Round 1: Fight

I just got done watching the Presidential Debate on cnn.com, and it was well worth the time. As far as I am concerned, Obama really shone, and was the clear victor of this debate. Of course, this falls pretty much in line with my thinking as a whole, but McCain seemed overly dismissive of his opponent, was rambling on the whole time, blatantly distorting facts (surprise, surprise), and really seemed to falter. Even though this was supposed to be his strong suit - National Defense/Foreign Policy - I felt he came across as unprepared, uninformed, and very Reagan-esque in every negative connotation I can muster.

McCain seems fundamentally rooted in the past and the "way things used to be," whereas Obama embodies the changes of today and tomorrow.

And honestly, this tired line of Obama "not understanding" X or Y has really played out... how uncouth, and so has this whole "I'm not Ms. Congeniality, I'm the maverick" gimmick. Gimme a break, McCain. Find some new material... seriously.

I'm looking forward to seeing next week's debate between Biden and Palin. That should be good for a laugh. And after reading today that even members of the GOP - people who were gung-ho about getting this "lipstick-wearing pitbull" on the ticket - are publicly sayng that she's a liability to his campaign and - much more importantly - to the country and should remove herself from the ticket, I'm very interested to see how much more damage Ms. Alasssskuh can do to her own campaign.

Kathleen Parker, conservative comentator and early supporter of Palin, said it best I think:

"If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself," Parker also writes. "If Palin were a man, we'd all be guffawing, just as we do every time Joe Biden tickles the back of his throat with his toes. But because she's a woman - and the first ever on a Republican presidential ticket - we are reluctant to say what is painfully true."

As many things as Joe Biden says that taste of shoe polish, at least he knows what he's talking about. These crocodile tears from many conservatives of Palin being the victim of "sexism" are patently absurd. Hell, I'm probably sexist right now for even talking about the pretty lady...
(CS)WC Out.

Now I'm haunted by the left-unsaid

National Day...week...ish

The good news is that I'll be getting a full week off for the Chinese National Day holiday. The not quite so great news? Well, it's not actually a weeklong break, so they move work/school from Monday and Tuesday to the previous Saturday and Sunday... why do they do it this way? Why not just have a true "week off" like EVERYONE wants? "Because it's always been done like that." Once again, mindless tradition trumps rational thought... c'est la vie, I suppose... at least I get 8 days in a row off, and only one class to teach tomorrow. I'm planning to just show the class a movie and be done with it. After all, they don't want to be there, I don't want to be there, and I know for a fact that they're not going to absorb anything I might say. Their minds - like any student who's about to go on break - is already gone on ahead of them.

I discovered that I do, in fact, have my residence permit. It's been adhered into my passport like my visa was... so that's convenient. Of course, though I'm "technically" supposed to have that with me should I leave the city, it's incredibly unlikely that I'd be hassled over it. I'm a white foreigner... It's not like I'm unwelcome here, and I certainly am not coming from the "dregs" of any society. Meiguoren, by and large, get to do what they want... and if all else fails, pull the ignorant foreigner card. It's amazing how far acting like a complete moron - when applied judiciously, of course - can get you.

Went on a date last night with a woman named Nancy. I met her a couple of weeks ago, a regular of La Luna. And yes, she's Chinese. Her English is... well it's Chinglish, but it's at least functional. She works for a shoe and clothing company and, apparently, goes abroad on its behalf to... well the details are a little fuzzy (it's the Chinglish), but it sounds like she's been an awful lot of places. I'm not sure how old she is... certainly older than me, but hey, it's just a number. We had a good time, and maybe we'll go out again sometime.

Hmm... what else... went out today with Xiaoxian to the Digital Market and bought a wireless router for the low, low price of 170 RMB (roughly $25)... So I officially have a real, live wireless connection that - with any luck at all - will be WAY more effective that my previous "borrowed" wireless. In short, my Skype is back to 100%! Yaay!

Alright, well that's about all for now.

P.S. I'm watching Across the Universe right now... a musical about the 60's using Beatles song for all of the numbers. Love, revolution, war, and GrOoVy tunes! It's fantastic so far!

If the sun don't come you get a tan

A Modest Proposal

I only had one class today, midmorning, with my freshmen renji-3 group, of writing. That in mind, I could have easily gone home after lunch. Lunch, by the way, was good today. I picked what turned out to be smoked, salted pork which was very well-prepared... I'm just glad it was only toward the end of the meal that I noticed that the skin and hair were still attached to many of the pieces... somehow that really curbed my enthusiasm for eating it...

Instead of going home, though, I stayed in the office and played online. Since my office has a wireless connection, my laptop is actually useful there, and so I can do real work... or (as in this case) hop on my WoW beta account for a few hours of uninterrupted playtime. But I digress...

