Miscellany

Things have been quiet in this neck of the woods. I have been trying to enjoy me free time by getting back to some of the routine which I enjoyed so much last year, when free time was more abundant. Several weeks ago I finished work on a Saturday night and felt like eating some of the lamb kabobs that are a staple of small, slightly dingy, restaurants that dot the streets in many parts of Beijing. I headed down to a hutong near my office in pursuit of such fare. I found a little place that seemed to be hosting a coronation. In the small restaurant were 15 people packed around 20 different dishes. I, being the only white guy for several blocks, drew a bit of attention as I took my seat near their table. The stares are something that I have gotten used to and something that I will miss when I leave China. I took my seat and placed my order which included a glass of Bai Jiu, the famed Chinese liquor. I ate my food and drank my drink as the people at the adjacent tables delivered countless speeches all of of which were followed by toasts. Because I am white and because I was drinking bai jiu I was drawing stares from the oldest gentleman at the party table. He toasted me with some of his 'good' bai jiu. I put quotation marks around good because There is no such thing as good bai jiu. All of it can be used as accelerant and therefore tastes the same. It was obvious that he had been at it a little longer than I had that evening. He began swaying in his chair and I began to worry for him. The other members of the table had to physically restrain him from ordering another bottle. He wouldn't be happy until I was as drunk as he was. He shook off his handlers and got himself together long enough to deliver an impassioned speech. All I got from it was something about how he is the boss, he has worked a long time, he was buying the entire meal, and some diatribe about hot and cold. As he delivered this speech every reveler at the table sat in silence looking everywhere but at the orator. They were being shamed. He stopped at the end of his five minute speech and got what he had asked for. He poured me a glass and I glanced over the faces of the members of his party. They were trying to put the heat on me to make him stop. I had refused his offers for more many times. I had no choice in the matter. I decided to just act more drunk than I actually was since I understood that this was his ultimate goal. After two glasses I began to wobble and sway. He was happy to get me to concede. It was his victory. I paid my bill, said my goodbyes, and left the restaurant. As I walked from the restaurant I realized that I may not had been acting as well as I thought.

Work has been going pretty well. I have been doing a movie corner every Wednesday where I show about 60 students a movie in English and explain the plot, vocabulary, and phrases. Here is a sample of some of the movies I have shown recently:
Jerry Maguire
She's The Man (students' choice)
The Usual Suspects
Gattaca
A Fish Called Wanda
The Shawshank Redemption
Edward Scissorhands
28 Days Later
There's Something About Mary

Of all of these I'd say that Edward Scissorhands, The Shawshank Redemption, and She's The Man have been the most popular. They seem to enjoy movies that are sweet and positive. I tend to hate movies like those. I have been struggling to find movies that I would enjoy showing them. Edward Scissorhands and Shawshank are great movies, but She's The Man? They loved it! I am always looking for more movies so if you have any suggestions please send them my way.

Two weeks ago was my friend Cromwell's birthday. He is a popular dude and even had some friends from Hong Kong come up here to help him celebrate. He had a catered dinner at his apartment on Saturday and we went out for a ridiculous brunch at the Intercontinental Hotel. This whole brunch thing is a monthly event for me and my friends. These brunches are posh and there is no way I would be able to take part in such a decadent tradition were I living in the USA. I say this to clear the air and not mislead people into believing that I could have a comparable lifestyle in the US. The brunches usually feature a great assortment of delicious treats and champagne. Cromwell's friends were great and very funny people. After brunch we all headed for a foot massage followed by cocktails at a nearby bar and restaurant. It was a great weekend full of delicious food. That is the best kind of weekend.

I am a bit sick and I know why. Sports. Sports have made me ill. I don't really blame them. I mean they are so engaging and exciting that it is no wonder I have become dependent on them. I love them and I have no one to blame for my current condition but myself. Recently, I have been staying up late to watch the Euro 2008 soccer tournament. I had several favorites going into this tournament: Holland, Spain, and Portugal. All historically underachieving football nations. The first game of the evening starts at midnight with the second one starting at 2:45 a.m. This second match is difficult to watch all the way through, especially in the face of......

THE NBA FINALS!!!!

I had my sleep drastically reduced considering that all the NBA Finals games started at 9 am and the last Euro 2008 match ended at 4 am. For a week and a half I endured five hours of sleep every other day. But it has been worth it. The Finals were great. I am a Kobe hater and a KG lover. I love to see good guys win. It is fun to see the Celtics on top again after 22 years of futility. I remember watching that series 22 years ago at Joey Holland's house back in McAllen, Texas. I was happy to endure a few droopy eyelids to witness such great sporting events.

What didn't help my situation was terrible weather. The weather in Beijing has gone from very pleasant to stifling in the course of a week. Summer in Beijing is known for two things, both detrimental to the Olympics: pollution and rain. The pollution traps the heat and gives you an awesome first hand experience with the greenhouse effect. Stifling. The occasional rain seems strange in Beijing. Not far south enough to be part of the monsoon region of China and not far west or north enough to be in the desert, Beijing lies at a weather crossroads in China. The winter is extremely dry and the summer quite wet. Four of the last seven days have had rain lasting only about an hour or so. Last Monday was exceptional. I play in a soccer league that meets on Monday nights in Chaoyang park. Our games start late, around 9pm. Last week I was not sure we would have a game. Torrential rain was predicted during the day but never manifested itself. As we prepared for the match lightning raced across the night sky. In the first minute of the match a light drizzle came down that was actually quite a pleasant contrast to the hot, muggy, air. This persisted for about two minutes before the skies opened up. Sheets of rain poured down. It was that big fat rain. We continued to play thinking that such rain could not sustain itself for too long. There were a few good opportunities for goals. We continued to fight for possession and challenge balls in the air. The rain was suffocating. I actually felt as if I was drowning while running up the field spewing water to stay afloat. The setting was great were we two national teams battling for the European Championship but we were The Carpal Tunnel Chopsticks battling The Dulwich Chinese Lions. The referee blew his whistle and I immediately shouted (because that was the only way he would have heard me over the rain), "It's only a little rain!" There are about 7 five-a-side fields in the sports complex and simultaneously everyone had their games canceled and we all sought shelter in a small room in the center of the complex. In about seven minutes of rain I was entirely soaked along with my wallet and all the money in it. Bryne and I ran to catch a taxi ahead of the rush of people who would eventually settle in the same idea. Taxi's never stop in the rain so we had to wait a bit. I could feel a sniffle coming on. Now, one week later, I am speaking like James Earl Jones.

I just spent the last five minutes trying to find a good Darth Vader quote to end this post. An appropriate one does not exist but this one is cool:

"The Rebels are alerted to our presence. Admiral Ozzel came out of lightspeed too close to the system. He is as clumsy as he is stupid. General, prepare your troops for a surface attack"

Earthquake Relief, Police Raids, and Flaming Gas Filled Balls of Glass on My Feet

Viewing my last post now, I regret being so cavalier about the earthquake. At the time I had no idea of the devastation or the human toll the quake exacted in other regions of China. I must apologize for my attitude but I will not delete the post. The post represents how I felt at the time. This whole blog thing is about capturing a moment or two and relating my experiences to those with a passing interest. Since the last post I believe we have all seen the images of collapsed buildings and people being pulled form their rubble. The situation is horrific and especially heart wrenching considering the One Child policy and the damage done to most of the schools in that region. For about 10 days after the quake, Chinese media has been extraordinarily open in the coverage. The media here is more famous for the amount of good news it reports rather than the images of peril and destruction that have flooded the airways recently. This openness is strange but entirely necessary in order to contrast the handling of relief efforts in China to those in Myanmar. The news coverage was immediate and extensive with live feeds from some of the worst hit areas and interviews with top level personnel regarding strategy and government action. I guess the theory is that as long as the government is doing a good job the story will be reported. What has not been reported in the Chinese media is the efforts and donations coming in from abroad. A big deal has been made about the private donations which, in the first week, reached something around 200 million dollars according to some sources in China. There was a telethon about three days after the earthquake. It featured many celebrities and taste-makers pleading with the audience for money. In every taxi I took that day the driver was listening to the telethon. We set up a donation box in our office and collected money from the students and staff. No word yet on how much was collected. During the designated three days of mourning many events were canceled including my weekly soccer game. During the three day mourning period foreign entertainment channels were blacked out and a message explaining the mourning and earthquake took their place. CNN and other foreign news channels still ran but HBO, Cinemax, MTV, and National Geographic were all blocked.

