This week has been frustrating. We have our one (legal) travel weekend coming up, and we’ve been making plans about where to go. While most of the group wanted to go south to Sichuan Province, Barry and I had designs on more exotic locales. We’d heard about Kashgar from an expat friend we met at a burger bar downtown, and from that point on we were hooked. Kashgar is in Xinjiang Province in the far west of China, basically in Tajikistan. It’s so unlike the rest of China that the Kite Runner movie uses it as a less-volatile filming location to Afghanistan. We were literally a few hours from booking our flights when the region exploded with ethnic violence between the Han Chinese majority and the Muslim Uygihur population. Once we’d seen that both Kashgar and Urumqi, the Xinjiang capital we’d have to fly through, had been locked down by thousands of People’s Liberation Army troops and that over 1,000 people were injured, we reluctantly changed our plans and are now headed south in a few days.
As much of a disappointment as this was, we still had an excellent weekend. To celebrate Independence day, like all good Americans, we had a cookout on the beach with tons of meat, beer, and (American!?!) football. Patricia brought a football with her, and it’s hilarious to watch the faces of completely mystified Chinese students try to make sense of why stupid Americans refer to this dumb looking brown egg as a football. They were really interested in the rules, but had a very difficult time trying to follow our explanations of them. Eventually, I had to resort to using the closest available thing to a Telestrator that I could find, a patch of sand and a stick. I like to think it helped.
We had a blast at the BBQ, even if it did start randomly pouring in the middle of the afternoon. Thankfully we had better weather the following day, when we embarked on what has easily been the biggest adventure of our time in Dalian. We knew a zoo existed, and we’d heard that they had some pretty ridiculous attractions (more on this soon), but we figured, you know, we’d just go like normal people. The subject came up at work one day, and somebody mentioned that Xie Peng knows a way to get to the zoo…without paying.
Needless to say, the idea intrigued us; not so much for the savings (it costs 10 RMB to get a ticket, about $1.50) but just because the concept of sneaking into a Chinese zoo would be such an intrinsically awesome story. We assumed the plan just involved a quick squeeze through a hole in a fence somewhere (or some comparable act of subterfuge). This was incorrect, as Xie Peng soon followed up with, “yeah, you climb two mountains, it take about two and half hours.” I am so there.
We left on Sunday morning on a bus that took us to some random place downtown. After about 10 minutes of wandering down side streets, we arrived at what looked like the entrance to a big public park (who knows, it may have actually just been a public park, I’m not sure). What I am sure of though , is that we started heading uphill and soon found ourselves in the middle of nowhere in the woods on one of the many mountains that surround the city of Dalian. It soon became apparent that Supreme Leader Xie Peng did not have as firm a grasp on our route as he had previously advertised, and we ended up wandering around for a while before we ran into a fellow hiker with a propensity for animals after the same free zoo admission we were who had a better sense of the area. Sure enough, two hours later, we fell out of the bushes and, well, into the zoo.
I use the term “zoo” here a little bit loosely. I think the actual title of the place is something along the lines of “Dalian Forest Park”. The place is enormous, and we actually had to climb up and over another mountain before we actually arrived at any animal enclosures. I think we might have been able to take a cable car thing and save ourselves some trouble, except that we kinda didn’t have any tickets for it. Oh well, it was a pleasant walk…down a cliff.
By the time we got to the bottom, we’d spent so much time sneaking in that we only had about an hour before the zoo closed, so we had to make sure not to dawdle. This was difficult, because zoos in China do not have nearly the same liability requirements as their American counterparts. This, in turn, makes for much more interesting exhibits. For example, I particularly enjoyed the display called, “Llamas wandering freely around the park that wound up chasing me”, or the timeless classic, “Two rhinos surrounded by a single four foot tall wood fence”. The real draw of the zoo though, is the so-called “violent animals area”. We knew about this because of its widely renowned attractions in which, for about eight bucks, one can purchase a live chicken that one can then toss to its wildly flapping instant death by any of a variety of large predators. I didn’t purchase any such product, but I will admit that I may have snapped a photo or two while some other dude caused havoc in the tiger pit….
Yeah, I bet PETA loves this country.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Give Me Your Baby: Xi’an Part 2
I’m sitting down to write this while my laundry agitates in our ersatz little washing machine that attaches to our shower. It’s been a long dusty day, which I will document fully in a future entry (it involves four mountains, illegal trespassing, and tigers), but right now I have to finish my description of last weekend before I feel any more like a delinquent blogger.
