STO: Incurring Damages

I've decided that after my last extremely lengthy post, I'm going to restrict each post to one of three categories: an account of my personal stories and life (STO), notes on Beijing and its culture as a whole (CUL), and my take on sports (SPO). I might throw in a purely Ultimate post once in a while but those categories cover most of what I've been posting about. This should make things much more readable.

So this post is about Saturday night. After lounging around my apartment all day, being super lazy and writing that immense blog post, I dined with Lisa, Anjli and Saloni at Grandma's Kitchen, the best American restaurant around. The menu itself will make any American ex-pat missing burgers and sandwiches absolutely drool, and the food wasn't bad either. The cheese quesadilla and turkey swiss sandwich I ordered would have been better if I hadn't had to ask them to heat them. Lisa ordered a steak with eggs, and after spending 10 minutes trying to explain in Chinese how she wanted her eggs cooked,(we eventually got an English speaking waitress) she asked "How do you prepare your homefries." The three of us simultaneously groaned, "Oh my God." As we're finishing dinner, I said we should go straight to Kate's party but Anjli and Saloni couldn't make it, so I forced a reluctant Lisa to accompany me. Anyways Grandma's Kitchen is on the 4th floor of a mall, and riding the escalators down, Lisa hops down and lands on the last step. It was cute, like a bunny hop, but it managed to stop the escalator. Lisa didn't realize, because she had just walked off it, but everyone else who had so recently been leisurely leaning on the handles instantly started to glare at her when they realized they had to walk down. I don't know whether this says more about Lisa or Chinese machine manufacturing.

Kate's 2 bedroom apartment is cozy but with a nice living room. The party basically never materialized as 3 of the groups that she invited decided not to show up. When I arrived there was just Kate, Jansen (her roommate), Xavier, her Chinese-born friend Yancey and her boyfriend John who was celebrating his birthday. After taking flaming shots, I closed Kate's bedroom door so that we could play a game of beer pong before heading out to the bars. After I dominated the game :) Kate went to open the door to get her wallet, and discovered that it was locked. Apparently they had never closed the door without her inside it, and thus never realized it automatically locked. Although that's understandable, what's not understandable is a) why a door would auto lock and b) why the landlord never let them in on this pertinent information. The highlight of the "party" was when Xavier and John tried to kick down the door, only succeeding in breaking off a piece of wood paneling. They stopped when they realized that if they succeeded, they would shatter the wood around the door knob. So I'm not sure which was more poorly made: the escalator or the door.

Opium Dens and Damsels in Distress

The last few days have been rather interesting, which is to say they have been spent in Beijing. The first blip of note was a short-lived Beer Pong (Beirut) tournament on Thursday night at Pyro Pizza a block away from my house. The night itself was rather uneventful - we signed up for the tournament at 8:15 and didn't get to play until 11:30, and lost our first 6 cup game and didn't get to advance. I was with Jantzen and Kate's friend Angela's boyfriend Xavier, and entering 3 people for a 2 person sport is not without its problems. For the record, I hit 4 out of the 5 cups we made, and we lost when the drunk Chinese girl on the other team bowed out for this white guy who made their last 3 cups. I'm not bitter though. Btw, in another example of the Small World network of the Beijing ex-pat community, that guy was from Brookline, MA of William & Mary '10 and apparently knew Paul Berry. I wish I was sober enough to remember his name. Anyways I love Beirut and how many places in the world can you play it in a popular establishment, as opposed to a dorm room or a house party? Quite a novel event.

Friday was not the greatest day at work - it might have been easier if I was not drowning pitchers of beer the previous night - and I was looking forward to partying it up that night. Lisa (right in the above picture, trying to flash a gang sign but really flipping off British people), her friend Saloni, Crystal and I arrange for dinner and then a venture to The World of Suzie Wong. It was Lisa's idea, I just read about it in a text message. So while I'm at work, I look up this Suzie Wong character. Apparently it was a 1957 novel adapted into a movie about a Hong Kong hooker with a heart of gold who falls for a British guy. I think I've met someone like that, perhaps at a family reunion. Anyways thebeijinger.com had this to say: "Suzie Wong's is part 1930s Shanghai opium den and part postmodern lounge." That was enough for me.

We arrange for at 7:45 dinner in Wudaokou, cause really, I have no qualms with making my friends come to me. I'll buy them drinks anyways. Ok so first Lisa sends a distressing text message about being lost in the Boondocks and an hour away from civilization. I found out later in the night that she had had quite an adventure trying to see the Underground City, which is apparently a ways away. After failing to find the city, she and Saloni waited half an hour for a taxi, couldn't catch one, waited half an hour for a bus and then hopped onto the wrong one, then waited another half an hour for a taxi once they finally got back into Beijing proper. So Crystal and I had dinner without them at this Korean BBQ place in this really charming back alley. The alley looks like a dump, with sidewalk construction going on and trash everywhere, but the Korean restaurant was awesome! We had really solid food that was about as good as any Korean place in the States. Apparently Wudaokou is like Beijing's Koreatown (incidentally there's a lot of karaoke here). We had a really full meal, including a shitty roll of sushi and Baijiu for only 100 kuai. I had been looking forward to Baijiu after I heard people in my office talking about celebrating over a few rounds of Baijiu. In chinese, Bai (白) means white, and Jiu 酒 means alcohol most generally, and wine more specifically. So I'm expecting a glass of cheap Beijing white wine. Instead we get a sort of small green flask and a shotglass. So I'm initially confused, but in Hong Kong I took a shot of wine with my family so I figured this is more of the same. Well it was similar, except if you replace the wine part with rubbing alcohol. BaiJiu is absolutely foul! Holy motha ****in **** s****a (Kerry should know what I said). I took a look at the bottle after I almost choked - scanning through all the Chinese, I see the numbers 56%. Great, so its like a mixture of absolut vodka (40%) and Bacardi 151 (75%), and apparently with much less distillation. I still don't know what alcohol it was, it tasted like foul gin, but I can tell you with a great deal of certainty that that was no white wine. We did not finish the flasks.