Around 3:30, a few students began wandering in waiting for Warren. Apparently they were the "heavy hitters" for the school's speech team, which apparently is about as close to a sports program as the have here. The "theme" for the meet they were preparing for, I was told, was "1+1=2?" Taking that cryptic, nigh-sphinx-esque clue and figuring out what the hell they were supposed to do with it was, obviously, the students' job. They were supposed to prepare a speech in English that ran as near to 3 minutes as they could. Should it be expository? Argumentative? No one really knew, save that one added to one might possibly reach the sum of two.

Let me just say, I don't care if you're speaking in fucking Swahili, clicking your consonants with your tongue on the roof of your mouth, 3 minutes is far too short a time to present anything in any sort of convincing or logical manner. It is simply out of the realm of possibility, as far as I'm concerned. You get to get up, make a quick introduction, quickly run though any points you might've come up with, and then conclude. It's over before it really ought to have even begun.

Two of the speeches were boring as hell... and complete with all manner of ridiculous, overplayed cliches and catchphrases that I guess still play well among the Chinese. After all, these are the people whose educational system consists of making the children sit for hours and just memorize shit. (I'll be damned if I'm ever wrangled into playing memory with anyone here...) One began with a parable about a man breaking a chopstick, but then finding he could not break several...the girls "argument" was that people work better as a group than singularly, if that gives you any indication of what is considered a convincing argument.

The third speech, however, was certainly a break from the ordinary - to put it mildly. The girl tried - valiantly - to convince me in 3 minutes that the way to deal with the global population crisis was...

...
can you guess?
...

To have all world governments implement China's infamous One-Child Policy!! That's right, folks, take the system that brought you infanticide and 100 million terminally unwed males, and apply it to the globe... super.

It's not simply that it's an idea utterly at odds with my value system, it's that she took a topic that people could sit and debate for hours, days... hell, decades, and turned it into the 3-minute Hello Kitty edition. Nothing was wrong with the system, it had worked perfectly, and moreover could and should work equally well the world over.

Suffice it to say, I had to literally stop myself from laughing, and remind myself that hey, I'm in China. We, the three foreigners listening (as 1/2 the judges at this competition will be foreigners), politely told her that perhaps she should scale her argument back a bit and only propose that the system be implemented in countries similar to the Great Red Dragon. What countries have a similar social (patriarchial), governmental (totalitarian), and life-style (enormous population relative to landmass)? Really, we could only think of North Korea, and I actually quite OK with the 1-Child policy being implemented there. It's not like it could do much more damage.

But at least it was entertaining.

(CS)WC Out.

On rocks i dreamt of where we'd stepped

My hit log must've exploded...

I'm showing hits from ~13 different countries just today...

That's odd...

Pictures from the weekend (among others)

Despite me being rather under the weather this weekend, I've still somehow managed to make a decent time of it. Went out Friday and Saturday nights (admittedly, maybe not the best plan, considering), and then stayed in on Sunday to try to combat this very obnoxious cough that has plagued me for a couple days now. I'm feeling better now - not 100% though - thank, I think to my Chinese friend Nancy generously delivering some herbal medicine for me. It tastes... interesting... but definitely much better than that godawfully-flavored stuff in the US... and yes, I know it's intentionally so.

Anyway, wish me a speedy recovery, and here's a few pictures I've taken in the meantime.




Blurry I know. So you may just have to take my word for it when I tell you that this was the Duck-mobile. Ducks were tied to just about every inch of this man's moterbike... and yes, they were alive.








For the mid-Autumn Festival, the students (and us teachers) got a long 3-day weekend. A few of them invited me out to what they call "KTV" - more commonly known as karaoke. We all had a good time, and there were even a few English songs (Hotel California, some Beatles) that they convinced me to sing.






This was a nice picture I thought. Sky line near dusk.












I found this bridge at a nearby park next to the river. There's a lot of similar bridges. Curiously, this one was fenced and barb wired off...














I discovered a lizard of some kind unofficially taking my class. The students (overwhelmingly female) were scared of the little thing, so I let it hide under my desk so it wouldn't slither around and disturb the class.









This woman spoke remarkably good English for someone I just randomly met at a park. I was taking pictures of the water and skyline, and she waved at me. Apparently she's 88 years old!... which probably means she's actually more like 86 (Wenzhou people add 2 additional years onto their "Western age" for a reason I still don't entirely understand.)





And don't worry, Tracy, there are sure to be more pictures in the future!

(CS)WC Out

Your jeans were once so clean

Sino-talian cuisine

Last night was somewhat more eventful than I thought it was going to be. I mean that in a good way, of course.

Aaron called me up and said he'd been told by Jorge (La Luna owner) that there was an Italian restaurant in Xialupu that was very good. It was called Naples, and was owned by a couple of Chinese who apparently had spent more than 3 years in Italy learning how to make *real* Italian. I was hungry, and so with a mixture of curiosity and dread at what kind of Sino-talian monstrosity I was signing on for, we met up and headed out to find it.

