Travelling to China is no "walk in the park" for 1st timers. I knew this, but I think it took a conversation over Christmas with my father about their difficulties travelling to Guiyang to see my wedding that really put me over the edge.
I've asked him to do a write up on that story so I can put it online as a 'warning" to others, but until then, I've decided to compile critical "travel to China" information in another site in the hopes that it helps people who are considering travelling there for the 2008 olympics - or people who are just planning to go and live.
So, I'm happy to say the first version of the site is available now. You could call it "beta", but I used some new, more modern technologies in building the site which should make it easier to maintain than this site has been (as lovely as it is...).
So, feel free to take a look at the new site and let me know what you think:
Since we were talking so much about water in my earlier posts, I thought I would mention some statistics I've learned recently:
China has over 20% of the world's population, but only 7% of the drinking water. In my time in China, from day 1 I was told to never drink the water from the tap. Instead, we would boil it regularly from an old beat-up aluminum pot instead. I'm not sure that was a great idea either.
Later, I would order bottled water from water companies. They would be delivered in large water jugs for about $1USD. However, i was always worried that there was no guarantee that this water, besides tasting better, was actually safer to drink. It was well known that Beijing was having serious water shortage problems, and in all of my travels in China, it was clear to me that water is an issue, no matter where you go.
The huge economic growth of cities like Beijing and Xi'an are fantastic, but both cities struck me as relatively "dry" when i visited / lived there. There are other boom cities in China with large economies, but for some reason, people are more concerned with finding a new apartment and job, than making sure they will have water to drink in 5 years:
"SHIJIAZHUANG, China ¡ª Hundreds of feet below ground, the primary water source for this provincial capital of more than two million people is steadily running dry. The underground water table is sinking about four feet a year. Municipal wells have already drained two-thirds of the local groundwater. Above ground, this city in the North China Plain is having a party. Economic growth topped 11 percent last year. Population is rising."
-Read the whole article from the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/28/world/asia/28water.html
12/30/2007: About Beijing
I had an interesting discussion with my father over Xmas. You see, many friends and family members travelled to Beijing, then to Guiyang to see my wedding. He had a horrible time with miscommunications, overcharging, and even someone working for the airport who stole their tickets when he asked for help!
All this feedback makes me feel for all the people who are going to Beijing / China in the coming years, with the mistaken idea that (for example) "Expedia told me the people in the hotel speak English, so I'll be OK", and "I booked my trip online and selected 5-star hotels" will ensure their trip will be OK.
"Speaks English" is a checkbox many mainland hotel managers and business owners know will drive more rich westerners to their location. Most people in China study English to pass exams (which are also written by non-native speakers who've never left the country for any significant period of time) - for 5-10 years. Never having held a conversation with a foriegner, they are typically only motivated to pass the written exams, not to develop true language skills. The Hotel Manager, wanting to expand his business, will quiz his subordinates in his broken English to see if they can respond (like he'd be the judge!), and if he hears something adequate, checks the checkbox on the form that allows him to list his location as "english speaking" on Expedia (or wherever). There's no money in checking to see if it's valid.
compounding this problem is the fact that "5-stars" are dramatically different from city to city in China, and there are many stories of people "buying an extra star" - and the like. The only way to be sure is to visit it yourself - but of course you can't do that, can you. That's why I mostly stayed in youth hostels while traveling in China (www.hostelz.com) -and generally had a much better experience than in Chinese Hotels.
Check this site in a few weeks. I'll have some more content for those of you considering a trip to China.
07/30/2007: Also about water
Woa, two posts in a row! This is a shock. I'd better not make it a habit. Anyway, I wanted to show you two things that I thought were worth seeing. This weekend I watched some pro kitesurfers at Crissy Field in San Francisco. Here's a little video and a picture.
(quicktime Movie)
These guys are pretty amazing, jumping and flying through the air. One young man broke the world record by staying in the air over 20 seconds! Here's the picture of the scene (click for a larger one):
07/29/2007: About Water
While living in China, I almost always drank bottled water. The tap water just isn't safe. Most Chinese boil their water before they drink it, but this won't help eliminate heavy metals and other non-organic toxins in the water.
There is a perception in China that bottled water is safer. There have been some scandals where companies are just re-packaging tap water, but generally most people feel it's safer. I can't really confirm that, but I did drink it, and it seemed no different than US bottled water.
We are fortunate in the US to have an amazing water system. When I returned and moved to San Francisco, I just drank the tap water at the sink the whole time. It comes from the Hetch Hetchy system (read a bit about it here). It tastes great and it really underscores one of the things I feel a government is responsible for providing to it's people - clean & drinkable tap water.
However, many of us in the US still choose to drink bottled water. This is nothing more than a scam.