Lisa and Saloni finally get back from their excursion into Northern China and meet up at my apartment. After Lisa takes a few half shots and the rest of us some real shots, we head into a cab to Suzie Wong's. In a weird twist of fate, Crystal's BFF Jimalyn, also Georgetown '10, had made separate plans for Suzie Wong's and so she's super excited to meet her. We get to the club and the entrance charge is 50 kuai for guys, and free for girls. Sexism at its best. Well somehow my friends (I'm just with 3 girls) go nuts over this and they throw money at me and somehow I actually made 20 kuai entering Suzie Wong's. Shhhh. Except for this one woman puking in the lobby accompanied by her boyfriend, glowing probably from a combination of alcohol and embarrassment, this place is classy. The floors are shining marble, the waitresses are dead sexy and dressed that way, and there are a fair amount of high rollers around. It is clear that this is a place to be in Beijing. We meet up with Jimalyn and her friends upstairs, and amazingly there are four other people from Georgetown '10 and I didn't know any of them. In fact, I neglected to tell them I was from Georgetown and when that came up they were shocked. They were all drinking "Chinese Jungle Juice" which was some sort of whiskey mixed with Green tea. I wasn't a huge fan but I had a few. Suzie Wong was quite crowded, and though dance music was playing, there wasn't much of a dance floor. There were some private "beds" where people were lounging around with drinks, a few tables, and lots of people standing. I asked Jimalyn where the Opium Den was and she absolutely scolded me, "That's illegal Cal!" I guess there was no opium at Suzie Wong's...at least none that we had access to. The private beds were probably the closest thing.

After rolling from Suzie Wong's, we managed to get separated from the Jimalyn crowd and took a taxi to Coco Banana. Once again we had another 50 kuai entrance fee for the dudes and open admittance for girls. This place was a true dance club and packed. I think everything's more crowded in China, and if a dance club in the US is filled, then one in Beijing is on the verge of an explosive reaction. There are just so many people in there bouncing off each other. Well we carved out space and did our thing, and it was pretty standard except for the gay Chinese guy who put his shoulder around me. He said something in decent English, and at first I thought he was someone from my office. Awkward. He might have been actually, but then he asked me where my sister was. What?? "Yeah, where's Emily" he repeated. Um, I don't know you, but if I ever do have a sister, I'll advocate to her being named Emily.

We run into the other Georgetown people again, this time with Peter Kong accompanying. Crystal and Lisa and I all know Peter through different means so that was kinda cool. We all eventually met up as a big group at Bellagio, a high-end 小夜 joint (place for late food). And the food was really good; Jimalyn made sure to order her favorite things in the restaurant, including the famous ice dessert which was like a less sweet version of ice cream accompanied with red beans, the things in bubble tee and mangos. That was great although I probably shouldn't have thrown away another 50 kuai on that meal. Finally at 3:00 am, Peter Crystal and I decide we need to bounce. Crystal actually has to meet her aunt at 8am for some sort of trip. We all live in the same general area and get into the same cab. After dropping of Peter, the cab takes me to my place and I burn another 50 kuai, get back to my apartment, put on the BS report and crash. Its 4am and its been a long day.

But its not over. My phone blows up just before I fall asleep. It's Crystal - her key is not working and she's locked out of her apartment building. She was not that drunk, it was simply a Chinese-made key being unable to open a Chinese-made lock, probably a fairly common phenomenon. After freaking out for a few minutes, she decides to take me up on my offer and crash at my place. Finding a cab at this time is not an easy task, but she finds a driver sleeping in his car and knocks until he wakes up. This would have been less complicated if she remembered where I lived, but luckily she speaks Chinese and my instructions were effectively relayed to her cab driver. If this had been Molly, we're probably reading about an international incident in the news of a drunk American girl freaking out in Beijing at 4am. Anyways Crystal finally gets here at 4:30am, and while definitely unnerved, manages to contact her aunt and was out by 9am. It was an exhausting ordeal for me but probably 3 times as tiring for her.

Its been a long post but I have a few comments to add. First, I always love the NBA Draft and this year's was pretty cool too. I particularly enjoyed this comment from Bill Simmons' draft diary after Memphis drafted Kevin Love (and before trading him to Minnesota): Just took a quick look through reader e-mails from the past hour and everyone seems to agree: We're all excited for the Gay-Love Era in Memphis.
I love what the Celtics did in this draft. I don't know what the general prevailing attitude is back in Boston, but I've been a Bill Walker fan for 3 years (without ever having seen him play). I liked him when the OJ Mayo hype had been going around and every comment about Mayo was about how he led his West Virginia HS to the state championship along with teammate Bill Walker, then led his Ohio HS to the championship along with teammate Bill Walker, then put on a show in AAU ball along with teammate and best friend Bill Walker. It was exactly the same as the articles about Greg Oden, when they were talking about all his high school accolades and mentioned that every single honor he received was shared by his teammate Mike Conley. At that point I knew Conley would be good too and I was right there. So I watched Bill Walker with interest in Kansas State's first round game against USC, and with Beasley and Mayo in that game too, Walker was still the best player on the court. Not kidding, look that game up if you don't believe me. He's a 6'6" swingman with a very good medium range jumper and above average athleticism and a good handle. He does everything well. The knee injury probably hurt him a lot so that is a big question mark, but he was a Lottery-pick talent before it. Also I remember JR Giddens from his Kansas days - he seems like he'll be good value for #30. I know both these guys have character issues but so does most of the NBA.

