"But they eat cats there!"

And then we came to the end

2008-07-07T05:55:00.000-07:00

We survived our 36 + hour trip home. Even though Jameson suffered the most during the trip (almost 2 days in a pet carrier with no bathroom break!), she's recovered the fastest.

I don't want to go into the horror of our trip home, but suffice it to say that it was like the movie "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles," but not funny. At all.

I just want to thank everyone for reading along with our adventure and sending me comments. So, thanks :-) I enjoyed writing for you, and I hope that you enjoyed reading it!

I won't be posting here any more since we're home; we're (hopefully) off to a new adventure soon. I'm on the job interview circuit. The picture above is from my first interview location. Pretty, no?

Countdown Day 27: Baby Backpacks

2008-06-29T06:19:00.000-07:00

Off our compound (which is filled with Hong Kongers and newly rich locals), we don't see many strollers. Rather, kids -- from newborns to toddlers -- are transported in people's arms or, more commonly, on people's backs using a nifty 4-cornered piece of cloth. In the photo to the right, gramma is toting a toddler around with one of these cloths.

I have no idea what these cloth carriers are called, but they are cool as hell. Simple, efficient, and, I imagine, easy to make at home. (EDIT: I just Googled it, and it seems that they are called "Mei Tei," not to be confused with mai tai!) It's basically a rectangular piece of cloth with four long straps attached, one to each corner. Put your kid on your back, put the Mei Tei over the kid, and use the four straps to secure the kid and Mei Tei to your body (the straps come together in the front around the boobage area).

Here is a picture of a finished Mei Tei (here they are usually made of prettier fabric). The image was yoinked from this web site that tells you how to make your very own.
Anywho, D and I both noticed that we never hear babies cry here. I wouldn't be surprised that this way of transporting them has something to do with it. In the U.S. babies are usually shoved into strollers. Wouldn't you rather be snuggled up next to mum or dad or gramma or grampa? I know I would.

A cultural difference to note: these baby slings are never worn in the front by Chinese, always on the back. I think that strength -- or lack thereof -- probably has something to do with this. Sometimes we see a little old gramma who probably weighs all of 80lbs with a 20lb kid strapped to her; it would be difficult for her to carry the kid in the front.

If you want one of these things but you're not the sewing type, check out this site (betterforbabies.com); it sells U.S. made Mei Tei that are constructed from organic cloth: EllaRoo Mei Tei

Countdown Day 22: Squatting

2008-06-22T05:26:00.000-07:00

Upon arriving in the Middle Kingdom, I learned two things really quickly: (1) how to use a squatter and (2) that I should avoid sitting on public benches. Given the prevalence of squat toilets here (i.e., they make up 99.9% of the toilets available), the reason for learning how to use them is clear. What might not be clear is why I never, ever sit on public benches. The reason is simple: Chinese people usually don't sit on the benches, they climb up on them, perch on the edge of the bench, and squat. Given the amount of crap that the bottoms of people's shoes encounter in any given day here, I'd rather not sit where they squat.

The Chinese squat, pictured here, is one of the most common sites in China. Everyone squats. Little kids. Big kids. Old people, young people. Men and women. When Chinese people get tired of standing, they squat. If you walk though the local village, you'll see groups of men ~~sitting~~squatting around playing cards, smoking, eating, etc. Manual laborers also make good use of the squat. For instance, the groundskeepers in charge of pulling up weeds on our compound squat down to do so. Their butts are so close to the ground that you'd think they're actually touching (but they're not). It's pretty impressive.

Class standing might play a role in the propensity to squat or not, though. I noticed that the the nouveau riche who live at our compound don't squat as much as other folks do (also, a lot of the people who live at in our compound are from Hong Kong, so there's a difference between their habits and mainlanders' habits, too). If you're on our compound, you will see people sitting rather than squatting on benches. But the little kids who live here still kick it old school -- even if mummy and daddy are sitting primly on a bench, the little one will be squatting down on the ground, happy as a clam (just like kids everywhere!).

Even though I think that adult-squatting looks weird in an urban setting (I always imagine it happening in the country or in "the bush"), it makes sense. It's economical (don't need a chair), and it promotes balance and flexibility. If you want to see a humorous video about the "Asian Squat," follow this link and scroll down to the bottom of the page for the embedded YouTube video. The full post is worth reading, too.

Countdown Day 20: D's Photo Ops

2008-06-21T02:18:00.000-07:00

Those of you who know D know that he's fond of "costuming" -- i.e., altering his appearance, often in radical ways, just for the sheer fun of it. This garnered him some second glances in the U.S. (especially in places like the 'Cuse and Greenville). Here, however, his foreigner status + his wacky look stops people dead in their tracks. (Heck, my own plain Jane self also gets second looks here, so you can imagine what they think of D).

Frequently, the stares (and giggles) are accompanied by cell-phone photo taking or by requests for a photo op with D. For example, just last week when we were in Hong Kong, a couple of businessmen from India wanted their picture taken with him. And today during our semi-weekly Jusco/McDonald's pilgrimage, a group of local teens asked for the same (prefaced by the compliment, "We think you have much fashion."). I've captured that event here. (Notice that two of the females in the picture have their fingers in the "V" position. For whatever reason, most young Chinese -- especially females -- are unable to stand for a photo without making this gesture. When I asked my students what it means, they told me 'Victory.' When I asked, 'Victory over what?' they could not tell me. So, the 'V' mystery lives on).

Countdown Day 18: Tangjia Mutt

2008-06-17T23:58:00.000-07:00

This dog is my favorite dog in Tangjia, the village near our apartment. It's so damn ugly, you've got to love it. I mean, check out that underbite! It lords over the streets, doing whatever it pleases. In person, this dog has a lot of personality -- it kind of reminds of me a grizzled old neighbor who is crochety, but who nevertheless gives out Halloween candy to neighborhood kids.

You'd think that since it's so filthy that it would be a stray. Not so. It lives in one of the businesses in Tangjia. When I took this photo, it was looking a little more ragged than usual, probably because it'd just had puppies.

This is its offspring, who in this picture is sleeping in the doorway of the business where they both live.

Countdown Day 16: Magic Grades

2008-06-17T08:44:00.000-07:00

This is a guest post by the resident pain-in-the-ass-partner, D.

As a teacher, one of the most dreaded and gut-wrenchingly difficult tasks you face is assigning overall course grades at the end of a term. You see, it's not as easy as the "good students get As," the "above average students gets Bs," etc. Usually, you have numerous battles [sometimes with your own conscience, sometimes with
colleagues, etc.] over just *how* to do it – i.e., what system will be fair, ethical, and appropriate to both individual students and the class as a whole?

At the school where RB and I teach, we don't get to (or have to) make ANY of these difficult decisions. These decisions are made for us. RB and I, not so affectionately, have dubbed the process "MAGIC GRADES."

This is how MAGIC GRADES work. Start with the number of students enrolled in your class and then multiple that number by two different percentages: 20% and 75%. This represents the percentage of A grades and the percentage of A and B grades combined that one is strongly suggested to give. On paper, the official guidelines allow for some flexibility; however, I was told ". . . do this if you want to avoid trouble."

For example, I have 77 students in one of my classes. So, I need to give 15 students a grade of "A" (i.e., 77 * 0.20 = 15); and I also need to give a total of 58 students a grade of either "A" or "B" (i.e., 77 * 0.75 = 58). Note, this grade assignment must occur irrespective of the actual score they earned in the class (e.g., a student who earned only 50% of the total class points will magically receive a 'B' rather than an 'F' simply because we need more Bs in this particular class).

And now you know the "rest of the story!"

Stewed, Screwed & Tattooed

2008-06-17T06:13:00.000-07:00

On Monday, D and I took a short break from work to enjoy an overnight stay in Hong Kong. Part of the fun was getting "inked" at Star Crossed Tattoo. The artist in residence is named Julia, a well-known and well-respected local artist and, we suspect, soon to be known on the international scene if she isn't already. We were pretty jazzed that she could book us in for appointments before we left for home since her schedule fills up fast.

The studio is a comfortable place. It has a room where Julia works and also has a separate waiting area with a comfy couch, a coffee table, and lots of tattoo books and mags to look at while you wait. The waiting area even has a plasma t.v. on the wall. D got to watch several episodes of Night Rider while he waited for Julia to finish my piece (which was a real treat after the craptacular stuff we are subjected to on mainland t.v.).

All of the staff at Star Crossed Tattoo were professional and super nice. In addition to Julia, there are two other staff members: Ross (the studio's piercer) and Rob (Julia's apprentice). When we visited the studio was hosting a guest tattoo artist, Kevin Poon from Scorpion Studios in Houston, Texas. They were an all-around cool bunch -- friendly, professional, and willing to chat to make the time pass.

The work that Julia did on us was fabulous. We both brought her challenging designs, and she executed them really well. Note, for example, the super clean lines on D's tattoo.

Mine, a patriotic piece inspired by my year as an expat (location: upper left arm) --

D's work is a political statement of a different kind, which he describes as an informal social experiment that will hopefully cause people to think about gender and maybe engage in conversations about it (location: left forearm) --

Countdown Day 7: Vending Machine Update

2008-06-11T23:30:00.001-07:00

A while back I posted about the new vending machines we got on campus. When they arrived, it was a pretty big deal because they were the ONLY vending machines on campus. There literally was nowhere to purchase a cold beverage -- or any beverage, for that matter -- within a half mile radius before they arrived.

I also shared with you email that was sent out that encouraged us to purchase a certain amount of beverages per month so that the college would fulfill its sales contract with the beverage distributors.

I suspect that you've all been on the edge of your seats wondering if the college was able to pull together as a team and down enough corn syrup-laden beverages to keep the machines on campus. Well, the verdict is in. Take a look at the latest vending machine email, which was sent out last week to all faculty, staff, and students:

--------------------------------------
Dear all,

Please be informed that you have consumed enough quota of soft drinks from the vending machines provided by Coca Cola in last month. There will be no problem to keep them in this College. Thanks for your support.

Mr. Man
Director of General Affairs

--------------------------------------

I must admit that I can't take credit for this rousing success; I only purchased one Coke. Clearly I am not a team player.

So, you can all breathe easy knowing that our campus, at least for now, is rolling in Coke products. I'm wondering, though, what will happen during the summer months when there are no students around. . .

Guiding Philosophy Quiz

2008-06-07T04:28:00.001-07:00

This is a non-China related post, but I thought the quiz was fun, so I took it and posted my results. If you've got 5 spare minutes, try it for yourself!

What philosophy do you follow? (v1.03)
created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Existentialism

Your life is guided by the concept of Existentialism: You choose the meaning and purpose of your life.

“Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.”

“It is up to you to give [life] a meaning.”

--Jean-Paul Sartre

“It is man's natural sickness to believe that he possesses the Truth.”

--Blaise Pascal

More info at Arocoun's Wikipedia User Page...

Existentialism

90%

Utilitarianism

65%

Justice (Fairness)

60%

Hedonism

55%

Kantianism

40%

Nihilism

35%

Apathy

30%

Strong Egoism

25%

Divine Command

Countdown Day 6: Funny English

2008-06-07T00:01:00.000-07:00

When faced with a pile of essays or exams to grade, the prospect of finding unintentionally humorous sentences lightens the load a bit.

For example, the final exam for 2nd-year English asked students to use this phrase in a sentence in order to show its meaning: "no one under 21 should be allowed to." Most students wrote something like, "No one under 21 should be allowed to get married" or "No one under 21 should be allowed to drink wine". One student, however, offered this bit of wisdom, complete with quotation marks indicating spoken language:

"No one under 21 should be allowed to go into the Porn bar," my father told me.

I had to restrain myself from writing "Good advice!" in the margin.

Chinese students are, by and large, pretty naive about sex, and whenever anything even remotely related to sex comes up in class, they giggle and blush. So, the sexual content of their writing is usually the result of an unintended double meaning. Take this sentence, for instance, which my office mate found in a student's essay about feelings [in particular, about helping cheer friends up when they are sad]:

You should give your friend a hand when he is feeling hard.

We both got a puerile laugh out of that one.

Most of the time, teachers can figure out what their students intend to say. But sometimes our students' writing falls into the "WTF" category. D encountered a good example of this in a student project, which was a student-designed survey on the topic of perfume use. One of the questions on the survey asked respondents where they put perfume, and offered several options (A, B, C, D). One of the choices was "Cervix." Ouch.

Countdown Day 5: Home Security

2008-06-06T04:10:00.000-07:00

Folks here take home security seriously, but they mostly kick it old school. For example, barbed wire seems to be the major deterrent of choice. We see it strung up around houses, across windows, laced through shrubbery -- basically wherever someone wants to put a barrier, a no-passing zone.

Barbed wire is fine. Ugly, but effective. My hands-down favorite for it's low-cost and arsty look is the broken-glass-in-cement approach. Take a look at this wall. It looks like a normal wall. Even a happy wall (note the cute mural):

But take a closer look. That cheerful facade sports a line of broken glass embedded in cement that will cut you to pieces snikety-snack if you try to enter this house without being invited:

I have a dream that someday I will live in the middle of nowhere in a house that's off the grid and surrounded by a barbed wire fence and claymore land mines. Given the nanny-state "you-can't-do-that-someone-might-put-an-eye-out" regulations in the U.S., I might just have to retire in China.

Countdown Day 4: Corner Market

2008-06-05T03:53:00.000-07:00

China has big stores, but it has tons and tons and tons (and tons) of little stores. Some of the stores are mobile -- a buggy on the back of a bicycle, for example, or a blanket spread on the ground with wares for sale. But most of the smaller stores are of the "mom-n-pop-corner-market" variety.

Now, before you get images in your head of gleaming 7-11 markets with refrigerated beverages etc., just stop. No such luxuries exist in the village near our house. Rather, this is the typical corner market:
They sell the staples that the locals need: beer, various salty sauces for cooking, eggs (usually), dried noodles, baiju (a fouler than foul liquor), cigarettes, etc. The contents change from store to store, with some stores having a better variety of stuff.

We have a favorite corner market that we frequent that's across the street from the gym. The women who runs it is nice to us and doesn't charge us a foreigner mark-up. Plus, they stock PBR, which is one of our staple foods here.

The coolest part about these markets is that they're open late and they seem to be able to sell whatever they want to. None of these pesky regulations prohibiting them from selling beer before noon (for instance).

Countdown Day 3: China Post

2008-06-04T03:10:00.000-07:00

China Post is the Chinese equivalent of the U.S. Postal System. While their package handling skills could use some improvement, I can say that we have received (eventually) every package that was sent to use from family in the U.S.

One of great things about living here is the lack of mail that we get. When we do receive items, it's usually something important: a package from home, a bill, a post card. We don't get nearly the amount of junk mail that we receive in the U.S. I empty our mailbox about once a month (if that), and I only ever have a handful of items to deal with. This is fabulous.

The postal workers have official vehicles just like U.S. postal workers do. Except in China, the vehicles are of the two-wheeled variety. Here is the "mail truck" for the postal worker who delivers mail to our compound:
And here is said postal worker on his way to deliver more mail (Check out that hat!):

Countdown Day 2: Sweet Potato Guy

2008-06-03T03:02:00.000-07:00

Two treats are especially popular here: baked sweet potatoes and steamed ears of corn. Both can be bought pretty much any time of day from street vendors. When you buy a potato or corn, the vendor puts in in a very thin semi-transparent plastic bag (what are called "food bags" around here) and then you can munch on it without having to touch it with your "bus hands" (i.e., hands that are incredibly germ-ridden from being in public, holding onto the handles on the bus, etc. Remember, most public Chinese restrooms don't have soap or hot water).

The photo here is of one potato seller. He's got his wares laid out on top of the drum that he uses to cook the potatoes. When business isn't good at one location, he just pushes his potato cart to a new one. Pretty nifty.

Oh, and when people eat the potatoes here, they don't eat the skin. They peel it off piece by piece and just eat the insides.

Day 1: The Great Firewall

2008-06-01T00:46:00.000-07:00

This is the first day of the 30-day countdown. Today's topic: Internet censorship in China (a.k.a. The Great Firewall of China).

Most people know that the Internet is heavily censored in China. For example, very few blogs are available here (like this one, for example -- I can post to it, but people in China can't read it). And the CCP takes a pretty aggressive stance toward censoring anything remotely critical of it. In short, entire areas of the WWW are blocked from users in China, some for no apparent reason.

When I try to access a blocked website, this is what I see:
This is a sight that I encounter many times a day, every day. Aside from the lack of access, I find this error announcement to be incredible irritating and disingenuous. After all, nowhere in the list presented does it say that the website has been blocked by government censors. They just do it and pretend like users aren't wise to their shenanigans.

And it's not like they even have to be sly. In my (albeit limited) experience, most Chinese don't care at all about the censors. Some of my students, for example, seem to believe that the government bans sites because "they are bad for us" (exact quote). In fact, some of them are so well-trained that they hesitated to use Wikipedia for an in-class assignment because that site is usually blocked. They asked me, "Is it okay to use this?" (And no, they weren't talking about the quality of research, they were talking about access to it). What could I do? I just told them, "Well, if it's not blocked now, it must be okay to use it, right?" Never mind that tomorrow/next month/next week it will be blocked again. Of course, I suspect that most of them probably just have their workarounds for finding information. Truth be told, they're not all that keen on researching the topics that their government censors (e.g., that place up North with all the monks; that thorn-in-the-side 'renegade' nation to the East of Fujian province; the dude-in-front-of-tank episode). They're much more interested in Japanese pop singers and NBA stats.

The lack of access to the Internet is one big reason why I could never live in China long-term. It doesn't just interfere with my YouTube addiction, it interferes with my research. It's possible that the government will one day case to play net nanny to its citizens, but I don't think that's going to happen any time soon. And while there are "workarounds" to accessing banned sites, they don't always work, and they're a PITA* to use.