On Saturday morning we woke up and met our guide for the day, Mr. Jackie. Mr. Jackie was a former middle school teacher, the kind who had always tried to be “that cool teacher” to his students, and his past was clearly reflected in his humor. However, at 8 in the morning we were a little less receptive to his routine than I think he was used to. He spent most of the trip to our first site trying to wake us up by any means necessary: singing, freestyle rapping, or, most memorably, really unfunny jokes. Try this one: “A woman gets angry at her baby son and says to him, ‘I will feed you to the wolves in the morning’. A wolf outside hears her and waits outside the window. The morning comes but the mother does not throw the baby, and the wolf is, ‘oh I am so hungry you said you would give me your baby’ and he says, ‘so, all women are liars.’”*
….cricket….cricket…
Yeah, we didn’t think it was funny either. We couldn’t even tell when the joke was over except that Mr. Jackie started physically applauding his own comedic stylings. We figured if we clapped along he’d shut up, but it seems we only egged him on. It was a long car ride.
After a short stop at the Banpo settlement, an archaeological excavation of some of China’s oldest dwellings, we came to the centerpiece of our trip to Xi’an, the Bi Mai Yo, or Terracotta Warriors. The TCWs, along with the Great Wall, represent the most iconic, I think, attractions in China, and I couldn’t let myself come to this country without seeing them in person (even if it did mean taking an unapproved jaunt for the weekend). Before one can even approach the army of Emperor Qin Shi Huang though, one must first breach the garrison of cheap souvenir hawkers that surround the famous site on all sides for what I’m guessing was at least a kilometer walk. The TCWs are certainly imposing, but if I’m looking for an army to protect me, I think I’d pick these vicious vendors over the impressive yet stationary troops buried in the ground.
Finally we fought our way through the sea of humanity into the actual warrior warehouse itself. The site is still an active excavation, it’s just that they’ve built a massive building on top of it so that they can generate tourist revenue while they continue to dig. As the so-called 8th wonder of the world, the army is very impressive, through it was tough for their majesty to overcome all the touristyness of the experience. Still, it was certainly worth the trip. There are actually three different buildings housing the various trenches, though only one of them has a substantial number of standing warriors. Through the way the warriors are usually shown, the media propagates the myth that TCWs were all found standing at attention, ready for whatever might threaten the Emperor on the other side. This, though, is simply not the case. The only warriors that are actually standing are those that have been painstakingly restored. Their comrades lie strewn around the site, waiting for the Humpty-Dumpty doctors to put them back together again.
At this point, I’m going to skip ahead to Sunday because I’m a little pressed for time, even though we did plenty more driving around and looking at old things on Saturday. Before we had to fly back to Dalian, we had the morning free to putz around the old city. The weather wasn’t especially cooperating, but we wanted to make sure to climb the ancient city wall before we left Xi’an. Apparently, this is the oldest and most well preserved city wall in the world, which led Barry to comment, “If I ever need a wall built, I’m contacting the Chinese…they seem to know what they’re doing”. Clearly, they do, because this sucker is like1300 years old and it doesn’t look a day over 450.
There’s not much to do on the wall other than explore around it. Since it forms a square about 2 miles on each side and it was pouring rain for most of the morning, walking it wasn’t an option. Instead, we succumbed to one of those absurdly lame tourist traps and paid Golf Cart Man to drive us from the south gate to the west gate. Needless to say, I had initially been apprehensive about this, mostly because I associate this type of activity with old white people too out of shape to move themselves around, all wearing matching tour hats and personalized name tags identifying them as, “Dale Jones, Denver, Colorado”. All in all though, for the three bucks we paid for the trip, it was worth it. We got to see a whole new part of town, and didn’t get gawked at too badly in the process. From there, it was a short walk back to the hotel, then off to the airport for what was a mercifully less exciting trip than our first plane flight.
OK. Now that I’ve got last weekend covered, I can move on to the events of this past weekend…..later.
*This is completely unedited.
On Saturday morning we woke up and met our guide for the day, Mr. Jackie. Mr. Jackie was a former middle school teacher, the kind who had always tried to be “that cool teacher” to his students, and his past was clearly reflected in his humor. However, at 8 in the morning we were a little less receptive to his routine than I think he was used to. He spent most of the trip to our first site trying to wake us up by any means necessary: singing, freestyle rapping, or, most memorably, really unfunny jokes. Try this one: “A woman gets angry at her baby son and says to him, ‘I will feed you to the wolves in the morning’. A wolf outside hears her and waits outside the window. The morning comes but the mother does not throw the baby, and the wolf is, ‘oh I am so hungry you said you would give me your baby’ and he says, ‘so, all women are liars.’”*
….cricket….cricket…
Yeah, we didn’t think it was funny either. We couldn’t even tell when the joke was over except that Mr. Jackie started physically applauding his own comedic stylings. We figured if we clapped along he’d shut up, but it seems we only egged him on. It was a long car ride.
After a short stop at the Banpo settlement, an archaeological excavation of some of China’s oldest dwellings, we came to the centerpiece of our trip to Xi’an, the Bi Mai Yo, or Terracotta Warriors. The TCWs, along with the Great Wall, represent the most iconic, I think, attractions in China, and I couldn’t let myself come to this country without seeing them in person (even if it did mean taking an unapproved jaunt for the weekend). Before one can even approach the army of Emperor Qin Shi Huang though, one must first breach the garrison of cheap souvenir hawkers that surround the famous site on all sides for what I’m guessing was at least a kilometer walk. The TCWs are certainly imposing, but if I’m looking for an army to protect me, I think I’d pick these vicious vendors over the impressive yet stationary troops buried in the ground.