In August, I got Married to my longtime sweetheart. Although we had been legally married for a while, we had an official ceremony in her hometown. I wanted her and her family to feel that it was as special and complete as possible. Sometimes as a foreigner in China, people think there's some monster inside of you that will eventually show itself, so you have to go to great lengths to convince them that you put on your pants the same way they do every morning - one leg at a time..
The elephant
This picture was taken in Hainan a few years ago. I recently was a zoo with my nieces and told them that my wife had a ride on an elephant in China and they couldn't believe it. So much for animal protection. :)
I actually found the picture with the Ostritch much more entertaining! It tended to play around with the people a bit more. ;-)
08/06/2006:Random Pictures
This picture was taken in the university district in Beijing. There is virtually no Intellectual Property protection in China. This is not an officially endorsed Shrek-Bar.
The following picture is some of my staff in Beijing. Really nice folks who participated in a play I wrote. It was a great opportunity for them to learn some more English. We had a ton of fun, and the guy in the bottom, Alfred, turned out to be quite talented!
After I purchased these pants, the lady ran outside and got them sized up and adjusted on the spot. Quite fast and remarkable.
This link in the picture below is a movie. My friends Brent and Melanie came with us to my wife's hometown Guiyang to participate in our wedding. We took them out to a massage place for fun. It was late at night, and there was some silly music, so we took a video. Very funny. Click on the image to watch the silliness. You'll need realplayer.
Pretty self explanatory, the shedding of corn off the cob - done right on the street.
A quick haircut performed by your neighbor.
Ah, this is my new job - working for company specializing in biometric technology.
The building on the left was my office in Beijing. 10th floor. The Tsinghua Science Park.
.
There is no "24"th floor in many Chinese buildings. This is because it sounds like you are saying "twenty deaths", implying what? Perhaps you will die twenty times if you live on that floor? They have the same problem with 14 and 4th floors. Superstitious!
My Irish buddies. One had just come back from a sunburn scorching vacation - so I threw this picture up to show the contrast. Very funny. The burnt one apparently didn't learn his lesson, 'cause he started a solo trek across China, Tibet, Pakistan, Iran and back to Europe! He started on a chinese side-car, but had to drop that after only a few hundred miles and several breakdowns.
08/01/2006:Trip to US
I returned to San Francisco for two weeks in mid summer to go job hunting. The plan was that after the August wedding, my wife and I would return there to live. Two weeks of frantic interviews proved that there wasn't much demand for my Chinese experience (wtf!?), yet my existing job skills were still in high demand, thankfully.
05/20/2006:Trip to Europe
I was asked by my company to accompany a few employees to a conference in Spain, then travel on to Ireland to visit my boss and some other coworkers. I combined it with some vacation time and took my wife along. In the first picture, we are waiting at a bus stop in Villanova IL La Geltru, kind of lost, waiting a lont time for it to come. It was my fault 'cause I ran off to get an ice cream and the bus came while I was gone.
05/20/2006:Trip to Europe
This was a picture that my wife took while visiting a famous monastary on the top of a mountain near Barcelona - the name escapes me right now..
05/20/2006:Trip to Europe
Driving in Ireland means driving on the "wrong" side of the car and the "wrong" side of the road, at relatively high rates of speed on extremely narrow roads. It turned out OK, and kind of fun, even though every time I went to shift, I'd bang my right hand against the door and coast along with the clutch in for a few seconds until I came to my senses.
05/20/2006:Trip to Europe
Here we are in southern ireland, relaxing. We were fortunate to have 10 days of beautiful weather. When my Irish coworkers in Beijing heard about the weather, they were almost in fits.
05/19/2006 (out of date): Signalling the end of the journey..
This picture was taken shortly after my wife and I received an immigration visa. With mixed feelings we had to start preparing for a new life overseas.
05/11/2006: Weather & life update
The weather in Beijing is becoming nicer now that we are getting into the spring. It's been raining occasionally and that's doing a good job at clearing the air up. Thankfully, the biting cold of the winter is gone too, although it can still be cold.
There was a national holiday on the week of May 1st. I smartly chose to NOT travel in China, because after my first trip, I learned that travelling during national holidays is a bad idea here. There are traffic jams in the middle of nowhere! Many many Chinese travel during those holidays: First week of May, first week of October. So remember that if you want to come to China- don't come during those times! :)
I recently moved to a new apartment. I am trying to rent out the place we have - you can see the advertisement here: http://fangzi.mepatrick.com - so if you know anyone who is interested, just have them send me a note - there's an address on the web page. It's a nice place and decorated well. Since I teach english here a lot, I wanted to have a larger apartment, and I happened to find one close to my work too, so that's why I moved.
