Tuesday was a clear day. Such a simple sentence only carries meaning and weight in Beijing, where bustling city meets scientific experiment. As far as I know, Beijing right now is the only city that has ever had a need to quickly and drastically lower pollution. Going from having among the worst air in the world to hosting the Olympic Games was always going to be a challenge, that much is obvious, but I always thought that things would work out. The Chinese government would take drastic measures that a democratically elected government could not do and the Games would go on. Then whatever happened after they were over would be just China's problem. And so far everything has gone according to plan. Factories around Beijing have been shutdown and moved to different provinces, rockets have been launched into the sky to supposedly clean gunk out, energy conservation is in and in the latest measures, construction has been halted (no more cement can be poured) and cars are only allowed to drive every other day (except the 55,000 taxis).
Except there's been one problem. The air hasn't improved. The South China Journal told me that the air quality this weekend was still at a level harmful to people with respiratory problems, at a level of around 110. 150 is really bad, 200 is toxic, 50-100 is passable, and below 50 is clean. The level of fluctuation of the air quality particularly surprised me. A strong thunderstorm on Monday night had resulted in the clear Tuesday, during which the air was legitimately good. I walked out of my building and was stunned by how much I could see. I had forgotten what clear air looked like - suddenly there were faraway buildings visible that I hadn't even realized existed. Breathing in, the air actually did taste fresher although who knows how much Mr. Placebo has to do with that. Either way, the place sparkled with a crisp morning dew and was generally pleasant. Today was a different story. Amazingly one day later, we were back to the general haze that typically gunks up this city.
Before arriving in Beijing, I had been curious what it was people were referring to when they discussed the poor air quality. Certainly their reports of toxic air must be exaggerated? O2 is a very basic element and its hard to see how much it can change from place to place. Well here are the consequences of an average day in Beijing: the afore-mentioned general haze, an immense amount of microscopic particles in the air, and difficulty performing any cardiovascular activity. The biggest problem with the air is the physical things that actually float around in it, mostly due to construction I think. I've previously documented my coughing after a tough game of basketball, but I thought this would go away after exercising in this city for a bit. Maybe it did, but Sunday after a long day of Frisbee (11-10 win bitches) I soon started to really cough. I felt like something was clogging my windpipe and if I tried to cough it out my lungs would physically start to hurt. I spent half my time breathing with difficulty and half of my time coughing painfully. It didn't seem like anyone else had this problem so I still think that people can get used to the air, which is also why I think I'll be betting on Chinese endurance athletes whenever possible.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
STO: My New Haircut
Not now chief I'm in the fucking zone. Sorry, I love that line. Anyways, the composition of this post follows my first haircut in Beijing by a mere two hours. While this was far from my first time having my haircut by Chinese people, this was a historical haircut under other criteria. At 38 kuai, this was the cheapest haircut I've ever had. Unsurprisingly, the style of this haircut was also unique as I just told the barbers to do their Asian thing. In addition, this was my first haircut not only in foreign soil, but just my 5th different parlor ever. My previous haircuts had taken place in just a total of 4 haircut spots in Boston and DC (as far as I can recall) - 2 places in Boston Chinatown that I regularly go to, 1 place on Wisconsin Ave. in DC that I go to in college, and then 1 place in West Roxbury that I went to once senior year. EDIT: Oh and apparently I neglected to mention that this was also my first haircut at night, and first time I had walked straight from after-work drinks at a bar to a barbershop. Thanks, I know you all were totally fascinated by my hairstyling history. Either way I currently look like this picture:
Ok so Saturday night was goodbye night for the wonderful individuals at the CIEE program at Bei Da. It's ok, I'm carrying on, but it's not often that half the numbers in your phonebook suddenly become obsolete. Well I was hoping that this would be a blessing in disguise: between working all day until 6, playing Frisbee twice a week and going out another four times, I don't get a whole lot of home time. There's so much I do want to do here especially practicing Chinese. In addition, I haven't seen a movie, read a book, done or written a crossword, in the last month. I have however imbibed a fair amount of White Russians and Singapore Slings, so I'm not complaining or anything.
So Monday night was going to be a chill night for me. I'd write a blog post, listen to some Chinese podcasts and work on my presentation for work (about linguistics and the English language) and perhaps see a few episodes of the Office. Well instead, after lifting weights for an hour, I get a text from Crystal and her friend Anastassia within minutes of getting back to my place: "Crystal and i at lush if u want to come" Well...I really shouldn't...fine.
So Crystal has just come back from a weekend trip to Xi'an and is apparently on antibiotics but nonetheless eagerly anticipating downing several Long Islands. Anastassia is coming off a 5:30am night and a full day of work but shows no ill effects - she is just a total baller. Well we take Lush's buy 2 drinks get 1 free deal and order 3 Long Islands, but unfortunately the 服务员 gives us 3 Adios instead. The full name is something like"Adios Mother Fucker" and the description reads: "The best way to end the night. And it will end your night." Lovely. For the record, an Adios is blue, tastes like vodka mixed poorly with powerade and gets you drunk. So there's a lonely white guy sitting on the bar right in my line of vision, making love to his White Russian and trying to find someone to talk to. I couldn't stand a dude like that, so after hearing stories of Anastassia's ill-fated 2 year engagement, I tell Crystal to invite this guy to our table. I'd like to think of this as my best and worst suggestion ever, or at least of the night. The kid was named Marc and had just finished his freshman year at Colby. We found out the next day that there's a Facebook group dedicated to him not made by him, so that says a ton about him right there. For the RLers reading this, think Nafis Ahmed. Marc was superbly awkward but had the amazing gift that whenever he opened his mouth, hilarity ensued. He said the craziest, most absurd and misunderstood ideas and we all loved them.
At some point during this, Crystal went to the bathroom and returned wearing, in her words, "slutty boob dress." Anyways, Crystal really wanted to play "Never Have I Ever" and Crystal typically gets what she wants, so voila I'm playing "Never Have I Ever" with 2 girls who have become best friends because they're both totally nuts, and a total crazed stranger. Halfway through the game, some dude just pulled his stool up to our table and said, "Hey, I'm joining you guys." Not "Hey do you mind if I join you guys?" or "Could I join you guys" but a forced entrance into our little table. Creeeeper. He was later joined by 2 other creepers - all 3 of them had apparently just graduated from the same high school but the original guy was clearly the alpha creeper. So yeah this was an interesting game of "Never Have I Ever." For the sake of privacy, I won't go over all that was gleaned during this game, but let's just say Marc has never jumped off a cliff, and I've never gotten it going in a McCarthy shower.
Suffice to say, last night was not my chill night. I stumbled back at 2 am. Crystal blacked out due to the combination of adios, antibiotics, and significantly more drinking during "Never Have I Ever" than any other participant. Anastassia got everyone's phone number and posted on the Facebook group dedicated to Marc. I've been decidedly more chill tonight in addition to the haircut, and among other things, cooked stir fry rice with egg and chicken. It actually was not bad and I'm thinking I'm going to refer to myself as Maestro Cal more often.
Ok so Saturday night was goodbye night for the wonderful individuals at the CIEE program at Bei Da. It's ok, I'm carrying on, but it's not often that half the numbers in your phonebook suddenly become obsolete. Well I was hoping that this would be a blessing in disguise: between working all day until 6, playing Frisbee twice a week and going out another four times, I don't get a whole lot of home time. There's so much I do want to do here especially practicing Chinese. In addition, I haven't seen a movie, read a book, done or written a crossword, in the last month. I have however imbibed a fair amount of White Russians and Singapore Slings, so I'm not complaining or anything.
So Monday night was going to be a chill night for me. I'd write a blog post, listen to some Chinese podcasts and work on my presentation for work (about linguistics and the English language) and perhaps see a few episodes of the Office. Well instead, after lifting weights for an hour, I get a text from Crystal and her friend Anastassia within minutes of getting back to my place: "Crystal and i at lush if u want to come" Well...I really shouldn't...fine.
So Crystal has just come back from a weekend trip to Xi'an and is apparently on antibiotics but nonetheless eagerly anticipating downing several Long Islands. Anastassia is coming off a 5:30am night and a full day of work but shows no ill effects - she is just a total baller. Well we take Lush's buy 2 drinks get 1 free deal and order 3 Long Islands, but unfortunately the 服务员 gives us 3 Adios instead. The full name is something like"Adios Mother Fucker" and the description reads: "The best way to end the night. And it will end your night." Lovely. For the record, an Adios is blue, tastes like vodka mixed poorly with powerade and gets you drunk. So there's a lonely white guy sitting on the bar right in my line of vision, making love to his White Russian and trying to find someone to talk to. I couldn't stand a dude like that, so after hearing stories of Anastassia's ill-fated 2 year engagement, I tell Crystal to invite this guy to our table. I'd like to think of this as my best and worst suggestion ever, or at least of the night. The kid was named Marc and had just finished his freshman year at Colby. We found out the next day that there's a Facebook group dedicated to him not made by him, so that says a ton about him right there. For the RLers reading this, think Nafis Ahmed. Marc was superbly awkward but had the amazing gift that whenever he opened his mouth, hilarity ensued. He said the craziest, most absurd and misunderstood ideas and we all loved them.