Ok I gotta roll, I'm heading to a party thrown by Kate Egan today (imagine that sentence in senior year of high school) which could be interesting. I'm a little worried that this will be my 4th straight night of drinking and my wallet and liver are feeling it. But this is Beijing - go big or go home.

This is a Blog not a Livejournal

As the title says, I really should stop using this site as a public diary and more as a medium for communicating how awesome and unique being in Beijing in the summer of 2008 is. Arrogant bantering aside, I realized that I have the opportunity to spend a lot of time getting to know Beijing, practicing Mandarin, and then come out fully prepared to report on the Olympic Games.
Here's an article to consider: http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/news/story?id=3453777&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab6pos1
Very nice article appearing on ESPN's Outside the Lines, eloquently phrasing all thoughts that I've already considered. Bob Holtzman has nothing on me except a contract with ESPN. So I've been here 3 weeks now and have discussed Beijing and the game quite extensively with my tutees. The general lack of excitement has surprised me and I wonder if that sentiment is shared by residents of other Olympic cities. Surely Athenians weren't complaining about the additional traffic and safety regulations in 2004 were they? I think Beijing cannot be compared to Athens or Sydney or Atlanta though, because those cities did not have the crowding problems that this city experiences. When I ask them for their feelings on Beijing, nearly all my co-workers say something like, "Uhh the traffic...it's too much, too many people." The streets are crowded, the roads are crowded and the subway is crowded...in fact its hard to tell which one of those three is the most overwhelmingly flooded. So when you throw in the expected 3 million visitors from all over China as well as all over the world, some level of apprehension is only natural. However I'm sure during the Opening Ceremonies, Chinese flags will be waving everywhere and national pride will be on full display as the world hears the scream of a billion people. I'm looking forward.

Olympic tickets are slow to come buy. Did you know that a google search for "Olympic tickets" momentarily resets your connection? Wow, I guess the government doesn't want to encourage scalping. I need a proxy server badly. Hope I don't get arrested for posting that.

Here's another article: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1813778,00.html that I found while posting on my brother's wall. Hi DJ I know you're reading this. Anyways its written by his ex-girlfriend, a Chinese-born British-raised Harvard-educated Francophone, but basically it really eloquently describes the sentiments felt by Han ethnics with a Western upbringing.

Anyways I hope to really apply my knowledge of sports with my cultural perceptions and really get a complete understanding of the 2008 Summer Olympics. In life news, I played Ultimate today for the first time in over a month...and wow. It was this weird pickup game where if you make a mistake, you run off the field and someone takes your place, and it was 5v5 with about 30 people playing. So in the States I'd be furious that so many people were on the sideline, but here I was thankful because I was constantly gassed. A combination of minimal conditioning and the polluted air really has taken a toll on my lungs and the points were rather painful. Yeah, that's going to affect the Olympics, although Beijing is rapidly seeking to change that. One of the more drastic policies is a driving restriction that will take place on July 20th in which even numbered plates and odd numbered plates will switch off days in which they can drive. So half the people will drive one day, and the other half will drive the next. They had a 4 day experiment with this policy in May and apparently it did lower the pollution so I'm hopeful. However that policy is not without obvious consequences, not the least of which is that the already overloaded subway system is going to scream in agony. Also the 66,000 cabs will be on the road all the time. I do not envy Beijing city officials.

The most scenic place in the world...

...in my opinion is undoubtedly the Great Wall of China. After I wikipediaed it, I was somewhat less impressed. I had thought the Great Wall was very continuous and in large part still intact from its original construction. Neither of those are true; there are many areas of the wall which are eroded and the sites that I would venture to from Beijing have all been reconstructed. It also cannot be seen from the Moon. Nonetheless, it is an impressive structure. While at Mutianyu, the section of the wall we went to, I could see no end to the Wall. It slopes up and down the mountainside, an impressive engineering feat that often places the Wall at what a math major would term the local maximums of the surroundings. The whole construction of such a gigantic structure and its manning, is very hard for me to comprehend and I had fun imaging Ancient Chinese soldiers in armor patrolling the place. And by imagining I mean thinking back to Mulan.