My classmates who study chinese with me are all Korean mothers. They are really funny and nice - they are here to help their children learn Chinese and even English (it's cheaper to study English here than in Korea), but their husbands are back in Korea working hard to pay for it all. It seems a little sad and lonely to me, but it seems the mothers keep each other company and aren't in that bad shape. After I told them I was moving, they said I no longer had an excuse for being 10minutes late to every class. So, now I'm only 5 minutes late. :-p
In other news, the Korean-owned real estate company that helped me find this apartment has been calling me. The manager - a Korean woman wants me to teach a small english class for her child and several chinese children in a mixed class. So, tonight, I need to quickly clean up this new apartent and figure out how to get my white-board from the old place to the new one before I meet all the parents tomorrow morning!
If any of you are in Beijing and have some teaching experience, let me know because I may have a few business trips coming up and will need some help. :)
03/11/2006: 5 Kilometors OF HELL
My coworkers asked me to join them in the 2006 Beijing Relay marathon. It sounded like fun, and I used to run a lot, so I agreed. Having had trouble with the polluted Beijing Air causing me to get sick before, I decided I should do the bulk of my preparation in the gym.
Before I knew it, the two months I had to prepare were almost up, and I had little time left to really train myself up, to make matters worse, I had a vacation planned with only two weeks to go that resulted in no excercise at all (unless you call being terrified of death on an overnight bus ride through the twisty-turny mountain roads of southern China by a driver behaving as if the minions of hell were storming down the road behind us).
So, when the final day came, the best I had done was to finish 5km in 30 minutes on a treadmill, only once running outside. To add to the pressure, we had to finish each leg of the run pretty quick because the organizers were not going to keep traffic off the roads for too long. Yikes.
The day of the race was a notably polluted grey Beijing morning. I warmed up as best I could by walking with a nice South African guy I met to McDonalds and gobbling down some hotcakes and sausage (stupid). An hour and a half later, I was warmed up and grabbing the sash from Alfred, my coworker who had just completed the longer 10KM leg, and running off, wishing those hotcakes weren't so heavy in my tummy.
I knew I had to beat 30 minutes, and the South African guy, Grant had taken off about 20 seconds ahead of me. Figuring that I was probably about the same level as him, I tried to match his pace, and even catch up, but I failed. Very quickly my legs started to get sore, and i was having trouble regulating my breathing and maintaining what I thought was a reasonable pace. It occurred to me that training on a treadmill was probably a really stupid idea because I didn't have much muscle memory of what my pace really should be - and wearing that MP3 player and listening to tunes while training also hurt my ability to hear my breathing and use that to help my pace.
Well it didn't matter. Pretty soon, I knew I was in trouble when a knarled oak-root of an elderly chinese guy started to pass me at around the 2km mark. Sheesh, I really was in bad shape. To top it off, all the jammed up traffic around us had bored people shouting out of their windows "Go Foriegner! Go!", clearly surprised that I could be so slow.
Fortunately, I beared down and managed to pick things up again, but my pace parnter, Grant, had already gotten far ahead, as well as several other people who passed me, whom I had also attempted (and failed) to pace. sheesh.
By the 4th KM, I was pretty much gasping, and as I passed the police who were keeping the traffic off the road (and smoking), I was wondering if my heart was going to burst from the pumping of oxygen through my inflammed lungs. I kept thinking of how my brother had told me that walking around outside in Beijing for 2 hours was like smoking 2 packs of ciggarettes - and getting freaked out by knowing that here I was gasping! Panting! sucking it all in as deeply as I could.
Somehow I kept my pace from sliding down too far. I even managed to pass two old guys. I wasn't sure any more if they were the same people who had already passed me or not.
As I approached my relay point, i saw Aaron in front of me. As I handed him the sash, i tried to gasp to warn him to start slower and not to breathe too deep, but nothing really came out. Stumbling to a stop, I put my hands on my knees to keep from falling over, and when I looked up, I saw a smiling coworker with a video camera (Erwinn) making a video of me. "Are you OK?" he said, looking slightly worried. "I'm OK... I gasped"(but I may throw up my lungs).
The result? 25minutes and change. It seems that there was a reason for the pain after all. I only spent the next two days coughing - far less than i expected. :)
Video will be coming...
03/7/2006: Some Technology is Revolutionary...and you can try it for FREE!
This article is about some new technology I think is very cool. I work for Sun Microsystems, so perhaps I am biased, but after working in Silicon Valley for 15 years, this is one technology I can really see a value for, so that's why I want to talk about it.
Many companies are having problem with power. Electricity. They have many computers running, each of them using 300-450watts of energy, creating lots of heat. The companies have to power these systems, as well as provide air conditioning for the rooms that hold them. Big Electric bills!
Some companies have been told that if they want to put more servers in their offices, they have to pay the electric company a whole ton of money to upgrade the local electrical substation. What about any company that has a massive database system? This is becoming a big problem in the industry because as the data set grows and data analysis tools grow, these systems need to be upgraded regularly and most modern chips are drawing more and more wattage with every release. Don't you remember the good old days when a 100watt power supply was more than adequate? Now it seems that 300-450 watts are standard now.
