Scott Leonard's China Blog

The Flood

2006-08-03T00:20:00.000-07:00

In late June, Huludao was hit by a major rain storm that brought some pretty serious flash flooding. I was sitting around all day waiting for the rain to stop, when around 3 o'clock I decided I needed to go out and get some stuff done. It turned into enough of complete mess by 4:30 that I regretted leaving my apartment.

After visiting the Electronics market I decided I ought to stop by the supermarket to buy an umbrella and some sandals for the ancle-deep water on the roads and sidewalk. I slipped the 25 cent flip-flops on, put my already wet shoes in the plastic shopping bag - to keep the other contents of my shoulder bag dry- and headed for my Erhu lesson. I figured that if I rolled my pants up to my knees and used my umbrella, I could stay pretty dry; but then the wind blew and the rain came down so much harder, that by the time I had walked the three blocks to the music store, my shoes were the driest things I had on me.

The walking Street and entrance to NewMart. Someone seems to think that laying marble tile down for sidewalk is a good idea. That stuff is like ice when wet! I slipped on the stuff and feel pretty hard dropping my camera in the water. I picked it up as quick as I could, but the damage had been done. I was able to take a couple of dark, grainy pictures before it quit working alltogether. I was really dissappointed to have missed some of the more exteme photo ops that I came across later in the day.

The entrance to NewMart, with its NewWaterfall. NewMart was built below street level so that you go down these steps to get to the entrance. Again, not a great idea. I heard that this area was a swimming pool by nightfall. The shops along the walking street were beginning to sandbag themelves in. They were at a good enough level that the water was just licking their front doors as I walked by. I don't think they were flooded very very badly.

This is the side street that passes the music store where I study erhu. When I got to the main street after I finished my lesson I found that everything was at a standstill and that I would have to walk home in the sometimes knee-deep water. A number of cars had decided to brave the flooding and were flooded out themselves, blocking traffic in every direction. It was a flooded traffic jam. I had never seen anything like it. People were just plain Stuck- forced to abandon their buses, taxis and if they were really unlucky, their own cars, and walk. I really wish that I had a picture of it. In another part of town the taxis were literally floating. I heard a story at on one street people were were trying to their push stalled and floating cars out of the street/river, huge trucks would drive by causing waves to wash over them and push them under the surface. It was that deep! Waist and chest-deep in some places! 7 people died in Huludao during this flood. I am sure that even more died in other parts of Liaoning province.

I consider myself really lucky in that I only came out of it with a bad cold- probably from walking around soaking wet for almost 3 hours.

On the way home I passed the oil refinery and saw a nice rainbow slick on the water's surface. It's no wonder, then, that the next day the beach was covered with dead fish and garbage. In some of the more recent Chinese floods, extra doses of pollutants were suddenly washed out of factories and into the rivers, killing everything. These can cause major environmental catastrophes. I could see that something bad was coming out of the oil refinery as I walked by. It had to have done something to the nearby streams.

This is one of the last pictures I took with my camera before it died. I let it dry out for a few days and it seems to be working fine now. I just wish I could get all my pictures came out like this- so dark and inky. I love it!

What the Heck?

2006-06-20T06:30:00.000-07:00

So, there is a whole story here but I think it's more fun to let you fill in the blanks on your own. I'll just point out that the sign on the front of the truck says "The Tiger Tamers Are Coming!" and that the She-Lion in the cage has black stripes painted on her back.

Panda

2006-06-20T06:06:00.000-07:00

I made this awesome panda stamp out of a Korean eraser. Works GREAT! The kids love it (at first, now they are getting a little bored) so I use it to stamp their lesson books when once they are able to read a new dialogue. I give them two stamps if they can recite it. It has lasted the whole year, though his left ear is falling off and the top of his head is almost gone. the whole stamp used to be as thick and sharp as his butt and legs are.

bike repair

2006-06-20T05:55:00.002-07:00

I see a lot of my students when I am out and about. Here is one that I met while I was out taking pictures of the wrecked slums. She was buying corn with her mother. All of my students were assigned English names last year by my Australian predecessor. This one is called Kiara.

So, I thought I would post some random pictures I took while on my bike. These are all on the street that runs from the market to my house. I enjoy these views. its simple things like this that make me love being in China.

milk straight from the teet.

out of focus bike repairman

"shoe repair"

Not greatest pics in the world, but I'm still proud of them.

Order and Progress

2006-06-20T05:50:00.000-07:00

It must have been about two weeks ago when I was riding to my Erhu lesson and came across a novel scene. Twice-a-week I ride my bike through the market behind my house and then cut through a slum to get to the "old district" for my lesson. On this particular day, I was turning down one of my usual side-streets and immediately noticed that all the people were gone, thier homes were empty and all their windows were either removed or smashed out. It was so weird because I wasn't expecting it. Only a few days earlier everything looked normal to me: people were milling about and doing the usual thing, kids were coming home from school. I suppose the streets weren't as crowded as they should have been, but I didn't notice that at the time. The whole thing just caught me off guard. Like everyone just picked up and left all of the sudden.

Within days the the whole area looked like this, block after block. They are tearing the whole neighborhood down.... probably to make way for some new condos.

Here are the few last remaining structures. These were nothing special and I'm sure they won't be missed. They were nothing like the old Ming Hutongs in Beijing that are being ripped out to make way for the Olympics, or any of those sites already destroyed in connection to the three gorges project. These appear to be part of the happier side of development. Order and Progress... so it seems.

Selling stuff in front of my school

2006-06-20T05:33:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures I took from the street in front of my school of one of those Mom and Pop shops I mentioned earlier. This shop is basically a first-floor apartment in the building across from the school, with goods being sold through the fence from the back yard. They have candy, cola, stickers, school supplies, small toys and comics. The place I go to for breakfast is two doors down.

Kids gather here during lunch, and before and after school to stock up on provisions.

Whad'l-it by kiddo!

All over town you also see these carts and flatbed trucks selling all kinds of food stuffs. The lady with the Pepsi cart sells a sort of bubble-tea juice stuff, (without tea) made from a powder mix. Watermelons are everywhere too this time of year. I ate a half a watermelon last night and don't think I can have any more for a while. The old man below sells popsicles and ice cream. Some of the flavors aren't bad.... though I'm not too fond of the red-bean-and-pea-sicles.

Meet Bob

2006-06-16T06:59:00.000-07:00

Meet Bob. Bob is a first grader at my school who's Mom works out of the Art Office. Like all the kids with teacher parents (or more generally, Chinese parents) Bob is under a lot of pressure to succeed, but is still too young to do anything about it. He doesn't seem to be doing too well in his classes and can often be seen crying in the halls after a good scolding from his mother. Poor kid. Recently he was caught with a puzzle book in one of his classes and really got it. I worry about the little ones sometimes. They all have to work very hard to make it in their society, and may not have enough time to think about who they really are. It's especially bad with the middle school and high school students, who are always having to prep for exams. Many just burn out and fall into menial jobs, while others just rely on their important friends, family, and teachers to get help them "pass." If only you had heard the stories. If only you knew how much cheating goes on in these places! goodness! And they are punks too! I hear that teaching Chinese middle school is the WORST job ever, and that even the students at the nearby University act like 12 yr olds.

But not my kids. They are all little angels, like Bob. I love them all and wish that the rest in society were so pure. I often think about what they will be like when they are older, how they will handle being a part of the generation of single-children, and how they make use of the tremendous change their country is experiencing. Will they do something important, or will they end up like that student who went crazy and then appearently died from playing too many computer games? I wish I could see them all in ten years. These are the cream of Huludao, so I reckon they will do pretty well. In any case, Bob is the man. A little man, but still the man.