* = Pain in the Ass

30-day countdown

2008-05-29T00:43:00.000-07:00

Beginning on June 1, I will offer a daily post that showcases some of the everyday stuff we see here. Since we've been here for 10 months now, some of the things we once marveled at have become mundane. As we prepare to return home, I intend to chronicle some of these things and share them with you all. So, check back soon, and get ready to count down the days with us!

A Traumatic Day + bonus (non trauma) photo

2008-05-25T03:51:00.000-07:00

Some of you may already know that D an I will be returning to the U.S. in July. As you can imagine, my big concern is Jameson, the cat. It was hard getting her here, and it's going to be hard getting her out. There are 10 million bureaucratic hoops to jump through, made all the more difficult because they're all Chinese hoops that are in Chinese.

So, in addition to me tracking down all the paperwork/vets/officials that I need to to get papers to allow the cat to leave the country, I've got to coerce a bi-lingual speaker to go with me to translate. Gah.

Today I had to take Jameson to a vet. In order for China to allow her to leave the country, she needs to be vaccinated against rabies. Never mind that she received a 3-year rabies vaccination in the U.S. before we came -- they don't recognize that here.

Without going into too many of the details, let me say that the lowered standards of cleanliness that apply everywhere else here apply to the vet's, too. Some things were similar, of course -- for example, corporate pet food displays. And just like at vet offices in the U.S., this one had its resident pets. Only here, the pets were kept in a tiny cage with bars for floors without food or water. Nice.

Anyway, Jameson received her shot, we got a certificate for the shot, and the next step is to go to the city quarantine office to try and procure a health certificate for the pet. Oh, to add to the fun, Jameson is reacting badly to her (probably tainted) vaccination. She's been barfing her head off. But, she is hardy, so hopefully she'll be okay.

In other news, the corn here is growing like crazy. The rule "knee high by 4th of July" simply doesn't apply. Photographic evidence (I was talking when D took the photo -- and check out my sweet sun hat that has a neck-protector flap in the back):

Runningburro, Superhero

2008-05-23T19:03:00.000-07:00

Last night after my hour on the treadmill (hello, Wineglass Marathon training), D and I were in the Tangjia square using the ATM.

The square is a big paved area in front of a sprawling multi-story plaza. It's basically used as a multi-purpose area by everyone in the village. On the side of the plaza is a jumbotron television that broadcasts Chinese T.V. at night. So all the locals ~~sit~~ squat in the square and watch some telly, snack on meat-on-a-stick, and so on. In one area off to the side, couples dance for fitness. During the day, the dancing area is used by kids as a skating rink. There's a pool table area, too, where the local dudes rack-and-break while sipping beers and smoking, smoking, smoking.

The square is also home to a few carnival (knock-the-the-bottle-over) type games, a big inflatable trampoline cage that's always over-filled with little kids, and mini go-carts that kids can rent and drive around. As you can imagine, this is all quite hectic. Oh, did I mention that it's also used as a parking lot?

Anywhoo, I was waiting for D to finish his business at the ATM, and I was watching this little kid play with an inflated balloon. This kid was mobile, but he wasn't able to talk yet, so he was pretty little -- baby-ish. He dropped his balloon on the ground, and the wind kicked up carried the balloon across the square away from him. He protested, "EEEEeeeeeeeeeeeee!" His mother looked kind of distressed.

BUT, guess who was standing exactly in the path of the renegade balloon? That's right, me! My super-aunt ninja training skills kicked in and I subdued the balloon and handed it back to the kid who wasn't even old enough to be all, "hey, mom, foreigner!" He just smiled. (His mom thanked me profusely).

It's nice to be of help, especially when I feel like I always the one who needs help around here.

People power

2008-05-20T22:31:00.000-07:00

One of the most fascinating developments in the aftermath of the Sichuan earthquake is the grass-roots response it has encouraged. Everyday people are organizing on their own to provide relief and support. This might not seem like a big deal to those of use in populist countries, but it is a big deal here. Sentiments like this one (quoted in this article) probably make the central government here nervous:

“I haven’t done this [spontaneous volunteering] before,” said Mr. Hao, 36, as he straddled his mountain bike on Saturday evening. “Ordinary people now understand how to take action on their own.”

The college at where I work is organizing its own support. It's planning to raise money to build new schools. And the students here have decided to hold a talent show to raise money.

Apparently, tents are the most needed item right now. Official numbers place the homeless population in the earthquake region at 5 million. Can you imagine?

If you want do do something to help, take a look at this list. It was compiled by the NY Times, and it's a pretty comprehensive overview of charities that are working to alleviate the hardship of those in Sichuan province.

There are also some ideas in the comments section of the post. For example, one commenter claims that habitat for humanity will be in the region helping to rebuild homes.

Open your mouth, and close your eyes . . .

2008-05-17T05:43:00.001-07:00

This sign was posted in a Hong Kong Starbucks. Any guesses as to what the nice surprise is?

Well-adjusted? Moi?

2008-05-14T23:31:00.000-07:00

I took an online quiz called "What Kind of Ex-Pat are you?" It's designed for those of us in China. If you're curious, here is how I scored:
----------------------
Your Result: Well adjusted Ex-Pat --

China might not be everything that you expected, but you can accept it for what it is. After all, it would be no fun if you knew everything before you came, and it's not as if China is being like that just to spite you.

China has it's good points, which are very good, and its bad points, which you don't dwell on.

You also accept that you can't really make much of a difference and so you don't really try all that much.

You have a small collection of open minded Chinese friends with whom you can talk openly about touchy topics, but, for those who are not open minded, you know not to press the point too much. All in all though you are more interested in hearing about them and China, than in telling them about you and your country. And you have no intention of spoiling a good friendship by inserting your foot into your mouth for the sake of a debate.

You can speak some Chinese and, even if you are not very good at it, you still try. When you get home, you will show off your Chinese language skills to your friends.
--------------------------
I'd say that this is mostly true except for the language part. I do know some Chinese, and I do use it on a daily basis, but it's nothing that I could "wow" my friends with.

China Quake Photo "Essay"

2008-05-13T23:33:00.000-07:00

This photo essay has been posted online. It's not for those with weak stomachs or sensitivity to carnage. The images are no worse than those that we saw after Hurricane Katrina, but those images were heartbreaking.

There are several bright spots. First, people are being very generous with their money. Our college alone has collected a sizable donation for the relief effort. It will be handled by the Red Cross in China. Second, the world-famous Giant Pandas seem to have escaped harm. Those critters are already on the endangered species list, so it's a good thing they didn't get smooshed.

12,000

2008-05-13T07:39:00.000-07:00

That's the current death toll from the massive earthquake that hit Sichuan province on Monday afternoon. The only effect we've felt here is emotional; a number of my students are from that province.

Some of the details are particularly devastating: 900 students buried under the rubble of one middle school; thousands of workers killed in one factory. It boggles the mind.

Scarier still is the hand, foot, and mouth disease tearing through Anhui and Guangdong province. That's a bit closer to home. My colleagues with small children are a bit worried.

Conspicuous Consumption

2008-04-30T05:47:00.000-07:00

This week the college got some beverage vending machines delivered to campus. If you're curious, the machines stock Coca-Cola products and canned coffee drinks (Nescafe). The person in charge of arranging the machines sent out this announcement, which I want to commend for its forthrightness.

______________________

To: All staff
From: Mr. Director
Subject: Vending machines

Dear all,

Please be informed that cold drinks in vending machines are ready for use. They are located outside Room E207 and B201, B202 open space. We are required to consume 1,200 units per month/each machine to qualify to keep them here, so please make well use of these machines.

Sincerely,

Mr. Director
______________________

Given the nature of this place, I keep expecting a schedule to appear with required "voluntary" purchasing days.

Pop Quiz #2

2008-04-28T00:30:00.000-07:00

The object that I am holding in the photo above is:

A) my new badminton racket
B) a miniature tennis racket
C) a teacher's helper (you know, for recalcitrant students)
D) a bug zapper

Be prepared to be jealous, dear readers; the answer is D. This is my new anti-mosquito device, and I have to say, it's mighty fun to use. Basically, this thing is a hand-held electric bug zapper. And it works pretty well. When you smack a bug with it, it fries the critter with a satisfying "Bzzzzzzzt-pop!"

"But how does this technological miracle work," you might be asking. Well, take a look at the English instructions, which I have reproduced for you here (I've left the grammar/phrasing "as is"):

FEATURES [number 5 is very non-committal]:
1. Consisting of three (3)layers of metal net
2. Absolutely safe for people to touch the outer nets with bare finger or body but not safe to squeeze the nets
3. Zapping bugs dead instead of squashing
4. Convenient to kill mosquitoes or bugs effectively, quickly and clean in the house or outdoors; no smell, no chemical; and no environment pollution
5. Normally, bugs will possibly be zapped into pieces in one or two shocks.

DIRECTIONS [note the deterministic tone of 4]:
1. Install batteries
2. Grip handle, press the switch button to initiate power on the nets. Be sure to keep pressing the switch button while hitting the bugs.
3. Never shall we get any shock or danger when we touch (not squeeze) the outer nets, so we can flap mosquito stopping on our skin with this safe swatter directly without shocks.
4. Once the mosquito get in touch with the swatter net, it certainly will not be able to escape. it may be either drawn into the inner net or fastened by static force to the outer net: but when any pat of its body approach the inner net, it will eventually get shocks and zapped immediately.

And finally, some WARNINGS [most of these, like the "THIS BAG IS NOT A TOY" warning, go into the "no duh category"):
1. Do not wash the swatter with water.
2. Do not use metal articles inserting into the nets to initiate sparks for fun, as itmay cause shocks to people and damages to swatter.
3. This swatter is not a toy for children.
4. Do not use it at areas where flammable gas or liquid is existing.

They really ought to market these things in the U.S. I can just imagine the hilarity they'd add to drunken July 4th celebrations.

China: La France = le merde!

2008-04-23T22:38:00.000-07:00

Do you remember the anti-French sentiment in the U.S. that was the result of some people's anger of France's tepid reaction to the U.S. invasion of Iraq? Remember the right-wingers who wanted to change the name of french fries to freedom fries? Well, those whackadoos don't have anything on the intense and pervasive anti-France vitriol fanning the flames of nationalism here in China.

It all started when protesters in Paris disrupted the torch's relay. Based on the ensuing rallies and anti-France protests, you would have thought that the all French people dropped trou and christened the Chinese flag with the contents of their bowels.

I don't know the extent to which the Chinese anti-French sentiment is being reported overseas, but let me just say that it is pretty bad over here right now. If you want to see how bad, take a look at the Chinese government's media outlet, China Daily (if you're a real masochist, read some of the comments after the articles.). Most notable: There have been protests outside the popular French supermarket chain Carrefour, and there's at least one report of a non-French foreigner (a U.S. citizen, actually) being attacked by a mob outside of one of the stores. Indeed, foreigners are being advised not to go anywhere near Carrefour stores just in case they incite the ire of an angry anti-France brigade.

The problem is this: the Chinese don't view the Olympics as an international event, they view this year's Olympica as their Olympics, as "Beijing's Olympics." This is their big chance to show the world that China is a mighty country to be reckoned with; a country that is slowly gaining on their nemesis, Japan; and A country that is moving beyond "developing" and into "developed." Anyone who dares to suggest otherwise (particularly on the issue of human rights) is going to get the big smackdown.

Sadly, France is being too apologetic about the whole torch incident. Why they are apologizing for their citizens practicing their freedom to protest is beyond me. Carrefour executives are even more despicable. Terrified of losing out on profits, they are ~~kissing the collective heinies~~ apologizing to the nationalistic mobs who do not tolerate any opinion that differs from their own. Shame on the greedy business leaders who are too worried about losing Chinese customers to support the democratic laws of their own nation.

Not only has the state-controlled media been reporting on how France is a horrible, horrible country filled with completely demoralized people, it has been gleefully reporting on every overseas pro-China protest organized by overseas Chinese. What's hilarious about this, of course, is that it's the democratic overseas governments that allow these protests to take place. Many of these overseas protests are populated by non-citizens, and you can see them enjoying a freedom of assembly not granted to them in their own country. You can bet your buttons that pro-French protests here in China would be squashed in two seconds flat here. In other words, the courtesy of free assembly is not reciprocal.

And if you think that Han Chinese are just bristling to get out from under the boot of their Communist government, think again. A recent editorial in the NYT offers a different view, one that jives with what my students have expressed:

MANY sympathetic Westerners view Chinese society along the lines of what they saw in the waning days of the Soviet Union: a repressive government backed by old hard-liners losing its grip to a new generation of well-educated, liberal-leaning sophisticates. As pleasant as this outlook may be, it’s naïve. Educated young Chinese, far from being embarrassed or upset by their government’s human-rights record, rank among the most patriotic, establishment-supporting people you’ll meet. . . .

As is clear to anyone who lives here, most young ethnic Chinese strongly support their government’s suppression of the recent Tibetan uprising. One Chinese friend who has a degree from a European university described the conflict to me as “a clash between the commercial world and an old aboriginal society.” She even praised her government for treating Tibetans better than New World settlers treated Native Americans. . . .

Educated young Chinese are therefore the biggest beneficiaries of policies that have brought China more peace and prosperity than at any time in the past thousand years. They can’t imagine why Tibetans would turn up their noses at rising incomes and the promise of a more prosperous future. The loss of a homeland just doesn’t compute as a valid concern.

China Daily offers its own version of this editorial: Time to tell them what the Chinese think. Granted, it's written by a mouthpeice for the state controlled news, but let me tell you, this opinion is strikingly similar to what my students express to me in class and in their essays (the Olympic Games are a favorite topic around here).

Organic Gardening

2008-04-19T01:54:00.000-07:00

Fruits and veggies are pretty cheap in China, much cheaper than in the U.S. I can go to the local wet market and get sack fulls of fruits-n-veggies for mere dollars. Here is a photo of one of the markets I shop at (this is the veggie part; fruits are sold in a separate section. Notice the 3-person family on the scooter):

Even better, by and large, the local Chinese growers use what we would recognize as "organic" methods of gardening. Part and parcel of this is their use of night soil. Night soil is a euphemistic synonym for human feces:

"Night soil" is produced as a result of a waste management system in areas without community infrastructure such as a sewage treatment facility, or individual septic disposal. In this system of waste management, the human faeces are collected in solid form.

Now, aside from some of the health concerns of such a practice, I personally think that this is a good use of something that generally goes unused today in the U.S. But I did wonder how this was collected. Then, on a walk through Jin Ding, I found out.

See this dude in the picture?

He's squatting next to a manhole and has slid aside its cover. Rushing through the pipes below is all the waste water -- including water from the village's flushable toilets. You can't see it in this photo, of course, but he was using a big ladle to scoop the poo-filled water (well, it was more like poo soup by this point) into a bucket that's sitting behind the cement block on his left.

I do wonder if some locals still use the 'old school' method of collection (i.e., the honey bucket). I imagine so since a lot of locals don't even have a bathroom, let alone a porcelain toilet -- in their homes.

I'm also wondering if this isn't an untapped U.S. market, especially with the economy being so poor and with organic foods being so popular. Who wants to invest in my start-up: Organic Humanure Fertilizer?

Saturday Carnage

2008-04-12T07:54:00.000-07:00

Today ate lunch at Mr. Pizza and encountered the usual carnage that is a weekly occurrence in JinDing. A freshly skinned dog was being prepped, and a donkey had been cut open and gutted on the sidewalk. The whole scene was pretty graphic. This time we decided to go home and get the camera to document this. By the time we got back, here's what we saw:

1. This donkey tethered to a tree outside the restaurant:

2. Its friend, already butchered and hanging from meat hooks. From left to right: donkey legs, donkey head, dog, pig, pig.

Only half of the dog remained when we returned, so maybe it was already being eaten. You can see from the what was left of the belly area that it was female.

Rate your teacher

2008-04-08T23:28:00.000-07:00

Today in class I administered a required midterm evaluation. The students offered feedback about the course's level of difficulty etc., and they were given space to provide written suggestions about how to improve the course.

Here is a sample of some of the comments that students wrote in repsponse to this prompt: "What improvements on the part of the Instructor would you suggest?"

Some comments are complimentary:
"RB is an excellent teacher. She always arranges everything in order. We love her." [I like the use of "we" there -- makes it sound like I have a whole legion of adoring student-fans :-)]

"I my opinion, RB is an excellent instructor." [Rock on with that opinion!]

Some are comments are very constructive:
"It is quite good now, but it will be better if we can have more practise."

"Maybe we should have more homework!" [No problem! And have you ever had students ask for more homework?!?]

Some comments are lukewarm:
"the Instructor is good enough." Ouch! S/he didn't even use my name.

And finally, there is the "WTF" category, which includes comments like this:
"I hope to gain some delicious food when I am hungry. Actually, I will pay for it. Thank you." [Perhaps I should set up a taco bar in class? I could open a little side business selling snacks to my students and subsidize my ticket home].

32 Channels of Sh*t

2008-04-05T06:36:00.000-07:00

I miss U.S. t.v. Even D admits that he misses U.S. t.v. after being subjected to 8 months of spectacularly bad Chinese programming.

How bad does it suck? Let's just say that I look forward to the reruns of America's Funniest Home Videos that sometimes appear one of the stations here. Yes, AFV is actually better than anything CCTV to offer.

Here is a sampling of the kinds of shows on the tube here:

1. The old-timey soap opera.

These are probably the most common type of show on. You can always, always find one of these on no matter what day it is or what time it is. My students tell me that their grandparents love these things. The main character is always some dude with a long pony tail and a fierce look on his face. (Occasionally there will be one of these set during the Cultural Revolution. It's kind of odd to watch this horrific time period played out for entertainment. Must be cathartic or something). These might be mildly entertaining if I could understand the language (I am, after all, a fan of Dallas).