We almost walked right past the restaurant. Like virtually all other shops/restaurants, it's sectioned out at ground level into shop fronts maybe 10-12 feet wide. It's like a can of sardines at street level. Thus, if you don't know exactly where you're going and you're walking at any sort of respectable pace, you blink at the wrong time and you've passed the shop. Once you're inside places like this, though, there's almost always a second floor for seating. So these restaurants can actually hold a decent number of customers at once.

The decor was actually quite nice... someplace, I said with some level of amusement, "I could take a date to." In my humble opinion, that speaks quite highly (and quite rarely) of a lot of Wenzhounese "dining establishments." Often you wonder if they're just serving up deep-fried-whatever-they-caught-and-killed-last-night.

Looking at the menu, we found that prices fell into the "reasonable" range, which was 30-60 RMB for a main dish. Above that, you're really just paying more to pay more... a "status" thing the Chinese LOVE. Down in the 20's you're talking fast food-quality, in the 10's and single-digit prices, see above about why your stew is meowing at you, and why the milk tastes curiously like paint-thinner...
Note: One very important exception to the low-tier prices are Muslim restaurants. These places are fantastic. They make the food fresh for you to see, are very clean, and are absolutely delicious. The last place I went I got a bowl of noodles and beef for 7 kuai. Couple rules when eating in a Muslim joint, though: Don't bring beer in, and don't ask for bacon on the side.

Anyway, back to Naples. Much to my very pleasant surprise, the food really was Italian. Granted, there were a few decidedly-Chinese items on the menu that I looked at and said... "uhhh...no," but by and large it was spot-on. I ordered the old standby: spaghetti and meat-sauce, and it was just what the doctor ordered. We didn't have dessert, but there was (among several enticing options) tiramisu, which as anyone who knows me knows well enough, is like divine ambrosia for me... I'll have to go back at some point and try it.

I think this has gone on long enough, so I'll commit the rest of the night to another post to make it a little easier to digest.

(CS)WC Out.

He's forgotten but not yet gone.

Milk... The Other Way To Kidney Failure

I - as well as the rest of China and, I see on CNN.com, the rest of the world too - have been watching with a mix of keen interest and abject horror, the "unfolding" scandal of contaminated Chinese milk. As you may or may not know, several distributors (read: con artists/murderers) decided it'd be a *really awesome* idea to "water down" their milk. Then to make it look like it wasn't diluted, they would add in a product called melamine to make it look normal again. Melamine, or tripolycianamide, is commonly used in coatings and laminates, wood adhesives, fabric coatings, ceiling tiles and flame retardants. If ingested in sufficient quantities (in adults, say experts, more than 2 liters/day), it can lead to kidney stones, urinary tract ulcers, eye, and skin irritation.

But here's the kicker, most of this poisonous shit was then dried into powered milk, and bought by unwitting parents who fed it to their newborns and infants... Apparent 4 children have died from acute kidney failure, and thousands more are very, very sick and hospitalized.

As of now, 18 people have been arrested and at least 2 of them face the death penalty if convicted. Frankly, I can't say I object. This is the ugly - and far too common - side of the "capitalism" China so vociferously promotes. Profit at any cost, even if that cost is in human lives. It is the end result of a government which has entirely deregulated its production and industrial processes... a system that not only tolerates, but even jokingly acknowledges its own corruption, only occasionally offering up the "sacrificial lamb" of some bloated official from Bumfuck-Nowhere, Central China. As long as they keep their people "in the money," no one really cares all that much.

If I sound angry and disgusted, don't worry, it's only because I am.

Pursuit of profit without forethought or understanding of the ramifications... sound familiar? With the collapse of the Wall Street giants still echoing across the world, it really should.

One more thing that has really irked me about this... will you kindly note the timing of this whole "revelation" about the corruption and deaths? Notice that the Olympic torch in Beijing has just been extinguished at the conclusion of the Paralympics? It's no coincidence... from what I hear, internal knowledge of this has been circulating since May at least...

Ugh. Sorry to be such a downer about this... it really is just a bad mojo it's got me in...

I promise my next entry will be full of happy bunnies and kitties and rainbows! :D

(CS)WC Out.

Finding beauty in the dissonance.

A Roadbump on the Information Superhighway

It seems as though Murphy's Law is still in full effect, even half way across the globe... Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.

My Xbox is working... and the wireless internet breaks... of course. It's not so much that I'm surprised, or mad, or really anything other than that feeling where you just want to roll you eyes at the near perfect ironic timing of it all... irked? No. Bemused? A little. Annoyed? Somewhat.