Beijing Walmart

2006-06-16T04:06:00.000-07:00

Ah yes, the new Beijing Walmart! We're gonna civilize them Chinamen real good! After doing a little shopping I found that it was no better than any of the other Chinese Supermarkets I'd been in, just more expensive. The products are clearly picked for the Chinese market and are of a much lower quality than anything you'd at a typical "Wally-World" in the States. All the shoes are the normal fake-leather penny loafers I see in all the stores here. All the sweaters look like those I see the sleek Chinese guys wearing while taking walks around parks with girlfriends. All the paper is thin and tears too easily. It's the same everywhere I go. I was hoping that Walmart would have some Pilot G2's, decent notebooks and index cards, but they didn't.

Beijing Seven-Elevens don't have slurpees either. But then you should already know that from an earlier post.

I took this picture back in March or April. That's why it's snowing.

Everybody Loves Tingting

2006-06-16T04:01:00.000-07:00

This is a student of mine that everyone in the office calls Tingting. Chinese kids often have cute little "primary school names" that they use until they reach until their teens, so even though Tingting is not her real name, it's basically what she goes by right now. I call her Jessie in English class. All of the staff agrees that she is one of the cutest children at our school, more like a Muppet or bunny rabbit than a person. Both her parents work during the day so she doesn't get to go home for lunch like most of the other kids her age. The teachers all take special care of her as a result. Everybody is Charmed by her neat little personality. We often speak gibberish to each other.

For about a week straight she came to the English office to help one of her classmates catch up on his lessons while the others went outside for their morning exercises. I assume my class assistant has some sort of relationship with the boy's parents and started assigning smarter kids to help him out. I doubt he would get the special attention otherwise. I just wish these pictures came out better.

Breakfast of Champions

2006-06-02T03:54:00.000-07:00

Across the street from the school all the neighbors have set up little shops out of their homes that sell candy and school supplies. Once such family sells breakfast out of their living room. If you go at the right moment it is really quite crowded. I usually make it in there after 7:20, when its thinning out a bit, or even empty.

come back in a few days and I will have pictures of the shops outside in this post. I still need to snag a few of those.

Whenever I go there I have 6 "baozi," a bowl of millet porridge, and little dishes of tofu and pickled veggies. If you mix the spicy stuff in with the tofu and eat it along with the baozi it makes for a tasty meal. The porridge is pretty bland, but still edible. If I am in a hurry I just take 8 baozi in a bag to go.

1 meal = 2 yuan, or about 25 cents.

Dinners on the Run

2006-06-02T02:48:00.002-07:00

Just before or after my erhu lesson I will often stop for a quick bite the local 杭州特色小吃 - which literally means "Hangzhou-style diner." I don't really know what's so "Hangzhou" about this place or if it's at all authentic, but my friend Jeffrey (马杰) laughed when I told him that I enjoy the flavor of his hometown a couple times a week. He supposes that a backwater like Huludao it couldn't have anything like the real thing. Its clean, the people are nice, and the food is edible. That's good enough for me.

Hangzhou (pop 1 mil+) is located 180 km southwest of Shanghai. It is the capital of Zhejiang province and is known for its picturesque scenery and fine silks. I hope to go there someday and eat more of their food.

I am a creature of habit. As soon as I walk through the door they know what I want and bring it out right away. Always a bowl of red-braised beef noodles, a round thingy of 10 小笼包 (small sticky "baozi" stuffed with ground pork), and a bottle of 花生露 (ah, peanut dew! the best drink ever!) I am starting to feel I have this meal too often. I ought to eat more vegetables.

1 meal = 7 yuan, or 86 cents

Great Wall Adventure

2006-05-05T02:14:00.000-07:00

geNot long ago a fellow American English teacher who works not far from Huludao was visiting some remote spot on the Great Wall and got this crazy idea: let's get a bunch of people together during the May labor holiday and hike along The Wall from here until it reaches the sea! Well, as soon as word got to me I knew I was in, even though it was clear that nobody knew what was going on. We didn't know how hard it would be, how far it actually was or how long it would take, what kinds of things might happen to us, and barely knew what was between the rural and relatively unknown site Neil visited and the sea. But then I guess that was part of the whole idea- we would just get out there and see what happens. If we ran into trouble some of us could hoof it down to a village to get help, and we knew we could always just hop off and take a bus back. We all agreed that no matter what, it would be pretty freakin cool.
Initially,we planned on a 4-day hike from the village 小河口 (xiao he kou), passed the famous 九门口 (jiu men kou -9 gates), and on to 山海关 (shan hai guan), where the Wall reaches the sea - supposedly something like 80 km all together, but not really. Since we all had a week off for labor day, May 2nd would be the perfect time to set out, so that we would get back to civilization on or around Friday, May 5th. We had some tips from local hiking-gear dealers who said they had made the trip themselves and that it was a peice-of-cake, so we felt that we could do it without too much trouble. We had to learn the hard way that in China, any reliable information about the Great Wall (or just about anything) is pretty hard to come by. Here is a run down of what it was like:

2006-05-05T01:16:00.002-07:00

A view from the wall of the village we started at, 小河口. I am pretty confused about what this place is and exactly where it is located. All the maps we could get ahold of were dorky tourist maps that don't pay attention to small details like distance and location, and are no good for use on a hiking trip like this. Neil's girlfriend took him here a while ago and he was able to find a taxi who had heard of it and could take us back. That's all I know. It's a charming little spot with lots of nice old men and cute little kids playing in the street. There is a lady there who showed us her 400 yr old farm house and a few of her husband's antiques. I heard he has an awesome old chariot, but he didn't get to see it. I would love to live in a place like this.

2006-05-05T01:16:00.001-07:00

2006-05-05T01:16:00.000-07:00

The wall where we started

2006-05-05T01:15:00.000-07:00

Before too long we came to a place in the wall that was basically unpassable -or at least too dangerous for a bunch of sissies like us. So we bushwacked down the hill (harder than it sounds) and hiked along the road hoping to find something a little more reasonable. We ended up camping on a trail behind some guy's farm. The great big guard tower was within sight of our encampment, so we went to bed excited to be back up on the mountain and killing the wall the next morning.

2006-05-05T01:14:00.001-07:00

It would have been nice if the whole wall was in such nice shape. This section was actually kind of easy.

2006-05-05T01:14:00.000-07:00

2006-05-05T01:13:00.001-07:00

Dave is smelling a flower. They smell like those markers we all had in elementary school.

2006-05-05T01:13:00.000-07:00

some parts are piles of rubble

2006-05-05T01:12:00.001-07:00

2006-05-05T01:12:00.000-07:00

2006-05-05T01:11:00.002-07:00

This lady was just chilling at one of the guard towers when we passed by. She is a local goat herder who likes to hang out at the wall while her goats tear it up on the hillside. He had a nice conversation about how I don't wear enough clothes and how my shoes are inappropriate. Ha! She let me take her picture, and then asked for a copy. Of course I couldn't give her one on the spot, so I told her that if she gave me her information I would send her a copy in the mail. It turns out she doesn't have much in the way of information, only a phone. I can call next week and find out the name of her village, maybe the the postal code for the nearest post office, etc. I had better not forget! She is cool. She used this phrase "您贵姓" (what is your honorable surname?). It's something I learned in my first day in Chinese class but never heard in China until she said it. We saw lots of goat herders hanging out on the wall.

2006-05-05T01:11:00.001-07:00

2006-05-05T01:11:00.000-07:00

Yes, I wore my cons on this hike. What's it to you?