Finally we fought our way through the sea of humanity into the actual warrior warehouse itself. The site is still an active excavation, it’s just that they’ve built a massive building on top of it so that they can generate tourist revenue while they continue to dig. As the so-called 8th wonder of the world, the army is very impressive, through it was tough for their majesty to overcome all the touristyness of the experience. Still, it was certainly worth the trip. There are actually three different buildings housing the various trenches, though only one of them has a substantial number of standing warriors. Through the way the warriors are usually shown, the media propagates the myth that TCWs were all found standing at attention, ready for whatever might threaten the Emperor on the other side. This, though, is simply not the case. The only warriors that are actually standing are those that have been painstakingly restored. Their comrades lie strewn around the site, waiting for the Humpty-Dumpty doctors to put them back together again.
At this point, I’m going to skip ahead to Sunday because I’m a little pressed for time, even though we did plenty more driving around and looking at old things on Saturday. Before we had to fly back to Dalian, we had the morning free to putz around the old city. The weather wasn’t especially cooperating, but we wanted to make sure to climb the ancient city wall before we left Xi’an. Apparently, this is the oldest and most well preserved city wall in the world, which led Barry to comment, “If I ever need a wall built, I’m contacting the Chinese…they seem to know what they’re doing”. Clearly, they do, because this sucker is like1300 years old and it doesn’t look a day over 450.
There’s not much to do on the wall other than explore around it. Since it forms a square about 2 miles on each side and it was pouring rain for most of the morning, walking it wasn’t an option. Instead, we succumbed to one of those absurdly lame tourist traps and paid Golf Cart Man to drive us from the south gate to the west gate. Needless to say, I had initially been apprehensive about this, mostly because I associate this type of activity with old white people too out of shape to move themselves around, all wearing matching tour hats and personalized name tags identifying them as, “Dale Jones, Denver, Colorado”. All in all though, for the three bucks we paid for the trip, it was worth it. We got to see a whole new part of town, and didn’t get gawked at too badly in the process. From there, it was a short walk back to the hotel, then off to the airport for what was a mercifully less exciting trip than our first plane flight.
OK. Now that I’ve got last weekend covered, I can move on to the events of this past weekend…..later.
*This is completely unedited.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Rock Your Tongue: Xi’an Part 1
I know, I know, just like the master jerkface himself (Roger Clemens) I’ve done the exact thing I swore I would never do: neglect my blog. I’m blaming it on my job. Since I spend most of the day staring at a computer screen, the last thing I want to do when I get home is stare at one some more. Granted, I still wind up doing it, so maybe a better statement would be that I don’t want to have to stare at a computer screen and think at the same time.
Rather than following in the Rocket’s footsteps* and blaming my unlucky trainer for everything, I can atone for my sins. Although I’m guessing that a weekly update is probably the best I’m going to be able to pull off from here on out, this new update is really juicy. It has espionage, death-defying, communist propaganda… oh, and ox tongues.
Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves here though. I’ll start by backtracking almost a week to last Thursday night. Following our morning teaching the English club (motto: Rock Your Tongue) how to act like degenerate American college kids, our eager students invited us to come to their weekly meeting to help them practice their English more. It sounded like fun, plus they’d bought us a bunch of beer; we gladly accepted. I really like the members of the English club, they remind me of the “bright young go-getters of ‘Hooray for Everything’” featured during the Super Bowl Halftime Show on The Simpsons. They wanted to know our opinions on everything, especially about the “imponderabilia of daily American life” (see, I took an anthropology class last semester, Rochester’s financial aid dollars at work). The most interesting aspect of the meeting though wasn’t the conversation though, so much as the poster on the wall describing a past week’s discussion topic: US values (“Everyone is born free and equal, every vote counts”) versus Chinese values (“Majority rules. The minority has to go along with the majority.”)** Every now and then we get a reminder that, in China, the Chairman and his party are watching…this was one of those times.
The next day, we brought a little more American culture to the orient by skipping out of work early on a Friday. Here’s where the espionage comes in. We’d made plans to fly to the old capital of Xi’an in central China for the weekend. Problem was, any travel outside Dalian is forbidden by the program, so we had to make our visit on the sly. Don’t worry though, my bosses don’t know about this blog. Even if they did though, it wouldn’t matter; Mao still won’t let them read it.