Exactly one week to the minute after the earthquake, China observed a three minute period of silence to honor those lives lost in the disaster. When I first heard this news I doubted very much that China would come to a standstill for three minutes. I was in the silk market getting fitted for s new suit when they announced the period of mourning would be observed. Sure enough even in the bustling silk market, a symbol of the economic voracity and consumerism that China is now becoming known for, all commerce stopped as we all stood in silence alone with our thoughts for those who lost their lives and those whose lives will be forever changed by the tragedy. Moments of silence, both formal and informal, are unheard of in Beijing and China in general. This was the first such event in the history of the country. As such the Chinese have a little to learn about executing such events. As I stood in the silk market I could hear the wail of car horns and sirens coming from the street. People stopped their cars in the road, got out, and honked their horns for three solid minutes. It was a bit eerie and awe inspiring.
The Saturday after the earthquake Bryne's friends Andrew and Paula Smith came to town for a visit. Andrew is Bryne's friend from university and Paula is his wife. They are both very funny and good people. I entertained them on my days off by going with them to Tienanmen Square, Wangfujing shopping street and, how every foreign visitor is treated, taking them to fabulous meals around town. They were with me last Monday at the silk market when the moment of relative silence was observed. During their trip they stayed with Bryne and I in our apartment.

One morning as I was getting ready for work, the door bell rang. Thinking Bryne had ordered a housekeeper to clean I opened the door without a second thought. In stead of a set of housekeepers there were two heavyset cops at my door. I had heard reports that the police were cracking down on all things from drugs to immigration and visas. Some of my colleagues had reported that they were called upon by the police to produce the proper documentation. Hearing this several weeks ago I decided that my time would come eventually so I made sure I had all my documents handy should an occasion such as this would occur. I invited the police in and went to fetch my passport, visa, and proof of temporary residence. I knew my passport and visa were in the room where Andrew and Paula were sleeping so I gently knocked on the door and told them that the police were in the living room and I had to get to my passport. To me this was no big deal but to them it smacked of 'police state'. As I returned with my passport the policeman asked me if there were other people in the house. He knew full well that there were other people and asked me to produce them and their documentation. They were not too comfortable with the whole situation, especially considering the policeman's lack of English skill. I remained calm until I was told that my documentation had 'extinguished'. "Extinguished?!?!", I said. "Extinguished", he said.

As it turns out I gave him the wrong form of temporary residence and it was indeed expired. Not a real difference now that I think about it. Either way I had become an illegal. When the cops told us that they were calling in another officer who was more adept in speaking English I felt a little more relaxed. When the third police officer arrived he was clad in black, which immediately put me on edge. His English was good but a little chilling when he pointed to me and said, "You...have no problem", then turned to Andrew and Paula and said, "You...have big problem."
We were all pretty excited to hear that visitors who come to China and do not stay in a hotel must register with the local police department. Although Andrew and Paula were scheduled to leave in less than 24 hours, the police officer recommended that we all go to the police department that morning to register. I was less than thrilled as I was scheduled to be at work in less than an hour and a trip to the police station is never a good thing no matter which country you are in. We headed down there with our passports and visas in tow, as those were the only documents we would need according to the policeman in black. We got a taxi to the police station and went down the winding alley ways to its front steps. Inside was a crew of crack policemen and women, half of whom were sleeping, the other half filling out dozens of forms in triplicate just to go to the bathroom. Sorry if I seem bitter but hell, how many damn forms and stamps do you need to live in a place and contribute to its economy? Soon it was our turn for scrutiny and we were swiftly rejected for not having the right paperwork. I was furious with my building manager because I was told that all my residence papers were in order eight months ago. Andrew and Paula decided to forget about it as they were leaving the country the next morning anyway. I was not as lucky. That day I just headed for work and decided I would deal with it on my day off.

On Saturday I was at the helm of a mock wedding that we put on at my school. I wrote 20 speaking parts for students to perform during our two hour wedding event. It was a lot like a Tommy and Tina's Wedding thing, although I have never been to one of those. The over all story had no plot. It was basically a two hour role play exercise where the 20 performers were supposed to mingle with the other students and tell them about their problems with the in-laws, unrequited love for the bride or groom, and various other forms of family dysfunction. The students loved it and by all accounts it was a big success. We had 120 students attend. The bride and groom had their first dance to Total Eclipse Of The Heart by Bonnie Tyler. It was hilarious and the students did a great job. That evening I went out with a young lady and we went to dinner and ended up at a foot massage place. She told me that this place was quite famous throughout China. It turned into one of the mos excruciating ordeals of my life. They kneaded my feet and calves like they were making pretzels. The real surprise came when they (the girl I had to get through a full week before that could happen. A full week of teaching 30 classes can be tiring. On top of that I was planning a mock western wedding for our students. I wrote 20 and two masseuses) were discussing things in Chinese. I was struggling to understand and then I heard words that I had been trained to avoid, 'Ba Guan'. Ba Guan ,or cupping, is by far the most alarming and unsettling form of Chinese medicine. It involves glass bulbs that contain a piece of thin gauze that is soaked in alcohol. The alcohol soaked gauze is then set alight and the bulb quickly pressed against your skin to create suction. The whole process is pretty grand. The girl I was with was afraid of it and refused. I pressed on. It was a strange sensation. They put one bulb on the bottoms of each of my feet. They only left the cups on for about 10 minutes. When they are left on for a long time they leave fantastic bruises and even leech a little blood out. It was fun.

Yesterday I worked a bit of overtime and got one day off today. Of course this is the day I had to take care of all the business with the police. This time I was prepared. I am now a legal resident of China and I can be unafraid. It is like I have a new lease on life. I no longer fear the doorbell or the chubby police or even the black clad ones.

Is this normal?

I was just sitting here doing some work on the computer when I felt like I had been struck with a fit of vertigo. I closed my eyes to try to regain my balance. It wasn't coming back to me. I heard creaking and felt that the whole building was swaying. My curtains were swaying and I immediately began looking for my keys. It was a little difficult to walk to my room. I found them and headed for the door. As I made my way there I saw my clothes on the clothesline. They were swaying as if a breeze were coming through the closed window. A sense of danger and urgency filled me as I hurried out of the apartment. I instinctively hit the elevator button but then realized that was probably a terrible idea. I headed for the stairs and flew down them. As I exited the building there were others behind me. I got far away from my complex of buildings and made my way up the street where there was a crush of people in the street all staring at the top of their buildings. We have had stormy weather recently in Beijing and it was quite windy outside. I assumed that the swaying was due to the high winds. I strolled around the streets contemplating my future in an apartment that can't withstand high winds. I questioned Chinese construction codes and procedures. After walking around, getting a bite to eat, and a careful study of the exterior of my building I returned to my apartment. I left the TV on and CNN was reporting a 7.8 magnitude earthquake near Chengdu. I had never been in an earthquake before so now I guess I can check that one off of the list.