2006-05-05T01:10:00.002-07:00

I don't know what's going on here. I use hello to post all my pictures IN ORDER and then I go back and edit all the posts with witty and informative comments after I have a little time to think about them. But then blogger goes and moves them around when I repost them! what the heck? These are all out of order now! This picture is supposed to come just after the close-up, and the goat pictures keep moving around. How am I supposed to tell a story when everything gets all messed up. Stupid blogger. Who can help me out here? Am I just computer dumb?

2006-05-05T01:10:00.001-07:00

I like this picture.

2006-05-05T01:10:00.000-07:00

kate and hamish

2006-05-05T01:09:00.000-07:00

This is sort of what the wall looks like on the inside. It would've been a better pic if that stupid plant wasn't in the way! We looked around for cool-looking skeletons of slaves buried in the wall, but no such luck.

2006-05-05T01:08:00.002-07:00

A wide shot from a high tower. That shot that I took of myself was taken on that small white pile of bricks in the middle of this picture. The tower this was taken from is in the backround. Our starting point is way off beyond the horizon. I just about killed myself getting up this mountain.

2006-05-05T01:08:00.000-07:00

I was pretty sick this whole trip. Can you tell? Right after I took this I ran up that hill behind me and died in the guard tower at the top.

2006-05-05T01:07:00.001-07:00

pretty late on the second day we realized that there was no way that we would make it to jiu men kou before night, and many of us didn't have enough water to camp out on the wall. So all but three of us made for this village. It was a bit frustrating because from what the goat herders were telling us I thought we would be there shortly after lunch. not so. I guess those guys just move a lot faster then we do.

2006-05-05T01:07:00.000-07:00

inside a tower

2006-05-05T01:06:00.001-07:00

2006-05-05T01:06:00.000-07:00

a guy with his goats. He helped us get a taxi to jiu men kou.

2006-05-05T01:05:00.001-07:00

on the way to the village we passed through some apple and pear orchards.

2006-05-05T01:05:00.000-07:00

alex and lucy

2006-05-05T01:04:00.002-07:00

I stopped to enjoy a little ice cream and a chat with the kids. They seemed less interested in our conversation than I was.

2006-05-05T01:04:00.001-07:00

more goats

2006-05-05T01:04:00.000-07:00

We made it into the village just in time to see the annual running of the goats! Three people were gored to death this year.

2006-05-05T01:03:00.002-07:00

This is at jiu men kou- the "halfway point." If you look through the dusty haze you can see that the wall goes up that hill and then just runs smack into that mountain... and stops! well, that ended our trip. It is so hard to get reliable information about anything here. Or maybe we just don't understand what is presented. Here people give us tips on taking the wall from point A to point B but don't mention that the wall doesn't actually GO from point A to point B. HA! Ooops! We knew that we could just hike around the mountain (no, not over! not this time!) but no one was feeling up to it. I was sick and hike was certainly the hardest thing that I have done since I was an explorer scout -12 years ago! Everyone else was worn out too. We started out the treck planning to cover10-15 miles/day for four days, but quickly realized that the terrain made that impossible- at least for mere mortals like us. I think in the end we probably covered about 10 miles in two days and we were beat. It was all either straight up, or straight down.

2006-05-05T01:03:00.001-07:00

This is jiu men kou! The "NINE GATES!" Someone told me that this is the only place that the wall crosses a river in the form of a bridge. I guess that makes it special. It really isn't much of a river now is it? It's more like a pond these days. I assume they call it "nine gates" because of the nine arches that support it.

2006-05-05T01:02:00.000-07:00

We stayed the night in this tower at jiu men kou. Many of the more historically significant sections of the wall have been rebuilt to match its original splendor! That is why Jiu men kou looks so much cooler then the rest of the wall. Construction of the original wall began over 2000 years ago, while all of what is standing today was finished during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). I would say, judging by the style of the building's roofline, the width of the windows and doorways, as well as from the brick firing and laying techniques used, that the section we are looking at here was built sometime in the late 1980's.

2006-04-06T03:24:00.000-07:00

What's going on here? Am I to believe that The New York Times has now joined Wikipedia, BCC News.com, and all my favorite blogs (including my own) on my list of great websites that I am not allowed to visit from China? That's great. Juuuust great.

2006-03-24T20:38:00.000-08:00

I was looking though my stash and found this picture I took in Shandong last December. I forgot to share it! All the time I see old ladies out in the parks doing these traditional dances for fun and exercise, and sometimes go to watch a group that practices near my apartment every evening. I will take pictures as soon as it is light enough that late to get a clear one. I know of at least 6 or 7 other groups in Huludao that also practice in public. I hear they get together and hold competitions once and a while.

I hate stupid laundry

2006-03-24T20:04:00.000-08:00

This is my Chinese washing machine. It is about 98% plastic and works about as well as a Chinese washing machine ought to work. Loads have to be small- 1 pair of jeans with a couple of T-shirts and socks, any more and the poor thing starts gasping- after the wash cycle I take everything out and rinse it in the sink before putting it all in the little separate spin cycle thingy. Then I fill the main wash chamber with water again- with a hose- and repeat the wash cycle without soap, rinse again and spin again. Otherwise all my clothes stink. I also have to reach behind the machine and hold the valve open to drain the water after each wash cycle, adding time and effort to the whole process. Washing my sheets took all morning as I had to separate them out into separate loads and rinse them out one by one in the sink. The rinsing was especially time consuming. I have no drier of course, so I hang my clothes out to dry. Its pretty nice that each apartment out here has a special little sun room for hanging clothes in so they don't freeze or get stinky from being outside the pollution. I have my sheets hanging up in there right now. Its warming up now so they should be nice and dry before bedtime.

2006-03-15T02:51:00.000-08:00

Today a new Chinese coworker asked, "you don't use the Chinese Zodiac in the West (you know, year of the Dog, Rooster, Sheep, Tiger, etc...)? How then do you know of how old everyone is?" strangely, I didn't know how to answer that question. Another teacher, also Chinese, interupted and explained that we subtract the birth year from the current year. duh!I've never had to think about that before.

Another one I get sometimes is "I thought you are an American, but now you say you teach English... Why doesn't the school have you teaching American?" Every time, someone within earshot turns around and tells the guy off. "Aiya! They speak ENGLISH in America! There is no 'American'...."

A guy asked me once if we have cows in The States. Again, his friend rebuked him for asking such a stupid question.

2006-03-05T00:03:00.000-08:00

We got a few inches of snow yesterday (saturday), so we had to get down to the school first thing this morning to shovel off the play ground. One thing the Chinese are good at is mobilizing. The moment after the snow stopped falling there were large groups of men, women and children out shoveling off all the walkways and roads in and around my apartment complex. It was as thought it were all planned, like they were all assigned snow shovel duty a week in advance or something. The whole process was under way in minutes and finished in no time. Is it like that in America? I don't know... it rarely snows in Seattle, and if it does everything shuts down until it melts a day or two later. Someone from a snowy city would have to comment.

The guy in the center of the picture is the Headmaster. All the others are teachers, a wife or two and a couple of their kids.

2006-03-04T23:58:00.000-08:00

My pal, Fred

2006-03-04T23:57:00.000-08:00

I think it's cool that they still use these brooms that have probably been around since stone-age. They work alright so why get rid of them?

Argo at the Comet Tavern, January 2006

2006-03-03T22:28:00.001-08:00

Here are a bunch of pictures Elaine Pan took at one of the Argo shows I got to play in. Enjoy

I played Keys and Justin played Drums on the first song.

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Justin jumping off the bass drum.

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Matt Benham

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Jon Wooster

2006-03-03T22:25:00.000-08:00

Justin and I kicked the drums over at the end.

