Live from China

So this is what I've been reduced to...

2007-12-18T10:39:00.000+08:00

I had such great aspirations for this blog. The prospect of having one's own potentially unlimited space to write about one's self seemed a not ony a great idea, but also one that was created with me in mind.

Instead of grasping this great opportunity, I have spent my time posting videos, documenting my travels, complaining a good deal, detailing drunken nights, and putting up pictures, none of which can be that enjoyable to the audience when I know that all you people really want to hear is about the extremely intelligent thoughts that occupy my mind. Well unfortunately, I have not delivered this, somewhat conciously because I know that if I tried to explain what goes on in my head most of you would go blank and procede to melt into your keyboards.

I had other plans as well. There's still an idea about a blog mixtape, although the cleaning lady at my work threw away my trusty notepad containing the list of most of the songs. That and my home computer is broken. Am I making excuses? Yes.

The point I'm trying to make is I could have given so much more to this blog than I have already, and now its become just a glorified photo album. I apologize to all of those who were bored hearing my tales of mountains, chuar, and generally acting a ridiculous fool.

I thought about making a list of things about China as well, those that one would and wouldn't miss, similar to one that my friend Asia threw up on facebook a while back. My list of things to miss would probably include the freedom to spit wherever I please, eating out three meals a day, hearing "I've been in better crackhouses" when I give someone the tour of my apartment, tetris, paying the same price for a beer or for a ride on the subway, meeting new people, having outrageously lewd conversations that go unnoticed by taxi drivers a mere seat away (your grandmother is a nun and you did WHAT to her?), taxis, trains, Chinese children, Double Happiness, my cornerstore, baozi spot, and watchman. Things not to miss would probably have something to do with having seven varieties of tea on a menu, telling the waitress that you want whatevers delicious, and getting a blank stare.

Anyway, I'm coming home. Although I can't call an experience of 8 months one thing, China has certainly been a daily, nay hourly, mix of uphill climbs and downhill slides. Some of my favorite things about this country are some of the things I'm most eager to get away from. Regardless, I've made some great friends, been some crazy places, eaten some delicous food, and dare I say I may have even grown up a little bit in the process. There may or may not be another post or two before I get on the plane this weekend, but for now I am signing off, hoping, nay knowing, that one day soon, I will be Live from China, once again.

To leave it on a more emotional note here is a slow motion video of a car exploding:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_y7JLJGX_w&NR=1

Picture Blast.

2007-12-12T12:42:00.000+08:00

As the end of my stay in China comes closer and closer, I've ended up with a couple sets of pictures that I had inteded to blog about at one point or another but never really got around to it. Given that I had trouble posting all of these on Blogger, I went over to flickr.com and used my Yahoo! Chess username (pawnkrusha) to make an account and post about 40 of them up:

http://www.flickr.com/gp/21691536@N07/Z13z9T

In here you'll find a variety of pictures. The first couple come from a day I spent in Gulou, which is a historic/bar district with some cool buildings and a lot of good food. I went to the Drum and Bell Towers, which used to be used to keep time and all that, and now are just some towers with Drums and Bells in them, respectively. From there I got a good view of the surrounding hutongs, which I then walked around in and snapped a couple pictures.

The next group is from a day I spent at Zhongguancun, which is a large set of electronics markets, sort of like Akihabara in Tokyo but surprisingly more organized. I went up there to take my computer to the shop (broken! Dad, let's buy some Apple Care before I take this in), and ended up putting my iPod in for repair and buying and knock-off iPodd which works beautifully.

Lastly, you'll see pictures of a recent Winter trip to the Summer Palace, a massive garden complex outside of Beijing. Although the best time to go is supposed to be the Spring or Fall, Summer Palace was easily one of the coolest historical attractions I've seen in China and I recommend it to anyone coming to Beijing.

We got the first snow of the year a little while ago. It didn't stick everywhere and quickly deteriorated to slush where it did but it was nice nonetheless. I have a couple pictures of that in there as well, along with one of my night watchman.

My house.

2007-12-04T12:48:00.000+08:00

Located in Haidian district just inside the Third Ring Road on Chegongzhuang Xi Lu and Zizhuyuan Nan Lu, my apartment complex is just a moments walk south of the ZiZhuYuan Park and biking distance to the Beijing Zoo. Situated on the third floor of a decaying 1970s building, my apartment is complete with 1 bath, kitchen, dining room, a spare bedroom, a master suite including an entertainment system, home office, and chipped paint, and a small balcony that overlooks bike racks, a tin roof, and cats which lounge everywhere in between.

My house: D1, unmarked street perpendicular to the park (click for larger image):

Zizhuyuan Nan Lu:

My spot:

Dining Room, Fridge, couch complete with Nissan seat covers:

I eat out, a lot:

Viking is played out, I went for a more classic look to my kitchen:

I live so large, my sink has a sink:

Essentials:

The bathroom. In the following two pictures, use the Edge Shaving Gel can as a point of reference:

Spare bedroom:

Master suite with connected balcony:

Entertainment system:

Home office:

Third floor balcony vista:

Tai Ji

2007-12-01T07:46:00.001+08:00

A little something I shot in my spare time out of my office window.

Shandong Debauchery.

2007-11-29T12:51:00.000+08:00

The day after the insanity that was Thanksgiving, Asia and I took off work, popped some ibuprofen, and caught a train to Weifang to see our counterparts Joe, Anya, and Meredith. Joe and Anya were in Beijing while Asia and I were in Weifang, and now vice versa, so although we all came to China together, but we've spent the vast majority of the time apart and it was good to get some time to cut loose in the streets of Old Weifang.

The weekend was spent walking around the campus, eating at long-missed restaurants, and generally keeping the party going as long as possible. We met up the first night at a Muslim restaurant and got some chuar and some dishes, and then moved onto our old haunt mBox, where Joe has recently been playing guitar. The Weifangers know two other girls one from Britain named Terna and one from Ukraine named Elena and they came along as well for a couple hours of skewering topics ranging from actual meat on skewers to Margaret Thatcher to glasnost. Mostly glasnost. We ended up at some chuar place at 3 or 4 in the morning talking to some big rig truck drivers. We asked them where they were driving to and they said Weifang. We asked them where they were driving from and they said Weifang. Apparently Weifang has a lot of inter neighborhood traffic.

The next night Elena cooked us a traditional cabbage packed Ukrainian dinner and I asked her why they didn't build a better wall in Berlin if it was just gonna come down when the economic and political ties of the Soviet Union came undone. We also engaged in the Chinese custom of mixing red wine with sprite. We headed out to the new bar in town that all these mofos had been telling us about, California Dream, only to realize that it was actually Arabian Nights, but that they had just redecorated. Ended up back at mBox, and most people left early so Asia and I stayed while she talked to a German and I talked to Lee Ong, the big boss man at mBox, and later to a waitress who was studying to be a doctor. We came home for a short while, but both decided we should have gotten a McChicken on the way home, so at 3 AM Asia and I high tailed it back out of there and caught a cab back downtown for that sweet sweet processed white substance that only Ronald can supply. And I don't mean Reagan. During the day we walked around the Weifang U campus and Joe worked a door open with some technical equipment and his right shoulder so we could get up on the roof.

The last night was considerably more relaxed. We had dinner with Cathy Tan, our old big boss who has recently been promoted to the upper echelons of CIBT management, and then went home at a reasonable hour to sit around and drink and talk and do all that sort of stuff. Terna came over for a while, and when things got way to lame for our liking, we tried to lead some sort of group expedition in search of chuar, which ended up being a success, as her and I went to get chuar.

We spent the next day packing up and having one last lunch with the gang at the recently relocated Food Alley which apparently they decided to place in a wind tunnel. Guanxi George came along as well, and was quite well dressed due to the fact that he has been promoted to being a personal assistant to Dave Thomas, an upper level dude. Asia and I visited our old DVD store (I got the complete sets of That's My Bush! and the Transformers TV show, among other choice finds), and caught a train back to beautiful Beijing.

My camera got dropped on Thanksgiving and now takes beautifully clear pictures of fuzzy things. This is my third camera mishap in China. Andy Williams (my father) sent a spare to Weifang a while ago and being there gave me the perfect opportunity to pick it up, hence, the split between clear and blurred pictures.

Beijing Train Station:

Sunset on the train:

Weifang:

Real live killers:

George acting crazy:

The river in Weifang has recently been drained for cleaning purposes or something:

Asia looking tough in front of some sexy gun wielding heroines:

Thanks fucking Giving.

2007-11-23T13:14:00.001+08:00

Pardon my language ladies.

I wrote a big, bad half a blog about last Thursday's Thanksgiving on Friday's train to Weifang. Unfortunately, my computer screen has taken to blurring and generally acting spastically so I was forced to stop. Looks like I'll be taking a trip to the Beijing Apple Store. Point is, Thanksgiving is way over and I had a killer weekend in Weifang so really this post is old news, but hey, the people need to know.

Thanksgiving manifested itself as a potluck over at Clayton and Katie's house. Prez, Asia, our boss Kathy, Tasha, and a couple others came along for a night of eating turkey and watching Danish claymation video art from the 1930s. Really. We ordered a 17 LB turkey from a restaurant that sells Western food, and got with it our choice of 1.5 L of gravy or some cranberry sauce. Against my best wishes, we got the cranberry. We had the whole nine yards, stuffing, mashed potatoes, pies, hell, Kathy made dumplings. During the winter, its common to see people selling sweet potatoes out of used oil drums converted into ovens and attached to bikes. I bought a couple hot ones and brought some sweet potato pie.

It was a good time. Guitars were brought out at one point, Asia's hat got passed around, some awful things were said about Mother Teresa and Prez, Clayton, his friend Casey, and I all ended up at a 24 hour bowling alley that actually closed at 3 negotiating with the staff to keep the lanes open.

Plenty to be Thankful for.

The Morning Commute.

2007-11-20T13:37:00.000+08:00

Typically, my morning commute consists of a 15 second walk across the street to get my morning dumplings, a good 15 minutes of chomping down breakfast, and then a easy 10 minute stroll down Chegongzhuang Lu to get to the school. This morning was different however, and given that I haven't written anything in a while, I might as well cover the different.

Joe came to Beijing a couple weekends ago from Weifang. Joe was in Beijing while I was in Weifang, and now for the second half of our stay we've been switched. We had a good weekend of hanging out, drinking, and haggling at the infamous Pearl Market. An interesting piece was the fact that Joe and I have fallen in with the same people and coworkers in our respective environments, but not together, so there's a certain degree of "we all know each other but do you know so and so how I know so and so" going on. Whatever the hell that means. Regardless, we had some Peking duck, went around with the boss, got Joe a good old fashion Western breakfast skillet which you will have a damn hard time finding in Weifang and ended up on Friday night staying up until 5 AM to get the first dumplings of the day fresh out of the steamer.

Being that Asia and I want to pay him back, and go back and tear up the old stomping grounds, we decided to buy some train tickets and head to out to Weifang next weekend. Determining that I would rather not be pressed against a window by an 85 year old woman who was half my height with twice my balls, I opted out of going to the train station at rush hour. The problem with this was that after buying the tickets, chasing down the bus to get to Asia's, getting off at the "McDonald's on the corner across from the China Post" that was a stop before the one near Asia's house, running to catch another bus, and finally getting to her place, it was damn late to start heading home. Hence the morning commute.

I woke at 7, threw on my clothes, took a picture of the large phallic smokestack outside Asia's window (great feng shui) and grabbed a bus to the train station where there is a stop for Subway Line 2. Line 2 runs directly under second ring road, which is the first ring road around the center of Beijing. In total there are about 5 ring roads, the last ones far out in the boonies. True story is the second ring road is actually built on the former city wall, and there are still semi-presevered parts of this wall hanging around the city. I hopped on the subway and got off at my stop, where I argued with numerous pedicab men about the price of a trip on their motorcycle turned taxi. After having to practically hop out of one led by a bicycle and piloted by an incredibly slow man I found a guy with a motorcycle and a good price, and coasted on home snapping pictures out the back.

Asia's smokestack at 7AM:

The old city walls:

Suckers:

My chauffeur from the subway station onwards:

The Heat is On.

2007-11-14T16:39:00.000+08:00

This guy has been sitting quietly in the corner of my house for months now, and has finally decided that in return for the free lodging I've been so graciously giving him since my arrival he's going to start putting in some work. The cold season in Beijing has been getting increasingly apparent over the past weeks, and blessed heat has started to flow into the pipes. Private businesses with their own heating supply have been keeping customers warm for weeks now, yet my home, as well as homes across the country, have been cold and drafty at night. While my house is still drafty, with the arrival of warmth the other day it has become more bearable.

In an effort to save on heating costs (I guess), the PRC does not turn on the heat until November 15th. This applies to everything north of the Yangtze river. In the summer similar rule applies to all places south of the river, when they are told to turn on air conditioning. If you are one of the unfortunate people to live just on the south bank of the Yangtze, like my co-worker Prez once was, you get to suffer for the whole season without heat. Regardless, the saying goes that the heat is always turned on two weeks too late, and turned off two weeks to o early.

I am a lucky person in the sense that I somehow got my heat a couple days before the majority of people. The downside of this is that the excitement will wear off and I won't really feel like partaking in all of the heat themed parties on the 15th. Whatever the case, I have removed all of the various things I was resting on top of the heaters and am getting ready to face the winter, now that the PRC has allowed me to.

Grooming.

2007-11-06T16:46:00.000+08:00

Needing a haircut, I strolled down to our college's neighboring food street today, where all sorts of goods and services, food included, can be procured. All over China, there are little alleys and side-streets like the one I'm describing, full of fruit stands, food stands, hole in the wall restaurants, dry cleaners, barbers, corner stores, etc. It's usually a good place to get some food, buy a cellphone card, or get anything else that you might need in everyday life. I can usually be found in one of the noodle shops during lunch time, eating some la mian, some chao mian, or some BBQ:

All that aside, today I needed to give my dome a buzz and, feeling daring, I decided to try something new. Being that I hadn't shaved in a couple days, and I had never been subjected to a straight razor, it seemed like a good idea to throw 10 kuai towards a clean face and a memorable experience. And while my face is now certainly clean, the experience proved far more memorable than I would have thought.

My hair was cut quickly, as a buzz is a fairly easy thing to accomplish, and I was then led over to a hair washing station to get a shampoo. After this, they kept my head in the basin and proceeded to place a steaming hot towel on my face. The next two minutes were some of the most pleasurable moment in my life, and if you have never had a piping hot wet towel sit on your face, I would highly suggest it. They resteamed and wrung out the towel a couple times, giving me a few more chances at ecstasy before they did what I paid them to do.