Family Visits and Basketball Ringers

China has had a profound effect on me although not in any way I can explain...yet. I know that when I go back to the US I will then realize what I have gained and how I have grown. I am hoping I have gained and grown from this experience and can't wait to find out how. Time spent in China alternately moves at light speed and a snails pace. New buildings go up, friends back home have babies, the old man in the hutong next to my apartment sits and watches things go by. Currently I am stuck on a loop of work and home. My life seemingly stays the same and I can notice all of the changes happening around me, or I thought I could. Nothing shakes an expat out of their routine and removes the blinders like having visitors. Visitors see things the way I saw them when I first arrived. That sense of wonder, confusion, and fear is a powerful tonic and I miss it.

In March my sister (Courtney) and father (Lee) arrived. This was a trip several months in the making and I was extremely excited that they actually made it out here. Courtney had been to Asia before, on a trip in 1998 that included Thailand, Hong Kong and Singapore. My father had never been in Asia. It is not as if previous Asia experience can prepare one for modern Beijing, but it does make you aware of the toilet situation. They arrived on a Sunday and stayed for about nine days. I secured four days off which was phenomenal.

I had done my research before their arrival and found that the new Terminal 3 was receiving flights from Korea. As Courtney and Dad were arriving from Korea I thought it best to meet them at Terminal 3. T3 is as awesome as the movie with the same name (I am not being sarcastic here, I loved T3 the movie). It is said to be the largest building in the world but I don't know who is counting or how they count. The building is quite nice and, as they only send two flights out and receive two flights a day, still quite shiny and new looking. After I realized neither flight arriving that day was theirs, I hurried over to Terminal 2 to collect them.

It was so great to see them strolling out of customs with their heads on a swivel looking for me as I was looking for them. Once collected we caught a taxi and headed for my apartment. After we arrived they settled in and we caught up with each other for a bit. They were both pretty tired but pressed on in order to reset their internal clocks. This was an impressive feat because my father is famous for his inability to sleep on planes. Courtney and I headed to the supermarket to pick up a few things and my dad stayed back and rested. The supermarket was an interesting experience for Courtney. She was able to see some of that famous yet increasingly elusive 'real China'. There is a lot of construction on me street so she was treated to an exhibition of strength by the 70 year old men working at the site when they made their own concrete with sand and water. She also bore witness to the diaper-less babies that excrete judiciously. We wondered whether a diaper-less baby would become potty trained more quickly due to its diaper-less circumstance. Yep, this is me and my sister, two reasonably intelligent people having this discussion. We returned back to the apartment, groceries in tow, and soon afterwards both of my visitors were asleep for the evening.

I must mention that their trip coincided with the 'unrest' in Tibet. I am limited in the comments I can make on these events because I am not up for the scrutiny but..... These events, as I'm sure you all heard, were...'under reported' here on the mainland. CNN was especially frustrating in that regard. Every time pictures of the police and military doing what they do came on the screen the whole thing went black. These events and the Chinese response to them definitely impacted Courtney and Lee's trip. Because the unrest coincided with the annual meeting of the National Peoples Congress which is an annual event where representatives from districts within all provinces meet to vote yes on things, my father and sister were treated to the full show of China's power and control. Security had been ramped up all over town, the news redacted, and on top of all of this a sand storm rolled into town. They were treated to the full show. Their second day in town we headed down to Wangfujing (where I work), Tienanmen Square, and the hutongs near Houhai Lake. We were able to get up close and personal with the new Grand National Theater before heading to Tienanmen which was a madhouse. The entire square was shut down due to the congressional meetings there and because of the Tibet situation, security was at an all time high. This is one of the first images of China that my father and sister had. We walked around in the opening area of the Forbidden City but decided to not go inside as I had arranged for one of my students to take them on a tour while I had to work. From there we went to Houhai Lake and walked around the hutongs for a bit. It was a long day so we returned to my apartment and ate at a Chinese restaurant located nearby. The restaurant specialized in Sichuan food which is notoriously spice. I thought my dad would see it as a challenge. He enjoyed the food and didn't sweat too much. From there it was back to the apartment for some DVD's and a good night's sleep.

The next day we went to the Silk Market where, as anyone who comes to China knows, things can be crazy. I lectured my guests on the finer points of Silk Market etiquette such as "don't show any interest", and "never ask the price if you don't want to buy it." These tips and the etiquette you must follow make a trip to the Silk Market more of a competitive event than a shopping experience. I must say that they did a good job and we got some good deals. The trip went well, due mostly to my impeccable instructions and maneuvers in the market. Things fell apart at the end. We were heading for the exit when one of the stall workers said she remembered me from before. Knowing this tactic and knowing that I had never seen this woman before I said, "This is my first time here." Within nanoseconds of these words exiting my mouth a chorus of stall workers shouted in unison, "First TIME? and we were pounced upon, divided, and assaulted. One lady distracted Dad with some leather jackets or mock turtlenecks or something. Another lady manhandled Courtney and physically dragged her into the stall. A human shield of stall workers prevented me from reaching Courtney momentarily, I then made it over and was able to pry open the death grip that the stall worker had on Courtney's arm. Dad, still jet lagged, was confused and befuddled by the pace with which this very tactical operation took place. I broke Courtney free, we grabbed Dad and we made it out still having some money to our name. I love the Silk Market.

That evening we had a delicious roast duck dinner and made an early night of it. On Wednesday we woke up a bit early and headed to the fruit and vegetable market near my house. The market is divided into meat and vegetable sections for obvious sanitary reasons although precautions taken in the name of sanitation ended there. The meat section was best described by Upton Sinclair in The Jungle. There was blood all over the floors, pig heads just staring people down, organ meat of all kinds, and bullfrogs. I never buy meat from this market but it is a good place to go to see how real Chinese people buy meat. The veggie part is loaded with an incredible assortment of mysterious fruits and vegetables. We had fun walking around there for a while before making out way out east, to Tongzhou, to visit my old stomping grounds from last year and have lunch with Cindy. We headed out by subway and Cindy picked us up from the station. Her erratic and distracted driving was on full display. We had a delightful lunch and then went to LuHe High School so I could show them the grounds. While at LuHe we ran into some of my old students. It was great to see all of them as it was the first time I had seen any of them since the last day of school last year. The kids that seemed to hate me the most were surprised and actually excited to see me. I was happy to see all of them, especially Hot Sauce and Liberty.


The next day I had to return to work so I set Courtney and Dad up with a tour with one of my students. They went to the Forbidden City for the day and endured a Chinglish tour by my student, Apple. The next day they went to The Great Wall with Wendy whose English is considerably better than Apple's. I had to work and in the evening my school had a basketball game against a school from the university district in Beijing. I did not play as to give more students an opportunity to play. Before they game I riled them up with a few famous sports quotes but the one that stuck, and really displayed the character of the team, was, "No autopsy, no foul." This seems appropriate for a team that is coached by yours truly. The game was an epic battle of David verses Goliath. Our team, a bunch of scrappy young professionals fresh out of college with real high powered jobs, against their team, a bunch of students from the sports university. Collegiate athletics are very different here. There are entire universities devoted to sports with no other type of education. These were the students we were up against. Their shortest player was taller than our tallest. It was like all of those 80's movies with all the Russian automatons facing off against the emotional, passionate American team. This time both side was made of communist automatons but theirs were bigger and stronger. (Only kidding) Our players were quite passionate and emotional through out. I couldn't tell if it was due to my pre-game pep talk where I told them I would be fired if we lost, or if it was all the things I told them the other team said about their mothers, but this team was playing great. It was a physical match. I was at times John Thompson, Jerry Tarkanian, and Bob Knight (to the uninitiated, this means I had a towel on my shoulder that I sometimes bit and I also did a lot of yelling). When one of our players took an elbow to the lip I got to play trainer as well. I walked over too him while blood dripped from his chin and asked him, "Are you ok?"
"Sure", he replied but it sounded more like a question.
"He needs to go to the hospital", said one concerned fan.
I asked him, "Do you want to go to the hospital or do you want to play?"
Without hesitation he replied, "Play"
We took a few minutes to stop the bleeding then I subbed him back in. It was a close game but in the end the opposition was too good. After the game my injured student went to the hospital where he received five stitches. After the basketball match I met Bryne, Courtney, Lee, Cromwell and Steve for dinner at a Xinjiani restaurant where we enjoyed a stage performance while we ate. The next day my dad left Beijing so Courtney and I accompanied him to the airport. Of course, this was the best weather over the week he was here. After seeing him off Courtney and I headed to a park and then did some more shopping. The next day I returned to work but not before Courtney took me to get my haircut. My hair was the source of much controversy and she aimed to get my mane shorn, a scary prospect for any Samson. We went to a salon near my office. It was a good haircut. After the haircut, I headed to work and she went on shopping. At worked I looked at the schedule for the day to see what classes I would be teaching and noticed that I was not teaching. A mistake on my part. I left the office in a hurry to track Courtney down so we could take advantage of this new found time by going to see some more sites. Serendipitously, I ran into her as she was about to board the subway. We went back home, I changed, and we headed out to the Temple of Heaven. Again, it was a beautiful day and the pictures we took there were great.