Maybe it's bemoyed. Regardless, until I figure this thing out (or more precisely. whoever I've been leeching wireless gets his shit together), or I give in and hook up my own wireless router in my apartment - really the more intelligent option, as I hate the shoddy service mystery router "yh" gives me sometimes - My neat-o, gee-wiz laptop will sit quietly shut unless I'm at the school.

Thank God I have this desktop, though - slower than frozen molasses it may be. It's a little harrowing to realize how dependent you become on something like the internet - the instant gratification of it all, that feeling of being always connected to a great, vast "Other" - only once you think it's been taken away. For a while I almost broke my connection on this computer, and I began to panic. Though I think I have a little more reason than most to have done so... after all, this is the only link I have to everyone back home. If it's gone I'm really alone out here... scary...

I think I know how a bee feels when it loses its hive... or maybe more like a borg drone once he's cut off from the insidious collective.

Regardless, I had one class of my freshmen today (one, not the previously stated two... I know, I was as surprised as you are), making it a very painless day, indeed. Of course, that means tomorrow I'll be up at the buttcrack of dawn just like fridays, teaching 3 classes per day. But really, there's sometihng nice about that prospect, in its own strange way. After 3 consecutive iterations of the same exact content, I find that my presentation becomes rather polished. I don't get afraid standing at the head of a class. Quite the opposite, in fact. I almost put on a performance... the kids seem to enjoy it (though they may just be laughing at how dumb the foreigner is making himself look). My only real hope is that they're learning in the process.

Case in point, I showed up early to class today, and the students seemed *particularly* shocked that a foreign teacher was walking into the room. Now they're always surprised, this this was doubly so. What's more, they seemed especially bad at basic English... yes this was they "lower tier" class, but they didn't seem to understand even me saying hello...

It became obvious. however, when none of the name on my list were names of the kids in the class that a grievous error had been made, and I was the one who'd made it. I had asked, quite specifically, if this was the "English Writing" class, and they had replied in the affirmative. It was only at this point, though, that I realized how similar "English Writing" and "Environmental Science" apparently sounded to them. Yes, I was in the wrong class.

And so I showed up a good 15-20 minutes late to my real class... What a way to introduce oneself! Still, after catching my breath - like the actor who misses a line on opening night - I was forced to just go with it. As Richard Gere sings in Chicago "As long as you keep 'em way off balance, how can they tell you got no talent? Razzle-dazzle 'em and they'll beg you for more!" It went fine, ultimately... but I'm hoping tomorrow goes a bit more according to plan.

(CS)WC Out.

Out there and sober as well from loneliness

Short Update

Well, the typhoon turned out to be a major disappointment. I was expecting something like a hurricane... instead it rained a little, the wind blew a bit... and that was that. Whoop-dee-doo. As I learned from my compatriots at La Luna, the Wenzhounese have a knack for really overstating how "bad" their storms are. Apparently, this is how it often is... but at least they're quick to cancel work/school. Kind of like Portland when it freezes over. No such luck this time, though...

I've got 2 classes tomorrow, and 2 the next day. Those will be my first meetings with the freshman writing classes. It should be interesting... I plan on seeing what they're capable of by giving them the assignment to write me a letter of introduction, which will be due next week.

Last night was quite a bit of fun. Aaron and I went to La Luna, and met up with lots of new foreigners... no, I take that back. We're the new foreigners... lots of other foreigners who were new to us! They're all very friendly. After several hours at La Luna, we were invited (and of course accepted sheerly to be polite) to accompany the group to another bar called Brass Monkey, where the owner was trying to promote his place by offering foreigners free Tsing Taos. Who can say no to that? Lots of fun, and a very late wake-up time... by the time I got home, the sky was lightening... did I mention it was fun?

More to come later
(CS)WC Out.

Gather, place, erase, so shelter turns to home.

Of Laowai, Xbox, & mid-Autumn typhoons...

Several pieces of interesting news have cropped up in the last few days since I posted here... Interesting to me, at least, and since you're reading I also assume interesting to you.

First and likely foremost, after several days of tracking them - like a hunter stealthily stalks its prey - I've finally located and *pounced* on a nest of foreign-owned expat bars in the Xialupu area. "Expat" is a term you hear thrown around a LOT while abroad, and it took me a while to figure out what it meant the first time I was over here, since no one seemed too willing to explain it to me. It was like it was the password to their "expat club." But it's simply short for expatriate, or "someone living abroad longterm." The first one I found is a little hole-in-the-wall called La Luna which is owned by a Tex-Mex fellow named Jorge (prn. "George," not the Mexican "Hor-hay.")

Here is, in many respects, a home away from home. This is a little slice of Western-anybar. Beers range from local Tsing Tao (15元/ bottle), Budweiser (15), Heineken (25), some german beers (25-45), up to Guiness (55元, if I remember correctly). They also stock a full bar - and I enjoyed several well-made gin & tonics for a measly 25元 (Which, I'm sure you'll recall, work out to about $3.50). Real cheap? No. But it's competetively priced, especially considering it's marketed to us foreigners... expat bars tend to be more expensive, because owners know that often we'll come regardless of price, if only to feel a little more at home.