At some point during this, Crystal went to the bathroom and returned wearing, in her words, "slutty boob dress." Anyways, Crystal really wanted to play "Never Have I Ever" and Crystal typically gets what she wants, so voila I'm playing "Never Have I Ever" with 2 girls who have become best friends because they're both totally nuts, and a total crazed stranger. Halfway through the game, some dude just pulled his stool up to our table and said, "Hey, I'm joining you guys." Not "Hey do you mind if I join you guys?" or "Could I join you guys" but a forced entrance into our little table. Creeeeper. He was later joined by 2 other creepers - all 3 of them had apparently just graduated from the same high school but the original guy was clearly the alpha creeper. So yeah this was an interesting game of "Never Have I Ever." For the sake of privacy, I won't go over all that was gleaned during this game, but let's just say Marc has never jumped off a cliff, and I've never gotten it going in a McCarthy shower.
Suffice to say, last night was not my chill night. I stumbled back at 2 am. Crystal blacked out due to the combination of adios, antibiotics, and significantly more drinking during "Never Have I Ever" than any other participant. Anastassia got everyone's phone number and posted on the Facebook group dedicated to Marc. I've been decidedly more chill tonight in addition to the haircut, and among other things, cooked stir fry rice with egg and chicken. It actually was not bad and I'm thinking I'm going to refer to myself as Maestro Cal more often.
Monday, July 28, 2008
SPO & CUL: Athletic protests in the Olympics
Politics in the Olympics?
Here is one of the biggest questions that always float over Olympic Games and especially so over these games: Should we mix politics with the Olympics?
Well to answer this, we must answer what the Games are. My humble ranking of the significances of the Olympics are:
1a) A inter-cultural and international phenomenon
1b) An athletic event
3) A chance for NBC to wave its giant peacock
1000) Beijing's chance to make a lot of money
I rank the cultural and athletic implications 1a and 1b because to a huge group of people, these are the only point of the Olympics. To many Chinese in this country, the sports competition couldn't mean less. This is merely a chance to broadcast Beijing, and by relation, China, to the entire world. This is a international convention where people from just about every single country in the entire freaking world (except Iraq) will take part. It doesn't matter that some will shoot arrows, some will run exactly 1500 meters, and some will try to judge a ball in the air to see whether they should run or stay near the white square object and try to "tag up."
To many athletes, this event is entirely a sports showcase. This will be a global showcase of their talents, but it doesn't matter whether the games are in Beijing, Athens or Reykjavik. The ultimate goal of any runner, swimmer, gymnast ping pong player or fencer is to make the Olympics. While every sport has their own championship, and usually a world championship, the Olympics is often the highest and most glorious rewarder. I was talking with a Frisbee player here in Beijing who is reporting for ESPN the Magazine, and he was saying that the criteria for Olympic Sports should be whether the Olympics are the greatest level of competition for the sport. This is a great criteria that will eliminate among others, soccer, baseball, tennis and probably basketball from the Games but will represent why, athletically, the Olympic Games are so special. This is the chance for all these otherwise unknown sports to get worldwide coverage. Without the Olympics, we will never hear of great athletes including contemporaries like Paul Hamm, the Lopez Tae-Kwan-Do siblings, Tyson Gay and Alan Webb, and historical figures like Greg Louganis, Tommy Moe, Carl Lewis and Flo-Jo, all of whom have entered our athletic lore because of these great events.
So the Olympic Games are dually cultural and athletic... it's the Jesus Christ of international conventions. But how does this relate to politics? Why have the British Olympic Committee forbidden its athletes from making any sort of political statements?
Well viewing the Olympics as a cultural event, not only do we see this as a chance for the world to see Chinese culture, but inevitably we see a chance to criticize Chinese culture (government). Journalists coming in to recount their experience will be unable to help themselves from talking about the same things I've talked about - massive police presence, internet censorship, biased internal media, strong and unchallengeable government decrees and if they dig deeper, perhaps human rights violations. Cross cultural exposure is directly linked to cross cultural criticism, and while I urge anyone visiting a different culture to be totally open and understanding, eventually understanding combined with evaluation will result in truly detecting flaws. Even a journalist that comes in without bias will be forced to write about the inadequacies he/she sees in this country if he/she is observant enough. This is true about any country but especially China.
However, a journalist is not an athlete. Most newspapers will be sending journalists not only well-versed in Olympic sports, but with a keen eye and incentive to keep an eye out for larger nationalistic and cultural stories. On the other hand, athletes are chosen solely for their abilities to represent their country with pride and bring back medals. If every athlete was pressured to make political statements whenever they had the podium, we'd have Darfur protesters who couldn't find Sudan on the map. Even Steven Spielberg, who was hired as a consultant director for the ceremonies but resigned for China's role in trading with Sudan, has no idea what he was talking about. His resignation was meaningless, uninformed and at best, mildly damaging. Helping China present a worthwhile Opening Ceremonies has absolutely nothing to do with racial genocide in Darfur. There is much more to be gained from investigating and understanding a vastly different culture then there is from reading a newspaper article and stepping away in protest.
I don't have a problem with an athlete who has a truly personal reason to protest to do so. I completely support John Carlos and Tommie Smith raising their now famous Black Power salute on the 200 meter medalstand to show the whole world a symbol of African American pride and demonstrate the injustices suffered by African Americans at the time. If some Olympic athlete wants to send a message because their brother was unjustly imprisoned by the Chinese government for 15 years, let them. If Michael Phelps' cousin starved to death in the Great Leap Forward, maybe he should be allowed to talk about it. However, I am deathly afraid of athletes who know nothing about history, culture or politics, to come in here and, under pressure from whoevernot, to speak ill of things they don't understand and incur the wrath of 1 billion Chinese. Even if their opinions are worthwhile, there's a difference between expressing those opinions and understanding them.
Here is one of the biggest questions that always float over Olympic Games and especially so over these games: Should we mix politics with the Olympics?
Well to answer this, we must answer what the Games are. My humble ranking of the significances of the Olympics are:
1a) A inter-cultural and international phenomenon
1b) An athletic event
3) A chance for NBC to wave its giant peacock
1000) Beijing's chance to make a lot of money
I rank the cultural and athletic implications 1a and 1b because to a huge group of people, these are the only point of the Olympics. To many Chinese in this country, the sports competition couldn't mean less. This is merely a chance to broadcast Beijing, and by relation, China, to the entire world. This is a international convention where people from just about every single country in the entire freaking world (except Iraq) will take part. It doesn't matter that some will shoot arrows, some will run exactly 1500 meters, and some will try to judge a ball in the air to see whether they should run or stay near the white square object and try to "tag up."
To many athletes, this event is entirely a sports showcase. This will be a global showcase of their talents, but it doesn't matter whether the games are in Beijing, Athens or Reykjavik. The ultimate goal of any runner, swimmer, gymnast ping pong player or fencer is to make the Olympics. While every sport has their own championship, and usually a world championship, the Olympics is often the highest and most glorious rewarder. I was talking with a Frisbee player here in Beijing who is reporting for ESPN the Magazine, and he was saying that the criteria for Olympic Sports should be whether the Olympics are the greatest level of competition for the sport. This is a great criteria that will eliminate among others, soccer, baseball, tennis and probably basketball from the Games but will represent why, athletically, the Olympic Games are so special. This is the chance for all these otherwise unknown sports to get worldwide coverage. Without the Olympics, we will never hear of great athletes including contemporaries like Paul Hamm, the Lopez Tae-Kwan-Do siblings, Tyson Gay and Alan Webb, and historical figures like Greg Louganis, Tommy Moe, Carl Lewis and Flo-Jo, all of whom have entered our athletic lore because of these great events.
So the Olympic Games are dually cultural and athletic... it's the Jesus Christ of international conventions. But how does this relate to politics? Why have the British Olympic Committee forbidden its athletes from making any sort of political statements?
Well viewing the Olympics as a cultural event, not only do we see this as a chance for the world to see Chinese culture, but inevitably we see a chance to criticize Chinese culture (government). Journalists coming in to recount their experience will be unable to help themselves from talking about the same things I've talked about - massive police presence, internet censorship, biased internal media, strong and unchallengeable government decrees and if they dig deeper, perhaps human rights violations. Cross cultural exposure is directly linked to cross cultural criticism, and while I urge anyone visiting a different culture to be totally open and understanding, eventually understanding combined with evaluation will result in truly detecting flaws. Even a journalist that comes in without bias will be forced to write about the inadequacies he/she sees in this country if he/she is observant enough. This is true about any country but especially China.