Actually, at first, I didn't feel anything at all. The woman was deft with the razor and the first few strokes seemed to miss my skin entirely and simply chip away my beard. The towel was reapplied every few moments, and I began to consider not shaving ever again and showing up to the shop every Friday morning to get clean for the weekend. Then we started to get serious. The woman started gripping my face and turning my head into more convenient positions, for her. The razor started to really get at the roots of my hair, and while i figured that this was going to be the cleanest shave ever, I contemplated what exactly it takes to learn to use a straight razor. Do they let you practice on small children or animals before you get to try an actual client? Am I the first person ever to request this and the woman is happy she finally gets to use the razors she bought 4 years ago? Images of Sweeney Todd started to flash in my mind as she held my head, still pressed against the hard porcelain basin mind you, in manners contrary to the best wishes of my spine. Eventually, we got done with the long scrapes against my neck, and as she targeted smaller areas I knew it was coming to a close. The towel was applied once more, and then i was told to stand up and pay, which I did, and promptly noticed my bleeding neck in the mirror. Getting my jacket on, I was given a tissue, and I paid and told them it looked great. Upon reaching my home mirror, I found that in fact, this was in some ways the best shave of my life. The pores on my chin haven't seen this much sunlight since i was 15 years old. On the other hand, neither have the pores on my Adam's Apple which are usually covered by another layer of skin. I did however end up with a quite rugged looking parallel pair of cuts on my left cheek.

Only time will tell if I will ever willingly allow another person to hold a sharp metal object that close to my face again. However, it was good to have such an experience, and I hope that this piece today will inspire anyone else feeling adventurous to get a nice, clean shave.

A Walk in the Park.

2007-10-28T08:31:00.000+08:00

Had a pretty wild weekend. Highlight aside from general carousing that culminates with me annoying my morning baozi ladies across the street as they fold up little pockets for the day's coming crowd and heated debates over the best movie of the Road Warrior series was a meal at a Xinjiang Restaurant on Saturday night. Xinjiang is the largest, and farthest west province in China, and is responsible for some damn good Central Asian cooking. We had some lamb, watched some belly dancers, and listened to a trio of two guitars and a slamming bongo-vocalist. Good times all around.

I spent today nursing my mind, and went out for some food at one point. Being that it was going to be the only time I left the house today, on a whim I headed over to ZiZhuYuan, my local park to see what was up. We had our first rain in weeks last night, and it gave the city a much needed bath, and there was genuine blue sky. Unlike Seattle, they have distinct seasons in Beijing, and its definitely starting to get much colder this week. From what I understand it's only going to be a matter of days before the temperature really drops. However, for today it was warm enough, and was well suited for a fall park setting.

Eventful Day.

2007-10-25T22:06:00.000+08:00

You may notice I'm a little shaggy around the face area. I took a week-long hiatus from shaving and I'm enjoying it so far, probably because I'm not shaving. That mug is my first piece of CIBT memorabilia which I convinced my boss, quite easily actually, to give me.

Whattaday. Got up bright and early at 6:30 so I could get to work at 8 o'clock for a phone call check up from the co-op office in Vancouver. They just wanna call in to people once every term to see how things are going, how they're adjusting, etc. The two times I've done it it's been really easy because there's a lot to say about being in China that relates in no way to the job, and my bosses have been people I get lunch and dinner with every once in a while so I get a, possibly undeserved?, good rap.

We actually didn't get the conversation going until like 9:30 due to misunderstandings, international phone trouble, etc. but again it went fine. Immediately afterwards my boss, Kathy, told me she got a call from Prez and that the night before he ate something that didn't quite digest as planned, so I'd be subbing his class for day. This is always good news, especially this week, when the other option isn't sitting around in the office bored as hell. It's sitting around the office doing data entry of every student's evaluation of every teacher. So I jumped at the opportunity.

The class went pretty well, although subbing and playing games can go pretty poorly if they stay quiet the whole time, which they did for a while at least. I don't know if you've heard this but Chinese students aren't exactly known for their excessively extroverted personalities. We played Two Truths and A Lie, where you write three sentences about yourself, two of them being, surprisingly enough, truths, and one being a lie. Then you present to the class and have them ask questions to determine what's what. That lasted about 20 minutes which was a good 15 minutes longer than it should have. We then played a game where one student faces the class while another writes a word on the board behind them. The class has to describe this to the kid without using the word itself.

Two words came up that were hilarious to me. One girl wrote "Taiwan" behind some kid and the first clue that popped out of the crowd was "It is a province of China!". Always gets a good chuckle from me. Regardless of my own position, hearing such determined phrases like that and seeing quotation marks in the China Daily when referring to the Taiwanese "president" just gets me good.

Another kid wrote "Yeah" on the board, and at first I thought this was good just because it may be difficult to describe. All of the girls were unphased however, and quickly put up their hands in the "peace" symbol. That prompted me to ask them, "So that's what you mean when you put up two fingers in pictures!? You mean: YEAAAH?" To which they replied, "well.... yeah, of course what else would we mean?" They wouldn't believe me, but I tried to explain that some Westerners might use that symbol to give off feelings of goodwill or peace, and don't throw it up in every picture they take with their friends.

After an afternoon of more data entry, I headed over to Chaoyang district where I teach a small group of MBA students on thursdays. These guys are cool because they're in between the ages of 25 and 35 and have actually interesting things to say and a genuine desire to learn English, a crazy concept to present to privileged 18 year old only children whose can only tell me, "I don't know how to say what my parents do... they... they buy land... or buildings... and make buildings... and sell them." Right kids. Anyway I came to the MBA class totally unprepared and not really sweating it and we had a great conversation about Eastern and Western economic disparity in China and decided to start doing debates in class to improve their critical thinking skills, which one guy Jerry is particularly infatuated with, when he's not encouraging me let him help me get a Chinese girlfriend. A favorite quote of the evening was, "What are the exact steps you do to think critically?" Well, the whole idea is that you're not just following some given, ordered steps and repeating them in every situation Jerry, but... gather information how about that?

Took the subway home, brushing off Jerry's insistence that, "You know, as China modernizes, new ideas come also. Some girls today are not... can you say... maidens? Do you know maidens? Maybe you can find a girl who is not a maiden and have fun. I will help you!" Jerry, I'm just fine thanks.

Alright this was a long one, I stopped at Starbucks and got a coffee before the night class and now I'm pretty awake, so the my breakfast place across the street which converts into BBQ at night is calling.

2 Months.

2007-10-23T08:33:00.000+08:00

Looking at the date yesterday I realized that I was exactly 2 months away from my departure back to the free world. It hit me that with the end in sight, I don't really want to prolong my stay here as much as a did before. When I first got here I was extremely comfortable. I settled in, had a great summer, and didn't really miss home or think about leaving because it was so far away and I could really care less. For a while when I first got to Beijing I started realizing that now it was going to start coming to an end, and I was scrambling to find another job, extend the one I already have, anything in order to stay. But now that I've given up on that, and I see that the end is so close, I just basically feel like getting it over with. 2 months is actually a full 25% of my time here, so really it shouldn't seem like it's over already, but it basically does. Maybe some of this is a result of the fact that I had brunch with Asia the other day where we talked about this sort of stuff and I had a cheesesteak and a shake. Maybe some of it has to do with the fact that in Beijing my weeknights are quieter than they were in Weifang. Maybe it's because my weekends are so much louder than they were in Weifang. And maybe it's just that I've been here a long time, and that seeing the end makes me realize the other great stuff that's ahead. I definitely want to come back, although I'm still here, but I guess I won't start figuring that out until I leave.

Lazy Sunday.

2007-10-14T18:04:00.000+08:00

Friday and Saturday we went out and went pretty hard. Friday ended at 5:30 AM in a McDonalds playing Indian Poker, and on Saturday we went to MAO Livehouse and saw a punk show. They had some Chinese bands, some with a couple foreigners, and a Scottish band who looked liked they been doing it a while and were just getting to the stage where their once tight tatoos begin to sag. It's gonna be a long way down fellas. As is to be expected, I woke up a little bruised and tired this morning, slept as long as possible and quickly determined I'd be taking it easy today.

I actually ended up getting a good amount done once I got out of the house around 1. It was an unusually warm day and I decided to check out Wanfujing, a shopping district with a Nike store, Gucci, all that stuff. I had read that their was a good food street there but niether I, nor the policeman I asked, could figure out where it was exactly. Wanfujing had a bookstore, and I got a book I've been looking for called From Emperor to Citizen. It is the autobiography of Pu Yi, the last Emperor of China who ascended the throne when he was almost 3 years old. He went on to become the leader of the Japanese puppet state Manchukuo during their occupation, and died a regular citizen of Beijing after the rise of the Communists. Should be a good read.

Being that the price of the subway was recently lowered from 3 kuai to 2, I decided to go to Gulou, our weekend stomping grounds, for a bite of barbecue, because I walked by a place earlier that looked like it had a variety of different things, and not just lamb. Don't get me wrong, lamb's great, lamb's the standard actually, but Beijing lacks in the barbecue department in a way Weifang didn't. They still have it, but they don't have any vegetables. In Weifang, you could get whole spicy green peppers, potatoes, eggplant, even steamed bread (manto), all on a stick. Maybe I need to look harder, but so far Beijing doesn't have this variety, so I headed over to this place to get some. Plus I got to ride a newly constructed subway line which puts all the previous ones to shame.

Once I got off however, I got sidetracked because I saw a place I pass constantly that has a giant spit of roasting chicken. My plans changed instantly, I ordered one, which turned out to be a sort of gyro/sandwich of chicken, lettuce, cucumber, curry, and some heat in between what resembled an English muffin. After one bite, I went to a corner store, got a bottle of beer, came back, ordered another, and sat down for a lovely late afternoon meal. All in all, not bad for a Sunday.

Out and about with Hannah.

2007-10-08T10:59:00.000+08:00

National Week is over as is my last official week of vacation. Not that a lot of being here hasn't been a vacation anyway, but I digress.

Hannah flew out from San Francisco to bless me with her prescence and romp around. It was a fun time! I got to do a lot of the Beijing sightseeing that I hadn't got around to, and we headed to the east coast south of the Yangtze River and tore things up there as well.

The first stop on the trip was just outside of Beijing at the Great Wall. Let me tell you, it was great. Seriously its a pretty amazing piece of architecture. Granted most of the sections, including the one we went to - Mutianyu, are restored but its still crazy to think that it was built by the labor of thousands and thousands of prisoners, soldiers, slaves, and other willing volunteers.

We headed out of Beijing by plane in the direction of Hangzhou, and arrived there midday, in time to take a cruise on the famous West Lake. We also saw one of the oldest and largest temple complexes in China, which was founded by a monk from India and saved from destruction during the Cultural Revolution on orders from Zhou Enlai. We finished the afternoon off with a tour of a tea plantation.

Now, the Lake and the Temple were both amazing sites and the tea plantation seemed like it would be equally interesting. Unfortunately, it was light on the tea aspect and heavy on the pressure sales. We were invited to sit down and have a cup of tea, and soon a lady came over and rattled off a rehearsed speech about the glories of Hangzhou tea and the near-magical powers it posseses. This girl, Nancy, combined her sing-songy tale about "Mommies picking the tea and Daddies drying it" with various comments geared more towards an audience around our ages.

"Girls can lift their pinky finger when sipping, this is ok. But the boys cannot do this. This is Brokeback Mountain."

"Our highest quality tea, the top five percent of our crop, is only available to government officials or people who buy it here. It is called Virgin Tea, because it was traditionally picked during the peak of growing season with the lips of virgins. This is not done anymore, mostly because there are no more virgins."

"If you buy the B grade tea and the A grade tea, you can get an additional baby-sized can of A grade as well. Just like a Chinese family, one father, one mother, and one baby."

All of these quotes were ended with a sweet smile as if she didn't realize what she had just said, but when it came time to packaging up tea for sale, that smile faded and Nancy was all business. Hannah and I, who had been exchanging glances and nudging each other the whole time, folded under the pressure and bought some incredibly over priced, but of a purportedly high grade, tea. We really have no one to blame but ourselves, or myself being that I suggested I would buy first, but it was a ridiculous situation nonetheless.

Moving on, the next day we headed to Putuoshan. Putuoshan is a small island off the coast, one of the four holy Buddhist mountains of China, and home to a giant statue of Guan yin, the Goddess of Mercy. We spent a couple days on the island seeing temples, hanging out around the beach, and eating seafood. The seafood was especially cool because most restaurants had a bunch of large tubs with all sorts of fish and sea creatures inside. You simply picked out your meal, they wacked it on the ground, and in 15 minutes lunch was served.

The highlight of this part of the trip was our guide, Joy. Hannah is over here hanging out with me, but she is also doing some research for her tour company and so we had guides with us for different parts of the trip so she could ask questions, see important sites, and determine whether or not her company's cruise ship could access the port in Hangzhou easily, etc. This was a good resource, because it turned out Hangzhou is inland and has no port. I was a little apprehensive about having a guide, but Joy turned out to be really cool and I think she enjoyed us as much as we enjoyed her. She said her usual groups were large consisting of around 20 people, and that we were some of the youngest she had ever given a tour for. She was our guide to Hangzhou and Putuoshan, but she had never been to Putuoshan and therefore was as new to it as us and was able to enjoy seeing the sites. We had dinners with her, hung out all the beach, all that, and I got the feeling that she doesn't get to do those sorts of things with her groups very often. She had never been to the beach before either, so we got the pleasure of showing her that as well.

Next stop was Shanghai. After arriving, we got some dinner and figured we'd take a leisurely walk on the Bund to relax. Unfortunately, we forgot it was National Week, one of the three national holidays which EVERYONE IN CHINA shares. We also forgot that Shanghai is one of the major destinations for Chinese travelers, and that the night skyline of the Bund is a must-see in just about everyone's book. So the Bund was insane, and we could barely make it to the railing. Hannah got to experience Chinese pedestrian navigation etiquette first hand, and I got to experience it on a larger scale than every before. We ended up there a night or two later, this time at 5 oclock, and it was much more reasonable. We got some melon on a stick, and took a quick spin near the water before meeting my friend Anya, now stationed in Weifang, and her mother for dinner at a restaurant which served food from China's westernmost province, Xinjiang.

We spent to rest of our time in Shanghai eating dumplings, checking out the Shanghai Museum, negotiating in broken Chinese for various goods (My favorite tagline: We're foreigners but were not dumb), and checking out various districts such as the French Concession and Old Town. Cool city!

During our stay in Shanghai we took a day trip to Suzhou, the canal-filled sister city of Hangzhou and checked out a garden, a temple, and a Silk Factory which was interesting but not interesting enough to make me buy a wardrobe full of silk clothes. We took a guide but later realized that this leg of the trip could have easily been done by ourselves. When we had Joy, it was just like we had another travel companion, but for Suzhou our guide didn't give us as much interesting information and wasn't as open. Still a great time though, and Suzhou looks like somewhere I may want to visit again or possibly work in the future.