I cannot say how nice it was to be able to just shoot the shit with some people in English, and not feel like I had to dumb down what I was saying. And it's incredibly easy to feel very isolated here... Every time I leave my apartment, I'm the enormous, blue-eyed, ghost-skinned laowai... but I guess I should just be glad they don't call us yangguizi (lit. "foreign devil," very racist and pejorative) anymore. Regardless, it's nice to be average-sized and have skin pigmentation again by comparison... even if it's only until I step outside.

And furthermore, they had food! Real food! Hamburgers, hot dog, cheese-steak sammies, fresh-cut french fries with cajun seasoning! It's like a little oasis in a vast sea of noodles and tiny bits of meat floating in soup. I've made fast friends with the owner, and several of the regulars. I'm sure I'll be gaining regular status in the near future. Hell, I only work 3 days/week...

In Other News...
Forrest, a Chinese "friend" who was introduced to me though Xiaoxian, brought me one last time to the Digital Market where for the past several weeks I've been trying unsuccessfully to buy a working replacement for my fried Xbox 360 AC Adapter. How was I supposed to know that you shouldn't plug something rated at 120V into a 220V outlet?! BZZZZZZTT!!! smoulder, smoulder...
Finally, after weeks of failed attempts at using a transistor to rate down the wall current to 120 for an American adapter, we finally tried plugging a standard-issue Chinese adapter into my console. Low-and-behold!! It worked! Occasionally it's a godsend to have everything in the world made right here in China! The only problem is that once I leave this coutry, I'll have to do the same song and dance all over again buying a new-new-adapter... sigh... it's hard being a gamer ;)

And now, here's Tom with the weather...

Incoming typhoon! that's right, we've got a backward-spinning hurricane bearing down on this region, and is expected to bring some crazy weather down on us in the next day or so. No rain or anything as of yet, but there are some ominous clouds on the horizon. Fortunately, this city was built to withstand typhoons (a concept utterly alien to many Southern cities, I'm afraid), and soo I'm looking at, at worst, a couple days without power. No evacuation, no panic, no largescale destruction.

At least that's what I've been told. We'll see I guess.

(CS)WC Out.

And the words float out like holograms

A Few Photos From A Long Walk

Pedestrians in China must fend for themselves. Cars will usually try to swerve out of your way... but bus drivers will friggin hit you. I've had to stand in the middle of a street while two buses passed me simultaneously - one in front, one behind - with no more than a foot of room on either side. Walk-signs be damned! They've got a schedule to keep!!!

PROTIP: Walk at an even, medium pace and do not stop unless a bus is turning in front of you.




Chicks waiting to board their bus... I hope they remembered to bring their 1.5 RMB. Maybe chickens get a discount...













Goose in a cage. 'Nuff said. PETA would have a field day here.












It's hard to capture the sheer chaos that is Chinese traffic with a mere still-photo. The white car is sitting in the middle of the intersection while everyone else swerves around him at high speed.

Note: China's traffic accident rate is 5x that of the US.







Smelled this place from blocks away. And yes, some people do live there... ew.











The Society for Creative Anachronism demonstrating how life was before pickup trucks?

NO!

These people actually haul these weird wooden carts around for a living!








Due to popular sisterly request, my ugly mug on one of dozens of riverfronts.

The water? Yeah NOT clean, but at least it doesn't actively smell like raw sewage.
...
I still have nightmares about Guiyang's river...






I kid you not, the walk signs here goosestep! Ein! Swei! Drei! Fier! March!!!
















Like so many other "laws" here, - traffic, copyright, importation, quality control, environmental - parking laws are seen less as "rules to be obeyed" than as "friendly suggestions to be considered, and duly disregarded."









Ban em all!

Blast from the (not too distant) past

I'm not even kidding. On the first day we inspected the Foreign Teacher's Office, Warren found a hilarious little "survey." We're not sure who made it, exactly, but we're convinced that it was to be from a while ago... like more than 10 years, maybe?

In any case, we both found it both hilarious and a little unsettling. Some of the questions reek of an outmoded Mao/Stalinism that, quite frankly, has very little place left in even the Chinese psyche. The humor is in the wording, which reveals a very "Chinese" outlook on life and the world. Foreigners are either gods or dogs, and that's a worldview they're only beginning to remove themselves from. The post-colonial guilt trips many still try to throw at us laowai, however, are still alive and well.