However, a journalist is not an athlete. Most newspapers will be sending journalists not only well-versed in Olympic sports, but with a keen eye and incentive to keep an eye out for larger nationalistic and cultural stories. On the other hand, athletes are chosen solely for their abilities to represent their country with pride and bring back medals. If every athlete was pressured to make political statements whenever they had the podium, we'd have Darfur protesters who couldn't find Sudan on the map. Even Steven Spielberg, who was hired as a consultant director for the ceremonies but resigned for China's role in trading with Sudan, has no idea what he was talking about. His resignation was meaningless, uninformed and at best, mildly damaging. Helping China present a worthwhile Opening Ceremonies has absolutely nothing to do with racial genocide in Darfur. There is much more to be gained from investigating and understanding a vastly different culture then there is from reading a newspaper article and stepping away in protest.
I don't have a problem with an athlete who has a truly personal reason to protest to do so. I completely support John Carlos and Tommie Smith raising their now famous Black Power salute on the 200 meter medalstand to show the whole world a symbol of African American pride and demonstrate the injustices suffered by African Americans at the time. If some Olympic athlete wants to send a message because their brother was unjustly imprisoned by the Chinese government for 15 years, let them. If Michael Phelps' cousin starved to death in the Great Leap Forward, maybe he should be allowed to talk about it. However, I am deathly afraid of athletes who know nothing about history, culture or politics, to come in here and, under pressure from whoevernot, to speak ill of things they don't understand and incur the wrath of 1 billion Chinese. Even if their opinions are worthwhile, there's a difference between expressing those opinions and understanding them.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
CUL: Useless jobs
Chinese unemployment rate is officially listed at 4% and unofficially at 13%. I can take a guess at what that means. Even still, with 1.3 billion people, it doesn't take a math major to realize that at either of those figures, there are a lot of jobs to go around. Here are some:
1. Elevator attendant - there are several people, including some in my apartment building, whose main job seems to be to take care of buildings, janitorial style. However every so often, I notice that they'll just stand by the elevator and try to be active. This includes pressing the up button when they hear someone coming, and holding the elevator open when it arrives. I think this may save the average individual about 1.8 seconds, and create an average of 10.3 seconds of awkwardness while the individual waits for the elevator alongside the attendant, who is patiently pretending she has a job.
2. Mall serenader - a few weeks ago, my dad and his friends took me to a Japanese restaurant in some high end mall. On our way out, taking the escalators down, we were serenaded at every level by 4 young-ish women standing on both sides of the escalator. They would bow when we landed and say a phrase in Chinese that meant something like, "Honored guest, please return sometime." I managed to constrain my laughter with extreme difficulty - their situation was simply comical. These women surrounded the escalators of like 4 levels as well as all the mall entrances. That's at least 32 people on the mall's payroll that appear meek as a living. Eh, there are worst jobs.
3. Plastic bottle collectors - this is technically not a job. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this on the blog before, but many old people collect plastic bottles in order to recycle them back for cash. This makes about a nickel in the US and I can't imagine that the price is significantly higher here in China so you can imagine how hard these people must work to buy dinner. At the Forbidden City, a women came up to me and asked for my bottle of water. When I replied that it still had water in it, she made me chug it and then took it. When playing basketball at Tsinghua University, an old man would watch the action then come collect the inevitable scattered plastic bottles.
4. Bathroom massager - by far the scariest and most awkward of all the jobs. In China Doll, a classy club in San Li Tunr, I had to take a leak and found 2 bathroom attendants inside. I've seen bathroom attendants before - in Hong Kong - and while certainly useless and awkward, they hadn't prepared me for this dude. As I take my place by the urinal, he comes up behind me and starts massaging my shoulders. It is NOT comfortable, and does NOT help me pee. After I'm done, shake him off, he turns the faucet on, waits for me to wash my hands, brings the soap to me, and does a sort of half-bow while presenting me with a paper towel. Amazingly there was a bowl for tips there filled with 20s. I threw a 5 in and ran away.
5. Umbrella seller - amazingly, when it rains, these guys just materialize. They sell nothing besides 10 kuai umbrellas and are nowhere to be seen on a sunny day. But when it pours, these guys are more popular than hot dog vendors at Fenway Park, or Barack Obama in Berlin.
6. Police officer - yes this is not exactly a useless job, until you realize how many there are in Beijing now. With the Olympics around, officers are everywhere important and several places that are decidedly unimportant. The Bei Da campus' many entrances are all guarded by armed security dressed in the intimidating dark green uniforms of the Chinese police. To enter the campus, you need to flash your Chinese student ID, and even then you might get a second look and a patdown. For me, I needed to be signed in by a student, give them an ID and fill out like 6 categories in Chinese, 2 of which I recognized (i faked some characters for the other 4). I gave them my Hong Kong ID cause it had my Chinese name on it so I don't know how they'd react to an American ID (I doubt it's a big difference). All in all, it's a lot harder to get into this campus than it is to sneak into LXR and it's all because there will be some ping pong events held in the gymnasium in 3 weeks time. I heard a rumor that some athletes are also staying there already, which might make the security seem more sensible, but overall the abundance of cops really indicates the paranoia that the Chinese government is feeling towards these games. More on that later.
1. Elevator attendant - there are several people, including some in my apartment building, whose main job seems to be to take care of buildings, janitorial style. However every so often, I notice that they'll just stand by the elevator and try to be active. This includes pressing the up button when they hear someone coming, and holding the elevator open when it arrives. I think this may save the average individual about 1.8 seconds, and create an average of 10.3 seconds of awkwardness while the individual waits for the elevator alongside the attendant, who is patiently pretending she has a job.
2. Mall serenader - a few weeks ago, my dad and his friends took me to a Japanese restaurant in some high end mall. On our way out, taking the escalators down, we were serenaded at every level by 4 young-ish women standing on both sides of the escalator. They would bow when we landed and say a phrase in Chinese that meant something like, "Honored guest, please return sometime." I managed to constrain my laughter with extreme difficulty - their situation was simply comical. These women surrounded the escalators of like 4 levels as well as all the mall entrances. That's at least 32 people on the mall's payroll that appear meek as a living. Eh, there are worst jobs.
3. Plastic bottle collectors - this is technically not a job. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this on the blog before, but many old people collect plastic bottles in order to recycle them back for cash. This makes about a nickel in the US and I can't imagine that the price is significantly higher here in China so you can imagine how hard these people must work to buy dinner. At the Forbidden City, a women came up to me and asked for my bottle of water. When I replied that it still had water in it, she made me chug it and then took it. When playing basketball at Tsinghua University, an old man would watch the action then come collect the inevitable scattered plastic bottles.
4. Bathroom massager - by far the scariest and most awkward of all the jobs. In China Doll, a classy club in San Li Tunr, I had to take a leak and found 2 bathroom attendants inside. I've seen bathroom attendants before - in Hong Kong - and while certainly useless and awkward, they hadn't prepared me for this dude. As I take my place by the urinal, he comes up behind me and starts massaging my shoulders. It is NOT comfortable, and does NOT help me pee. After I'm done, shake him off, he turns the faucet on, waits for me to wash my hands, brings the soap to me, and does a sort of half-bow while presenting me with a paper towel. Amazingly there was a bowl for tips there filled with 20s. I threw a 5 in and ran away.
5. Umbrella seller - amazingly, when it rains, these guys just materialize. They sell nothing besides 10 kuai umbrellas and are nowhere to be seen on a sunny day. But when it pours, these guys are more popular than hot dog vendors at Fenway Park, or Barack Obama in Berlin.
6. Police officer - yes this is not exactly a useless job, until you realize how many there are in Beijing now. With the Olympics around, officers are everywhere important and several places that are decidedly unimportant. The Bei Da campus' many entrances are all guarded by armed security dressed in the intimidating dark green uniforms of the Chinese police. To enter the campus, you need to flash your Chinese student ID, and even then you might get a second look and a patdown. For me, I needed to be signed in by a student, give them an ID and fill out like 6 categories in Chinese, 2 of which I recognized (i faked some characters for the other 4). I gave them my Hong Kong ID cause it had my Chinese name on it so I don't know how they'd react to an American ID (I doubt it's a big difference). All in all, it's a lot harder to get into this campus than it is to sneak into LXR and it's all because there will be some ping pong events held in the gymnasium in 3 weeks time. I heard a rumor that some athletes are also staying there already, which might make the security seem more sensible, but overall the abundance of cops really indicates the paranoia that the Chinese government is feeling towards these games. More on that later.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
STO: Teenagers scare the living shit out of me
Tuesday marks the end of my teenage years. Birthdays have always been an interesting part of my life. A summer birthday has led to some uneventful July twenty-seconds as Boston-area residents habitually head to the cape or camp or whatnot and I have rarely spent my birthday with friends. Past birthdays have ranged from a parent-thrown party in June when I was 10, a full day in Driver's ED class complete with 2 trips to the RMV because I didn't bring my birth certificate the first time, to a day in Washington DC on a social service trip in which my parents neglected to call me to driving around in circles on my 18th and then spending the day isolated in Connecticut. So Greg and I disagree on what birthdays are about - he doesn't like the pressure of "needing to have a good day" on your birthday and thinks it should just be an ordinary day. I disagree. It's the one day of the year where people celebrate you, unless you're Barack Obama and the date is January 20, 2009. So of course I threw a party on Saturday. Note: I don't quite remember the circumstances of this picture.