Time Stands Still

2006-02-27T22:04:00.000-08:00

While in the US I had the chance to play a few shows with my good friends and former band- mates in the band Argo. The band is in transition right now and needed someone to cover drums on a quick jaunt down to Eugene and Portland, and for two shows in Seattle. I was more than happy to fill in. In fact, I was beside myself with excitement. Heres why:

Argo is a band that Justin Benson and I put together right after I got off my LDS mission in the Spring of 2001. The two of us had already been great friends for quite some time and had played together in little bands since we were sophomores in High School, so it was only natural that we would start something up the moment we were in the same city at the same time. It just started out with us jamming with a few other friends in Justin's garage (back when he lived in Skyway), just bouncing ideas off each other and making some noise, then when Matt Benham joined later that Summer things began to coalesce around a handful of mellow jazzy Indie rock tunes that we performed around Seattle, and then recorded in 2003.

When Jon Wooster joined in late 2003 things really began to rock. During 2004 Argo became more dynamic, aggressive, full of love and wonderful noise. I have fond memories of that those days. It is not that it sounded great. Well, I don't know what it "sounded" like. I mean, some people say we sounded good, but in the few live recordings from the Crocodile Cafe that I have actually sat through I only hear problems like the my own off-key vocals. But that's not the point. We had this mix of melodic stuff from our "Jet Packs for Everyone" full-length (which I am quite proud of, even though nobody actually heard it), some newer kinda rock stuff that Justin wrote that should appear on another release later this year, and some AWESOME instrumental stuff that we had collaborated with Jon on, all thrown together in what usually ended up being a pretty unique set. We were known as the band who always plays with lamps on stage, who were always switching instruments. In some shows we were unbelievably loud even though we knew people were expecting mellow indie pop. In others we played almost no songs with vocals. In any case, there was always a chemistry that came from playing with people who are really the best friends that a guy like me could possible have. Really. It was often quite electric.

So here's the deal. I took what I had intended to be a 5 month leave to study Mandarin at the Beijing Language University in Beijing, China, but about half-way through I started getting this nagging feeling like it was time to move on- to quit the band in Seattle and move to China for good. I tried to ignore it but it just kept getting worse. I knew deep down that as much as I hated it, I had to quit the band, otherwise I could never grow into the person that I need to be. So in December of 2004 my 5 month leave became permanent as I found myself up at 4 am writing an email to the band trying to explain why I would not be recording the next album with them. It was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. I came home in February, sold most of my gear, finished school and promptly returned to China, where I am now. All on a gut feeling.

During my trip to the US I played a few more of these electric shows with the band. This time I only played drums, a good thing since I hadn't sung at all for about 15 months - and was never too good at singing anyway, especially right after I had been hitting the drums as hard as I can. It was nice to reflect on those band days. It is not that I ever made an impact as a musician or anything, but for a time it was a big part of who I was. I know now that we all have to move on and place ourselves in positions that stretch us, make us grow, make us into someone we never thought we could be. I am still working on that. I just wished that time would stand still for a few years so I can tour with the band, put out another album or two, write a whole bunch of stuff, and then get back to work on what I am doing now (just what I am doing is actually quite deep- it would take too long for me to explain, so just forget it). I just hated knowing that there is no time to do it all. We each have only one life to live so it is essential to make a priority those things that are truly important. It's hard, but I guess that's just part of being a grown-up.

For the few days I was with Argo in Oregon I felt like there was no real "time." It was just us, the music, and the road. I almost got time to stand still.... But then all of the sudden it was time to return to China.

Me and Argo in front of the RV. They will have to sell the RV to pay off some debts and to buy a swifter, more efficient van for their tour this spring/summer. Our trip to Eugene was the last with the trusty old girl.

Back in China

2006-02-27T21:33:00.000-08:00

After five weeks of relaxation and decent food its back to work. Now that I am getting back into a routine I should be posting on a regular basis. At least I will be for the next five months.

Back in the USA

2006-01-18T19:47:00.000-08:00

I arrived back in The States to celebrate winter break on monday and will be here till the end of February. On the flight back they showed Wallace and Grommet, and the first episode of Back to the Future, which totally kicked butt. I was happier on this flight than I was last year when they showed really stupid movies like Garfield and some really lame taxi movie with Queen Latifa in it. I think I am going have to rent Back to the future II & III now.

During my lay over in the San Fransisco airport a couple of things occurred to me:

1) Americans are funny looking. We all have big noses, weird butt-chins, goofy-looking cheeks, huge bellies. I was looking around at everyone and thought about how God sure went crazy when making white people... like he just grabbed all our faces and worked them like taffy pulling everything out in every direction for this guy, and then squashing everything together in a ball for that guy. Its like we are all just like claymation or political cartoons or something of the sort. It's not that Asians all look the same or anything but they sure are a lot more consistent. It seems that in comparison Americans are either really fat or really gangly.

2) Nobody is cool. We are all geeks. At the airport, in one of the "coolest" cities in the nation, I saw a few hipster indy kids, some very stylish gay guys, and a Swedish backpacker couple with their awesome shoes, and realized that they are all just like the Chinese taxi driver with the Garfield doll on his dashboard. They are all Nerds. And I am too. Some may try hard to be "cool" (whatever that means), some may go out of their way to be different, to be someone who has a clue, but in the end they are all just as imperfect, confused and backward as everyone else. So, it doesn't matter what movie you saw last night or which band logo is on your shirt (Sonic Youth? Dave Matthews Band? ...Rush?), we all have the same nerdy blood coursing through our veins. This revelation has helped put me at peace with my own geeky self-consciencenessand made me more at one with the universe. I am at one with nerd-dom.

Yeah, so I don't mean to imply that all people who wear nice clothes or watch obscure foreign films are trying to be cool. Most probably do what they do cus they honestly like it. And that's fine. I am just sayin' that personal taste is just personal taste - neither lame nor cool. That's all.

2006-01-10T23:27:00.000-08:00

These Kids come to my office and bug me sometimes.

2006-01-10T23:22:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple of my students.

2006-01-10T23:20:00.000-08:00

... and one of their friends.

2006-01-10T07:26:00.000-08:00

The sea is frozen! And I can't seem to take a picture of anything without it ending up crooked.

I wanted to run around on the ice but thought I should test it first by thowing something out there - just to see if it's safe. NO that is NOT solid ice!

You can make it. We are good friends.

2006-01-10T05:27:00.000-08:00

Everyday before school we have "English Corner," an activity that allows the students to meet with the English teachers and practice speaking, or learn English songs, riddles, tongue twisters, etc. One day last October the school leaders asked us to hold English Corner in the afternoon with a select group of the brightest and cutest kids while they took pictures. Odd. Well, we forgot all about it until the day before a group of inspectors were to come down from the Provincial Capital and observe the school's extra-curricular activities. On that same day this giant billboard mysteriously appeared on the side of the school with our photo-shoot plastered all over it. Hmmm. Annette was a quite upset that they went ahead and used our faces without asking, but I was pretty much expecting it. I am just glad that they haven't asked me to sing that Lion King song on the local TV station yet. My friend Brian, also a teacher here in Huludao, puts it this way: "We are just dancing bears to them. They just take us out of our cages and parade us around in front of their friends whenever they need promotion. Its just to say 'Hey look, we have a white guy working here!' " I haven't reached his point of cynicism yet, but he does have a point. Brian had a friend up in Shenyang who was paid 300 RMB/day just to stand in front of a school while the parents came to pick up their kids. (that's about what I get paid to teach 5 classes/day, probably a few times what most Chinese teachers get.) Brian's face also appeared huge billboard across from Yang Liwei square just after the school hired him, weeks before he even arrived in Huludao. When he came down from Shenyang all the taxi drivers already knew of him as "the guy from the billboard across from Yang Liwei square."