And so, without further ado, I give you what we found:

"An Exploration for Residents of the Global Village

1 - STRONGLY AGREE
2 - SOMEWHAT AGREE
3 - HAVE NO OPINION
4 - SOMEWHAT DISAGREE
5 - STRONGLY DISAGREE

1. The higher standards of material life in Western Europe and the US proves the superiority of western culture.

2. The fact that China has the longest continuous civilization proves its superiority.

3. Foreigners going to live in a new country should give up their foreign ways and adapt to the new country as quickly as possible.

4. Foreigners living in another country should behave as proper guests and avoid interfering in the affairs of the host country.

5. Much of the world's population does not take enough initiative to develop themselves. Therefore, they remain "underdeveloped".

6. The underdevelopment of much of the world is due to colonial and post-colonial exploitation by developed countries.

7. The sooner the people of the world learn to do things the right way, the sooner we will understand each other better.

8. Countries may welcome outsiders for particular reasons, but they should limit the influence of foreign ideas and ways of life.

9. The stress some societies place on individual freedom and rights contributes to the neglect of the well being of society as a whole.

10. The people of some societies do not place any value on human life. To them life is cheap.

11. People of every culture are entitled to the full use of their own language as an essential part of their culture.

12. One of the major languages should be adopted as the universal language of the world.

13. All people should be fluent in as many as three languages: their mother tongue, their national language and an international language such as English.

14. The culture of primitive or native hunter and gathering peoples are inferior to the cultures of agricultural and industrial societies.

15. All cultures represent legitimate, fully human ways of being in the world."

Really, I was a little dumbstruck after reading it. Both from the amusing way it was written, and probably more so the fact that someone had written this as a serious attempt at a survey for...some group of (presumably) Chinese students.

I came away from it thinking to myself, "really? these are questions that have to be asked?"

But then again, I'm not Chinese... I'm a member of the "developed countries" exploiting the "colonial and post-colonial" world.

And the proletariat shall rise up against the oppressive yoke of their bourgeois master and overthrow them! And with that final, bloody struggle, all the peoples of the world shall unite in a common bond of...

Oh, wait... was I saying something? I think I might have momentarily blacked-out... ;)

A Minor Annoyance

It's been grating at me ever since I got here. In the grand scheme of things, it's really quite minor, and there's nothing I can do about it... but it's been quite obnoxious. I can only hope that in the coming weeks and months I learn to tune it out.

I speak of course of the wandering street people outside who very loudly chant their "business slogans" as they meander in circles every day waiting for someone to shut them up by hiring them. What are they selling? I haven't the foggiest. Often they are lugging some sort of wooden cart behind them filled with trash or something - like you'd expect an ox to be hauling.

How annoying is it? Let me illustrate. Imagine, if you will, the Kleen King jingle. Ringing any bells? If not, just think of the most horrifically obnoxious commercial song you've ever heard. Now:
1) Make it a jibberish language. You no longer have any idea what they're trying to pawn off on you.

2)Remove any semblance of catchy music or rhyme. Now replace it with a nasally, piercing harpy-cry of a phrase, piercing through the thickest walls and perforating your eardrum from blocks away. It's now lost any vestigial bit of "humanity," rendering it a soulless, broken shell of a jingle, crawling its way up from hell to strangle the life out of you.

3) Remove the ability to change the channel to football, cartoons, or the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. You get to hear this crypt-keeper street lady coming from 3-4 blocks away. You have the pleasure of hearing this looped little mind-frag of a phrase repeated over and over again, growing louder and more reality-bending with each unholy iteration, until it seems to have swallowed your entire world in it obnoxious, demonic jaws.

4) It starts at about 6 in the morning and continues intermittently until nightfall. No rest for the wicked. At least the males are less obnoxious, BUT SERIOUSLY! I don't know how they stay alive! I would never ever EVER hire someone who sang all day outside my window. I want to throw rocks at these people, not give them money!!!

Ok, that was my rant for the day...

It Sure Ain't Montana Beef

The Chinese diet is based - unsurprisingly - on rice. Rice, rice porridge, rice-noodles... lots and lots of simple-carbohydrates, which has served these people well for millennia. Meat and vegetables are also staple foods, but unlike in America, they are often served almost as side-dishes to the primarily carb-based main course.

This is not to say that meats are not central to the Chinese diet. On the contrary, the character for the word for "home" - 家 - actually comes from an ideogram of a pig with a roof over it. Home is literally where the pig is... Brings a whole new level of meaning to "bringing home the bacon."

One thing's for sure, it would suck to be a Jew, Muslim, or Vegetarian here... I hear they don't dig on swine... and vegetarianism is about as foreign to the Chinese as... um... apple pie. Yeah, I'll go with that. Even though they're the ones who invented tofu (doufu), the idea of eschewing a vital protein source is really a first-world concept for people with too much time on their hands and options regarding what they eat. Though more and more of China no longer falls into the category of third-world country on starvation-diets, we're talking maybe slightly more than a decade or two since near all of the country was there. McDonald's, Pizza Hut, and KFC are still considered delecacies here.