2. The Chinese Craptacular. I get the impression that somewhere in China, there's always a big Vegas-style extravaganza going on, and that for some reason, the national t.v. stations have decided to air these tedious things. The pageantry is over the top, and they go on for HOURS. There's lots of cheesy singing. Most of the time the spokesmodel who is singing is just lip-syncing.

And there's usually a bubble machine on. Because bubbles add that extra something.

For a good overview of the typical craptacular, click here: MORE, please!

3. Peking Opera. You know, the traditional plays where the singing sounds like cats being strangled and where the men used play the female roles because women weren't considered to be worthy to be on stage (or even in the theater).

Sometimes just to annoy D I leave these shows on and turn them up really loud when he is in the bathroom and is, um, occupied, and can't change the channel. The CIA should really consider using this as a way to 'persuade' terrorists to 'aid' the government in the War! On! Terror! Forget waterboarding. Ten minutes of this would break the their will faster than a hot poker in the eye (unless they're Chinese terrorists. People here really seem to dig this stuff. Also, some annoying expats claim to like it ["It's so interesting!" they exclaim.] But I just that most of the expats who say this lying and are trying to sound worldly.)

4. Olympic-related sporting events. Ever since Beijing got the 2008 Olympic nod, the whole country has been Olympics crazy. I swear that CCTV 5 (the sports channel) is dedicated these days to Olympics-only matches. If it's not broadcasting 2008 qualifying events, it's broadcasting old Olympics footage. Here are some sharp shooting athletes:

The usual fare is ping pong, badminton, or diving (the things that the Chinese excel at. They usually don't air track and field events except to relive Lui Xiang's hurdling gold medal).

5. The news. The Chinese language news likes to show soldiers:

And news of Chinese massive economic growth (which is fueled, in part, by traitorous U.S. business people shipping manufacturing jobs overseas):

The English language news out of Hong Kong always features some white dude or dudette. This guy is one of the WORST newscasters I have ever seen. D and I watch him just to mock him:

The mainland English news likes to 'educate' its English-speaking viewers about political issues in the country. Like this 'discussion' about Tibet that was on a few days ago (the segment that aired before this one was a translated interview with an ethnic Tibetan who gave a glowing report of how the Communist government made her life so much better after they 'liberated' Tibet):

6. Game shows. The Chinese don't have the exciting game shows that the Japanese have. But they do have a lot of them. In this picture, the woman in the center of the picture had a bunch of balls velcroed to her clothes. She had 30 seconds to try and remove the balls from her body without touching them with her hands.

Believe me, hilarity ensured as she stomped around the stage trying to shake them loose.

7. Infomercials for Boob enhancement. Like women from other countries, Chinese women are made to feel inadequate about their bodies. This culture simultaneously demands stick thin figures and cleavage. There are commercials on t.v. that advertise breast augmentation surgeries at local hospitals. Frequently advertised are boob-enhancement creams (with impressive computer animated mock-ups of how the creams "grow" boobies):

See the serious white dude in the lab coat? He's supposed to be the brains behind this boob-enhancement product. For some reason the 'doctors' and 'scientists' featured in these commercials are always white dudes.

Those with no money to go under the knife can also purchase an over-priced push-up bra:

Notice how sad the pre-bra woman is (left side) and how happy the post-bra woman is (right side):

As a final testament to how bad t.v. is here, let me just say that my students don't watch it -- they prefer Korean, Japanese, or some U.S. shows (Friends [ugh!] is still wildly popular over here). If I were part of the PRC government, I'd recommend an overhaul of CCTV; there's no reason why state-run t.v. has to be so awful. One would think that a better way to placate the masses and keep them loyal would be to offer something "native" that's just as interesting and is in line with the government's viewpoint. As it is now, most of my students buy pirated DVD's of foreign t.v. shows. Clearly, Propaganda Chief Li Changchun isn't keeping up with the times.

No autographs, please

2008-04-03T00:30:00.000-07:00

In the past week, I've been interviewed about my opinions on the differences between "Chinese" and "Western" food (the interview was videotaped) and photographed while pretending to drink Chinese tea. Both of these occured at the request of students (some of whom are mine, some of whom are not) who were working on projects for other classes. I've also been photographed -- for no apparent reason -- by several of my students ("Teacher, may I take a picture?").

These are all normal events in my life these days. Suffice it to say that my startle threshold is much lower than it used to be, especially around cameras.

Free Ride

2008-03-22T05:05:00.000-07:00

One of the perks you get when working for a Chinese company is free transportation to work. Not everyone gets this, of course, but from what we can tell, it's pretty common.

The free ride typically comes in the form of a bus or van. The buses that are used are coach-type buses, which are incredibly common on the roads of China (people often take coach buses for long- and short-distance trips). Our college offers several options: the Big Bus, the "special bus," and the van.

There are two Big Buses (coach-style buses). Each one runs along a slightly different route. They start in the west and south of the city and run along main traffic arteries, picking up UIC workers all along the way. Our compound is the final pick-up spot along the route. One of the Big Buses stops at the back gate at 8:10am. There's always a collection of teachers waiting for the bus, and it's a good time to catch up on chit-chat and general office gossip. Here, my college Francis points out the Big Bus for you:

At 5:40 pm, the big buses reverse their routes and take most of the college's workers home.

Recently the college added a mid-sized bus to its fleet:

This 'special bus' replaced two vans. The special bus only picks up teaching staff, so it's a bit more exclusive (i.e., no office staff on it). And unlike the big buses, the college owns this vehicle (they even had the college's name and logo painted on the side). It only picks up people who live in our compound, and it drives around the compound so you don't even have to wait at the back gate if you don't want to. I usually take the Big Bus to school instead because I find the atmosphere in the special bus to be a little too rich for me. At the end of the teaching work day (6:10pm), the special bus drives us home to the compound. It seats around 18 people.

When the special bus breaks down, the college sends two vans as a replacement. The teaching staff always hates it when this happens because the vans don't seat as many people, so there's always a bit of a battle at the end of the work day to see who will get the available seats. The Chinese teaching staff always want to award seats by seniority; the non-Chinese teaching staff always want to award seats on a first-come, first-served basis. As you can imagine, this sometimes causes tension.

I really enjoy this free ride to and from work. It's great not having to take the public bus, and it does encourage car pooling-type behavior. It also saves me 6RMB each day (which is what bus fare would cost).

When electronic translators fail . . .

2008-03-21T21:44:00.001-07:00

. . . this is the result (seen on a beverage menu at a local coffee house):

I am not proud that this makes me laugh, but I cannot deny that it did.

Zhuhai Tow Truck

2008-03-21T20:22:00.000-07:00

Cars are increasingly popular here, mainly because more and more people can afford them. 'Car culture' is still relatively underdeveloped, though, and the hallmarks of a car-centric culture are mostly absent. For example, banks don't have 'drive-thru' lanes. Garages are uncommon (both garages for storing cars and mechanics' garages). Heck, parking lots are rare, and the city is rapidly 'converting' available sidewalk space into parking areas (by 'converting' I mean painting parking lines onto the sidewalk).

Procedures for dealing with broken-down vehicles are also different than in other places. For example, whenever we've seen a disabled vehicle being moved from one place to another, it's always being removed by another car. The two vehicles are tied together by a length of rope, with the car in front towing the other one. With this towing system, one person has to sit in the disabled vehicle and apply the breaks so that it doesn't smash into the towing vehicle. You've probably seen this once or twice int the U.S., usually being attempted by people from lower socio-economic classes (i.e., those folks who can't afford a AAA membership).

Well, yesterday, we saw our first legitimate tow truck. Unbelievably, it used the same rope-pulling technology:
If you embiggen the picture, you can clearly see the rope and the dude sitting in the broken-down (police) van. Now I'm just wondering how they remove really disabled (i.e., smashed, broken, crashed) vehicles from the road. Maybe they use a dump truck.

Cultural Differences: Staring

2008-03-19T02:49:00.000-07:00

One of the things that I miss about the U.S. is NOT standing out. Here, I'm always different. Take a look at the photo below; it was snapped before a dinner with folks in D's department. Can you guess which one I am? Yep, you guessed it -- I'm the one off to the left who looks like a garden gnome ("Don't mind me, folks; I'm just gonna sneak into your picture . . . ").

Before we came here, one of my friends warned me that people might stare at me. Indeed, they do. While foreigners are increasingly common in China, especially where we are, the sight of D and/or me just walking down the street still grabs the locals' attention. As D puts it, "the way they look at us, you'd think we were walking a panther on a leash!" People will pass us on the sidewalk (on foot, on bikes, whatever) and then turn all the way around to get a better look. These are adults, mind you, not little kids.

Staring isn't considered rude here. At least that's what the guide books tell us. And most of the time, there's no "rude vibe" that comes from the starer (sometimes there is, though, especially from the thuggish young males that hang out in groups on street corners). This is/was hard to get used to because like a lot of U.S. kids, I was always told, "it's not polite to stare!" by my mom/dad (often, I suspect, in response to me fixing my eyes on someone who looked "different").

The worst part about the staring here for me is my uncertainty about what to do when being stared at. I don't understand the protocol. I mean, sometimes the starer is only a foot away (like on the bus). Am I supposed to pretend I don't notice? Am I supposed to strike up polite conversation? My automatic impulse is to yell, "what? do I have a giant booger on my chin?!?", but I know that would be over-reacting. (Besides, I don't know how to say that in Chinese). I do know that looking directly into their eyes is a "staring antidote." When I do that, they immediately stop staring and look away. Direct eye contact isn't as common here as in the U.S., and people don't seem to be expecting it, especially from strangers.

World Time Clock

2008-03-16T23:44:00.001-07:00

Hey readers: see that link on the right hand side of the page? The one that says "Runningburro's World Time Clock?" If you click on that link, you'll have a handy way to figure out what time it is here (China) and what time it is where you are (or most of you, anyway. I included some time zones of friends/family). That way, you'll know when it's a good time to call us to say "hi." Or you can just marvel at the fact that it's already tomorrow where we are. Free-kay.

Want to create your own personal handy-dandy world clock? Go here and click on "personal world clock."

A banned "teaching moment"

2008-03-16T23:01:00.001-07:00

[Update: It looks like the full content of the NYT site is now accessible. YouTube is still verboten.]

If you're following the news, you might have heard about the business happening in Tibet. In response to YouTube videos that showed police and protestors clashing, the Chinese government blocked YouTube access to viewers on the Mainland (and they blocked access to articles about the blocking; they are pretty thorough).

This is what the state-controlled Chinese media has this to say about the happenings in the the China-ruled Autonomous region (notice the use of loaded like 'mastermind,''clique,'and 'united motherland'):

Government chief ensures safety in Tibet
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-03-17 12:33

Qiangba Puncog, Tibet Autonomous Regional Government chairman decried rioters and the Dalai Lama clique for conspiring the latest riot in Lhasa, and underlined the government's determination to safeguard Tibet, during a news briefing in Beijing on Monday.

Thirteen innocent civilians were burned or stabbed to death in last Friday's riot in Lhasa, and sixty-one police were injured, six of them seriously wounded, said Qiangba Pungcog.

Rioters set fire at more than 300 locations, including residential houses and 214 shops, and smashed and burned 56 vehicles, causing heavy losses and seriously disturbed social order in the city.

The vilence was out of conspiracy jointly made by domestic and overseas separatists who are advocating "Tibet independence".

The Dalai clique masterminded, well planned and carefully organized the riot on March 14, Qiangba Puncog said, citing that the rioters' activities were "crime".

The chairman said the Dalai clique's version on describing the vilence and echoing tilted news coverage of some Western media are "ridiculous." They are confusing right and wrong while labeling the riot as "peaceful demonstration", and slandering efforts of local law enforcement to keeping order as "crackdown on the peaceful demonstration."

The Tibetan government chief expressed confidence in maintaining social stability and order under the leadership of the Chinese Central Government,saying the Tibetans will firmly fight against splitting efforts, and safeguard the unified motherland.

Any secessionist attempt to sabotage Tibet's stability will not gain people's support and is doomed to fail, he said.

Compare this with what the NYT has to say (I had to use a proxy server to access this because the government appears to be blocking the Tibet-related stories on the NYT website):

BEIJING — Thousands of Buddhist monks and other Tibetans clashed with the riot police in a second Chinese city on Saturday, while the authorities said they had regained control of the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, a day after a rampaging mob ransacked shops and set fire to cars and storefronts in a deadly riot.

Conflicting reports emerged about the violence in Lhasa on Friday. The Chinese authorities denied that they had fired on protesters there, but Tibetan leaders in India told news agencies on Saturday that they had confirmed that 30 Tibetans had died and that they had unconfirmed reports that put the number at more than 100. . . .

Demonstrations erupted for the second consecutive day in the city of Xiahe in Gansu Province, where an estimated 4,000 Tibetans gathered near the Labrang Monastery. Local monks had held a smaller protest on Friday, but the confrontation escalated Saturday afternoon, according to witnesses and Tibetans in India who spoke with protesters by telephone.

Residents in Xiahe, reached by telephone, heard loud noises similar to gunshots or explosions. A waitress described the scene as “chaos” and said many injured people had been sent to a local hospital. Large numbers of military police and security officers fired tear gas while Tibetans hurled rocks, according to the Tibetans in India.

But Tibetan advocacy groups and witnesses in Lhasa offered contradictory accounts. The Tibetan government in exile said at least 30 Tibetans had died in the protests, according to Agence France-Presse. Witnesses told Radio Free Asia, the nonprofit news agency financed by the United States government, that numerous Tibetans were dead. A 13-year-old Tibetan, reached by telephone, said he had watched the violence from his apartment and saw four or five Tibetans fall to the ground after military police officers fired upon them.

Foreign journalists are being restricted from traveling to Lhasa, and the precise death toll remains unknown.

Now, I am of the opinion that all mainstream media is biased and relatively worthless. The U.S. media machine isn't state run, but it's run by corporations, which is at least as bad, if not worse. However, the level of censorship here is appalling, and it is substantially different (i.e., much more despotic) than the type of censorship that we experience in the U.S. Normally, I'd love to use these two new stories in class. I'd have students read both, compare them, talk about the different way that each "constructs" a view of reality. The point wouldn't be to talk about which one is right, but to talk about how each has a different (and vested) perspective on the same happening and langauge is used to convey that perspective. After all, one of the skills that we are supposed to be teaching students is how to critically read sources of information.

But I can't do that here becuase we can't talk about Tibet in the classroom. We can't talk about Taiwan. We can't talk about T-men Square. Talking about those things -- and many others -- could get me fired and/or deported pretty darn quickly.

Helmets? We don't need no steenking helmets!

2008-03-09T05:06:00.000-07:00

I was discussing the finer points of paraphrasing with my students last week, and we were practicing our paraphrasing skills on a passage from Consumer Reports about the effectiveness of bike helmets in preventing head injuries/death in bike crashes. The students and I were joking with each other about the fact that no one in China wears bike helmets even though tons of folks ride bikes. They couldn't see the point of wearing one.

The safety level regarding vehicles here reminds me of the U.S. three or four decades ago. No one wears seat belts in cars (some people even cut them out of their car). In fact, taxi drivers get a little pissy if you buckle up; they take it as an insult (i.e., you don't think that they are good drivers). People hold their babies on their laps in the front seat of the car (no child car seats for sale, as far as I can tell). Few people wear head protection when riding motorcycles or scooters. If you do see someone wearing head protection, it's usually a construction-site type hard hat.

What cracks me up is that every little kid I've seen on roller blades wears a helmet. Because that's MUCH more dangerous than riding a bike.

Swinging in the Breeze

2008-03-09T04:53:00.001-07:00

Because you can never have too many pictures of raw meet hanging from hooks in the fine Zhuhai air, here is another one. If you look closely at the piece on the right, you can see the bottom of the animal's foot/hoof (not sure what kind of critter it was).

This was taken outside a local restaurant; this is their meat storage area. They slaughter critters daily and then keep the carcass chunks here and use as needed. Nifty.

Asiannaise

2008-03-03T02:17:00.000-08:00

Needless to say, Hellman's mayonnaise is in short supply here. Even when you do find it, it's not real Hellman's, it's more like Miracle Whip. Thankfully, I have a international supplier for Hellman's (a.k.a. Mom).

When the Hellman's runs low, we resort to eating other types of egg-oil emulsions. For the cheesy-creepy factor you can't beat Kewpie Mayonnaise:

Kewpie Mayonnaise is native to Japan, but common in China (in fact the back of the package states that Kewpie in China is a "Chinese-Japanese joint venture"). There are four kinds of Kewpie Mayonnaise available in our local markets: Regular (pictured); sweet; half-fat sweet; thousand island dressing-style. Here in China, people eat Mayonnaise on things that we wouldn't, like fruit. Whenever you order fruit salad in a restaurant, it comes with some kind of mayonnaise product on it (Can you imagine eating watermelon covered in 'nnaise? How about apple? Or maybe Kiwi?)

Kewpie Mayonnaise packaging takes a little getting used to. It comes in a squeezie container or a little bag. But as you can see from this photo, the container isn't very sturdy.One benefit of this packaging is that when the mayonnaise gets low, you can just sort of ring out the container.

The flavor isn't fab -- the regular tastes like Tartar Sauce without the pickle pieces. And even the regular (non-sweet) mayo is much sweeter than U.S. mayo is.