We finished up back in Beijing, where Hannah and I had Peking Duck, and saw Tiananmen Square (decked out in National Week decorations including a huge portrait of Sun Yat-Sen) and the Forbidden City. Unfortunately two of the largest buildings there were getting rehabbed, but we still got to see a lot of cool stuff (best rafter paint jobs I've seen yet). I guess it'd be a cool place to live if you were a ruler of the Middle Kingdom and the direct descendant of God.

I saw Hannah off at the airport shuttle at 5:00 the next morning, and spent the rest of the day relaxing and recuperating. It was a wonderful whirlwind trip and great to see Hannah. I feel like I get to know her and Max a lot better as I get older and see them as just some other people rather than my brother and sister. I hope she had a good time, I know I had a good time, and it was great to get out and see some more of this massive place.

Here's some pictures from the trip. For more, check out:

http://ubc.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2132503&l=99610&id=21002286

Great Wall:

Joy:

Tea:

Temple:

The Shanghai Museum:

The view from the Bund:

The Bridge of 9 Turnings in Old Shanghai

Suzhou:

The Forbidden City has some great rafters:

And some not so great ones:

China has bathrooms specially designated for the deformed:

National Week (Oct. 1-7)

2007-09-27T14:34:00.000+08:00

National Day of the People's Republic of China
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The National Day of the People's Republic of China is October 1. It is a public holiday in the People's Republic of China to celebrate its national day.

The PRC was founded on October 1, 1949 with a ceremony at Tiananmen Square. The Central People's Government passed the Resolution on the National Day of the People's Republic of China on December 2, 1949 and declared that October 1 is the National Day.

The National Day is the start of one of the Golden Weeks in China. However, there have been some recent controversies over whether Golden Weeks should be kept.

The National Day is celebrated throughout mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau with a variety of government-organised festivities, including fireworks and concerts. Public places, such as Tiananmen Square in Beijing, are decorated in a festive theme. Portraits of revered leaders, such as Sun Yat-Sen, are publicly displayed.

The above was brought to China courtesy of anonymouse.org, which dodges around the PRC's blocks on everything, including wikipedia.

Hannah flies in tonight around 8. We go to the Great Wall Tommorow, and then its a trip to Hangzhou, Shanghai, the mountain of Putuoshan, and hopefully Suzhou. Until then, people of the world, have a happy National Week.

Mid-Autumn Festival Madness

2007-09-25T20:30:00.000+08:00

I added my girl Anya to my blog links. She is a co-op in Weifang who did her first half in Beijing and now is angry she had to leave at all. She has insightful things to say pertaining to the cruelty of the world, the fickle nature of love, puppies, and various other subjects. She has a keen eye for detail and a strong introspective talent which lets you peer into her soul. If any of that sounds of interest to you, check out her "ni hao ma girl" in the right hand column. Asher is still there as well, and he has a quiet funny one right now about socially lubricating himself with some Koreans and the rest of the international students in Kyoto.

Today was Mid-Autumn Festival, a somewhat minor holiday wherein people watch the full moon rise, take a half day off work, and give mooncakes to each other. Basically its like our traditional MTV Spring Break Daytona Beach except with less tits, less drinking, and less puking. Despite the shortcomings, I still managed to have a pretty good day.

The lifespan of a mooncake, in pictures (gory death sequence omitted):

I was given two mooncakes throughout the course of the day. A mooncake is a small thick cake filled with various tasty things and eaten on Mid-Autumn Festival Day to celebrate the moon, in cake form. The cakes lead me to believe that the Chinese were actually the first to land on the moon, because how else could they mimic the dry, tasteless crust so perfectly in the outer shell of the cake? They come in a variety of sweet and savory flavors, from peanut to corn to red bean to beef. A student, Reggie (as in Miller (he told me)), gave me one of my choosing in the morning ,and I took a red bean which I polished off with some delight after lunch. I got another one at English Corner (every Tuesday 6-7 PM, see you there? great.) that was egg filled. I don't know if that meant it was a custard or what, but I ended up passing it off to the woman who runs the restaurant across the street from my house where I eat breakfast every morning. She was quiet happy, and I felt as if I did both of us a favor.

I got to teach a class today, which is a make up class for students at another school somewhat associated with us, I'm not really sure how but associated enough that our teachers teach their make up classes at least. That went swimmingly. As I've said I haven't gotten to many chances to teach since arriving in Beijing so it was great to be able to talk to some students and do something with myself. The class was pretty small, and the desks were arranged in some sort of V formation with myself at the wide end of the V and I felt that was a great setup. I'm starting to think that's a great way to get some dialogue going yet stay in control of the class. All classrooms should be designed that way, in fact if they moved around the rubble of what once was Baghdad and put that into some sort of V or at least a U I bet some sort of reconciliation between rival sects and warlords could come about nicely. Then freedom would REALLY be on the march, but you know what'll happen then, they'll vote for Hamas anyway. Oops.

Finally and perhaps most importantly, I received my boxes from Weifang today! I had sent two big boxes with the majority of my things and the totality of my winter clothes to Beijing. They were supposed to arrive in a couple days and never did, while my cohort Asias came right away. I got a call midday from Asia who said that the post office called her and said "You better come pick these boxes up soon because theyv've been sitting here for a while and we're gonna send them back to Weifang if we don't see you in the next couple days." I headed down there with my boss right away. What the hell man. They were sitting there the whole time, and all that needed to happen was someone needed to call Asia to say they arrived. I don't know what happened but there was a slip somewhere in the chain. Whatever the case, they've come, I'm glad, and I can start unpacking sweaters.

So all in all it was a succesful Mid-Autumn Festival for me. I got some packages, ate a mooncake, cornered some English (quiet succesfully this time actually), and spread peace, love, and understanding everywhere I went.

Keepin the streak alive... and fully dressed to boot

2007-09-23T14:13:00.000+08:00

I figure I haven't had much more to say lately but the urge to blog has been there so I'll keep it going. Yesterday I talked about the possibilities of staying in China for another work term and I called my friend Anya who is in Weifang now because I had heard she was interested as well. She forwarded me an e-mail between herself and a current student at the co-op job in Shanghai and it didnt exactly look like what I or her was looking for. At that job you are a private instructor for a company and you work on your own developing and delivering curriculum to people 50+. I enjoy working more with younger people, preferably university. In addition, you get paid more but you must find your own housing. So scratched that proposition off my list but it got me thinking about staying longer, learning to speak read and write Mandarin, and all the things that another work term could entail. I would need special permission from the co-op ofice, because you arent allowed to do two back to back 8 month work terms without a good reason, but i figure the 2008 Olympics, a chance to learn another language, and the fact that I may be able to work in another field would be incentive enough. Anya fell in love with Beijing, intensely, deeply, and dare I say romantically at that, so she's interested in this idea as well. If we can make this happen it would be cool, and I probably wouldn't do it without her. The downside to all of this is I need to start looking into it now, and that being away from home for such a long time may prove more troublesome in the future, especially given certain individuals who I'd like to be able to spend my time with. But that's all in the future, right now I need to think about the present, which consists of going to shoot some pool with some students whove been pesetering me and then probably eating some dumplings, what a shame.

Livin'. L I V I N.

2007-09-22T16:04:00.001+08:00

Just a little weekend update to keep you folks from starving. I added a link to my man Asher Ramas' blog so you can read about the adventures he'll be having for the next year in Kyoto, Japan. Even if he did bite my style with the blog and all he does deserves some recognition as a cool dude.

There was a cold snap in the last week or so along with some rain but the weather has come around again and we have been getting some of the blue skies and warm days that make people say autumn is the best season in Beijing. To celebrate, I had some dinner outside with my coworkers Prez, Katie, and Clayton and then headed out with Prez to meet up with some people, get some drinks, and argue with some yuppie lady about sexism, cigarettes, and why I'm wrong, but thats another story. Earlier in the week I also went with the office folk along with our boss Kathy to get some hot pot and tease Kathy about her low alcohol tolerance which was quite enjoyable. We asked for our pot to be zhong la (zhong = middle (ie zhong guo - the middle kingdom, aahhhh!) la = hot) and they certainly focused on the la part of that one. It was bearable and quite delicious, but I guess they call it hot pot for a reason. That being that the pot is hot.

An English competition is coming up so I've been breaking the monotony of surfing youtube at the new office with some editing and advice for students about how to improve their speeches about the environment and being a winner that they stole off of the internet. You can't tell me what you did today but you have detailed "attacking problems head on" and the "perils of overpopulation"? Excellent.

In other work news I subbed for a teacher who was sick the other day and finally got to get back in the classroom which was awesome. It looks like I'll also be picking up some real classes as well for at least October which will be good because that was what I liked most about the job in Weifang was the teaching.

There's a co-op opening I just heard about today for the Winter and Summer 08 terms. It's working for a company editing, instructing adults, and event planning in Shanghai. If I could do this, I'd be able to extend my stay over here to total 16 months, and that would be awesome. I'd get a bigger salary, get more chances to see China, and finish all my co-op work so that I could just come home and study straight to graduation. Given that opportunity, I would definitely start taking the Mandarin more seriously and get a tutor and attempt to learn to read and write. Being that I'm only here for 8 months, I've been fairly inconsistent on my studying, and have fallen off completely as of late. I get around fine, but if I'm here for longer, then I would kick myself if I didn't take it seriously. That's all to be seen in the future though, I still have to apply, and even given the chance, I don't know if I'd extend my stay when there's a lot I'd be missing back home.

Anyway, life's great. Asia's boyfriend is in town for a month and I think they, Prez, myself and some others will be heading out to get some food and see some live acts at a venue called Mao (as in Zedong) Livehouse.

Photos:

Clayton and Katie, a Texan and a Virginian:

Prez, a Poland born Philadelphian:

Me, dead serious about having a good time:

Beijing Update

2007-09-17T13:10:00.000+08:00

I realize its been awhile since I've posted, this has probably been the longest period of inactivity I've had on here. I just haven't felt the urge lately, which is interesting considering a lot has happened. My job description in Beijing is still somewhat vague but I've found ways to draw out one internet search so far that I have plenty to occupy myself with. That, coupled with listening to/stealing new music and watching all of the past June's episdoes of the Daily Show, has kept me plenty busy.

Beijing is a really cool place. I've gone out with co-workers and one guy in particular has been here for a while so I've met a good amount of his friends. Asia lives on the opposite corner of the town so we don't see each other often but she's been weathering the 1.5 hour transportation to come to my neighborhood around once or twice a week. I'd go over there if something ever decided to be of interest in her neck of the woods.

There are always exciting things to see, or at least different places to go. Historical sights aside, this town has tons of different activities that keep you busy. I've mostly been going out to the same couple places, but if you want to go somewhere else the option is there. We went to an acoustic punk night at a place on Saturday which turned out to be a bunch of kids in tattered black clothes playing mando-pop rock with a slight edge along with a couple Red Hot Chili Peppers and Nine Inch Nails covers. It wasn't the greatest show by any means, but the point is if you wanna do something, anything, its there. We went to that show after passing up the Brain Failure show, Brain Failure being the leading punk band representing China coming out of Beijing. Asia went on Sunday to see British pioneers of grindcore (its metal but punkier, less solos and more screaming, I guess) Napalm Death. During October Talib Kweli is coming with some other artists to Beijing and Shanghai, although Hannah's coming then and thats my vacation, so we'll be in Shanghai when he's in Beijing and in Beijing when he's in Shanghai.

Shows aside, there's a ton of nightlife that just involves good old fashioned talking and drinking. My coworker Prez knows a group of girls from Australia working for various NGOs over here with the same program. We've been out with them a couple times. Mostly we go to Houhai district which is a collection of hutongs (little brick alleyways and residences which are a great part of Beijing history and culture yet are being bulldozed for the Olympics), bars and restaurants all surrounding a couple large lakes. It's an awesome place to be when the neon turns on. Asia lives closer to another bar district, Sanlutin which is more rich-foreigner oriented. I have poor preconcieved notions of hipsters and investment bankers talking about the latest European techno orchestra thats revolutionizing the indie rock scene and these have been confirmed or reinforced by every male person I know. Regardless, I'm sure I'll eventually go check it out just to see what's going on.

On a note that doesn't involved nightlife, my neighborhood is great to live in. It's quiet because I'm down a little side street but right near the 3rd ring road (Beijing is designed with a couple large roads coming out of the center in rings, their are 5 total, and the inner ring is actually just Tiananmen Square et al) so I can get out into the city quickly. I have a restaurant where I usually get breakfast, as well as corner store, another restaurant which has BBQ, and a KTV all on my street. Life is good! Life is easy. I haven't gotten two boxes with the vast majority of my stuff that I sent from Weifang, which is a little troubling but the deadline for their arrival has not come yet. All in all though, Beijing is a cool place!

Life in the big city.

2007-09-06T09:49:00.000+08:00

So after being in Beijing for a week I can say a lot is different and a lot is similar. What is similar is that I'm still in China. What is different is just about everything else.

My home is much different from Weifang. I live in my own apartment which is in the city, not in a complex of apartments for university staff like I had in Weifang. The apartment is also a lot smaller and less well furnished but I like to think of it as my Chinese bachelor pad. The point is, its all mine so I don't really care what it looks like. A lot of things just need a good dusting or mopping and they'll be tip top. My bed had large springs destroying my back everynight until I flipped the mattress and solved that problem. I'd say the rustic ambience adds to the appeal. Pictures to come.

My work is different as well. In Weifang, we were big fish in a little pond. Although we were students, we were foreigners who carry a huge novelty in a smaller city. In Weifang, we actually taught classes that we designed ourselves, we coordinated with the staff of various offices, and wrote and administered oral tests to hundreds of students at a time. Not that it was all fun and games, but we had actual teaching responsibilities and were treated as a real instructor. We also had a lot of downtime in between semesters and even classes and that was nice.

In Beijing, I've been more or less reduced to the position of Teaching Assistant or intern. Now maybe this is actually what I'm more qualified to do, seeing as though I've come as a university student to LEARN to teach, but I can't help but feel that its somewhat of a demotion. My job will mainly consist of TAing in a couple classes a week, doing some one on one tutoring with kids who really need help or kids who really excel, helping any kid who just drops in and wants some extra oral practice, and doing an english corner. Basically I get to do a lot of the conversational work that I did when seeing students or trying to warm them up before, which is fun, without the grammar, vocab, and conventions practice that I might usually work on. So there are plusses. Also, my boss is VERY down to earth, and has basically told me that I can take it really easy, she's sent me home a couple hours early more than once this week, she even offered to give me a free Friday off during a conversation about weekend travel where I merely expressed a slight interest of going somewhere out of the way.

The main problem is I just feel like I've sunk in rank a little bit, and I really enjoyed being a teacher. Now I'm mainly a tutor and feel more like a kid, when I can and have been handling the same workload as a full time teacher. I understand that now I don't have to lesson plan, grade papers, meet deadlines, worry about an entrance exam which passing is the ultimate goal our Beijing school, or do any of the other boring aspects of teaching, but I still wouldn't mind it.