I went with my friend John, a 27 year old grad student that I had met at the bar Lush. A bit strange circumstances but its worked out well. There we met up with Lisa and her CIEE peeps, who were all a tad surprised that I had managed to find them on the Wall, especially those who had seen me the previous night at KTV. All in all, it was a little surreal, running into friends on a World Heritage site. A note on the KTV... I really did enjoy my first Karaoke experience but perhaps I did not need that many beers to get into the singing - I definitely felt it the next day at the Wall. Anyways my favorite part of the Great Wall was climbing off it and pretending I was a Mongolian trying to scale it. See my Facebook picture. Also, the Wall is quite a workout. Oh my goodness. First of all walking up the mountain to even get to the Wall had me gasping - more on that in a minute - and then the Wall itself was no slouch. I already mentioned how it snakes through the mountain peaks. Well at the end of the Mutianyu section, there is a lengthy series of uphill walking, followed by a steep 60 degree staircase. Oh and the weather was the warmest it had been since I've been here, probably about 92 degrees. That staircase conquered a fat black guy who happened to be the manager for Run DMC (who had played a concert at the Hard Rock in Beijing) and had to give up and go back down. Well I made it up, but it was certainly pretty damn hard. In terms of physical exhaustion, I'll put it somewhere below full field suicides after Ultimate practices where Dave is mad or the hardest RL varsity wrestling practices, but not that far below. It was a hike and a half. Then the way down those stairs was quite scary and I hearkened back to the time my mom had to slink down Chichen Itza, matching each step of her foot with one of her hand. We did manage to make it back and I quite thoroughly sweated out my hangover. Anyways I thoroughly enjoyed this trip to the Great Wall - I went there when I was 10 but of course I got so much more out of this one, not the least is about 50 photos - and really urge anyone reading this to either visit the Wall or at least Google image search it. Here's me trying to scale the wall:


Quite notes from this weekend: Craig, one of Lisa's friends, was wearing a Mamabird Ultimate t-shirt. Turns out he's an A team Frisbee player from Colorado, one of the best programs in the country. Um, how did no one tell me this? We talked about it for a half hour on the Wall. I was stunned cause he's this small shy half-asian kid, probably about 5'8 145 and is running out there with Jolian Doyle. I'll go ahead and say I think he's better than me at Ultimate. Also, I decided to do cardio for the first real time on the treadmill today...yeah I hope no one from my team is reading this. I couldn't even deal with 13 kilometers/hour and didn't run a mile, I honestly don't know what happened. While my legs are still exhausted from the wall, it is clear that 3 weeks of relatively no exercise combined with the Beijing air has shot my cardiovascular. The thing is though, I look fine, still skinny and probably as strong as I've ever been. But this conditioning thing is going to be a huge problem. Also, I've been hanging out with Lisa & co, Crystal and Kate a lot, but all individually as in they have yet to hang out together. Gotta get on that. Lastly, I've really gotta mellow down a bit - I've been living like a rock star in Beijing, and going out almost every night. I need to you know, stay in more, do some reading, work on my movie and maybe make this blog read less like shit. So on that note, take care.

Bleeding Green in a Red Country

The Celtics are the World Champions! I seriously considered not putting the exclamation point on there, because even as a diehard Celtics fan, and I am, #17 really did not affect me that much. In fact, I can't envision a scenario in which I less actively participated in the whole regalia. Maybe if I was on active duty in Iraq. Basically the games ran here at 8 in the morning and I had work on the day of game 6. I talked myself into not following the game live and then watching it that night on a 12 hour delay at this bar/pizza joint with English announcers. However I never go to the pizza place with any friends cause I don't know anyone here who likes the Celtics and its always awkward trying to get a seat at tables made for 4 and no one else there seems to ever be a Celtics fan. Anyways, I found out the game was showing on the 7th floor at my office and managed to get out of my English 1 on 1 lessons early and go to watch the 4th quarter...by which time the Celtics were up by 30. NBA, where drama goes to die. It was still fun watching Ray Allen swish 3 pointers and seeing the gatorade bath (wow Paul) and the whole celebration. It may have gotten a little misty, not gonna lie. But I delighted in Doc Rivers hugging his son...the younger one, Jeremiah was nowhere to be found. Probably watching Hoosiers on HBO and texting his congrats to his father and asking to be un-disowned.

So yeah, between my lame celebration after the Red Sox equally undramatic 4 game sweep on a Sunday night, and my huge celebratory plans killed when the Patriots got...yeah.... and this Celtics thing, this amazing Boston sports year hasn't resulted in as much wild happy Cal as you would expect. I'm actually not complaining, I'm thrilled by this amazing luck after years of nothing and if the Patriots had won the Super Bowl, my Facebook hometown would be Titletown, USA. Anyways I'm in Beijing now, Traffictown, China and I should stop talking about Boston sports. Especially if Alex Laws reads this.

I ran a fun quiz today as my "course" where I divided people into 4 teams and had geography, riddle and trivia questions. I wanted to promote discussion in English and after several boring lectures I thought this one would be fun. Well it kinda fell flat, I mean I had fun, but there wasn't as much discussion because people didn't want other teams to hear the answer (why didn't I think of that?) and the questions could have been better. But I really enjoyed my geography questions, which involved me throwing a picture of a place on PowerPoint, mostly google images pictures of famous places but also a few of my own pictures in random places. Work has gotten pretty monotonous and I'm speaking too much English to really take advantage of working with lots of native Chinese and improving my Chinese, but all in all its a nice job. I don't have people nagging me all day, I just have the lessons which are usually not too hard to prepare, and the two courses. I'm on facebook about an hour a day. I'm also a terrible person.

So yeah midnight just passed and for the first time this week I haven't been wasted. Monday I was hanging out with Crystal, Tuesday I saw Kate and Angela and celebrated Kate's birthday and Wednesday Lisa dragged me dinner with other Beida people and then they made me get drunk. That's definitely a little excessive and I think my work has actually been suffering as a result. I mean I want to exercise, play ultimate, do some writing and explore this city and all I've been doing is getting Tsingtao and Cosmopolitan's at Lush. I literally have not left Wudaokou this week except to visit Crystal.