Anyway, I got a hankering for a nice steak the other day. Instead of going to the nearby beefsteak restaurant, which would run me somewhere over 35RMB (~$5) for a meal, I decided to go to the Century Mart and buy the ingredients for myself. So I picked up a cut of beef (right next to the whole-hearts, livers, and roast duck heads), soy sauce, a thing of ground black pepper, and some soda... the grand total brought me to 32RMB. Price-wise, it came out in a wash, but I now have pepper and soy sauce so I won't need to get them again for a while.

After cooking back home, I cut in (with my resident butter knife and fork) and took a bite. Granted, I had cooked it fairly thoroughly - which for me is medium to medium-well - but even so, I was clearly dealing with a cow that had seen a rough life... I can't remember the last time I had such a tough piece of meat. Nevertheless, it was still a little taste of home. I think next time I'll get some potatoes to go with it, whenever that "next time" is :)

My Renji 2 Class

Here's a picture I was able to snap of my last class of the day. What a group!













And secondly, here's a taste of the world-famous "Chingrish" that has made so many native-English speakers double over in laughter for generations...

The Chinese translates as "One-Card Center Office"... for the life of me I can't figure out who "translated" it for the sign...

First Day of Classes

I am officially underway with my first semester of the term at Wenzhou Medical College, or as they refer to it here, Wenzhou Yixueyuan. Today I had three consecutive classes of sophomores for my Oral English 201 class, which consisted of, in order of ability, Class 1, Renji 1, and Renji 2. The Class 1 students are, predictably, the "top tier" students who tested into this program, and are thus heavily subsidized by the government. The Renji classes are, for lack of a better term, the "others." Many of the Ranji students are great students, but mixed in are those who, quite frankly, would rather not be there. Hey, I figure at least in China they've done me the favor of seperating the classes out so I at least have an idea of what to expect from them.

Today was introductions and syllabus overview. Almost all of the students have either been given or given themselves "English" names, as I mentioned earlier. As I've already ascertained, however, these names are for the convenience - and sometimes unfortunate pranks of - former English teachers. No one goes by their English name, except to their English professor. As such, in addition to performing role call with their English name, I have also resolved to begin learning their *actual* names. This process of me asking, and then repeating made for much laughter as I slughtered name after name... But it wasn't totally my fault! In order to be able to tolerate a 4th floor room during midday Chinese heat, I had to have all the fans on full blast. The resulting hurricane-force windstorm made the day bearable, but my ability to correctly hear their names very poor. The students were very kind, though, and even applauded on the (rare) occasion that I got a name on the first try.

I did have a few rabbits that I pulled out of my hat. As I thought, I took them completely by surprise when I revealed that I was able to speak any Chinese at all. I even made them a deal that if they would speak when called on without making a fuss, I would occasionally let them laugh at how bad my Chinese was by dutifully mangling their language. I think it is a good confidence-building thing for them. I don't mind being laughed at (because I know just how ridiculously limited my language skills are), and it lets them know that they shouldn't be embarrassed to mess up. I really tried to drive that message home, and think I made progress.

I had the students write down, and then randomly called about 1/3 of each class to read out loud to me, answers to some basic personal questions I asked them. Without fail, they performed admirably, especially when considering that the Chinese are notorious for being very shy about speaking publically in English. If they mess up, it can mean huge social embarrassment. But a rule I established early on was that I not only expected people to mess up, but I even encourage it. The way I see it, that's how we learn. There would be no laughing at mistakes, since everone (even the teacher) would make them... except I allow them to laugh at my silly mistakes :D

Another shocker for everyone in the class (comprised overwhelming of girls... of 3 classes of 30, I believe I had a grand total of 8-9 boys.), was that their foreign teacher was a mere 22. The whole class would gasp when someone asked that question of me and I answered. It would quickly be followed up with "Do you have a girlfriend?" I don't think it is too far-out for me to say I have become something of a heartthrob to many of these students. I was told I was cute, I was asked for my phone number, and one girl even told me that she wanted to study english becase she, and I quote, "liked foreign English teachers." this same girl has subsequently emailed me with a very friendly letter, emphasizing that since our ages are so close, I can feel free to be friends with my students, and not feel so shackled by the teacher-student relationship. I'm paraphrasing, but that was the gyst.

Certainly this is an interesting situation I've found myself in. Admittedly, it's most than a little gratifying to be in such a position. But beyond any and everything else, I am their teacher, and will remain as such. I do hear, however, that many of these Chinese girls are - contrary to the demure, reserved Asian-woman stereotype - actually very outgoing and very forward. Further, many of them have more than a little "thing" for foreign men... sigh...