All in all, I can't complain too much. I get to take it easy in the capital of China. I have my own place, in a cool neighborhood thats quiet enough but is close to a lot of nightlife and the like. The nightlife here is MUCH more exciting than Weifang. My neighborhood has a lot of trees and a large park with a lake. It even has an exercise park that I went to and met three guys who worked at an acupuncture and massage shop. I think I might be able to get some freebies. There's this thing they do over here where they light a match under a glass jar and use the pressure lost to suction it to your back. They do about six of these and its supposed to clean out your toxins or something. COOL! Anyways, life is good, life is easy, but maybe just a little too easy during the workday.

Welcome to Beijing!

2007-08-31T11:32:00.001+08:00

The first four months of my stay in China are officially over as I have moved out of my Weifang apartment and into a new one in Beijing! Last night I went out with the guy who's moving to Weifang in my place, Joe, his friend from Canada, and one of my new coworkers a guy named Prez. Asia and my train got in late so we didn't do too much but Joe and co showed me around the neighborhood a little bit, we got some BBQ, and went to a place to have some drinks. All in all its been a fine welcome so far! The city is sprawling, I drove past Tiananmen Square on my way in, and it seems like I'll find it hard to be bored. Right now, I have to go to an orientation for new teachers, but I've made my move safely and relatively easily and now all there is to do is enjoy the capital city of the largest nation in the world.

A Day in Qingdao

2007-08-27T15:22:00.000+08:00

Kathy had to go to Qingdao to take her plane home, and I rode along in the car and visited Yuan after saying goodbye to her. I haven't seen Yuan since school got out so it was good to talk to him, and he was able to show me parts of Qingdao I had not seen. Last time I went, it was drizzly and gloomy, although we had a fun time of it anyway. This time it was hot with just a couple puffy clouds in the sky.

After arriving at Yuan's apartment, I got my first home-cooked meal in China. It was delicious! Given that Qingdao is a coastal city, his father cooked a large array of different fish and seafood. We had a huge plate of shrimp! His dad used to be a cook and can whip up a very good meal. Needless to say I was satisfied. After this, we went to the beach and got to swim in the ocean. The waves in Qingdao are not very large, because it is a bay, but the water is a really warm as well. This made for some nice relaxing swimming on a hot day, and it was the first time I had swam in saltwater in a long time. We headed back to Yuan's afterwards, for some more food and good times with his parents and some family friends before I caught the train back home.

Yuan is the closest Chinese friend I've made, and I think this may have been the last time I will see him this trip. We met at school, but our relationship became that of normal friends, and we have a lot in common in the way we think and view the world. It was really valuable to have a friend from China who still understood or wanted to understand where I was coming from and to show me his country. I won't forget Yuan, and I hope that this was not the last time I will see him.

Some pictures:

The beach:

A large street in Yuan's neighborhood where all of the buildings have murals on them:

Yuan's high school is in that neighborhood as well:

Videos

2007-08-27T13:55:00.001+08:00

Here are two videos of us in the south. Both were shot in Guangzhou. I tried to post them on here but to no avail so I will just give you the direct youtube links.

A night cruise on the Pearl River:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSzd8NN5_f0

The Guangzhou subway, pulling into the station:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlMEFD30QAc

A Farewell to Do...

2007-08-27T10:42:00.000+08:00

Kathy Do has left China to return to the country of Canada. She came to Weifang by herself four months before the group I came with and has been responsible for knowing everything we have wanted to know since. I know that I, and everyone else as well, will truly miss her company. Kathy, you have been a great, true friend. I think that you are a real person, that you know who and what you are, and that this helps other people be true to themselves. You came to the South with me, we went to Jinan and Taishan together, we ate chuar together, we bought DVDs that didn't work, and saw Weifang together. I'm going to be bored without you, there will be no one to hop across the hall to or just ramble to. So this is just me saying thanks.

Here are a couple pictures of Kathy Do and CIBT's farewell dinner for her:

Pictures from the southeast

2007-08-23T16:38:00.000+08:00

Here are some pictures from the trip to Hong Kong, Macau, and Guangzhou. It's a pain to put them all on here so I put an album of facebook in addition to the one Kathy posted on facebook. Videos to come tommorow, youtube is down for "maintenance". I believe Rupert Murdoch's world domination file cabinet is being reorganized.

My album:
http://ubc.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2119784&l=73c33&id=21002286

Kathy's album:
http://ubc.facebook.com/album.php?aid=12159&l=5f40d&id=504953893

The view flying in on the plane to Hong Kong:

Shamian Island, Guangzhou:

Guangzhou at night:

A bridge over (troubled?) water of the Pearl River in Guangzhou:

Statues on Shamian:

This statue is a testament to the thousands of foreign tourists who adopt babies on Shamian Island. No joke:

The evolution of fashion:

A Chinese man and a foreigner discussing the price of SOMETHING or other on Shamian Island. I don't know what it could be:

Hong Kong and myself:

The Bank of China building among others:

On the Pearl River night cruise:

Cannons outside the fort turned museum in Macau

Tacos in Hong Kong:

View from the third bunk up (mine) on the train home:

Our 12-year-old train buddy, she was a riot:

A trip south....

2007-08-22T16:20:00.000+08:00

Kathy and I just returned from our epic 10 day jaunt down in the south-east of China. We did three major cities that are all in the same general area: Hong Kong, Macau, and Guangzhou. Although Kathy has already done many trips and will be leaving in less than a week to go home, it was nice for me to leave Shandong province. This was something I needed, although I didn't know it. And who am I to say Kathy didn't need to leave either, she seemed to have an awesome time as well, at least, that's what she told me.

The first stop was Hong Kong. Hong Kong is the most Western city I've been to in a long time. The most expensive as well, although if one was coming from North America this wouldn't seem to be as true. The buildings around you seem to always be tall, and for the most part they are. We stayed in one of the buildings that makes up the "Chungking Mansions" although the name is more than a little misleading. The mansions are a colorful amalgamation of small shops, private businesses, and restaurants on the bottom two floors with people from all over the world. I had the first Indian food I've had in months out of one of the little kiosks one day. The upper floors are a collection of more restaurants, tailors (very big in Hong Kong), hostels/hotels, and private businesses. Our room was the size of a matchbox. Its a run down mess, but it was awesome! I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a cheap, fun place to stay.

The whole trip we had great food. The first night we went to Ned Kelly's Last Stand, an Australian pub/jazz club with meat pies. The food here actually wasnt phenonomenal but it was still good and the band was awesome! I have a video to post later but please forgive the low quality in advance. The second night we met up with Kathy's friend from UBC, Jackie, and his girlfriend and we got sushi, another thing I haven't had in way too long! They had a type of nigiri where they blaze the top of the fish (salmon or tuna) with a torch and give it a nice roasted top. Very tasty. That morning Kathy and I also got dim sum for brunch. Delicious! Kathy wanted to get the chicken feet but I expressed a MILD disinterest and we didn't. We did get a wide array of other things though, including BBQ pork buns, chicken congee, stuffed peppers, shu mai and a whole lot more. On the last night we had tacos! These were delicious and had a wide array of sauces to choose from. After taking the outside escalator that runs up the hills up Hong Kong, taking in the view from the top of Victoria Peak, and visiting Madamme Toussad's Wax Museum, this was a welcome meal. All in all Hong Kong was awesome, we did a lot of eating, a good amount of walking around and seeing shops and the like (we were in Tsim Sha Tsui and Mong Kong, two areas that have a lot of shops), and saw some beautiful things. The east meets west meets everywhere else in the world was truly a nice breath of fresh air.

After a few days we took a ferry ride to Macau, a former Portugese colony and the only city (ahem, Special Administrative Region) in China where gambling is legal. One man, Stanley Ho, used to have a monopoly on every casino but in the past couple years Vegas style gaming has come in and has forced the indigenous population to readjust. Macau has much more than just casinos though, again the mix of food and cultures were much more varied than anything I've seen in months. In addition, the Portugese influence can be seen in many of the buildings. The sidewalks are all done in a mosaic style with white tiles and black tiles made designs of different animals every couple feet. Our hostel was near Largo de Senado which is the main area downtown full of large old buildings and tasty food. We did actually venture into the casinos but aside from winning a couple hands of blackjack at the older Macau institution Casino Lisboa my luck wasn't too extremely good.

Given that my wallet couldn't hold out for ever, in fact it didn't, and that we had a booking in Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton), we moved on after 2 lovely days of looking and losing around Macau. Guangzhou was once China's most important port and is the reason the foreigners fought to gain places like Hong Kong and Macau in the first place, hence their close proximity. A few miles up the Pearl River from the Pacific Ocean, Guangzhou was once the stage for the Opium Wars and we stayed in the former heart of it. Our hostel (that should have been called a hotel judging by the rooms, sweet!), was located on Shamian Island, which used to be the French and British concession. The buildings show it, and although some look newer, they stick to that style. In Guangzhou we continued to have food we can't get elsewhere, including another dim sum stop (only available in the south), some Thai food, ribs one night, and an italian buffet which was actually quite good. We saw some markets, although I think we tiptoed around one of them which was supposed to have all sorts of crazy animals for eating, albeit we did see large bags of dried seahorses. The Southerners are famous for eating everything, but we played it safe. The train we wanted wasn't available, so we ended up taking one home a day or two later, which was actually nice because it gave us a legitimate reason to extend our trip into the work week. Although we had a little confusion on the last day and prepared to take a 9AM train that really left at 9PM, we got another unexpected day and spent this recuperating, buying train provisions, and eventually taking a nice dinner cruise on the Pearl River which was one of the highlights of the trip. We met a cute little girl on the 23 hour train ride home and she entertained us while we weren't sleeping. After a bus ride from Jinan to Weifang, we arrived home at a minute after 12 AM and stopped for a bite of yang rou chuar at our favorite stick meat place to cap the whole trip off.

It was a wonderful time, we missed a typhoon by a day or two and this lowered the heat considerably our whole trip. It was more comfortable than our everyday heat in Weifang! We got a little crazy weather, but all in all it was fine. We ate good food, slept in, met cool people, and saw beautiful things. Pictures and video to come tommorow. I know I can't complain.

Vacation Time!

2007-08-10T11:36:00.000+08:00

After months and months of hard work, back-breaking exam grading, and a summer of English teaching/glorified babysitting, we finally get to take our first vacation out of two! I've seen a good deal of Shandong province, which actually has some notable destinations, and now I will finally get to venture outside and see some of the rest of the nation.

We have decided to head to the South, to see Hong Kong, Macau, and Guangzhou (Canton). I will also go to Qingdao, a city near Weifang, for the last 2 days to see a friend. Kathy will accompany me on the trip for everything except the last 2 days because her vacation is shorter.

The trip should have a much different cultural flavor than what we have experienced so far. Hong Kong is a major international city, and being a former British colony certainly influences the way it is. Macau is the Las Vegas of the east, and was a Portugese colony for many years (the earliest foreign outpost in China) resulting in an aclectic mixture of food and architecure that no other city in China duplicates. Guangzhou is a major port for China and supposedly has some great night markets as well as some interesting historical sites, although I'm told the history in the books is much more exciting than the actual sites themselves today. We will fly to Hong Kong early tommorow morning and spend about two or three days in each city before we take the 25 hour train ride home! This is not only a smart option economically, but we also will get to peek out the window see a huge amount of the China. Draw a veritcal line on the eastern 1/10 of a Chinese map and you might be able to say I've seen all of that.

Should be a fun trip, we're both looking forward to it immensely. I'll have tons of pictures to post up by the time I get back and before I move to Beijing at the end of August. The forecast for all of the cities says thunderstorms but we won't let that "rain" on our parade. Yuk yuk yuk.

Rainy Season.

2007-08-10T10:55:00.000+08:00

Living in the Pacific Northwest for 20 years I figured that I knew what rain meant. For 3/4 of the year in Seattle we get a thick grey blanket of clouds and a steady drip of rain coming down. In Weifang, things are different. For practically every month of the year, whether hot or cold, their are blue skies hidden behind a veil of smog and dust. But entering August, a new pattern has developed. The hot summer air now has higher humidity, and every three days or so the pressure builds and erupts into a massive storm of heavy rain drops, thunder, and lightning. Never have I seen so much lightning. It is a constant feature in all of the storms, and there isn't one or two bolts like back home, but it last through the whole thing. Last night was the most lightning I have ever heard in my life. I was woken up at 2:00 AM and there were practically no intervals in between bolts, it was like a special effects storm in the movies.

The rain is much heavier than the light, constant, rain we have at home. Sometimes, like last night, the rain goes for hours, but often it is a short affair of the big, big, drops. In particular, one time I am thinking of happened a week ago, and flooded the streets of the University. We could barely bike through it to get home, because every time your pedal reached the bottom you dipped your foot in the water. I ended up taking off my shoes and socks and rolling up my pants.

Here are some pictures from that ride home:

All's quiet on the eastern front.

2007-08-03T16:53:00.000+08:00

Not TOO much happening this week. Kathy's friend Julia came to visit us. Julia is Canadian but was born in Shanghai and she is visiting family and traveling around. We've gone out to a couple dinners and its really nice to have another person around who's our age and can not only speak English but understand our little cultural jokes.

Other than that, one of my two summer classes ended yesterday. I still teach a class of elementary students but they're no fun compared to the middle schoolers I just finished with. The middle schoolers have great english, some better than my college students, and all are interested in learning. Generally we have a pretty good time, they like to mess around but still are disciplined enough to buckle down when I need them to. We watched a movie on the last day of class and as they all exited and we said goodbye I realized that I was actually saying just that, goodbye, to all of them. That was my first sad "I'll miss you little ruffians" moment that I've really had teaching so far.

Tonight we're planning on going downtown and getting some rou chuar. It rained during the day but now its fairly clear and a lot cooler which is nice. Friday is here, and I could use a rest.

Kong Zi shuo... (Confucious says...)

2007-07-29T17:55:00.001+08:00

Quoting the great Kong Zi in Qufu.

Excursions in Qufu

2007-07-29T17:48:00.000+08:00

Yesterday, Asia, Meredith, and I all went to Qufu, birthplace of the sage Kong Zi, who is perhaps known better in the West as Confucious. The town is a major attraction for Chinese tourists as well as some foreign ones, and seeing as though we are in the same province as Qufu, it seemed to be a worthy spot on the map to investigate. Pictures and a video are posted below and above respectively.

Continuing the tradition of taking trains at extremely irregular times, we caught one at 2:40 AM (standing room baby!). I took a quick nap after work, watched most of Kickboxer starring Jean-Claude Van Dam, drank 2 cups of coffee and headed out. After switching to a bus in Jinan, we arrived at Qufu at around 8 AM.