Saturday morning and afternoon was a little high stress for me as I got the apartment ready and talked on the phone with various guests all day. My computer's speakers are broken so I needed to buy a speaker for the music and headed over to 海龙, the giant electronics mall that is abuzzing with Asians obsessing over cameras and mobiles. I looked up the word for speaker, 扬声器, and headed over with a fat wallet and a sense of optimism. I returned with an electronic pig. As ridiculous as it looks, I'm very proud of my little piggy - all the speakers were either animal-shaped or large multi-pieced iPod docks. For 450 kuai I had this spheroid shaped thing with two speakers for eyes. So I plug it into my computer and start blasting Sweetest Girl and life is good. I had made the salesperson plug in the pig and prove that it worked beforehand but I was still nervous about its functionality, because in China so many electronic goods are broken. Ok so I lean onto this pig and suddenly the volume drops. Fuck. I can't even find where you adjust the volume, there's this little Bass knob on the back but that's not it. I start banging on the pig and at first nothing changes. After one particular bang the volume totally dies. Wonderful. Dejected, forlorn and tired, I reluctantly look up the Chinese word for volume, drag my pig back to the electronics superhub and go back to the salesman, who promptly shows me that the sound is working fine. I blubber around for answers, and to my immense shame, the salesman shows me that pressing down on the ears of the pig adjusts the volume. My pig and I were blushing the whole taxi ride back to my apartment.
After cleaning up my apartment, buying cups and more beer at 7Eleven, I head out for dinner at this wonderful little pizza restaurant called Kro's Nest with Charlie, Saloni and Christie. The bbq chicken, onion and mushroom pizza was legit, delish and like all other food in China, terrible for one's digestive system. I hurried home from dinner as the party was scheduled to start at 8:30. I had a shot of Absolut vodka with Saloni to start the night but things were really lowkey for a while because no one arrived until like 9:30 and as of 10 o'clock, there were like 6 people here. Then everything blew up, and after a few drinks and what seemed like 20 minutes, another 10 people arrived and I changed the music from my "pre-game chill" list to the "party list." Lots of people brought a few drinks and Christie even brought a birthday cake. I had a whole set of amusing rules which no one really followed, but the best one was definitely the punishment of baijiu for any perpetrator of a party foul (which included me). In some order, I took a shot of jack daniels with JD (who despite being 10 years older and not knowing anyone else was really the life of the party) and then another one with Lisa, sharing a Corona with Kate, choked back on some baijiu, played some Kings, and told at least 5 different people to "look for the foot massage place" while trying to find my building. We also had an ice-breaking session, where I made everyone say their name, what they're doing in Beijing, and why I'm awesome. The best quotes from that session were from Christie, "I like eating chocolate," and Angela, "Cal is awesome because although both his parents are Chinese, he looks like a HALFIE."
At some point around midnight the party really went nuts. We broke out the cake which served a function in addition to dessert. Lisa told me to come over and when I obliged, she slapped me in the face with a piece of cake she had hidden in her pocket. It got everywhere, all over my shirt and face, it was ridiculous. I'm pretty sure I took off my shirt after that. Everyone at the party surprised me with a birthday card with at least 15 signatures. Around 1 or 130am I made everyone leave the apartment and head to Lush. This included a brief stop on the bridge in the middle of the complex, where I think at least 5 of us guys peed off it. Absolutely shameless. The cops walked over to us when that happened but I think we were miraculously spared.
I woke up this morning sleeping with a decidedly wicked hangover. Among the battle scars in my apartment this morning: about 20 open containers of alcohol and a quarter of cake strewn across two tables, broken tiles at the base of my wall, sprite stains on my laptop (the only residual effect is a sticky left clicker), a piece of cake on a plate on top of my air conditioning, a page of my notebook filled with the rules for King's, and my favorite shot glass in several pieces :(. Nothing really terrible though, like a dead body or a pile of vomit, and all totally worth it. Anyways, this was the best party I had ever attended. I think from this point out, my time in Beijing will be more cultural, healthier and more academic as opposed to alcoholic. There's still a lot of stuff I want to do in this city and having an awesome party is no longer one of them.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
STO: Hired help
So I went back to work at EMC Monday and found a white guy sitting at the desk next to mine. Turns out the company has finally hired a real English teacher, as opposed to an underage drunk college student. Although one may perceive this as added competition, the truth is that Dan's addition to the office really eases the burden off of me. He's a BU grad who has been teaching English in China for 5 years at every age level from pre-school to grad school. So yeah 百人's got some experience with China. Conveniently, my job description doesn't change much - I'm still doing all of my 1 on 1 talks and giving presentations twice a week. Dan will help out with those presentations and setup a course on his own.
Speaking of presentations, I've had two good ones this week. On Tuesday, after an email of the Chinese translation of Steve Job's 2005 Stanford commencement address circulated the office, I decided to go over the speech as the presentation. In addition to improving my coworkers listening comprehension and understanding some colloquial expressions, the speech proved to be an inspiration to everyone. I almost felt guilty playing it, because Jobs strongly encourages the graduates to "never settle," to find what they love. If EMC sees a mass migration of many of its employees who saw my presentation, I hope I don't get sued. Also, I love that speech...I mean I haven't heard anyone say they hate it, there's a reason why its so watched on youtube.
Today's presentation was about American education system, particularly colleges which I love talking about. The differences between universities and university life in China and the United States are massive and in abundance. I don't have a comprehensive understanding of college in China but here are some significant changes I've noticed:
1. The best universities in China are all public. Government funding does everything in China
2. Early in a high schooler's career, they choose either a liberal arts or a science track. And that's that. No more literature classes for 16 year old physics students.
3. Each high schooler then takes a standardized test corresponding to their track. Its an intensive 3 day event, and the results directly influence the type of school that people can apply to. If you ace the test, you get to apply to "top tier" schools which are clearly defined in China. In my presentation today I wish I could have emphasized the lack of this aspect in the American education system.
4. When you pick a major, that's basically all you study.
5. The fall semester runs from September - February ending before the Chinese new year. The spring semester runs from March to July and kids are finishing up now.
6. College kids don't party like we do. It really is a harder working environment. That doesn't mean there aren't a lot of kids my age out at the bars, but its a very different mentality from the American "no parents no rules" one.
7. No serious college sports and scholarships, although there are varsity teams that compete against other schools.
8. Tuition costs as much as 10,000...yuan a year. Wow.
9. All the good schools are in cities.
I enlisted the other intern here, Brandon from MIT, to explain life at his school. I think we gave a nice balanced look, coming from very different academic schools. I was a little stunned to hear that he was a 4 time North Carolina state track champ and ran a 4:20 mile in high school. He also got an 800 in the Math section of the SAT. Uh, I um, I got an A+ in Junior year calculus... I also fit a coke can between my abs. I'm going to curl up in a corner of inadequacy now.
Oh and my iPod just broke. What the fuck. My iPod is such an integral part of my life now, I've had days where it was with me for upwards of 16 hours (I typically sleep with it). My human body is probably at least 3% iPod.
And 5% Facebook.
Speaking of presentations, I've had two good ones this week. On Tuesday, after an email of the Chinese translation of Steve Job's 2005 Stanford commencement address circulated the office, I decided to go over the speech as the presentation. In addition to improving my coworkers listening comprehension and understanding some colloquial expressions, the speech proved to be an inspiration to everyone. I almost felt guilty playing it, because Jobs strongly encourages the graduates to "never settle," to find what they love. If EMC sees a mass migration of many of its employees who saw my presentation, I hope I don't get sued. Also, I love that speech...I mean I haven't heard anyone say they hate it, there's a reason why its so watched on youtube.
Today's presentation was about American education system, particularly colleges which I love talking about. The differences between universities and university life in China and the United States are massive and in abundance. I don't have a comprehensive understanding of college in China but here are some significant changes I've noticed:
1. The best universities in China are all public. Government funding does everything in China
2. Early in a high schooler's career, they choose either a liberal arts or a science track. And that's that. No more literature classes for 16 year old physics students.
3. Each high schooler then takes a standardized test corresponding to their track. Its an intensive 3 day event, and the results directly influence the type of school that people can apply to. If you ace the test, you get to apply to "top tier" schools which are clearly defined in China. In my presentation today I wish I could have emphasized the lack of this aspect in the American education system.
4. When you pick a major, that's basically all you study.
5. The fall semester runs from September - February ending before the Chinese new year. The spring semester runs from March to July and kids are finishing up now.