Well tomorrow I'm planning on Karaoke with the Lisa crowd and then the Great Wall on Saturday. I was thinking of introducing Kate to that crowd and called her about dinner on Friday, but she couldn't do Friday and wanted to meet up tonight instead, so she came over to Wudaokou and we walked all around it. Its a really nice area thats grown on me - it has all my needs and more, from Starbucks to supermarket to restaurants of all shape and size to a very nice mall. Kate had said that any clothes bought in China cannot be worn in the US but this mall actually had legit fashion. Ok you know what I'm definitely boring anyone reading this, promise I will post more exciting stuff here next time (Great Wall and Karaoke should provide some ammo). By the way, I still maintain the best season by a Boston sports team this year was the New England Patriots and if you argue otherwise, I am seriously questioning your Boston fanhood.

Coming Down from a Shanghai

Its a been a hiatus of a few days so get ready for a super-sized blog post. Don't tell me I didn't warn you.

So I went to Shanghai this weekend. It's actually the third time I've been there, the previous trips being the all encompassing China trip of 1998 and a further visit in 2004, but I didn't become self-aware until 18 so it might as well be my first time there. The differences between Shanghai and Beijing are as dramatic as the differences between New York City and Washington DC, the financial and political capital of our country, respectively. Yeah Shanghai is a lot nicer, I understand now why so many American college students go there instead of Beijing - it's simply more fun for a Westerner. Its huge and massively developed, I remembered from my previous trip how I looked out a window of my hotel and could only see a mind-boggling number of high-rises all the way to the horizon. However it generally does not feel like overcrowded, especially when compared to Beijing. The river helps add a sense of serene nature to a bustling city of busy people. But first let me tell you about how I managed to get to Shanghai.

My dad has been working in Shanghai for the past few weeks and is probably very lonely since he left me in Beijing. Today is Father's Day and my dad had asked me to join him in Shanghai for it, and after deciding I was not missing anything terribly exciting in Beijing this weekend (except for a trip to the opium den, but you know) I chose to be a good son. So I got tickets for an 8:30 flight and scram out of work on a Friday afternoon at 5:15. I got my backpack crammed with a few days of clothes, my contact gear and passport and an eager grin on my face brought on by the sheer joy of traveling. However while indoors busy teaching English, I had neglected to observe that heavy rain had engulfed Beijing. It was raining fucking hard, and there were no umbrellas to be found. Oh well, last I checked I cannot be dissolved, and so I bravely ran out to hail a cab. And none would stop for me. I ran this way and that, waving frantically at every cab I could find, and trying to avoid the stares that people huddling under umbrellas were giving me. Finally after a drenched 10 minutes a cab arrived and I yelled "FEI JI CHUANG" which when said properly means airport. The driver gives me a perplexed look and mutters something I don't understand. After asking him to repeat himself I make out the word "bus" and realize he's saying I should take a bus. This strikes me as odd and I insist that he drive me to the airport. He starts driving slowly and still says something about the bus. I'm like, I will pay you money but still he talks, so I call my dad and give the phone to the driver. I can hear my dad feeling my same frustrations and telling him just to drive to the airport. Well he obliges and then I realized that my driver was concerned that I wouldn't make my flight. The pouring rain was really slowing traffic. I tried to assure him that we had plenty of time, that my flight wasn't until much later, but then I realized that I might actually be in a jam. In China you have to check in 45 minutes before your flight and even though I got into the cab at 5:30, 7:45 seemed too close for comfort. In fact, after miles and miles of stop and go traffic and my driver sporadically freaking out, I finally got to the airport at 7:35, and still totally drenched.

Even though I had some clothes in my backpack, I was checking it in because I had liquids. So I grab a collar shirt, take off my soaked shirt (still had an undershirt) and stuffed that into my bag, check my bag in, and run to the bathroom, where I take off my socks and try to hand dry them. It was so awkward getting out of my tight shoes and socks, trying not to step on the ground, all in the middle of the bathroom. It was really a bad idea. Ok so I'm exhausted, grab some KFC and go the gate...except the gate doesn't even have an airplane. You have to take a bus to the actual plane. I can't remember the last time I've seen that. Anyways I get to the plane and absolutely crash. I'm dead asleep for and hour and a half. I wake up and notice we're on the ground...strange I don't recall even taking off. So I ask the guy next to me a stupid question, "are we in Beijing or Shanghai?" He gives me another perplexed look and says, "Beijing" and I just go, "fuck I was afraid of that."

I get into Shanghai around 2am, and apparently they closed down the highway to clean it, even though its pouring here too. So my dad got here late because traffic was awful, and I'm starving cause all I've had is a piece of Original recipe from KFC and we ask a cab driver where to get 24 hour late night, and he takes us to this real back alley seafood lane. There I felt like I was in China, in a stone road designed for rickshaws, with discarded crustacean shells thrown into the middle and wooden stands displaying some questionably barbecued meats. We go into one of those small whole in the wall restaurants that you can see in Boston's Chinatown, restaurants where the main level is like -.5, its half underground half on the ground, and just dig into a bowl of miniature lobsters. My dad said they were called Yarbies in Australia, I called them crawfish. And they were delicious. We were there for another hour and half, eating shrimp and abalones as well. Amazing food considering the overall dinginess of the place.