Following our escape from the cube farm and into some nearby taxis, we soon boarded our plane. However, at numerous points throughout the flight, it was unclear if we would be exiting the plane when it was actually on the ground. I have NEVER been on a flight where people literally screamed as the plane just dropped (more than once!). At the time, I was sitting next to my friend Barry who has some piloting experience and informed me that for “turbulence” to feel like that on a plane that size, we probably just fell several hundred feet. Thanks Barry. The funniest part of this whole thing was the preflight video explaining what position to assume should the plane actually crash. Normal people should brace themselves on the seat in front of them, those in exit rows should bend over and hug their legs, but, according to the film, “fat people” should just grip the hell out of the armrest and pray. Watching the onscreen stewardess act this out almost made up for the terrible “fright” (say it out loud and then think about where I’m writing this from).
Once we’d landed (and kissed the ground, enthralled to be standing, once again, on it), we dropped our stuff at the hotel and hit the town. As China’s ancient capital, Xi’an has about as much history as you’d expect it to. Unfortunately, one weekend is not enough to cover 1000+ years, so we had to prioritize. As such, we spent most of Friday night wandering around the Islamic Quarter, one of the first places in China where we’ve seen substantial expression of any major religion (according to Marx and Mao, “the opiate of the masses). It was also the first real chance for us to test our bargaining skills with the hundreds of locals each selling the basically same set of touristy tchatchkeys. I knew I needed to pick one up, so I pit two vendors against each other over a copy of Mao’s (in)famous “Little Red Book”. One offered it to me for about ten bucks, I got the other to hand it over for two. I think I like this town.
We’d shopped up an appetite, so we hit one of the restaurants in the area that looked like it had the two characteristics we wanted in a Muslim Quarter eatery, 1.) Lamb, and 2.) a menu with pictures. We leafed through it for a while and ordered a three of what turned out to be mediocre attempts at food (including really gross gamey lamb). Thankfully though, Pedro and I had talked the others into going out on a limb and ordering a plate of ox tongue. To all those who are contemplating eating bovine mouth muscle products let me say this: get over how it looks, shut up, and eat it. It is up there with the best pot roast you can get anywhere. Seriously. I will now be checking the Wegman’s butcher counter for my new favorite cut of meat.
Full and happy on a variety meat high, we headed back to the hotel for a much needed break before the next day’s adventure to one of the most famous archaeological sights in China, or, for that matter, the world. Next time: Xi’an, the stunning conclusion.
*Or, if you will, those of Manny “I injected myself with those fertility drugs because I just wanted to be like that pregnant man who was popular for two weeks a year ago” Ramirez.
**These are direct quotes, I am not making these up.
Rather than following in the Rocket’s footsteps* and blaming my unlucky trainer for everything, I can atone for my sins. Although I’m guessing that a weekly update is probably the best I’m going to be able to pull off from here on out, this new update is really juicy. It has espionage, death-defying, communist propaganda… oh, and ox tongues.
Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves here though. I’ll start by backtracking almost a week to last Thursday night. Following our morning teaching the English club (motto: Rock Your Tongue) how to act like degenerate American college kids, our eager students invited us to come to their weekly meeting to help them practice their English more. It sounded like fun, plus they’d bought us a bunch of beer; we gladly accepted. I really like the members of the English club, they remind me of the “bright young go-getters of ‘Hooray for Everything’” featured during the Super Bowl Halftime Show on The Simpsons. They wanted to know our opinions on everything, especially about the “imponderabilia of daily American life” (see, I took an anthropology class last semester, Rochester’s financial aid dollars at work). The most interesting aspect of the meeting though wasn’t the conversation though, so much as the poster on the wall describing a past week’s discussion topic: US values (“Everyone is born free and equal, every vote counts”) versus Chinese values (“Majority rules. The minority has to go along with the majority.”)** Every now and then we get a reminder that, in China, the Chairman and his party are watching…this was one of those times.
The next day, we brought a little more American culture to the orient by skipping out of work early on a Friday. Here’s where the espionage comes in. We’d made plans to fly to the old capital of Xi’an in central China for the weekend. Problem was, any travel outside Dalian is forbidden by the program, so we had to make our visit on the sly. Don’t worry though, my bosses don’t know about this blog. Even if they did though, it wouldn’t matter; Mao still won’t let them read it.
Following our escape from the cube farm and into some nearby taxis, we soon boarded our plane. However, at numerous points throughout the flight, it was unclear if we would be exiting the plane when it was actually on the ground. I have NEVER been on a flight where people literally screamed as the plane just dropped (more than once!). At the time, I was sitting next to my friend Barry who has some piloting experience and informed me that for “turbulence” to feel like that on a plane that size, we probably just fell several hundred feet. Thanks Barry. The funniest part of this whole thing was the preflight video explaining what position to assume should the plane actually crash. Normal people should brace themselves on the seat in front of them, those in exit rows should bend over and hug their legs, but, according to the film, “fat people” should just grip the hell out of the armrest and pray. Watching the onscreen stewardess act this out almost made up for the terrible “fright” (say it out loud and then think about where I’m writing this from).