The next day Courtney boarded a plane and went back home. It was great to see the both of them. When I was a child I could have never imagined having a rendezvous in Beijing with my father and sister. It was a great little vacation for me and I think they had a good time as well. The next week it was back to work for me. I told my boss about my basketball failure and hoped my claim to my students wouldn't turn into a self fulfilling prophecy. It wasn't and I keep on working and awaiting more visitors.

Sports Fest!!

These past few weeks have been quite busy at work. I have taken an increased role in planning activities out of the center and, as a result, seen my free time diminish slightly. It is no skin off my back because I love doing this sort of thing. There are a few headaches and worries involved but they are vastly outweighed by the fun of it all. In the last three weeks I have taken students skiing, bowling, and continued China's education on the fundamentals of winning basketball.

Skiing was by far the most difficult to organize. We were originally scheduled to go skiing on the 24th of February but by the time the 15th rolled around it was already 55 degrees in Beijing and we hadn't seen snow since December. I was assured by leading members of Beijing's snowboarding community that none of this would be a problem. After much deliberation between the three teachers who were organizing things, we decided to go ahead and keep the date of the 24th. I woke up at about 6:00 a.m. on that Sunday and was instantly regretting my decision to commit to skiing on my day off. I met some students at the predetermined location (McDonald's) and we waited for the other teachers and students to arrive. Once everyone was accounted for we boarded a chartered bus for the two hour drive to the mountain. Although Beijing lies on a vast plane, it is surrounded by mountains. We headed to one of the more minor ski parks northeast of the city. The bus ride was fun because I was able to hang out with the students and even taught them Texas Hold 'Em. They were a little put off by the gambling aspect (95% of the game) but they enjoyed learning a little about a popular western card game. As we drove further and further away from the city my doubts regarding the suitability of the weather were increasing. It was brown winter death as far as the eye could see and while the topography became more undulating, the snow was nowhere in sight.

As we rounded a bend the ski resort showed itself. One white mountain amongst a forest of brown. When we arrived at the slope it was a bit of a free for all. Students charging this way and that collecting their ski equipment and changing into their ski gear. This was a vastly different experience from my only other attempt at skiing. I went to Breckenridge with some friends about five years ago. This place was much smaller although it was more organized. Lines and lanes reduced the propensity for chaos that can happen in this land where the idea of standing in line patiently has only recently started to take hold. Once everything, and everyone, was in its right place we made for the mountain. We had a ski and snowboarding teacher go with us and he offered to take the beginners, who among our group were many, to the beginner hill to get the basics down. Skiing is a fledgling sport in China. It is definitely a sport for the rich so many of the students were just excited to have the experience. Two of the thirty students could be classified as advanced skiers having skied in several countries on three continents. As we made our way out of the lodge and towards the lifts the improbability of the situation became apparent. They had snow blowers that had laid snow up and down the mountain the previous night, that is how we were able to ski with temperatures in the mid fifties and no snow since before the new year. Another 'Only in China' moment. The mountain was not very big but did have many very short runs, 13 to be exact, ten of which were classified as beginner, two as intermediate and one Colorado 'blue' run classified as advanced. I took one run on the beginner slope just to refresh myself with the physics of skiing. After 10 minutes on the rope lift I took a deep breath and headed down the hill. 45 seconds later I was at the bottom bemoaning the economy of the rope lift. I instantly headed to the intermediate run which was just a longer version of the beginner slope. I was doing well (no falls) but I was feeling a little disappointed. Half the fun of being on the mountain was people watching:

People skiing in jeans, presumably because it cost 30 RMB ($4.15) to rent snow pants.

Men skiing with one pole so they could still smoke while enjoying the crisp mountain air.

70% of people fell as they got off the lift. Pileups were a little dangerous and a lot funny.

Terrible collisions that sounded like being at a football game.

After a couple of runs on the intermediate slope I headed to the advanced run, the only one with a chair lift. I went up there with one student who is something of an accomplished world traveler, Her husband is a well respected, and well published, economist and she has been skiing at Lake Tahoe, Park City, Switzerland, and Japan. She was real heavy on the advice for me but I can't say I didn't need it. The advanced slope provided the challenge I was looking for especially as the day wore on and the fake snow turned to a sheet of ice. I was having a great time when I came down the mountain to find that one of our students had gotten hurt. I immediately asked, "Who is it?"
a student I did not recognize replied, "It was Yo-Yo."
"Who is Yo-Yo?"
"Yo-Yo is not your student."
"Ok", and with that I headed back up the mountain. It seems callous as I tell it but the truth is it was not my responsibility. We had two schools on the trip and this student was not from my school. Her teacher was taking care of her so I headed back up for one last run before we were to board the bus and head back. I went up and karma met me halfway down the mountain when the snow jumped up and grabbed my ski. I spun around landing back first on the icy surface. I was alright, better than the girl who got hurt. Days later we found out that she broke her leg. Yikes. China is not a very litigious society so no wavers or precautions to limit liability were taken. She did not sue and the thought never entered her mind would be my bet.
Later that week I took some students bowling at the lanes near my work. I was not originally supposed to do it but the teacher that was organizing the outing divulged her contempt for it and I leaped on the opportunity to spend my work day bowling as opposed to being in the classroom. Bowling is a sport that seems to have been popular at one time in China but I think its time here has come and gone. That being said one of the largest bowling allies I have ever heard of is here in China, the Gongti 100. 100 bowling lanes that are quite popular with the kids. I have ever been there but I have been by it and seen the throngs. I have been bowling one other time in China and it was last year. The equipment was Brunswick's top of the line...in 1986. This experience was no different. The place where we bowled had a lot of technical glitches one being that we could not control the scoring screen and therefore couldn't enter any funny names, a fundamental aspect of any bowling experience. In all about ten students joined the bowling trip. I gave them a handout the other teacher had prepared and we just bowled for about two hours. None of the students were particularly good, neither was I for that matter. We had fun and I snapped a few pictures of the action.

I have been continuing my basketball lecture series as well. Three weeks ago we tackled the topic of College Basketball. This was a fascinating topic for the students, one they liked even more than I expected. College sports are so unique to North America. Nowhere else are collegiate athletics followed so closely by the sporting public. I taught them about the most prolific basketball programs in the US and their most famous alumni. I also gave them the stat lines of who I believe are the three greatest college basketball players of all time, Bill Walton, Oscar Robertson, and Christian Laettner. The thing that really got them going was the part about the NCAA Tournament. I did a power point presentation and the last slide was a bracket from 2006. As soon as I switched to the slide the entire class cooed. I think there is something inside each and every human that draws us to the organization and aesthetic value of the bracket. I taught them about 10 seeds that beat 7 seeds and Cinderella teams. They were all over it.

