggplant (if it had enough fire, this should happen pretty easily).
Mash up garlic, chillis, salt, garlic. Mortar and pestle is good, but back in the world I'm assuming most people will want to use a food processor. This is allowed.
Add and mash eggplant and cilantro. Keep mashing until you get paste.
Dash on fish sauce, if you're into that kind of thing.

Enjoy this dip with sticky rice. From the recipe packet:

"The best [sticky rice] technique is to take a small bite-sized ball and knead it a little so that it sticks to itself: not to your hands, and not to the food. [...] Use your thumb to grasp morsels of food to your ball of rice and eat."

First day of the new semester

2008-02-26T01:13:00.000-08:00

So it might be too soon to tell, but on first impression, this semester's classes seem a little stronger than last semester. It's not that there are any students who stuck out with their amazing ability, but they all seemed at least somewhat comfortable speaking with me and answering questions about themselves. Of course, maybe they're just not sick of me yet. They might pull back into their shells later in the semester, but for now things look pretty good. I had them do interviews with each other for the first class, and--to my amazement--they were still talking to each other in English when I was more than a few yards away! That never happened last semester on the scale I saw yesterday. Good news, hopefully it will keep up.

In other news I have the not-so-easy task of entertaining my parents in the Shantou area for a couple days this weekend. I think I've got the days pretty filled with activities, but most people tend to run pretty short on ideas when I ask what there is around here that's worth visiting. I guess they'll just have to settle on my radiant presence carrying their visit.

Quick update

2008-02-24T17:38:00.000-08:00

OK, I'm finally ready to admit it: Vacation is over. I'm back in my apartment, preparing getting-to-know-you games for my first round of classes this afternoon. A look outside says fall has finally made it's way here to Shantou: it's raining and leaves have fallen off some of the trees. Those who have been here for a while longer say that I can expect a lot of rain this coming spring.

I guess all good runs have to come to an end at some point, and then "work" catches up with us. I'm putting work in "" because, again, I'm only teaching 8 hours/two days per week this semester. I'm looking at it as a challenge to put my extra time to good use (something I definitely didn't manage last semester). I'm hoping to buckle down with studying Mandarin (I've already enlisted a tutor for twice/week and I'll still be taking the once weekly classes offered by the ELC), read War and Peace, Paradise Lost, and not waste too much time on the internet.

I promise I'll get a post up on the recipes I learned in my cooking class in Luang Pragan sometime soonish. You can look forward to learning how to make fish steamed in banana leaf, Lao eggplant dip, Luang Prabang stew, minced meat and herb salad (this one is traditionally made with raw buffalo marinated in bile; for our class we left out the bile; you kids at home can cook your meat if you must), and stuffed lemongrass. All of these things are delicious (yeah, even the raw buffalo salad was really good), and not all that hard to make.

Back to planning. As always, I'd love to hear what you all are up to, so drop me an email when you get a minute: d.f.stearns@gmail.com.

A social problem unto himself

2008-02-17T20:45:00.000-08:00

This is from a story in the Lao national newspaper, "That Luang school assesses progress":

"...In attending to social issues, our anti-drug campaign has been crucial in improving the situation at the school," said Mr. Omphang Baovanhkham. During the last academic year, staff had worked hard to stamp out drug use, but there had been one habitual user at the school.

The story continues to relate that the social problem's family has sent him to treatment and there are no more drug users at the school. Campaign successful.

Other gripping headlines on the front page were:

'Government disburses billions to develop tourism.' The 25 billion kip comes out to about $2.5 million.

'Elephan festival draws jumbo crowd.' This one is pretty self-explanatory.

and below the fold we had a story about the Lao-Thai Friendship Bridge closing for an hour and 15 min next Wednesday.

The gravity of these stories pretty much sums up the feeling of this country. I bet that these really are the most important things happening around here. I've been in the capital city for about 24 hrs. and I can't believe how quiet it is. I was chatting with a couple at a restaurant around 10 last night, close to the center of town, and we noticed that when there was a pause in conversation, there weren't any other noises. And like everywhere else in Laos, everything has to close at 11 PM.Complete silence. I'm soaking it up before I have to go back to the constant blasting at the quarry near STU.

Just hanging around and getting high on rocks

2008-02-14T21:23:00.000-08:00

Today is my last day in Vang Vieng. The first day and today have been pretty lazy, but yesterday I wend rock climbing, which was a blast. [I'll put some photos up when I get back to China; the upload time here is way too long.]

Our guide was a really cool Lao guy who'd lived for four years in Germany as a climbing guide. He's 24, owns his own climbing shop, has a German ex-wife, and has his girlfriend's name tattooed on his shoulder because he's going to love her for ever.

Last night, I had a visit from the god of random encounters: I'm at a bar in Vang Vieng, Laos about to start a game of elimination pool (bunch of players take turns shooting, each gets three misses and they're out, the winners get a bunch of booze for their trouble). The guy running the show calls out for the first player to step up to the table and shoot, "Andrew!" It takes me a minute to place the face, but then I realized that I'd met the guy at the Condemned House in Walla Walla. Turns out it's a good childhood friend of one of my friends from Whitman who's on a climbing trip in SE Asia. He says the climbing is great here, and that he's having a blast. He was also telling me that here's a really good place to go if you're a beginner because you get to do some fun climbs on your first day, whereas in the states the instructor would waste lots of valuable climbing time making sure everyone knows how to belay properly. Here, the guides give a five minute figure eight/belaying introduction and then tell one of their bewildered clients to belay them while they set up the route. I'm glad that I took a class in school on how to do it right, but then again, that benefits the people I'm belaying more that it helps me.

I'm going to be on the road again for the next few days, slowly making my way to Bangkok by the 20th to fly back to Shenzhen (queue the sad violin music for my dying vacation). Hopefully I'll get something up on the cooking class I took in Luang Prabang soon (think raw buffalo salad).

Two days on the Mekong

2008-02-06T17:54:00.000-08:00

This is my first morning in Luang Prabang, UNESCO World Heritage Site and tourist mecca extraördinare. I got here from Thailand via the Chiang Khong/Huay Xai border into Laos, and then a two day slow boat trip on the Mekong. In Huay Xai, I met a South African of Italian breeding named Franco, and Herman, a Flemmish-Belgian who's always slurping some kind of alcohol or another. I didn't see him drink any 'Lao Lao,' a deisel-type spirit that's made with chiles and comes with a cobra or two in the bottle. Herman is a 'gardner,' but insists his job is making his making people's gardens better havens for bees, wildlife etc. (As far as I can tell his it goes something like: Client: "My yard looks terrible! What am I paying you for?" Herman: "What are you talking about?? I haven't been weeding all week!") I guess he doesn't do too well on the business end of things (wonder why) because he said every year he spends the whole time pestering and bothering his wife so that she'll hand over some cash and send him packing in SE Asia for a few months.

Franco's been my travel partner for the last couple of days. He just resigned from a sales job in London to begin 2008, which he predicts will be a big 'Year Of Change'. Because Luang Prabang is such a hot destination in Laos, rooms are a bit more expensive than most other places I've been ($12 dollars a night!), so it's nice to have someone to split it with. The local currency makes no sense at all: everything has an extra three zeros at the end. Our $12 dollar rooms are actually 100,000 kip. The other day, I pulled out almost a million of the local currency to last me for the few days that I'll be here. It's a little less impressive when you realize that beer costs 10,000.

The actual boat ride was pretty relaxing, even though the benches were really narrow, had no leg room to speak of, the backs were straight up and down. I think it was a plot by the Lao people to straighten foreigner's backs, because we saw plenty of boats cruising up and down the river with reclining car seats and carrying locals. Aside from the stunning scenery, vignettes of quiet farming life, and long duration, the biggest story from the river trip was seeing a body floating in the water. I'm not sure how the guy met his demise, but I'll take it as a vindication of my decision not to take one of the fast boats that were constantly zipping past us carrying tourists who all waved to our boat in a way that said something obnoxious like "so long suckers!" The Lonely Planet says deaths aren't at all uncommon from them.