6. College kids don't party like we do. It really is a harder working environment. That doesn't mean there aren't a lot of kids my age out at the bars, but its a very different mentality from the American "no parents no rules" one.
7. No serious college sports and scholarships, although there are varsity teams that compete against other schools.
8. Tuition costs as much as 10,000...yuan a year. Wow.
9. All the good schools are in cities.
I enlisted the other intern here, Brandon from MIT, to explain life at his school. I think we gave a nice balanced look, coming from very different academic schools. I was a little stunned to hear that he was a 4 time North Carolina state track champ and ran a 4:20 mile in high school. He also got an 800 in the Math section of the SAT. Uh, I um, I got an A+ in Junior year calculus... I also fit a coke can between my abs. I'm going to curl up in a corner of inadequacy now.
Oh and my iPod just broke. What the fuck. My iPod is such an integral part of my life now, I've had days where it was with me for upwards of 16 hours (I typically sleep with it). My human body is probably at least 3% iPod.
And 5% Facebook.
Monday, July 14, 2008
SPO: Summer topics
This is not a bad summer for sports, unless you live in Seattle. From the greatest tennis match I didn't see to bad-ass baseball trades to a new Brand of free agency to the cheesiest cheesehead ever, there's been a lot of action and even more talk since I last mentioned sports. So even though my version of Sportscenter is the 50 second clip on Espn.com, you're getting my take whether you like it or not.
-Gotta start with Brett Favre. He's on the short list for most overglorified athletes of our generation along with Derek Jeter, Tiger Woods and Tom Brady. He's undoubtedly a great guy, genuinely nice and personable, but he relies too much on emotion and not enough on rational thought. In March he said he thoroughly thought through (say that 5 times fast) the entire season and couldn't see himself making it through the grind. Well nothing's changed, so Brett needs to trust his previous decision and not relent because he misses the sport. Perhaps he's too tough for his own good. The record holder for consecutive starts made can push through another brutal season at any age and just has no quit in him. Unfortunately, no comeback scenario remains that will not terribly tarnish his legacy. If he comes back, you're going to see an Atlanta Falcon or Chicago Bear throwing interceptions and giving depressed interviews.
-I know most people probably don't even know what this is, but Bill Simmons' podcast with James Blake was so disappointing. Simmons professes to be a reborn tennis fan who played the sport a ton as a teenager but I'm absolutely calling him out on his tennis knowledge. Blake is one of the most interesting interviews in all of sports - he's simply a great conversational, intriguing person - and Simmons totally failed to capitalize on this, instead berating himself over and over again for writing a shitty column (a fact that Blake couldn't care less about). Among the aspects of Blake that Simmons neglected to delve into, half of which he was probably unaware of, was Blake's experience as an African-American in a white sport, his rare facial-paralysis disease that took away 6 months of his career, his time at Harvard University, and his relationship with soccer player Heather Mitts. Simmons also talked about how "no one ever remembers what happens at the Aussie open" and I couldn't believe no one had informed Simmons of Blake's saga of a 5 hour match there a few years ago where he won the 5th set 19-17. The only redeeming part of the podcast was Bill shedding light on the close high school friendship of Blake and John Mayer.
-Rich Harden is Mark Prior 2.0. I'm rather stunned the Cubs took a chance on another power pitcher with great stuff and a history of arm trouble but they obviously felt they needed to combat the Brewers acquisition of CC Sabathia. If Harden had gone to any other team I'd think he'd have a successful career, but he's on a cursed team now and it's just a matter of time. I've also never been that sold on him ever since he coughed up the deciding 2 runs to the Red Sox in game 4 of the 2003 ALDS as a rookie. His stats have been inconsistent and while I do hope for a Cubs World Series this year, I don't see Harden leading them to one.
-This Elton Brand saga has blown up into chaotic hilarity. The real moral of the story is never to enter shady negotiations with a Dukie power forward after Cleveland's experience with Carlos Boozer (a situation far less dramatic than this one). I think I'm going to side with Brand on this one. When he declared for free agency, he's totally fair game and the Clippers just have to court free agents like anyone else. They shouldn't assume that signing Baron Davis will magically make Brand also come back. I do know that apparently Brand led the Clippers (and Baron) to believe that things will magically fall into place, but the Clippers were trying to outdo the rules of the free agent market and were instead outdone. Just like Cleveland and Boozer. For the record, I can't recall a single game I've ever seen Brand play, and I've seen 200 NBA games since he's been in the league. Not sure what that means but his arrival in Philly doesn't guarantee the 76ers anything.
-Did you know Brook Lopez and Michelle Wie were (are?) dating? According to my brother's ex-girlfriend from Stanford. I wonder where Jack McGeary fits into all this.
-Like I've mentioned to anyone who gives me the time of day, I'm sorely disappointed that the new Oklahoma City team is not considering the name "Bombers." The saga with that team leaving Seattle is also a depressing and annoying story that really destroys the purity in sports. A sports commissioner should really have the power to block that move, and no person who was thrilled to deprive Seattle of a basketball team should be allowed to be owner.
-I've talked about Olympic athletes to look out for at a work presentation. Without going over them in detail, this was the list I gave (before qualifications had taken place): Roger Federer, Michael Phelps, Guo Jing Jing, Asafa Powell, Usain Bolt, Kobe Bryant, Abubaker Kaki, Yao Ming, Wang Hao and Liu Xiang. Those are various athletes who will be getting coverage here in Beijing because they're good, and are probably familiar to Americans too with the exceptions of Kaki, Wang Hao and Guo Jing Jing and maybe Bolt. I'll go over them all some other post, but I also mentioned 3 other athletes: Dara Torres, Natalie du Toit and Oscar Pistorius. Du Toit and Pistorius are both amputees who may appear on able-bodied Olympic events and coincidentally both are South African. Du Toit was already a world class swimmer at 17 when a car ran into her and she had her left leg amputated at the knee. Competing without prosthetics, she's amazingly qualified for the Games in the 10k open water race. I think she was a sprinter before her injury and now specializes in longer distances. Pistorius was born without fibula and had his legs amputated. He hasn't yet qualified for the 400m sprint and probably won't run the requisite time of 45.95 to do so, but is likely to be put on the South African 4x400m relay team. He's been in a storm of arguments because his prosthetics are apparently more efficient than ankles and at times his height has changed as he simply makes his prosthetics longer. While he doesn't always come off as the most likable athlete, I don't think people should complain about his prosthetics unless they cut off their legs and try them on.
Torres creates waves of headlines and controversy on her own. She's a 41 year old swimmer who competed in the 1984 olympic games. That is not a typo. She's swam in 5 Olympics, missing 1996 and 2004, at least one of which because she was pregnant. She's qualified for events and now there are whispered doping allegations about her. This is undoubtedly just one of many steroid stories which will accompany these games but I think this story is circumstantial at best. Basically, if you're a 41 year old in a sport where teenagers set world records, and look like this people are going to ask questions. I think she's legit though because what kind of 41 year old mother would care enough to dope? Actually I don't want to know the answer to that question.
-Gotta start with Brett Favre. He's on the short list for most overglorified athletes of our generation along with Derek Jeter, Tiger Woods and Tom Brady. He's undoubtedly a great guy, genuinely nice and personable, but he relies too much on emotion and not enough on rational thought. In March he said he thoroughly thought through (say that 5 times fast) the entire season and couldn't see himself making it through the grind. Well nothing's changed, so Brett needs to trust his previous decision and not relent because he misses the sport. Perhaps he's too tough for his own good. The record holder for consecutive starts made can push through another brutal season at any age and just has no quit in him. Unfortunately, no comeback scenario remains that will not terribly tarnish his legacy. If he comes back, you're going to see an Atlanta Falcon or Chicago Bear throwing interceptions and giving depressed interviews.
-I know most people probably don't even know what this is, but Bill Simmons' podcast with James Blake was so disappointing. Simmons professes to be a reborn tennis fan who played the sport a ton as a teenager but I'm absolutely calling him out on his tennis knowledge. Blake is one of the most interesting interviews in all of sports - he's simply a great conversational, intriguing person - and Simmons totally failed to capitalize on this, instead berating himself over and over again for writing a shitty column (a fact that Blake couldn't care less about). Among the aspects of Blake that Simmons neglected to delve into, half of which he was probably unaware of, was Blake's experience as an African-American in a white sport, his rare facial-paralysis disease that took away 6 months of his career, his time at Harvard University, and his relationship with soccer player Heather Mitts. Simmons also talked about how "no one ever remembers what happens at the Aussie open" and I couldn't believe no one had informed Simmons of Blake's saga of a 5 hour match there a few years ago where he won the 5th set 19-17. The only redeeming part of the podcast was Bill shedding light on the close high school friendship of Blake and John Mayer.
