Driving in China - A Citizen's Guide to Navigating the Roads, Sidewalks, and Green Spaces of the PRC

Though I've written about it before, I think it's appropriate that I once again come to the topic of driving - and surviving drivers - in China. I happened upon, or rather was told about, a wikitravel page titled "Driving in China". Though innocuously named, it quickly became apparent that I'd found a hidden gem of the web. Some of what is contained therein most people might think is a joke, or at the very least highly exaggerated. Not so. I can attest that I've not only witnessed near everything mentioned in the article firsthand - but also that I've witnessed it on a regular basis.

The following are excerpts from the article. It begins:

Most visitors find they have enough trouble surviving Chinese traffic without actually taking the wheel. It is generally best to just rent a car with a driver, or to employ a driver if you buy a car. At Chinese wages, the cost of the driver is quite low.

Indeed. Whenever you step into, or near, traffic - hell, if you can *hear* traffic, you're effectively taking your life into you own hands.

If you choose to forego this first bit of advice, though, it gives details on getting you Chinese driver's license.

Regarding the test, taking of:

First there is a computerized theory test of one hundred (mostly) multiple choice questions with 90% as a pass mark; if you do not pass, you can do a second test without paying any further fee. In major cities, these tests are available in multiple languages. In smaller places, the officials may insist you do it in Chinese. Some allow you to bring a translator; some do not. It is not uncommon that besides just translating, the translator will dictate you correct answers and expect a small fee of not more than 100 yuan.

but in case that sounds too complicated:

The easiest way for a foreigner to get a Mainland license is to take the following action: In Hong Kong, convert your foreign license into a Hong Kong license for 20 or so USD. Then, go to Mainland (Guangzhou is probably the easiest place) and convert your HK license into a Mainland license.

On luxury cars, the dangers of:

Beware of large imported luxury cars. Sometimes they belong to gangsters or to young immature relatives of senior party or other officials and consider themselves to be above the law, which unfortunately in the still corruption prone China, they often are.

On roads, the dangers of:

The physical condition of roads and road maintenance varies greatly from municipality to municipality. WARNING to drivers and cyclists: it is not uncommon to find an open man hole cover or large crevice on a newly paved or otherwise smooth road.
Turning off of main roads may require technical off-road driving skills and equipment

On drivers, the dangers of:

To Western eyes, appallingly bad driving is the norm, and insane or suicidal behaviour behind the wheel is fairly common.
Do not assume that Chinese drivers will follow any rule you know.

You do not have to learn to drive like a Chinese, but at least you should not be surprised when they do. There is absolutely no point getting angry if someone cuts you off, or drives against the red light or on the wrong side of the road. You simply yield, and carry on as if nothing had happened.

Another way to look at it is that there are only two rules you must obey, both equally important. Don't hit anything, and don't get hit by anything.

On Way, Right of:

The concept of right-of-way is quite different in China than in many other countries. Think more "First is Right"... or less succinctly, any vehicle with a slight position lead or access to a gap before another vehicle has defacto right of way to enter that gap.

The general rule appears to be keep moving no matter what. Cutting people off, swerving into the oncoming lane, driving on the shoulder, or in a fenced-off bicycle lane, or the wrong way down a divided highway, are all fine as long as they keep you moving in the right general direction and do not cause an immediate accident.

Notice the bolded word above... yeah.

On Red Lights, Optionality of:

Chinese drivers routinely go through red lights if there is no opposing traffic. Pedestrians do not count as traffic; just honk at them to get out of the way, or swerve around them.

A retired teacher in Lanzhou became a bit of a hero on the Chinese Internet in 2009 with his campaign to make an intersection near his home safer. He took to hurling bricks at cars that ran the lights and hit over 30 before the police turned up.

On One-Way Streets, Optionality of:

Bicycles and motorcycles regularly, and cars sometimes, ignore one-way signs. On divided highways, seeing pedestrians, bicycles and motorcycles going the wrong way down the shoulder is entirely normal, and a few go the wrong way beside the center fence.

Many Chinese cities have bicycle lanes fenced off on either side of the road. These carry two-way traffic: bicycles and motorcycles plus the occasional car, truck or pedestrian. Cars routinely take to these lanes if traffic in the main lanes is jammed; they then honk at bicyclists to get out of the way.
Even the sidewalks often carry two-way bicycle and motorcycle traffic, plus the odd car going to or from a parking spot. Even on the sidewalks, vehicles honk at pedestrians to get them out of the way.

On Night, Driving at:

When driving at night, be very aware that people often walk in the middle of the road, with the back to the oncoming traffic, in dark clothes. This is one reason local drivers do not often dip the lights. In the country, there may even be people sleeping on the road.
Bicycles very rarely have lights and many do not even have reflectors. Motorcycles often run at night without lights. Both are sometimes on the wrong side of the road.

On Busses, Courteousness of:

Public buses, and many private buses, rather than acting as professional drivers responsible to their human cargo, are often among the most aggresive drivers; Many in the countryside routinely ignore stoplights or fail to slow while turning, will pass stopped or slower traffic even if this requires using the oncoming traffic lanes, and will often employ their sheer size to enforce merging. Again, "First is Right" ... if the front of a vehicle hits the side or rear of another vehicle, the front-dented vehicle is assumed at fault, no matter the circumstances that preceded the collision.

On Bicycles/Motorcycles, Multipassenger Capabilities of:

Chinese often ride without helmets, or with the helmet on but the chin strap undone. Three people on a motorcycle or two on a bicycle is completely normal, as is having passengers ride sidesaddle. Three on a bicycle or up to five on a motorcycle are sometimes seen. Loads of a cubic meter or so are common for both bicycles and motorcycles, and much larger loads are sometimes seen.

More than anything, I got a real kick out of reading this article, and found myself laughing throughout at the absolutely true, but often frightening, statements within. If you have the time, read through the whole thing yourself. It's well worth the time, and might give you some better idea (for those of you who've yet to visit the Middle Kingdom) of what it is I have to navigate my way through on a daily basis.

Until next time, I am...

(CS) TAW Out.

always think twice

Coming Back From Hiatus: Illness, Work, and Sticky Keyboards

Wow, it's been a long time since I've taken time out of my day to write here. So I suppose I should catch this blog up on the goings on of my ever-entertaining life.

Illness: Since I last posted, I've basically been in a non-stop, no-holds-barred battle royale with a revolving door of diseases. Cold, Flu, Bronchitis, runny nose, stuff nose, nausea, loss of balance. You name it, I've been afflicted by it or its close cousin sometime in the past couple months. I'm really just waiting for the Ebola to hit. And now I'm coughing again. But I suppose that just comes with the territory of working with hundreds of little snot-nosed, sneezing, germ-factories posing as children.

Work: is work. I (as well as the rest of the foreign staff) was recently called into the head office on our day off for an "important" meeting to discuss such world-changing topics as...
* Some new white guy was hired into middle-management.
* We are going to have a Christmas party
* We will continue to have the iLongman clubs
* The topics for the next month and a half of Longman Clubs (which we get emailed to us anyway)
* Singing children's songs... for the hell of it.
* And being forced to "discuss" what we can "do" to better integrate the topics of two courses taught by two different teaches, using two different books. My answer: rewrite the books, which was in fact, the correct answer. Surprise, surprise.
At the end of this meeting from hell, there was a collective birthday party for all 25 of the employees who had birthdays in November... only 10 of which were present. By this time, 3 hours had elapsed... I was pissed of at having the greater part of my day off stolen from me for absolutely no reason. So I didn't even bother to stay for cake. I just left. Nancy and I got Carl's Jr.
Also, I learned that the master teacher who had brought me out to Chunchen Campus initially, and had been part-timing it there, was getting himself fired (since that comes with a severance package, rather than quitting) because they were demanding he fulfill his "office hours" but refusing to allot him an office. Hey, that's Longman for ya. The really sad part, though: I'm not convinced there's any other English school company that's markedly better with HR.