Sun has a new CPU call "Niagra" and just like Niagra Falls, it has "Massive Throughput". They took several low-power CPU "cores" and put them on the same chip. I haven't read all the docs, but I believe the chips only require 175watts. Since the CPUs have multiple cores, they can run many simultaneous instructions and commands - just what applications like databases, websites, etc need. The emphasis is on THROUGHPUT, not necessarily blazing speed.
The tests they have done are impressive: 1/5 the power usage, 1/4size (for the rack space in the server room), 5x the speed/throughput.. Companies can now fill out their server rooms, get higher performance and reduce their A/C and electric bills at the same time.
Don't believe me, try it for yourself. Sun has a new program - they are so convinced people will like it, they let you try it for free.
Here's what a customer said after trying it: "We recently put 7 8-Core 1.0 GHz T2000 Niagara servers on site at a local company via the 60day [TryCoolThreads] program for an application server POC shootout between Sun and HP.
On the V240 he (sys admin) started 256 stress processes and was not able to log in and had to power cycle the system.
On the Niagara he ran 2690 stress processes and was still able to log in and run commands.
In customer's own words "T2000 - this is crazy... I think this is awesome!".
03/6/2006: You have no idea how important English is...
Today I heard that a young man in Cheng Du jumped out of his window to kill himself today. He did it because he failed his English language exam - a requirement for his graduation. He had a job waiting for him, but the job required him to graduate. You must to have that language exam certificate to graduate.
Unfortunately, he is not alone - this happens often.
If you are interested in taking a break in your career, or taking an longer, culturally enriching vacation, or just feel like changing your life, consider coming to China and help make a BIG DIFFERENCE in people's lives.
There is an article about it - and a picture (brace yourself):
03/5/2006: New English Class
Since my pay here in China is less than 50% of what I made in the US, I often have to suppliment my income teaching English. Since Ping is not working right now, she's helping me to set up these classes. We spend a lot of time strategizing on how we can make these classes successful.
This time, we will be teaching out of our small apartment again, and we've come up with two kinds of classes. One focused on business, and one focused on Culture and listening skills using movies and video.
Ping did all the webpages herself - I helped a little with the English side, but she did the Chinese side, and organized the format and everything. Not bad:
I recently bought a Creative Zen Microphoto. I got it because I was listening to some audio books while working out - my new fun thing to do. I had bought the device after 12 hrs of hard bargaining with a vendor (slight exageration) at "zhong guan cun" - the "IT capital" of Beijing. When I bought it, I asked the seller if I could return it if I had a problem, she said yes, so I made sure to keep the receipt and box.
About two weeks later, it locked up and crashed. I think the hard-drive didn't like me shuffling so far into the long 2hr tracks that these audio books have. I brought it back to vendor all packaged up again and asked if I could return it for a simpler model that uses flash memory (no hard drive). She said no. I complained. Her manager came over, we argued some more. I said OK, I'll just take another one of the same type. Still no. Apparently I couldn't get my money back or trade for a different kind because it wasn't within 7 days of the purchase period (they never told me that). Instead they said I could take it to the service center (another building, somewhere else in Beijing) and argue with them about it.
While this was going on, some stranger standing there started arguing for me - trying to help me out. He was pretty cool. When it was clear that they weren't going to budge, I told them I was very upset, that service in China was really poor and they were giving a bad name to Chinese businessmen. I told them that I had a meeting in 20 minutes and I couldn't make it to the service center during the week either because of my meeting schedule. The stranger then started to say that maybe he could help me. I told him I would be happy for his help and take him out to dinner.
He gave me his card, I told him I trusted him, gave him the MP3 player. He said "you can trust me", and went off. The manager of the little store said "we don't know him, are you sure?". I said "it's a risk I'll take". So, the result is that he took the old MP3 player to the service center for me, but they didn't have any ones to replace it, so he has to go back on Tuesday. So far so good! We will see what the result is!
02/7/2006: News from the web
Some compelling snippets from China Daily:
By Su Bei (from China Daily)
Updated: 2006-02-07 06:20
Bank of China said yesterday it would improve internal controls after former heads at one of its local branches were charged with a scheme to defraud US$485 million.
A US grand jury charged Xu Chaofan and Xu Guojun, former bosses at the Kaiping branch in South China's Guangdong Province, and their wives on January 31 with 15 counts of money laundering, racketeering and fraud.
------
The SDRC said China's income gap is continually expanding. At present, China's Gini Coefficient (an internationally accepted measurement of income equality) is 0.4, the international benchmark for alarm.
And the SDRC warns the actual figure may be even higher as a number of incomes may have been underestimated.
Statistics show that the 20 percent low-income group in China's cities only get 2.75 percent of the country's total urban income, or equivalent to only 4.6 percent of the income of China's 20 percent top-level rich group.