But the best part is that each bottle of Kewpie Mayonnaise (except the thousand-island dressing product) comes with -- you guessed it -- a Kewpie doll. Here is one, hermetically sealed in protective plastic:

Mo is always happy when we bring home Kewpie Mayonnaise -- his entourage is growing at a nice clip:

Collaborative Writing

2008-02-20T22:19:00.000-08:00

Today I mailed a letter to my "sister" who lives most of the year in Belarus*. To address the envelope, I printed out a copy of her address, which is writtent in Russian, that my mom emailed to me. But since my sister didn't put a postal code in her address, I had to hunt down some Chinese colleagues to see if any of them could write Chinese characters for "Belarus" where the postal code should go -- you know, so China Post could direct the letter to the proper country.

When I got to the post office, the letter was sent without too much trouble. The postal workers used the Chinese characters to figure out how much postage I would need and didn't seem all that perturbed that the postal code was missing (cost for postage: 7 Yuan). What struck me about this experience, though, was how collaborative everyday mundane things are here for me. All told, it took about 5 people to properly address one envelope. This experience is not unique. If I want to get water delivered to our apartment, I have to use a Chinese-speaking mediator. When one of my packages was held hostage at the post office, I had to enlist help from one of my students to retrieve it. Most of this collaboration is a result of my poor Chinese language skills; if I could speak the language better, I could do more things for myself. As it is, I'm pleased when I can just accomplish simple tasks, like asking the bus driver how much the fare is and understanding his/her reply.

*She's not my biological sister; she's a girl from Belarus who stays with my family for several months each year.

Fried Duck's Nude

2008-02-19T23:46:00.000-08:00

***This here is a guest post by our resident cowboy, D***

Just down the hill from the college where RB and I teach is a place
called "The International Center." It's something of an all-purpose
weigh station (e.g., hotel, restaurants, gift shop, etc.) for business
people and teachers working down at the end of this very long dusty
road. What follows is a selection of items available on their
"Western-Style Food Menu."*

Soup. How about starting off with some "Threw Teeth Hits Seafood" or perhaps "French Onion Pumpkin Soup." I'm not sure what the first one is, but doesn't that second one sound tasty?! And then there's the "Example Soup." We have often speculated that this one is made up of various leftover ingredients from the kitchen.

Snacks. Need an appetizer? Why not try a "Soya Duck Kidney" or perhaps "Chicken Feet Thai Style?" Another option is "Bone with Salt & Pepper." Yum! One name had my dad laughing so hard that I thought he might need medical attention - "Fried Duck's Nude."

Seafood. In the mood for seafood? One choice is something called "Roasted Epinephelus Portugal Style." As for what this is, well, your guess is as good as mine. Maybe you're feeling a bit adventurous. If so, then the "Pan-fry Jewfish Vanilla" just might hit the spot.

Roasted. So, you're more of a meat eater. Well, you could order an "Angus Pig Redeye Steak." Do you suppose that this is pork? beef? mystery meat? There's also the [less confusing?] "US Cow Redeye Steak."

Pasta Specialties. If you go oodles over noodles then maybe the "Baked Tuna Spaghetti" will have you salivating. Don't forget to ask for some "XO Sauce Catsup" to go with your "Fried Spagherri." Or, for a wild time, you might try "Malaysia Fried Wet Hoer Fun!"

* Note: The restaurant has two different menus, but you do not get to choose your menu. One is for Chinese people and the other (with much higher prices) is given to foreigners, westerners, etc. This is common practice here and is generally referred to -- by foreigners -- as "the foreigner markup."

Best Quality

2008-02-19T04:55:00.000-08:00

Two months ago, in preparation for the grand inauguration of the college, benches were placed all along the common pathways on campus. It does lend a nice atmosphere to the campus -- on my way down to the bus stop I get to visit with current students and former students who are lounging on the benches.

This poor bench didn't survive but a week. And by the looks of the sign that's posted on it, the college didn't hold out much hope for its longevity to begin with.

I've Got School Spirit

2008-02-15T23:25:00.000-08:00

Down in Gongbei, there's a massive underground mall called "Port Plaza." It's filled with stall after stall of cheap goods for sale (food, clothes, wallets, electronics, shoes, you name it). Expats and Chinese alike love it for its low-cost counterfeit designer goods -- handbags, t-shirts, clothes, etc. People from nearby cities take bus trips just to shop there.

D and I don't venture into Port Plaza often, and D never without me as a guide. Once you get underground, it's almost impossible to find your way back out again. The place is laid out like a wagon wheel; there's a center shopping area and then many halls that branch off the center like spokes. It has about 8 or 10 exits, each of which takes you aboveground to a different location in Gongbei. If you get lost, you can just walk around the outside of the wheel, but since the place is so big, that takes forever. And like most shopping around here, there really isn't much worth buying. Fake handbags. Low-quality clothing. Cheap shoes. Ugly jade. Underwear and bras (10 sizes too small -- the average Chinese woman doesn't even need a bra, but you'd never know it from the sheer quantity of bra stores all over Zhuhai). Still, it is good for people-watching and playing "spot the expat" game (spot the expat [usually not hard] and guess the person's country of origin).

A couple weeks ago we were just taking a day off and decided to brave "the underground." We weren't in any hurry, so it didn't matter if we got lost. As we were browsing through one of the hallways when I spotted a t-shirt on a mannequin that I just had to have:

This shirt epitomizes for me some of the half-assed counterfeiting that goes on here (it's the inattention to detail that is mind-boggling). The name is misspelled. The color scheme is all wrong (SU's colors are blue and orange; this is mustard yellow with black lettering). The insignia is so-so.

When you look at the back, it's even better:

As far as I know, SU doesn't even have a sailing team. There is a sailing club (one of my students in WRT 307 designed a web site for the club for one of his projects in the class). But still.

The original asking price for this masterpiece was 120 Yuan. I ended up paying 40 Yuan for it -- still too much, but good bartering on my part, no? It cracks me up to think someone took the time to design and make this t-shirt, that the stall's workers put it on a mannequin to lure people to the stall, and that throughout the country there might be people wearing shirts like this.

Tragedy Strikes

2008-02-12T05:08:00.000-08:00

No, I'm not talking about the continuing cold weather here. I am talking about my computer . . . that died.

My hard drive bit the dust, taking with it all my files. I did back up my files daily to an external hard drive, but for some reason I cannot access them with my new computer. What the hell is an incremental backup, anyway?

Needless to say, I have been in the most unpleasant mood and am ready to sacrifice a goat or two to the gods if that would help my situation improve.

Anyway, if you've emailed me in the past week or so and I haven't gotten back to you, that's why. I hope to have everything up and running in a few days.

I am getting ready to call apple support. They have a China number. Any bets on whether they speak English or not?

Update: Thanks to the help of my fabulous-computer-genius brother, I was able to recover my files. It certainly pays to have one of those in the family.

Flat Nasty*

2008-02-04T04:17:00.000-08:00

We were warned by several English colleagues that many goods and services would not be available over the (Chinese) New Year holiday. A lot of people take 1-2 weeks off during this time and travel to be with family. This results in a temporary shut down of stores, factories, schools, restaurants, etc. Today we ventured out into the cold to stock up on necessities -- TP, water, coffee, bacon, eggs, cheese, potatoes, baked beans, and bourbon (a.k.a. "survival food"). Our quest came with a heavy price, though: we were subjected to more chaos and filth today than during all of our other days here combined.

The streets and stores were packed. And the grocery store -- well, I'm still a bit faint from the experience. You know how busy and chaotic US grocery stores are the day before Christmas or Easter (or, heck, the Super Bowl)? Well, lemme just tell you: You ain't seen nothin'.

First, to even get into the store, we had to by wily and quick. Cars were everywhere, driving wherever they wanted (on the sidewalk, in the bike lane, in the wrong lane). We saw one woman, down on the pavement in front of a car, apparently hit by the vehicle. The beggar brigade was out in full force, too. Today there was a new guy; one of his legs was mottled and swollen, and a palm-sized open wound adorned it. When we passed him, he was cleaning the wound with a cotton swab and trying to solicit money from passersby.

Once we were in the store itself, we had to wait around for a bit before we could even snag a shopping cart. Once we secured one, it was a battle just to maneuver it around the aisles. "Traffic" was at a complete standstill in most aisles. And rather than say, "excuse me" and try to wiggle their way through, our fellow shoppers just used their carts as battering rams to bust through blockages. There were no fights, but I half-expected one to break out at any moment.

The produce section was especially brutal. There, I had to muscle my way to the produce I wanted, bag it while protecting my two inches of floor space from poachers, and then fight my way to the produce weighing counter. Once I was at the counter where my produce would be weighed and priced, I had to simultaneously push my way forward to get to the scale and fight off "cutters" -- people trying to elbow their way in front of me. It was more like a rugby scrum than a line -- not a surprise given the Chinese disaffection for "queuing up." By the time I'd managed to get my produced weighed and priced, I felt like I'd survived 10 rounds in the Thunderdome.

We also got an extra helping of what we "public bodily fluid" sightings. In China, bodily fluids -- and the processes for making them external to the body -- are public activities. For example, we saw several people engaged in what I am convinced is the most beloved pastime in this country: exuberant nose picking. I've written before about this topic, but two sights today awed me:

1. One the crowded bus, a five-year old (or thereabouts) sat on his mother's lap, facing her. First she cleaned his ears out, using her forefinger as a cleaning tool. Then she set to work on his nose. Pick, pick, pick. Flick, flick, flick. (He was spared the indignity of a "spit bath" -- but maybe that's just a U.S. thing. . .)

2. In the dairy case at the grocery store, there is a mirrored panel next to the cheese. As we approached the case, we watched a man excavating the contents of his nasal passages, using the mirrored panel to help him see what he was doing. He was taking great pains and sustained effort go get every little crumb, and at one point he had both forefingers in his nose at the same time, one for each nostril. Needless to say, I selected packages of cheese that were at the wwwaaaaayyyyy back of the cheese case.

3. And then, of course, were the less spectacular nose-pickers -- like the woman in line in front of us at the checkout -- who just casually picked and flicked. Her efforts were very modest; she didn't even go up to the first knuckle.

We also were treated to a fun game that we sometimes get to play here: Dodge the River of Urine. As I've mentioned before, parents here train their children to just pee wherever they happen to be. Babies don't wear diapers, they have these split bottomed pants instead. So, when they have to go, they just squat down and go (or are held by their parents while they go). Today we saw an older female child -- maybe 7 -- drop trou and let loose on the sidewalk. I had to do a quick two step to avoid the Niagara-like run-off. I don't know how old kids have to be before they use public toilets, but some men, apparently, never learn; it's pretty common here to see men of all ages urinating in public.

Add to this all the lovely smells of our town (sewer fumes, cigarette smoke, B.O., exhaust fumes) and the sounds of everyone coughing up loogies, and by the time we got back to our compound, I was ready to douse myself with hand-sanitizer or maybe just take a refreshing shower in Clorox Bleach.

Some days this stuff just strikes me as funny. Other days, like today, it's just flat nasty.*

* NOTE: "Flat nasty" is a bit of slang that we picked up from D's cousin Tad. I can't find an official definition for it, but when D's cousin used it, it basically meant "flat (out) nasty" -- i.e., this thing is just so foul/gross/nasty that it couldn't be any fouler/grosser/nastier. I'm sure this definition doesn't get at the subtlety of the phrase, but you get the idea. I encourage you to incorporate it into your daily lexicon. It's surprisingly useful -- and fun to say!

Mail-order Cowboy

2008-02-01T00:53:00.001-08:00

About 8 weeks ago, D ordered this gear from Sheplers (not pictured are the cowboy boots he's wearing). He just received the packages today. The shipment took about one week to arrive in China. And then it sat in customs for-freakin'-ever.

We weren't even sure if customs in Guangzhou would let the stuff through. Apparently, customs deemed some of the items as "suspicious" (we found this out from the shipper). D had to answer questions about the content of the packages and then testify that they were for "personal use only" (?!?). Then, it took several calls and Chinese-written emails to the shipper -- DHL, regional office -- to sort out the delivery. On top of all of this was the gigantic customs fee that D was charged -- 600 RMB.

I haven't ordered anything from non-China retailers since we've been here because, quite frankly, it'd just be one big pain in the ass. In other words, I don't think that D's experience is unusual (heck, it takes 4-5 weeks for non-retail packages to get to us). Timely delivery of mail-ordered goods is another "luxury" that we don't have access to here -- in fact, a lot of companies won't even ship goods to China (I don't know why -- maybe not enough people from the PRC buy the goods? Or maybe there are govt. restrictions?)

I am glad, however, that D ordered this stuff; he looks awfully cute in that get-up.

Storm of the (half-)century

2008-01-30T04:40:00.000-08:00

China is currently experiencing the worst winter storm in 50 years. This means that the generally mild weather here has turned decidedly cold. And rainy. And miserable. I suppose that I should feel grateful that we're not buried under piles of snow like other parts of the country, but mainly I'm just pissed that our apartment has tile floors and doesn't have any heat (it does have AC units, just no heater).

Two consequences have resulted from this situation:

First, I broke down and bought myself a pair of thermal underwear (men's XL, of course, since that's the size I wear here) and have resigned myself to wearing the thermals, my summer robe, two pairs of socks, a blanket (as an insulating skirt), and my totally rad Steelers sweatshirt in the house. It's so cold in here that we can see our breath. I don't have gloves, but I wish I did. Typing has been kind of difficult.

Second, we've had to modify our laundry drying routine. Usually we just hang it on the balcony. But since it's cold and rainy and humid, that doesn't work. The laundry just stays wet and starts to get kind of funky. Instead, we've rigged up mini clothes lines throughout the apartment. It's been difficult to find things to anchor the line to since we don't have much furniture and the construction of the apartment is rather crappy (e.g., tape will pull the paint and plaster off the walls). But we're managing. Here (see photo), we've used the front door and our shoe closet to anchor a line for drying some socks. I think they look kind of cheery -- it feels like we're camping. (Before you ask, no, there aren't any laundro-mats around here, which means there are no dryers).

At least we're not traveling anywhere over the (Chinese) New Year holiday. News reports from all over the world paint a pretty bleak picture.

We Will We Will ROCK YOU [with Ping Pong?!]

2008-01-28T05:55:00.000-08:00

Note: This is a guest post, brought to you by the resident pain-
in-the-
ass partner (a.k.a. 'D').

Chinese people have strange ideas about fitness and exercise. This is the admittedly hasty conclusion that I've come to after living in (just) one city in China for (only) six months. Let me provide a few examples…

Ping Pong. Now, for the record, I rather enjoy Ping Pong. I try to play it once a week to improve my skills, have a little fun, and meet some new folks. But, as you may already realize, Table Tennis is regarded as the official sport of China; and (as you might suspect) they take it very seriously. Everyone in my office of a dozen or so co-workers "practices;" and some of my colleagues will not play Pong (as I call it) in public for fear of public humiliation over their poor playing ability. How do I know that this is the reason? Because they told me so! (Incidently, the title of this blog post comes from a recent TV commercial shown here in China featuring Pongers battling it out while the famous Queen tune cranks away in the background.) Also, on several occasions people here have told me that the reason why they play Pong is "…to keep fit."

Dancing in the Square. It seems that Chinese people like to congregate outdoors just about anywhere where there's sufficient space for ballroom-style dancing (e.g., city parks, parking lots, etc.). Thus far, we have only observed this activity at night and after dark; and it seems to be practiced much more by older folks. Another interesting feature of dancing in the square is that the participants tend to be same sex pairs. Sometimes, the ballroom-style dancing is replaced with another type of dancing (e.g., line dancing); and these same public spaces where the dancing occurs at night are also used for group Tai Chi practice in the morning.

Walking Plus. A very common fitness-related sight around these parts is women (of all ages) walking by themselves and older, opposite sex couples walking together. Now, you may not think that this sounds very unusual or especially very interesting, but . . . the thing of it is, they're not JUST walking rather they are very exuberantly engaged in some sort of self-flagellation as they walk. Yes, you read that last sentence correctly -- they are actually hitting themselves and they are
doing so with what appears to be considerable force! It is not clear to me (or RB) why they are doing this? To try and increase blood circulation? to stimulate the muscles? to break up fat? Who knows?! But it's damned interesting, eh? I should add that no part of their person seems to be spared the treatment – e.g., people will hit themselves in the arms, legs, belly, and even the face!

Gyms. The first few weeks that I was China I had a helluva time trying to find an actual gym. I say "actual gym" because there are many places purporting to be gyms that are not what I would call a gym. Let me share just a few examples. An outdoor swimming pool . . . a big open room filled with badminton nets…a closet containing just one very old, thin, and rusty bar loaded with very light sand-filled plastic weights…and, my personal favorite, a dark and dusty pool hall filled with nine billiards tables! [You should have seen how proud this fellow was when he showed me their 'gym' (aka pool hall).]

My Gym. Eventually, I did find a gym. It is poorly equipped indeed – e.g., only one cheap barbell and a total of around 450 lbs. pounds of plate weights . . . for the whole gym. But the staff is quite friendly and the atmosphere is pleasant enough, even jovial at times. Let's just keep our fingers crossed that the barbell holds up [it's bending already]. The picture above shows me with Mr. Wang, a member of the staff and resident gym rat. Believe it or not, he is about three times larger than the average Chinese guy.

Most of the staff of around ten people hangs out at the gym all the time, sometimes working out, sometimes playing Chinese board games, and sometimes working the desk or the CD player. Of course, they have Ping Pong tables in the back! Mr. Wang is teaching me a few new Pong tricks.

This is a photo of the sign that includes the name of the gym in English and Chinese behind the front desk at the gym where I work out. If you embiggen the picture, you can read the full name: Valuable Strength International Healthy Body Meeting.

Little victims of the free market

2008-01-27T03:44:00.000-08:00

Yesterday D and I went downtown (a part of Zhuhai called Gongbei) to do some shopping. Gongbei is kind of like Atlantic City -- a tourist attraction filled with lots of vice for sale (ex., fake designer handbags, fake designer fashion of all stripes, sex, illegal copies of DVD's, fake money -- you name it, it's sold down there). We typically go to Gongbei to stock up on Jim Beam (which is available at one of the legit department stores) and DVDs (illegal copies, of course, since I don't think that there is anywhere on the mainland where one can buy legit DVDs).