Sticky Keyboards: That brings me to my final topic of the day - my computer. It was only a few days ago that the unthinkable happened: I watched in horror as a full glass of coke and vodka plummeted down, spilling it's burbling contents all over my 6 month old Macbook Pro's keyboard. The screen, keyboard, and power cable light instantly went black. Uh-oh. For a moment, the sheer shock of the situation paralyzed me. I knew that I *HAD* to do something to stop this atrocity, but my body wouldn't obey.
Finally, after what seemed an eternity of 3 seconds (or so), I finally snapped out of my horror and sprang into action. The laptop was immediately unplugged, flipped, and drained of as much of the liquid as I could. But it was too late. The sensitive innards of the innocent machine had been struck a fatal blow by the its tasty, cold, refreshing anathema. I tried to remove the battery, unscrewing the aluminum bottom casing in a process more akin to major surgery than routine maintenance. Those of you who've worked with a Mac know that, generally, you the end-user are not supposed to touch anything but the keyboard of a Mac.
I was then that I realized: like a witch doctor trying to perform open-heart surgery, I was hopeless out of my league. I could discern this much: the internal, non-removable battery was just that: not removable. A huge warning label cautioned: DO NOT REMOVE THE BATTERY! That by itself wouldn't have stopped me. With ribcage cracked, and the circulatory system bypassed, a little "Be careful" sign wasn't about to stop my mad science. It was the two screws bolting it into place which did; the two 6-sided Star Screws which no normal or philip's screwdriver can do anything but strip into uselessness.
So I did the only thing I could think to do: dry this puppy out, and do it quickly! My girlfriend's hair dryer seemed my best bet. It was here that I made my second big mistake of the evening. To the average person - someone not 3/4 insane from panic and despair - it might seem obvious that little plastic computer keys + hot, hot blow-dryer air might not mix so well. That didn't really occur to me... at least until I saw six of my keys buckling and warping into uselessness. It was at this point that my frenzy finally gave way to hopelessness. My fervor had not helped anything. In fact, it had only made things worse.
The next day, my despair was overwhelming. I was looking at hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in repair costs, a permanently voided warranty, and no computer for weeks, if not months. My girlfriend had a great idea: what about my old laptop? The one I'd abandoned because it's OS had been corrupted. Since I'd just bought the Snow Leopard update, couldn't I try to fix it so I'd at least have *some* kind of computer to work with? GENIUS! It worked, and worked flawlessly. With the infusion of a new OS, my long-brain-dead little white machine sprang to life once more, ready to pick of as much of the slack as it could. Still, it was merely an outdated Macbook, nothing near the splendid beauty or power to which I'd grown accustomed with my Pro. Sadly, I pressed the power key of my dead Pro, if only to prove to myself that there was truly no hope.
Suddenly, a Christmas miracle came early: the Pro chimed to life, screen popping on happily, as if it'd just woken up from a nap, rather than from the grave. It merrily booted up as though nothing had happened at all. Nancy and the internet had been right all along - my logic board hadn't been nuked. It just needed to dry out.
This left with with only two minor problems. The first were the keys I'd melted. I found that I could actually order individual keys online from Hong Kong. But in the meantime, I discovered that the keys from my little white Macbook - now once again happily loading - could easily be transplanted into the sad, vacant key-squares of it's bigger, stronger cousin. So it looks a little strange having 6 snow-white keys in the otherwise coal-black board. But it's a hell of a lot better than no keys at all... at least until I get some true replacements.
The other problem - as the title suggests - is that as the coke has dried, it's left behind it's sticky residue underneath the keys, making it feel as though I'm trying to type through molasses. Tonight I'm planning on popping off the keys one by one and giving the undersides a good cleaning. Hopefully that will be enough to clear up the problem.

And so concludes the tale of how, through the combined power of Santa Claus and Steve Jobs, Chris came to believe in Christmas miracles again, and got not 1, but 2 working computers.

(CS) TAW Out.

two pet snakes

Rottface the Pirate and the Blustery Day

Halloween has come, and gone. But oh, the memories, they’ll linger on. Well… sort of. H-Day, as I’m sure you’ll recall, was last Saturday. Saturday being my busiest work day… so, yuck. Nevertheless, mid-afternoon I got a call from my darling Nancy saying that she had bought some kind of costume for me… and from what I could discern, it was a “full set” of something to do with “the ocean.” So maybe I was going to be a mer-man.

This, however, was not to be. She had bought me a Pirate set, complete with kickass Cap’n’s hat, eyepatch, huge gold hoop earring, and red bandana. The rest, though, was up to me. Fortunately, I have considerable experience in making workable costumes, McGuyver-style. I’d “borrowed” a clown-face paint set from my work (which no one had really used), and had then hunted down a 24-color watercolor paint kit from the local RT-Mart… which turned out to be infinitely more useful. From my closet, I pulled a pair of dark khaki pants, a white button up shirt, and my black leather jacket, and then got down to work.

The result was better than I’d expected. Cap’n Rottface came to life… or rather, back to life… and he and his beautiful masqued companion (aka Nancy) hit the unsuspecting town. There was a party at some dance bar (M2, I believe was the name), where Nancy’s friends had insisted we join them. The place was utterly packed. There was barely room to stand, much less actually dance. That, and periodically, the bouncers would do their best to clear out a section of the bar so that performances could take place, which only made things even more congested. Granted, the dancers were quite good (one of their sets was an homage to MJ), but it still was not very well thought-out by the promoters of the gig. At one point I got into a bilingual argument with one of the bouncers, because he was trying to get me to back away from the side of the stage (where our table was), and I was telling him that I literally could not move, and where the hell could/should I go. He didn’t have an answer, so I stayed put. Still, loud, hot, overpriced (50 kuai for a beer… yuck) and overcrowded, Nancy and I agreed to leave early and head home. Especially since I had work early early early the next day.

November hit with a vengeance. A massive cold front pushed the temperature down almost 10-15 degrees C (so… about 50-60F) from the previously balmy upper 20’s (High 70’s-mid 80’s) down to the single digits (low 40’s and below). And this was all in the span of 2 days. Suddenly, you really couldn’t go outside without a jacket, hat, and even scarf. The wind was fierce, and stripped off another few dozen degrees of heat… yuck. Fortunately, as quickly as it had come, the cold front has now moved past us into the Pacific, and the temp is set to steadily rise into the mid-20’s again throughout the week. But November is definitely here to stay. My thoughts: It’s about damn time.

Yesterday I had to make a trek out to the Pudong Entry-Exit Bureau, so some greenhorn college student on part-time staff at Longman – named “Elfin” - could try to shunt her job onto Nancy because she didn’t want to speak English to me… ugh. Longman’s track record with Chinese hires continues it’s steady downhill slide… Anyway, I made the 40 min, 50 kuai taxi ride out so she could tell me that – Surprise! – she didn’t actually have my Expert Certificate yet (since the company had taken their sweet damn time in letting me know that they needed X and Y as originals, and that scans would not be acceptable… for whatever reason… even after specifically telling me that scans would, in fact, be just fine)… and so I was there to simply ask the Deputy Chief to extend my expiring visa through Saturday so they could actually get their asses in gear and get the paperwork... Fortunately, it was a very simple process. It’s just annoying at how very inefficient and, dare I say, Chinese this supposedly foreign business is currently being run. And believe me, this situation is only the latest in a long line of headaches throughout my 2+ month tenure…

One almost begins to miss Wenzhou with all this crap going on. At least they had their shit together… and there was La Luna, with it’s community of us Laowai, rather than the perpetually faceless, community-less mass of foreigners you never meet at all…


(CS) TAW Out.

the only international field marshal

Uh Oh...

Don't be alarmed, but I think I may have died and found myself in laowai heaven. A few days ago, my sometimes-coworker told me of a little place called City Shop here in Shanghai. There are multiple locations, he informed me, and one was somewhere in the vicinity of Xujiahui. Little did he - or I - realize that this location was not truly near Xujiahui, but actually about a 15 minute walk from the metro stop... placing it about a block and a half from my doorstep. Yaay!

And let me tell you, had it been a 40 minute walk, it would still have been well worth it.... A full bakery, a full imported beer, wine, and liquor section, Pop Tarts, Lucky Charms, Dortios, Cheetos that are cheese-flavored, Newman's Own salad dressing, about 20 wheels of various cheeses, a deli, sauces, mustards, pickles, oh the list goes on and on.

So here I am, a block and a half away from any and everything my foreigner heart could desire. Things I - and many others - might have killed for in a place like, say, Wenzhou. Oh, it's good to be in Shanghai.

In other news, work is going well... though very busy. My heavy days are Saturday and Sunday which, as you may have guessed by now, sucks majorly. Fortunately, Shanghai is a thriving enough metropolis, populated by enough foreigners and Chinese who work at private English schools, that even weekdays (such as, say, Monday and Tuesday) can be good days to hit the town. Near our apt, Nancy and I found the Pomegranate Lounge, which featured a live quartet of guitarists and bongo-beaters in a groovy, though almost certainly spur-of-the-moment jam session set against a hilarious Soviet-era Russian poli-cartoon. Drinks, though certainly not cheap, were reasonably priced: a Tequila Sunrise ran us (a very reasonable) 40 kuai, and a Mojito (yum) put us out 65.

I'm looking forward to my next paycheck - ETA: 4 days. After running me though the document ringer (claiming the police didn't want the perfectly legitimate scanned copy of my release letter, then needing me to send my TEFL cert AGAIN...ugh), my work has finally issued me a time card (whoop-dee-doo) which seem to indicate they're actually going to keep me around. Not that I was concerned... at all. I'm doing quite well at my job. Every time I'm put on a demo lesson, about half the kids sign up then and there. I call that a win.

OH! I almost forgot, as I sit here sipping it now... City Shop stocks Rogue Beer! Hallalujah! And it is delicious!

Cheers!

(CS) TAW Out.

She cried to the southern wind

Holiday(?)

I write this in between sips of Diet Pepsi and Eristoff tiple instilled premium vodka. Premium being, apparently, worth about 88 kuai… when the average imported (read: drinkable) liquor runs about 110-120/bottle. Still, it’s not bad at all. Quite nice, in fact. I think the aspartame of the Pepsi masks the taste of the vodka. One almost shudders to think what the non-premium version would be like.