02/4/2006: Sad New Year after all
.As I mentioned in my last entry, I expected that after a 12 year ban, there would be not a few injuries due to fireworks. After reading this page on the China State Environmental Protection Admin, it appears I was not incorrect:
"Fireworks explosions killed 36 people and injured hundreds more in China as traditional Lunar New Year celebrations led to much mayhem as well as joy across the nation, officials and state media said.
In the most serious accident, 36 people at a temple fair in the central province of Henan were killed on New Year's Day Sunday when a nearby store room full of fireworks exploded, Xinhua news agency said.
The accident, in a mountainous area of Anyang city, injured up to 48 other people, it said, quoting sources with the local government. Sixteen were initially reported to have been killed but the death toll rose after more bodies were discovered during clear-up operations and some victims died of their injuries, the news agency said.
In the capital Beijing, where a 12-year ban on Lunar New Year fireworks had just been lifted, the government reported 112 people were treated at hospital emergency rooms over the weekend for fireworks-related injuries.
Seventeen people suffered serious eye injuries, the State Administration of Work Safety said in a statement. Another 26 were admitted to hospitals with various types of other wounds, it said. "
It goes on like ths for days continuously. I was in a small community on the outskirts of a city - very remote, and still thought it was completely insane. If you didn't know any better, you would think you were at war. Really, this must have been what it was like in Iraq or something. The Gov't is very lenient on fireworks usage during this time since it is such a tradition. I am SURE, many lives are lost, along with fingers, eardrums, and hair. It is crazyness. Outside the apartment I was in, the next morning, the street was covered in exploded red-wrappers from all the fireworks - like leaves falling from trees. It was at least an inch deep for 50 meters in every direction. Occasionally cars would try to drive down the street, and they would have to navigate around exploding things, etc - and gosh the bicycles were very nearly blown out of their seats on occasion if they weren't careful.
The rockets and bombs were bouncing off of cement buildings regularly, and people would hang strings of super-firecrackers (big "bang") 20-30 feet long out of their windows and set them alight. If the buildings were made of wood, the whole place would not have made it through the night.
Even now as I type, there are explosions going off all around in Beijing. Last night, we were unable to watch a movie because the sound outside was continuous explosions. As many know, in the west, the cities coordinate public displays of fireworks, but here there is none of that. Just walk outside and you'll see all you want, and someone will probably walk up to you and hand you something to light. "A large part of people's salaries are spent on fireworks every year" someone told me.
01/01/2006: New Years in Thailand
The Throw-up Bus.
This was a "VIP" bus on our trip to thailand. We were supposed to fly to the south, but we couldn't get a ticket. I was worried about the bus because we had a vomit-filled roller-coaster plane ride to thailand only days before (1/3rd of the plane got sick). hwoever, the travel agent assured us we could sleep on this bus and it had beds and was very nice. Unfortunately, we were fooled. It had reclining seats, a spilled-beer smell, and some really annoying young western tourists who would not stop smoking or discussing thing loudly until about 4am.
It was how we spent our new years eve, welcoming 2006 in. We did have a brief stop at a roadside stand to eat poor quality phad thai and wierd thai beer. We chatted with some diplomats who worked at the French embassy in Malasia.
Fortunately, the getting sick didn't start until the end of the ride. I guess that's what you get for a $35 overnight bus trip.
Fortunately, a few days later, things were more peaceful...
01/21/2006: Beijing Lung
It's construction, almost 24x7 here in Beijing. Last week while trying to sleep, we were kept awake by constant banging noises over our head. After investigating, we discovered that the guy 4 floors above us had hired some workers to come in and put in flooring. The annoying detail is that he wanted them to start at 10pm and finish by the morning, working straight through the night. The banging and racket they were making was, thanks to these buildings all being made from concrete, echoing through the entire top half of the building. The workers refused to stop, so we got serious: We got the building manager to turn off the electricity to that apartment. :)
The construction is going, and now that it is winter, there are many coal-fired heating systems for universities and special districts of Beijing. This produces a lot of air pollution - you can see an example of it in the picture above. This is, obviously causing a lot of pollution. In early November, I was riding my bicycle a lot, and quite fast (since I like to ride faster than most Beijingers), and in my deep-breathing, I somehow inhaled something that gave me bronchitis. After a while it turned to pnumonia. It took 4 trips to the hospital, and 4 different treatments of IV antibiotics over two months to get rid of it. I was out of work for almost 2 weeks.
So, I think I'll be riding slower now.
I don't know what the local authorities here are going to do. The air quality in Beijing has been so poor recently, you can barely see the next builing 100-200 meters away. I don't know what they will do for the olympics, they have a long way to go.
12/12/2005: Construction picture
It's construction madness in Beijing. Buildings are going up everywhere, and they are being worked on 12-15 hours a day by an army of laborers brought in from the poorer areas of China. Besides 10-6am, the quietest time of day is 11:30-1:30 where the Chinese here seem to all take lunch at the same time.