So at this point I'll pause from narrating my Friday night and go back to broad reflections of China. Well I had lunch with my cousin Bobby, the one who got me my job here, last night in Shanghai, at this great restaurant in this great nightlife area, and he really convinced me to view China with an open mind. Its not that I don't have an open mind, otherwise I wouldn't be in China now and Ireland this fall, but I am coming from America with a lot of American biases. I'm noticing the differences between China and the US and believing that the US way is better, and Bobby does not agree with that mentality. He points to China's roads, where the left turn only lane is often in the middle of the road as opposed to the left side, and initially saying how he thought that that was whack, but now realizing the many benefits of it. It makes U-Turning better, its easier for people to merge to, and in China you can't make a left turn on yield, so cutting off the straight lane is not an issue. So I'm really going to work harder on being objective of China and refrain from making any of my swooping characterization of this country for now.

I will say that I have gotten countless people believing me from being a halfie. From a shopkeeper in Shanghai, a cab driver in Beijing and Kate's friend Angie, countless people have asked me about my parents. I've gotten good at explaining that my parents are both Chinese, specifically from Hong Kong, and even though I was born in America, I am not half-white. I haven't been able to adequately explain that my mom is indeed mixed, but its not really that important a point. People forget, I mean I forget, that on my college apps, I only checked down one race. Except on my Pomona app, where I also put down White, and that was the best school I got into, but I digress. No I have never identified myself as half-asian and am somewhat amused, and quite honored, that everyone here thinks I am. I have always said that half-asians are the sexiest race known to man so take a wild guess what that's done to my self-esteem.

Ok so speaking of self-esteem, after dinner with Bobby, Dad and I went out the bars that were right there, mostly on my demand, because I'm the only alcoholic college student in that pair. The area really resembled an upscale Quincy Market, not the least because they were both designed by the same architectural firm. So its a really nice area. We first go to a bar that seems to be full of college-aged students and has this live rock band performing, except that the band was only loosely making music and mostly accompanying karoke as they blared Bon Jovi on the speaker system. Only in China. Anyways I can tell Dad doesn't like the music nor the crowd, so after finishing a Long Island, we head to a German pub across the street. This place is frequented by an older crowd, and has an older band doing covers of 70's songs. So now I'm the one that feels out of place, but I take solace in my lager. Well we're there for a good half hour and about to leave when this 35ish Chinese woman comes walking over to me. I try to avoid eye contact but don't quite succeed, and find her a little creepy before she says, "Are you Chinese?" in an L2 accent. So now avoiding eye contact with my dad, I reply "对但是我是美国人" which means yes, but I'm American. Like everyone else, she asks whether my parents are American and I reply no, they're Chinese, from Hong Kong. At this she exclaims, do you speak Cantonese? and I reply yes in Cantonese. So that's cool. And then she asks, "does your friend speak Chinese?" and thinking I misheard her, cause I'm not with a friend, I ask her to repeat herself. After she does, I respond, "no, that is my dad." And she flips out, and instead of running away embarrassed, she slides over to my dad and eventually asks him to buy her a drink. At that point we bolted. I've been called many things but I don't recall cougar hunter being one of them. Goodness that was embarrassing, if in a way, good for my self-esteem in a way that say, RL was not.

The Celtics can clinch tomorrow morning. I'm debating following the game live at work, or completely shutting myself off and watching the 12 hour delay without knowing the final result. I'm not sure yet, I think I'll follow it live initially and if it seems like a classic I'll put off the ending. I think that's enough for one blog post and I'll keep em coming.

Tsingtao, Tsinghua but not much Tsing air

Beer here is very cheap and coffee is very expensive. This sucks in the morning but rocks at night. For the record, you can get the local Tsingtao beer here for usually 15 kuai (=yuan) and a nice American beer like Coors Light for 25 kuai, whereas a medium Dark Mocha Frappucino brings up 33 kuai at the register. About 6.8 kuai = 1 dollar so you do the math, or get a math major to do it for you. The bargain-value bar time may not mesh well with some of my more degenerate traits, but let the record show, if I do end up in AA, I will point back to this blog entry as marking a seminal moment in my alcoholic history.

Work has been going well at times. So we developed an English teaching program which involves 1 on 1 sessions with a ton of different employees and a 2 hour "course" on something twice a week. Considering I've had no training and am really not used to being a teacher there have been some awkward moments. The courses are the worst, where I'm expected to give a lecture on some really odd topic related to English and America, and try to engage as many people as I can. The first one was about making small talk, the second about telecommunication and tomorrow's is on emailing. The problem is that I feel like I'm making some very simple points - for example, during the small talk I told them that Americans small talk as opposed to sitting in silence....well duh, but I need to say this to effectively make my presentation because I don't know how wide the cultural gap is. Some things that have seemed obvious to me are difficult for a Chinese to grasp; for example, my boss asked me to explain how to spell on a phone, you know, E as in Edward. Its pretty basic, you pick a word that starts with that letter. But its a little more complicated than that, for example if you saying P as in Pan, it could be heard as D as in Dan or B as in Ban. This is intuitive for me but not so for a non-native speaker. During the one on one sessions, we mostly make small talk and those have mostly gone fine. They seem juvenile since the idea of these sessions is to get them practicing speaking, and so we just engage in rather unintellectual conversation. I have noticed how diverse China linguistically. Obviously I know a bit about speaking a different dialect, but I had thought that everyone in mainland China spoke Mandarin fluently since they all learn it from elementary school. To an extent, but regional dialects are still widely spoken and while everyone seems to communicate fine in Mandarin, some people struggle with some of the sounds of Mandarin. For example, one of my coworkers from Central China cannot say "Neng" 能. He says "Leng" and cannot tell the different. These regional phonetic differences manifest themselves in English as you would expect. Thus my friend struggles with the n sound in English. Some people struggle with the v sound, others l and r, and some can't pronounce th properly (neither could I when I was growing up). This has brought out the inner linguist in me and I'm mildly fascinated.