2006-01-10T05:23:00.000-08:00

I snapped this picture over my shoulder this afternoon while riding my bike to school. I have been wanting to get a good picture of one of the donkey guys, but I never seemed to have my camera ready when I saw one. Well, today was my lucky day.

2006-01-10T05:19:00.000-08:00

...and here is the Tofu Lady.

Days like today taste metallic.

2006-01-06T17:48:00.000-08:00

This is the view of the coal-fired power plant outside my window. Right now my only complaint about Huludao (and China in general) is the pollution, which is nearly unbearable in the district I live in. I always have a dull headache and smell like I have just come home after a weekend of camping around a coal fire. It drives me crazy that after only a five minute walk to the bus, my clean clothes already stink. I worry about my students who grow up breathing this air day-after-day, year-after-year. It can't be healthy. Experts say the environment will likely become the biggest challenge to Chinese government in the coming years. I definitely agree. This is nothing compared to the environmental disasters I have read about in school.

1, 2, 3, SU!

2006-01-06T17:27:00.000-08:00

I got a new water heater today! This is great news as the old one has been giving me problems ever since I got here. It finally broke down for good this weekend. Here is what it looked like with the cover off:

Very post-modern, don't you think?

...and in with the new! I can feel the warm showers already!

TRANSLATION: "SAFETY KING"

This is Mister Su. Some other guy I had never seen before came by and hung the new heater... made a big mess with all the drilling too... then mumbled a few words left. Mister Su came by a couple hours later finished the job and hooked up the gas. Su is the "Director of Logistics" at our school, which I guess means he fixes stuff and orders new pens when we run out. He's a real character- He LOVES Karaoke and likes to get drunk and sing at every one of our official school dinner parties (I'm looking forward to another one tomorrow.) He seems like a likable guy and I would like to get to know him better, but I can't understand a word he says.

Working Class Hero

2006-01-01T04:40:00.000-08:00

Here are some more pictures of me and Lenin that I took a couple of months ago while I was writing the post I am the Walrus. I thought that since I had put so much effort into them I should at least post them for everyone to see.

2006-01-01T04:35:00.000-08:00

Here are my co-workers, Annette and Quintus. Annette can't wait to get back to her home in Australia 'cos it's summer there. Quintus wants to marry a Chinese girl and make his fortune exporting soy products to Africa. He's from Ghana. Both are great teachers and wonderful people, and I enjoy working with them.

2006-01-01T04:22:00.000-08:00

MR ZHOU: Mr. Wang, sir, what should I do with this vat of bubbling acid?

MR WANG:Huh? What? Oh that... Heck, I don't care. Just pour it down the storm drain outside. It's not like anyone will notice.

The King

2006-01-01T04:00:00.000-08:00

Sometimes if I am in a hurry I have dinner at the local California Beef Noodle King. It's not very good, but its fast and sort of cheap. I found a cheaper and faster (even a little less gross) place near where I have my Erhu lessons so I probably won't be eating the "California" beef noodles anymore. I just wanted to show you that the California Beef Noodle King, whoever he is, has his own chain of stores in Huludao. I would like to shake his hand.

About Chinese Dialects

2005-12-30T17:38:00.000-08:00

TRANSLATION:

"I AM A CHILD OF CHINA, I LOVE TO SPEAK MANDARIN. What is Mandarin? Beijing's pronunciation should be viewed as standard pronunciation. The North China dialect should be viewed as the foundational dialect. It is the model for today's grammar and speech, and is the common language spoken by modern Han people (ethnic Chinese)."

There is a saying I heard once that goes something like "go 5 li (2.5 km), and you already can't understand what anyone is saying." This phrase is a playful exaggeration of the situation in china: that every region, city, town and sometimes even village has its own manner of speaking the Chinese language. Sometimes these variations are limited to accents and changes in usage and slang -the case with much of the North East- but in many areas the gap is so wide that what is spoken is regarded as a completely different language.

Take Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing as examples. People in Hong Kong and nearby Guandong speak Cantonese, not Mandarin. Shanghai is supposed use Mandarin, but everyone I talk to in Beijing says that the dialect is so thick they can't understand a word anyone says when they go there. It is widely referred to as "Shanghai-ese," not Chinese. These three cities use the same written characters, more or less - HK and Taiwan use a more complex "traditional" set of characters because they missed out of the communist reform of the written language during the 50's, but Mainland Chinese don't seem to have a problem reading them - but when it comes to speaking to each other they are completely lost. These are the New York, LA and Washington DC of China and they each have their own language.

Add to that the various languages spoken by the various minority groups; Hmong, Tibetan, Uighur, Mongol, Hakka, etc...; these and others are spoken widely in regions like Fujian, Taiwan, Sichuan, Nanjing, Guanxi etc... ;so you have a real variety in the way people communicate.

When you break it down to shorter distances you notice accents. In Beijing everyone puts "err's" or "arr's" at the end of everything so that they sound like pirates. In Huludao, where I am, many people slurs their words, change "r's" to "y's," and"zi's" to "ssa's." They sound like cavemen, especially when you hear a guy yelling at a friend over the phone in a halting sort of "ooga-booga" manner of speach. If you take away the accents they are pretty much speaking the same mandarin - like the reast of the North East - but I've heard that Huludao has the worst dialect in the region. I believe them. When I was in Shandong I heard a distinct accent in each of the three cites we stayed in, but I could basically understand as long as the speaker didn't use slang or talk too quickly, yet here in Huludao I still can't understand anything Mr Su says and I see him all the time! Harbin, up near the Siberian border, supposedly has use closest thing to perfect Mandarin. I love talking to people from up there... They don't give me so many headaches.

Beijing 7-Eleven

2005-12-29T03:38:00.001-08:00

I found a new Seven Eleven in Beijing. The layout is basically the same as those I am used to in The States, exept that the fast-food section has steamed buns and rice dishes instead of donuts and hotdogs. They have Pringles, but no Tweenkies. I didn't see a slurpie machine either.

A Merry Chinese Christmas

2005-12-28T03:37:00.000-08:00

Chinese Christmas decorations make me laugh. Christmas has only been around for the last ten years, and no one actually celebrates it so they are still kind of figuring things out. Businesses didn't even start putting up decorations until about 3 years ago .
So, why is it so funny? Because when you enter a supermarket or restaurant you will almost always see two big fat paper Santas, one on each door panel, facing each other in a mirror image. Sometimes its just the two on the doors, sometimes they are hanging all over the walls. Sometimes there is a shabby Christmas tree out front or just inside the entry, and once and a while (if you are lucky!) there something like a wreath or star. Santa is by far the dominant symbol and every decorated entry will without fail have the twin santas on the doors.

After almost a week at looking at all these doorways it finally struck me that this is a tradition that actually comes from Chinese new year, when people decorate their doorways with, say, two prints of fat babies playing with carp, two upside-down "good luck" characters on red paper, or two identical god-like figures holding swords... one on each panel just like Santa. The color red is also a big deal for New Years so having a bunch of old fat guys dressed in red plastered on all the walls isn't much of a stretch either. I guess since the Lunar New Year is basically to the Chinese what Christmas is to the all of us, I shouldn't be surprised that it's where they look for decorating cues. Still, it's just funny.

I wish I had some Lunar New Year pictures to compare these to, but the DVDR I brought with all of last year's pictures is corrupted, so I have to wait till I get back to Seattle and dig up another back up disk before I can post one. Check back after Jan 16th. I am pretty sure I still have all those pictures backed up in some box somewhere.

A Chinese Xmas Tree. This one actually has a star on it. A rare treat!