This picture was taken from my apartment window on the 13th floor, and it's freezing cold outside. I've included the super-large version once you click on this picture, so you can see some interesting details like: -everyone wears dark clothes because there is so much dust everything else gets dirty easy, -the piles of green tarping which usually are draped outside the building have been tossed down - no machines to help with the construction.
12/9/2005: Coldest Year
I was riding up the elevator this morning to the office when one of my coworkers started talking with me. I was still wearing my motorcycle helmet and shivering from the cold. I hadn't even taken my gloves off yet. I had decided that since people already look at me all the time (because I don't look Chinese), wearing a big red motorcycle helmet and walking around the building won't make much difference either - and it will keep my head warm until I get to my office and take it off.
Anyway, he told me that this year is the coldest it has been for over 30 years in Beijing. Wow. Now, aside from all the alleged temperature-number doctoring that the local authorities sometimes do, that still says a lot - and it explains a lot. It's been bitter cold - and damned windy recently.
So as I'm freezing my butt off riding my scooter home, I can't help but think, in a "I know I'm being childish", frozen brain way, but if Global warming is a fact (and it definitely is), why the hell is it so cold and windy in Beijing this year?
Next up: Tips for driving a Scooter in Beijing - AND LIVING TO TELL!
11/16/2005: Phoenix Mountain
Recently we went on a hike to a place called Phoenix Mountain. It is the first hike I've been on in China where the air was actually relatively clear and clean. We actually had a "view" like you can see below. I was very happy about this.
Actaully my eyes are closed in the picture above - if you look closely you can see. This second picture is of my friend Gibson on the left and another friend of his (whose name I've forgotton). I thought this picture was cool.
11/15/2005: Legal, like Smegal
Every since coming to China I've realized some of the brighter things about the place I came from. Ever since nearly falling on my face after tripping over an unmarked, uneven step going into the student library at the university (every new foreign student does) the first time, I realized the value of those little yellow and black striped markers they use in the west to warn people of things.
You have to watch out for yourself in China. The gov't won't do it for you. I remember my old roomate in the US getting upset that she tripped over an uneven section of sidewalk in San Francisco and sprained her ankle. Ha! She should come here! Well, better yet - no. She was so mad, she threatened to sue the city.
Now that is where we can tie things together: sue the city. It's actually something you could do in the US. According to the rules, you could technically do it here too, but the legal system is so screwed up and intermarried with everything else, you'd never get anywhere or any enforcement for that matter. Although, things are changing at a slow pace.
I never realized how a powerful legal system can affect a society though. I suspect a large part about what makes the cars, the roads, the sidewalks, the food, and everything else safe in the US, isn't just because of a legal requirement, but out of fear of being sued. This factor keeps things safe for us, protects us, and sometimes overprotects us. Well, the last part we certainly have a long way to go here in China before we have to worry about that.
One interesting thing China has is a petition system. In the ancient times, you could wait outside the emporer's compound for him to come out, and kowtow down in front of him with your story written out on some paper or something. He would (if you were lucky) look at your material and make a ruling. This strange China-only system still exists in one way or another today. In a squalid section of Beijing lives hundreds of travelers from far-away provinces waiting to petition the gov't for various injustices like local gov't land siezures to imbezzlement of local city funds for people displaced by Dam projects.
The system doesn't work too well, but it works a tiny bit. The gov't hasn't abolished it because they know the proper recourse - the official legal system - is completely unready for that. In fact, in the Beijing Review, they wrote: "They claim that the legal system cannot withstand the high levels of discontent in the population.". Wow, that's about as strong a statement you will see in an english language Chinese newspaper.
So, the next time you are in the US, and you are upset about somone suing McDonalds because the coffee was too hot or had a hair in it, don't get too upset about it. For all the disadvantages of the US legal system, we owe it a lot. I know because every day here in China, I WISH here we had such an effective system.
11/13/2005: Child attempts to feed Kitty rocks. Kitty not interested
11/12/2005: Fat Burning device
My new bike - it folds up pretty small, so it's theif-resistant too...
11/11/2005: Follow up
The following day, this message came into my mailbox:
"The Chinese Ministry of Public Security informed the U.S. Embassy in Beijing on November 10 that Chinese security authorities have determined that the source of a reported threat against four and five star hotels in China is not credible. The United States Government is not aware of any other information of any threat against hotels in China, including Hong Kong. Our warden message of November 9 on threats to hotels is therefore retracted."
11/9/2005: Safer in China?
This came into my mailbox today:
"The Embassy has learned that Chinese police advised hotels that Islamic extremist elements could be planning to attack four and five star hotels in China sometime over the course of the next week. Chinese authorities have assured the Embassy that they are taking appropriate security measures and investigating the possible threat thoroughly. American citizens visiting Chinese four and five star hotels should review their plans carefully, remain vigilant with regard to their personal security, and exercise caution. Reports should be made to local police if one notices unusual activities in or around these areas. "
Let's see. We've got that birdie sickness problem, that respiratory thingy, an anarchistic traffic situation, and now this...