I’ve just come off of my national holiday. The 60th anniversary of the Glorious and Harmonious founding of the Glory and Harmony that is the People’s (glorious) Republic (harmonious) of China (glormonious). I’m obligated, as it were, to discuss the translation error that seems to have occurred between Chinese and English. These things happen, of course. These are two very different cultures, with very different languages. Still, to a native English-speaker, the specific terminology of “holiday” does tend to conjure up rather explicit meanings. For instance: I’m not usually expected to “make up” a holiday’s missed hours. Work hours which would have normally fallen during a holiday, are most often simply written off as being, well… a holiday.

This is not the case in China. To channel Yakov Smirnoff for a moment, in Communist China, holiday takes youuuuuuuuuu….

To, ahem, “make up for” last weeks state-mandated lazification to observe the full power of this fully armed and operational state (2 pts. for getting the reference), were are now expected to run a double-shift this week. This, in spite of the fact that today, for instance, my class had a grand total of 2 children… one of whom was “test-driving” it to see if they wanted to sign up (and, somehow, I think I convinced them to). So one actual student. Uno. Eine. Un. 一个. One. Ten hours in the office… one actual customer served. I believe a McDonald’s might actually implode into a mathematical singularity.

But hell, I’m getting paid for it. And what else am I going to do with my time… other than enjoy the fine taste of Eristoff premium vodka (Eristoff CFO: please send the checks to No. 40 West Huaihai Rd, Apt. 104A)? After all, Nancy’s in Wenzhou at the moment… whisked away on the winds of fate by the wiles of a sister (which one? There are so many) having the gall to get proposed to. So yet another Sun is getting hitched. Which makes “mama” all the more impatient with her erstwhile Jienan… stubbornly clinging to singlehood, even though she has a perfectly good foreigner boyfriend. Yeah, that’s pretty much how I’m thinking it’s going right now. God knows Nancy’s getting the brunt end of her parents now. She may, in fact, be the only child of 8 at this point to not be either married, or officially headed in that direction. One wonders why her parents actually care so much… For chrissake, it’s not like they’re hurting for an heir. This, of course, is then reflected back on me… in addition to the internal kitchen timer ticking away inside her own skull. Yeah… so there’s that…

Oh Eristoff, take me away…



(CS) TAW Out.

I'm lookin' for me

A Day 60 Years in the Making

Yesterday, the first of October, marked the National Day holiday of the PRC. And not just any old national day…. But the big Six-Oh. That’s right, “New” China is over the hill. And how better to celebrate than with a giant military parade through Tiananmen Square, show-casing the latest and greatest of the People’s Liberation Army’s “toys?” My personal favorite was the woman on CCTV 9 calmly – almost nonchalantly – stating:

“And coming up next through the Square we have the PLA’s Nuclear Arsenal on display for the first time.”

No, seriously. I’m not kidding. You can’t make this stuff up. But don’t worry. We were all assured that the arsenal was purely for deterrence, and that China had definitively declined to engage in the nuclear arms race. Well, THAT’s a load off my mind!

I think the most interesting thing of this whole ordeal, though, has been talking to my co-teacher, Leon. Leon is a 22 year old Shanghainese, who went into law school, and then into the Notary Public Office, failed to get into Police School because of an eye problem, and so (curiously) decided to apply for a job a Longman, even though he said “before this job I hated kids.” Yeah, interesting guy. But fun, most of the time… in a Chinese sort of way. Anyway, one of our conversations on the metro ride home ended up drifting toward the then-upcoming national day parade. I ask him his thoughts on it (as always, keeping any point of view I have on the topic as neutral as I can. I try to simply pose open, neutral questions, and then log answers.)

His response was, in summation, that he thought it was both good and important for a government/military to have these sorts of showcases, because it showed everyone how powerful they were as a country. Bemused, I asked if he knew how many military parades the US had every year. He half smiled… yeah, he knew the answer was somewhere between nil and none. Actually, strike that. We do hold military parades. Except they in other countries. And we call them military operations. Ah, semantics, semantics, semantics.

It does strike me as the coming directly from the “Standard Chinese Answer Guidebook” I’m convinced each and every member of the population receives at birth, though. The books that tells them to answer every question posed about China with (Choose One):
A) unquestioning child-like trust of the government
B) fanatical hyperpatriotism
C) rage over wars/injustices long-past
D) the semi-veiled suggestion that, you being a foreigner, could not possibly ever understand any aspect of China in a true sense, and you really ought to just shut up with the questions already.

Living here, I’m often reminded a little bit of certain video games – namely flight simulators, or 3D worlds (like World of Warcraft, for instance). As a foreigner, China can be a very freeing and open experience in many regards. But no matter how open and infinite that digital sky might seem, if you stare just a little longer, you realize that the clouds aren’t moving. As you try to fly over to the next continent to see what’s there, you suddenly and inexplicably hit a giant, impenetrable, invisible wall. Granted, you’re only gently rebuffed (rather than plowing your jet full force into a brick wall, it’s like hitting an impenetrable trampoline), but there’s no way you’re going any further. You’ve reached the edge of the map… the box. It’s a soft, pretty box… but it’s got six sides and holds you just as firmly.

Get the metaphor? Yeah, maybe it was a little too techy. Go watch The Truman Show and you’ll see what I’m getting at.
(CS) TAW Out.

porqupineology

Weekday-end

I'm coming to the end of my weekend, and yes, it's been nice. Rainy, so I stayed inside as much as I could (since all of my weather gear is down in Wenzhou somewhere), and basically just relaxed. And let me tell you, after a week of both training AND work (of which I have about 2 more weeks of to look forward to), relaxing is mighty nice.

I've known for quite a while that Chinese vendors - from the fruit-guy, to KFC, to McDonalds - often will deliver. But here in Shanghai it goes one step further. There's actually a service called Sherpa which will deliver just about anything from just about anywhere direct to your door. They have a phone number, but as most people who know me know, I'm not a big fan of phones. Fortunately, you can also order via Skype or MSN Messenger. So I ordered a pizza - a spicy pepperoni pizza... via Skype. And it was glorious. Their delivery fee is modest: a mere 15 kuai (depending on distance). Conveniently, Xujiahui is one of the major centers in the city, so pretty much everything that worth anything is well within the 15 kuai radius.

Tomorrow, I'll start back in on my workweek... but not until 3:00. I'm feeling pretty good about that ;)

(CS) TAW Out.

I'm calling you from another dimension

The IKEA Nesting Instinct

Well, it’s officially official! I have an apartment, and it’s pretty much awesome. A 1 bed, 1 bath, but furnished in a very cozy and Western style. Also, it’s in a district called Xujiahui, of Xu’s Confluence, which sits perfectly between my office in Chunshen, and downtown (where all the fun stuff happens in town)… yes, I realize I’m running the risk of sounding very repetitive. I’m willing to take that chance, though.

After a string of definite “no’s” and one “probably” which unfortunately sold as I was going for a second look, and then a few more definite “no’s” and a couple “maybes,” Coco (Nancy and my Wenzhounese friend in Shanghai) and I were heading into the final stop of our 4th night looking. From the exterior, I was expecting yet another overpriced hole-in-the-wall (though I do know all-too-well that the exteriors of building are absolutely no indicator of their interiors, for better and for worse). We were greeted by a middle-aged man in a wife-beater who, by the look of it, had just woken up. Still, he was very nice and let us into the apartment in question. He showed us around a bit, and I immediately knew that I liked what I saw. I let Coco know, and she asked if I wanted to wait a bit on it. Having just had a potential domicile fly right out from under me, I didn’t want to take that chance again – especially given that it had been, far and away, the best apartment I’d yet seen. And after 4 days of searching, I was getting really tired of “the hunt.”

She told the agent, and so the man showing us the apartment called the owner – his little sister. Soon thereafter, Coco was put on the phone with her and the negotiation began. She had initially wanted 3900/month, with an initial down payment of 3 months rent, plus a month’s worth of deposit. I’d made very clear to Coco that I wanted some changes to the “typical” arrangement. To her credit, she performed wonderfully, and was able to reduce the price to 3700/month, and only 2 months + deposit. Needless to say, I readily assented to this arrangement. They required some “good faith” money until the following day, though, and so we put down 500RMB for the night.

The next day, I rifled through my various offshore holding, numbered Swiss bank accounts, corporate shareholdings, and mutual funds to come up with the requisite 11,100RMB ($1650) + 1295RMB surcharge for the agent. Thanks to some help from Nancy’s sister, I was able to account for the whole sum (in cash) without needing to make a cash advance on my credit card…. I was trying really hard not to have to do that.

And so, contract duly signed and large stack of currency given, I was able to move in that night. Unfortunately, most of my stuff was still in the Xiamen Rd. hotel – a 20 min train ride, and then 15 min walk away. I made it there and checked out, and made the return trip with the rest of my luggage in tow. And let me just say this: a 15 minute walk up and down stairs, potholes, and uneven streets is made even more arduous by lugging around 40 lbs on each arms.