This last Saturday I took the basketball education a step further. Defense is something that is almost entirely absent in every form of Chinese basketball I have seen. I decided to teach the virtues of man-to-man defense as well as the art of zone defense. the second half of the lecture was spent on Tex Winter's Triangle Offense. They were intrigued to learn more about the system under which Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant won multiple championships. Late we hit the court to apply some of what we had learned but the translation from the classroom to the court still needs some work.

In two weeks my dad and my sister will be here in Beijing and I have already started to map out the attractions that they need to see and even some off the beaten path that I think they will enjoy. One attraction of the former variety is the vegetable and meat market near my house. There are some very different fruits and veggies there and the energy of the market is a lot of fun. The meat market even has a few meats that will remain nameless in order to keep some of the secrets of this strange and wonderful market ahead of their arrival.Here is a picture of my apartment complex that I took from the road this afternoon. I went for a walk and found a Korean restaurant that I think I will try this evening. Take care all.

China's weather problems

This is hardly the lengthy post I am used to writing but I had a thought I'd like to share. Any feedback or insight would be appreciated.

With all this snow that China has received, I wonder what the effect will be on China's other problems. The central and souther regions of China, the very places that received the devastating snowfall, are prone to yearly floods. Come spring and summer I am expecting reports of extreme flooding. Even though much of China has been under drought conditions for years without fail the rivers flood and dozens of people die every year. The snow is not going to help that problem.

On the other hand, China is approaching a water crisis. Aquifers and reservoirs strain to satisfy water demands for 1.3 billion people. We all know that China is a major world producer of everyday goods and this production requires water. As economic development in China increases, consumer demands worldwide put added stress on China's water supply.

One way that China is attempting to deal with this is by easing the imbalance of water availability in China. The south is wet and the north is dry. The government here is planning yet another epic civil engineering project, an underground river, that will transport untold millions of gallons from the flood ravaged south to the moisture starved north. Again, this is the type of government project that could only happen in China.

Blake's Final Thought: Water is so old. The water in your glass right now is the same water that the dinosaurs drank. Delicious.

The Year of The Rat

Hello everyone and happy new year, again. That is right, its Chinese New Year, also known as Lunar New Year. As I sit here writing to you fireworks are exploding in the distance as well as quite close to my window. Last year I spent my month long holiday touring around parts of southern and central China and, as a result, spent Chinese New Year in Sanya, a tropical island in the South China sea. This year I only had six days off to celebrate and wanted to go to Guilin, the home of the karst topography that has been reproduced in innumerable pain tings. Well, it was not to be.

I am not sure if any of China's weather woes have been broadcast in the western media, but China has been wracked by its most severe winter storms since the late 1950's. The entire south and central part of China became a frozen mess late in January. This storm coincided with the beginning of the largest migration of people in human history. Chinese New Year is like Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Year, and everyone's birthday rolled into one. It is a traditional holiday with roots in agrarian myths and legends about a beast that would come at the end of the lunar cycle to cause havoc in a village. The villagers found that they could scare the beast away with firecrackers and the color red. The holiday has since morphed into an extremely important family gathering. Traditionally, family members return to their hometown to spend a week eating and spending some good quality time with the family. This applies to everyone. Rich or poor, old or young, all are expected to return home. For many, including migrant workers, it is the one time out of the entire year that they get to see their families. The migrant workers have the extra burden of.......well.....being migrant workers. They spend their entire year working and saving money to take back to their families and during Spring Festival they return home to bestow their meager income on their family. This year, the storms laid down inches of ice and topped it with feet of snow grinding the train system to a halt. During Spring Festival it is estimated that 230,000,000 people travel 'home for the holidays'. That is like the population of Germany, Italy, France, and England jumping on trains and switching houses all in one week. It is an amazing feat of organization when it runs smoothly but this year the weather had other plans. There were terrible stories of people waiting for trains for days and once they got on the train their 8 hour trip would turn into a harrowing 30 hour adventure. I was sitting at home the day before I was supposed to go on vacation watching all of this unfold on TV and I had a sudden realization, 'I am heading right into the heart of this tomorrow morning.'. I decided that I had to cancel my trip. I was hesitant to do so because this is my only time off for the foreseeable future. I mean, I like traveling more than most but the prospect of heading into the teeth of the chaos was too much even for me. So I guess I was fated to be here in Beijing for Spring Festival. Without initially realizing it staying in Beijing afforded me opportunities for more new and unique experiences.

Shortly after I refunded my ticket I received an email confirming my bids in the second round of Olympic ticket ordering. I got tickets for boxing and handball. I know what you are thinking, 'Handball? What?'. Here is my explanation: Handball is awesome. It is a fusion of soccer, lacrosse, and basketball. For me it is a must see event every four years. Along with track and field, basketball, swimming, and boxing, it is one of the events that defines the Olympics......for me. I have two tickets each to boxing and handball bringing my total for the games up to 8 tickets to 4 events.

Many of my friends left town/the country for Spring Festival. My two closest friends that remained in town were Bryne and Meskes. Meskes is my Dutch friend. He is kind of like Immanuel Kant for the Pepsi generation. We always have a good time. More about Meskes in a minute.

I was sitting around the apartment looking at my email when Bryne said, 'Hey, the Super Bowl is tomorrow. We should watch it somewhere.' My initial thought was, 'I don't care about the Super Bowl.' In fact I have lost touch with football over the last year and a half and had no real interest in seeing the Pats coronation party. My next thought was, 'Why is this Englishman concerned about American football?' I decided that I should agree in order to spread the interest in the national passion across the pond. Call me the Don Shula of diplomacy. I did some investigating and found that the biggest sports bar in town was having a huge bash starting at 5am. I set my alarm and woke early the next morning to begin a long day of eating and drinking. To my mild surprise the place was packed. It was a Monday morning here, the last working day before Spring Festival. Some people said that they had to go to work after the game. The game was of course phenomenal and the crowd was split down the middle so every play in the second half was met with both a chorus of cheers and boos. It was great fun. the party was sponsored by the NFL and they had some football throwing competitions and other games. Bryne and I ended up taking home a couple of footballs, really useless orbs in China. Watching the game with Bryne and I were his boss and his boss' family. They are form Canada. They were very nice people and the man actually has a passion for basketball. He was making plans with me to watch the NCAA tournament in March. He was a really nice guy and said that he coached against Steve Nash when Nash was in high school. I tend to think that every Canadian who likes basketball has some sort of Steve Nash story but who knows, the basketball loving community in Canada is probably small and closely knit.

Later that evening I went to dinner in a bar and restaurant district in Beijing. After dinner I decided to peruse the local DVD shops for some new movies (There Will Be Blood gets 6 out of 5 stars from me. Charlie Wilson's War gets 4 1/2). After a bit of shopping I was heading home. As I was calling for a taxi a really sad looking guy came up and asked me where something was. I told him and hesitated as I detected a familiar accent. I asked him if he was Israeli and he said he was. He is living and working in Suzhou and was in Beijing visiting his girlfriend. Earlier that evening she had broken up with him and he was quite broken up about it. He was saying how he just wanted to go drink alone and forget about this girl. I didn't think that was a good idea as he already looked to be a little worse for the wear. We chatted a bit more and he gets into a long story about how he has lived in the US for the last 10 years. His father and he moved there after his brother and mother were killed in a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv. He ended up studying English as Columbia University and was now, doing what so many of us foreigners do over here, teaching English. I made a snap decision that this guy should probably come to my apartment to chill out for a bit before going to get a hostel. I mean, the guy divulged all of that info within five minutes of meeting him. I know Israelis are very direct and sometimes emotional but he was down there. Once he found out I was Jewish he smiled and I could see that talking to me was bringing him out of his haze. At my apartment he was telling me about how he thinks that all these bad things have happened to him because he is Jewish. I told him that he should never blame his religion for the bad things in his life. It is a feature of life that terrible things happen. This is the truth. It is equally true that amazing, wonderful things happen. I said that the tragedy that happened to his brother was not a result of him being Jewish but other people's perception and prejudice. His brother was not killed for being a Jew but killed because of someone else's opinions. I was of course speaking way out of my depth and sort of braced for impact after saying this. He decided that he could see my perspective and although he has his own thoughts about the situation he was happy to see it differently. After about 15 minutes of this sort of intense, peaceful, thought provoking conversation he decided he had to go and I was glad he decided because I was starting to question how I would ultimately get him out. As he left he was smiling and thanked me for my hospitality. I am sure I will never meet him again but our short conversation will not be forgotten by me. When he left he was smiling and even joking a bit. I was just happy to give him a port in his storm.