11/8/2005: A chance encounter?
So there I was, unlocking my scooter, at night, in the university district in Beijing. A lone Chinese man, respectable looking, in his early 50s approached me and wanted to know where I was from. After learning I was from the US, he asked if I could hand-deliver a letter to the US embassador at the embassy in Beijing.
"No" I replied.
"Why?" he asked, taken aback (at this point I should mention that Chinese people are often quite accomodating and helpful to complete strangers - a nice quality that all of us should emulate more.)
"I don't know you",I answered, providing no other explanation.
He then started to explain in more detail why he wanted me to do such a thing. He said that he wanted to warn the United States of impending disaster. He said that the US needed to be careful because it had been attacking too many countries and was weakening itself. He didn't say of course, who was a threat. He also said he had proof of why the US economy has been weakening over the last 5 years. It was important that I deliver this sealed envelope, unopened to the hands of the embassador - for my country!
"No, sorry" I replied.
Finally I started feeling bad - maybe this guy really was trying to help. I suggested that he use the internet to send an email. "I don't know how to use a computer" he replied. Maybe you can call them on the phone? "I don't trust the phone system", etc, etc. So finally I told him I had my own business with the embassy and I wasn't going to risk associating myself with any problems created by him. Sorry.
Tell me what you think!
8/23-c/2005: Official Numbers
Speaking of "official numbers" like the earlier 15 million I quoted. For those of you who don't know, that number refers to the official city limits (boundaries) of the city. the capital has a series of concentric "ring" roads moving out from the center of the city (Tianamen square). They are 2nd ring through 6th ring. However, the official city limits are 5th ring and inwards. So that number is really something I have a hard time accepting.. There are whole bunches of people who live (esp. up north) outside of 5th ring road who drive or take a buss into the city every day. The busses are already crowded before they get inside 5th ring road, and on some main roads, there are even BUS traffic jams -just too many busses even. I think the real number is quite larger. It really is huge - when you go outside of the 5th ring road, it doesn't feel much less like a city than between 3rd and 4th ring road. There are a lot of people.
Another point about numbers: My tutor told me that during hot days in the summer, and cold day in the winter, the numbers you hear on the weather reports are wrong. They intentionally lower them to keep people from freaking. I think this is backwards logic...
Oh yes, btw, China is growing rapidly, but the numbers you are a little fishy.. Apparently there is a reward-system for provinces that report good numbers, and no real enforcement system in place to penalize if they are wrong (or even to find out). So naturally, things look great, but in some ways it could be like a fish-flavor M&M, where it looks great on the outside but...
8/23-b/2005: Fence-Straddler
Recently some coworkers visited from the US and Ireland office. The hotel they were staying at was a deluxe $100/night deal. They were thrilled at the possibility of "cheap" foot massages at 250 RMB for 40 minutes. I told them that they had no idea what they were talking about. They could comfortably stay at a very nice 4/5 star hotel near the office for $40/night no problem, but the knockout-punch came when I took them out for a 75 minute foot massage for 45RMB (I don't think the cute girls with miniskirts hurt either!) - they were in heaven (one of them fell asleep). I told them if they really wanted to see Beijing, they should stick with me. ;-)
Later we all went out to dinner. A Chinese coworker, who had lived in the US for 2 years a while back, was sure she could find us a nice place. I've been joking with my coworkers that it seems the Chinese food I like the most is the stuff that is also the cheapest and the nicer restaurants' food is usually too strange for me really to enjoy. So, I knew we might be in trouble when she took me and the Irish guys to this totally swank establishment in downtown BJ. It had a river inside, marble everywhere, English speaking staff, and even a pianist with singer.
She was going through the menu with me saying things like "I think they will really like this one- it's very good", and I would usually reply with "I don't think so" - we ended up splitting the difference getting half of the items she suggested and half the ones I did. Later, we were both smirking to one another when they all shied away from the dishes she selected, and gobbled up the ones I did (with an exception or two). It was quite funny - and it even surprised me a little.
I guess she had thought after spending a few years in the west she'd have a good notion of what they would like, but I guess in the years she's been back she forgot some of those details. She definitely is very open-minded and western in many ways, but I think she's really a "fence-straddler": someone who's been influenced quite a bit by both places, and has changed quite a bit.
There are a lot of people like her in Beijing now. Many are trouble finding a comfortable spot to live in. There is really not much "western" about Beijing, yet in some ways, people like her also find some of the traditions and expectations of Chinese culture less appealing now. The pressure to get married fast, buy a house, have a child are 10x what they are in the west. It's turning more of the young generation off. But, if you to want privacy, independence, or go against the norm, you are labeled selfish.
For her, I don't think it helps that her husband is a very traditional man who's never been out of China. I think she's been feeling a bit lonely because of all this - even in a crowded city of 15+million people.