One minor problem: while there was a bed, and most of the apartment was nicely furnished, the bed itself had neither pillow, nor blanket. This made the first night rather interesting… I ended up using my travel pillow, and 3 workout shirts as a makeshift blanket. I resolved to make that a 1-night-only situation. Thus the next day, after sitting through a morning’s gamut of “orientation and training” (which I get to look forward to sporadically for the next half month), I searched the internet and found that there was a brand-new IKEA store near Xujiahui. At least, it looked near on the Google Map. Turned out it was something like a 45 minute walk… and it was only once I got there that I realized that I could have taken the metro one stop instead. Oh well. I bought a comforter, pillows, sheets, and covers for all. They look nice (I went with a black-and-red schema). And they were very reasonably priced… and accepted Visa. Horray for Sweden!

A quote from Fight Club comes to mind, though, as this is the first time I’ve actually bought anything from IKEA…."I had become a slave to the Ikea nesting instinct, even down to the dishes with tiny bubbles and imperfections, proof that they were crafted by the honest, simple, hardworking, indigenous people of wherever…" Oh Palahniuk, you have a quotable for everything…


(CS) TAW Out.

LYRIC HERE

The Hunt is On

The hunt for apartments, that is. Though I’ve spent large swaths of the past week combing the seedy back-alleys and twisting corridors of that series of connected tubes we’ve come to lovingly call the Interwebs, I’ve now officially expended me search into a multi-lingual, multi-platform campaign. That is to say, I’ve enlisted a Chinese friend to look at Chinese sites, and help me view the actual housing available.

Why would I do such a thing? Quite simply, it became obvious very early into this miniature crusade that searching myself was not my best option… and was quite possibly the worst possible option. Consider: for all intents and purposes, I can really only read English. Thus, I’m restricted to the English-based housing sites, which I’m certain beyond any doubt the real-estate agents view as their own private pond of solid-gold Koi.

And so I enlisted the aid of Coco, Nancy and my mutual friend from Wenzhou who came here last year to make her way in the big, wide world. Though we’ve had some difficulty finding mutually-free time in our schedules (her schedule is that of a regular human: weekday days; mine is the bizarre upside-down-world schedule of a private English teacher: evenings and weekends), we were finally able get together with an agent last night at 8:00 to show me a few apartements.

My requirements had been pretty easy: it needed to be a reasonable (read: walking) distance from the Line 1 Metro Line, and also needed to be a reasonable distance from my work. I’d done my homework and determined that one of the better areas to look was a district called Xujiahui, which effectively splits the distance between my job, and downtown where everything a nocturnal being would want actually is.

So we followed on foot a guy on a motorbike to three different potential domiciles. The first two were in the same complex, though different buildings… and so it was no real surprise that both were equally dumpy, tiny, and overpriced. They reminded me very much of the teeny hole I called “家” last year. I’d only stayed in that place because it was free… and even then there were many a moment where I regretted the decision. Feel free to refer to my various posts of there being no hot water/water turning colors/neighbors yelling at me/etc. Suffice it to say, if I’m actually going to have to pay my own money for a place, I’m shooting for a far-sight better than that!

The third (and final for the day, sine we were closing in on 9:30 at this point) was something else entirely. Though certainly no penthouse, the layout and generally welcoming feel of the place made the relatively modest 65 sq. meters feel bigger… and given that the first two, in addition to being rat-traps, were 46 and 53 respectively, it really felt bigger! It was nicely painted and with and very nice view of the city from the enclosed balcony. All in all, I walked away liking the place and saying we should keep it in mind.

The issue at this point is price. The quoted price was 3800/month, which, considering my salary, isn’t that bad… still, I’m confidant that something like 10% can be knocked off. That’s damn near standard. The issue arises because of the up-front nature they like to be paid. Not only is there a month’s payment as a security deposit, but they also expect 3-4 month’s rent up-front, plus the agent was 1/3 of a month as commission. All in all, at 3500, that works out to over 15,000 RMB, or roughly US$2200. Ouch. That cuts, and cuts deep. It’s not outside of the realm of possibility, mind you… it just that since I won’t get my first paycheck until Sept. 31, that’s an enormous bite out of my money. Fortunately, Nancy’s willing and able to help me some, and it will ultimately work out…. After all, I won’t have to pay rent again until December or January!

Regardless, Coco’s found other places as well, and tomorrow night we’ll make yet another feckless jaunt into the night to look at more empty rooms spaced throughout the city.


(CS) TAW Out.

I want to live in a wooden house

Monday's the new Saturday, abridged...

Arg! I just lost my whole post due to a proxy timeout... this latest internet blockade caused by the Xinjiang (Uyghur) unrest is quite the headache. It was supposedly agitated by a series of "syringe attacks" that have so far yielded zero actual cases of getting stabbed. Much (racist) ado about nothing.

Anyway, to briefly sum up what I'd spent the last 45 minutes typing (arg! Autosave, where ARE you?!), I currently enjoying my "weekend" of Monday and Tuesday after a long and eventful Saturday and Sunday of class observation and occasion bouts of teaching when one of the Chinese teachers had to run out about 10 minutes early. It went fine :)

Last night I met and went out on the town with three of the other new hires at the little grungy hotel we're all calling "home" temporarily. We went out to Huaihai Middle Rd. and found a nice expat bar with 10RMB gin/vodka tonics... which is incredibly cheap, even for China. Then we got a midnight snack at one of the 24 hr Western-style diners... did I mention I'm enjoying this city so far?

Anyway, I'm now finishing up a relaxing brunch at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf cafe across the street from HQ after finishing up a few minor errands for today. Since I was out rather late last night, I think a nap may well be in order... and a movie. I started Cars last night, so maybe I'll finish that up.

Cheers til next time...

(CS) TAW Out.

every color goes where you do

Arrival and not getting picked last

Well, it's official, I'm here and they've put me to work. I arrived thursday night and, after only missing each other once, I found the girl who was picking me up (well, we kind of found each other - her sign with my name was WAY too small, and she didn't recognize me from my picture... in her defense, though, it was her first day.)

She - or rather, Sasha - and I took a taxi all the way in from Pudong Airport, across the river, and to a small, run down hotel north of the Bund/People's Square. It's roughly a 10 minute walk to People's Square, to give you some perspective.

The next morning I made my way over to Hangzhou Rd. and found the Pearson HQ, as instructed. The girls at the front desk mistook me, understandably, as an applicant (I did look rather lost) and handed me an application for me to fill out. Soon enough, though, I managed to flag down Tim Franta - the guy who hired me - and clear up the situation. He took me back and got started on getting me, well, working.

It was about this time, between copying passport pages (for the third time) and him telling me I'd need to eventually find a photo shop to get a bunch of face shots taken, that the true surprise of the day was uttered: I'd need to give a "demo" lesson... and not just one, but 2! I'd need to, on the basis of a couple of books, come up with a 15 minute sample for 2 age groups... ugh..

Well, suffice it to say, I'm pretty sure I bombed it. The people watching were - in my estimation - decidedly unimpressed. Knowing more now, here's why: I approached the demo more from the perspective of "teaching English," rather than "keeping kids involved." My mistake. Nevertheless, apparently I'm not completely without hope, because the "Master Teacher" (essentially, multi-facility manager)who had come to see me, immediately after said "Can I have him?" The answer was ultimately "yes," and so off I went with Brian, a 6-year veteran of China with a scraggly face, heavy frame, and cigarette near-perpetually in hand.

Now before you get too overly excited, let me clarify. His primary school (where I'm now working) is the Chunshen, and it's been undermanned since it's opening. It's sole foreign teacher, Peter, has been burdened with basically everything for his three-month tenure. In addition they've been running through Chinese co-teachers (TA's) like water, since most of them don't want to make the trek out so far into the suburbs. So they were fairly desperate for a second full-time foreign teacher. They saw on my resume my experience with Sports Camp, and so were pretty excited about that.

So I suppose it wasn't simply "desperation... I was simply the first new foreign teacher to arrive, but since thursday a steady stream of newbies have followed me, and I believe there are something like 10.

Though some poeple might be put off by a 40 min commute, it's really nothing if not typical of my Chinese experience so far. After all, that was my daily life in Wenzhou... and that on a horribad bus on a road bad enough to make me queasy. Compared to that, sitting on the Shanghai metro and a short bus ride is cake. Plus, the distance is going to be very temporary. I'm already looking at apartments in locations which will (with any luck) effectively split the distance between downtown and Chunshen. An area called Xujiahui is looking particularly appealing right now, but more on that next time...

(CS) TAW Out.

LYRIC HERE

Of Jet-Lag, Starcraft, and DMZ's

I'm speaking, of course, of that lovable, cuddly, but ineptly located nation capital that everyone knows has got...well... Seoul. Though my visit here is all of two hours, I have to say it seems very nice. It's like China, except clean, and is one of the most wired cities in the world. While their northern cousin play hide-and-seek with American journalists and Japanese tourists, many South Koreans get their kicks in a very different way: Starcraft. Yes, the Blizzard Ent. 1998 mega blockbuster smash RTS game. While the game received high praise and widespread - even today - replayability for it's US fans, for Koreans, the game has taken on the kind of life that most software development companies would kill for. It's got its own TV channel for competitive matches, and the e-thletes who professionally play can make thousands of dollars (or hundreds of millions of won) just for showing up, much less any prize money they win.