-Rich Harden is Mark Prior 2.0. I'm rather stunned the Cubs took a chance on another power pitcher with great stuff and a history of arm trouble but they obviously felt they needed to combat the Brewers acquisition of CC Sabathia. If Harden had gone to any other team I'd think he'd have a successful career, but he's on a cursed team now and it's just a matter of time. I've also never been that sold on him ever since he coughed up the deciding 2 runs to the Red Sox in game 4 of the 2003 ALDS as a rookie. His stats have been inconsistent and while I do hope for a Cubs World Series this year, I don't see Harden leading them to one.
-This Elton Brand saga has blown up into chaotic hilarity. The real moral of the story is never to enter shady negotiations with a Dukie power forward after Cleveland's experience with Carlos Boozer (a situation far less dramatic than this one). I think I'm going to side with Brand on this one. When he declared for free agency, he's totally fair game and the Clippers just have to court free agents like anyone else. They shouldn't assume that signing Baron Davis will magically make Brand also come back. I do know that apparently Brand led the Clippers (and Baron) to believe that things will magically fall into place, but the Clippers were trying to outdo the rules of the free agent market and were instead outdone. Just like Cleveland and Boozer. For the record, I can't recall a single game I've ever seen Brand play, and I've seen 200 NBA games since he's been in the league. Not sure what that means but his arrival in Philly doesn't guarantee the 76ers anything.
-Did you know Brook Lopez and Michelle Wie were (are?) dating? According to my brother's ex-girlfriend from Stanford. I wonder where Jack McGeary fits into all this.
-Like I've mentioned to anyone who gives me the time of day, I'm sorely disappointed that the new Oklahoma City team is not considering the name "Bombers." The saga with that team leaving Seattle is also a depressing and annoying story that really destroys the purity in sports. A sports commissioner should really have the power to block that move, and no person who was thrilled to deprive Seattle of a basketball team should be allowed to be owner.
-I've talked about Olympic athletes to look out for at a work presentation. Without going over them in detail, this was the list I gave (before qualifications had taken place): Roger Federer, Michael Phelps, Guo Jing Jing, Asafa Powell, Usain Bolt, Kobe Bryant, Abubaker Kaki, Yao Ming, Wang Hao and Liu Xiang. Those are various athletes who will be getting coverage here in Beijing because they're good, and are probably familiar to Americans too with the exceptions of Kaki, Wang Hao and Guo Jing Jing and maybe Bolt. I'll go over them all some other post, but I also mentioned 3 other athletes: Dara Torres, Natalie du Toit and Oscar Pistorius. Du Toit and Pistorius are both amputees who may appear on able-bodied Olympic events and coincidentally both are South African. Du Toit was already a world class swimmer at 17 when a car ran into her and she had her left leg amputated at the knee. Competing without prosthetics, she's amazingly qualified for the Games in the 10k open water race. I think she was a sprinter before her injury and now specializes in longer distances. Pistorius was born without fibula and had his legs amputated. He hasn't yet qualified for the 400m sprint and probably won't run the requisite time of 45.95 to do so, but is likely to be put on the South African 4x400m relay team. He's been in a storm of arguments because his prosthetics are apparently more efficient than ankles and at times his height has changed as he simply makes his prosthetics longer. While he doesn't always come off as the most likable athlete, I don't think people should complain about his prosthetics unless they cut off their legs and try them on.
Torres creates waves of headlines and controversy on her own. She's a 41 year old swimmer who competed in the 1984 olympic games. That is not a typo. She's swam in 5 Olympics, missing 1996 and 2004, at least one of which because she was pregnant. She's qualified for events and now there are whispered doping allegations about her. This is undoubtedly just one of many steroid stories which will accompany these games but I think this story is circumstantial at best. Basically, if you're a 41 year old in a sport where teenagers set world records, and look like this people are going to ask questions. I think she's legit though because what kind of 41 year old mother would care enough to dope? Actually I don't want to know the answer to that question.
Friday, July 11, 2008
CUL: Back to the Mother Island
After Lijiang and Shangri-La, my family vacation took me to a 36 hour sojourn to Hong Kon, a pitstop before I leave for Beijing tomorrow morning. A few quick notes on Shangri-La which is likely a familiar name. The earthly paradise from James Hilton's Lost Horizon (which you can read about here) no one actually knows the true location of the Shangri-La that inspired James Hilton (although wikipedia never says if Hilton even went to China so I doubt such a place exists). My dad told me that recently, the Chinese government sponsored a Singaporean research group to discover the true Shangri-La. These academics poured through the book while chartering through the Himalayas in search of clues, which raised the question my brother posed: what sort of qualifications did this group have? Was it a motley crew of English majors, geologists, Chinese historians and mountain climbers? I would have liked to have been on that mission. Anyways, that group picked a place on the border of Tibet and the rest of China, a curiously political pick. Somehow a completely unrelated city named Zhongdian, to the southeast, decided to rename itself Shangri-La, or Xianggelila, to become a tourist attraction. And that's where we went, although I'm still not sure why.
Xianggelila was certainly interesting and very culturally Tibetan. Many signs were bilingual in Tibetan (which looks a lot like Sanskrit) and Chinese, and a few were trilingual with English. The city is small and peaceful and we ate skewered yak and I bought two ceremonial Tibetan knives that nearly got confiscated at the airport. One interesting aspect of Western China were the effects of China's "One time zone" policy. If you aren't aware, the entire country runs on Beijing time even though the country is 4 zones wide. It was curious to see a bright sun at 8:00 in the evening this far south. There were certainly other interesting parts of the town but I won't be covering it in this blog. Email me if you'd like to know. The trip grew monotonous after I visited my 1000th Chinese shop and I could not wait to go back to Hong Kong and Beijing.
Arriving in Hong Kong from Western China transforms me from being linguistically infantile to a master of dialect. Obviously my English goes a long way here. According to Wikipedia, 95% of Hong Kong is Chinese (and nearly all speak Cantonese natively), and only 38% speak English. That figure seems too low (could Wikipedia be wrong??) as nearly everyone speaks English, albeit typically with discomfort and a thick accent. I don't have a real idea but I'd guess that of the native Cantonese about my age, less than 20% speak English without a strong Chinese accent. So my accent is useful here. My Cantonese is also native and while not fluent and devoid of slang, I more than get by here. Thirdly, my Mandarin is actually better than the average HKer, although not for my age group, which for the most part studied Chinese in school. I heard an airport attendant dealing with a Mandarin speaker say 20 as er sup, instead of er shi (sup is Cantonese for 10, shi Mandarin) which cracked me up. While I'm here though I often pretend to speak only English, because that gives me the ability to surprise someone when I do break into Cantonese. Instead of going in with my American-accented Cantonese and sounding like a fool, I speak confidently in English and then understand people when they gossip about this American in Cantonese.
After a serious typhoon in June, a week of constantly looming rainclouds has surprisingly left this city very pleasant. Ever-present drizzling isn't usually ideal but the overbearing heat and humidity has been replaced by very agreeable 70 degree weather. I think I've mentioned in this blog how I don't think I could ever live in Asia, even Hong Kong, because I'm too American. Well I think I'm changing my opinion there. As my brother is looking into working in Shanghai or Tokyo, I'm more and more becoming intrigued by Hong Kong. I mean I've always loved it, ever since I spent a month here in '98. Its bustling, alive, convenient and a truly special city. It'd be a big lifestyle change coming here, basically sacrificing American sports and suburban comfort, in addition to dealing with the normal humidity. But my goodness there's a lot to like about this city, and I think that if any American wants to have fun in Asia, they have to stop in Hong Kong.
Which brings me to another point - is Hong Kong part of China? I've always gotten offended when people called Hong Kong "China" especially before July 1997 when it legitimately was not China. Now technically it is politically a part of China, but if you look at the Special Administration Region policy that governs the relationship between the two places, you may wonder the extent of this connection. Hong Kong has its own laws, its own currency, its own Olympic team - basically the only way you'll see China involved in Hong Kong is if you decide to invade the island, in which case you'll soon find yourself facing a giant red army. By the way, Hong Kong has the unique fortune to have been militarily defended by first the British Empire and now the Chinese government. It has been able to concentrate on its own economy and not worry about self-defense. Also, Hong Kong is culturally, linguistically, economically, politically, ideologically and even racially very different from China, and you can probably add another 3 "allys" to that list. This leads me to a CNN article I read today by David Challenger: article. In it, Challenger says
it soon struck me that I was in the "real" China, as opposed to expatriate-weary Hong Kong. A double-take here, an odd smile and nod there, confirmed that the slickness of Causeway Bay and the uppity pretensions of Lan Kwai Fong were now far behind.Really? You just then realized that Hong Kong wasn't the "real" China? What tipped you off Challenger? Was it the cars driving on the right side of the road? Or did you notice that all your money now had a picture of Chairman Mao on it? Or was it the fact that when you went to use a public bathroom you couldn't find any toilet paper? (I haven't figured out exactly how Chinese people use the bathroom but let's just say I always carry a packet of tissues with me) But yeah, Hong Kong is very different from China which is why I still argue that Hong Kong is not part of China. I know that Miami and Iowa are very different places and both are in the US, but I think Hong Kong:China is more like Puerto Rico:USA, if you're a fan of the old SATs. Although I don't think the Hong Kong basketball team can beat the Chinese team quite yet, but I digress. So who is this David Challenger guy who didn't know this? How is he writing for CNN.com? Is it because he used "uppity pretensions" to describe LKF?