My plan for the next three or four days is to take it easy here in Luang Prabang, then maybe head to the Plain of Jars if I decide that the nine hour bus ride either way is worth it, then head to Vang Vieng for a few days of Kayaking or tubing on the river, then a day or two in Vientianne, and back to Bangkok for my flight back to China. If anything exciting happens, I'll let you know.

Siam Reap Fact of the Day

2008-02-02T06:54:00.001-08:00

From Wikipedia:

"The name Siem Reap means the 'Defeat of Siam' —today’s Thailand —and refers to a centuries-old bloodbath, commemorated in stone in the celebrated bas relief carvings of the monuments."

Some of the pictures I've taken so far

2008-02-02T06:09:00.000-08:00

(I appologize for the layout. It's kind of a pain to work with, and I can't be bothered to make it reel perdy right now.)

Sun sets in the West.
Many think it beautiful.
Their photos? Same same.

In case the little guy picture wasn't clear enough.

">
I think "Made with love, for love" would have been a great slogan for
Mr. J. But why buy 10 (11) if they come with a 20 years guarantee?

Your's, truly. Angkor Wat.

Angkor kings gettin' funky.

Some towers of dubious use. Some surmise disputants would be put in seperate towers, and whoever came out without getting really sick was in the right.

These stairs are steeper than they look here.

My would be friend/tip recipient braving the famous Neon Pond of Angkor.

Random observation

2008-01-29T00:07:00.000-08:00

There's a monk next to me looking at pictures of (tastefully clad) women on the internet. He also needs a flash drive for something.

Arrived in Siam Reap

2008-01-28T22:55:00.000-08:00

Just got into Siam Reap, the town attached to Angkor Wat, a couple hours ago. I came across the border between Aranya Prathet and Poipet this morning and hired a car for the three hour trip to Siam Reap with an Austrian couple and a fish biologist from the Tri-cities. I had been warned that the road between Poipet and Siam Reap was completely unimproved--this is untrue. There were at least 75 yards of blacktop on one stretch of the road, and I'd be surprised if there weren't plans to make some kind of lip up onto it in the future. Much, maybe up to half, of the rest of it was packed gravel, or red dirt. About fifteen yards off to either side of the road was covered with a nice veneer of dust, either grey or red, that was kicked up by the cars hurtling past at freeway speeds. I'm sure a lot of the $40 dolar price goes towards shock replacement and new tires because most of the ride is pretty rough.

Getting in to Siam Reap from that road is a bit of a jolt: after seeing a lot of horse-drawn carriages and children pushing concrete tubes down the street, five star resorts line the road into town. THe lonely planed says some of the rooms even come with private swimming pools. It's hot enough here that I'm not completely untempted to forgo the rest of my trip for just one night there, but I think I can manage (grudgingly) without.

Oh, yeah: there's also those those temply things. Tonight I'm going to go see the sunset from Angkor, and then explore for the few days after that. Angkor Wat is apparently the biggest religious building in the world, and the archicture is supposed to be stunning. The other day I went to Phimai, in Thailand, which has a much smaller temple complex that was also built by the Kmher kingdom at its peak and predates the Angkor complex by about 100 years. So I guess tonight I get to see how much they improved in that time.

Fun under the sea

2008-01-25T00:51:00.000-08:00

I'm up in northeastern Thailand right now, coming down from an a mazing few days of diving in Ko Tao. I did both my open water and advanced open water certification, so now I can go to any recreational dive site up to 30m deep and just go diving. Learning to Scuba dive is definitely one of the most fun things I've ever done. My teacher, Zigor, was a really fun guy from the basque country (one of more than a few that work for the diving outfit I went to, oddly enough) who has been teaching scuba diving for the last five years on Ko Tao. The group of people who took the class with me were really great to learn with--pretty much everyone got a hang of the basics pretty quick, even though my dive buddy did keep on floating away on the first day. Of course, actually diving was the highlight. A small sample of the things I've seen and can name: bull sharks (2 of them), a puffer fish, a school of yellow-finned baracuda, a great baracuda, parrot fish, trigger fish, scorpion fish, a school of squid, phosphorescent algae (on the night dive in the advanced course), tons of coral. Most days the visibility was around 20 meters, which made for a really amazing time. If any of you, my loyal readers, are thinking about learning how to dive, I'd definitely recommend learning in Ko Tao with Easy Divers. Couldn't have been better.

One thing that has really struck me about traveling in Thailand is the amount of english that's spoken, both by the locals and by the other tourists. Everyone's first approach is in English, and nobody really seems to think that you need to ask if you speak English. During my advanced dive course, por ejemplo, everyone else was a native spanish speaker, but the course was still conducted in English. Of course, the English comes in all kinds of intelligibility: I couldn't understand a thing that the Irish woman or the guy from Manchester in my class were saying for the first few hours of talking with them.

Like I said at the beginning, I'm now at the TESL Conference in Khon Kaen. It's been a really rough transition going from play-time to having to listen to mind-numbing academic talks about EFL teaching in an L2 context (don't worry, I don't really know what that means either). It'll all be over tomorrow afternoon, though, and I'll be on my way to Cambodia to wander around Angkor Wat for a few days. I've decided to cut out Vietnam from the itinerary and replace it with Laos because if I went I'd be getting in on the first day of Tet, during which the country, apparently, pretty much shuts down for quality family time and the hotel rooms get scarce and expensive. I've heard great things about Laos, though, so there's no need to feel sorry for me about the next few weeks.

Lining 'em up and shootin' em down

2008-01-11T00:15:00.000-08:00

This morning, I had to deal with a particularly despondent student who was none too happy that I had failed him (not that I had that much choice--he got below 50% on each of the tests in the class). At first I tried to be diplomatic about it, but eventually I had to just lay it down that I couldn't and wouldn't just change his grade (which had already been submitted) from a 50% to a 60%. He just looked down and said "But I really wanted to pass. I don't know how to say what I want." Repeat about 6 times. Apparently, he's got a lot of chemistry research to do next semester, and won't have time to study for the final, on which he needs a 45% to pass the class. This semester he got a 48%, and that only after significant time studying. I felt kind of sorry for him, and he did look pretty put out, but there really isn't much I could do. This is from another of my 4 failed students:

"Dear David,I am sorry to disturb you again.I hope you can help me please.if I can not pass this exam.next year ,I wouldnot be allowed stay at stu .because I have miss 18credit hour ago.as theschool’s provision,I can not stay at school for one year.please helpme .plesaeI think that I have never taken a English class so seriously. I seldom spokeforwardly in the class before this term. But I can say that I have done mybest to speak forwardly in your class this term. For one thing, I think youhave somewhat like Jack who is the leading role of so I admire you. Foranother, my girlfriend always encouraged me to speak.Basically I would prepare to the lesson before the class this term and beforethe last exam, I have taken much time to review the textbook and theinformation you gave us, especially the words, I have consulted a dictionaryone by one and I was full hearted for the part of the words in the last exam..I really have no notion of it although I have missed a class, spoken inChinese between the classes for some times.So please help me .Then I can keep my mind on reviewing other subjects. Thankyou for your understanding and look forward to having a reply with you.
Yours sincerely,"

It sucks being the bad guy, but it would have helped if they'd asked for opportunities to make work up earlier in the semester.

Akira Crow in Shenzhen

2008-01-10T19:07:00.000-08:00

Last weekend I visited a friend who's teaching high school in Shenzhen. We ate at a really good restaurant decorated in a kind of Southwestern adobe style. The food was great, lots of lamb, cilantro and wide rice noodles. On my way out of the door, I noticed that they had a news article framed on the wall that said something like "Shenzhen restaurant bans 'militant' Japanese from its premises." I hadn't noticed it on the way in (I ignore most Chinese writing that doesn't seem directly useful to me), but outside, sure enough, they had a sign that, I'm almost positive, read "Japanese prohibited entry."