Crazy.

But then again, saying the word "crazy" about South Koreans sounds more than a little hollow standing so close to the DMZ. Maybe it runs in the family... but between going crazy for computer games, and going crazy for nuclear war-games, I'll pick the people with the PC's, thank you very much.

I've still got a hop over the Korean Sea to get to my final destination: Shanghai. But let me just say, I've been very impressed with the airline service I booked - Asiana. Clean, nice planes (with seatback TV's - a major plus!), very nice, professional staff... and best of all, free booze. And not just wine and beer... Beefeater gin, vodka, etc etc etc... it was a nice first few hours, suffice it to say. My only complaint was that there were only 3 movies to choose from... and even though Star Trek was billed (I was pumped), I had to end up settling for Terminator: Salvation... definitely a air-out-of-the-balloon moment.

The sunset here (and yes, it's that time of the day right now) is beautiful, though. Throughly Asian and the kind of sun set China has largely forgotten exists behind it's perpetual veil of smog.

(CS) TAW Out.

A simple love with a complex touch

Everything's the same... except all that's changed

It's been a long summer break back in the US, taking a well-deserved hiatus from this blog. After all it is supposed to be about *China*.

But we're back! New city, new year, new job... and a new look to this site, as well! I'm looking forward to entertaining all you net hooligans once again via my remote, and occasionally forcibly re-routed, location now in the glistening heart of the PRC.

More to come!

(CS)TAW Out
hang the stars upon tonight

The Unsent Letter

Everyone needs to vent every now and again. often as not, I choose to do it here. So consequentially I try to do it in an entertaining manner. But after this Saturday's final - in which somehow one of my classes "didn't get the memo" for the schedule change, even though I specifically remember devoting about 15 minutes to each class telling them about it - was effectively a nightmare. This was compounded by the fact that I was "assisted" by a certain WZMC nanny, whom for the purposes of this articles will remain named only by the letters "cxx." But let me just say, she's come up repeatedly in this very blog. I leave the associations to you. Regardless, on the bus-ride home I was irate enough to whip out my journal and pen a letter to her. I've learned that in these situations, it's often extremely cathartic to write as though you're going to send it, but then never send it. But since Blogger is on, apparently, the parma-block list here in good old Zhongguo, and she's never heard of it anyway, much less my semi-anonymous blog contained within, I feel pretty safe in giving you the unfiltered edition of: "CXX, My Regards":

~~~~~

"CXX,"
You said today that you felt you needed to be frank. Well, allow me to be frank in return.

First, though this entire year you have never once visited a class of mine, nor taken any interest in the work I do - save when it hasn't superficially "looked" as nice as you might like it. Thinking back, I cannot remember a time where you have pro-actively helped me or assisted me in any meaningful way. For instance, what about those student evaluations I asked you for, during both semesters, and you told me you'd get copies of? What happened to them? Instead, your job consistantly seems to have been to give me only the vaguest notion of what you want, and then criticize, belittle, insult, or otherwise waste my time when it's not exactly the way you want it.

And that I tolerated. The lack of any direction whatsoever, I also tolerated, since more often than not I am convinced I care more about the education of these students than you or the school - which prioritizes their (and your) income and image above the students' educational welfare.

Students - and people in general, in life and in the workplace - behave according to how they are treated. And I am sorry to say that your - and the school's - lack of trust or confidence in the students' ability to or willingness to behave in a mature, adult manner regarding tests, classes, or anything has resulted in exactly what you fear. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy: you treat the students like cheating children, and the consequentially behave like cheating children.

But today's "argument" with me in front of not one, but two classes of students in unacceptable, and embarrassing - not for me, but for you. Had you *any* respect for me either as an employee or as a person, you would have had the decency to wait until everyone had left, or we were somewhere private, before you attempted to chastise what you didn't like - but failed to look into beforehand - about my test. Clearly, however, you do not. I had expected more from a Chinese person. Clearly, though, I expected too much, at least from you.

You said you felt "guilty" about leaving the dissemination of the schedule change to me, and that you should have called them yourself, before attempting to guilt-trip me with the work others will have to do "as a result." The questionable validity of that aside, your thinly-veiled suggestion of my incompetence did not go unnoticed. Please, if you are going to be snide, at least have a backbone enough to say it outright. If I am incompetent, though, then I blame you for it. You, who only ever spoke to me to tell me what I'd done wrong... well after the fact. You who, having absolutely no knowledge whatsoever of my classes, presumed to know better than me time and again. You who greeted my every suggestion as though neither it nor I existed, You, who over and over again failed to provide even the most basic information or supplies that my job would require (including the pointless busywork you have me jumping hoops through), and then forced me to use yet more of my time to "fix it" - when you couldn't even be bothered to tell me in the first place.

I've come to dread any interaction with you. You have no idea how disappointed I was to learn it would be you "helping" me today, since I knew immediately that you would be nothing more but a critical, detrimental drag on my day. To me, you are nothing if not a useless nag: someone whose sole purpose is to point out my faults - not because I have some overabundance of them, but because you remain pointedly, in fact *willfully*, ignorant of anything I may be doing well.

As you've ignored virtually everything else I've said over the course of this year, I certainly wouldn't expect - or want - you to suddenly change your tune now. So please, don't waste both your and my time with yet another of your say-nothing responses. You opinion of me or this letter is as utterly worthless to me as mine have been to you all year.

I conclude by simply saying I am glad beyond words that this year with you is coming to a close, and it should come as no surprise that I've been wanting to leave as soon as possible. My only regret is that it cannot end sooner, and moreso that you are needlessly dragging it out longer.

Good Bye.

~~~~~

I think that basically sums it up. There's still a big part of me wanting to send it... but at this point, I don't see what good it would do, as I might need the school as a reference at some point. Best to remain prudent. Still, it was amazingly gratifying to write it... well worth the time.

'Til Next Time,
(CS)WC Out.

You and me should go outside

The Job Offer Cometh Amid a Tide of Crazy

Amid crazed, belligerent heads of state with awful hair holding people hostage for looking at their country, and crazed, belligerent Southern pastors trying to kill Obama through prayer, a beacon of light has seen fit to pierce the veil of craziness that has descended upon the world...

That's right, I officially have a job offer in Shanghai. It's through a place call BSK Academy, which effective contracts teachers and then hires them out to public schools to teach. I'm reviewing the copy of the contract they went me, and will probably forward it on to my Dad to review in the near future... still it's a very interesting offer. 11kRMB/month, ~16hrs/week... but no housing included. Nancy seems hung up on that, to which I replied: "but I thought you wanted us to get our own nice apartment in Shanghai and not be in a hole like right now." We'll see how it progresses. I'm in not rush to sign anything as of yet. Hell, my current contract isn't even completed yet! Regardless, BSK's school year begins in September, so I'd be in for a nice long, relaxing summer :D

I was awoken today at about 11am by the repeated ringing of my doorbell, and hard pounding on the door. This had happened once before and, not expecting visitors, was more than willing to just ignore it once again. However when the knocking - nay pounding - turned into forcibly pulling on the door handle, I'd had enough. I knew it was a shrill, middle-aged woman, so I was just annoyed, not afraid. I opened the door and was immediately assaulted by this 5'3" woman yelling at me. I caught the vague idea of what she was talking about: something about her being mad (no translation needed there), something about water, and something about a child. I repeatedly shrugged my shoulders and, when she finally was forced to pause and inhale before continuing her rant, I told her I had no idea what she was talking about and couldn't understand her. She claimed that she "knew" I could understand her, and so continued on her rapidfire rant at me. At this point I figured it must be that my bathroom was somehow leaking down into 308 (the apt below mine, and where she'd said she came from, so I told her to wait a moment and I could have a look. She made a motion like she was going to open the door more and step inside, so I quick cut that thought off at the waste with an upraised palm (stop) and saying "whoa whoa whoa."

She said something that sounded snide, so in very growly, not at all friendly English I said, "Listen lady, I don't know what the fuck your problem is, but if you don't quit yelling at me you can just fuck off and get the fuck out of here. So Deng yi xia (wait a second)." Of course she didn't understand, and I didn't mean for her to. It had exactly the effect I had intended. A big, male foreigner telling her something that sounded threatening in a foreign tongue. That's usually enough to shut most people up. I went and put my shirt on while she began jabbering again at the now-empty doorway.

Fortunately, Nancy was calling at this point to invite me to lunch and show off her new haircut (which is gorgeous!). I said, "Nancy, there's some old woman yelling at me right now, can you talk to her and see what she wants?" Obligingly, she said yes, and I handed my cell to the now slightly deflated looking woman. The look of deflation grew the more she talked with Nancy, until she finally handed the phone back to me and said nothing else... without another word to me, she began talking to my neighbor...

I got back ont he phone with Nancy as asked what the deal was. Apparently, there is a baby in the apt below ours, and somebody occasionally throw water out of their window from above. The water hits the plastic balcony cover and makes a big noise, which frightens the baby. Somehow this woman had got it in to her head that it was me doing this... because of course there's certainly not 4 apartments directly above mine. And so took it upon herself to chastise me over it. This included the pounding on the door, not just this time... but once before at about 6am. Nancy told her it absolutely was not us, which took the wind from her sails.