My blog is really about China and so based on my previous logic, I really should not be writing so much about Hong Kong. I'd just like to say a few things though on this city's behalf. Many people I've met in Beijing, Americans who are interested in China, find Hong Kong uninteresting and disingenuous. It's as if they think the city belongs in Europe, and if it wants to remain in Asia it should throw away its quality bathrooms and British-funded office buildings. They don't understand the uniqueness of Hong Kong and how the city is true to itself. The Western influences clearly stand out in any Google image search of the city, but once you step foot in the city, there is no doubt as to what continent you are on. I've already mentioned the 95% Chinese population and the side effects of that are 1) race is a large factor and 2) the other 5% have interesting stories. While much of that 5% are migrant workers from Southeast Asia, especially Filipinos, all the Westerners here are well-traveled and thoroughly appreciate this special city. They know how to order dim sum and use chopsticks, listen to Cantopop and shop like its their job. I think that most Westerners that live here are transplants and one who grows up and dies here is a rarity, but they all say they love Hong Kong. Most neighborhoods though, are entirely Chinese and often very poor, and you will see the same bargain markets and street vendors that you do in the rest of China. Unlike Beijing and New York though, the cab drivers here can speak English.
Furthermore, Cantonese is a very unique language. The 21st most spoken language in the world, Cantonese, with the possible exception of some Indian languages like Bengali or Hindi, is the most important language almost entirely spoken by one nationality. Before you question this claim, consider what languages are offered in college. Arabic, Japanese, Russian, Mandarin - a white American L2 speaker of these languages would be unlikely to shock you. Sure 99% of Russian speakers are Russian, but Westerners and even Chinese can and do learn Russian. On the other hand, a really unusual set of circumstances need to be present for a Caucasian to speak Cantonese. I've never seen it offered as a second language anywhere, except maybe for the Chinese school I used to go to. EDIT: DJ says it's offered at Harvard, if you take 2 years of Mandarin first. Ok... Combine this with the fact the language is brutally hard to learn - it has 9 tones as opposed to Mandarin's 4 and there are many words in which I can't find roman letters to imitate - and its basically a language that is spoken 100% by native speakers. It's surprising enough when a halfie speaks Cantonese, an absolute eye popper when a non-Chinese does. I have a few relatives who look very white and seeing them speak Cantonese was a formative life experience. In addition, I've heard that there is an Indian comedian here who does an act in fluent Cantonese that brings the house down. So note to all Western readers of this: learning a few Cantonese phrases, particularly pickup lines, will automatically make you tremendously popular here. Also, Hong Kong, Macau and India are the "only regions on the GDP per capita top 50 with a 50% stake in two very different language families."
But really, Hong Kong is everything China strives to be, with the added bonus that China actually produces goods instead of just offering financial services (like 90% of Hong Kong's economy). HK is efficient with one of the world's best subway systems and decent traffic, tourist-friendly while remaining culturally relevant, internationally esteemed and economically prosperous. Hong Kong is extremely dense, but unlike Beijing, it manages the overcrowding very well with lots of overhead walkways, taxi stands and better sidewalks. This may change as I go to Europe in the fall, but right now my favorite 3 cities in the world are Boston, New York and Hong Kong with Paris a distant 4th. I do wish I could go to Tokyo, Taipei, Seoul and Bangkok because I feel as if I still don't have a complete sense of Asia because I don't know those cities.
Well this was an unbelievably long post as I seem to have acquired Bill Simmons' inability to be concise but I hope some people at least read through this.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
STO: Vacation time!
Its been hard blogging recently - that'll happen when your parents plan activities for every minute of the day. I think a quick summary of the last few days is necessary - I'm posting on Tuesday night.
My dad came in to Beijing Thursday night. See, we're all taking a family vacation, and by family, I mean me, my dad, my mom, DJ, my housekeeper auntie and her daughter Eva. Its a big affair, and personally I think it's ridiculous that they came all the way out here to visit me while I'm just away for the summer, but that's exactly what my parents are - ridiculous. So Friday is July 4th, and suddenly it dawned on me that this was my first ever July 4th away from the US. While not always the most exciting of holidays because like every other time during the summer, my friends are scattered around, I realized how much I did miss my nation's Independence Day. Barbecues, day off from work, walking around town, concert at the Hatshell, fireworks... these seem routine and redundant until you find yourself slumbering through another workday while they're taking place. Well I tried to arrange a dinner for my dad to meet my friends here at an American place, and asked Kate for a place. After an odd turn of events, I instead was bringing my friends to dinner with many of Kate's friends, our party totalling nearly 20, at a Mexican restaurant and my dad fortuanately had other plans.
This July 4th bore some eerie similarities to my last year's July 4th - great plans, close friends, terrible weather and eventually a disappointing night. Crystal and I got to the dinner ok, but soon after we got there things started pouring. Lisa and her friends were coming by taxi and got stuck in traffic. And Lisa was sick and threw up on the side of the room. Then they couldn't find the restaurant and I went to look for them in absolutely DRENCHING rain. Cats and dogs inadequately express the force of this storm. In among the more colossal mistakes of my time here, I went out looking for them sans umbrella and in addition to jumping through the river that San Li Tun road had become, I failed to find them. I returned to the restaurant soaked and pretty pissed. We finally got reunited after the storm passed over, and by this time everyone else was on their way out to party, and I couldn't go with them of course...anyways, after footing 100 kuai more than I should have on the bill because someone didn't pay, I went out for an uneventful clubbing trip before returning home. The only eventful part was the massage I got at a urinal in a club bathroom by a bathroom attendant... I'm not sure if that was the creepiest physical moment of my life but it was definitely top 3.
Ok so vacation time began Saturday. So the rest of our party gathered in Hong Kong, and we are all supposed to meet up in Kunming, a Southern city. From there we'd fly to Lijiang, a small city with a UN World Heritage site (from where I'm currently typing). Well our 11:20am flight from Beijing wasn't at the gate when we got there...turns out it was flying from some Northern city and hadn't even left that airport yet. Boarding finally took place around 5:30 but it wasn't until 7 that we left. Our connecting flight from Kunming to Lijiang departed at 7:40. So we had to crash at an airport hotel for the night before flying to Lijiang in the morning (this flight was only an hour and a half late). Overall I am less than impressed by the Chinese air transit system.
I really should have gotten to this earlier but Lijiang is beautiful. You can wikipedia it (if you haven't already), but really quickly, it's barely east of Myanmar, surrounded by mountains, the home of the Naxi minority, and absolutely scenic. The first day we went to the World Heritage site, which was this old city created by the Naxi that exudes culture. Dainty canals geometrically line the city, with stone bridges everywhere making access easy. The canal water is very clean, deriving straight from the mountain and with very minimal polluting on the way down. This "city" is basically a giant bazaar with tourism souveniors out the wazoo. If you aren't familiar with this yet, most of China, especially all these shops, run on a barter economy, and the general rule of thumb my dad taught me is that the correct response to a salesperson initial price offering is to divide by four and make that your price. Everybody is trying to rip everyone else off. I hope to get into more details later but I mostly bought necklaces, t-shirts, cheap paintings and the like, only breaking the bank for this incredible chess set with the pieces carved in traditional Chinese form. In addition, we also made a trek up the mountain ranges nearby via gondola. I believe the mountains we went to are the foothills of the Himalayas and quite tall - we were at over 4000 meters, 13,000 feet or so and I'm pretty sure thats the highest I've ever been. Perhaps difficult to believe, but there was snow at this level (which wasn't even the peak). Although global warming has definitely hurt the snow and glaciers, even in the summer, this close to the equator, it was still possible for me to throw a snowball at DJ. However I got altitude sickness and really had to take it easy from thereon out.
Vacation time hasn't really been full of stories. Since I've gotten older and learned how to have fun on my own, vacations have been more interesting and insightful than fun. My parents do all the planning and carry the largest weight in decision-making, and their compulsive planning and inability to chill really cramps my style. But I've enjoyed life so far; the weather here at higher elevation is much cooler and cleaner than the polluted microwave that is Beijing, and I would certainly choose all day walking around to all day teaching English.