Even though I had run into a fair amount of anti-Japanese sentiment in Beijing, and you hear about it often enough on the news, I was a little surprised to see that in Shenzhen. Shenzhen is a Special Economic Zone (SEZ), where foreign investment is pretty much allowed free reign, so you'd expect that increased business with foreigners would tone down some of the animosity. That, and most of the people I've talked to in the south actually seem to feel mostly good will to Japan. I know more than a few people who are studying Japanese. The relative ambivalence towards Japan in Guangdong could be because Guangdong didn't bear the brunt of the Japanese occupation (I'm speculating here), or it could also be because 广东人 are in general business people above all else, and could usually care less about politics. Shenzhen's population is, though, I think drawn more from all over the country because of its booming economy, so maybe they brought a little nationalistic zeal with them. Who knows? Anyway, anti-Japanese sentiment was something I hadn't really seen yet this time around, but it seems alive and well with some.

One down...

2008-01-09T19:43:00.000-08:00

I've just submitted all of my student's grades into the college, happily cleaning my hands of any teaching responsibilities until the 20th or so of February. Talk about a freeing experience. For the last couple days we've been proctoring/grading the final exams, which, as you all probably know, is my new favorite hobby. One thing that really jumped out at me (again) during proctoring the finals is that I still have no idea what is going on in some student's heads. Half way through the half-hour essay portion of the exam, I noticed a student looking around at the other students and shifting his weight a little nervously. He saw me looking at him, and raised his hand. I went to him, and he looked up at me and asked, "Essay now?" Everyone else in the class had gotten the message and was scribbling away about two sided coins, their other hands and what was in them as fast as they could, while this student was just sitting waiting for some clearer sign about what to do.

Then when I was proctoring one of my classes, I noticed a student who I had no recollection of ever having seen in my life. He told me his name, which I had seen on my class list, and said that he'd explain his situation after the exam. Even though I knew that the ELC policy is to not let students take the exam if they've missed more then three classes unexcused, he seemed pretty determined to take it, so I figured I'd let him and see what explanation he'd come up with to make me take pity on him. He took the exam (and passed it, barely) and then, after all the other students had left, told me that he's been in Guangzhou all semester working at a year-long internship. When I pointed out that there were two other tests, three other writing assignments, and two oral presentations that I couldn't give him grades for, his internship notwithstanding, he thought it was a good time to ask if there was anything he could do to pass the class. After he'd handed in the final exam.

Now, truth be told, I'm pretty open to letting most of the students slip by with a passing grade; a lot of them have no reason to be interested in learning English other than because it's a required course, and taking it again isn't going to magically bestow them with the elusive communicative competency we're supposed to be striving for. But I don't think it's too much to ask for them to show up and hand in something. The only other students I failed were ones who had either missed large assignments, or who had plagiarized them. I think that a certain amount of hand waving hapens anyway for students who can't pass ELC 4 by the time they're second semester seniors, anyway. It just has to come from a little higher up than me.

For the next 40 days I'm going to be bumming around Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. A rough itinerary should look something like:

Jan 15th, 1AM: Arrive in Bangkok
Jan 15th-Jan 23rd: Play in Thailand on my (meandering) way to Khon Kaen
Jan 24-Jan 26: TESOL conference with STU
Jan 28 or 29: Get to Siem Reap and spend a few days in Angkor (the part I'm most stoked about)
First few days of Feb.: Phnom Penh
By Feb 7th: Ho Chi Minh City for a couple days, then head north
Feb 20: Fly out of Hanoi

I might play around with that a little bit to try and get a little more time in Vietnam, but it's looking like the best option for now. I'll try to make at least a few posts from the road.

A rambling update

2007-12-30T00:07:00.000-08:00

So I realize that it's been quite a while since I've put anything up here. Apparently, some people actually read this blog, and are actually interested in what's going on in my life (hi mom!). I guess I never mentioned that English festival has come and gone, and that it was swept by the Thais. The speech contest winner had lived in England from the ages of 4 to 9-ish and had obviously kept up with the language; she spoke with a perfect brittish accent. A Shantou student tied for 3rd along with the Shanghai contestant. I thought the most interesting part of the speech contest came about when some of them were asked about the importance of saving species from extinction during the impromptu section. Their answers pretty much revolved around the danger that species loss poses to our culinary variety. "Imagine if there were no more cows or chickens to eat!" seemed to sum it up well enough. Granted, I hesitate to draw strong conclusions about someone's actual opinions based on a performance in a second language because I was even more of a compulsive liar in Spanish class that I usually am because of the huge temptation to say something just because you know how to say it. But in this case, I think their answers reflected a real difference in how people tend to view the relationship between people and animals, like, say, pangolins. For a nice story about disapearing turtles in China, see here.

The singing contest had some good acts, but I still can't say that the taste in music in China/the rest of Asia does much for me. I can still appreciate the technical skill that goes into a good Britney routine, though.

Way too much of my life since the end of the contest has been devoted to grading essays. Grading is the bane of my existence. I have a pile of in-class essays in my possession that need to be returned by the end of the semester, and pile of final exams to look forward to. My students had the choice of three different topics for their persuasive essays, and I think about 80% of them chose "should studying a foreign language be required for students in University?" I have yet to figure out a trick for being able to focus on more than a few of these in a row before they start blending into one another. It also makes me want to go back and apologize to all of the foreign language teachers I've ever had for forcing them to read so much nonsense that was basically a string of gramar exercises. I also can't shake the suspicion that my grades are in no small part arbitrary. Sometimes two essays will have completely different strengths and weaknesses, and Ican't figure out how to put them in relation to each other with a grade. Sometimes, I'll look up and realize that I've been grading way easier today than yesterday.

Of course, the big news recently is that I had a nice little trip home for xmas. Visiting the fam was nice, of course, especially since the parents didn't know I was coming. After a delicious moment of shocked silence when I told my mom she could come and pick me up, she, with more than a little worry in her voice, asked, "Did you get fired or something?" It's nice to know that the woman who gave birth to me has an easier time believing that I lost my job than that I would show up for christmas out of the imeasurable goodness of my heart. Another highlight of the trip was seeing my grandmother, who seems to be doing well enough to put up with her family joking about making her walk 20 miles in the snow in her walker lest it go to waste. She's been in an assisted care facility for a few weeks, but is going to be moving her 99 year old self back to her house on Monday. Definitely good news.

I just got back to Shantou this morning; it took 30 hours, two airplanes, three buses, a ferry and a motorcycle to get from PDX to my apartment in Shantou, and I have no idea what time my body thinks it is. I feel more or less awake now, but I'm still waiting for either a brutal crash soon, or maybe a sleepless night tonight, one or the other. One bummer I found in coming back is that my computer isn't so much in the booting/loging in business anymore, so I might be a little slow on getting back to people in the coming weeks. Hopefully I'll get the computer to a repair shop within the next 15 days while it's still under warranty, but that means going to either Shenzhen or Guangzhou, both about 5 hours by bus away.

Looking to the future: In a couple of weeks, if all goes accordig to plan, I'll be heading to Thailand for a TESL conference, and then to Cambodia, Vietnam, and maybe Laos, for a fun vacation. If anybody has any recomendations for places not to miss, I'd be glad to hear them. That's definitely the brightest spot on the horizon.

Random book recommendation: "Fooled by Randomness" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I read this during my visit home and thought it was really interesting (but I wish he'd laid off the parentheticals a little). This was a pretty good look at why people shouldn't think they're good at predicting the future, but why they do anyway.

That should just about bring y'all up to speed. Keep in touch.