The town is rather small, and consists mainly of a wall-enclosed downtown area where many of the historical sites are located. We visited the Confucious Temple and the Confucious mansions, both sites that were largely built after Confucious' death, for he was not famous while alive. Both held a number of interesting buildings but actually nothing for me that was truly breathtaking. I know that sounds cynical but after going to a lot of sites in the same province, especially in a short period of time, one can't help but compare them. I will concede however, the fact that a man whose teachings have shaped Chinese culture for 2,000 years once taught on the same ground which you are standing is pretty impressive.

After lunch at one of China's most popular fast-food joints, Mr. Lee's California Beef Noodle King USA, we headed 10 minutes out of the city to visit a large forest where the remains of Confucious and his subsequent relatives are buried. After visiting his tomb and that of his son and grandson, we took a walk on a path that ended up taking an hour and a half to complete. However, it was nice to get away from the tourist crowds and be able to hear ourselves think. Also, the trees provided a good amount of shade, which was welcome in the BLAZING heat, some of the hottest we've experienced without a doubt.

We headed back into town and got some dinner on the street, and then caught a bus back to Jinan where we caught a train to Weifang that arrived at 2:30 AM, bringing our trip to a total elapsed time of 24 hours. It should be noted that the only transportation we were able to book before hand was the first train, and that all of our buses and the last train had to be bought on the spot, which was a little nerve racking at the time but we are alright now. I bought a book of Confucias' quotes which I think will make great bathroom reading. All in all, a good day trip to see the home of the single most influential spiritual figure in Chinese history.

Qufu Pictures.

2007-07-29T16:42:00.000+08:00

Pictures from our recent trip to Qufu.

Meredith and Asia outside of the Confucious Temple:

Meredith is excited that she has finally found a place in China where smoking is NOT allowed:

In his spare time, Confucious occasionally taught. This carving confirms it. Confucious is brighter than everyone else because he has been touched everyday by tons of tourists:

Asia with Confucious' personal mop, preserved perfectly after 2000 years:

It is said that Confucious liked to bottle wine and sell it at giftshops:

The forest where the bodies of Confucious and numerous members of the Kong Family are:

Confucious' Tomb:

The tombs of other Kong family members:

Victory on Taishan

2007-07-23T15:52:00.001+08:00

This is a video we made upon completion of the Taishan climb. I sound like an idiot, and its fairly dark, but whatever, hopefully you can enjoy the euphoria radiating out through your screen.

Pictures: Tai'an and Taishan

2007-07-23T12:44:00.000+08:00

As promised, here are our pictures from the journey up Taishan. Steps, shrines, and stunning views. Enjoy!

We took no pictures on the first half of the mountain on account of lighting, so this is us at the midway point:

All of the shrines on the mountain have locks attached to them in some way, I'd like to know the significance, but its visually cool nonetheless:

Steps:

Taking a quick break:

A big, big gate at the top of the stairs:

Victory poses:

The view from the top:

Kathy needed a short rest after 26 hours of work and climbing, what a wimp:

Some mountains, whatever:

I wasn't even there, this photo was taken on a green screen:

The peak's restaurants and buildings:

Breakfast of Chinese donuts and corn meal congee:

The walk down when we can actually see:

Kathy is strong:

Back at the midway point to finally sleep:

Back in Tai'an, a statue of Lei Feng, a model PRC citizen of questionable existence from the revolutionary years:

The view outside of Da Miao, a temple in Tai'an:

Taishan.

2007-07-22T17:32:00.000+08:00

What a weekend. Needing an escape from the city, all four of us planned trips to get out and see China. Meredith and Asia went to Shandong Province's capital, Jinan. Kathy and I decided to go to the city of Tai'an, and climb the adjacent mountain Taishan. Since both places are west of Weifang, we all headed out together got on the same train after work (3 hours of standing room tickets, oh yeah).

There are five famous sacred mountains in China. Taishan is the "head" of the group, one which famous people of all ages have climbed, from Confucious to Mao Zedong. Kathy and I are only slightly less popular here than these two, so we decided that we were obligated to put those 6,000 steps under our feet.

Seeing the sunrise on Taishan is supposed to be half (dare is say more than half?) of the reason to go. In order to accomplish this, we did what many dedicated travelers do, we climbed at night. After arriving at the train station and being told we could not buy tickets home when we wanted (we decided to figure it out later), we caught a taxi over to the mountain and started our climb at a little past 11 PM.

The first part of the climb was enjoyable. There were numerous stair sets, but none that are too extensive, and there were nice flat patches in between them. We could hear waterfalls and the sounds of hopefully strange and exotic animals but we could not see them, but having this combined with fresh mountain air let us know that we were surrounded by beautiful things, whether we witnessed them or not. Thinking that Taishan was not as much of a pain as everyone said, we continued this was for about 2 hours, until suddenly we were hit with numerous HUGE staircases that switchbacked for a good 20 minutes up to the midway rest stop.

Although there are numerous small rest stops dotting the path up, the midway one is more established, with a couple of restaurants, gift shops, and a hostel, and we got time to eat some trail mix (thank you Uncle Sam and Aunt Terri) and some plums we bought. We talked to some kids from Tai'an who had climbed before and said the fun was yet to begin. Knowing that we had no hotel waiting for us (we're excellent planners) we decided to check in to the hostel and lighten our bags. We would return to sleep during the day after the climb.

After a 45 minute rest, we continued on the second half, which proved to be much more difficult than the first. The second half was nearly all large, consecutive, continuous staircases with short flat breaks in between. The stairs themselves were short and steep, and we took many breaks in between steps. The climb was much more physically taxing than before, when we had to battle simply against our own fatigue of working a whole day and being on the train for 3 hours. Egging each other one though, we persisted and finally made it to the top, where hot food was being made, people were cheerful, and men were renting old CCP army coats to keep people warm.

After arriving at the top, we made our way up a couple more flights, to the east side of the mountain where we could see the sunrise. For this leg we were accompanied by a mass of a people who were all making the pilgrimige as well. We all ended up at a massive pile of rock jutting out with no railings or warning signs (god bless China), and sat to watch the sun and take in the phenomenal view.

Alas, the sun did not show itself, because on the horizon there was a wall of clouds. Although I had my heart set on it while climbing, after we reached the peak I realize that I didn't really care, the view was inspiring in its own right, and I don't think the sun would have added to that, just made it different. We really accomplished something big, and our reward was literally right in front of our eyes.

It being to early to take the cable car down to the midway point, we decided to walk. This was perhaps more painful on our knees than the way up, but we got to see all the lush green trees that we had missed in the darkness. After about an hour, we reached the hostel, dropped our bags, and fell asleep to regain what we lost in a 26 hour day.

We spent the afternoon and evening in Tai'an, where we took in a couple sights and saw the outside of a huge temple. We spent our evening eating some of the best fried chicken I've ever had along with some meat on a stick of a different style than Weifang. The train left at 11 PM, and luckily it was a sleeper train. Upon arriving back home our legs were tired but we were happy, having truly accomplished something other than wearing ourselves out. Pictures to come tommorow.

Birthday Blog

2007-07-19T13:47:00.000+08:00

Today's my 20th Birthday. So far its been good, after a night of intense thunder and lightning this morning was still rainy and wet, but by now, 2 oclock, the day has turned into blue skies a couple clouds. Should be good! Tonight were planning on going downtown to get some roast meat on a stick and then gonna do some carousing. Today during lunch, I was at a Music/DVD store at lunch and Kathy blew the surprise to my present. I was looking at the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon TV show box set, and she told me again and again NOT to get it. I figured it out and she was more angry than me, because I thought it was a great gift! We came back to the office and Meredith and Asia presented me with a bottle of Pepe Lopez Tequila. Hard alcohol costs about as much as it does back home, which makes it rather expensive, and giving a bottle of something with such a long and prestigious history as Pepe Lopez is a pretty kind gesture.

Yesterday in addition to working and getting caught in a thunderstorm/flashflood on the way home, we made fajitas and went out. Fajitas were pretty good, they have the chinese version of the flour tortilla here and its a decent substitute. We went to on of our favorite spots (out of the few in Weifang), mBox, and met up with an Australian guy who was born in Kenya named Matthew. We met Matthew over the weekend, and although we'd actually seen him and his friend from Barbados around before and acknowledged each other, we'd never really talked to him. He's not a student or a teacher but an actual adult and is doing import/export of lingerie from China. We had a good time, shot some pool, and I got to hear interesting things about business in China. He said before, in Australia, he had an import/export business, mostly bringing things into Australia, that went under and he lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. He said he was in really tough times financially and was feeling defeated and depressed about himself around this time. However, he decided to relocate and change his business plan a little bit and ended up starting a similar company, but this time in China. Now his cost of living is much lower, his costs for employees are much lower, business connections are handed to him because he is a foreigner, and he is much closer to the actual places his products are made. He not only exports to Australia but now to the U.S., U.K., and a couple other countries as well. It was interesting to hear these things, not particularly because I want to do business, but because it contrasted with what my students say. Students say, and they are 100% correct, that if they want to compete for mid-level jobs they need multiple degrees. A Masters is good, a PHD is better. For Matthew though, it seems as though he just packed his bags, came here, and has been succeeding ever since. The Chinese Dream right?

Village Venture

2007-07-17T13:39:00.000+08:00

This is an account I wrote over the weekend of our trip to a village of farmers to teach a little, pass out some clothes, and give them some exposure to different cultures. I have pictures posted in the blog below.

This Saturday morning Meredith, Asia, and I woke up early to go to a farming village and do some volunteer work. Some students from Weifang U were going to pass out clothes, and because we came as well we got to play the dual role of celebrity/foreign culture exhibit. We left our house at 6:50 and it was about a 2 hour drive through the countryside to the village. On the way one of our Teaching Assistants, Fiona, who came as well, told me that she estimated that 80% of Chinese people were from rural farming areas. I thought it would be somewhat less than this, but anything a little less than this would still be a huge number. On our drive we drove through a couple smaller towns and also saw a good amount of green covered hills (all terraced with crops growing up the slopes) which was refreshing after being in the city for so long.

Upon arrival we were brought to the teacher’s lounge for a couple minutes and then were brought to a room of about 100 people. A table with a red tablecloth and some teacups was at the front, where we sat with some staff members from the school. I had been told the other day at the office that someone would have to give a speech about the value of learning English and Western culture. I was fingered for this but didn’t really care about this until this morning when Fiona told me in the car that the speech would be 40 MINUTES. So I jotted down some notes on the back of a Nordstrom Rack price tag I had found as a bookmark in the copy of Roughing It by Mark Twain I’ve been reading and figured those would have to do in a pinch. And do they did! The speech went fairly well, I talked about the value of learning anything for self improvement, the fact that once you have basic English you can describe and define things in conversation and communicate well enough, the fact that English is taught in so many countries that you may meet someone who does not speak Chinese and you don’t speak there language but you can communicate in English together. I also talked about the number of English teaching jobs there are around the world and how that can aid ones travel, as well as the future advantages of knowing both Mandarin and English in the next 50 years. A lot of this I realize was somewhat non-applicable bullshit, these kids may very well never have been 25 miles outside of there towns, and here I am explaining how English will help you travel and negotiate international business deals. Whatever the case, I was given a task and I completed it, I lasted about 30 minutes which was good enough I think, and wasn’t worrying about whether I believed what I was saying as much as I was trying to just fill the time with heartening, inspirational comments.

After the speech Meredith, Asia, and I all went with different students to classrooms and asked them questions and played games with them. I skipped the games and we just talked, but the students were much more shy than the staff members who asked a whole load of great questions, not just the standard “Do you like China!?” but also things like "Do you think money or happiness is more important?”. I figure that was asked because I, like all Americans, am a material-loving individualistic culture vulture. I responded that I didn’t think that they were mutually exclusive.

Afterwards we headed home, and I had some noodles with Meredith and Kathy for lunch at a place I haven’t been to yet. All in all it was a good morning, the speech went off without any major hitches (thanks goes out to Fiona for translating every single line), and I got to see a Chinese village, which was one thing I definitely wanted to see. Not to mention we got to do a good deed by donating clothes (two of my Jockey white undershirts are now in the hands of some young Chinese boy, enjoy the pit stains kid). In the face of what we might consider poverty, these kids seemed to be doing more than alright, and struck me by their similar demeanors to my college and middle school students in the city. This might be a lesson in relativity, but it certainly made me think about what we in the west value, to see that kids with much much less didn’t really seem to mind, but had accepted that as their standard and were happy with it.

Countryside Pictures

2007-07-17T10:34:00.000+08:00

The road out to the country:

After arriving at the school:

Fiona displaying my extensive speech notes:

The room I lectured to:

The desk I lectured from:

Chalkboard:

Friday.

2007-07-13T17:31:00.000+08:00

I just finished classes for the week. Like I said earlier today in my other post this has been a hectic week of lesson planning and new classes. In the last class we did music and I taught the class the lyrics to "Ring of Fire" by Johnny Cash. I also sang the Star Spangled Banner on the condition that they would sing their national anthem, which they did with much more gusto than Ring of Fire.
In 24 minutes I'm off to unwind with some meat on a stick with the coworkers and Yuan and Amy at a new place we found near our school. Should be a delicious night!

New Classes and Travel Plans

2007-07-13T11:18:00.000+08:00

I must start this post with an apology. I haven't been faithful to my pledge to blog on a regular basis and I feel like I must be leaving some daily happenings out. Maybe you don't care, maybe you only read so often so it seems like I'm typing at light speed, but whatever the case I apologize. Hopefully I can redeem myself in the eyes of people who want to hear every detail, and I know I have some die hard fans out there. I see you, keep fighting.

I recently contracted a computer virus that starts playing Chinese radio (pop, talk, jazz, whatever) at random intervals for maybe 3 minutes at a time. Viruses are no new thing here, and we have protection programs, but this is something new and exciting. It can't be detected and therefore deleted so I just have to submit to its fury.

This week we started summer classes for primary and middle schoolers. Our univeristy classes were at random times throughout the week, and these are a more steady schedule Monday-Friday. I teach grades 4-6 in the morning and a class of middle schoolers in the afternoon. For the first week its been going pretty well but I have little office time to lesson plan. I'm starting to think.... skip it? A lot of times my plans just follow the book and are vague so I can discuss whatever topics come up, but still they're nice to have. That's for me to decide, you people don't care.

Whatever the case, I think having a steady schedule will make me realize if I actually want to teach in the future, as an English teacher abroad or in the States in a high school or something. We'll see.