2005-12-28T02:18:00.000-08:00

This year I spent Christmas in Qingdao (tsingtao), home of the China's king of beers! I tagged along with the other two foreign teachers at my school, Annette and Quintus, who were heading out that direction on some unrelated business. It was nice to spend time with a couple of other foreigners on the great day, but I have to admit it was rather lonely.... since this still IS China. We checked out a couple of western restaurants for Christmas dinner, but I wasn't able to convince my travel partners that it was worth paying the inflated prices.... each plate would have cost more than our hotel rooms, which was already too much for one of my companions. In the end we happened across a cheap little cafe in the bottom of a hotel and had lunch there, but the food was really bad and they didn't have anything that we wanted. I ordered Lasagne and they brought out spaghetti (mistraslation, they don't even know what lasagne is). Annette ordered Black Forest Cake and I ordered pie, I think, and they didn't have either. In fact they didn't have anything on the dessert menu, not even ice cream. No Ham. No Turkey. No Cider. No Pie with Ice Cream. No Christmas Dinner. Only really greasy spaghetti. bleh.

The rest of the day was wonderful. The weather in Qingdao was clear and almost warm, so we made plenty of time to wander around and see the sights. Qingdao was controlled by the Germans about a hundred years ago (thus, the beer) so there was lots of interesting old German architecture and European-style winding streets thrown in among the new and distictly-chinese skyscrapers. We even made it out to a famous Cathedral designed and built by the Germans. They tried to make us pay to get in, as it is seen more as a tourist/historical site than a place of worship, but then we told them that we are Catholic so they had to let us in to pray. Quintus is Catholic, so I like to think that wasn't a total lie.... we are all Christians at least. After our three-person mass we went to the bay and played on the rocks until sundown.

It was a shame that we had to come back and work, as I was really getting to like the clean air. Since I live next to a coal-fired power plant I don't get to breathe clean air all that often.

The sea shore in Qingdao

A slice of Europe in Asia

sock ball

2005-12-28T01:47:00.000-08:00

All semester we have been playing a game I like to call Wazi Qui ("Sock Ball"). It started out as a simple game where if the kid answers a question correctly he/she gets to throw a rolled up pair of socks at a circle I draw on the chalk board. Over time the game has gotten more elaborate as I have added an angry monkey head (two points) a banana (three points) and a new rule that if they can recite the lesson dialogue from memory they get to add another two points to whatever they hit during their turn. The kids love it, and it has been great for review.
A couple of weeks ago I introduced the hamburger. Now I draw a hamburger way off to the right and say that if they can hit it they get FIVE points (seven if they recite the lesson). -there were lots of gasps and squeals when I told them that- The catch is that the burger is really small and is outside the circle, so if they miss they get nothing (well, they still get two points if they recite the lesson). Almost no one takes the chance, but they all insist that I put it up there every time. You know, just in case. In one class, no one would risk the burger until the smallest girl nailed it out of pure luck. After that everyone went for it and missed. Haha!

Campaign mentality

2005-12-20T05:58:00.000-08:00

This is realy an ugly picture, but what the heck.

This month, by order of the Liaoning provincial government, the school has switched campaigns from "Remember Japanese atrocities against China" to something like "Let's speak Mandarin together." When I arrived every hallway bulletin board was plastered with images of the rape of Nanjing, nationalistic slogans, and other reminders of the Japanese invasion of China during WWII a means to honor the 60th anniversary of the end of the war. Late last month those were all taken down and replaced with material focusing on the benefits of speaking Mandarin over the local dialect. The banner shown above reads: "I am a child of China, I love to speak Mandarin." Other slogans read something like "love our flag, sing our song, speak Mandarin," "With Mandarin we are united" and "Speaking Mandarin can take you anywhere." Though I don't mean to belittle, I wish to emphasize that the goals of this and the anti-Japan campaign are clearly to build nationalism, and that they were both implemented under the strict direction of the government in Shenyang. It just is a reminder that I am in China teaching at a school that is uniquely Chinese in the way it does business. Even though there may be an Audi, Landrover, and yes, even an occasional Porsche SUV parked down the street, this is still a country that claims to be communist and even acts like it from time to time.

Notice how the doors are open in this picture? They never close the doors at this school, not even if it's 20 degrees (F) outside. My classes are really cold. When I approached Mr. Su, Director of Logistics, about it he laughed and said, among other things, "That is not my responsibility, someone else is in charge of the doors. We have to ask the director in charge of that before we can make any changes." I never found out who that person is.

MONKEY ISLAND

2005-12-20T04:53:00.001-08:00

Whenever I get a little depressed or homesick all I have to do it look at this picture and I know that everything is going to be all right. I saw this monkey doing his outrageous stunt while visiting Monkey Island in Hainan last February. Monkey Island (actually a peninsula) is a "nature reserve" for monkeys on Hainan Island, South China, where the monkeys run free and all the shows are too wild for TV. I went there expecting something to do with nature... But what I got instead was one of the strangest tourist traps I have ever seen. There were at least two stages with monkey performances (as seen above), a flag pavilion with with its own monkey color guard, and the "Monkey Introspection Room,"which was basically a cage that they stick the bad monkeys in so you can mock the little squirts without fear of reprisal. It was like going to the city park and seeing tons of monkeys running around instead of squirrels. Everything was landscaped with flowers, cut grass and trimmed bushes and the like.... just like a normal city park, but with monkeys. For the most part, the monkeys were running freely, unless they had to do a performance or visit the introspection room. But there wasn't any real "nature" in this natural reserve at all. Still, that monkey doing a head stand on the goat's head is one of the coolest things I have seen in my entire life.

It really doesn't take much to please me does it?

2005-12-20T04:53:00.000-08:00

I started taking erhu lessons last month. The erhu is a really old violin sort of instument that the Chinese stole from the Mongols about a thousand years ago. Like the violin, it sounds great if you know what you are doing but sounds horrible if you don't. I certainly don't know what I am doing at this point... so yeah, I sound pretty bad.

This is a blind man playing the erhu that I saw last year in Shanghai. At the time he was the coolest thing I had seen in my entire life.... that was before Monkey Island.

2005-12-10T02:21:00.000-08:00

whoa... what an adventure.

So, I found out the hard way that blogspot is now illegal in China. Who'd a figured? The last week is pretty fuzzy from all the injections, but I managed to avoid prosecution. I have a new scar... I don't remember where it came from exactly. I may be missing a kidney.
Right now I am looking for a decent proxy server that will allow me to get around the greatfirewall and view "bad" websites like BBC news, Wikipedia, and my blog. All the proxies I have tried so far are really slow and mess up whenever I try to do something like post a comment to a blog or send an email. In the mean time I can post to my blog but I can't view it. This is cos the censors have put a block on everything ending in "blogspot.com" but not on the URL that I use to manage my account (shhhh.... don't tell them what it is). Friends and family back in The States have told me that they also couldn't view my blog for several days last week. From what I know, the Chinese couldn't have had anything to do with that... it must have been some sort of coincidence.

I am just thankfull that I still have all my fingers and toes.... and at least one kidney.

2005-12-01T00:32:00.000-08:00

Quite often kids will hand me little gifts that they prepared during class. Mostly, these are just little scraps of colored paper, origami cranes, or stickers; but once and a while I am given a real gem. Take this little paper house as an example:

and when you flip up the roof- there is a little bird inside. Simply charming.

This envelope has two boats taped to the front each with "boat" written on it...

... and on the back it says "I love you, teacher!"

The same little girl drew this picture. The I am the orange guy. The colors are amazing!

I looooove this one. It has so much style. This kid ought to be encouraged.

I will put more up as I get them. I have an ornate little origami basket that is simply delightful! I just forgot to take a picture of it when I had the chance and it's still in my desk at school. You'll see it soon.