Been had again

2007-12-06T18:44:00.000-08:00

Confirmed now for a second time: the woman who cuts my hair hates sideburns and will resort to mean tricks to get them off my face. I went in today for a haircut, sporting my recently grown in again beard. As she was finishing up with the hair on the top of my head, I started to think how I might ask her to trim up my beard a little. Before I could start to ask, she made what I naively assumed was an offer to do so by making a few passes over my jaw with the clippers. I figured we were on the same page, so I said sure. Unfortunately, I hadn't noticed that she'd removed the attachment, and before I could say anything, she'd mowed away my right sideburn. I have no idea why she thought that I would want just the sideburns gone, leaving the rest of my beard, but I can't think of any other reason she would have done that.

according to consuetude

2007-11-29T19:26:00.000-08:00

One of the more exciting parts of grading papers is that I get to learn some new, even if a little archaic, words in English. For example,

'chook' is slang for chicken, especially in Australia
'consuetude' means an "established custom or usage"

Thanks little pocket electronic dictionaries!

China Teacher's Consortium in Changsha

2007-11-29T09:26:00.000-08:00

A few weekends ago the CTC had it's annual conference, this year held in beautiful 长沙, birthplace of Chairman Mao. Since I don't teach on Thursdays, I flew up a day early to take in some of the city. I ended up in the city museum where they had an exhibit of some apparently moderately well known artist's work. He had some really great paintings; I especially liked his the way he did brambles. I remember one of his recurring themes was earthbound chickens looking up enviously at sparrows flitting impetuously around the top of the canvas.

As I stood looking at a piece, a man approached me to have me stand next to an elderly man for a quick picture. I don't really mind being ornamental (I usually can't help it), so I obliged. We got into a [very, very basic] conversation about how Chinese art is, indeed, very different from Western art. He pulled out the picture at the top of the post, signed it, wrote something I assume is a poem on the back of it, and gave it to me. He then asked for samples of my writing, both in Chinese and English, so I pulled some haiku-ish garbage out of the air and put it down. I also gave him my phone number, which he asked for.

That was fine, until a TV crew popped out of nowhere (maybe they'd heard a report of a laowai in the area) and started asking the man questions about me. After letting the camera man take a nice long shot of my fourth-grade handwriting, including my telephone number [I still haven't gotten any calls, so no harm no foul, I guess] the man assured the reporter that I spoke Chinese very well (huge lie) so the next thing I knew there was a microphone in my face and questions coming at me faster than I could absorb them. I said, 'these pictures are truly very pretty,' hoping that would be enough for the man. But the questions kept coming at me, at least until my blank stare of incomprehension wore him down and he drifted away after thanking me. So maybe I'm famous now.

Also of note in Changsha was the Hunan Provincial Museum (which is different from and much better than their city museum). They had lots of really cool stuff from the Mawangdui tombs from the West Han dynasty, dating from over 2,000 years ago. There was a really well preserved mummy, whose facial features you could still recognize pretty well. Apparently, the stuff I saw there is studied in art history classes the world over. If you happen to be interested, here's the Wikipedia article.

As far as the conference, I had a good time seeing the other Whitties and getting to meet some other teachers from different programs. There were some folks from Grinnell, Oberlin, World Teach, and a few other programs. I learned two main points:

1) I am ridiculously under worked and overpaid, and
2) Mid-November is cold in some places.

I kind of intuitively knew the first one, but talking to others about their situations really highlighted the fact that I am a complete bum. Everyone taught significantly more than my eight hours of class per week, and each of their classes was closer to 70 students compared to my 31 (I only have 63 or so students total). One of the other Whitman teachers has hundreds of students, all of them in intensive writing courses, which obviously require a ton more time to grade outside of the classroom.

The whole weather thing was the real shocker. Changsha had apparently just hit bad weather, and it was really cold. I still haven't gotten the package of warm clothes that my mom sent from the States over two months ago, so I went up there with only an uninsulated raincoat and some long sleeve shirts to keep the cold off. Not awesome. It hadn't really occurred to me that there was anything strange about wearing shorts and t-shirts in late November until I was there and realized that winter's really not too far off. We've only just had weather that warrants long sleeves here. The feeling of cold was only made worse by the complete lack of color in Changsha. There are still trees in full bloom here in Shantou, even with December just a couple days off. Changsha was that much drearier by comparison, and I'm not unhappy to be back here.

Hopefully I'm not giving my kidneys away in the fine print...

2007-11-29T03:36:00.000-08:00

This showed up in my inbox today from the ELC office. What's the worst that could happen from joining a medical "scheme"?

"Dear all,

Got the message from Mr. Xu, please come to my office to get your Medical Scheme Membership Card as soon as possible. For more issues about how to use the card, please consult Mr. Xu.

Thanks,"

To Oregon, With love

2007-11-25T18:11:00.000-08:00

Apparently part (probably a small part, but a part nonetheless) of the Willamette's foulness might be coming from here in the Middle Kingdom. From the AP:

"It takes five to 10 days for the pollution from China's coal-fired plants to make its way to the United States, like a slow-moving storm.

It shows up as mercury in the bass and trout caught in Oregon's Willamette River. It increases cloud cover and raises ozone levels. And along the way, it contributes to acid rain in Japan and South Korea and health problems everywhere from Taiyuan to the United States."

In addition to sending the world its coal smoke, China (viz., Guangdong) is also an originator of the annual waves of flu that spread around the world. Apparently, I'm in one of the world's most prolific incubators of new and exciting diseases. We all remember SARS, right? A Guangdong original. We've got a good claim on many strains of Bird Flu too. I met a Spanish flu researcher named Antonio at our 老外* Thanksgiving dinner on Friday who explained to me that the flu vaccines that you all enjoy in the West are developed by researchers here figuring out which strains of the disease are most likely to spread to humans from birds and then move West around the world, reaching Europe and America in roughly six months after it gets started here. He said that they typically need six because of the time it takes to manufacture adequate stocks of flu vaccine, they have to do a fair bit of (Phd-educated) guesswork as to which strains are going to be "in" in any particular year. So you're all welcome for living in a giant disease laboratory and exposing myself to new strains of flu so you won't have to.

*the exclamation "laowai" means 'old outsider.' It follows me and mine around wherever we go. I've even gotten in the habit of pointing and saying it when I see a white person I'm not used to.

Pangolin Update

2007-11-24T17:38:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, a student confirmed a suspicion I had about why Ava (my student) was so worried about telling me about the pangolin meat: there apparently aren't so many pangolin left in the wild and they're therefore illegal to eat. Judging by his ready knowledge of pangolin, I'm guessing the pangolin plight is pretty widely known. I was holding out hope that maybe, just maybe, I had eaten a pangolin raised in captivity for the sole purpose of being tasty, but alas:

"Only three pangolins are kept in legitimate captivity. Their diet, which consists solely of ants in the wild, makes raising them in captivity extremely challenging. Two pangolins are kept at the Taipei Zoo in Taiwan. Another has recently arrived at the Los Angeles Zoo." (Wikipedia)

So unless I hear about a recently abducted pangolin from one of two zoos, it looks like I'm now part of the culinary underworld. Not a choice I would have made with full knowledge, but what's done is done. Now, if someone could only feed me a Spotted Owl egg omelet without my knowing it. I've always wondered what one would taste like.

Close enough

2007-11-22T02:57:00.000-08:00

It's not quite turkey and stuffing, and definitely not as tasty as pumpkin pie or home made cranberry sauce, but I was thankful today that I had some spicy duck feet and marinated duck necks to gnaw on. My pupil really knows how to take care of me.

In other news, I found out (again, happily ex post facto) that along with the fungus larvae that were in the soup, there was also delicious pangolin, aka 'scaly ant eater.' I think I mostly got tail.

I found this out when I asked my student/patron what the meat was and her eyes bugged out and she said she really didn't wanna tell me. So I pushed her a little more and she finally cracked and told me what it was. She looked really relieved when I assured her I wasn't upset, and then she mentioned that Guangdong people eat a lot of food Westerners might not be used to, e.g. snakes. When I told her I had never eaten snakes, she said, "Oh, OK. We go tonight?" I'm busy the next couple nights, but it looks like soon enough I'll be adding snake to the list of food I have 吃d .

There's a saying that the nice folks in Guangdong will "eat anything with four legs that's not a table, anything from sea that's not a submarine, and anything from the air that's not an airplane." Seems true enough.

Not a China Post.