Gongbei is probably the most modern part of Zhuhai, but it's also my least favorite part. It's usually crowded and there are lots of pickpockets and other shady characters about. It's also typically overrun by wealthy expats -- annoying old white guys (usually British or Australian in this part of China) with their 20-year old Chinese wives. Anyway.

Yesterday D and I saw something in Gongbei that made it seem more sordid than usual: child beggars.

The Internet is rife with first-hand and journalistic accounts of child beggars in China. A lot of these kids are sold into this life by their parents. Child poverty is an increasing problem here, as many country kids are abandoned by parents who migrate to the city in hopes of finding work:

As China's cities continue to develop, the government expects the migrant-worker population -- and the numbers of left-behind children -- will rise. The State Council Research Office reported in April that the 200 million people in nation's rural migrant-labor force make an average of about $60 to $100 a month. Many of these workers were just getting by on subsistence farming before leaving.

But we hadn't seen any children begging until last night*, probably because we're living in a smallish town in a relatively wealthy part of China.

The scene we saw was this: a little girl (maybe 5 yrs. old) and a boy (maybe 10) were working the street together. Rather than simply asking for money, the girl was performing acrobatics for the passersby. A plastic bowl sat on the ground in front of here so that viewers could leave a donation. The boy sat a small distance away, keeping an eye on her.

The girl had two tricks that she would perform. First she did some backwards tumbling (like continuous back-walkovers). Second, she balanced herself upside down on a tripod, used her mouth to anchor herself to the tripod, and contorted her body into an impossible shape. Then, while balanced upside down by her mouth, set herself spinning -- the tripod allowed her to spin around and around and around.

Both the little girl and the little boy were tiny, but the girl seemed especially small (or perhaps she was younger than I thought). When we walked past her, we could see that her face and clothes were dirty -- the kind of dirty that you see on the faces and clothes of homeless people. Even though it was cold out (the temps have been low here this last week -- around 40 degrees Fahrenheit), she only had on slacks, an acrylic sweater, and a piece of cloth tied around her head (instead of a hat). She had no gloves. The boy wasn't really dressed much better.

A young man and his wife/girlfriend stopped to talk to the little girl. The man knelt down to talk to the child, and the wife/girlfriend tried to pull him away. The Chinese, as a rule, don't interfere with strangers. Even if they see someone they don't know being pick-pocketed or something, they'll usually just look the other way. Also, I've never seen a local give money to any beggar here. So, the fact that the man stopped to talk to this girl was out of the ordinary. Anyway, the man appeared to be asking the little girl questions, but whatever he was asking her was making her cry (I don't think out of cruelty, though). The wife/girlfriend continued to try to pull him away, and she finally succeeded. They both went on their way.

What does one do in a situation like this? What is the appropriate response when you're a foreigner in a county where you don't speak the language and don't understand the culture?

*Note: We have seen lots of kids involved in begging, just not kids begging on their own. For example, we see lots of adults, usually women, who will sit on the sidewalk and beg for money while holding a small child or baby on the lap.

Bernie Kosar Sucks

2008-01-18T19:03:00.000-08:00

This sweatshirt is a gift that D brought home for me from a local store. This store where he bought it is odd -- it gets in used clothes from the U.S., but it also sells "new" rejects from local factories that were intended for export to places like the U.S. Consequently, big foreigners like ourselves can sometimes find clothes that actually fit our bodies (rather then trying to squeeze into clothes made for the tiny little stick people who live here).

I don't like football, but I was, I have to admit, happy to see those familiar colors!

Things that go splat in the night

2008-01-15T06:57:00.000-08:00

Because we live in a sub-tropical climate, mosquitoes are a problem here. The bugs carry all sorts of nasties, including Dengue fever and Japanese Encephalitis. We don't have screens in our windows, so we do get some mosquitoes in the apartment. And they love, love, love D. At night, they gnaw on his ankles and calves, and in the morning, he's usually covered with fresh bites on top of old bites. To make matters worse, he scratches and scratches the bites until they're so vile looking that he appears to have leprosy.

I decided that enough was enough and purchased mosquito netting for our bed. We don't have a poster bed, so I couldn't buy the kind of netting that drapes down over the posts. Instead, I had to buy this dorky tent-like structure. It has flaps that zip open, and the zippers have tabs on the inside and outside. So, we can open the the side flaps, get into bed, and then zip it closed around us. The result? A mosquito-proof cocoon.

The is one problem with this set up, however -- namely, Jameson's (the cat) inability to understand that she can't jump through the netting even though she can see through it. She's used to being able to just hop right into bed with us. Now when she tries to do that she ricochets off and splats onto the ground (You know the sound that a cat makes when it hurls its body against a window screen? That's what this sounds like).

D was relaying this story to one of his colleagues, a guy from Bangladesh. After D's colleague recovered from hearing that our cat slept in our bed (this really seemed odd to him), he expressed surprise that this was our first experience with mosquito netting. Where he's from, everyone uses it all the time because the mosquitoes will eat them alive otherwise. People don't even wear shorts, the mosquitoes are so bad. I guess Bangladesh is on our list of "visit but don't live there" places. D's flesh would not survive.

Road Warrior

2008-01-10T23:19:00.000-08:00

There are several of these crazy vehicles prowling the streets of Tangjia. They seem to be used mostly by manual laborers, but sometimes folks are clearly just using them to get from point A to point B.

Happy New Year!

2008-01-01T12:36:00.000-08:00

It was midnight here a little over 12 hours ago, and D and I rung in the new year at home together with little Jameson. But there's still time to party for those of you in the States -- so grab some bubbly and raise a toast!

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope your 2008 is filled with love and prosperity.

Donkeys, dogs, and baboons, oh my!

2007-12-29T01:31:00.000-08:00

It figures that I'd leave my camera at home today since we saw more bizarre things in four hours than we've seen our entire time here.

It all started when we went to Jin Ding for lunch at Mr. Pizza. Jin Ding is a little village a few bus stops north of us. When we got off the bus and crossed the street, we saw a donkey tethered to a tree in front of a restaurant where there's usually chickens on leashes. I'm pretty used to seeing live chickens tied up to all sorts of things, but donkeys are rarer. It was cute -- dark grey with floppy ears and a black nose. Dwight and I remarked to each other that it didn't look very happy.

We continued on to Mr. Pizza and had a tasty meal. Afterwards, we walked back past the tree where the donkey had been tethered only to discover that during our meal, the donkey had been slaughtered and was being skinned and gutted on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant. It looked bigger dead than alive, and three men were bent over the carcass scraping all the fur off.

This was such a startling sight that we almost overlooked the skinned and gutted dog carcass hanging from a meat hook at a little stand in front of the restaurant. The stand was being used by the restaurant's staff as a meat prep area. The dog still had fur on its head, so it was easy to see what its face would have looked like had it been alive. The meat hooked was jammed through the back of its neck, and its face was staring out toward the busy street. The restaurant worker was busy chopping up another dog carcass into bite-sized chunks.

This scene was enough to make us stop and stare (where we, of course, provided staring material for the locals). Just as we regained ourselves and started to walk away, a pick up truck pulled up to the curb with a delivery for the restaurant: another dog, still alive, in a cage. It was a white dog, medium sized, with dirty fur. Just an average dog around here. Short-haired. Pointy ears. Cute doggie face. A woman from the restaurant tried to pry it out of its cage, but it was resisting. It was scared, and kept trying to evade her grasp by curling itself up in a little ball. It seemed to know that it was going to end up stir-fried.

All of this made our lunch -- which included animal products -- sit heavy in our stomachs. But none of these sights (except us waiguoren) even elicited a second glance from the locals.

We went our next destination, a small store called the Zhuhai Deli that sells imported foods. We'd never been there before, but had heard about it on an expat website. There, we able to stock up on goodies like refried beans, olives, and bleu cheese -- all things that are unavailable in the rest of Zhuhai. We paid a pretty penny for this stuff, but familiar food is worth it.

Then, on the way home from the store, we saw something that even surprised the Chinese people on the bus with us: a man walking down the street with three baboons on leashes. He was just walking them like you'd walk your dog. I don't think that baboons are common around here, and it wasn't clear why he had them, but it was funny to hear all the Chinese passengers say "ohhhhhhhhh!" when they saw it.

Perhaps the baboons were off to the stew pot, too. Who knows. This is China, after all.

Who's in charge here?

2007-12-28T03:37:00.000-08:00

The semester here has almost ended. We've had our final classes and are getting ready for exams. Our holiday break begins January 18th, and runs to mid February. This academic schedule has been hard for me because it is so different from what I'm used to. But I am happy to have survived the first 6 months.

On the last day of class, I had D take photos of me with my students. Photo-taking, I found out, is a very popular last-day activity. In one of my classes, every single student wanted an individual photo with me. I do wonder what they do with these pictures. Maybe they take them home to show their parents?

Anyway, here are some photos for you -- two of my ARW classes (Academic Reading & Writing). Some of my smartest students were in these two classes -- I suspect that I'll keep in touch with a number of these students for years to come.

Human-powered transport

2007-12-28T03:25:00.000-08:00

Most people know that bicycles are common in China (even if cars are becoming more and more common all the time). So, I wasn't surprised to see lots of bicycles in the streets when we first arrived here.

What does continue to surprise and delight me are the many ways that people here use bicycles to transport anything and everything. Here, two fellows move a couch. I'm not sure if you can tell from the photos, but the guy in the rear was highly amused that two laowai were photographing their efforts. He kept smiling and mugging for the camera.

Is it safe?

2007-12-25T05:26:00.001-08:00

What's a fun way to spend a Saturday? The answer to this question is probably not -- as D can attest-- "getting [edited] a triple root canal."

D's teeth have been hurting for, like, 2 years. But rather than go to the dentist to find out what was wrong, he just started using toothpaste for sensitive teeth, assuming that the pain was due to clenching his jaw (from stress).

But last week the pain, which had been getting increasingly more severe, became too much. He couldn't eat anything without flinching, even liquid foods. And he was getting really bad headaches. We did the only thing that we could do: get a referral to a local dentist.

Our colleague gave us a number, "Call Dr. Bob. He's good. Speaks some English. His office isn't as clean as what you're used to, but they open the packs of sterile instruments in front of you."

D called Dr. Bob and was granted a same-day appointment. The good doctor told us that his office was off the 68 bus line, tried to explain the name of the bus stop, and said he'd meet us at the bus stop at 3:00 [This kind of thing no longer surprises us here. There's nothing odd about a dentist offering to meet a new patient at the bus stop. This place is so chaotic that this is often necessary]. We left our apartment 2 hours early, knowing that we'd probably have trouble finding it since a lot of the stops are missing the pinyin versions of the names.

But first, we had to get some food in D, who was feeling a bit light-headed. We stopped at a restaurant, where D tried to find something on the menu with a good number of calories but that didn't require much chewing. He settled on a cream soup and an omelet. He managed to eat the food despite the pain and the fact that the omelet looked like, in his words, "something that someone sneezed out."

After eating, we tried to find the dentist's office, with no success. We ended up calling Dr. Bob for more detailed directions to the bus stop, and he asked us where we were. When we told him the name of the restaurant, he replied, "I know where that is. I will come get you." And about 5 minutes later, he showed up in a little car and whisked us off to the clinic.

When we arrived at the clinic, Dr. Bob hustled D into a chair (see above photo), and then suggested to me that since I was there anyway, I might as well get my teeth cleaned by another dentist. I was in the chair getting the plaque scraped off when they made the assessment of D's problem -- his tooth pain was the result of him needing [edited] a triple root canal (or "root canal treatments," as Dr. Bob called them). In addition, he had a molar that was too pointy and was poking into another tooth; it needed to be ground down a bit.

My cleaning only took about 10 minutes -- a different procedure than what they do in the States -- and I spent the remainder of my time alternately watching D get his procedure done and reading Ethan Frome.

I was able to watch D the whole time because the entire clinic was about the size of an average U.S. hotel room. Had the dental chairs been facing out toward the front door of the clinic, the patients receiving treatment would have been able to see all the activity on the sidewalk outside. For all intents and purposes, the treatment areas were public places, with visitors coming in to chat with Dr. Bob while he drilled into D's teeth. People walking by on the street could look right in and see procedures being done. There were even sound effects: The man in the chair next to D's howled in pain as he was being worked on by another dentist.

D told me that as Dr. Bob scraped out the nerves and stuff, he would hold up the little strips of flesh so that D could see what he was taking out. Dr. Bob was very concerned that D be comfortable and would frequently ask, "Is there pain?" If D grunted, "yes," Dr. Bob would give him more Novocaine. Dr. Bob and his staff were very polite and very considerate.

All told, D spent about 2 hours in the chair. Cost for three root canal treatments [edited to add] (that is, removing three nerves), one crown, and one molar grinding: 800 RMB, about $106 USD. My cleaning was 50 RMB, about $6 USD.

D has at least one more visit. He has to go back on Friday. He's hoping that the procedure can be completed then. So, this story is to be continued. . .

Fresh Fish

2007-12-24T22:40:00.000-08:00

The wet market is the center of a lot of village activity. It's the place where most everyone comes to buy fresh vegetables, fruit, meat, and assorted other items. The market is set up in a big square. Most of it is under an open-sided covering -- kind of like at a state fair. Inside, the walkways are lined with troughs that capture all the liquid produced from slaughtering and from hosing the place down. Outside, vendors put their wares on the ground flea-market style.

On Saturdays, the wet market is full of live chickens -- all the chicken vendors come to town and line up their wares on the back of the market, forming what I call "the Hall of Doomed Chickens." On other days, chickens and other fowl are sold, but not in the same quantity. This picture is kind of blurry, but you can see that someone is buying a chicken for dinner. After D snapped this picture, the vendor neatly twisted the chickens's neck to kill it. I haven't been brave enough to buy a chicken yet, but I probably will before we leave China.

Mondays are fish days, when the fish-
mongers take over the open area outside the main market. The pavement is covered with shallow containers of water filled with living critters and piles of freshly killed sea creatures of all stripes. When you buy a fish, the vendor will kill it for you and clean it. The men in the photo to the right are cleaning a fish for the person standing in front of them. The square blue containers you see have living critters in them.

Steamed noodles from the village

2007-12-23T01:55:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite things to do here is walk through the local village. Even when I'm completely sick of being here, I always enjoy the craziness -- the sheer difference that this village offers.

Yesterday, I set out early to the wet market. I wanted to visit my regular fruit lady and stock up on clementines, and I wanted to get some potatoes and onions for a potato salad.

One the way, I needed something to eat, so I stopped a a street side restaurant. All of the cooking took place on the sidewalk. Patrons could then choose to eat under a roof or out in the open. The food is my favorite kind here -- simple. The cook scooped a bit of flour-water from the red bucket on the ground and dumped into one of the trays that she took from the steamer. Then she added a tiny scoop of ground pork from the metal bowl on the table, some bean sprouts. One one tray, she added an egg. All of this steamed briefly, and then she scraped it into a container (I got mine to go) and added a little broth. The result was freshly steamed noodles, to which I added a bit of hot chili paste. Tas-tee.

That creep can roll

2007-12-23T01:48:00.000-08:00

One of the perks of living in our gated compound is that it has a bowling lane on the premises. It's small -- four lanes -- but the lanes are regulation. D and I took a break from work today to knock down some pins.

The best part about playing in the clubhouse is that usually a little cheering section of mums and kids form. The kids love to watch the bowlers bowl, and whenever we'd knock over any pins, they would clap for us.

You can see from the photo to the right that there are some imports from the U.S. to China. All the balls were Brunswick.

Here is an action shot of D:

Neighborhood Mutt

2007-12-15T07:27:00.000-08:00

This dog, which I saw on my walk though the village today, is fairly typical of the most common breed of dog around here. It looks like some kind of dog-dingo hybrid. The local dogs (other than the pampered toys mutts in my compound) are a fairly independent type of dog. I never see them on leashes or tied up. They have free reign of the streets. They're not aggressive toward humans, even if they sometimes fight amongst themselves. In fact, they're generally indifferent toward humans. They're smart, too. For example, they seem to understand how to cross the street without getting run over by the crazy drivers. And they can take a nap anywhere. This doggie was taking a nap on a sidewalk, just feet from where a huge group of old dudes was playing Chinese chess. Cars, motorcycles, and bikes were whizzing by on the street, and a local school had just let out for the day -- kids were swarming everywhere. Did. not. matter. I wish that someone would bottle and sell that kind of calm. . .

My favorite local dog is a little rougher around the edges -- a scrappy, filthy little thing with an underbite that makes it look incredibly grouchy. It lives in a dirty little house on one of the main streets in the village, and it lords over its doorway with a kind of haughtiness that I've only seen in cats. I see it every time I go into the village -- one of these days, I'll remember to snap its photo.

Hazy Shade of Winter

2007-12-12T05:51:00.000-08:00

To the right you can see the atrocity forced upon the poor palm trees living in our compound: tinsel and other assorted x-mas decorations. Having grown up in places where winter = snow, this seems wrong to me.

We're hearing a lot more holiday songs being played over store speaker systems these days, too. Songs like "Jingle Bells" and "What Child is This? [instrumental version] are played all year 'round here (Chinese folks seem to dig x-mas carols for some reason), but there's been a definite uptick in the airtime given to tunes like "Up on the Rooftop." One of the villa owners in our compound has even strung up some cheesy holiday lights (I keep expecting the compound guards -- who practice military drills every morning -- to drag the owners out into the street and beat them. Our compound has a very "planned community" feel. It seems to me that a lights display probably violates some clause in the property agreement).