Once we’d landed (and kissed the ground, enthralled to be standing, once again, on it), we dropped our stuff at the hotel and hit the town. As China’s ancient capital, Xi’an has about as much history as you’d expect it to. Unfortunately, one weekend is not enough to cover 1000+ years, so we had to prioritize. As such, we spent most of Friday night wandering around the Islamic Quarter, one of the first places in China where we’ve seen substantial expression of any major religion (according to Marx and Mao, “the opiate of the masses). It was also the first real chance for us to test our bargaining skills with the hundreds of locals each selling the basically same set of touristy tchatchkeys. I knew I needed to pick one up, so I pit two vendors against each other over a copy of Mao’s (in)famous “Little Red Book”. One offered it to me for about ten bucks, I got the other to hand it over for two. I think I like this town.
We’d shopped up an appetite, so we hit one of the restaurants in the area that looked like it had the two characteristics we wanted in a Muslim Quarter eatery, 1.) Lamb, and 2.) a menu with pictures. We leafed through it for a while and ordered a three of what turned out to be mediocre attempts at food (including really gross gamey lamb). Thankfully though, Pedro and I had talked the others into going out on a limb and ordering a plate of ox tongue. To all those who are contemplating eating bovine mouth muscle products let me say this: get over how it looks, shut up, and eat it. It is up there with the best pot roast you can get anywhere. Seriously. I will now be checking the Wegman’s butcher counter for my new favorite cut of meat.
Full and happy on a variety meat high, we headed back to the hotel for a much needed break before the next day’s adventure to one of the most famous archaeological sights in China, or, for that matter, the world. Next time: Xi’an, the stunning conclusion.
*Or, if you will, those of Manny “I injected myself with those fertility drugs because I just wanted to be like that pregnant man who was popular for two weeks a year ago” Ramirez.
**These are direct quotes, I am not making these up.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
International Relations
I know, I’ve committed the cardinal sin of blogging: being too lazy to write regular updates. For a while I was able to blame it on the censorship thing, but now that I’ve got a few people back in the states set up to post these remotely there’s really no excuse. It’s not that I don’t want to write these, it’s just that I’ve fallen into a similar trap as I did during my time in Thailand where, after work when I have some time to sit down at the computer and write, instead of opening up Word, I open up the Legend of Zelda. I swear, my blogging productivity will get much better once I can defeat the pirates and enter the water temple.
Enough stalling, time to actually talk about what’s been going on. My actual lab work has started now…kinda. The first experiment that I’m working on basically involves filling up a large (like, over half a ton) piece of flexible pipe with water until it’s about to explode. What’s that? You say this doesn’t sound safe at all? Yeah, it’s not. I’ve been trying to convince them of that, and at least the thing is tied down now. They tell me it won’t actually blow up, and I don’t think it will either, at least on paper. However, ever since that fateful solids lab lecture where we spent 40 minutes discussing why, during the course of one’s research one should avoid drinking ethylene glycol (antifreeze), my lab safety-sense has been honed to a razor’s edge. We’d hoped to start not blowing things up earlier this week, but we’ve been having some technical difficulties with all the sensors used to measure how the flexible pipe will flex. Allegedly we’re going to try again tomorrow, but I’ll believe it when I see it.
Outside the lab, things have been much more interesting. This past weekend was the 60th anniversary of the founding of DUT, and the university had an absolutely massive celebration to commemorate the occasion. This was a blast from the foreign-outsider-not-really-a-student perspective, but I swear that if Rochester tries to do this for next year’s 160th anniversary, it will make everyone’s life really unpleasant. Thankfully though, this didn’t seem to be the sort of thing that any American university would ever try to, or be able to, pull off. Like I said though, between the giant stage shows, the really cheap and delicious street food, and the throngs of student organization booths, we had a great time.
On Friday night I’d wandered down to the main square, where I stood in the drizzle and watched the dress rehearsal for the huge performance that was to take place each of the next 3-4 nights. With my command of the Chinese language limited to basic pleasantries, food items, lab tools, and offensive things to say in bars (for some reason this is a big section in the phrase book, so we took it upon ourselves to memorize some of the better ones, just in case), I had no idea what was going on. Still, the scale of the performance was really impressive, particularly with the gigantic lighting and sound rigs that had been erected on either side. The whole thing had a kind of Olympic Opening Ceremony feel to it, as a seemingly endless cast danced on and off the stage. I also could have seen it fitting in well at a communist Disney world somewhere, especially as the 50 foot statue of China’s most revered leader gazed intently downward from his monolithic post. I like the idea of the leader of the club that’s made for you, me, and all the other workers: Chairman Maose*
While the show was interesting, it couldn’t compare to Sunday’s extravaganza of meandering rows of stalls lining every major street on campus. We were just wandering around looking for some lunch, when a girl ran up to us out of nowhere and asked us if we were foreign students. Umm, what was your first clue? The next question out of her mouth caught us a bit off guard: “Do you want to play beer pong?” Why yes, thank you for asking.