Before she left, Nancy overheard her (via my cell phone) telling my neighbor that I was not "gentle" and wasn't as nice as the last foreigner who lived there. Well NO SHIT. I'm not going to be polite to someone yelling at me. and I certainly could have been much less "gentle" had she continued on like that.

She didn't even apologize - to either me or Nancy - before storming off to go stare outside for who was "really" doing it. Nancy is about as pissed as I am over it. Probably more so, since she wasn't around to face this moron. She now very much wants to confront this bitch face to face and demand an apology for being such a giant douche. Seriously, if you're going to pound on someone's door at all hours and then yell at them once they answer and accuse them of annoying your child with water, you'd better be damn well sure that you're accusing the right person. And then when you've been proven to be an idiot, the least you can do is apologize for being a rude bitch. Nancy's planning on going back downstair later and having a "talk" with this woman about manners. I'm planning on going with her. Not because she needs me (she can be scarier than I could ever be) but because I feel like the lady should looks me in the eye when she apologizes.

Anyway, that's all the craziness to report for today. Tomorrow I attempt to finish my oral finals... and then saturday I've got my lovely listening finals. Joy of joys! Bu hey, less than 2 weeks before I'm outta here!

(CS)WC Out.

I threw a right cross

Et Tu, Dick?

Reporting once again from the now infamous Undisclosed Location somewhere on the forest moon of Endor, under the watchful gaze of the Second Death Star, Darth Dickhead broke his self-imposed vow of silence of the Imperial Throne Room to relay yet more "breaking news:"

(excerpts from http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/06/01/cheney.speech/index.html)

Former Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday that he does not believe Saddam Hussein was involved in the planning or execution of the September 11, 2001, attacks.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney says Saddam Hussein "provided sanctuary ... and resources to terrorists."
He strongly defended the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq, however, arguing that Hussein's previous support for known terrorists was a serious danger after 9/11.
Cheney, in an appearance at the National Press Club, also said he is intent on speaking out in defense of the Bush administration's national security record because "a clear understanding of policies that worked [in protecting the United States] is essential."
"I do not believe and have never seen any evidence to confirm that [Hussein] was involved in 9/11. We had that reporting for a while, [but] eventually it turned out not to be true," Cheney conceded.

Well gee, Dick, thanks for that astonishing information. What the rest of us have known for the last, oh, 4 years or so is only now dawning on the guy behind the whole thing. He went on...

But Hussein was "somebody who provided sanctuary and safe harbor and resources to terrorists. ... [It] is, without question, a fact."
Cheney restated his claim that "there was a relationship between al Qaeda and Iraq that stretched back 10 years. It's not something I made up. ... We know for a fact that Saddam Hussein was a sponsor -- a state sponsor -- of terror. It's not my judgment. That was the judgment of our [intelligence community] and State Department."
Cheney identified former CIA Director George Tenet as the "prime source of information" on the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda.
Tenet "testified, if you go back and check the record, in the fall of [2002] before the Senate Intelligence Committee -- in open session -- that there was a relationship," Cheney said.

As I've state innumerable times on the internet to the morons who at least have the decency to hide the ugly, snarling faces while they spout bile: just because you say something is a "fact" doesn't magically make it so. The Baathist regime was horrible, yes... but it was also ideologically and religiously utterly at odds with a Sunni group like Al Qaeda. This little tidbit went un-noticed by... well, everyone at first - but it still appears to be slightly beyond the capacity of our former VP, The Undying One. The Baathist regime of Hussein, as we found out by hitting the hornet's nest in 2003, was really the only thing keeping the various factions - including the extremist ones - under control. Far from providing shelter to terrorist organizations, Hussein's reign kept them out of the area. I say this not in defense of Saddam and his despicable reign, but rather as a condemnation of these utter falsities of a man so worried about how people will view his Vice-Presidency/Reign of Terror that he's willing to fall back to the stand-by Bushian defense of saying a lie often enough and loudly enough that people begin to believe it might be true.

Still, he went on...

Among other things Monday, Cheney also called the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention center a "good facility ... if you are going to be engaged in a world conflict, such as we are, in terms of global war on terrorism. You know, if you don't have a place where you can hold these people, the only other option is to kill them. And we don't operate that way."

But that's a false choice, Dick. Utterly false. It's not Guantamo or summary executions, nor is it Gitmo or releasing terrorists into the US. The choice is between keeping open a facility which is seen by our enemies as the pinnacle of what they're fighting against, a center which stands against every philosophy and creed we as Americans believe in and hold dear, a camp which is a slap in the face to any notion that we're fighting "the good fight."

or

Closing down said abomination and instead housing the detainees (which the Supreme Court has ruled have no right to Habeus Corpus protection) in the Supermaximum Security prisons we have already built to house the world's most dangerous people. You know, the prisons no one's ever broken out of, and letting them rot instead of torturing them in Cuba.

Most though, Cheney is pissing me off right now because he's engaging in the most insidious, despicable, nigh treasonable PR campaign I've ever heard of... ever. That is to actively predict that under an opposition Administration America will be subject to the unthinkable: yet another terrorist attack; ad not just predict it, but to all-but hope for it -- all so he will look not as much of the inhuman monstrous shell of an autocrat he is, and more like some patriotic hero for engaging in the most systematic undermining of America and its values since South Carolina seceded from the Union and started the Civil War.

Turning America itself - along with the lives of hundred, thousands, or possibly millions - into a political trump card. Nice one, Dick. Way to go for the gusto... or was the the throat?

(CS)WC Out.

Why don't you ask the kids at Tiananmen Square/ Was fashion the reason they were there?

Antepenultimate

So the title's slightly misleading - I doubt this will be the third-to-last entry before I wing it on back to the states - but the sentiment holds true. It's beginning to dawn on me that year-1 here is all but over. Today I finished what turned out to be my last day of "class"... a happy fact that I only learned yesterday. You see, next week is actually a "makeup" week for the occasional single-day holidays (festivals) through the course of the semester. That's right, they don't even let us have "real" breaks. We just have to make them up at the end. I'm not sure if I should blae the govt. or (more likely) the school itself. Silly pinkos...

Regarding the scheduling catastophuck, it's been resolved... though not entirely in the way either of us want it. After my phone tirade, Xiaoxian did in fact manage to find an open slot on the 14th instead of the 17th of June, and told me as much. Knowing that this was basically as good as it was going to get, I readily assented and began preparing to tell my classes of the coming schedule change.

And then she kept talking...

She then said that I actually did not have class next Tuesday, since we'd never missed a Tuesday (remember it's makeup week), and I only had classes on Monday and Thursday. Thus, the entirety of her argument against me giving some of my finals next Tuesday was, in fact, utterly false. I've completed my 32 Tuesday hours/class.

Of course, I didn't make the same mistake as last time. I kept my mouth shut, and simply nodded my head this go-round. But it will turn out fine. I'm doing exactly 1/2 of my total finals next week, and the 2nd half between the 10th and 14th. And I'm thinking that will work out great. The school's happy because - to the untrained eye - I'm doing exactly what they want: giving finals on the days they set forth. But I'm happy because they're not completely backloaded, and so I have a good shot of getting out of here on time! Woohoo!

I showed my listening classes The Daily Show today... and let's just say it doesn't translate that well. Not that I care. It was a new episode for me, and it's in English, and hey, it's GOT to be more entertaining that listening to Special English (where...people...speak...like...this...so...foreigners....can....understand...).

Next week my speaking sophomores will present their 5 minute finals, in which they will attempt to be "the teacher" and teach me a skill. I'm hoping - and expecting - that it will be very entertaining. Xiaoxian, as usual, voiced some "concerns" over this method of non-test-testing, but I replied that the purpose was not to stump the kids, but to adequately measure their oral English improvement over the course of the semester. How would a paper test do that? And, as I discovered last semester, the students find these things easy, and even fun to do. It's all the utility of a test, without the dullness and painfulness. I know. I did them in college a lot... especially in polysci. I find I model myself quite a bit off of a polysci prof I had: Jules Boykoff. He was a really good teacher, and really cool to boot.

See You Next Time, Space Cowboy,
(CS)WC Out.

let's open the blinds

The Net-Nanny

The innocuous, almost child-like sounding name of the much more insidious wall of blocks and bans that China uses to forcibly censor what its people can and cannot see on the web: The Net-Nanny. It goes by another name from many of its detractors - both Chinese and foreign: The Great FireWall (GFW). It is the system put into place by the Communist regime which moniters and "harmonizes" China's internet by banning sites and content they deem subversive, potentially-subversive, humiliating, or just bad press for their government.

Common targets are: Wikipedia, Western media outlets, blog sites, YouTube, occasionally Facebook, and many of the other sites across the Great Series of Tubes that make the internet actually useful and fun. As usual with China, the results are haphazard at best. Often entire sites are blocked out for months at a time (currently, YouTube) because of a single item (in this case, a video of Chinese police savagely beating Tibetan protesters) which could - according to the govt - cause unrest or disharmony.