That's been the main happenings for the week. I have been planning a trip to the South for late August (humidity!) and Kathy has picked up some extra hours and will now have enough days off to come with me. Which will be great because I enjoy her company and god knows I'll want some of that if I'm alone for 11 days. We are gonna do Hong Kong ("one country, two systems"), Macau (777 cha ching), and Guangzhou (Canton). Should be a good time. I may make it up to Qingdao when its over to see Yuan who will go there for the summer because it is his home. That will be Qingdao beer festival season but we'll probably skip that and just hit the beach and relax. Other trips coming up are probably Qufu (the birthplace of Confucious) with the whole gang of teachers and Tai Shan (The "best" of the 5 Sacred mountains of China) with Kathy. Apparently sunrise is THE thing to see at Tai Shan so Kathy and I plan to hike at night and get there (6 hours and 6,000 steps later) by sunrise. Should be a good time!

The talk radio virus is back, I have 10 minutes until lunch, and I could go for some chow mein. I'm out for now, hope everyone is enjoying life in the free world!

National Geographic: CIBT Weifang

2007-07-08T15:28:00.001+08:00

A video I made on a HIGHLY productive day at the office.

Yang rou chuar with the boss.

2007-07-08T15:03:00.000+08:00

Haven't posted in a little while, so I'll give a short run down of what I've been up to.

We finished our University classes last week, this week has been one of preparing for the summer primary and middle schoolers as well as submitting grades for to the University. Mostly we've been just hanging around the office, and I realize now that I should have done a lot more lesson planning because I won't have time to do it in the future but whatever, I'm not too worried yet.

On Fourth of July we had Yuan and Amy over for BBQ. We made some kebabs, had smores, and generally just sat around and had a good time. New China supplied me with some fireworks the day before, and we shot off some flaming balls into the air and lit one that basically popped extremely loudly. The neighbors didn't seem to get it.

Yesterday we had a teambuilding exercise at a local pool. Unfortunately the team didn't really show up, so we swam around and just took it easy with the people who were there. We had an extended incident with a crazy English teacher from New Zealand who is now not with us anymore over the past two weeks. She called the cops who came to our office and were confused as to what the problem was (it was that she was crazy, duh), and to make up for the trouble we had one of the cops come to the pool. I had a good conversation with him and it looks as if in the next week or so he's gonna take me out to get some go rou (dog meat!). Eating dog started as a joke for me and now that I'm here I actually want to do it so I'm excited.

After the pool we went out for dinner with our boss Kathy Tan and her husband James. James is in the fox fur industry and is pretty much a riot. He's also big on ganbei (cheers). We had BBQ meat on a stick (rou chuar) at street place that they know, which was cheaper and better than the ones we have been going to. It's always good to go to restaurants with Chinese people because they know dishes that we would never think to order, or realize were there. James ordered a big dish of steamed clams and we had that along with some lamb, pork, and bread all of which were BBQ'd on sticks. It tasted very delicious, hen haochi. We also got some chicken hearts on a stick! Those actually weren't bad, a little chewy, but mostly just tasted like meat does.

Once we had eaten enough meat, and had enough ganbei's, the idea came up of going to KTV which was a pretty fun time as well. I got to hear Kathy and James do some Chinese duets, and I got to enjoy my favorite part of KTV which is walking past all the rooms and hearing the terrible singing muffled behind doors.

That's mostly it for now, I have a couple videos of myself with my students and us in the office, those will be posted above.

Pictures

2007-07-02T14:17:00.000+08:00

Here are some pictures of my students, the campus, and mostly our trip to Qingdao which I wrote about below. Enjoy!

Asia after finally finishing exams:

Some pictures from the roof of a building at Weifang U on a rainy day:

My two classes of English Majors:

The five students who showed up to my Middle School class last time:

The city of Qingdao:

Random people on the beach:

A man playing erhu:

Asia and I on a rockier part of the beach and a pier with a famous Qingdao pagoda:

Our Hostel:

The mean streets of Qingdao:

A quite heady bag of Tsingtao:

Quick dinner before we got to the train:

Exams, Qingdao, New China

2007-07-02T08:36:00.000+08:00

I wrote this blog at my home last night but my Word froze and I took a screen shot before it totally crashed. I wrote the last bit afterwards but for continuity I took a screen shot of that as well. This may be hard to read because of size, but I believe if you click the pictures you it will take you to a new, larger page. The documents are full of spelling and grammar mistakes, I can't edit them now so I apologize for making your brains strain. This week I had exams, went to the coastal city of Qingdao, and had dinner with New China, more of which you can read about below.

0536

2007-06-23T16:06:00.000+08:00

Last night Asia and I went to a club called 0536 (ling wu san liu), which is the area code for Weifang. We had never gone to an actual club in Weifang, just bars etc. and it was quite the experience.

Apparently a night at a club in China is not simply a couple hours of dancing and drinking and confirmation that the opposite sex doesn't find you interesting. Luckily, all of these are still included, but after last night I that there are a few areas in which the West could learn from China in the area of night clubs.

Firstly, someone needs to bring to North America the concept of the bouncing dance floor. For the rythmically uninclined, a series of springs that keeps the floor bouncing at the beat of the music is a must. At first I thought the people on the outskirts of the floor were just off time or maybe not as excited as everyone else. When I reached it myself, I just realized they were not on the vibrating part. A bouncing floor keeps the party wild and moving, literally. You never need to worry about staying in time with your partner, because you are trying to hard to stay in time with the floor. A truly great invention, and I think with the right promotion someone could corner the dance floor market in the US and Canada, hey its not like there's much competition now.

Secondly, entertainers must become a larger part of Western nightlife. We arrived a little after 9, and at around 1030 the dance for was emptied for the night. At first this was confusing, but then an MC took the stage and proceeded to provide entertainment for the whole night. He sang karaoke, he told jokes, he chugged beers, he doused himself in beers. It was quite a show. In between his acts can-can dancers performed to a techno version of the can-can song. At other times various women spun plates and bowls on top long poles. This was the most exciting thing for me, although the various Chinese people who invited us to their tables seemed like they could care less.

All in all, it was a riotous time. Asia and I bought two beers each, and the rest of the night we were invited, nay pulled, from table to table for beers and maybe some (chilled) red wine. I got to practice the phrase "no she is not my girlfriend" over and over and over. From our experiences going to bars and lounges, we had chalked Weifang up to being a rather quiet city, as it is. However, after a night in packed 0536, bouncing on the dance floor and getting a surprise show, I think it may be a little more exciting than we knew before.

Dragon Boat and Pictures.

2007-06-20T09:59:00.000+08:00

Yesterday was Dragon Boat Festival, which meant little for me, as it is a much bigger deal in southern China. However, at lunch two friends, Yuan and Amy, came over and we had the traditional Dragon Boat festival food for lunch, sticky rice wrapped in leaves with some sweet paste in the center.

I don't know if I've written about Yuan and Amy before. Kathy was good friends with both of them before I came, and I kind've edged into their circle. Both are students at Weifang U. Amy is also Teaching Assistant at CIBT and Yuan is an Automotive Engineering major. They are some of the only actual FRIENDS, not just acquaintances, I have who are Chinese, and that makes them cool. Both are pretty open and I feel I can ask them questions about Chinese culture and politics that I can't ask other people. The other night was Yuan's birthday on the Solar Calendar and we went to Korean BBQ for dinner, which was delicious.

Yesterday in addition to eating sticky rice Kathy and I went downtown and checked things out. Cham Ping Chang, the bulk/clothes market, was our original destination, but we took the bus too far and decided to stay on it until it looped back. It never did, and we ended up at the terminal, which was actually right across the street from ANOTHER bulk market that was all industrial items. This was awesome. Each store was dedicated to one thing. There was the motor store, the plastic jug store, the tubing store, the construction clothes store, the light switch store, basically a store for everything industrial.

We eventually made our way to Cham Ping Chang, and after that had dinner at a meat on the stick place on the street, which provides short stools, short tables, delicious meat, and cheap beer. This is one of my favorite meals in China, and you can find areas with these stands adjacent outdoor restaurants in every city I imagine.

Here are some pictures of food like that, as well as some of Weifang, the Campus, our housing, some BBQ we did and just us hanging out.

Just finished class...

2007-06-17T11:22:00.000+08:00

Ni hao world. I just taught my Sunday morning class, which was fairly uneventful but went pretty well nonetheless. We've been doing a good amount of promotion for the summer classes at CIBT. The university kids will be going home soon and in early July our company switches to full time elementary and middle school programs. We are just a tiny bit under our recruiting goal, we have 40 kids and we want 140. OOPS! We probably won't meet it, but I'm not too worried and it seems people have accepted it as a fact.
I've done two things to contribute to the recruiting effort so far. Firstly, we all went out to various schools with stacks of flyers and gave them to children and parents as school was getting out. I found that the students really didn't care about the flyers, they were more interested in me, and when they looked at them and realized it was more school they dropped it. Also, a lot of the time they didn't want to take anything from me in the first place but if they saw that a friend got one then suddenly it was very important and my whole stack would disappear in seconds. I was mobbed once or twice to a point of near trampling, but I'm intact now and thats all that counts. The parents were much more seriously interested than the kids, and some discussed with our Teaching Assistants who came along and seemed to think it was a good place to park their kids in the summer. I think a couple will probably end up signing their kids up.
Last night I did my second bit of promotion. We (the English teachers, the TAs, a couple staff members) went to People's Park at 7:30 and played games for an hour with some children from our class and mostly new, prospective students. At first I thought this was stupid, as if taking time out of MY schedule on a Saturday night was actually going to benefit anyone. Actually it turned out pretty well. We had about 40 kids and their parents turn out, but this wasn't the highlight. We had a crowd of probably 60 more onlookers who were very interested in our games and our foreigness, and some of them will probably end up sending their kids as well. Maybe the turn out this summer won't be so bad afterall.
Come to think of it, yesterday a good amount of things happened other than just promotion. I had the day off, and I went to the Weifang Technical Market to buy some DVDs (12 Jean-Claude Van Dam movies on two discs for just over 2 bucks American!) and a stereo. I also barbecued (shish kebab) for dinner and we had some extras which we gave to a neighbor who seemed thoroughly confused or surprised at least. After the promotional deal we went downtown, got some more meat on a stick (lamb, pork, BREAD of all things, and squid - tentacles et al), and went to KTV aka karaoke. That was loads of fun as to be expected. No, really, it was a good time.
Just in other news about this week, it was Apple's last day at the office on friday and we took her out to dinner at Weifang's revolving restaurant. This was a pretty cool place, you wouldn't know it from the name but it revolved. I was skeptical about ordering western food because last time I did my steak had tomato sauce on it and I figured when in Rome... (that's been a damn good rule for food so far) but I still went with a steak this time and it turned out to be quite delicious. Tender and fairly spicy so I was pleasantly surprised.
I also found out more about the guanxi of our new employee: his uncle is the president of Weifang University. Despite this, maybe I've divulged too much personal info to the internet about a guy who actually is a hard worker. I also think maybe I have explained guanxi as a bad thing, which I want to clarify. The word means "connections" or "relationships" and can be used to describe graft, corruption, cronyism, things like this. At the same time, when Chinese people say, "guanxi is a strong part of our culture", they do not mean it in this negative sense. They recognize that people's work should be based on merit, although they do accept that who you know in certain businesses matters, just as it does in America (networking). But the more common understanding of guanxi is that to have good guanxi means you are liked because you treat your family, your friends, and your fellow man with dignity and respect. The connection is not always for your own benefit, it simpy means being a good person to those around you, and respecting that relationship. So if I blabbed on about guanxi and the seedy underbelly of the English teaching indsutry I'm sorry, most of the time guanxi represents good values that we in the West hold high as well.
That is all for now, this short blurb about last nights promotion turned into a essay again, and I apologize, hope everything is well across the lake with all of you and Happy Father's Day Dad.

New China

2007-06-11T13:05:00.000+08:00

Before I explain to you New China, let me just note that my blog, joining two of my friends' blogs, has fallen victim to the policies of the Chinese govt. I myself can edit and amend from blogger.com, but I cannot view my blog without going through certain websites that get you around the governments filters. I love China, and I don't think I've written anything highly critical of the government or anything that incites revolt, nevertheless, my computers in China can no longer view my page. I did hear of a lot of censorship online, and for the most part I have found this to be innacurate statements, because I can go to nearly everything I want. However, mine is blocked, and this has happened to two people I know, so it does say something. Just an interesting fact I thought you'd like to know!

Yesterday, Kathy took me to meet an elderly man she has met, who goes by the name of New China. This is a direct translation of his name Xin Hua, which is a common phrase, it is used on streets, libraries, and it is also the name of the most prestigious university in China.
New China was for forty years a civil engineer and he is now just recently retired. He is self taught in English and speaks very well for this fact, he says he learned with special techniques of taking English words and breaking them into smaller Chinese words. He has numerous techniques that I can't even get into. He now teaches English, for free, to little children. This man is a riot. He sings Beijing opera, he tells stories, and his explanations of his special teaching methods are great.

I was invited to come along with Kathy to one of New China's student's houses where he would teach a lesson. This I was very excited for, not only to meet New China but also because I have as of yet not been inside the home of a Chinese family. The lesson was at dinner time, and I was also very interested in trying REAL home cooked Chinese food. All I really eat is from restaurants and street stands and while this is great, I know that home meals must be somewhat different. I think the best meal I had in Japan was when Hannah took me to her bosses house on one of the last nights and his wife cooked sukiyaki, which was incredible.
Unfortunately, when New China picked us up he informed us that we would not be going to his students house after all. He had been invited for a dinner with his former co workers, to celebrate roughly his one year of retirement. We picked up two of his other students and headed to the restaurant. While this change was a little bit of a downer, Kathy turned to me and said "ganbei" (cheers) to me and we both knew this would be a night of craziness with civil engineers.
However the script was changed again once we got to the restaurant. The kids and ourselves were put into one room and the engineers all had dinner together in the other room. New China started the meal with us, and came back periodically, and his coworkers even came over to give us a couple ganbeis. Nevertheless, we were put in charge of hanging out with two young girls, who had VERY good English actually, instead of partying with the big kids. It was alright, we got a delicious meal, one of the nicer ones I have had, and the girls were actually pretty fun kids. The highlights of the meal were a dish with peppers and huge clams, a full fish, pork pieces that were glazed with something marvelous, soup, snails (I did not try these), numerous other things, and dumplings to finish it off.

All in all, it was not a bad night by any means, there were just many changes. The food was delicious, and New China was hilarious and insightful when he came back. He sang Beijing opera, and he also seems to have lived through a lot. He started getting into, by his own volition, the conditions he grew up in and lived in with his wife when he was a young man, but was called over to the other room. I'm sure that that story and more would be extremely interesting on another night, which he ensured us would happen.

One more thing about Guangxi...

2007-06-11T11:38:00.000+08:00

In hindsight, there are things I should have added to my bit about guangxi. While I did go on a bit of a rant, guangxi has certainly helped me when I have been here.

Today I went for lunch with my boss, and told her I was planning on going to the amusement park (it's better than Disneyland, as the commercial says). She told me that she could get me a large discount by calling her friend today. So just there I have benefitted.