Chalkhills and Children

2005-12-01T00:08:00.000-08:00

I'm floating over strange land,
It's a soulless, sequined, showbiz moon.
I'm floating over strange land,
And then stranger still, there's no balloon.
But I'm getting higher,
Wafted up by fame's fickle fire 'til the...
Chalkhills and children,
Anchor my feet.
Chalkhills and children,
Bringing me back to earth,
Eternally and ever ermine street.
(even I never know where I go when my eyes are closed.)
I'm skating over thin ice,
Upon blunted blades of metal soft.
I'm skating over thin ice,
While some nonesuch net holds me aloft.
But I'm getting higher,
Lifted up on luck's circus wire 'til the...
Chalkhills and children,
Anchor my feet.
Chalkhills and children,
Bringing me back to earth,
Eternally and ever ermine street.
Even I never know where I go when my eyes are closed.
Even I never spied that the scenes were posed.
Even I never knew this is what I'd be.
Even eyes never mean that you're sure to see.
Still I'm getting higher,
Rolling up on three empty tyres 'til the...
Chalkhills and children,
Anchor my feet.
Chalkhills and children,
Bringing me back to earth,
Eternally and ever ermine street.
I'm soaring over hushed crowds,
The reluctant cannonball it seems.
I'm soaring over hushed crowds,
I'm propelled up here by long dead dreams.
Still I'm getting higher,
Icarus regrets and retires puzzled.
Chalkhills and children,
Anchor my feet.
Chalkhills and children,
Oddly complete.
(even I never know where I go when my eyes are all closed.)
Here I go again.

-Andy Partridge

Yang Liwei

2005-11-30T01:02:00.000-08:00

This is the statue of Yang Liwei, the first Chinese man in space, located in the middle of a big square a block away from my house. So I guess Mr. Yang is from Huludao, which is why he gets his own square and stuff. I see the picture of his rocket launch on billboards and bank advertisements too. When I came across this monument my third day in town I was actually a bit moved. We are all so proud of him.

so, as soon as I got a close look at the statue I realized that who ever put this thing together did a really crappy job. It looks like a five-year-old did the marble work here. sooo sad. I have been told that about a month before my arrival, most of the marble on the base of the statue came crashing down, so what we are looking at here is actually a Shoddy repair job. I say if the darn thing falls apart less than a year after it is erected then you know that the poor guy isn't getting the monument he deserves. A man I talked to on the train from Beijing told me that the day the monument broke was the same day that Yang's mother died. I asked around though, and as fascinating as it sounds, it is just just a myth. Darn. It seems Mrs. Yang is alive and well, living in some other part of China.... I don't know where.

I shouldn't act so surprised about the poor workmanship (actually unacceptable). a lot of stuff around here, like the new gate in front of our school-finished last week- looks just like this.

The swoosh behind the Yang statue.

The model of Mr. Yang's space capsule. Sometime last year the old model was hit by a car and they had to caste this one and bring it up from Beijing. It already has some dents in it. It looks like some punk kids have been kicking it.

2005-11-28T23:49:00.000-08:00

Not too long ago all of the teachers at my school each received two boxes of apples. I don't know exactly where they came from- some guy with a big truck and a clipboard just dropped them off- but I am pretty happy to have them. All of mine have these nifty little character designs on them (this one means "good luck"). I just don't see how I can get though them all before they go bad though. In September they gave us pears.

It is still pretty agrarian around here in that whenever a crop is harvested there suddenly is a ton of it everywhere. For example, in October the farmers had to pull up all the onions and cabbages before the ground froze over, so almost over night the whole city was awash in the stuff. Everywhere I looked it was onion and cabbage, onion and cabbage. I saw them laying out to dry in the yard in front of my apartment building; stacked along the road and on the landings of the stairway leading to my floor; in truckload at the market; and in piles in front of practically every door and in every window in sight. It makes me wonder how the farmers made out on that deal.

Darlin' don't you go and cut your hair...

2005-11-21T01:30:00.000-08:00

Every day on my way to school I pass four or five ladies giving haircuts along the side of the road. This picture captures what they do pretty well, but it's only been since its gotten cold that they've been setting up the little clear plastic tents. Usually I see them out with just a chair and a wooden box with their tools in it. I crack up as I pass these old men getting a cut and a shave out in front of God 'n everyone... 'nothing above their heads but sky. I would like to see if they keep coming out once it snows! Kuang Yin took this picture while she was up to visit last week. I've been meaning to take a few myself, but since I pass it every day I've just put it off. Thanks Yin. Be sure to click on it and then expand to regular size for a good up-close view. The looks on the guys' faces are classic.

2005-11-21T01:29:00.000-08:00

This guy also sets up on the side of the road everyday. He makes Chinese-style popcorn. Yin took this picture as she hadn't seen a road-side popcorn man in long time. She says they were around all the time when she was a kid, and that when they would shout out everytime a batch was done people would line up to buy their share. He doesn't seem as popular anymore. He roasts the corn in a little black cast-iron pressure cooker. You can kind of make it out behind the stove. He turns the cooker on a spit over a fire with one hand while he runs a bellows with the other. When the batch is ready he opens the cooker in that iron sleeve with the bag attached to it to collect the goods. It makes a enormous "boom" sound and fills his little encampment with smoke. It scares me everytime.

I enjoy the little routines in China.

seafood nite at my place

2005-11-19T06:01:00.000-08:00

Last week some friends of mine came up from Beijing to visit. We hung out, went to the beach and decided cook up some crabs on a whim. It was really nice to have someone out to see me, as it's been pretty lonely in this big apartment all by myself. Ma Jie and Kuang Yin were my hosts for the five months I was living in Beijing and are basically like my Chinese bother and sister. I don't know how I would handle China without them. Ren Xu Ye and Li Xiao Duo are a couple of cool kids that I got to know through Yin and Jie.

We bought these little fellas from a guy on the beach just as he was about to pack up for the night. It was kind of a weird exchange, and since my Chinese is still lacking I couldn't tell exactly what was going on. Well, since the guy was speaking the local dialect I don't think any of us could really tell what was going on. I enjoyed watching Yin haggle with the guy though, who acted agitated and would protest angrily and flail his arms about whenever she would suggest a price or pick an especially good looking crab. Yin thinks that she may have paid too much because she doesn't know the local prices and had never seen a scale like the one he used. It was an ancient looking thing that is very popular among the merchants in Huludao, but apparently doesn't exist in Beijing. It's funny how a 4 hour drive in China can mean such a drastic change in the way people do things.

Kuang Yin holding some squid we cooked up and ate.

Ren Xu Ye and Li Xiao Duo

This one pinched me pretty hard on the thumb. I got him back in the end.

Ma Jie

Few things in life bring as much pleasure as dinner with friends.

I am the walrus

2005-11-13T02:04:00.000-08:00

Everyone I talk to out here tells me I look like Lenin. I guess that since I am a bald white guy with a huge head walking around a communist country I shouldn't see that as too much of a stretch, but it still amazes me how often I get it. Once during lunch a Chinese fellow I had never seen before came up to me and started our conversation with "have you ever heard of a Russian man named Lenin?" And then ten minutes later another guy came in and said the exact same thing. I have to laugh.

I also get lots of comments on the size of my head. "The bigger the forehead the brighter the individual" is a pretty common adage among the Chinese, and I seem to hear it a lot. Since I am being called a genius just for my looks and am compared to one of the greatest heroes of communism-by communists themselves- I'm just gonna take this whole thing as a great big compliment. I don't know if I see it though. What do you think?

The kids at my school just think I'm funny looking.