2007-11-14T06:53:00.000-08:00

Not that I plan to turn this blog into a political ranting space (there are far more than enough of them already), but I can't resist linking to this post from Andrew Sullivan:

A fascinating nugget from American history, unearthed by guest-blogger Shertaugh at the IsThatLegal? blog. Waterboarding was sometimes used in the Deep South to torture African-Americans and to extract false confessions to alleged crimes. And when it emerged in an appeal as long ago as 1926, even the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled it categorically "a specie of torture well known to the bench and bar of the country," and "barbarous." They over-turned a guilty verdict for murder by an African-American man against a white man because such methods invalidated any notion of a reliable confession.

And yet, we're in a position where the AG of the US can't call waterboarding what it is (torture) because our president has decided that it is now a necessary tool in the fight against terror. That last bit is worth repeating to yourself: we're using waterboarding to reduce the amount of terror in the world... huh. And as the above hints at, we can't even expect to get anything reliable out of someone who is being drowned and who'll say whatever they can to get that feeling to stop. This is one of those subjects where I really can't see how two reasonable people can disagree.

What's a worm in the beginning and a fungus in the end?

2007-11-12T00:19:00.000-08:00

Apparently something I ate. The name pretty much says it all: 冬虫夏草 or dong chong xia chao, lit. winter worm, summer grass. They were described pretty much as what they are, but I figured it was a kind of just so story. I mean come on, something that starts off as a worm and ends up as a plant? But here it is, straight from Wikipedia:

"Cordyceps sinensis is a species of fungus found in southwest, mountainous China that attacks caterpillars, specifically the larvae of hepialid moths (identified as species of Hepialus or Thitarodes). The caterpillars feed on the roots of trees and shrubs on the slopes of the Himalayas. When infected by C. sinensis, the bug's entire body cavity is filled by the fungus mycelium, killing the host, and the caterpillars die near the tops of their burrows. A dark brown, finger-like stroma sprouts near their heads. The entire fungus-caterpillar combination is hand-collected for medicinal use."

Them Cheatin' Rascals

2007-11-07T01:50:00.000-08:00

So all of the stories are true: I found that a significant number of my students are cheating rascals. Several of the resumes from my students were identical to other resumes I got from other students, each using diction and grammar that was nothing at all like anything my students could actually produce on their own. I mean, these things actually deployed the past tense more or less correctly for Christ's sake. (Though they were fabulously wrong in lots of different ways.) I really don't know how they thought they could float them by me. One of the students even arranged a meeting with me to apologize to me and offer a new draft of her assignment, and at the end of it asked me, in all sincerity, "But how did you know that I had copied it?" I have no idea how to explain how much of a red flag something like this is:

　　"During my education, I have grasped the principals of my major and skills of practice. Not only have I passed CET-6, but more important I can communicate with others freely in English. My ability to write and speak English is out of question."

Even worse, her new draft, though it is made up mostly of her own words, still has entire sentences lifted right out of the same online sources as some students were copying before. Argh.

Let the English Festivities Begin

2007-11-06T22:01:00.001-08:00

As one of the advisers for the English Lounge, I am also a co-chair of the speech contest, the central event of STU's annual English Festival. As such, I've been running around being responsible for selecting the contestants, assigning mentors to contestants, organizing the panel of judges, and handing out certificates of participation on the night of. Before you all think too highly of me, I should say that the members of the English Lounge actually do the vast majority of the work for the event: logistics and whatnot. Last night was the semi-final for the speech contest, where 17 of STU's best and brightest pitted their prognostications and prescriptions for dealing with "Diversity in a Global Village" against each other for one of five coveted spots in the Speech Contest final to take place in December against competitors from other universities around China.

In addition to co-chairing the event, I've also been mentoring a couple of students, trying to mold them into electrifying and thoughtful contributors to mankind's thinking on global village diversity. I unfortunately can't really claim much in the way of success. As a mentor, I pretty much failed in the most abject way. Neither of the two speech givers under my wing managed to get past the semi. One of them did alright, notwithstanding the fact that her big metaphor for diversity was the "diversiform petals of a single rose," which apparently make the rose beautiful because none of the petals look exactly alike. Definitely a notion born of China...

My other mentee--there's no other way to say this--crashed and burned in a way that was really painful to watch. I, along others I was sitting near, found myself wondering whether she'd self-medicated her stage fright a bit too heavily. She decided to take the microphone in hand, going without the mic-stand that maybe could have anchored her a little better to one spot. But instead of really owning her freedom of movement, she performed a drunkish two-step back and forth, eyes locked straight ahead in utter terror. Each sentence was its own halting, self-enclosed unit of unmodulated garble. I'm a little worried about seeing her again, because it was almost so bad that any attempt to reassure her that it wasn't could just come across as disingenuous. Oy veh.

To give the audience a bit of a break while the judges deliberated over the winners, there were some nunchck-wielding kung fu performers. Let me just get it out of the way and say that the movies are all true; every chinese person is a finely-tuned killing machine. The matrix has nothing on these kids. These pictures are not blurry because of low lighting and a slow shutter speed; they were just that fast:

So then Kenny G says...

2007-11-01T07:59:00.000-07:00

I just got off the phone with a good friend of mine I know from my Belgian days, who's living in Shanghai. He's always good for a story and tonight was no exception. Line of the night:

"So I was having a dinner party with a bunch of MTV producer types my brother knows and Kenny G shows up--completely unexpected, ridiculous hair all over the place and soprano sax in hand (he didn't have a show or anything, he just walks around with the thing)--and says, 'Why are you all rolling brokeback-style in here?'"

One more sentence I wish I knew how to say in Chinese:

2007-11-01T02:05:00.000-07:00

"Don't cut off my sideburns, you witch!"

There's still so much to learn...

More resume fun

2007-10-28T02:23:00.000-07:00

Under qualification summary: "Good at intercourse."

I'm not sure how to correct that one tactfully.

One student has "practise in electron factory."

"It was volunteer, but it fostered my consecration and heightned my sensibility for work and others."

"I can complete the performance more fun and attack more audience's eyes."

"I have been responsible for the accountant and salesperson in war-mark in past years." [Wal-mart]

A Pox on the Jiaozi restaurant

2007-10-23T03:53:00.001-07:00

The jiaozi restaurant near campus--I have reason to suspect--instigated hostilities between my duzi and myself, making for one of the least pleasant nights of my life. There's nothing worse than dying of thirst while your stomach will have nothing to do with water. Blech.

My new life of swank.

2007-10-21T03:58:00.000-07:00

It pays to say you're bored. Up until this last week, I'd really had a lot of free time on my hands. I said as much to my friend John, setting in motion my ascent to the inner circle of one of Shantou's most fabulously well to do families. See, John knows a gal who knows a gal who needed an English tutor for her and her two kids. John didn't have the time to take on the extra job, but he knew someone who did: this guy. The four of us met up briefly for a drink on campus for some quick introductions, and I agreed to take her and her kids, aged 2 and 3, on as extra students for about 6 hrs a week. She's a really bubbly and friendly woman with two really sweet kids (well most of the time anyway). I've had classes with her for the past week and I think they're going relatively well. I think they'll get better now that we have a book that's a lot more appropriate to her skill level.

Classes are a great chance for me to get off campus a little more, which does my mind a lot of good, I reckon. What this means is that she usually picks me up in her Mercedes outside my building and takes me to her home (complex) where we have her lessons. Quick description of the compound: They have their own private fishing pond (big for a pond, but I think too small to really call a lake) on the right as you enter their gate. The rest of the buildings are off to the left of the road, pretty much in a straight line. The first building on the left is their children's play-structure building that houses a giant playground that would be about right in a city park. Next is their parents house, then the indoor swimming pool/work out facility. Their house is just beyond that, which, needless to say, is quite large. They have a couple of giant TVs, one for Karaoke, the other for regular TV usage purposes. Their bathrooms all have motion-sensing urinals. And because it's China, their taste inevitably tends a little towards the tacky, but hey, whatchagonnado? They have several dressers in particular that have been painted with the really gaudy style that reminds me (uneducated as I am in art history) of that of the later French monarchs. Ew. Back to describing the compound, because, yes, there's more. On the other side of their house is a tennis court, then a putting green and sand trap, and after these a glass building built solely for Tepanyaki dinners. Then, lastly there is the guest house, with I think at least three rooms for accommodating out of town guests.