Also, guangxi helped me vitally before I even came to China. When I was talking to the CIBT office in Vancouver, they said we would need to acquire numerous documents, including a "Foreign Expert Certificate". They said that this particular document could only be acquired by a university graduate, and certifies that you are an expert in a particular field. They knew I was a student, after all I got this job through my school, and before I could raise any questions they said, "don't worry about getting this one, we have a VERY good relationship with the Bureau in Weifang, and it shouldn't be a problem".

Guangxi.

2007-06-11T11:12:00.000+08:00

In China there are two concepts which dictate many of the social interactions are key to the fabric of society.

One is Mianzi, which roughly translated means "face". Mianzi in practice means that people don't want to "lose face" ie tell you no, refuse a gift, or be criticized because these things will embarass them. For instance, a coworker of mine wanted someone at another office to photocopy some documents. The woman at the other office said she would but it never got done. Eventually Apple, our Chinese office assistant, made a call, talked to the girl, and found out that she didn't want to do it, and therefore didn't do it. However the reason she told Kathy she would was because she would save face. I have not encountered these problems too much and in my experience Mianzi usually is simply a matter of not blatantly embarassing or disrespecting someone.

However the other concept, Guangxi, I just recently encountered. Guangxi means connections and social reputation. One's interactions and connections within their given community affect how they are viewed, treated, and able to succeed. I read once that if you have no guangxi, meaning no friends or no connections, you are only considered "half-Chinese".

Apple is a wonderful girl. She has worked at CIBT as office assistant for almost two years, and does all of our leg work regarding work in the office or just life . She got us all chips for our phones when we first arrived. She negotiates our airline or train tickets and hotel reservations with companies over the phone. She also just has lunch with us and is a genuine nice person. Unfortunately, she will be leaving soon because CIBT will not offer her insurance. Instead of compensating a valuable member of the team who really makes things run smoothly, we have hired a new person.

I conducted the English portion of the interview with this recent graduate of Weifang University. He's a perfectly nice guy, and indicated many times he was interested in the job so he could improve his English skills and enjoy the company of foreigners. During the interview he even suggested that I could help him learn English at other times. Again he is a really nice guy, but his interview answers indicated that, other than a desire to learn more English, he was willing to try and was committed to work, not that he was qualified. My boss asked me what I thought, and I said that maybe he had more to say in the Chinese portion of the interview, but that while he was a decent candidate I thought that maybe more people should be looked at. Although Apple does things for all of us, she is actually an assitant to my boss, and I told my boss that. In essence, hiring a less qualified person is more work for her, not for us student/workers. She fully agreed and said she had already thought about it, and said she was conflicted because she thought he was good, but again, not great. I still didn't understand why she was having trouble denying this guy until she said the magic word: Guangxi.

So now this man is hired, and probably will not be as helpful as Apple was. He's a nice guy, and ultimately I don't know if work will be too different or just a little more frustrating on small issues. It was just really interesting to finally see what Guangxi means, that this mans connections, or his fathers connections, or something got him a position when he didn't necessarily deserve it. I guess this is no different than in the west; graft and quid pro quo things happen daily I'm sure. Hell, George W. Bush is the President. But still, its just somewhat of a shame.

Pictures and Pictures

2007-06-08T14:45:00.000+08:00

Hello world.
Here are some pictures of my adventures so far. There are pictures of the trip to Jinan, going for Hot Pot on the first night, dinner with the Beihai College staff, and a bunch of us just carousing and hanging out in Weifang. The boot is from People's Park (I think it represents the world's bootness or something) and the tape is from the market that acts as Weifang's Costco, Cham Ping Chang. Tonight I am going out with some co-workers as well as my supervisor and her husband to get Hot Pot again, which is one of my favorite dinners here so it should be a great time! Hope you like the pictures!

Adventures in Jinan

2007-06-06T12:59:00.001+08:00

So, on Monday Kathy and I were wondering how to spend our mutual Tuesday off work. Eventually we kicked around the idea of going to Jinan, capital of our province, Shandong. Quickly and excitedly it was decided that we would go for a day trip, and with morning train service departing at 3 AM and 9AM, we were at a cross roads about what to do. Being that the 9 oclock train arrived in Jinan at noon, we chose to take the 3 AM!

After work, we had dinner at the cafeteria with Yuen and Amy, two older students that Kathy already befriended before I came and I have hijacked as my own. We bought some Mr. Bond canned coffee for the next day, rushed home, packed some bags, and headed out.

We had promised the owner of Free Air that we would come for the celebration of his 29th Bday and also the 1 Year Anniversary of him opening the bar. This worked perfectly with the timing of our plan, we killed some time down there (Kathy saw a telescope salesman we had seen another night we were out who bought us drinks) gave Shane, the owner, some postcards of Vancouver, and left with enough time to wander around downtown and by the river that runs through Weifang, eat some meat on a stick, and get to the train station.

So far the spontaneous plan had been working perfectly, we were there on time, we had a fun time, and we still felt we had plenty of energy to stay awake the next day. Unfortunately the gods were not smiling on our train plans, and the ticket lady coldly informed us that the 3 AM train to Jinan was full! This sounded ridiculous to me, but we could not change it, and instead of waiting until 9, we headed over to the bus station and waited for the first bus of the day, the 6 AM.

We took turns sleeping/resting outside the station until it opened at around 5, and then caught the 6 AM bus. The bus was rather uneventful, I got some shuteye and watched parts of an old Jackie Chan movie and a dubbed version of the Matthew Broderick Godzilla. I also woke up and turned to the women next to me, who I thought was Kathy, and said something muddled and confusing related to the dream about fog to her. We got to the city in about 2 hours.

Jinan is a crazy place. All of my guidebooks and alot of personal advice had given me boring perspectives of the city, but I thought it was great. Although it is the capital, it is overshadowed in reputation by Qingdao as the top city in Shandong. This may be true, but nevertheless I thought it had tons to offer.

Jinan is much more visually appealing than Weifang. Weifang is mostly dull buildings and the occasional park, and while Jinan has these it also has much more. We taxied and bussed on thin boulevards and the architecture is much more authentically Chinese than Weifang. Many roofs have clay shingles and corners that swoop up, and this with the modern buildings gives the city a great mix of East and West.

We spent much of the morning around Da Ming Hu, a large lake dotted with temples, snack stands, and a small amusement park around its edges. This is not to say it is covered in boring tourist crap; everything is at comfortable intervals and it was a nice place to walk and enjoy the view of the lake and even catch a little rest if you happened to stay up for the majority of the night before. We went up in the ferris wheel, and caught a decent view of the city through the hazy day. The temples were actually somewhat underwhelming, one of them was the biggest Taoist temple in Jinan, but this just says to me that Jinan does not have very big Taoist temples. Actually one of my favorite things about the temples were the rafters, which had great painted inlays covering them.

After Da Ming Hu we caught a bus to the train station, where we bought tickets for the midnight train back to Weifang, just so we wouldn't run into the same troubles. With ease this task was accomplished, we got some lunch at a restaurant which consisted of rice, a cabbage dish, kung pao chicken, and a green beans dish. The chicken was great, and I liked it because I haven't had too many dishes that we have an equivalent of back home. This is not to say I miss the Chinese food in North America, but its just fun to compare the Western version and the Chinese version, usually theres nothing to compare it to.

We headed over to Baotu Spring, probably Jinan's most famous attraction. The Spring is a park with a collection of, surprisingly, Springs, going through it. This was played down in the books I read, and as I expected, it was mostly just various holes of water. However, what they did NOT stress in the book and what really makes the place great are all the Chinese buildings and rooms, and small bridges and pathways which zig zag around the Springs. The Springs were not as much the attraction for myself, as were the ways in which the water was routed and used with the architecture. There were numerous older people playing cards and Chinese chess, and the park provided a great place to meander around and catch a little rest or read as well. It was a nice oasis inside the big city. The biggest spring, and the main attraction shoots up a geyser in the rainy season of August. For us however, it was only bubbling, but all of the water was a really nice bluish green.

After this, we crossed the steet to the city square, which was a really cool place full of people of all ages enjoying the late afternoon, walking with their children, etc. I bought a kite that was actually many kites strung one after another and flew it for a little while. This is the heart of downtown where we spent the rest of the night.

Jinan is famous for its Springs and parks, but the other side of the city it is known for are its night markets and nightlife. We wandered a market looking at knockoff clothing (Lacoste wallets by the brand "Crocodile"), fresh fruit and great food. We pulled up a stool at a kebab place and got around 15-20 kebabs and a bean dish. This was my best meal in a while. Most of the kebabs were just meat and maybe full garlic cloves, and we got four that were meat and vegetables, the classic onion, green papper and whatnot. We had lamb, chicken, pork, and beef, so I figured we covered all of the bases except for dog, which I'm still looking out for but I don't think is actually something that is served many places.

The night was finished off by walking around and enjoying the fact that it was finally cool. We found a stone path down by a river where people were walking around as well. We got to the train station with plenty of time to spare and no hassle, and spent the train ride talking a bit to the people sitting with us, who asked us the standard questions, and trying to sleep. Arriving in Weifang at around 2:00, we had spent two full days, first one of work and then one in Jinan, keeping busy, and I was happy to fall onto my sheets when I got home. It was a crazy great spontaneous trip and made me want to do more trips to local places on my day off. Jinan is an awesome city with great nightlife and I would highly suggest it to anyone who finds themselves wandering through Shandong province.

Haircuts

2007-06-02T11:12:00.000+08:00

I am writing from an internet cafe, and this is my first visit to one in China. It's much like an internet cafe anywhere else, some people are playing games, some people are checking email, etc. I came because I wanted to play some Xianqi (Chinese chess) on a computer program I downloaded, and this is my day off so I cant do it at work.
Work has gotten more stressful this week, I gave a final exam for one class of middle schoolers and this week I graded papers and calculated grades based off one homework assignment, "participation" although I don't know their names, and mostly the final. No one failed, but I do feel a little unethical giving grades to kids I just met three weeks ago. I also realized what a tedious job grading papers is.
So far on my day off, it is midday, I have accomplished numerous things. I made myself some oatmeal on the stove. I also read for a while, I finished Player Piano and now have moved onto Red Star Over China, by Edgar Snow. Snow was an American journalist who accompanied Mao and his gang of Reds during the Long March. It is one of the first first-hand accounts of the Chinese Communists and did much to further their cause, abroad and at home.
My biggest event of the morning was getting my first Chinese haircut. My hair wasn't too long, but I decided I wanted it buzzed so I wouldn't have to deal with it. Unfortunately, I don't speak a great deal of Mandarin, so I wasn't able to give to much direction to the lady cutting my hair. It's not bad by any means, it's just not much different. She asked me a couple questions that I could marginally understand but I knew the answers too because they are the standards (are you from the university? What country are you from? etc). I discovered that Chinese hair cutters have the same habit of keeping up conversations with their customers as Western ones do, but instead of trying to avoid conversation, as I do in the US, I had an excuse (wo bu zhi dao / I don't know).
I went to English Corner last thursday, a once a week hang out of motivated students and foreigners, although plenty of kids come just to talk to us even if they aren't very interested in English. Usually when I go to this, or meet any new students, I get bombarded with the same questions: Do you like China? Do you like Chinese food? Where are you from? This gets boring after a while, because you repeat yourself over and over, and the conversation doesn't get very deep. The answers are always the same. Yes. YES. America, Seattle. However, this time it was different. There were three third-year girls who were students at the upper level English college within the University (I teach first and second years at Beihai College, they are at the Foreign Lanuage College for older students). They had a much more full understanding of English and plenty of relevant questions as well as interesting things to say. They had seen Sleepless in Seattle in three different English classes. Most surprisingly, two of them were from outside of Shandong province (usually I have one or two students per class of thirty from outside the province) and one of them was from the SOUTH. This is very surprising, no one is usually from farther than a neighboring province. She said her parents now live in Shenzhen, which is a very exciting place. Shenzhen was a very small village until it was randomly chosen in the 1980s as a test site for capitalism. Since then, it has become THE symbol of New China and the economic experiments, and has exploded in population and production. This is a common occurence now, villages that have literally almost nothing or were non-existent become giant metropolises in a matter of years. I had initially been interested in visiting Shenzhen, but every guidebook says it is boring and full of factories and some malls. This girl had a very different take, saying she felt it was one of the most beautiful cities and one of the most modern and international in China. That probably is the case, and perhaps we differ on what beautiful means, nevertheless it was an interesting perspective I had not heard. I would have liked to talk with these three girls more, a first for my English Corner experiences, but one overactive first-year, Francis, would not stop interrupting to ask me what my favorite soccer players/teams were. Hopefully those girls will come again.
Anyway, that has been the past couple of days for me, an ear lowering and meeting some new people. I went to a killer noodle place with our office assistant, Apple, and her boyfriend, and I hope to go back to that soon. Life is good and the sun is out.

Day Off.

2007-05-30T18:35:00.000+08:00

Today was a day off, and a good day off at that. Last night we went to Free Air, a bar we found a week or so ago, and by chance saw a Nepalese guy who had played at mBox, the first bar we went to in Weifang. He was with another friend from Nepal, and they are both studying medicine and are pretty cool, laid back guys.
I woke up late today and then went downtown with Kathy, where we saw numerous great things. Our destination was Cham Ping Chang, the Costco of Weifang. On the way we went in a couple of kite shops (Weifang is the city of kites as anyone will tell you), and visited a little group of stands selling animals. I think I might buy a puppy, although I have no backyard or time to take care of it, today inspired me. Everyone in China has tiny dogs, I confirmed this with one of my classes who was shocked at my description of our own dog, which is midsized. I won’t really end up buying one, seeing as though I’m leaving for Beijing in 3 months, but the thought is fun to play with.
Cham Ping Chang is a big inside market with tons of different little stands that all specialize in one type of item. They all buy in bulk, and can sell their goods at bulk prices. There is a stand for tape, a stand for fans, a stand for stockings, a stand for just about everything. We went up to the second and third floor as well, which Kathy had never been to, where they sell a bunch of clothes. Some of the clothes are knockoffs and some are just Chinese brands. I found a knockoff jersey store where they had full getups for a lot of different sports. I wanted to buy a Seattle Sonics jersey seeing as though that will be hard to find soon but they didn’t have anything other than the Pistons, the Lakers, etc. I also looked at buying suits, you could get one for about $30 US. Although the suits weren’t great quality, I figured they still would pass at a number of events, and some of them looked pretty cool. I want to buy one with the Mandarin collar while I’m here but the only one they had didn’t have long enough sleeves.
When we got home we barbecued, I set it up with some bricks and two grill tops and it worked nearly perfectly. It took a while to light all the coals but eventually it happened, and we had shishkabobs of steak, onions, and peppers with some fruit salad. We also had these chips that they have here that come in Beijing Roast Duck flavor which are phenomenal. Today was sunny but not particularly hot and surprisingly clear, and it was a good time, hanging out on the patio with the sun and moon in the sky just relaxing. All in all, it was another successful day off in the country of China.