My dad came in to Beijing Thursday night. See, we're all taking a family vacation, and by family, I mean me, my dad, my mom, DJ, my housekeeper auntie and her daughter Eva. Its a big affair, and personally I think it's ridiculous that they came all the way out here to visit me while I'm just away for the summer, but that's exactly what my parents are - ridiculous. So Friday is July 4th, and suddenly it dawned on me that this was my first ever July 4th away from the US. While not always the most exciting of holidays because like every other time during the summer, my friends are scattered around, I realized how much I did miss my nation's Independence Day. Barbecues, day off from work, walking around town, concert at the Hatshell, fireworks... these seem routine and redundant until you find yourself slumbering through another workday while they're taking place. Well I tried to arrange a dinner for my dad to meet my friends here at an American place, and asked Kate for a place. After an odd turn of events, I instead was bringing my friends to dinner with many of Kate's friends, our party totalling nearly 20, at a Mexican restaurant and my dad fortuanately had other plans.
This July 4th bore some eerie similarities to my last year's July 4th - great plans, close friends, terrible weather and eventually a disappointing night. Crystal and I got to the dinner ok, but soon after we got there things started pouring. Lisa and her friends were coming by taxi and got stuck in traffic. And Lisa was sick and threw up on the side of the room. Then they couldn't find the restaurant and I went to look for them in absolutely DRENCHING rain. Cats and dogs inadequately express the force of this storm. In among the more colossal mistakes of my time here, I went out looking for them sans umbrella and in addition to jumping through the river that San Li Tun road had become, I failed to find them. I returned to the restaurant soaked and pretty pissed. We finally got reunited after the storm passed over, and by this time everyone else was on their way out to party, and I couldn't go with them of course...anyways, after footing 100 kuai more than I should have on the bill because someone didn't pay, I went out for an uneventful clubbing trip before returning home. The only eventful part was the massage I got at a urinal in a club bathroom by a bathroom attendant... I'm not sure if that was the creepiest physical moment of my life but it was definitely top 3.
Ok so vacation time began Saturday. So the rest of our party gathered in Hong Kong, and we are all supposed to meet up in Kunming, a Southern city. From there we'd fly to Lijiang, a small city with a UN World Heritage site (from where I'm currently typing). Well our 11:20am flight from Beijing wasn't at the gate when we got there...turns out it was flying from some Northern city and hadn't even left that airport yet. Boarding finally took place around 5:30 but it wasn't until 7 that we left. Our connecting flight from Kunming to Lijiang departed at 7:40. So we had to crash at an airport hotel for the night before flying to Lijiang in the morning (this flight was only an hour and a half late). Overall I am less than impressed by the Chinese air transit system.
I really should have gotten to this earlier but Lijiang is beautiful. You can wikipedia it (if you haven't already), but really quickly, it's barely east of Myanmar, surrounded by mountains, the home of the Naxi minority, and absolutely scenic. The first day we went to the World Heritage site, which was this old city created by the Naxi that exudes culture. Dainty canals geometrically line the city, with stone bridges everywhere making access easy. The canal water is very clean, deriving straight from the mountain and with very minimal polluting on the way down. This "city" is basically a giant bazaar with tourism souveniors out the wazoo. If you aren't familiar with this yet, most of China, especially all these shops, run on a barter economy, and the general rule of thumb my dad taught me is that the correct response to a salesperson initial price offering is to divide by four and make that your price. Everybody is trying to rip everyone else off. I hope to get into more details later but I mostly bought necklaces, t-shirts, cheap paintings and the like, only breaking the bank for this incredible chess set with the pieces carved in traditional Chinese form. In addition, we also made a trek up the mountain ranges nearby via gondola. I believe the mountains we went to are the foothills of the Himalayas and quite tall - we were at over 4000 meters, 13,000 feet or so and I'm pretty sure thats the highest I've ever been. Perhaps difficult to believe, but there was snow at this level (which wasn't even the peak). Although global warming has definitely hurt the snow and glaciers, even in the summer, this close to the equator, it was still possible for me to throw a snowball at DJ. However I got altitude sickness and really had to take it easy from thereon out.
Vacation time hasn't really been full of stories. Since I've gotten older and learned how to have fun on my own, vacations have been more interesting and insightful than fun. My parents do all the planning and carry the largest weight in decision-making, and their compulsive planning and inability to chill really cramps my style. But I've enjoyed life so far; the weather here at higher elevation is much cooler and cleaner than the polluted microwave that is Beijing, and I would certainly choose all day walking around to all day teaching English.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
CUL: B is for Beijing and that's good enough for me...
Before I left the States, I wondered to myself what the Yankees/Red Sox hat distribution would be like in China. I can't remember when or where exactly, but on a previous overseas trip I took with my family, DJ and I played this same game and the Yankees won by a lot, which interestingly enough also reflected the results on the diamond. Perhaps spurred by 2 World Series in 4 years but this trip I have seen more Red Sox hats than Yankees hats. I haven't kept an actual count, but I bet its something like Red Sox 9, Yankees 6. There aren't very many baseball hats, even in a country of so many people, which probably is not that surprising. What is surprising though is the people wearing the hat.
Besides my friend John who wore his Yankees cap to the Great Wall with me (although he's a White Sox fan...) basically every single one of these baseball caps have adorned the head of a Chinese. While this would seem to suggest that the donner is Chinese-American, after all I wear my BoSox cap around sometimes, evidence has suggested otherwise. One of my first nights here, while dancing wasted in Propaganda, I saw a guy wearing a dark blue Boston cap. Anyone who knows me from outside Boston will not be surprised that I proceeded to ask this guy if he came from Boston. A combination of factors - the loud dance music, my slurred speech, and his inability to understand English... - contributed to a very confused expression on this guy's speech. Christie Gibbons later told me that he said he just bought the hat cause he saw it at a market and liked the B. At a Beijing market? 太奇怪. Although if you think about it, the Boston B is terrifically designed, with each whole in the big B being smaller b's. Anyways, I haven't interviewed everyone else wearing the B but for the most part they seem to be Chinese and surrounded by other Chinese and appear to be speak fast Mandarin. But the average Chinese does not know a thing about baseball - you could definitely find a billion people here that did not know what that B stood for. So why is the Red Sox hat so popular here? It does not have anything to do with the fact that the Red Sox have their own Nation and so much recent success...or does it?
Basically my theory is that more Americans are wearing the hat, even when they're abroad in China. I mean its great, you see someone else wearing the hat and you two now have something to talk about for the next 2 hours. The locals see this hat more and more often, think it looks pretty cool and realize that foreigners like it, and thus when they see it at a market, they decide to get it. I still don't know why its at a market here...but supply and demand have ways of working these issues out. The end result is that wearing that hat around now as a foreigner has less and less effect, as most of the other people I see wearing the hat will not be Red Sox fans and we will only have something to talk about for the next 2 seconds. Interestingly enough, I saw a white guy walking into Lush wearing a green Red Sox t-shirt. I immediately asked him if he was from Boston. He responded, "什么?" and when I repeated Boston, he just walked away, met up with his girlfriend and told her, "that guy just asked me if I was from Boston..." I still don't really understand that one.
By the way, what the heck? Swept by the Rays? The real Red Sox need to step it up.
Besides my friend John who wore his Yankees cap to the Great Wall with me (although he's a White Sox fan...) basically every single one of these baseball caps have adorned the head of a Chinese. While this would seem to suggest that the donner is Chinese-American, after all I wear my BoSox cap around sometimes, evidence has suggested otherwise. One of my first nights here, while dancing wasted in Propaganda, I saw a guy wearing a dark blue Boston cap. Anyone who knows me from outside Boston will not be surprised that I proceeded to ask this guy if he came from Boston. A combination of factors - the loud dance music, my slurred speech, and his inability to understand English... - contributed to a very confused expression on this guy's speech. Christie Gibbons later told me that he said he just bought the hat cause he saw it at a market and liked the B. At a Beijing market? 太奇怪. Although if you think about it, the Boston B is terrifically designed, with each whole in the big B being smaller b's. Anyways, I haven't interviewed everyone else wearing the B but for the most part they seem to be Chinese and surrounded by other Chinese and appear to be speak fast Mandarin. But the average Chinese does not know a thing about baseball - you could definitely find a billion people here that did not know what that B stood for. So why is the Red Sox hat so popular here? It does not have anything to do with the fact that the Red Sox have their own Nation and so much recent success...or does it?
Basically my theory is that more Americans are wearing the hat, even when they're abroad in China. I mean its great, you see someone else wearing the hat and you two now have something to talk about for the next 2 hours. The locals see this hat more and more often, think it looks pretty cool and realize that foreigners like it, and thus when they see it at a market, they decide to get it. I still don't know why its at a market here...but supply and demand have ways of working these issues out. The end result is that wearing that hat around now as a foreigner has less and less effect, as most of the other people I see wearing the hat will not be Red Sox fans and we will only have something to talk about for the next 2 seconds. Interestingly enough, I saw a white guy walking into Lush wearing a green Red Sox t-shirt. I immediately asked him if he was from Boston. He responded, "什么?" and when I repeated Boston, he just walked away, met up with his girlfriend and told her, "that guy just asked me if I was from Boston..." I still don't really understand that one.
By the way, what the heck? Swept by the Rays? The real Red Sox need to step it up.
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