I'm now back at home after what I felt was a resounding success of a day. I was nervous going into it, but as soon as the bell rung and I began talking, I actually felt very natural. Though it's only the first day, and in 2 weeks I'll have 4 more classes added to the current load, I daresay I might be in my element.

Slightly Embarrassing

I woke up this morning, of my own accord, at about 6:15... no alarm, no obnoxious streetperson with a loudspeaker recording at full volume trying to sell spare parts... just awake, ready to begin my class of sophomores today.

Just one problem... my class isn't until tomorrow. It wasn't until I was dressed, packed, out the door, and down at the bus station, and talking to Warren that I was told that it was not, in fact, Friday. All that prep, both yesterday and today, and scaring myself into getting up early sans alarm all for nothing. But I guess it does explain why my alarm didn't go off like it was supposed to...

Oh well, as far as mistakes in scheduling go, I'd much rather have it this way than the other way.

I've been involved for several days in an adventure to find a functional AC adapter for my Xbox, which I lugged all the way over here, just to have the adapter fry the second I plugged it in. It was my own fault, mind you. I momentarily forgot about the voltage difference here. Here (and most of the world) the outlets run at 220V, whereas American outlets are at a mere 120V. I knew this, but I just wasn't thinking about it. So what I did was call my interpreter Xiaoxian, who brought along a former student of hers, "Forest" to take me to the Digital Market. Imagine, if you will, a Circuit City, but spanning about 3 floors and a city block. This, obviously, was my kind of place. The other difference of course, is that most everything is a knock-off Chinese clone which will run for a little while, and then wear out and break far earlier than the real thing. The look very real, though... and they're far cheaper, so I won't be complaining too much...

Unfortunately, the first one I bought turned out to be incompatible with my console. It was designed for the newer generation of 360, meaning that it didn't quite fit. Consequentially, I went back to thr market with Forest and they agreed to exchange the one I bought with one that (should) work properly... once they order it in from another provence. It should be arriving any day. Retail, these puppies go for about $99, but here one cost my 300元, which is roughly $40. I'll take it, even if it is a cheap clone.

It is nice, though, that I'm beginning to find my way around a little more of the city that just the immediate Xiayupu area in which I live. I was able to take the #5 Bus (for only 1.5 元 [$0.21]) down to the old medical campus and meet Forest without any guide or directions. That's a real confidence builder. I'm also trying to communicate with retailers, though it's slow going. At least I have a basis of the language from which to build.

Pictures of Wenzhou Medical College

The courtyard of Building #6, one of the buildings I teach in.













My classroom!... or at least one of them.













The school library (tushuguan). Believe it or not, it's 7 stories tall, complete with elevators!













The central pathway of the school.













Classroom #2













Tea Mountain, the namesake of the town













Another view of the library.

This is why you're not normally allowed to pick your name...

It's been a very quiet weekend, as weekends go. Friday I got my first look at Wenzhou Medical College - or as it says on the bus that takes us there, "Wenzhou Yixueyuan." It is a very nice campus in a very nice outlying-area the greater-Wenzhou area called Cha Shan, or "Tea Mountain." As you might have gathered for the name, the area abuts a nice-sized mountain. I'm not sure if there's any tea on it though. I wouldn't be surprised... the Chinese are not known for their creative naming. Unless, of course, we're talking about the English names they give themselves. More on that later.

After seeing the campus, which didn't take all that long, since it's rather small, we went to look at Aaron and my respective classrooms. My classes will be taking place in two buildings, both of which are computer-enabled with projectors. Apparently PowerPoint presentations are extremely popular in Chinese schools. And who can blame them?

We were also shown our lovely office, complete with large freestanding Air Conditioner. I don't think I can stress enough how important that detail is. Most days I'm miserably hot after only a few minutes outside, and even on those rare days when it's not that hot, it's still obscenely humid, meaning regardless, I'm sweaty, which is not my favorite state of being. There are three foreign teachers of English, all of which are American. The third guy's name is Warren, and he hails from Seattle, WA. He's somewhere in his thirties, and actually married to another faculty member named Xiaohou, both of whom transferred to WZMC from Wenzhou University just this year. Apparently the pay was better here. Incidentally, WZU is also in Cha Shan, literally just next door. No wonder it's called "University-town!"

I got my list of sophomore student, too. They are either given or choose for themselves English names, some of which are normal, some of which are absolutely hilarious. Some of the winners are:
Cherry, Cookie, Kiwi, Windy, V, Jungle, Diary, Peach, Feel, Yoyo, Rainbow, Tiki, Green, Fairy, Fish, Sunshine, Disney, and Cake.

Yes, we're still still talking about student's names... My personal favorites are Green and Fairy. I'm hoping they sit together so I can collectively refer to them as "Absinthe."

Currently, I'm working on writing my syllabus for the sophomore oral class I'll be starting on Friday. Fun times, I know!