The next day preparations for Spring Festival began in earnest around Beijing. People in the streets finishing their last minute shopping at the markets. At 8 am I was awoken by the sound of fireworks. Now the fireworks are an interesting thing. Not at any other time of the year can you get fireworks in China. It is literally just like the 4th of July in the US. After sulking about the lack of availability of fireworks I was rewarded by a short trip around the block. I bought about 150 RMB ($20)worth of fireworks initially then decided that was not enough. For this I mostly blame my parents. If I were allowed to use fireworks in moderation on the 4th of July I probably wouldn't have this strong desire to buy the biggest baddest fireworks available now. Honestly, at that fireworks tent I channeled 10 year old me but this time with money to burn. I ended up getting 300 RMB worth and headed home to wait for the impending darkness. Later that day I received a call from Meskes inviting me to a 'party' being thrown by one of his colleagues. I accepted the invitation and later met him at this girl's house. The 'party' was little more than the girl, her flatmate, Meskes, and I making jiaozi. Jiaozi are dumplings and they are the traditional food of Spring Festival. While we were preparing the jiaozi the Siege of Beijing began. From 3pm two days ago until now, nothing but solid fireworks. Their apartment is situated at a big intersection in the eastern part of Beijing and it was a great viewing area for the festivities. We cooked and ate our pork, cabbage, onion, and ginger jiaozi and then joined the mayhem outside. They all made fun of me for bringing a giant bag of fireworks but they delighted in the display. It was a lot of fun. Later I went home to shower before meeting them out at the bars. When I got home Bryne had more fireworks so we went to shoot those off before going out. We met up with Meskes and the two girls and had a few drinks before the fireworks reached their peak at midnight. 5 minutes before I went outside and the streets were filled with smoke and the smell of gunpowder and burned cardboard. We made our way to a big street and there was a huge construction site where they were excavating an entire city block to build the foundation for what will undoubtedly be a massive construction project. We crossed into the construction site in order to put a metal barrier between us and the chaos on the streets. From there we had a 360 degree view of all the fireworks in Beijing for miles. It was truly a moment I will remember forever. After that we went to a club for a bit before heading home.

Now, as the celebration winds down and the last vestiges of the once mighty fireworks arsenal in Beijing are used up, I am preparing to head back to work. Bryne is on vacation in Korea visiting his girlfriend, other friends are out of town, and Meskes is going on a business trip. It is my birthday tomorrow and I think I will actually be happy to spend it in quiet reflection. The Year Of The Rat is supposed to be a year of new beginnings and accomplishments. I like the sound of that. We'll have to see how it plays out. Until then.....


Dsai Jien

From Hannukah to Vietnam and back to The Jing

Hello all. It's me, Blake. I know I have been away from the blog for a while so I hope you all remember who I am and what this blog is about. If you can't remember it is about me. Me me me. Well, not just about me but about things I think, do, and say. This is why I have been hesitant to return to the blog. I am not that cool. I have been quite boring in recent months. The details of my boring life do not make for good reading or writing.

This has all changed in the last couple of weeks. Things have happened. Initially I wanted to write this blog twice a month but sticking to that would mean you having to read about my breakfast plans and the new video games and dvd's I've seen recently. You don't want that and I don't want that. It is better to wait, that way I can amass a few anecdotes and have enough time for things to happen to me and around me. The wait was worth it and I hope you'll agree.

This last month has been about uncertainty. Towards the end of 2007 I was uncertain whether I wanted to keep being the good soldier in regards to my job. I was trying to organize a short vacation to South East Asia but that was.....rife with uncertainty. I couldn't decide what to do about learning Chinese (take classes or get a tutor).

Lets begin at the beginning.

December was an unusually warm month in Beijing. The weather couldn't decide what it wanted to do so the temperature remained around 50 degrees for most of the month. This unfamiliar circumstance confused many of the local people and the topic of global warming was discussed openly and often. This is a rare topic of conversation in my experience. Many of the Chinese people I talk to every day were concerned about the environment. Usually this conversation ends up going down the path of the party line, "Economic development is a priority and the environment can be dealt with later." Not this time. Now people are starting to wonder.

As December pressed on I lowered my head and began to focus on ending the year strong at work. Long ago I proposed the creation of a basketball team at my school. My boss, an Englishman, was keen on the idea and left it to me to organize. I had some problems finding a good court but with the help of some eager students and staff members a site was found. We had our first practice before December was out and it served as preview of what is possible. See, my boss, the Englishman, wants to create a team that will compete against the 11 other Wall Street English schools. We think that by the numbers alone we should have the best basketball team among the Wall Street schools in Beijing. We have 2,000 students giving us the largest talent pool from which to draw. Only time and many difficult practices under my watchful eye can mold us into a formidable team to be feared.

As December, and 2007, drew to a close I was at a New Years party. The party was held in the ever popular 798 Factory. This is an old Mao Era factory that has been converted to an art space. There are many many buildings on the grounds and on New Year's Eve one was converted to a club. It was an interesting location for a techno infused New Years party. Immediately after the first kiss of 2008 I shouted, "The Olympics are so close now!" It's true, they are. A second round of ticket orders was supposed to take place in October but, due to technical difficulties in the online ordering process, it was postponed to December. I placed two more ticket orders; one for boxing and one for basketball. I will find out if I get the tickets sometime around January 30th.

On the first morning of 2008 I headed to Vietnam. I had been trying to get there for several weeks but as always, everything in China is difficult. I was heading there to meet up with Dee Dee and Garry for a short four day visit and to take in the sights and landmarks of this oft conflicted land. The first things I noticed after stepping off the plane in Ho Chi Minh City were the humidity and the lush vegetation Both are extremely rare in Beijing which is mostly gray and concrete. The motorbikes, even at 12am, are stunning not only for the awesome visual display the throngs of them create on the street but for the collective hum of the engines as well. The next morning I woke and met Garry and Dee Dee for our first day of touring. It was great to see them and it felt like ages since our last meeting.

The first order of business was heading to the Mekong Delta for a trip to the other side of the Mekong River. We crossed the 2 kilometer long river by boat and arrived at a small fruit plantation where they were making a fresh coconut candy that smelled and tasted terrific. They also had a large, clear, plastic water dispenser. This was no ordinary water dispenser. This container housed a special local liquor made of snakes. In the jug there were about ten snakes coiled up adding their natural juices to this strong alcohol. I tried some and it wasn't bad. I even bought a bottle of it that had a cobra on the inside. I am not sure if it is customary to eat the cobra after the liquor is gone as you would with the worm in a tequila bottle. The trip to the fruit plantation was really great. We even visited a villager's house and were able to see how the average Vietnamese person lives. This was not a scheduled stop on the tour but It was glad we did it. The terrain was mystifying. How could anyone think that a war there was winnable? The Vietnamese have a long history of tossing out invading forces going all the way back to Genghis Kahn and the Chinese. Everyone we encountered was great. They were all very nice and that was something I didn't expect. I thought ill will would persist. Our tour guide told us that her father died in the war. I didn't probe her regarding which side he was fighting for but later in the trip she told us he was fighting with the Americans. She said that he died fighting for American freedom. Is this what she really thought or was she being ironic or making a comment about the nature of the war? I was confused and still am. American freedom? War is a terrible thing and that point was reiterated the next day when we visited the Kuchi Tunnels.