All this just goes to show that printing cigarette boxes can be a pretty good business. (On a completely unrelated note, I'm sure, Guangdong province prints most of China's counterfeit money. Completely unrelated.)

On Friday night I stayed for dinner, which was in the Tepanyaki house. They a couple chefs from downtown to come an cook a dinner for them. There was first a layout of sashimi, with salmon, and some kind of mussel, I think. Also we had traditional Shantou food consisting of goose feet that you dip in vinegar. Not bad, actually, even if a little difficult to eat with chopsticks. Then the chefs got to work, cooking up some abalone, which was really good, shrimp, more shellfish, and finally some really amazing beef. Carrol, the gal who knew a gal, told me it was imported from Japan that morning. I'm not sure if it was officially Kobe beef, but if not, it was definitely in that style: very marbled with fat. It was maybe some of the best beef I've ever had.

Another feature of the evening, added by the businessmen who were being entertained by their family, was rather competitive sake drinking. The little cups were obviously not enough for them, so they commandeered soup bowls for their bibulous endeavors. Of course, being the foreigner, I was invited/expected to join in with them. Obliging meant that I found myself pounding Sake from a bowl tête-à-tête with an old man of at least 70. I definitely couldn't keep up with them and had no desire to try in my boss' home, so after a couple bowls of Sake, I did have to duck out of any further drinking because I definitely didn't want to sacrifice my dignity. I'm pretty confident: Mission Accomplished.

My student, in her own words

2007-10-18T05:52:00.000-07:00

I assigned résumés. Under the "Character" section, one student wrote:

"Passional ,pigeon-livered, careful, responsible, brave, guileless."

Pigeon-livered?!? Can someone explain me this please?

Mohamedists in the Orient!

2007-10-14T22:39:00.000-07:00

While in Xi'an we happed on the Big Mohammedan Temple. We were lucky to be there at the time these heretics were gathering for prayer. The Muslims mostly sported white caps that set them apart. Some super special Muslims had cooler hats than the rest:

For their mid-day worship, a stream of men converged on the building pictured above, went past the gate that read "Muslims only," took off their shoes and took a position inside, all presumably facing Mecca. Then they touched their foreheads to the ground several times, apparently to their own individual rhythms. They had a speaker system set up outside so that we could hear the call to prayer. It also broadcast the caller-to-prayer's coughing and throat clearing beforehand, lending the whole affair a distinctive and unmistakably Chinese flavor. Once the chanting started, they moved closer to the center of the building, into the shadows where I could see what they were doing less clearly. Throughout, stragglers kept on trickling in, some more obviously concerned with their timeliness than others.

The Mosque's architecture was fascinating: definitely Chinese, but with its fair share of Arabic influence. Kitty has a nice description of the historical import, cultural significance, blah, blah, blah, of the thing here.

As you can tell from the above image, we truly were where East meets Further East. Here are some more pictures:

Theme: Diversity of global village

2007-10-12T00:13:00.000-07:00

[I've been judging speech contest essay submissions. At first I was just going to pull out choice sentences to share with you, but I think the effect is better conveyed with the following complete submission.]

Peaceful but different

With impaction of globalization waves, intercultural communication becomes frequent day by day. Early in 1962, a Canadian scholar named Michael has put forward the concept of "the global village". The culture around the world seems to become common. Here I want to express my opinions with Chinese movies.

Firstly, Chinese movies should participate in a cross-cultural dissemination actively to change minority position. Chinese culture contains many idioms, bywords, as well as complicated tight rite. These are our features, and we are responsible to keep them!

Secondly, in order to construct advantaged environment for growth of Chinese movies, Chinese movies can draw lessons from worldwide advanced principle to operate rules.

Thirdly, in the aspect of spreading corpus, Chinese movies had better develop excellent "gatekeepers" that are familiar with worldwide cultures. Authority agency need to have international eyesights, and abandon over-weight native feelings.

Finally, do it from children, education departments should raise their sense to protect their nation features. We can also encourage local people to master special skills of their nations.

In these ways, the nations and region of different cultures will reach common development and absorb mutually.

[I also have to mention my favorite essay title of the lot: Don't destroy Israel, Destroy intolerance]

National Day Holiday in 西安: The Hua Shan Climb

2007-10-09T05:57:00.001-07:00

Last week was our National Day holiday, so Elinor and I jetted up to Xi'an to pay the Whitties up there a visit. We had a nice and relaxing week: a good mix of playing and enriching our persons through cultural discovery. The sunrise pictured above was our reward for a full night of 'hiking' up Hua Shan (华山). Well worth it I'd say. We started our ascent at 11pm and didn't get to the top until a little after 5am. Hiking at night was definitely the right way to go. Seeing the mountain in the dark really made the mountain more striking, peaceful and awesome (in the old-school sense of the word). There was also the added bonus of being able to see the stars very clearly, something I'm not sure I've ever done in China before. Orion made an appearance from behind the clouds, accompanied by more stars than I usually get to see at home.

I should say that by 'hiking' I don't mean what is usually understood in the States. Here's a couple pictures of our fellow 'hikers', pretty typical of the Chinese breed of mountaineers, that should give you some idea of the difference. Several people made the trek wearing suits and leather dress shoes. Don't ask about the sword, I really couldn't tell you.

All the way up to the peak, there were plenty of small vending outposts, urging people to take a relaxing 休息， or respite, and enjoy all sorts of refreshments: red bull (or maybe a Chinese equivalent, possibly with amphetamines, who knows?), canned coffee drinks, noodles, tofu soup, cucumbers, apples, melons, etc.... And here we were, silly laowai, thinking that it was a good idea to stock up on food before embarking and doing something so coarse as to carry it up the mountain with us! I'm sure it must have appeared rather barbarian to the Chinese who knew enough to buy their provisions on a need-to-eat basis. Sort of like seeing someone bring their own ketchup to a nice restaurant.

In addition to edible fare, these shops also sold padlocks and medals on which you could get your name engraved. Hundreds of thousands (yes, I counted) of these padlocks have been locked onto the chains along the walkways to the top of the mountain, as seen here. Having your name on them ensures good luck for you and yours.

The biggest shocker to us, however, was the sheer number of other people coming up the mountain with us. Even though we were doing the less crowded night hike, there was a constant stream of people marching their way to the summit. At some of the steeper parts--which were a little harder to navigate, but not nearly enough so to justify the fear with which many Chinese people regard "China's most perilous mountain"--there were even some bona fide traffic jams, making the steepest parts actually some of the least tiring stretches. At one of these backed up spots on our route, I was feeling pretty good about the climb and enjoying the rest the stalled line was giving me, when an old man put me to shame, pushing past me and climbing the steps on all fours while carrying a very young toddler on his back. In fact, he was far from the only person who was taking someone from the newly minted generation on an overnight stroll; there was definitely no shortage of chilluns on the mountain.

One question I can't figure out an answer to is where all of these people went. When we started nearing the East Peak, we came to one of the static lines of people and I realized that the top of the mountain might be full. After all, peaks are where mountains converge to a point and disappear into thin air, so people can't keep filing up and up indefinitely. Suddenly the thought of myself as a lemming popped into my head, trudging diligently up, trusting the wisdom of the crowd around me, only to get jostled off a cliff waiting for me at the top. Maybe there was more to the title of most perilous peak in China that I had first realized. Mysteriously, though, there were at most a few hundred of our closest personal friends at the top to watch the sunrise with us. I have no idea where the rest of the crowd was, maybe on the some of the other peaks, but it sure seemed like the main of the crowd was headed to where we were.