Street Food

2007-12-12T05:31:00.000-08:00

The crackdown on unlicensed food vendors didn't last long. This is good news. One of the more interesting aspects of China are the impromptu noodles stands and whatnot that one finds on most village street corners in our neck of the woods.

Plus, I like the food that the vendors sell -- I'm sure that eating it is strengthening my immune system. We usually stop here for sustenance after consuming a few refreshing beverages the expat bar across the street (an over-priced Brit-owned place called The Old Chinese Junk. Its main virtue is that it's within walking distance of our compound).

I snapped these photos the other night after we placed our order at our "regular" vendor. We got grilled eggplant, lamb (I think), chicken, fish (the whole fish, head and all), and sausage. If you ask, the cook will coat everything in a spicy MSG-chili mixture that I love.

Close-up of pre-cooked food:

Adding the spicy coating:

Sick in China

2007-12-04T03:17:00.000-08:00

So I've finally developed a full-blown cold, complete with chest congestion. I'm trying to take it easy, but that's hard to do when one teaches 6 classes. Taking a sick day around here is more trouble than it's worth -- tons of red tape and every class missed needs to be rescheduled for a later date. It's almost like they want to kill off foreign teachers or something.

But, my students are very sweet. They are concerned about me. One of them, upon hearing my croaking voice and my hacking cough, said, "Runningburro, I have some Tylenol in my dorm room. Maybe I could go get it for you?" Another wanted to make me tea with honey. Many of them told me that I should go home and get some rest -- which I intend to do right now.

And now a word from the resident pain in the ass . . .

2007-12-01T23:52:00.002-08:00

D, it seems, caught wind of how I represented -- or, in his opinion, misrepresented -- our conversation about what constitutes a burger. I have graciously agreed to post his amendment to my post, but only this one time (after all, those who want their say should start their own damn blogs, no?).

D's 2 cents:

On numerous occasions, Running Burro (RB) and myself have talked about
the concept of a list of criteria to accurately and consistently define foods [Incidently, this may be differently conceived as identifying foods.]. For example, to be appropriately labeled a sandwich, does the stacked concoction (sitting on a plate [or perhaps a cutting board]) need to include cheese among its multiple layers?
And what about the inclusion (or exclusion) of a condiment/spread?

Typically (in such discussions), I take the position [just for the 'sake of argument'] of assuming that checklists are apparent necessities, whereas RB is both more reluctant to invoke the checklist concept as well as more willing to permit a short checklist (i.e., I usually assume that such checklists [if they were to exist and be instructive] would need to include many items).

So, in order for something to be rightly called a burger, what should it include? As I recall, these were the only two items mentioned: (i)ground up* composition; and (ii) some specific percentage [or proportion] of the ground up product needs to be beef. We did not get into any specific details such as "What kind of beef?". Or "What numerical value should this percentage [or proportion] take?" - e.g.,
95%, 88%, etc.

*Footnote: I believe that many times (i.e., during our discussion) we were
talking of burger when we really meant to be saying something about
the patty part of the burger. Also, I should have added that the
patty itself needs to be of a form resembling a geometric shape (e.g.,
approximately circular or square depending upon various factors
including the desired outcome and whether the patty is formed 'by
hand' or by machine), but…I did not think of any of this at the time.

And now back to our regularly scheduled broadcast.

Guangzhou II

2007-12-01T22:16:00.001-08:00

On Saturday, I, D, and 18 of our colleagues chartered a small bus to Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton).

Our first stop was the haizhu market. Almost everyone in the group was intent on buying Christmas decorations here -- kind of hard to come by in China. This market is typical of China -- a multi-story building filled to the rafters with hundreds of odd little shops selling all kinds of stuff. It's easy to get lost in these places.

I picked up some little trinkets -- little goodies to pass out in class for "prizes" or to give to people as small gifts. D, however, came across the atrocity pictured to the right. For some reason that I fail to understand, D fell in love with it, and now it lords over our apartment.

Our second stop was for lunch, which we received free of charge from the Spanish consulate in China. It seems that Spanish Chamber of Commerce was co-hosting some big shin-dig, and one of our colleagues, who is from Spain, arranged to get us in. Lunch was served outside in a part alongside the water. Free Spanish beer, Spanish-style hors d'oeurves, and paella, which was cooked up in gigantic paella pans. It was a good way to spend the afternoon, and if Metro's siren song hadn't been calling, we probably would have wasted day there drinking cerveza and stuffing ourselves with free grub.

I've posted a bit about Metro before -- it's a useful store to have relatively nearby since it has food from non-Chinese countries (ex., Olive oil, bleu cheese, etc.). D and I mainly treated it as a booze run since Metro also stocks US favorites like Seagram's Gin and Captain Morgan's Spiced Rum.

This store is kind of tricky. In some ways, it's like Cosco -- bulk sizes of popular groceries. Odd collection of things like light bulbs and bathrobes and printer cartridges. But then you'll encounter something like the meat aisle, which in Metro looks like a slaughterhouse (like in the first Rocky when Rocky uses the sides of beef as punching bags). At Metro, you can buy a half pig that's hanging from a big meat hook. You can buy parts of the cow (also hanging). Fish in various states of life, death, and dressing are available too. And then there was this:

It even had it's teeth and eyeballs still in its head. Now I can't get that damn song from D's Barbecue Blues album out of my head:

Take a big slice of gator,/put it on a big piece of bread./Salt will make it better./So go ahead, go ahead, take a big bite, Fred./ Alligator/Alligator meat! Alligator!/Alligator meat is really all you need.

The Dangers of Cold Beverages

2007-11-29T03:03:00.000-08:00

I've spoken before about how Chinese dislike cold beverages. For example, most water coolers (those office-style water dispensers) don't cool water at all. The blue tap usually just dispenses room temp water.

To the right is more evidence of this predilection. See the word "cold" that's written underneath the one can of Coca-Cola? That's there to let buyers know that that's the button that will dispense a cold can. The others? Room temp.

I've noticed, too, that some of the little markets around our house have refrigerated cases for beverages (the free-standing kind with glass doors), but they don't plug them in. They use the cases as shelf-space only. This seems weird to me and reminds of food going bad -- probably because the only time I see room temp food in a fridge is after a power-outage that lasts for days.

Chicken: the New Beef

2007-11-29T02:12:00.000-08:00

Today we ate at a new place for lunch today, a little eatery near the BNU dorms.

We sat down and a server came over to us and immediately asked, "Do you want a hamburger?" This was kind of funny because since we're foreigners, and she assumed we were from the U.S., she also assumed that we would want burgers. Some of my students think that that's all that U.S. people eat.

Anyway.

D did want a burger and enthusiastically accepted her offer. They had two sizes, she told us, "big" and "little".

I, however, wanted something a bit lighter. Since the menu was all in characters, I tried to ask her about other food.

Me: Do you have noodles?
Her: No, but we will in 3 days.
Me: Do you have something with meat and vegetables in it?
Her: We have chicken and we have cow and we have vegetables too.
Me: Can you bring me something with vegetables and chicken?
Her: Yes.

It was fabulous that our server spoke English -- not a lot (as you can tell from the dialogue), but infinitely more English than we speak Chinese. And it was kind of funny that she referred to the meat by their "animal" names, something that I do just to make a point sometimes (ex., it's not a hamburger, it's a ground up cow).

When my meal came, I was pleasantly surprised. It wasn't a weird concoction of things, it was a scoop of rise with sauteed greens and a seasoned, broiled chicken leg.

D has a surprise of a different sort: his hamburger ended up being a fried chicken patty with sweet mayo (that's the only kind they have here) on a sesame seed bun. No, the kitchen hadn't made a mistake. Apparently, a "hamburger" in China often refers to chicken sandwiches:

The Chinese word for hamburger (hanbao) often refers to all sandwiches containing cooked meat, regardless of the meat's origin. This includes chicken burgers, as KFC is very popular in China.

Of course, this incident set of an hour-long dialogue in which we tried to hash out the definition of "burger." D insisted that a true burger must be made of at least 51% ground ~~cow~~ beef. My main criteria was only that it be made of ground meat.

Any thoughts?

Fun with Chinese Signs, Part V

2007-11-27T14:31:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure if this sign (seen in Macau) inspires confidence or not. On the one hand, it seems like a false promise. On the other hand, these folks could be so dedicated to providing quality pharmaceuticals that they had this expensive sign made.

Any thoughts?

Macau Redeux

2007-11-24T23:45:00.003-08:00

On Saturday we visited Macau again. This time our pace was a bit more leisurely.

I will spare you the details of our journey over. Suffice it to say that we tried to take a recommended "shortcut" and got a bit mixed up. And at one point were were offered a ride to our destination by a "simple" man (think: Cantonese-speaking Sling Blade) whose taxi was a bicycle with a wooden cart attached to it. (An aside -- I totally wanted to take a ride in the thing; D was the one who declined. Anyway).

Macau has a cool landscape. Because it was established by the Pourtugese, a good deal of the architecture is European. There are old churches and things around, and a lot of the street signs are in Pourtegese, which is infinitely easier to understand than Chinese. Macau also looks a lot like Kowloon with its twisty hilly streets. I kept thinking of it as a "snack-sized" Hong Kong all day.

Macau street:

Here is a photo of the ruins of St. Paul's. An info site for Macau tourism says this about the ruins:

Designed by an Italian Jesuit, and, with the assistance of Japanese Christian artisans who had fled from feudal persecution in Nagasaki, the church was built from 1602 to 1637. In 1835, a fire burned it to the ground, leaving only the façade, the staircase and portions of a wall. It remained unchanged until a restoration was undertaken and completed in the summer of 1991.

In the culinary world, Macau is known for its egg tarts. Here is what a Portugeuse egg tart looks like. Notice that the top of the tart is much darker than a regular Chinese egg tart:

This is D after tasting the egg tart (he didn't like it very much, so I got to eat mine and the remains of his):

I also sampled some tasty cookies from this woman, who took little hunks of dough, flattened them in these super hot presses, and then dumped them into a basket underneath. The result tasted like pizelles (those Italian cookies) without the anise.

While Macau is know for its tasty food, it is perhaps best as the gambling capital of China -- it's the only place in China where gambling is legal. Until recently, one Chinese dude had a monopoly on all the betting action. But now, some other investors have broken into the market. For example, there a Sands casino in Macau. And the newest addition is The Venetian. It's not as impressive as the one in Las Vegas, but it does have a Fatburger, which we made a visit to:

We did do more than just eat all day, but you wouldn't know it from the photos that I took.

Care package #2

2007-11-21T03:54:00.000-08:00

"Care package" has taken on a whole new level of loveliness to me since I've been here. Pictured to the right is that latest haul from my fabulous parents. The canned goods got sort of battered during the journey (I'll eat them anyway), but the Rice Krispy treats were in perfect shape. Sadly, the Fritos were powdered by the time they arrived, but they were very tasty on top of some soup. Most importantly, the box included a new batch of Claritin D (sorely needed here with all the pollution).

There was even a treat for D (real Hellman's mayo) and for Jameson ("Special Kitty" cat treats and some soft cat food, which she totally loved).

Run for the Border

2007-11-16T20:21:00.000-08:00

Our last trip to Hong Kong took an interesting turn. We missed the last ferry from Hong Kong (Central) to Zhuhai -- this ferry leaves at 9:30 pm, which is insanely early (IMHO). So, we decided to try for Plan B: take a ferry from Hong Kong to Macau and then cross the Macua-China border into Gongbei, which is part of our local area. From there, it would just be an easy bus ride home.

[A not-so-brief digression. Hong Kong and Macau are part of China, but they are S.A.R.'s -- Special Administrative Regions. As such, they basically operate as separate countries -- different laws and what not. Also, mainlanders -- people from China proper -- need visas to enter these regions. Since we carry U.S. passports, we don't need a visa to get into Hong Kong or Macau, we just need a multiple-entry visa for China so that they'll let us back into the mainland. Whenever you leave the mainland to go to one of these places, you have to go through customs, which means getting your passport stamped, etc.].

Here is a map of the region:

Anyway, we got on the jetfoil to Macau, and the ride was uneventful. There are jetfoil ferries that run between Hong Kong and Macau 24-hrs a day, bringing the wealthy Hong Kongers to Macau to gamble [Macau is China's Las Vegas] and then bringing back home again after they lose their money.

I was pretty relaxed on the ferry ride until I realized that we wouldn't be arriving in Macau until about 11:00 pm. This worried me because the Macau-China border closes at midnight, and you have to be "in the doors" of the immigration building before that or they might shut you out. And having never been in Macau, I had no idea where the border was in relation to the ferry terminal where we'd be arriving.

When we got to Macau, took about 20 minutes to get through immigration. When we got outside, I looked around and couldn't see the border to China, so we waited in a taxi queue to get a ride. When it was finally our turn, I hopped in the taxi and shouted "Zhuhai!" (the name of our city). The taxi driver looked at the clock on his stereo (which, by this time, read about 11:15) and said "China?!?" (as in, "there is no way we are gonna make it on time"). But he did what all taxi drivers over here do -- took off like a bat out of hell and sped us at top speed through the relatively quiet streets of Macau. Turns out the border is a good 12 minutes away from the ferry terminal. Along they way I amused myself by trying to read the Portuguese signs on all the shops -- Macau uses both Chinese and Portuguese. It kept me from stomping on the car accelerator to make the driver go even faster.

We finally screeched to a halt outside of a giant administrative-looking building. As I tossed some bills at the taxi driver, he shouted "straight! straight!" and pointed straight ahead, telling us where we needed to go. I think that he was more than a little pleased with himself for getting us there before it was too late.

Keep in mind that throughout all of this, we were hauling around all the crap that we'd bought in Hong Kong.

We hurried into the building, quickly filled out some immigration paperwork, and stood in line to get our passports stamped. But this line wasn't even to get into China, it was just to leave Macau. By this point I was kind of freaked out. What would happen, I wondered, if we managed to leave Macau but didn't make it across the street to the Chinese immigration building? Would we be able to get back into Macau or would be have to stay in between the borders all night in a sort of limbo?

We were allowed to leave Macau, and we hurried 100 meters or so to the Chinese immigration building. And here's where the real fun began. People were queued up in different rows. Some lines were supposed to be just for foreigners and some for mainlanders. But the mainlanders would just dive under the metal-railing barriers that separated the lines and cut in front of whomever they wanted to. And a lot of people were drunk, so there was that to contend with. A woman in line behind me (from Hong Kong, I think -- she had on fancy clothes) was being harassed by a group of drunk businessmen. People kept trying to cut in front of me, but I made a barrier with my arms and legs so that they couldn't get through.

At about 11:55, we made it up to the immigration counter. Stamp, stamp, and we were through (not before the immigration officer called her supervisor over to double-check my photo. In my passport photo I have a shaved head and wire-rimmed glasses. Now I have a hair and different glasses).

But when we left the immigration building, we still had one more feat to accomplish: get across the huge public square outside the immigration building and into a taxi.

During the day, this square is filled with all sorts of people. Families. Shoppers. People selling stuff. At night, the place is barely even lit. And instead of being populated by "normal" folks, it's populated by night time solicitors. Illegal taxi drivers who sidle up to you and whisper, "Taxi, miss? Taxi" Women with their babies in their arms who flank you on either side, keeping pace with your fast walking, speaking in low and tired voices of their need for money. Old men with missing limbs try to solicit change.

We managed to make it through the square without giving away any money, and I flagged down a taxi (too late for buses -- they stop running around 11:00). I fell into the backseat and told the driver where to go. I was too tired to even be embarrassed about speaking bad Chinese. The driver understood me, so all was well.

By the time that D and I got home, it was close to 1:00 am. Needless to say, we had a celebratory drink!

Fun with Chinese Sign, Part IV

2007-11-15T06:52:00.000-08:00

This sign was posted on the Hong Kong MTR. Apparently we are supposed to offer our seats to various types of armless people without necks.

That is a tasty burger. . .

2007-11-15T02:49:00.000-08:00

D enjoying a Freshness Burger "Classic WW Burger" in Kowloon. If this were a newspaper article, the caption would read: D Declares: "Best Burger I've Ever Had!"

He did say that, and he was serious.

The Classic WW Burger is Freshness' biggest burger, but it's no match for a burger-deprived D and his giant Irish hands. Freshness Burger is a Japanese burger joint -- and I do have to admit that it's pretty fabulous. I think that it has to do with the beef they use -- 100% Australian non-hormone open-range cow. It's very, very tasty.

Playing Tag

2007-11-07T03:35:00.000-08:00

I've been tagged by academom do do the "7 Facts About Me" meme that's circulating. Here are the rules (which I yoinked from Susan):

1. List the link to your tagger and also post these following rules.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog - some random, some weird, etc.
3. Tag 7 people at the the end of your blog also leaving the links to their blogs
4. Let them know they are "TAGGED" by leaving a comment on their blog

Since this is a blog about China-n-me, I'm gonna do a list of 7 Facts About Runningburro in China.

The List:

1. Since I've been living here, I've been eating more meat than I do when I am in the U.S. While it's true that the Chinese eat far less meat than the average U.S. citizen does, the average Chinese person eats far more meat than I prefer to. It's very difficult to get truly vegetarian food here because everything seems to have some sort of animal product in it.

2. Even though riding the buses here can be really gross (I don't know how many times I've watched someone pick his/her nose and then hold onto those dangley bus handles or the bus poles), I do love being car-free. It's very liberating NOT owning a car. When we are ready to move again, I hope to live in a place with a good public transportation system.

3. I think that the fruit in China is weird. Sure, you can get apples and oranges and bananas, but there's also lots of fruit that's just bizarre and not fruit-like in the usual sense of the word. Like durian, the world's stinkiest fruit (imagine eating an avocado crossed with a pineapple crossed with the smelliest, runniest French cheese you can buy). My favorite new fruit so far is the dragon fruit. I buy these all the time.