A few pictures from school

2005-11-11T07:08:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple of kids I teach. The red scarves mean that they are members of The Young Pioneers, a children's organization set up by the Chinese Communist Party. Basically, everyone is a Young Pioneer.

Here are some more kids I teach. They are all second graders.

The kids salute everyone as they come in the gate. The boy is holding the flag of the Young Pioneers

Shen Yidi's Mom works is an art teacher in the office right next to mine. They drop by for lunch sometimes. The lady in the picture is not her Mom. She is some other art teacher.

Chinese desk and chair.

Now that it's colder everyone gets to wear their new winter clothes. 'Much more fashonable than those blue-and-white school uniforms.

flu shot

2005-11-11T06:53:00.000-08:00

We got flu shot's today. Annette got an email from the Austrailian embassy stating that she can't get back into Austrailia unless she has had a flu shot, on account of the bird flu and all. I don't think it will do much good, but we all went and got the shots anyway. Here is a picture of the hospital. I just like the way it looks.

Dairy

2005-11-11T05:18:00.000-08:00

Tonight I saw a couple of ladies selling ice cream bars outside in the cold. It was a nice bit of irony.... at least they don't have to worry about keeping their product cool (Har-har). And though looked like they were even getting a fair number of buyers, I can't really figure out why. I mean, beyond the obvious.... the sight of the women in heavy coats, arms folded to keep the heat in while trying to sell their frozen goods to passers by.... is the fact that the Chinese are especially concerned about avoiding sickness through staying warm. In addition to what I have mentioned in earlier postings is the tradition that when a mother has a baby she and the child must stay indoors and not even so much as touch water for the first month after delivery as their immune systems are weak. For the rest of us, hot food and drink alone is for when it's cold out and even drinking ice water at a restaurant on a typical day is seen by many as unhealthy. The whole thing doesn't add up. I must have been mistaken somehow.

One thing I do know is that the Chinese are really starting to love their dairy. Just within the last 10 years milk consumption per capita has more than doubled with the bulk of that increase taking place in urban areas during the last 3-5 years. (a number of factors has contributed to this increase, but I doubt anyone reading this really cares) I can see the impact of the milk fiesta pretty clearly down in Beijing, but especially in the local supermarket here in Huludao. I would never have known just by walking through the unexpectedly large dairy section that China has always been near the bottom of the world's per capita milk production/consumption list, as there is soooo many different milk and yoghurt products on the shelves. I even see guys around town sitting outside selling boxes of dairy product. The stuff is everywhere! Cheese and butter, however, .....as well as deodorant..... have yet to catch on. last year I had to explain to a Chinese girl what the difference between cheese and butter was.... it was a strange conversation. I had never thought about how to explain something like that before.

2005-10-29T07:13:00.000-07:00

A new picture of the view out my bathroom window. Home.

happy national heating day

2005-10-29T06:45:00.000-07:00

OK, maybe it isn't called "national heating day." I just like to call it that because it has a certain Communist ring to it. The point is that no one here can turn on the heat until a certain day designated by... well, my guess is the government. For my neighborhood that day isn't until November 1st, which means that I haven't had any heat all month. I was fine with everything until about a week ago, when the weather started to turn. It got really windy, the puddles in the streets started freezing and my apartment turned into a fridge. Taking showers has been miserable because though my water is heated with propane gas, my water heater is junk and only half of my body fits in the shower stream at a time. This makes for a lukewarm shower in a freeeeezing bathroom. ahhh lots of shivers. I only have a couple more days to go!

I hope it doesn't sound too much like I am complaining. I love it here- and I bet that some other places don't get heat until much later than I do. At least I can't see my breath.

caught a cold

2005-10-29T06:10:00.000-07:00

I have had a pretty nasty cold over the last couple of days and it seems that everyone has something to say about it. Every time I get a little sick in China people hint that it has to do with the fact that I don't wear two or three pair of pants when I go outside, and then ask me what the doctor said-you did go to the doctor, right?. So I have been taking advice-wearing lots of extra clothes, sleeping with a sweater on and an extra quilt on my bed, drinking hot Coca-Cola with ginger in it (a Chinese folk remedy with a modern twist... they swear by it!) and taking a really nasty Chinese medicine dissolved in hot water. The hot Coke tastes pretty good and the Chinese medicine totally KNOCKS ME OUT- makes me sleep for up to 14 hours at a time. A kid came to school the other day with a little red circle, a welt, on his forehead. I asked him were it came from and his friend explained to me that he went to see a doctor of traditional medicine about a cold. They couldn't really explain but it sounded like the doctor knocked him on the head with something to make him feel better.... I wonder where could I get one of those.

If I caught a cold from being cold it is probably because I take a lukewarm shower in an unheated apartment every morning, not because of the extra pants thing. C'mon November 1st!

An all-night train from Beijing with no seat

2005-10-21T00:52:00.000-07:00

On my way back from Beijing after the National Holiday I couldn't get a proper seat on a bus or train. I ended up on the overnight train with a standing ticket. That basically meant that the ride was much longer than normal and I had no place to sit. In the picture you can see how crowded this train was. All the people standing in the aisle are the others without seats who were basically standing like that the whole way. This was about an hour into the ride. It was pretty lame, especially since there were so many people like the guy in the grey shirt who who were always squishing their way through the crowd on the way to some other car. Luckily, I was able to sit much of the way as a couple of really nice people offered to swap sitting and standing every half hour or so until enough people got off that I could have my own seat. That finally happened at around 3am. Normally a bus from Beijing to Huludao takes 4.5 hours while a train takes 5 or 6. This train left at 9:40pm and arrived at 5am.... 7 hours. Now I know what not to do when buying a train ticket.

The guy in the front with the nice hair and blazer sells Amway. Seriously, he loves the stuff.

All kids love monkeys

2005-10-21T00:28:00.000-07:00

I have a game where whenever a kid gets a question right, or reads a sentence, he/she gets to throw my "sock ball," at a big circle I draw on the board. One day I drew a monkey in the middle of the circle and told them that if they can hit the monkey their team gets an extra point. They totally went for it! They would yell "DA HOU DA HOU DA HOU!" (hit the monkey!) everytime one of them would step up for a turn. I tried this in other classes with other animals, but none were ever as popular as the monkey.

There is one kid, we call him Bill, who tries to incorporate the word "monkey" into every sentence I ask him to make in class. Go figure.

The view outside my window

2005-10-20T08:12:00.000-07:00

This is the view outside my bathroom window. It's some sort of plant that I think is associated with the HUGE oil refinery here in town. The refinery is actually a major employer in Huludao and I've been told that most of my neighbors and student's parents work there. I am pretty sure it is one of the State Owned Enterprises (SOE's) still left over from China's more communist days, and is probably one of the few successful ones. As China makes the transition to capitalism it has been forced to make some serious adjustments to the economy. On the list of things to do is fixing all the SOE's which have long been a huge sink in the economy, acting more as distributors of state welfare than producers of actual product. To make a long story short, SOE's now make up only about 30% of the economy, mostly centered in the financial and industrial sectors, and few of the these have ever been profitable - a major target for reformers looking to remove dead wood. The plant closures, layoffs and canceled health care and retirement pensions that have resulted are becoming a major problem for China. Judging from the comfortable-looking retired men and women who hang out and play chess all day in the parks and in front of my apartment building, that doesn't appear to be a major problem in this neighborhood. It looks to my as thought they are still getting their pensions. The fact that their local SOE is producing oil is definitely a plus.

It isn't usually as polluted as it appears to be in this picture. This was taken on a cloudy day just before sunset. That's why is looks so purple and dark, and why the sun looks blocked out the way it does. The air does stink at night sometimes.... that's when they really start to emit. I don't sleep with my windows open because of that.