I was going to talk about Tsinghua University, the campus I just went through. I'll edit this post tomorrow on that topic.

So after the basketball game I played, I really did feel Beijing's notorious bad air supply. Btw, tsing (really qing in pinyin) means fresh, clear and can apply to air, thus the title of this post. I hadn't really noticed the air as being bad here at all, but after hustling around on a basketball court for the first time in months I was coughing out my lungs. It was painful, I felt like I had some intangible substance blocking my throat and I needed to cough it out, but it never came out. It makes me wonder how I can exercise here. Should I restrict myself to a treadmill indoors, although I absolutely hate treadmills? Am I just going to be fucked for ultimate in the spring? Does running outside here actually make me less fit or is it kinda like training in the thin mountain air?

Early morning Celtics

It's about 11am here as I watch Leon Powe absolutely go off on these Lakers. The commentary is entirely in Chinese which is definitely an interesting experience. Undoubtedly the best part of the commentary is the "sino-nization" of the player's names. See if you can guess who Ke-Bi, Pe-Si, Jia-So, Jia-Nar, Far-Mar and Fei-Shir refer to (answers below). I also have a glossary of basketball terms in Chinese open which is pretty cool: http://www.confucius.ku.edu/bball_terms.shtml Hopefully I can become fluent in Chinese basketball which will certainly be useful during the Olympics.

Each commercial break shows this one bit of Tracy McGrady in China working a camp for young Chinese basketball players, one of those Impossible Is Nothing ads. The ad shows how much the Chinese look up to American basketball players and is really interesting. My male co-workers all love basketball, and they tell me that the average Chinese's four favorite basketball players are 1. Yao Ming, 2. Yi Jianlian, 3. Kobe Bryant and 4. Luis Scola. If you're scratching your head at Scola you're not alone, but Rocket teammates of Yao are popular here and even though Scola isn't the best, he's also foreign and they love his scrappy style of play, so go figure. They don't understand team loyalty here though, my coworkers don't understand why I like the Celtics and hate the Lakers - they just like basketball for its own sake. I can watch the game on 12 hour delay in English at a popular bar around here which is nice but I wanted to watch it live today. Its Monday but a holiday, an annual Dragonboat racing day so no work.

So my friend Lisa arrived last week and is studying Chinese at Bei Da in an 8 week program. I tagged along her program as they took a trip to the Forbidden City and met a bunch of Hoyas and college students. Of course the Forbidden City is a must-see for an American tourist and was very cool experience. It is rather repetitive, while the architecture is nice they're all the same, but the uniqueness of the place dawns on you once you realize that this was the sole residency of the Emperor and his associates. It is huge, just a giant walled off part in the center of Beijing. Can you imagine a square mile in the center of Boston that only people involved in the government could enter? Btw its a 4 point game now, not sure how that happened. We also saw a Buddhist temple that was only moderately cool until we went to the last temple. The statues had been getting progressively bigger and then the final one, which is all indoors and supposedly carved from a single trunk of sandal wood, stood 18 meters high...over 60 feet. It was just gigantic and I couldn't believe my eyes. No pictures though, they weren't allowed. That night we went out clubbing in my Wudaokou district, which is really too foreign a district for anyone who's been in Beijing for a while to enjoy...which does not include me. We went to Propaganda, a dance club staffed by Chinese bartenders, Chinese waiters, Chinese bouncers, and a black DJ. They played American and European music and we all loved it, but as we went crazy on the dance floor I couldn't help but notice a lot of locals sitting around watching us. Why are they even there? There are plenty of Chinese nightclubs - I don't see how they would enjoy these American songs and these drunk American college students getting into them. Its not like I would go to a European nightclub in DC more than once a blue moon.

Crystal should be getting in today, then Kate on Sunday and I think Rob later that week, and that'll be my entire American base here, other than the people I meet. Life is good, I'm cooking more and more, I have so much freedom and the Celtics are 2-0. Zai jian for now.

(Answers: Kobe, Pierce, Gasol, Garnett, Farmar, Fisher)

Chinese taxi cabs

A very basic experience in every day life is getting a cab. Its pretty simple. You hail an empty cab, you tell the driver where you want to go, and he goes there.

And then there's the cab experience for an anglophone in Beijing. Here is a conversation I had when I tried to go from the Friendship Hotel, after picking up my friend Molly, to the Furama Xpress Hotel.
Me: Ni hao, ni zhi bu zhi dao Fu Yi Shi Sheng jiu dian zai nar? (Do you know where the Furama hotel is?)
Driver: Shen me? (What?)
Me: Fu - Yi - Shi - Sheng? (Me saying the name slowly)
Driver: J$FLJ(!jjj10i928h2kjjso1-0 (Driver saying something totally incomprehensible)
Me: Shen me? (what?) Jiu dian...(hotel)
Driver: (mutters something incomprehensible)
Me: Uh, wo zou le. (Um, I'm gonna go now)

Basically if I don't have the name of the place I want to go written down, or can't pronounce it perfectly, there is no guarantee that I can get there. I can't yet give directions well, and even if I knew the Chinese name of the hotel, which I did, I still sometimes butcher the pronunciation. I eventually managed to get to the hotel by telling the driver to go to Peking University's West Gate (which is near there), then pointing out the hotel. Even this was a struggle, as Molly's constant deflating laughter attested to. Basically I'm terrified every time I'm forced to get a cab.