The Kuchi Tunnels are a system of tunnels that the Vietcong used during the war. The site is set up to accommodate the throngs of tourists that must visit there but the day we went there were very few other tourists. The site is chilling. Set in the middle of the jungle about 5 kilometers form the Cambodian border, it serves as part history museum, part war memorial, and part house of horrors. They showed us all the booby traps that were created to maim and kill American soldiers and that was a bit too much for me, thinking of how many of my uncle's friends were hurt or killed by such horrendous devices. At one point in the tour we were given the option of entering the tunnels to see what they were like. I decided to go. The tunnels are quite small, made for Vietnamese men not big westerners. The tunnels were pitch black as well.

Most of the rest of our trip was spent laughing and catching up with one another. We had some great meals together. I never knew much about Vietnamese food but it was all made with very fresh ingredients and lime abounded.

We received some bad news on the second to last day of our trip. Our loving family dog Bari died. She was 17 years old. I got her when I was 8 and we had been through a lot together. We rescued her from the pound where she was weeks from execution. She was a great dog and we all loved her very much. Bari even went to college with me and although she didn't earn her degree she enjoyed the experience. She slipped into a coma and died sometime later. She had been diagnosed with complete kidney and liver failure in May of 2007 and given weeks to live. She hung on long enough for me to see her while I was back in the USA and I appreciated that very much. She had a good long life and she was a very loving dog. She will be missed by everyone she knew.

Here is the last picture taken of Bari in her new winter gear.

I had a really great time in Vietnam with Garry and Dee Dee. They are both a lot of fun. This was my first international vacation with them as an adult. It was great to be alone with them and pick their brains and laugh with them. They are, for some reason, very proud of me. What seems strange for me to say, but it remains true, is that I am proud of them. They go on all these vacations and have tons of fun and that is what they want to do. they are living their dream and I admire that.

After our goodbyes I boarded the plane and returned to Beijing and its frozen plain. When I returned I had the weekend before returning to work. I decided to do something that I had put off doing for several years now. I joined the other members of my generation in the 21st century and bought an iPod. I am glad I did this because I have now discovered podcasts. Podcasts are like radio shows you can download and listen to at any time on your iPod. I have downloaded Chinese lessons and I listen to them on the subway as I commute to and from work every day. This is great because I was starting to become regretful about not maintaining my Chinese study.

In another bit of technology news, I was the recipient of a Slingbox. You may remember from my previous blog entry that I expressed a desire in this fabulous new technology that allows a user to watch and control a TV from across the globe. Well my grandmother bought one for me for Christmas (thank you very much Mimi) and my father installed it on his television (thank you very much Dad). So far I have had a few battles over the remote with my Dad but we generally like the same things (sports).

Things have become a little more comfortable here in Beijing with the addition of the Slingbox and my iPod. I was also given some good news recently. My sister is coming to visit me in March. I am super excited for that. My father will be coming here at some point as well. I welcome all visitors. If as a reader of my blog you would like Blake's Tour of Beijing, just send me an email and I'll see what I can do for you. All visitors are welcome.

In February I will be going on vacation for a week for Spring Festival (Chinese New Year). I am still trying to decide where to go (maybe Taiwan). If anyone has any suggestions please feel free to send them my way.

I wish all of you health and prosperity in this new year.

Dsai jien.

Happy Holidays! Winter is finally starting to settle in here and as the air gets even drier and days shorter thoughts are turning to the new year and the excitement and possibility that is holds.

Thanksgiving has come and gone since I last posted. Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday and as such I was a little homesick during that time. I was able to find my way to a Thanksgiving dinner at a local western restaurant. the restaurant is called Steak and Eggs and it is run by a Canadian guy. They mostly serve diner food there but the place was packed with patrons being served full Thanksgiving meals. The dinner included your choice of salad or soup along with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, mixed veggies, and a tablespoon of cranberry sauce. The meal was something you'd find in your local freezer section. Terrible. At the end they gave us the choice of pumpkin or apple pie. Now, I really don't like pumpkin pie. I ordered it anyway and I realized something, pumpkin pie is good. I now see what everybody has been talking about my whole life. Pumpkin pie IS good.

The week after Thanksgiving I was enlisted by my employer to give a short speech to some potential students. This speech is a once a week affair where a teacher speaks on any subject for ten minutes. The speech is part of a longer recruitment process. Wall Street advertises in newspapers and magazines throughout China. The adverts come with a coupon for a free 'demo' class. The prospective clients then come to Wall Street and are subjected to my rants for ten minutes. Anyway, that week I was quite busy and couldn't think of anything to talk to the prospective students about. As I walked into the room I decided I would talk to them about fantasy sports. That might seem like an odd topic to present, but my role in the recruitment process is to be friendly and unintelligible. We are directed to speak way over their heads as to humiliate them into studying English with us. I spoke to about 40 potential students about the strategy and scoring in fantasy basketball. It is kind of fun to be able to talk about whatever you want but it is never fun to speak to a group of 40 people who have no idea what you are talking about. As the ten minutes ended I walked out and our center director walked in the room. Before the door was shut he said, in Chinese, "Didn't understand, huh?" I don't know where the sales pitch goes from there but an hour or so later everyone emerges from the room and about 1/3 of them sign up for classes. Oh, the extra incentive here is that teachers who give this sort of speech are given 100 RMB for every student that signs up. This makes me wonder if blowing them away with my English skills is the way to go in recruitment. Next time I'll pick an easier topic and see if there is a difference.

I was also roped into teaching a special class for two weeks while another teacher was on vacation. I have explained English corner in the past, but in case you missed it here is a quick review. English corner is a class where there are about 60 students and one teacher who picks a topic and then creates a list of vocabulary and discussion questions. It is a very open class that is meant to instigate a conversation in English among the Chinese students. As a teacher I just float around and join some conversations. These last two weeks I have been taking over the movie corners. In movie corner, the teacher prepares a movie and makes notes regarding vocabulary, slang, and phrases. The movie is then shown to the students in parts and the plot is explained and narrated by the teacher. Two weeks ago I showed them Blades of Glory and last week I showed them Envy. Envy, for those of you who are unfamiliar with it, is a movie about a man who grows insanely jealous when his friend invents a spray that can make dog crap disappear. Remember that my students area ll adults and most of them are business professionals. My handout for the class included all the words for crap that they use in the movie. I listed shit as a vocabulary word and I had several students thank me afterwards. They told me that this is a word that they have heard thousands of times and in many different scenarios and they could not tell what it meant from context alone. It is essentially like teaching Western culture through movies that center on poop jokes. The poop jokes make them laugh and that keeps them interested. I have to do the movie corner again this week and I need some suggestions. Comedies work best. Dramas are too complicated and not as interesting to them. They like to see white people act silly, that's why they come see me.

As I am writing this, I am watching Mizzou basketball on ESPN. I am so lucky. I have found many different ways to watch American sports and and just in time too. Last week I went to a large sports bar to watch the Missouri Tigers play the Kansas team in a game of American football. I was a little alarmed when I walked into the bar (at 9am) and there was an older white man who was totally wasted. I became even more alarmed when they told me the game wasn't on TV. There were about two handfuls of people there to watch the game decked out in Mizzou and KU gear. They were not happy. One many finally piped up that he bought a Slingbox and if the bar had a computer and a projector then we could all watch the game.