Turns out that our new friend was a leader of the campus English club who had heard about the game from some Scottish guy. She brought us over to their stall, where they had already prepared all the appropriate beer pong paraphernalia. Apparently, though, while they knew the basic layout of the game, none of them actually knew any of the rules or had ever played it themselves. Running into the hapless Americans though brought instant authenticity and street cred to their display, and once my roommate John and I had got things up and running, we drew the biggest crowd on the block. After I’d surrendered control of the table to the first player in the lineup that had formed behind me, I stepped back and surveyed the chaos that we’d created and had one of those, “I’m not quite sure how I ended up in this situation but I’m sure glad I did because this is freakin’ hilarious” moments. Now, I know that eventually this text will wind up in the hands of my grandmother, so I should point out that there was not a substantial amount of alcohol consumed by anyone, us Americans had maybe two beers at most. However, when applied to the standard Asian tolerance, “not a substantial amount” becomes “the best English club meeting ever”. Here’s to international understanding.
*Often accompanied by his wacky lisping friend, Donald Deng Xiaoping.
Enough stalling, time to actually talk about what’s been going on. My actual lab work has started now…kinda. The first experiment that I’m working on basically involves filling up a large (like, over half a ton) piece of flexible pipe with water until it’s about to explode. What’s that? You say this doesn’t sound safe at all? Yeah, it’s not. I’ve been trying to convince them of that, and at least the thing is tied down now. They tell me it won’t actually blow up, and I don’t think it will either, at least on paper. However, ever since that fateful solids lab lecture where we spent 40 minutes discussing why, during the course of one’s research one should avoid drinking ethylene glycol (antifreeze), my lab safety-sense has been honed to a razor’s edge. We’d hoped to start not blowing things up earlier this week, but we’ve been having some technical difficulties with all the sensors used to measure how the flexible pipe will flex. Allegedly we’re going to try again tomorrow, but I’ll believe it when I see it.
Outside the lab, things have been much more interesting. This past weekend was the 60th anniversary of the founding of DUT, and the university had an absolutely massive celebration to commemorate the occasion. This was a blast from the foreign-outsider-not-really-a-student perspective, but I swear that if Rochester tries to do this for next year’s 160th anniversary, it will make everyone’s life really unpleasant. Thankfully though, this didn’t seem to be the sort of thing that any American university would ever try to, or be able to, pull off. Like I said though, between the giant stage shows, the really cheap and delicious street food, and the throngs of student organization booths, we had a great time.
On Friday night I’d wandered down to the main square, where I stood in the drizzle and watched the dress rehearsal for the huge performance that was to take place each of the next 3-4 nights. With my command of the Chinese language limited to basic pleasantries, food items, lab tools, and offensive things to say in bars (for some reason this is a big section in the phrase book, so we took it upon ourselves to memorize some of the better ones, just in case), I had no idea what was going on. Still, the scale of the performance was really impressive, particularly with the gigantic lighting and sound rigs that had been erected on either side. The whole thing had a kind of Olympic Opening Ceremony feel to it, as a seemingly endless cast danced on and off the stage. I also could have seen it fitting in well at a communist Disney world somewhere, especially as the 50 foot statue of China’s most revered leader gazed intently downward from his monolithic post. I like the idea of the leader of the club that’s made for you, me, and all the other workers: Chairman Maose*
While the show was interesting, it couldn’t compare to Sunday’s extravaganza of meandering rows of stalls lining every major street on campus. We were just wandering around looking for some lunch, when a girl ran up to us out of nowhere and asked us if we were foreign students. Umm, what was your first clue? The next question out of her mouth caught us a bit off guard: “Do you want to play beer pong?” Why yes, thank you for asking.
Turns out that our new friend was a leader of the campus English club who had heard about the game from some Scottish guy. She brought us over to their stall, where they had already prepared all the appropriate beer pong paraphernalia. Apparently, though, while they knew the basic layout of the game, none of them actually knew any of the rules or had ever played it themselves. Running into the hapless Americans though brought instant authenticity and street cred to their display, and once my roommate John and I had got things up and running, we drew the biggest crowd on the block. After I’d surrendered control of the table to the first player in the lineup that had formed behind me, I stepped back and surveyed the chaos that we’d created and had one of those, “I’m not quite sure how I ended up in this situation but I’m sure glad I did because this is freakin’ hilarious” moments. Now, I know that eventually this text will wind up in the hands of my grandmother, so I should point out that there was not a substantial amount of alcohol consumed by anyone, us Americans had maybe two beers at most. However, when applied to the standard Asian tolerance, “not a substantial amount” becomes “the best English club meeting ever”. Here’s to international understanding.