Walking around searching for white people

So it's Thursday night here. I've been here since Sunday afternoon and rather surprised to have made it this far. My dad came with me and helped me get set up in the apartment. We found the apartment nice and roomy but in a weird condition when I came in, the sort of thing you will not find anywhere in America. The previous owner left a ton of shit behind, weird shit including shampoo, chocolate milk, a broken watch, English books, Wireless router, Korean books and filthy bedsheets and blankets. The yellow paint is randomly discolored and the doorframes and tiles have an air of hasty assembly, somewhat off like a third grader's Popsicle stick house. My dad really helped get everything setup, get electricity, cleaning, got our landlord to setup the internet. I'm looking for a roommate as this place is meant for 2, but still haven't found anyone.

Ok anyways, to say that this city is a new experience is like saying Dennis Rodman is weird. Harrowing might be more the correct term. It amazes me how much I underestimated the difficulty in adjusting to life alone in a foreign city speaking a foreign language. I guess the idea for me really just coming to Beijing for the Olympics was inspired by my friend Brian, whom I taught tennis with last summer. Brian came from Dublin to stay in Boston for the summer, with nothing but a rundown house that he was sharing with 7 other Irish dudes. He didn't have a job, he didn't have any contacts. He somehow managed to find a job teaching tennis and had a great summer. So I figured if I found a place and a job in Beijing and took a year of Intensive Chinese, a wonderful experience would fall into place. Right. For some reason I thought Dublin:Boston was comparable to Boston:Beijing. Nope.

The language barrier is covered with barbs. The average Beijing local speaks like 15 words of English and cannot understand anything. This isn't Western Europe, where people speak their native language but also have a firm grasp of English and will be of help. Even with some stuttered utterings in Chinese I really cannot get by adequately. I mostly engage in silent trading, although I do have a much better grasp of the Chinese numbers (always was tough during class) by hearing different prices so many times.

I am in an awkward position in Beijing. Obviously I don't speak Chinese well enough to get by - however, I generally look like I do. Most natives here have been addressing me in Mandarin, which is different from my general experience in Hong Kong, where I have surprisingly been addressed in English (despite understanding Cantonese). Whether this is because I dress more like a Beijing person, or becaues the natives can't address me in another language, or because I really do look Chinese to them, I'm not quite sure but I'm leaning towards the 3rd option. However some people have commented that I do look mixed, which of course, I am, although much less so than they think. Anyways, when I walk the streets, I naturally gravitate towards anyone who looks like they speak English, basically White people. I mean I try to find Asian Americans like me too, but I haven't been able to tell them (us) apart. Sometimes I hear some Chinese people speaking English like they were ABCs but that's about it. I really can't tell by sight. This applies vice versa too, its not like Americans will be able to tell that I speak English. I want to grab each White person I pass and tell them, "I'm like you! How are you doing with this city?!" But that's just not socially acceptable, even here.

My welcome to Beijing moment happened Wednesday morning. I had gone a full day, of work no less, without my dad and things were going smoothly if lonely. I wake up to a loud pounding on my door. I have the feeling that whoever is at my door has been knocking for some time now so I feel the need to sprint over there. I jump out of bed and instantly slip and fall flat on my side. In my semi-conscious state I realize that the floor is dripping wet; looking around, I see that there is a clear inch of water throughout the apartment. An amalgamation of confusion, understanding and panic flooded my thoughts - confusion as to why there was my room had become a slip-and-slide overnight, understanding that the knocking on the door was probably related, and panic because my apartment was obviously flooded and I potentially lacked the language skills to deal with it. Anyways I finally got the door open, and two Chinese people burst into the room screaming in Chinese. They run straight to the kitchen sink and open the door, and a gush of water pours out. They mess with it and apparently stop the flow of water. As I listen and explain my Chinese is bu hao, they discuss what to do with it before asking me for a broom which I do actually understand. There's a drain in the bathroom and they sweep towards it, and call 2 more people in to sweep. I was still confused as to what happened, but eventually after they change the pipes, I see that the metal of the old pipe had drastically come apart. The people sweep for an hour and a half, there was so much water, keep in mind this apartment is quite roomy. Luckily my bedroom was slightly higher so the water barely entered it. Very little stuff got wet, and the end result was that my room actually got cleaned. The water brought all this dust out from the corner. Welcome to China.

I'll tell more about work later; its a lot better than I thought it would be but there's a lot to talk about and this post is getting lengthy. I'll leave with two more stories. I was with my boss Jessica shopping for English-teaching books at this bookstore. She points out this bar called Lush literally adjacent to the store and says that foreigners go there. Also in the store I see this white guy wearing a Hoosiers t-shirt buying a book on Hong Kong and Macau. I don't say anything right away but then he is having trouble at the cashier, so I ask if he needs help. He's very thankful and eventually Jessica and I get to help him, and I tell him a bit about Hong Kong and Macau. That night I head to that bar, which really is a piece of Brooklyn in Beijing. Its 100% English except for the bartenders, although a lot of Europeans evidently stock the place. I saw that guy wearing the Hoosiers shirt again and so we chilled for a bit. He's a grad student from Fordham studying here for the summer. Basically that bar is going to be my networking area for this summer, my miniature Lan Kwai Fong.

I have a lot more to talk about, including a ridiculous incident in the afore-mentioned Lan Kwai Fong while I was in Hong Kong, a difficult cab ride and my time working at EMC. All for later postings.