Let me tell you about this Slingbox. Slingbox is every expat's dream. Slingbox works over the internet. You hook it up to a cable connection and an internet connection. Then you can go online with a user name and password and though the internet you can watch any TV channel that is part of your cable package. (Hanukkah is coming)

Anyway, this guy had a Slingbox connected to his home TV in Kansas City so we were able to pull the game up on the computer and then project it onto the big screen. It was a moment that the technology was created for. I then was able to exchange barbs with the KU fans and relish the sweet victory. That taste made no appearence this weekend as I returned to the same bar to watch the Big 12 Championship. The good folks at the bar lifted the guy's Slingbox login and, eventhough he was back in America, I was able to watch the game all alone on the big screen.

Tonight I am going out to Tongzhou, where I lived last year. I am going to dinner with some of the teachers I worked with last year. I haven't been out there since I retruned to Beijing in August. Like all things in China, Tongzhou has changed a lot in the course of the last year. Tongzhou lies in the eastern part of Beijing. It serves as a sort of Chinese Levittown. There are no houses, only giant apartment complexes. Most of the residents work in the heart of the city. This has even propted one person to tell me that Beijing sleeps in Tongzhou. I have recently been involved in several conversations with my student's regarding China's past and future. Of course feelings about the past are mixed. Everyone is unequivocally optimistic about how 'great' China will be in the future. Two days ago I went for some drinks with some of my coworkers and students. On our way to the bar we passed the CCTV tower. My student remarked to me that the tower represents the uncertainty and fragility of China's future. I believe this to be true. There is a not so quiet confidence that everyone has in China and its future. Often times negatives and weaknesses are overlooked in favor of the economic potential of China. This is a conversation for another day.

Take care everyone, and happy holidays.

Hello From The 11th Floor of Chaoyang Gardens

Well, I guess this is the first blog of the rest of my life. I haven't been too faithful in the last two months. I've been trying to adjust to my new life and erratic work schedule. I have had a few chances to go out and have a little fun but those chances have been few and far between. It seems as though I am a working man, not that it agrees with me.

I have been working six days a week since I began almost nine weeks ago. I work a half day on Monday and a half day on Wednesday. The one full day I get off is Tuesday. Now, I know China is quite different from the USA but a few things remain the same such as Tuesdays being crap. To celebrate my 'weekends' I usually head up to The Goose and Duck , a watering hole I have referred to in previous posts (most notably as the location where I was able to watch the NCAA tournament last year). At the new location, not too far from my apartment, they have a batting cage and a nine foot basketball rim. On most Monday nights I head up there and impress only myself by dunking and ripping line drives.

My work day is from 1pm to 9pm during the week. On the weekend I work from 9-5 like a normal person, except it is on the weekend. I rarely get to see my friends outside of Bryne. The 'grind' is starting to wear on me. Not that everything is terrible, I get paid well, although at times I feel like I am in some sort of Greek play. I get paid more money than I need in China but I have no time to spend it. It took me two weeks to get a bathmat.

I do like the students at my school. I teach four different types of classes: Encounter, Social Club, Communication Class, and English Corner. Encounters have no more than four students and this is where they are assessed through as series of exercises based on material they have previously been taught. After the hour long class I have to grade each student and give them help with chronic errors (gender errors are most common as Mandarin has one pronoun that is used for men, women, or anything else, ta). Social Clubs revolve around a weekly theme such as interviews, movies, or, as I taught in a very unsuccessful class, Mayan culture. There are 12 students in these classes and they are basically given a little information or a few activities and they communicate with each other. The teacher does very little in these classes. The next type is the communication class. These are essentially the same as the Social Clubs except there are eight students and the activities do not necessarily center on a theme. In communication classes the teacher does a moderate amount of error correction. English Corners are great. They are open to all students so sometimes you have 60 students and sometimes you have two ( I had an English corner with only 2 students during the National Day holiday). English Corners are great because the teacher picks a topic and speaks for about 10 minutes about it and then the students just have independent conversations about it in their groups of four. Recent topics I have chosen are How to be a Hobo, Happiness is a Warm Gun, Material Culture, and Food is Awesome.

I know I shouldn't do this but I had a funny response from a student. I think it is ok because we all got a laugh out of it. I was teaching a lower level class and trying to elicit clothing vocabulary. I said, "What is an item that you wear around your neck?" The students were silent for a moment before one began gesturing. We want the students to speak in full sentences and this girl was a good student so she finally said, "Crap, I wear crap around my neck." I paused, hard. Her eyes widened. All four students erupted simultaneously. She meant scarf.

The other week we had a Halloween party at the center. All the teachers dressed up as did some of the students. I went as a Mexican wrestler with tights, a title belt, and an awesome mask (thanks Rebekah). We had face painting, card reading, and a movie room which showed horror movies all night. The students loved seeing their teachers dressed up. I must have posed for about 100 photos. I think it was the tights.

A couple of weeks ago I went to a Champagne brunch with my friends Steve, Cromwell, and Colm. Cromwell and Colm have great jobs and make boatloads of cash. Steve and I make a teacher's salary. This did not prevent all of us meeting at the Intercontinental Hotel in the new Financial District of Beijing (this newly constructed area is Beijing's answer to Shanghai and Hong Kong. Beijing is trying to redirect the economic expansion through the capital as the southeastern provinces are where most of the investment and wealth is concentrated). This champagne brunch came on the heels of my first weekend day off since returning to Beijing. I woke up early on Sunday morning regretting getting after things the way I had the night before. A big brunch cures all ills, however. The spread was amazing. Three different kinds of lox IN ADDITION to a whole smoked salmon. There was more sushi than I have ever seen before as well as four kinds of caviar, Crab legs, muscles, and oysters. That was just the seafood table. Other highlights include surprisingly good bbq (KC style), Beijing roast duck, curry bowls, and cooked to order meats. As I said, it was a champagne brunch, so we kept our designated pour man busy. It ended up being a bit on the expensive side but it was well worth the five hours we spent dissecting the buffet with a surgeon's precision. Afterwards we decided we would have to make this event a once a month endeavor. Too bad I don't get weekends off any more.

Note: I didn't even mention desserts.

In China news, the pollution seems to be worse than ever. I heard form some of my friends and family that this is being reported in the US. It is mad. It is quite strange because it is not always smoggy. Some days are crystal clear. Some days have a haze. Other days look like the sun does not appear and everything is bathed in an ambient light that is quite post-apocalyptic. At any rate, Beijing is going through its annual dry out and the combination of cold, dry air and pollution is uncomfortable. My lips are quite chapped (Kevin).

Random Facts and Thoughts

-Housing prices in Beijing have skyrocketed over the last couple of years. One area that seems immune to this problem is the south side. Apparently, no one wants anything to do with the south side because it is where all the state executions took place, how far in the past I do not know.

-Red devil horns with flashing lights were all the rage during Halloween with 3 out of 5 girls going as 'a devil'.

-Hooters opened a restaurant in Beijing about a month ago. From what I've heard, less than 100 percent of the business model is in effect here...red shorts instead of orange.

- If one Yuan = 12 cents US, how can there be so many things that cost one Yuan here? Why are there no 12 cent stores in the US?

- Beijing's new opera house opened recently. It looks like a spaceship. Mao is encased in glass and formaldehyde not 150 paces from this interesting piece of architecture.

- The street DVD's I enjoyed so much last year seem to have vanished almost overnight. Since the national day holiday in the first week of October there has been a crackdown on all things counterfeit. Also, there are a lot fewer beggars in the streets and on the subway. They probably all got high paying jobs.

- I think Indian food is the best food in the world.


I am planning on visiting Vietnam during December. I will be meeting my mom and Garry there. We are still trying to iron out the details but I think it will be four days in Hanoi and Hulong Bay. That should be a nice little vacation for me. The warmer climes come a calling in late December and who am I to ignore the call of a clime?

This is my day off, a Tuesday, so I better get my business in order. Take care all. Dsai Jian.