The sad irony to this is two-fold:
1) by using such a draconian method of censorship, the Chinese are using the proverbial hatchet to remove a fly from their forehead. In blocking YouTube for having this video, the Chinese Govt. unwittingly alerted many, many people worldwide to the existence of the video. The damage they were trying to prevent to their reputation is therefore doubly done, both by the initial "item in question," and by the inevitable firestorm of their blatant lying and censorship to cover it up. Cock gun, aim at foot, fire.

2) The GFW is notoriously... well, STUPID. It will block one site which is considered subversive, but miss a whole host of others which, really, have more potential damage to do harm. Back to the ongoing YouTube incident, the site is still down, but the event (the 50th anniversary of the failed uprising of Tibet against the Communists) is now months behind us. The continued blocking only serves to remind everyone again and again just what an oppressive tact the government is forcing down their throats.

Currently, we're coming up on two big events in China's history: the first is the 60th anniversary of the birth of the PRC, so this leads the govt. to want to make the internet as "clean" and "harmonious" as it can. The second is the 20th anniversary of the June 4th Incident (aka the 1989 Tiananmen Square Student Massacre), an event which the CCP continues to deny to this day. So of course, the GFW has gone batshit crazy as of late.

The latest victims? Blogs. As of now, my blog site (and many, many other blogging services) cannot be accessed all in Mainland China... through normal means. You may be asking: how then am I still posting? Good question...

The internet was created, and is still fundamentally made up of people who, quite frankly, don't want Big Brother peering over everything they do. It is designed to subvert authority and disseminate knowledge freely and unfettered. The Chinese Govt. obviously did not - and still does not - fully realize the can of worms it was opening by allowing the internet into their country at all. There are things called "proxys" which befuddle websites IP addresses. For those of you not "in the know," an IP address is exactly what is sounds like. It's the "place" on the web when a particular page or user can be found. Censors like the GFW, as well as any other tracking service, such as Google, et al, function by looking up IP addresses and then... doing whatever they are designed to do with them.

A proxy makes the Net Nanny think that the site I'm viewing is some other site in Wisconsin, Bermuda, Cincinnati, London, Moscow... wherever.... by routing the IP address through itself before sending it to me. Voila, clean slate. Untrackable. Unblockable. It's different ever time you use it, so there's no way to simply anticipate and thwart it, as a government.

my current proxy is called zendlife... and it's quite nice. I'm liking it a lot, so far :D

This ongoing farce of "control over the internet" makes me shake my head, though. And I'm not the only one by a long shot. Even the Chinese shake their heads at it (except that media whore Jackie Chan, who agree with the government that the Chinese people are effectively children and need "to be controlled"). It's enough to make one wonder how long this tangled inter-web of misinformation, lies, deceit, and blocks will hold up to the scrutiny and disdain of not just the outside world, but the Chinese people themselves...

(CS)WC Out.

The sleet rain on the slate roof

Update from Bureaucratic Hell

Title: Update from Bureaucratic Hell

OK, fine, not exactly... it's at the very least giving me a headache and making me a bit piqued in the face, though. I'll start at the beginning...

Several weeks ago... not exactly sure... my "nanny" Xiaoxian came into our office and presented us with the finals schedule, which - as expected - had been made with absolutely no consultation from any of us. As it was, I was scheduled to give my last tests on June 17th, one of the last days of the finals. Thinking that the schedule was, well, set, I didn't raise a fuss over it, and simply began planning how I could still adhere to my own departure schedule. The answer presented itself in recalling what some of my own professors have done from time to time: simply move the final test to the last day of class... in this case, June 2nd and 4th.

I brought it up with each and every class of students: "are there any objections, any schedule conflicts, to us moving the test to the last day of class? If you don't want to bring them up now, you can talk to me after class in private." Not only did no one raise any objections... as I suspected, they were all rather happy at the idea of simply getting a test over with sooner. I know from personal experience, that finals week tends to be hellacious for students, and that moving a test to earlier is actually a great relief.

So it seemed set, and I was on my way to departing by the 20th, as I'd hoped to. And here's where the big mistake was made: when sending in my 2 versions of the test (to curb cheating, as suggested by my professor father), I made mention of my schedule change to Xiaoxian, simply to clarify that I'd need both test versions back at the same time. The next day, she called me...

- I'd like to stop here for a moment and go on a minor tangent, if I may. I have nothing personally against Xiaoxian. I know her job is hard, and thankless, and I try try try to keep that in mind at all times. But the only times I ever see her are when I've done something "wrong." Ever. She starts in with this fake, forced-sounding into of "Hi, how are you doing today?" kind of thing, and before I can even really answer she's into her whole, "well you're doing this wrong..." bit. Last week I saw her and she said she "missed me"... but she never wants to find me unless it's to chide me about something. Is it any wonder, then, that I go out of my way to avoid her? That I regard her in many ways as a nemesis? That whenever I see her in the office or her phone number pops up on my phone, I feel the cold stone of dread in the pit of my stomach? Why the hell would I want to talk to you, if you only ever have negative things to say? And not even negative things about my teaching (which neither she nor any of the other faculty have ever come to watch), but rather these piddling, idiotic, bureaucratic details which I see as little more than things to make my life more difficult. Anyway...

She called me, and - par for the course - immediately launched into what she had a "problem" with... which was, of course, the scheduling.

"You are supposed to give the students 32 hours of lecture. If you do this, you'll only be giving them 30."

"Are you saying, then," I replied, already a bit incensed, "that I should not have given them a midterm test during class? That cut into the lecture time as well. By this definition, I've already failed, since the midterm took up about 2 class hours."

"That was different," she said, sounding surprised that I'd react this way. "We set up a finals time for you to give the test."

"What is the functional difference between giving a mid-term test during a class period, and giving a finals test during a class period, other than the names 'mid-term,' and 'final?'"

There was a slight pause, she had not anticipated this tact. She said something, which I cannot recall at the moment, since by this point my face was beginning to redden. Regardless, it was something about this scheduling being a problem.

"Where is the problem?" I asked, "Who has the problem? The teacher has no problem with this schedule, the students have not problem with this schedule. Where is the problem?"

"I showed you the finals schedule earlier. If you had a problem wit the layout, you should have asked me to change it."

"I had no idea it was changeable." I said, face getting a little more red, "As far as I knew, the schedule was already set. No one said anything about being able to change it."

"On monday, maybe Wang Dan (her superior) should discuss this with you."

"Will she say the same thing you're saying right now?"

"Yes."

"Then why waste her and my time? Don't bother."

Later on she texted me saying she'd look into trying to make the test earlier in the schedule... I'm not holding my breath on that one, though.

The call ended somewhat tersely. I think what angered me the most was that thing whole argument had happened because I had momentarily forgotten the Law which I normally hold above all others: "It is far easier to obtain forgiveness, than permission." It wasn't that someone really cared - hell, no one above Xiaoxian even knew about it - it was that I'd made the mistake in telling her my plan. Had I just kept my mouth shut, there would be no issue. But in trying to be upfront and honest about a change I was wanting to make, I got smacked down for no other reason than it was out of line with some obscure, bureaucratic process. Let no good deed go unpunished, indeed.

So here I sit. And the options lay before me as such:
1) Simply carry through with my initial plan and deal with any "repercussions" they throw at me. I'm quitting, it's not like they can fire me. It's not like they can really do anything at all. Still, it'd be nice to go out on a good note.

2) Obey. Needlessly wait an extra three weeks to give the test, which will almost certainly delay my departure, since I can't do all the paperwork/grades until the testing is done. This option is so against my mind that I'm inclined to rule it out entirely. Still, there it is.

3) Take a deep breath and hopehopehope that somehow she can rearrange the schedule to something more suitable. Ha.

4) Pay lip service. Give the test on the last day, but then hold some kind of meeting with the students on the 17th. This seems like a good plan, except they're planning on giving me some kind of "helper" since their schedule has me giving all 4 classes the test simultaneously, in 2 separate rooms. How would I convince them that I don't need the "helper" or the second room?

In closing, I'd just like to point out that all of this is little more than venting. I'm not expecting a great deal of help, or sympathy. It's just a big frustration right at the end when I'm busy doing a lot of other things, and trying to cope without having a great deal of access to a computer (I'm holding Nancy's hostage at the moment). Did I mention I had to rewrite both of my finals in about 3 days because my computer died the day I was planing on sending them to Xiaoxian. She then had the gall to insinuate I was "stalling." I made my displeasure at that insinuation clearly known. One way or another, I've got less than a month to go...

And it can't go by fast enough.

(CS)WC Out.

We drink from the river

Leading with their Dick

"The idea that we ought to moderate basically means we ought to fundamentally change our philosophy. I for one am not prepared to do that, and I think most of us aren’t."

This lovely little gem was said by former Vice-Torturer in Chief, the Dark Lord of the Triple Bypass, Darth Dick. He snarled this to a conservative talk-radio show (though not Limbaugh, surprisingly) a few days ago.