4. I've discovered that I am a snob when it comes to buying clothing. In the U.S. I was pretty laid-back about what I bought -- the cheaper it was, the better (with the exception of my indispensable Macabi skirt). Here, though, the quality of clothing is shockingly poor. The jeans, shirts, and shoes at the clothing markets might look good -- will even have designer labels on them -- but are more cheaply assembled than anything you could find in the States. I mean, the clothes here make me realize how good Wal-Mart's clothing actually is (Wal-Mart's clothes aren't stylish, but they won't fall apart in the wash and they're probably not dyed with toxic dye).

5. I think that Chinese babies are cuter than Caucasian babies because Chinese babies don't look all squashed and red. I even find myself smiling at all the little kids around here, which comes as a shock, I'm sure, to those of you who know me.

6. Living here is probably turning me into a red-blooded American.

7. I haven't eaten cat or dog yet, but I might if it were offered to me.

Okay, I'm tagging the following people: Notes of a Former Native Speaker, FemRhetor, Deanya. I can't think of 7, so this will have to do.

More from Gourmet Wu

2007-11-07T03:07:00.000-08:00

I haven't been talking much about Gourmet Wu lately because he's been out of town on a business trip. For two weeks I've suffered without my thrice-weekly prepared meals (eating too many cups of instant noodles and not enough "real" food).

Fortunately, the Chef is back in town. And tonight's dinner is an extra-special treat: meat balls (pig), mashed sweet potato, and salad. The meat balls are really tasty. I might boil up some pasta (Barilla, which costs me about 4 USD a pack) and eat the meat balls on top of it.

Kickin' it old-school

2007-11-07T02:50:00.000-08:00

See that can of Coca-Cola on the right? It's Chinese coke -- pretty much indistinguishable from U.S. Coca-Cola except for one thing: the version 1.0 pop-top. Over here, beer and soda (or "pop" if you're from Western PA) come in cans with those sharp-edged pain-in-the-ass pull-tabs.

There really is a difference between these pull-tabs and the more modern tabs. These old-school tabs test one's dexterity. When we first arrived here, I was the designated beer opener because D couldn't get his cans open without 1) breaking of the tab before removing it completely or 2) spilling beer from using too much force when pulling the tab off. From all the practice I've gotten these last few months, my technique is smooth. I can hold a can and remove the tab with the same hand I'm using to hold the can. A one-handed operation.

D and I were trying to remember why they stopped using these kinds of tabs in the U.S. Anyone got any thoughts about it?

Pop Quiz

2007-11-04T04:47:00.000-08:00

You are on a public bus and someone has two plastic grocery bags, sitting on the bus floor, filled with chunks of a freshly slaughtered animal. The bags are leaking blood, which is forming a sort of river that is running down the length of the bus floor toward you. You:

a) scream and point hysterically (surely someone will do something!)
b) barf
c) pass out
d) make disparaging comments about public buses in China
e) calmly move to the back of the bus so as not to soil your shoes

Yes indeed, my answer is "e" (this happened this past week on my way to work). Looks like I am getting used to to what passes for "normal" in this place.

Day Trip: Hong Kong (Kowloon & Central)

2007-11-04T03:58:00.000-08:00

Despite having waayyyy too much work to do, D and I escaped to Hong Kong on Saturday to stock up on some supplies. We set out for Juizhou Port, and took the ferry to Kowloon. We had some time to kill before the ferry left, so we had breakfast at the little cafeteria at the port. Last time we were there, we couldn't quite stomach it -- food left out, typical Chinese hygiene standards (i.e., low*). But we must be getting used to things here because this time we didn't even bat an eye before digging in:

Once we arrived in Kowloon, we returned to the shopping center that we visited the first time we went Kowloon, and I was hell-bent on finding some comfy shoes (my dogs have been killin' me lately) and some tee-shirts that actually fit. D was in search of any and all clothes that fit.**

Our haul from the mall: Birkenstocks (both for me and D), several "fun" books (Margaret Atwood novels), Lush shampoo and conditioner, and some Benefit lotion (saucily named, "Do it Daily"). I love my new shoes for two reasons. First, they're f-ing comfortable. Second, since they're clogs, they also remind me of my bestest friend academom who has a fondness (addiction to?) clogs.

Since we'd already toured part of Kowloon on our last visit, we decided to take the Star Ferry to the main part of the Hong Kong, a part of town called "Central." This ferry is a no-hassle affair. You just leave the shopping center and walk down to the pier and follow the signs for the central-bound ferry. Then, you put 2.20 HKD in a machine, which lets you through a gate and into a holding pen for the boat. The trip across the water is short -- maybe 10 minutes. The boat looks like a "real" ferry (as D described it) -- sides open to the water; benches for seats; sailors who hoists up the thingie-you-walk-across-to-get-onto-the-boat. It's good fun zipping across the harbour and seeing all the boats milling around. Here is a picture of one (of many):

Riding on the boat made me happy:

Once in central, we toured a bit of the city. It's an incredibly hilly place. Imagine the terrain of Pittsburgh mixed with the hilliest parts of San Francisco mixed with Midtown Manhattan mixed with what you think a big Chinese city would look like. It's fabulous -- narrow twisty streets and neon signs and skyscrapers everywhere. People jamming the streets. High-end shops mixed with junk stores. It's a very exciting place to be.

I don't have any pictures, because they really wouldn't do the place justice. Maybe next time we'll get to go up Victoria Peak and I can take some photos of the view.

Footnotes:
* D and an ex-partner of his once had a phrase to describe weather that was hotter-than-hot: "Texas hot." This phrase was created after a cross-country trip landed them in Texas in the summer. In the same spirit, D and I have taken to using the phrase "China clean," as in "Is it clean or is it China clean" (meaning, is is clean, like how my mom thinks of clean or is is "clean" -- what passes for clean around here). It's been very useful.

** On the subject of shopping for clothes: the Chinese seem to be really intolerant of larger-sized people, viewing them as just one notch above slothfulness and depravity. If you think that the U.S. has size-ism issues, take a trip to the PRC.
[Edited to add: D wants me to add that people around here seem to view larger folks as handicapped, too. This is true. Whenever we are walking with Chinese colleagues and have to ascend a big flight of stairs, they always turn to D and comment, "Maybe you have trouble getting up the stairs?" Never mind that he works out 5 times a week. They equate thinness with health and (for some reason I have not been able to understand) strength. Of course, this is a nation that views ping pong as a rough-and-tumble sport.]

Sea View with Bonus Pony Picture

2007-10-18T03:59:00.001-07:00

Our town is located on the water. Combined with the fact that we also live in a sub-tropical climate, this might conjure up images of dazzling white beaches, swaying palm trees, and lazy days on the beach. Well, it did for me, anyway, before I arrived here.

In reality, our "beaches" are a bit drearier (see photo).

Lovely brown water (I've never seen anyone in it). And that sky? Similar to CNY -- but overcast from pollution rather than clouds.

When the sun shines here, it is pretty. But unfortunately, we rarely see the sun through the haze. And this is one of the cleanest areas of the country (we are told).

But where else could you see a pony being ridden down the sidewalk for no apparent reason??

These are the little surprises that make our days fun.

Can You see my Pictures

2007-10-16T23:49:00.000-07:00

A quick poll: Are the photos in my posts appearing for you guys? I've received reports that some of the photos are blank.

Lemme know :-)

How to Live in China and Not Eat Chinese Food

2007-10-15T06:52:00.000-07:00

Ominous title for a post, I know, especially since we live in China and are pretty much at the mercy of Chinese food. This wouldn't be so bad if we lived in a province known for good food (e.g., Hunan). But we don't. So D and I have found ways around The System. Our "ways around" includes large infusions of US-style fast food (which I in no way feel guilty about eating as it is by no means the worst health risk here).

Exhibit number 1: KFC redeux. So, you know that we already visited KFC and were completely underwhelmed by it. The chain has redeemed itself in our eyes -- or perhaps we're just more used to the chaos of the place -- because during our last KFC visit (this past Saturday), I had a good time.

The place was packed. They always are. KFC reigns supreme here as the Fast Food King. I managed to find us a seat while D ordered our food. His task was no small feat given the fact that while there were 60 or so people waiting to order food, there was no line in evidence. It's all "elbow, push, move - elbow, push, move" to the counter. I suspect that D's size gave him an advantage in this regard.

He arrived at the table, triumphant, holding aloft a tray laden with a bucket of chicken and a litre of some Pepsi (Yuk, but at least I could read the label) product. I should note that he was only able to find me in the crowd because I guided him in via cell phone.

Photographic evidence:

We were surrounded by children celebrating their birthdays, and in the background "Happy Birthday" was playing -- in Chinese, of course. It was kind of surreal -- like being trapped inside of the "Small World" ride at Disney.

Exhibit #2: McDonald's Chinese-speaking success. I have no photographic evidence for this, but it nevertheless needs to be recorded. D's successfully ordered a large coke at McDonald's, but instead of doing it by pointing to the picture menu (the menu they hand to stupid foreigners like us), he ordered it in Chinese. And the workers understood! Totally cool. We spend entirely too much time at McDonald's, and I love, love, love it there.

Exhibit #3: Pizza and hamburgers. We got turned onto a new pizza place by a colleague, an expat from Atlanta (he is known in these parts as "the Colonel"). The place, called Dynamics Pizza, is a chain. The franchise we visited is owned by a South African. Here's what we ate:

That's Carribean Chicken Pizza, a burger, and a Coke. The pizza was serviceable (kind of like Digiorno; I've had to exponentially lower my standards for pizza since coming here. I am millions of miles away from a real slice of pizza [a.k.a. New York Style]). The burger was a Chinese-style burger in that it wasn't pure beef -- tasted like a beef, pork, chicken mix. But at least it looked like a real burger. And we could order our food in English.

Exhibit #4 -- Fried fish balls from a street vendor.

Okay, so these aren't Western, but they're not really Chinese, either. They remind me more of Japanese food. They're a mix of cabbage and onions, fried in little pans, covered in shaved bonito and wasabi, and served up with these stabby little chopsticks. They cost 2.5RMB for three, and they are tas-tee.

Exhibit #5: Gourmet Wu (of course).

The point of all of this is that we are finding ways to enjoy Chinese food in moderation without having it forced down our throats.

Of course, I would still kill for Mexican food (damn you, brother, and your all-you-can-eat Mexican buffets ;-)

When Irish Eyes are Smiling

2007-10-15T06:45:00.000-07:00

Tonight's Gourmet Wu dinner: Irish Stew (beef in a yummy onion-tomato sauce), mashed sweet potatoes with black sesame seed garnish, and garlic bread.

Incidentally, Gourmet Wu is soon to be my Chinese teacher, too. He's from the North, so he's got a good Mandarin accent (at least that's the particular bias here).

More from Gourmet Wu

2007-10-10T04:40:00.000-07:00

I don't know why I keep telling you what I eat for dinner . . . but here's tonight's Gourmet Wu meal: Seafood pasta, marinated celery salad with pumpkin seeds, and (yay!) garlic bread.

My Mum ROCKS!

2007-10-10T04:19:00.001-07:00

I have always loved the US Postal Service. When I was a kid, my favorite building in Greenville was the post office in town. So big, so cool, so efficient and quiet. But now that I'm overseas, "snail mail" from the USA takes on a whole new value. I have to say, I really love seeing these boxes with my name on them:

Today, I received the above box in the mail. It's a carton of goodies that my parents mailed to me about 4 weeks ago, and it is a nice physical reminder of home. My mum picked out the goodies -- all kinds of treats. Jolly Ranchers. Chai tea mix. Tom's of Maine toothpaste. My favorite decongestant. Gummi Worms. Peanut Butter Cookies (Keebler Brand). And, best of all, CoCo Wheats!!!

If you haven't had CoCo Wheats, they're coco-infused farina.
Totally yummy with a bit of sugar.

And being the good grandmum that she is, she didn't forget Jameson. The kitty got soft cat food and Special Kitty cat treats.

The only casualty in the shipment was the peanut butter cookies. By the time the box arrived, they looked like they'd tried to cross a busy Chinese street and failed:

But, I am still gonna eat them anyway. That's what spoons are for!

Tonight's Dinner

2007-10-08T03:47:00.000-07:00

Fish-n-Chips. Prepared by someone who trained in Ireland. And yes, I think that I will have a beer with it! Not pictured: Jameson circling like a shark below the table. She knows that when Gourmet Wu comes to visit, she usually gets some bits of chicken or fish.

Team Yonker on the Run. . . Again

2007-10-05T07:35:00.000-07:00

My dear friends Academom and Queen of the Pattermooses are gearing up to run yet another marathon. They will do the deed on Sunday. I am sad that I will not be able to join them -- missing out on these adventures is truly one of the things that I regret about leaving CNY.

But, there is much cheering on to be done. So, head on over to Academom and show them some love.

Go Team Yonker! Whooo hoooooo!

Day Trip: Kowloon

2007-10-05T06:27:00.000-07:00

Kowloon is a specific part of Hong Kong. I don't quite understand all the politics and history yet, but I've kindly linked you to Wikipedia for an explanation. I do know this: people who live in Kowloon don't really refer to themselves as living in Hong Kong. Sort of like the separatism that you see with people from the different NYC boroughs.

Let me just say this: Kowloon is fantastic. It feels like NYC mixed with London mixed with New Orleans mixed with, well, China. It's worlds away from our little cow-town.

U.S. citizens do not need a visa to visit Hong Kong/Kowloon. Even though it's part of China, it is designated as a Special Administrative Region, which means that the city has some autonomy over its own governance (it means a whole lot else, too, but I don't want to go into too many details). Of course, you do have to have a visa to get back into China (if you are a U.S. citizen). Otherwise, you are screwed. FYI: Mainlanders (Chinese people from the mainland) do need a visa to visit Hong Kong.

To get to Kowloon, we took a ferry. We bought economy class tickets (160 RMB one way), but the person selling the tickets didn't seat us together. While I was in the middle of moping about this, a nice English woman came up to me and asked me if I wanted to swap my second-class ticket for her first-class ticket. I, of course, was suspicious. Was she seated next to someone smelly? Was her seat all rickety and broken? But no, she didn't want to lug her bag up the flight of stairs that takes passengers to first class, so she wanted to swap with someone in economy.

I'm no dummy; I took the deal. D remained with the other proles in steerage.

First class was cool. Not crowded. Spiffy red seats. Free bottled water, danish butter cookies, and peanuts (odd combo, but hey, it was free). Plus, there were great views from first class because it was on the upper deck of the ferry.

Photo taken from my seat in on the ferry. See
how sunny and cheerful? The fake daisies add
a nice ambiance -- tasteful.

During the 70 minute ride, hostesses circulated, offering motion sickness bags to anyone looking green. I only saw one person tear off to the bathroom -- a kid of about 9. The motion sickness bags had this instruction on them: Please make donation here. Ha!

When we arrived in Kowloon, we headed off for our main task: shop, shop, shop. While there is plenty of shopping to be done in Zhuhai, it's all crap. Crap shoes. Crap clothes. Crap food. We were craving indulgence.

We managed to find our primary target, a GIANT shopping center stuffed to the gills with hundreds of high end stores (filled with legitimate merchandise). Anna Sui, Yves Saint Laurent, Brooks Brothers, Kate Spade, Lush, Paul Smith, etc. But also more pedestrian brands like Levis (which are viewed as a luxury item over here), Michael Kors, Aveda, Starbucks, and so on.

After our lack of consumption opportunities in Zhuhai, I was a bit overwhelmed.

D came away with shampoo (Aveda and Lush), chinos and belt (Ralph Lauren) and music. I came away with this:

Perhaps I have described before the utter (and by 'utter,' I
mean 'utter') lack of Mexican food over here? Well, I found
these "import" items at an upscale grocery store in this shopping center.
Of all the fabulous items for sale (food from all over the globe), I came
away with beans and hot sauce (and books [from a bookstore that had tons of
titles in English!!!!-- that slim volume is The Great Gatsby; the dictionary
is for the classroom; the Atwood is my incentive to finish Chapter 5 of the diss).
Sometimes the runningburro just needs a bit of comfort food and easy reading.

And of course, now that there is Heinz Ketchup in the house, it's safe for my dad to visit :-)

Just remember folks, those 98 cent can of refried beans you take for granted at the grocery store are a fancy-schmancy import item over here. I paid 3.00 USD for each can. I paid 6.00 USD for corn tortillas (not pictured). The real luxury was the Benefit 'Honey Snap Out of It' scub. For fear of having my working class street cred ruined, I will not tell you how much the scrub cost.

Anyway.

The opportunities for conspicuous consumption were shocking. But so were other smaller things. Like the fact that people speak English in Kowloon (we've gotten used to miming our way through any encounter with locals). And the fact that the bathrooms had Western toilets, were clean, had toilet paper, and soap and paper towels. These things are absolutely absent from daily life in Zhuhai (I don't mind the squatters any more, but I do find the lack of soap in public restrooms to be a bit troubling. Especially at restaurants.).

On the way home, we both enjoyed first class seats as we decided to cough up the dough for the upgrade. Totally worth it. Here is a photo of D holding some of our first-class loot (cookies and water):

Now we're home, happy as clams, and planning our next trip to Kowloon. There's so much more to see and do there!

Made in the USA

2007-10-04T05:30:00.000-07:00

Since I've arrived here, the trade imbalance between this country and my home country has really been on my mind. For those of you who want more information about buying goods made in the USA, check out this website: StillmadeinUSA.com.