*Often accompanied by his wacky lisping friend, Donald Deng Xiaoping.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
What Grinds My Gears
1. “Eastern-Style” toilets
I like to think of myself as a fairly culturally open-minded person, but, I’m sorry, I’m going to have to be pretty ethnocentric on this issue. I simply fail to see how a commode-less commode could possibly be an improvement on the tried and true super bowl. Sure, it would be completely understandable if the area in question did not have the resources (financial or technical design) to support such a product. However, we are in one of the commercial capitals in a country with one of the world’s biggest economies. Moreover, we are at an ENGINEERING school, one of the best in the nation. You’d think we’d have put something a little more user-friendly together. It’s certainly not for lack of porcelain; they have urinals in the same bathroom! If I ever become a plumbing engineer here I’m redirecting the raw materials. Build some real toilets, scrap the urinals, plant a tree in there and we’re in business.
2. Surprise Presentations
This was a new one for me. As with most of my experiences on these junkets in Asia, details for events tend to remain sketchy until the event actually goes down. We have our proposal presentations next week, so I’ve spent this week, among other things, putting together a nice little powerpoint. I finished it today around 2:30, and I figured I’d have some time on Monday to practice what I was going to say. Normally when I give a presentation like this, I spend a good bit of time on this stage of development, since I can’t stand when people stand up there and muddle through things by reading the text off their slides verbatim. Thus, you can imagine how thrilled I was when, at 3:30, I got pulled into a conference room with about 20 people in it to give my presentation. I knew I had a meeting, but I had no idea what the meeting was about. All things considered, I’m pretty pumped about how the whole thing went; it reinforced my notion that I should try out for the Rochester Improv group in the fall. I threw one or two Chinese words in there with butchered pronunciations and they loved it. Bumbling American: instant comedy gold.
3. Cat Pee
Our building smells like it, mostly because of the flocks of strays that live outside. These guys are pretty quick. I learned this when I tried to liven up a mid-week evening by venturing into the night with my laser pointer to see what sort of action I could stir up. They didn’t go for it. I need to find some dumber animals to mess with.
Note: I’m told that at the Dalian zoo you can buy a live chicken for about 100 yuan to pitch into the tiger pit. I’d like to point out that this isn’t quite what I mean by “dumber animals to mess with”, though it would make a good story for when those stupid PETA people come back to campus preaching about the horrors of biology lab dissection.
4. Self-injury
This is becoming a bit of an unsettling trend in the karma department. First I cut myself trying to peel a mangosteen, then I gimped it up running around the soccer field. Now, I find myself bleeding again, another fruit motivated finger casualty. No problem though, just dumped some Purel on that sucker and finished eating my mango. Isn’t that how they used to sterilize amputated leg stumps during the Civil War?
5. Always being behind in writing my blog
It’s a bit of a drag consistently writing in the distant past tense, so I’m trying to mollify the problem by writing an entry like this where I can cover a lot of ground with a short burst of complaining. Maybe in a few weeks when I fall far enough behind again I’ll complain some more? I’m hoping to get another post up tomorrow to see if I can’t avoid that, but I’m sure the procrastination monster will rear its ugly head again soon. Stay tuned.
NEW ADDITION
6. Internet Censorship
Well this is great. Looks like the Chinese government or somebody has figured out my scam and I can no longer post from China, at least for the immediate future. Looks like I’ll be emailing these back to the states for publication, we’ll see how that goes. Sorry for the delay.
I like to think of myself as a fairly culturally open-minded person, but, I’m sorry, I’m going to have to be pretty ethnocentric on this issue. I simply fail to see how a commode-less commode could possibly be an improvement on the tried and true super bowl. Sure, it would be completely understandable if the area in question did not have the resources (financial or technical design) to support such a product. However, we are in one of the commercial capitals in a country with one of the world’s biggest economies. Moreover, we are at an ENGINEERING school, one of the best in the nation. You’d think we’d have put something a little more user-friendly together. It’s certainly not for lack of porcelain; they have urinals in the same bathroom! If I ever become a plumbing engineer here I’m redirecting the raw materials. Build some real toilets, scrap the urinals, plant a tree in there and we’re in business.
2. Surprise Presentations
This was a new one for me. As with most of my experiences on these junkets in Asia, details for events tend to remain sketchy until the event actually goes down. We have our proposal presentations next week, so I’ve spent this week, among other things, putting together a nice little powerpoint. I finished it today around 2:30, and I figured I’d have some time on Monday to practice what I was going to say. Normally when I give a presentation like this, I spend a good bit of time on this stage of development, since I can’t stand when people stand up there and muddle through things by reading the text off their slides verbatim. Thus, you can imagine how thrilled I was when, at 3:30, I got pulled into a conference room with about 20 people in it to give my presentation. I knew I had a meeting, but I had no idea what the meeting was about. All things considered, I’m pretty pumped about how the whole thing went; it reinforced my notion that I should try out for the Rochester Improv group in the fall. I threw one or two Chinese words in there with butchered pronunciations and they loved it. Bumbling American: instant comedy gold.