Doing my part for the Commies

2007-10-09T03:48:00.000-07:00

I excused a student from most of tomorrow's class so that she could make it to a meeting to determine her eligibility to join the Communist Party of China. Just doing my part to make sure they have access to the best and the brightest that STU has to offer. Good Luck Ann!

Great Chinese Idea #855

2007-10-07T05:55:00.000-07:00

As seen in Xi'an. At least the ladder isn't aluminum.

Happy Moon Cake Day!

2007-09-24T18:15:00.000-07:00

Today is the Mid-Autumn Festival. Last night I got the following note with a moon cake from a student:

"David: Happy Mid-Autumn Day! This is a mooncake, I hope you wold like to eat it.
Tomorrow is Mid-Autumn Day. Don't forget to look at the moon [and] eat the mooncake tomorrow night."

Le Mooncakes:

Le mooncakes detail:

From Wikipedia:
"The custom of celebrating the moon for both the Han and minority nationalities, can be traced as far back as the ancient Xian Dynasty and Shang Dynasty of China (20th century BC-1060s BC). In the Zhou Dynasty (1066 BCE-221 BCE), the people celebrated the Mid-Autumn Festival to worship the moon.

"The practice became very prevalent in the Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE) that people enjoyed and worshipped the full moon. In the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279), however, people started making round moon cakes, as gifts to their relatives in expression of their best wishes of family reunion. At night, they came out to watch the full moon to celebrate the festival. Since the Ming (1368-1644), and Qing Dynasties (1644-1911), the custom of Mid-Autumn Festival celebration has become unprecedentedly popular."

So eat a cake and look at the moon tonight.

Some Gems from the TV

2007-09-23T01:35:00.000-07:00

I've been a little sick--luckily only head sick and not stomach sick--this weekend, taking it easy and pretty much staying in. The upshot is that I caught a couple of silly things on Chinese television that I thought would be worth passing along. On a talent quest-type variety show, a girl sang a cheesy pop song karaoke-style. Though most of it was incomprehensible, I did manage to understand and could read the hook: 爱是 C A P P U C C I N O. This means simply “love is cappuccino." Poetic, no?
Next I want to talk to you about 'sensuous breast creme.' According to the commercials that loop for hours at a time on Chanel 42 around here, it is the solution to all of your marital problems. Scene one of the commercial shows happy marriage shots with the groom spinning his new wife around in his arms. Then we see that they've gotten pregnant and are happily expecting the pitter-patter of children's feet in their home. Then we see she's crying, presumably because she doesn't look so good in her lingerie any more. Now she's worried because her husband is staying at work late and flirting with a cute girl from the office. The marriage is in ruins! But she discovers Sensuous Breast Creme! Her breasts really got bigger and now her marriage is saved! Thanks to Sensuous Breast Creme, her husband finally has reason to pay attention to her again and is no longer interested in that floozy from work. I can only imagine what would happen if CBS carried an ad like that one...

Best Chinglish Yet

2007-09-21T20:51:00.000-07:00

Last night some of the foreign teachers treated a couple of us to a traditional Shantou dinner: beef and rice noodles. It was a satisfying meal, but nothing necessarily to write home about. When we were back on the street waiting for a cab, Megan tapped me on the shoulder and drew my attention to a sign above a furniture store. They were advertising--I kid you not--their "Poop Collection." I apologize for not having a picture, but I just might try and find the place again to get one.

That's "Mister Teacher" to you!

2007-09-17T07:46:00.000-07:00

After sixteen days in this country, I think I can officially call myself an English teacher now. Well technically at least. Technically because I'm not sure that I've actually taught anybody any English yet, but today was my first day in front of a class. Most of the day was spent on introductions and "two truths and a lie."

I admit, I have yet to see if I can actually plan lessons out that will be instructive in any way, but at least now I know that I'm not reduced to incomprehensible whimpering and pissing myself from fear of speaking in front of a class. I do sweat like a hog, though. Given the humidity here, I'm almost always covered with a gross sheen of sweat whenever I show up anywhere, whether that's to the first class of the year or to the opening night of the English Lounge when I had to introduce myself to roughly two hundred first-years as their faculty adviser between wiping my forehead off and hoping that my back wasn't visibly soaked. I was especially sweaty for this evening's class because of Augie, another Level 4 intern. On our way to our classes, I started to veer off in the wrong direction (this won't surprise most of you). Augie perked up and asked if I knew some sort of shortcut--never mind the fact that there's no possible shortcut on a straight shot like the one we should have been on. I said, "No, now that I think about it, I came this way this morning and it took me way out of my way to get to class. I'm pretty sure this way will take longer." Augie heard, "Yes. Trust me, Augie. This is definitely a short cut. We'll halve our travel time by taking this path." So he pushed on the abortive route and I followed, thinking that he must know some way that I didn't. By the time we realized that there was a huge ditch between where we were and the building where we needed to be, and that we had no way of crossing it, we had to run a ways to avoid the embarrassing proposition of walking in late to our first class. So, short story long, the students of my second section first met me in all of my sweaty, sweaty glory.

I'm finding that Chinese students won't do ANYTHING unless I get them up and away from their desks. When I tried to get the first class to play two truths and a lie--while I pulled students to the back of the class so I could take their pictures to remember their names--everyone just sat silently. I went to a few tables to see what truths and what lies were they were telling each other, and most of the groups hadn't even gotten each other's names down. Once I stood them up and paired them off, though, they really got into it; they even ignored me when I told them that their break was starting.

Our Chinese students never disappoint in choosing interesting English names. A glance at my course lists, and I see students who've named themselves Senson, Winson, Wyman, Jeckool, Cherry, Neo, Solo, Armstrong, Tree, Binary, King, Kobejordan, Lip and Flash [sic to all]. I've also met Key, Lockra, and Ice through the English Lounge and English Corner; and other teachers have related two more winning students' names: Cabbage and Challenge. I've got to admit, the Spanish name I went by in high school, Jesús, just doesn't hold up to comparison with unique (more likely than not pronounced 'eunuch') creations such as Binary.

Of course one thing that I can't do is pass up an opportunity to share non-orthodox English with my readership (Hi, Mom). Students responded to my request for things that they liked their teachers to do with pleas for few homeworks and more useful speeches. Kadi wants "a teacher who can shave share us more free talk time."

The best part of the day was making the students do tongue twisters. "Nine nimble noblemen nibbling nuts" was a crowd favorite. I was actually pretty impressed with their ability to belt out "When a doctor gets sick and another doctor doctors him, does the doctor doing the doctoring have to doctor the doctor the way the doctor being doctored wants to be doctored,
or does the doctor doing the doctoring of the doctor doctor the doctor as he wants to do the doctoring?" Mostly the students were well in comprehensible territory, with only a couple of them bearing no resemblance at all to anything I could recognize in on the screen. I've got some work cut out for me.

Here be we of the ELC

2007-09-12T08:27:00.000-07:00

There be monsters in them hills!!!

2007-09-10T20:05:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Duff, John and I went on a hike in the hills behind the campus and discovered that in addition to cute little geckos that scamper around the walls of our stairwell, there are also HUGE FUCKING SPIDERS in Shantou. Here's one of them, munching on a bee:

We didn't notice any of these spiders on the way up until John practically walked into one on its web. These webs are maybe three and a half feet in diameter. Then on our way down the hill, we saw these spiders everywhere we looked; some of them had been within a foot or so of our heads on the way up. The bigger ones had bodies that were at least as big as the top two segments of my ring finger and legs that stretched out bigger than my hand. Next time I'm definitely going to remember to wear long pants when I go bushwhacking in the jungle. Kind of creepy.

Aside from the giant spiders, the hike was really pleasant. We got up high enough above campus that we actually got to enjoy a little peace and quiet and enjoy a view or two,which was actually pleasant in spite of the scarred look of the hill that's being chewed away by incessant dynamite blasting right next to campus (or 'campurs' as it is known to some here). The foremost buildings in this picture are on campus; I live in one of the ones off to the left of the frame, I think.