Day trip -- Guangzhou

2007-10-02T06:34:00.000-07:00

D and I and 4 colleagues hired a van for the day to take us 2 hours north to China's 3rd largest city. Our mission: visit Shamian Island, make a pilgrimage to IKEA, and finish off the day with some indulgent purchases at Metro, a German-based cash and carry store (kind of like Sam's club, but with fancier stuff and smaller portions).

First we hit Shamian Island. Our poor driver had to struggle to find a parking spot (the entire country is on national holiday, so there are tons of tourists around), but we were glad that he did because on the island we found . . . a Starbucks.

See how happy D is? I must admit, it was quite nice to walk into a highly air-conditioned clean and sparkling slice of Americana. And the coffee tasted like Starbucks. And was in a paper cup. And was served by people who understood my order. All luxuries to be savored.

There's a big market on the island; it's called the QingPing (Bright Peace) Market. There wasn't anything especially peaceful about it. Lots of interesting sights. Dried goods of various kinds. Crazy looking tourists and locals haggling over everything. Live scorpions in plastic buckets being picked up with chopsticks and bought (for dinner? for entertainment? who knows). Ramshackle apartment buildings looming overhead. And rows upon rows of dogs and cats for sale.

Puppies:

Kitties and Puppies:

A poor lonely kitty (who was not happy to be standing on those little bars that made up its cage floor):

After the Island, we headed to IKEA.

It was everything that I had ever hoped it would be and more (I'd always wanted to visit an IKEA, but never lived near one). The place was packed, packed, packed. We muscled our way through the cafe and ordered some lunch (Swedish meatballs with potatoes; walnut torte; salad). This was my view from my window-side table:

We did manage to purchase the bookshelves that we've been needing -- got the cheapest ones IKEA had to offer: Flarke.

IKEA was a bit draining on all of us, but we sallied forth to Metro. What a fabulous place! It has a little bit of everything -- kitchen hardware, clothes, electronics, furniture, and food. We only spent about 40 minutes there, so I didn't get to look around as much as I'd like. But I still managed to procure some treats (including a bottle of Captain Morgan's Spiced Rum for only 10 USD and a bottle of Seagram's for about 9 USD). They even had Heinz Ketchup and Hellman's Mayo. I didn't even get to look at the deli case where they had imported olives and cheeses. Something to look forward to next time!

Obligatory Cat picture

2007-10-01T04:26:00.000-07:00

For those of you who are wondering how Jameson is doing, here's how she spends her days:

Here is a closer view of her cat happiness:

Gourmet Wu

2007-10-01T04:04:00.000-07:00

One of the hardest things about moving to China has been the changes to our diet. It's not that we don't like Chinese food, it's just that in a small town like Zhuhai, that's all there is, really. Not surprisingly, we get tired of Chinese food sometimes and just want something different. For something different, we've been relying on fast food -- McDonald's and OK 100. This gets old, too. (An aside: there is no Mexican food to be found in all of Guangdong province. This depresses me greatly.)

I was about to throw in the towel and drown myself in a bowl of instant noodles when something revived my joy for eating: Gourmet Wu.

Gourmet Wu is the business name of my colleague's husband, a trained chef. Two weeks ago, he started a home food delivery business whereby he cooks a meal (three times a week) and then delivers the meal, hot and ready to eat, to one's door. Cost for this luxury? Appx. 13 USD per week. That's right, each meal is only around 4 dollars and some change.

What's especially fabulous is that he cooks Western-ish food. The first meal was 1/2 chicken with orange glaze, mashed taro root, and steamed broccoli and carrots. The second meal was a steamed fish with ginger/soy dressing, a small salad, and steamed rice. The third meal (my favorite, I think) was roast duck on noodles, stir-fried veggies, and salad.

Tonight's meal -- which was just delivered -- is lemon chicken with sauteed sweet onions, mashed sweet potato with sesame seed garnish, and shredded carrot salad (the picture doesn't do the food justice).*

What just thrills me is that he packages the meals in these segmented plastic containers. I love how each food has its own compartment. So neat and tidy.

Jameson has learned that when Gourmet Wu comes to the door, she gets tasty things to eat. Needless to say, she has taken a liking to him.

*Just in case Carol is reading this: yes, that is a dissertation chapter underneath the food!

Ask for ID

2007-09-30T19:54:00.000-07:00

D wanted to buy a basket ball. So, we went on down to the local all-in-one department store to find one. After choosing the ball (an American brand) and convincing himself that the inflated import price was appropriate, D tried to check out.

This, of course, was not easy (nothing is easy here).

He wanted to use his credit card because we didn't have enough RMB on us to pay for the ball (who knew it would cost around 300 RMB?), so the salespeople hustled us to a special counter where he could use his credit card. Credit cards are not common here, so there's always a flurry of activity around someone who wants to use one. And since D's is an "international" (a.k.a. non-Chinese) credit card, the purchase requires a manager's approval.

All was going relatively smoothly until they turned over his card to look at his signature. D wrote "ASK FOR ID" on the back of his card, an attempt to get US clerks to ask for his ID so that they be sure that the person bearing the card is, indeed, D.* In preparation for showing ID, D had his passport open and ready.

Can anyone guess what happened next?

The clerk insisted that he sign the receipt "ASK FOR ID" so that it matched the back of the card. D's explanations in English about "determining my identity for security reasons blah, blah, blah" were not understood (shocking, eh?). She wouldn't let him sign his actual name.

The clerk was very thorough, though. She even compared D's "ASK FOR ID" on the receipt with the one on the back of the card. She wasn't too pleased with the match (they didn't match well at all), but she let him buy his basketball anyway.

*This business about writing "Ask for ID" on the back of a credit card rather than signing your signature to it sparks quite a debate among some people. Apparently, the folks who use the ID line on the back are afraid that if someone were to steal their credit cards, the thief could just forge the signatures. Those thieves, however, would have a harder time producing ID with a matching name and so on. Or so the thinking goes.

The US postal service will have none of this. If you don't sign the back of your credit card, you can't use it to make purchases at the post office. Why? Credit cards usually say "not valid until signed" on the back.

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival

2007-09-25T19:17:00.001-07:00

Today is a holiday in China -- Mid-Autumn Festival. It's not a national holiday here, which means that employers don't have to give their employees a holiday. Our college did give us today off, though. And even better -- they didn't make us come in to work last Saturday to "make up" for our day off (it's common practice in China to readjust workers' and students' schedules so that they have to come in on the weekends prior to and/or following a national holiday. It's a shitty practice, in my opinion. You don't really end up getting a holiday at all, just a readjusted work schedule).

But back to the Mid-Autumn festival. Supposedly, it began with an uprising:

The Mid-Autumn Festival is believed to commemorate a Chinese uprising against the Mongol rulers of the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368). Plotting to overthrow the Mongol government, Chinese conspirators exchanged secret messages about the day of the rebellion written on slips of paper and hidden inside mooncakes. The uprising, which brought down the Yuan Dynasty, took place on the 15th day of the eight month of the lunar calendar.

But now it represents something less tumultuous:

Long void of its rebellious meaning, the Mid-Autumn Festival has come to celebrate the end of the summer harvest season when the moon is closest to the Earth. Families would gather together to enjoy the beauty of the full harvest moon and snack on little cakes with a round shape that imitates its fullness.

The small pastries with a thick, sticky filling either of lotus seed or red bean paste are so rich in taste that tradition dictates they have to be cut into slivers and consumed with sips of tea.

I did, indeed, partake in some moon cakes (that's a moon cake in the photo above). In fact, two of my students supplied me with them when they found out that I didn't have any to snack on! I'm curious to see if stores around here have a post-festival reduction on moon cake prices because if they do, I'll be shipping some across the pond to some lucky readers out there :-)

The festival has not come without scandal, though. Food prices are on the rise in China, and people are getting pissed:

The beloved national tradition of nibbling sweet pastry mooncakes and admiring the fullness of the harvest moon in the Mid-Autumn, or Moon, Festival has been hit by China's runaway inflation, forcing vendors to opt for frugal variations of the rich treat.

The round pastries eaten and given away as gifts during the lunar festival, which this year falls on Wednesday, have fallen prey to inflationary pressures along with all other food products. Annual inflation in China hit an 11-year high of 6.5% in August, raising fears of rapid erosion of living standards and potential social unrest.

Producers of mooncakes have found themselves in a bind. As China's food prices have soared, the cost of raw materials to produce the cakes has increased by 15-30% too. But worried that surging prices could touch off unrest across the country, the government has issued stern edicts warning against price gouging and dictated that the prices of the traditional treat should be kept stable.

I haven't seen any social unrest myself, and I certainly haven't seen it on the news (the news, which is controlled by the powers that be, never airs that sort of thing). But I will certainly keep my peepers peeled!

NOTE: Quotes donated by Asia Times Online

Authentic Chinese Food . . . Or is it??

2007-09-21T20:18:00.000-07:00

Do instant Ramen noodles and Spam sound like "real" Chinese food to you? I know quite a few people who would argue with someone who said that "real" Chinese people (admittedly a tricky term) don't eat this sort of food. Rather, they eat some sort of "authentic" Chinese dishes that you can only find if you go to China. Or Chinatown.

I am here to tell you that these naysayers are wrong.

Sometimes we encounter food here that makes us laugh because it's (1) it's so familiar and (2) it totally goes against what a lot of people think that Chinese really eat.

Take for example this dish:

It is exactly what it looks like. Ramen noodles (the instant kind) and Spam. D ordered this at a restaurant near our campus. The deluxe version of this dish includes a fried egg on top.

Indeed, there are lots and lots and lots of things to eat in China that you can only find in China or Chinatown. BUT, this kind -- instant noodles with everyday topping -- isn't rare here. Below is a photo of me sampling a similar dish (I swear that the noodles were Maruchan brand, they tasted so familiar!) in the southern part of the city (mine has the fried egg):

To my left in the photo is the "green vegetable" (i.e., whatever green vegetable the kitchen has on hand) that is served with meals in China. In this part of the world, a meal just ain't a meal without some sort of green vegetable dish (never mind that most of the time they seem to serve stir-fried lettuce, which has fewer nutritional benefits than water).

What's most interesting to me about this type of noodle dish is that it's both familiar to me and to the locals here. So, this kind of food is both foreign to China and local to this area. That is, this kind of food is real Chinese food. Real Chinese people eat it. Real Chinese people cook it. So, the next time you're eating Ramen noodles and spam (or hot dogs or whatever), and someone tells you it isn't "authentic," you can tell them that you know better.

My Kingdom for Dunkin' Donuts Coffee with Cream and Sugar

2007-09-16T20:31:00.000-07:00

Before we made our great journey across the sea, we were warned by many sources that "real coffee is hard to find in China. All you can find is instant. And if you do find real coffee, it's terrible."

This isn't exactly true.

They were right that instant coffee is what you commonly find in that you can find instant everywhere -- at grocery stores, at restaurants, people's homes. So, if you're dying for coffee -- so much so that you'll drink something that's a close relative of real coffee, you won't be disappointed. Judging from what I've seen, most people who drink coffee in China drink instant coffee. And, they usually drink some variation of "Milk Coffee" -- instant coffee that has sugar and powdered milk already mixed into it. Instant's entre into the market was probably made easier by the fact that to make it, you "just add hot water," and since all of the water coolers around here have a hot water tap, you're good to go (and since you can't drink tap water here, water coolers are everywhere).

Packages of real coffee (what people here call "ground coffee") are hard to come by. The big international grocery store where we shop only sells one kind of ground coffee. ("International" means that they sell some non-Chinese things, like Land-o-Lakes cheddar cheese.) I've not seen ground coffee for sale anywhere else yet. You definitely can't just run down to the local market and buy this -- they'd only have instant.

You can, however, order real coffee at some restaurants. But this is what you get when you it:

Butter pat used to give you a sense of scale

This is about 4 oz. of coffee. Having been raised on the teat of "free refills" and venti Starbucks, this dinky thing (which I've started referring to as "European sized coffee") is simply not enough. But it has to be. Because coffee here is expensive. And that is what we weren't prepared for.

The coffee in the photo above costs around 2.5 USD (depending on the place where you order it). And that's the cheap coffee (not instant, but the cheapest real coffee on the menu). That means that a cup of coffee is at least as expensive as most meals on restaurant menus. When D and I order coffee with our meal, it doubles the bill's total, and more than doubles it if we order a second cup. It would be cheaper for us to drink beer with our meals (a can of beer is around 30-50 cents USD).

Also, making real coffee is labor intensive. There are no coffee pots at restaurants**; instead, each cup is made by hand using a vacuum method of preparation. This is what the contraption looks like before the water and coffee come into contact with each other:

This method produces a tasty cup of coffee. But most days I just miss crappy drive-through coffee in paper cups (especially, I am embarrassed to admit, Dunkin' Donuts coffee).

Needless to say, the majority of the people in our city (1) don't drink real coffee and (2) probably couldn't afford to even if they wanted to. Even the instant coffee is pretty pricey (and by pricey, I mean it costs about the same as instant coffee in the US, which means that it's expensive here).

So, now you know: Real coffee is hard to find and insanely expensive, but it tastes good if you can get it. Instant coffee is easy to find and also expensive. Of course, the situation may be different in big cities. Our town of 1 million people is small by China's standards.

Notes:
* Coffee shops here are not really coffee shops. They are over-priced restaurants that just happen to feature coffee as the beverage of choice. They think you're a bit weird when you just order coffee. They also serve all kinds of bizzarro coffee drinks. Here I am drinking something called "Noble Lady Coffee" ('cause, ya know, I'm am noble ;-) Note the extended pinky:

And check out the swanky interior of this coffee shop (called U.B.C. Coffee):

This place is huge, and in addition to serving coffee
and food, also serves a full bar

** Coffee pots/makers are hard to come by at stores, too. And expensive. And kind of crappy.

Pizza Hut

2007-09-16T04:36:00.001-07:00

Ever wonder what Pizza Hut is like in China? Well, wonder no more. D and I have done the investigative research for you.

First things first: Pizza Hut is not the red-neck hangout that it is in the U.S.A. Rather, it's a place where the nouveau riche bring their one child for an over-priced meal. And the decor reflects this. The interior is all stone and glass and shininess (kind of like the lobby of a fancy hotel). Also, there's a lot more staff around to do odd things -- like hold the door open for you when you enter and exit the building.

Second: the menu is both strange and familiar. While they do have pizzas (including their classic Pan Pizza), some of the pizzas are weird. Like the special that they were running on a stuffed crust shrimp pizza. Which sounds good. Until we realized that there were raisins and mayo on the Pizza. And don't count on ordering bread sticks here. Most of the appetizers are tailored to a different palate. Like these lamb cumin meatballs (inexplicably served with a side of salsa) that we ordered:

BUT, we did also find waffle fries on the menu (Spicy Western Waffle Potatoes) which were served with genuine Heinz Ketchup! See how happy I am! (And yes, what you see on the plate is the whole serving):

We were conservative and ordered the equivalent of a Supreme Pizza. The only weirdness was the addition of pineapple. Here, D happily serves me a piece:

Pizza Hut in China also has the same Nazi-like rules about the salad bar that Pizza Huts in the US have. That is, they allow only one trip. Native Chinese folks, however, have made an art out of sticking it to the man where this one trip business is concerned. They've developed a an impressive skill of putting as much food from the salad bar as possible into one bowl. It was fascinating to watch. First, a ballast layer of carrot sticks or something else sturdy goes down. Then, slowly, ever so slowly, other layers are built up into every sturdier walls of melon, cucumbers, or more carrots. Then, the middle is filled to the brim with other goodies. (The people here don't seem to distinguish between vegetables and other stuff where salad making is concerned. Crutons go on top of melon. Melon gets salad dressing. And so on.) And everyone does this. It takes them about year to make their bowls up. One fellow was especially skilled. He was quite proud, I think, that we wanted to photograph his handiwork:

Impressive, no? (His wife thought that it was hi-larious that we wanted to take a picture of this. All we could do was give a thumbs-up in support of his masterpiece, which he seems to understand perfectly).

The meal was insanely expensive (kind of like Pizza Hut in the U.S., no?) But since it was familiar, I didn't care. I don't usually enjoy Pizza Hut, but this was a treat. Interesting how context can change the value of something.

Cost for the Pizza Hut meal: 160 RMB
Average cost of our meals in China (at a sit-down place) 40-70 RMB (1/2 of which is usually the cost of coffee)

Alternative Title for this Blog, Part I

2007-09-12T06:24:00.001-07:00

Please Send Hand Sanitizer

Cheungzhou at night

2007-09-12T05:54:00.000-07:00

I've posted here about some of the less modern aspects of China. But not all of it looks like a ~~third world~~ developing country. Sometimes, if you squint your eyes (so that you can't really see the Chinese writing on buildings) and plug your ears a bit (so that you can't hear all the chatter and the drivers incessantly blowing their horns) and hold your breath (so that you can't quite smell all the weird smells), you might think that you are in some mid-sized U.S. city.

Case in point: Here are two views from a pedestrian bridge that crosses the main drag running north and south through Zhuhai. This photo was taken near the big "international" grocery store where we shop (i.e., they sell [land 'o lakes] cheese and real coffee) in a part of the city called Cheungzhou.*

Photo 1: Basic view:

Photo 2: Artistic blurry lights view:

In truth, these photos don't capture the size and bustle of the city. I mean, we are living among 1,000,000 + souls here. Of course, my Chinese students laugh and laugh at me when I refer to Zhuhai as "big" -- after all, there are a number of provinces in China that have larger populations than some countries in the world (our province alone has a population of 69.61 million**). One million people, the approximate population of our city, is a drop in the bucket -- a small town.

*I've been told that Cheungzhou means "fragrant city." It is fragrant, but not in a "wow, that smells like flowers/fresh baked cookies/insert nice smell here" way.

** Guangdong province is 71796 sq. miles. See more China population stats here.