I wanted to bring it up because it seems to underscore the mentality of Republicans right now. That is to say, in the wake of a crippling defeat, and after months of useless navel-gazing and embittered words toward their vanquishers, this is what they've come up with as a solution. Rather changing with the time, updating their value system, and - dare I say it? - evolving, many senior party members (and, lest we forget, their legions of rabid cultists) have decided their best option is to circle the ideological wagons, and cull the impure from their ranks.

"We're excluding the young, minorities, environmentalists, pro-choice — the list goes on," says Olympia Snowe of Maine, one of two moderate Republicans left in the Senate after Pennsylvania defector Arlen Specter's switch. "Ideological purity is not the ticket to the promised land." And yet, this is exactly what many embattled Republicans seem to be advocating now. Rather than think gee, the American people seem to have told us something last November... maybe we should adjust accordingly... they have double-downed on the philosophy of the last eight years - up to and including a vigorous, and ludicrous defense of torturing people "if it works" - in the near- absurd hope that we'll all suddenly agree with it.

Of course, the first (or maybe second, I forget) rule of battle is, "never interrupt your opponent while he's making a mistake." And I certainly don't mean to do so. If the Republicans want to tie their own shoelaces together, I say "by all means, go ahead."

So go ahead, Republicans, keep letting Cheney, Limbaugh, Coulter, and O'Reilly define your positions for you. Keep the mentality that there's "real Americans" and "fake Americans." Keep out the moderates, and then say "good riddance" when they abandon your sinking ship. Pander to the extreme religious Right. Continue to introduce legislation that - in true Kindergarten tantrum style - attempts to rename the Democratic Party the "Democratic Socialist Party." Continue to use inflamatory hyperbole in the face of rational debate. And by all means, continue to be a uselessly obstructionist party doing everything in their power to hinder the government in a time of crisis.

Let's see how that works out for you.

the night that falls all around us

Belchtastic

I know I haven't posted here for a long time... as usual, both apathy and work-related fatigue can be traced as the source causes.

I just finished giving my midterms (a little late, yes, but better late than never) and they went well. So far the grades are coming back right where I want them. Only a few A's, and the only failures are those who inexplicably missed entire sections. We'll see if that holds up for the next 2 classes...

As of recently my GI tract as a whole has instigated a small-scale rebellion. The most bothersome details... well, I won't discuss them... but there's also waking up in the morning and immediately letting out a huge burp. And the burping all day. I think it's indigestion or something. No pain, just bloating and, well... expulsions of the gaseous variety. Nancy says she can buy a medicine for that... somehow I'm not surprised... we'll see how that goes...

I recently realized that I only have a bit more than a month left here, at least of this school year. Where has the time gone!? It certainly doesn't feel like that much time has passed. Nevertheless, it will be nice to finish out and see my peeps again back home. :)

Aaron and I were talking the other day on our ritualistic weekly walk to the university KFC... and we agreed that it was a very nice feeling to be a teacher here. I'll elaborate a bit: thinking back to the beginning of our first semester until now, there is a real, noticeable difference - positive, obviously - in our students' language skills. Though certainly not our doing alone, we certainly helped in that progress. It's nice to see... or rather, hear the fruits of our labors in action. Makes you feel good about what you're doing for sure.

Alright, that's all to report for now. I've got more burping to accomplish...

(CS)WC Out.

I forgot my pen

What Once Was Lost...

I finally managed to collect the package sent from my parents about, oh, a month and a half ago. How, you may be asking, was I so colossally dumb to miss picking up a package for a month and a half? Well, I'll tell you.

I got the notification as per the usual routes: my school "served" with with a notice that I had a parcel waiting in Chashan town. From my previous visits to the local post office, I knew exactly what I needed: both the notice they sent me, as well as my passport. A little much for a package, but hey, not entirely unreasonable. So I put off picking it up until I could return passport in-hand.

Unfortunately, somewhere between Thursday and Monday (my weekend), the notice pulled a Houdini. Poof! Gone. Lost. Without A Trace. May as well call in the Cold Case Files, because not even CSI could have found it. (Have I put in enough references to CBS weeknight programming yet?)

So there I was: SOL. Without the slip, I had nothing... and so the box sat. And sat. And sat. (I'd like to point out at this point that the Chashan mailbox is not something you take a leisurely stroll to. It takes planning to get there. Even if you know which bus will take you to the town, it's nowhere near the bus station. It's not somewhere you go unless you're sure you can get what you want.)

Eventually my predicament slipped out to my parents - the senders - and they, not without reason, made sure to make fun of me as often as they could over it. Especially once they got here. And I certainly had it coming.

But finally the post office realized that they had a box sitting in the vault that no one had claimed. And - surprisingly - instead of ransacking its contents for themselves (and it would have been a haul), they issued me a second notice! As soon as I could, then I grabbed my passport and - this time, notice tucked safely away in my wallet - made my half-hour trek in and picked up my box.

And it was well worth it! Kashi bars (minus the ones I had to toss because of peanut-paste salmonella), coffee, almond butter, and the cherry on top: the beef jerky! Straight from the local bemusingly-named Meat Shoppe in Montana. Unfortunately, some of it had... well... turned. But the stuff that was still good was delicious!

Nothing else to report at the moment.
(CS)WC Out.

paint me any face that you wanted

Teabaggers

Even in China I heard the uproar. The popular uprising against the tyranny of the Obama Administration; that grassroots, populist rebellion against his anti-American, appeasing, Muslim ways. And I knew that Real America was ready. Ready to strike back at those liberal, atheist, socialist, fascist, blame America first, freedom-hating, appeasing, pro-death, hippy, Nazi Democrats.

Except not. It didn't take a very close inspection to see the string-pullers behind the scenes... mostly because their idea of "behind the scenes" means at the front of a crowd yelling about how big and how "grassroots" this mock protest really was. I don't blame Faux News and its ilk for such a shoddy show of pseudo-populism, though. After all, their target demographic aren't usually the brightest crayons in the box. They're the ones who think O'Reilly is a stable human being, and who believe Glenn Beck when he - between bouts of histrionic sobbing fits - foresees the End Times. No, Fox has had 8 years of a lock on every moron idiotically waving an American flag at NASCAR races; the ones who think Paris is a city in central Texas (or a socialite), and the French invented french fries... sorry, freedom fries.

They saw how well a grassroots movement can work with the Obama campaign. How it organically grows, taking on a life and form of its own, even (or, perhaps, especially) without the constant tending of an over-zealous gardener. But they seemed to have missed that last part. Instead of allowing what was a small series of protests to burn and fizzle naturally, Murdoch emerged from the safety of his Secret Kangaroo-Pouch Lair and decreed from on high (or was it from down under?) that the time to act was nigh! I'll get back to that momentarily, though. First I'd like to focus a bit on the protests themselves...

Tea Parties; the theme of the day. A la the infamous Boston Tea Party, in which a small mob of drunken, ill-informed Bostonians dressed up as Indians and threw British tea into the harbor. They did this to protest the fact that Parliament had enacted several new tax laws - including one on, you guessed it, tea - to help pay for the enormous cost of the French and Indian War (known globally as the Seven Years War) that the Americans had started, and then forced the British to fight. The problem was that there were no American representatives to Parliament, and thus they had no say in the enaction of these new taxes.

These days, things are a little different. The tea parties are mostly in landlocked states, mostly in what we'd refer to as the Middle of the West. And the modern protesters have abandoned the time-honored tradition of dressing up as a savage Indian, in favor of khakis and a button-up shirt. The brave ones wore colonial-era costume. And one really brave one wore a big-breasted demon Obama in his underwear outfit. They were, however, united with their colonial forebears on the idea behind this protest: taxation! Specifically, "no taxation without representation!" The battle-cry of Boston!

But wait... they do have representation. I thought they were represented by those aging, pale, well-fed gentlemen sitting around in Washington DC doing their best to uphold traditional American values, such as hyper-capitalism, mudslinging, character-assassination, xenophobia, neo-Conservative expansionisim, ideological imperialism, and feeling-up underaged male pages. You know... the cornerstones of our great society. These are the people they voted for. Some of them even managed to keep their jobs after this last election. Did this somehow escape them? That when they check the box next to a name in a ballot box and cast it, that is their representation?

I'm torn as to the explanation. It could be a simple case of sour grapes. That does seem the liklier answer. After 8 years of the biggest neo-con daisy-chain in history, the party's over for them. They lost... big. And worse, their whole house of cards culminated in the biggest game of 52 trillion card pick-up in history. They're discredited, and they're out of power. It's no surprise they'd be pissy over it.

But there's some part of me thinking it may actually be something worse: they might actually believe that they're currently not being represented. That is to say, these people may feel that being a minority literally equates to tyranny. That's certainly the rhetoric they like to spout.

Regardless, if we're playing by the rules of Godwin's Law, these people lose already. I'll blurb the law, for those of you afraid of hotlinks: Basically it states that as a discussion - especially internet discussion - grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1. And in virtually every situation, the person or persons intellectually vacuous to make such an asinine comparison automatically loses the argument.

I'd like to finish with the sage of our time, who can say it better than I ever could:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Nationwide Tax Protests
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

(CS)WC Out.

Stay inside this holy reality