Assessment Week.

2007-05-28T09:41:00.000+08:00

This is a continuation the last post. I forgot to mention that this week is Assessment Week, meaning Minstry of Education officials are touring the campus to evaluate Weifang University and give it more/less funds accordingly. This doesn't affect me as much as others, because my company is contracted by the University, so I'm not an actual University employee. However, I still get to experience the spirit of the evaluation, meaning the whole campus is on its best behaviour, the gardeners and cleaning crews are on top of every loose leave or discarded cup, and every rule is being enforced, or at least, not broken so it doesn't have to be enforced. They also turned on the fountains! There are numerous fountains around campus, one that moves and twirls and does all sorts of crazy things but they never turn these on because its a waste of water and serves no purpose except impressing the occassional group of evaluators from the Ministry of Education should they happen to come by. In addition to fountains Assessment Week means bikes are kept in designated locations, no smoking is allowed, and, my personal favorite, no displays of affection between couples. Weifang University is not a place of loose morals. Hopefully the University will pass with flying colors, if not, I guess they can always turn on the fountains next year.

Monday Morning.

2007-05-28T09:26:00.000+08:00

It's Monday morning. I had to be woken up by my roommate because I thought it was Tuesday morning, and I don't work on Tuesday. Wishful thinking I guess.
Today I have one of the new classes to teach and an interview to conduct for a summer ESL teacher at 10:30. That should go pretty well, the man's resume shows that he is very qualified, and he already teaches at Weifang University, so he'd just be moving over to our wing of it. I think I met him the other day, without an introduction. I had heard he lived in our apartment complex and I saw a foreigner and his girlfriend, and we said a couple words. He fit the description. He seemed like a nice guy.
Last night I broke the padlocks off a metal gate blocking our door to the roof patio. I also unscrewed the lock on the door itself, but then put the screws back in because I realized that it was already unlocked, and just had a funny opening mechanism. Now we can BBQ! I'm pretty excited, this has been my project/dream for the past week, acquiring barbecue supplies, trying to find keys for the locks. I found eventually found the key. It was a wrench.
Right now we're trying to get the air conditioner working in the office. I've began to notice the Weifang weather cycle, it gets sunny and somewhat clear and the progressively gets smoggier, dustier, and more humid, until on cloudless days you cant really see past the haze. After enough days of this it breaks into a storm and then stays humid and sticky until it clears up and the cycle begins again. I think were in the hazy stages right now and should have a storm in about a week. I am just judging this on 3 weeks of weather, but lack of evidence hasn't stopped me before and it won't stop me now.

Its 96 Degrees.

2007-05-27T13:54:00.001+08:00

I had no idea myself that it was that hot. It feels hot. But not that hot. I've been inside for most of the day, so maybe I have just beat the heat. This is May. I am starting to get worried about what summer may actually mean if May is 96.
I teach two classes today, Sunday, which I picked up from a co-op student who was in the term before me. They are both middle schoolers so at times they are much easier and at times they are much less controllable. Today however, I gave a midterm to the morning class and taught half of the time, and I am giving a final exam to the afternoon class, which is the more troublesome one. So I get to take it pretty easy, just make sure kids arent cheating.
I bought two cheap grill tops at Walmart, and we found some bricks on the way home, so on Tuesday we plan on BBQing. That should be a good time. We're going to gain access to the roof patio, which we did in one apartment but mine is a corner apartment so it should be better. There are small padlocks on the door, and we have keys for this type of lock, but not for my apartment's locks. We'll figure out a way around it I think, probably with clippers or a hammer. We're going to cook meat on a stick! I'm excited.
Until I found out the temperature I didn't think it was that hot. But suddenly its HOT.

Relaxation

2007-05-27T13:47:00.000+08:00

Today is my day off. I get Saturdays and Tuesdays off, so unfortunately I don’t get a nice full weekend, which would be nice for traveling to other places. I’m not really bothered though, some people have one full day off and two half days, so I feel lucky that I get two full ones at all.
I’ve spent other days off traveling around the city, buying things, getting to know the city as well as possible, but today I am taking it easy. It’s probably the hottest day so far, and I feel I need a day of exhaling rather than another day of rushing around. I’m doing some much needed laundry, which is a fun experience that involves filling and emptying the laundry machine a couple times for each load, and hanging the clothes out to dry after a quick spin. It’s actually not really a big deal, and much better than hand washing I’m sure. Waiting for the laundry has also given me time to study more Mandarin, which I’m not hoping to become totally fluent in but I figure that now is the time to learn if any. Later I will probably bike to the park and read for a little while (I just finished “1984” which everyone except me read in high school and now I am starting Kurt Vonnegut’s “Player Piano”).
I have two weeks of vacation during my work term, one in late August before I move to Beijing, and one in October. For the October one I have already agreed with some of the other students to go to Shanghai, Nanjing, and Hangzhou, which should be a good trip. For the upcoming trip I will most likely be traveling by myself. I would really like to see Hong Kong, Macao, and Guangzhou (Canton), which all are relatively near to each other and offer numerous attractions in each. That tri-city area has a huge amount of history that we focused on in my China & the West class last term, Guangzhou was the arrival location for the vast majority British opium in the nineteenth-century, and both Macao and Hong Kong were established in order to get trading ports near Guangzhou. However, in every travel book I have read, they have said that the cultural experience of the city leaves much to be desired. To quote Frommers, “ History buffs and culture vultures may well be disappointed in Guangzhou as this city moves to a very different beat, the vibrant pulse of international trade”. Basically they say that Guangzhou is good for shopping and the food (some of the best cuisine in China) and not for the historical or cultural attractions (the Sun Yat-Sen Memorial, etc.) which many guides claim to be underwhelming. If I don’t go to Hong Kong, Macao, and Guangzhou in August, I would go in December, when it would be MUCH cooler and I would have a longer stretch of time to explore. However, at that point I may just want to get back to Seattle and sleep in my own bed. I also don’t know what my financial situation will be at the end of the trip. If I did skip Hong Kong et al for August, I would probably visit nearby Qingdao and Song Shan, the birthplace of Kung Fu and home to the Shaolin Monks. Both of these are in my province, Shandong and have numerous attractions. Qingdao was occupied by the Germans for a time, who established Tsingtao Brewery and influenced the architecture. It is also a city on the water with great beaches, which we have been meaning to visit on the weekend for some time now. Qingdao has an annual beer festival for two weeks in August which would mean that my vacation would be a prime time to visit. Song Shan would be amazing I’m sure, I’ve heard that you can watch the Shaolin monks perform and that it is literally shocking. Apparently they can throw a needle across the room through a piece of glass, and I’ve heard that from multiple sources. Whatever I decide to do, it’s the country of China, I’m sure I’ll enjoy myself.
That’s about all for now. Two of the six Co-op students in my group went to Beijing until August/September when myself and another girl switch with them. Its been fairly quiet around here today, just myself and three girls, but I need the quiet today. The weather is lovely, the students are fun, and my belly is full. The biggest problem is deciding what to see when. China is a great place.

Xiangqi

2007-05-24T15:57:00.001+08:00

Last night we went out to Dio Coffee, an overpriced Chinese/Western food place where I got a steak with tomato sauce. I haven't really become desperate for western food yet so I wasn't too enthusiastic, but its not like I had my hopes up for great western food so when the caesar salad turned out to be lettuce with hard boiled eggs and mayo I wasn't really dissapointed. It was a fun time though.
We walked home past an "exercise park" which is a collection of bars and playground equipment for adults. Some of it looks like you could get a pretty good workout, there are parallel bars and pull up bars, but other things seem more liable to hurt you than anything. An elliptical-like device that everyone uses by swinging their legs the same direction in unison? Count me out.
I saw another one of these when I walked around People's Park on tuesday with Kathy, that was a VERY nice park, and made me want to come down during a day and read or relax. The city and campus have a good amount of green and flowers, however, being deeper in a park really allows you to feel like you're out of the big city, which is relatively dusty, windy, and smoggy. It is all those factors which give this place its character though.
This morning I taught a class and then went with Kathy to the student store so she could buy breakfast, and I bought a 2 yuen (2/7 of a dollar) Chinese Chess (Xiangqi) set. I see old men sitting on boxes playing it all the time, and I want to be able to go challenge them and take their money. However, when I showed my boss what I got and told her my plans of defeating dust and liquor hardened old men, she not only showed me the rules (which made me realize the game is fairly different from chess) but also told me about the old men. She basically said they will set you up, probably the board to start midgame with you in a poor position. If they don't do this, theres a good chance they will play you, and you will get 5 yuen if you win and will forfeit 50 yuen if you lose. It reminded me of flipping coins with my little brother when I was younger (heads I win, tails you lose).
Whatever the case, I'm intent on learning the game, I already found the rules online, and it looks like a fun variation of the version I'm used to. I probably won't get around to playing any old men, but it's nice to dream.
We had some rainy/misty days, but the weather's picking up. Sun today and probably more tommorow. Life's great, I have a stiff bed and the best sleep of the past five years, I'm starting to think that softer and softer beds are a conspiracy by mattress companies to make you have back problems and buy a softer bed.

Good people.

2007-05-21T14:52:00.000+08:00

Last night I went out with two of my roomates to a Korean restaurant for dinner. It was a really good time, and later we went to a place called "Free Air" and watched a band play while we just talked and had a good time. Everyone pretty much has an understanding of who we all are at this point, and these people I went out with are the two I mesh with the best.
One is Kathy Do, a Logistics/Transportation major who came before us and has been showing us around. She's really matter of fact and frank and has funny stuff to say. The other is Anya Volgina, a Poltical Science/IR major who is a fun girl that I always get into political and sometimes philosophical conversationswith her. She's the first person I've met who I've had many philosophical, not just political or social, conversations with outside of class. Sometimes I dont even want to deal with any of that stuff with anyone, but shes got interesting points and I enjoy having someone like her here. These kids are really genuine, good people. I like them.
After dinner with the bosses from a college we're contracted for, everyone in my group got assigned more classes! They hadn't realized how many people were hired, so they just created new 60 person classes that will run for a month as a trial program to see how students like having a foreigner for a teacher. This means I have three new classes in addition to the four I already taught. I found out that this program MIGHT be created on Friday, and today, on Monday, I found out that it had been created and I had a class today. This should be a blast!...? Whatever the case, teaching IS the thing I like most about the job, sitting around the office isn't as fun, I just feel strange about giving out grades in a month based on a couple homework assignments and a final exam, especially when kids/parents here have a big concern for grades.
Things are great otherwise though! The foods still great, the people are still friendly, and the owner of Free Air gave us 20% off our bill at the end of the night. Can't ask for much more than that.

2007-05-21T14:40:00.000+08:00

Routine is starting to set in somewhat. The first week was full of trying new foods, meeting different classes, figuring out the work schedule, etc. I think it is safe to say that the original hustle and bustle has faded somewhat, and that now we’re all following a more regular schedule of working and teaching. I don’t want to sound like I’m not having fun, for all of my co-workers are great and just walking around in the city today I looked at everything and send, “hold on a minute, I'm in CHINA.”
Last night we went to another English language competition, this time it was acting rather than poetry. Groups put on ten minute plays, ranging from a classic Chinese story called Journey to the West to Pride and Prejudice. I got to judge again, despite the fact that I didn’t want to because we all embarrassed ourselves at the poetry competition when we presented awards onstage and no one knew where to go and who to give prizes to. Once again this competition was opened with the theme to Blazing Saddles, and the plays were marked by constant short musical interludes and slapstick comedy. It was a pretty funny good time actually. We were all presented with loaves of sliced bread for our hard work giving out arbitrary numbers to the plays we liked the most. During the show I had my first realization that we were in a communist nation in regards to not just social values of society and selflessness, but also politically, if not just in name. During intermission the MCs introduced the President and Vice President of the Weifang University, other Deans and important people, and finally, the heads of the Communist Youth League. I hadn’t really felt an impact of communism so far, everywhere we go there are a wide variety of different products to buy, there are no coupons or anything for everything. From what I knew before coming China’s large businesses all were a part of the world market, and from my experience so far everything on a small scale worked in the same manner. However, hearing that the leaders of the local Communist Youth league were at the show was striking to me.
Today I went to the Weifang Technical Market and bought a camera. It was around what one would pay for a camera in the States or Canada. I negotiated the price down, but electronics aren’t something you can bargain for too much. The first person I spent a long time bargaining with eventually showed me his books and told me that he had sold 20 cameras since the morning, and that if I was buying more he could cut me a much better deal. He also showed me two identically packaged memory cards for the camera of the same capacity, and told me that one was real and from Japan and one was a knockoff made in China that was cheaper. That’s the kind of stuff I love about this country. I didn’t end up buying from him though, I found another woman who negotiated more and then wouldn’t budge at a certain point, and bought the camera.
I also bought a cord for my external hard drive at the market, that the salespeople didn't want to sell to me because they said it would not work on my computer. After plenty of arguing I convinced them to let me buy it and tried to explain I had an Apple and that it would definitely work. My computer got broken before I left (I spilled water on it) and I was hoping that all my stuff would still be on my external hard drive. When I got home and turned it on, I found out that everything was there, except for my pictures from the last two or three years. That includes trips to Mexico, Hawaii, Japan, camping trips, and all of first and second year. If anyone reading this has these pictures, and I know some of you do, please don't delete them, I intend on getting as many back as possible. This is your first and final warning. Thanks a lot!
Anyways, I’ve been having a good time, it was good to go out into the city today and do things by myself and figure things out for myself. The only time it got a little tricky was on the way back when I hopped on a bus that took me far away, and when I got off I asked a woman where my street, Dong Feng, was. I indicated that we were in Weifang and that Dong Feng was a street in Weifang, she just point to buildings far away and said “Weifang”, which made me think I wasn’t home yet. I caught a cab.
Life’s good, I’m in China, and there’s more to come in the future.

2007-05-17T16:26:00.000+08:00

First Post

2007-05-17T16:20:00.001+08:00

Hello everyone.
This is my new mode of communication with the outside world. Writing an email describing a whole week seemed tedious to me, as well as a poor way of documenting all that actually happens. I think using this as a sort of journal to write down daily happenings and big events is probably a better system for myself as well as for all of you. I am writing this for myself just as much as for anyone else, but I hope anyone who reads this enjoys hearing about my travels and China. Hopefully in a little while I'll post some pictures up, however, as my camera is currently broken it may be a while. Anyways, thanks for taking the time to read about my life, and although I have always laughed at the whole "blogging" phenomenon here I am today, so please be less judgemental than I was just a few weeks ago, and... enjoy.