8/23/2005: Dustbowl
I get a lot of post-nasal-drip here in Beijing. It's a dusty city. From what I hear, it was much worse before. Many more roads are paved and have sidewalks and such now, so the dry dirt doesn't get kicked up as easily. However, near the place I used to live, there was a section of road with no sidewalk, and every car that wanted to take a right turn, would make it's own lane and drive off road, and create a little cloud of billowing, windy, sandy dust out of the dry dirt. The next car would pick it up and push it into the intersection, and pretty soon any poor slob on a bicycle or scooter (me) will get covered in it driving through the intersection.
I've discovered that usually I'll get a little sore throat or post-nasal drip from this. If I stay up too late, or don't take care of myself, this can turn into a bad cold or worse. So now, I'm more aware of this, and I frequently will drink some ginger tea when I get that feeling. It really helps! In the US I used to drink Lemon Ginger Echinacea from Trader Joes - and that works too.
Now that I'm moving to a new place, I've decided to get a bicycle again and start riding to work. Since the new Starbucks opened up, I've been drinking too many Mocha's there, and I¡¯m starting to put on weight. I'm sure that if I can hop on the bike a bit more, that will help a lot.
China is developing, so it's getting better, but Beijing and the northern area it is in is quite close to a large and growing desert. 30% of China is "Desertified" and it's growing. The gov't is scrambling to stem the tide, but it's going to take a lot.
8/22/2005: Learning a language
I'll start by saying I am not a language expert by any means. However, I've been aggressively studying Chinese for almost 2 years (and for almost a year it was 10hrs a day), so I have some interest in figuring out how to learn as fast as possible. (Well, after I got to Beijing, it was very important to know Chinese unless I wanted to eat and shop at all the western places and blow through all my money real fast).
So, again, I'm not an expert, but many students and foreigners ask me what I think is a good method for studying.
I think that the more "senses" you involve in your studying, it helps your retention. I say "senses" because I'm not sure what sense writing is, and of course, you can't really "taste" language in a literal sense either. My point is that you need to combine listening, speaking, writing and as much interaction as possible into language learning.
I'd say 50% of my language learning comes from having a native speaker record words (and better yet, simple sentences), using the words I'm studying into an MP3 player. I think listen back and loop on one or two sentences over and over. While listening, I'm writing them out and speaking them out loud. Usually, if I do this, I'm studying about 10-15 words/sentences, and it will take me 1-2 hrs because the writing really slows things down. I usually will loop it on the first 3-4 words until I can write them smoothly (I leave 10 seconds between the words, longer for sentences), then I move on to the next set, and finally loop on the whole group a few times.
Another key is to review the new material from your class for at least 15 minutes at night, after every class. If you don't review the same day - or within 10hrs or so, it will make it harder to bring it back. Don¡¯t just review once; you will need to review the same set of words at least twice if you want to retain around 50%.
Yes, I said 50%. Just accept the fact that with Chinese (and probably English), most of the words you study you will forget again, and then later you will have to review it and re-learn it. It's just a fact of life. :(
Another important step is to give a little more attention to verbs. Verbs are darned useful! You can often get around not knowing the objects name as long as you can describe it in a basic way (e.g.: "that new, square green thing you just bought - I forgot it's name"), but if you don't have the verb, you are kind of stuck. I do a lot of that in Chinese "that thing you hold in your hand when you use the Internet, and it has a wire"=mouse. If you are pretty creative by nature, I think this can help you here.
It's almost like that game we play in the US: "Taboo" where you are trying to get your team to say the correct word, but you can only describe things about it - you can't say the actual word. Yes, exactly - I play a kind of TABOO EVERY DAY in China! haha!
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
A quick haircut performed by your neighbor. .jpg)
.jpg)
The building on the left was my office in Beijing. 10th floor. The Tsinghua Science Park..jpg)
.jpg)
My Irish buddies. One had just come back from a sunburn scorching vacation - so I threw this picture up to show the contrast. Very funny. The burnt one apparently didn't learn his lesson, 'cause he started a solo trek across China, Tibet, Pakistan, Iran and back to Europe! He started on a chinese side-car, but had to drop that after only a few hundred miles and several breakdowns.
Ireland to visit my boss and some other coworkers. I combined it with some vacation time and took my wife along. In the first picture, we are waiting at a bus stop in Villanova IL La Geltru, kind of lost, waiting a lont time for it to come. It was my fault 'cause I ran off to get an ice cream and the bus came while I was gone.
Driving in Ireland means driving on the "wrong" side of the car and the "wrong" side of the road, at relatively high rates of speed on extremely narrow roads. It turned out OK, and kind of fun, even though every time I went to shift, I'd bang my right hand against the door and coast along with the clutch in for a few seconds until I came to my senses.
roadside stand to eat poor quality phad thai and wierd thai beer. We chatted with some diplomats who worked at the French embassy in Malasia.