Dotted around the hills above campus, there are tombs and small temples/altars all over the place--most of them are marked with family names, and judging by the burnt incense sticks, they are pretty well visited. These pictures are from the first small altar-type place we came upon:

Here's the view from the other side of the hill--another small town with a huge smokestack.

In the background, you can see the mass of city oozing north from Shantou. From what I can tell, cities and towns don't really ever end, they just bleed into others and go on and on and on. If I weren't so terrified of the traffic here, I'd love to get a moped and go exploring. But I am so I probably won't.

Thursday I proctored. Friday I graded. Saturday and Sunday I died a little on the inside

2007-09-07T01:41:00.000-07:00

On Thursday, I had the extreme pleasure of proctoring a lecture room of 155 freshmen while they took their English placement exams. I have to admit, it's not exactly the most exciting job in the world. I was put in charge of updating the "time remaining" message every five minutes and making announcements when there were 5, 1, and 0 minutes remaining. In the meantime, I checked one of the extra tests. I think that it is compulsory that all foreign language students have test questions relating to the fatness of Americans, and this test did not disappoint.

Some students kept writing after I told them to put down their pens, one of them even after I had made my up to his row and was repeatedly demanding he stop and pass his paper to the center. Even the Chinese teacher couldn't get him to stop until he was good and ready, and when he finally handed it down to her, she just took it and went on without saying anything more to him. So now I know something to expect in my classes.

Friday I got to see the fruits of the testing, and there were some ripe ones for sure. Some of my favorite Chinglishisms

"Every problem has two coins..."
"The teacher leads us to new knowledge and takes us to the kills..."
"This way will let the students to have a deepy understanding."

and my personal favorite:

"The students were impolite and ate snakes in class instead of lesioning to the teacher."

Apparently, the Chinese learn in high school that everything is either on one hand or another, and that entire paragraphs can be started with "In a word..." One student even thought that he or she might get some credit for repeatedly copying down the prompt with "on the other hand" peppered throughout. Another couldn't--so far as I could tell--distinguish between exclamation points and normal periods. Either that or it was perhaps the most enthusiastic support for student participation in class that has ever been penned.

The mild amusement of Friday quickly died on Saturday once we got into grading the oral examinations. It's really hard to stay focused on broken English being marshaled to address best vacations, the merits of student marriage, and big decisions for eight hours. I discovered that, much like in the US, many Chinese students were greatly influenced by their mothers and love them dearly. After a while it all starts sounding the same and you get so used to straining to understand what the testees are trying to communicate that some remarkably bad stuff actually starts to sound alright. I actually felt like someone upstairs had taken mercy on me when I got the students who were too nervous to say anything at all, or maybe just whimpered "Oh God" and cut out. At least I knew exactly what to give them, instead of having to come up with comprehensibility, fluency, accuracy and complexity scores for each clip. Thankfully that's over now, and I think my brain is almost back to normal.

This has nothing to do with China, but...

2007-09-07T01:38:00.001-07:00

It may just be the coolest thing that I have ever seen. This is a video of actual Filipino prisoners doing a remake of Thriller. The transvestite is being held on charges of dealing methamphetamines.

A detail from my new trashcan

2007-09-06T05:36:00.001-07:00

"Sleeping Pig Brother"

Field Trip to the Doctor's Office

2007-09-03T08:58:00.000-07:00

Today was my first full day here in Shantou. It started off with all of us strange-looking English teachers piling onto our bus and making a trip to the visa office to work on our residence permits. At first they didn't believe that my passport was mine because of the long hair in my picture and tried to hand it back to me. Then, when I had convinced them that it was indeed my passport, they proceeded to all come up to the desk to take a peek at my picture and giggle.

Our next stop was the clinic, where all sorts of wonderful proddings and pokings came my way. The clinic was acceptably clean, I felt, and had an entire department devoted to 'sputum collection'. There was also a man who was standing around with a shirt that read, "Fashion is a human" across his chest and "expression" over his liver and out of sight when he had his arms crossed.

My first station was the chest x-ray that I was hoping they wouldn't have to take because I had brought films from the states with me. Alas, apparently the only way to avoid having a new medical checkup upon arrival is if you can somehow amass a Kafkaesque collection of stamps and notarizations from disparate bureaus from different countries. So I had to have another chest Xray done, this time without that reassuring lead apron that supposedly protects my progeny from any additional genetic mutations and aberrations. Next a diminutive woman administered my eye exam, which was considerably more simple than the American version. The eye charts in China are laid out exactly like the ones in the states, except that they are made up entirely of 'E's. The test is in being able to signal to the diminutive woman which way the arms of the 'E' are pointing: up, down, left or right. She then sat me down and looked into my nose, ears and mouth using one of those old school mirrors with a hole punched in the middle that come down over one eye. Then I had a EKG followed by an ultrasound. I think they said it was a girl, but I'm not quite back in the swing of Mandarin yet, so I don't really know for sure. I'll keep you posted. All that was left was a blood drawing (I hear they used clean needles on the other teachers, but there no way to be absolutely sure because I hate looking at needles before they go into me) and urine sample, and then we were gone.

After our checkups we went to Wallmart, which was pretty unremarkable, except that they sell stinky fruit there.

This evenning we had a really nice banquet dinner where I had preserved goose liver--a specialty of Shantou), steamed fish, red beans with some kind of tuber, a mushroom soup made of really chewy mushrooms with long fibrous stalks and beige caps, and some shark skin soup. All in all, it was pretty good.

Thanks Cooperation!!!

2007-09-02T16:24:00.000-07:00

Sights from the flight

2007-09-02T07:48:00.001-07:00

There was some of the best scenery I've ever seen from an airplane on the way from San Fransisco to Beijing. These are pictures of a river I saw in eastern Siberia:

This river is huge. The picture on the left is what it actually looked like from 38k feet in the air, and the one on the right is from about twice higher. I was blown away by all of the channels that the river was carving through its flood plain--it kind of reminds me of a capilary system, except that it's obviously way more dynamic: I could see countless places where channels cut into one another, and plenty of oxbow lakes where an especially sharp bend in the river was pinched off as the river found a straighter path, etc., etc. All of the movement created really beautiful marble patterns you can see quite well in these pictures, but of course it was more vivid in person. Kind of makes the Columbia seem a little boring.

Unexpected Layover

2007-09-01T18:29:00.000-07:00

So getting to Shantou is going to take an extra day than planned: Elinor's and my flight was delayed out of San Fransisco just long enough to keep us from making our connection in Beijing onto the China Southern flight to Shantou. We were hoping that because we missed our flight due to a flight delay, the airline would pick up the tab, but the tickets were booked separately, so we were on our own. After a little prodding of the hotel reservation clerk, we found a cheap place to stay near the airport for about $30 for the two of us. It ended up working out really well because the hotel we ended up in had a much more China feel to it than we would have gotten in the kind of hotel United Airlines would have sent us to: nobody trying to speak english to us, chewy water, someone playing music in the alley at 4 AM, and being coaxed from our sleep by the song of a cat in heat drifting through the window. The bathroom was a perk unto itself. There was a western toilet (no toilet paper) and an open shower that had been installed without the insight that the floor would drain better if it were slanted towards the drain. Thus there was a nice mini-swimming pool and mold garden in our room too. Over all, it was pretty clean though, and the beds were quite comfortable. We're going to run and grab some grub before checking in.

Getting Ready To Go

2007-08-28T13:00:00.001-07:00

Well, in three days I get on a plane and jet off to Shantou to start my teaching post. I've still got a lot of things to do to get ready, and of course I'm just getting started this afternoon on getting it all squared away. I've got accounts to square away, some more clothes and boxes of Tom's of Maine Toothpaste to buy, and of course some goodbyes to say.

profile photo

2007-01-01T04:06:00.000-08:00

For no particular reason, you can only use photos that have appeared in posts for your profile picture in Blogger. So please disregard this post. Now. Really, there's nothing interesting here, other than this picture of me. That's all.