3. Cat Pee
Our building smells like it, mostly because of the flocks of strays that live outside. These guys are pretty quick. I learned this when I tried to liven up a mid-week evening by venturing into the night with my laser pointer to see what sort of action I could stir up. They didn’t go for it. I need to find some dumber animals to mess with.
Note: I’m told that at the Dalian zoo you can buy a live chicken for about 100 yuan to pitch into the tiger pit. I’d like to point out that this isn’t quite what I mean by “dumber animals to mess with”, though it would make a good story for when those stupid PETA people come back to campus preaching about the horrors of biology lab dissection.
4. Self-injury
This is becoming a bit of an unsettling trend in the karma department. First I cut myself trying to peel a mangosteen, then I gimped it up running around the soccer field. Now, I find myself bleeding again, another fruit motivated finger casualty. No problem though, just dumped some Purel on that sucker and finished eating my mango. Isn’t that how they used to sterilize amputated leg stumps during the Civil War?
5. Always being behind in writing my blog
It’s a bit of a drag consistently writing in the distant past tense, so I’m trying to mollify the problem by writing an entry like this where I can cover a lot of ground with a short burst of complaining. Maybe in a few weeks when I fall far enough behind again I’ll complain some more? I’m hoping to get another post up tomorrow to see if I can’t avoid that, but I’m sure the procrastination monster will rear its ugly head again soon. Stay tuned.
NEW ADDITION
6. Internet Censorship
Well this is great. Looks like the Chinese government or somebody has figured out my scam and I can no longer post from China, at least for the immediate future. Looks like I’ll be emailing these back to the states for publication, we’ll see how that goes. Sorry for the delay.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
A Letter to my Gym Teachers
Dear gym teachers of my past,
Remember me? Jimmy Trescott? You know, that little uncoordinated kid in your class back in the day at Beaver Country Day School or Wamilton-Hehnam High? I’m writing to you all these long years later to share with you a piece of information that I think is of critical importance for you to hear.
You. Were. Wrong.
That’s right, dead wrong. You guys always assumed I was the non-athletic kid, the one who always got “Stuck-in-the-Mud” on purpose just so he wouldn’t have to run around as much. In fairness, I think I was one of the only guys who couldn’t successfully do a pull-up until junior year of high school, but those days are gone. Remember, Mrs. Pickle, how at 9th grade parent-teacher conferences you told my my Mom that, “I always thought of Jimmy as a math/science kid?” Granted, I know you were an English teacher and physical activity wasn’t your area of expertise. Still, your cutting words have stuck with me like a crappy simile to this very day.
Gym teachers, it’s time for me to hand in all those Presidential Fitness Test commemorative patches you gave me that made all us National Award Winners look so feeble next to the toned Presidential Award kids. Wanna know why? Because I accomplished something last week that I had never done before in my 22 years of life: I scored a soccer goal.
That’s right, last Friday we went to play pickup soccer at the DUT fields. Of course, now that we’re anywhere in the galaxy outside the USA, they refer to it as football (they also use the metric system: one issue on which I find it impossible to be patriotic, America just has it wrong). Turns out that everyone else here decided to do exactly the same thing, so we had to wait until enough of the 1.3 billion other people left before claiming our spot on the pitch. Since we only had enough people to stake a claim on half the field, we made friends with some other random Chinese dudes and played half field.
Now, I will admit that having a former D1 soccer player and a Columbian guy who’s been playing since he could breathe didn’t hurt my chances, but I’m also certain that ball wouldn’t have passed between the pair of sneakers we were using as goalposts had my foot not directed it in that direction first. All in all, a very satisfying game; we played for over two hours and beat our opponents by a few goals. So, gym teachers, let this stand as a point of pride for the nerdy and organized-sports-uninclined. I hope retirement has given you a chance to think long and hard about this.
Sincerely,
Jimmy
PS: So last night I read Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching (I killed off all the books I brought in the first week), and it's all about not taking pride in ones accomplishments yada yada yada. Thus, today, when I went back to play soccer, Karma kicked in and took out my left quad. I can now walk again...sorta. Go figure.
Remember me? Jimmy Trescott? You know, that little uncoordinated kid in your class back in the day at Beaver Country Day School or Wamilton-Hehnam High? I’m writing to you all these long years later to share with you a piece of information that I think is of critical importance for you to hear.
You. Were. Wrong.
That’s right, dead wrong. You guys always assumed I was the non-athletic kid, the one who always got “Stuck-in-the-Mud” on purpose just so he wouldn’t have to run around as much. In fairness, I think I was one of the only guys who couldn’t successfully do a pull-up until junior year of high school, but those days are gone. Remember, Mrs. Pickle, how at 9th grade parent-teacher conferences you told my my Mom that, “I always thought of Jimmy as a math/science kid?” Granted, I know you were an English teacher and physical activity wasn’t your area of expertise. Still, your cutting words have stuck with me like a crappy simile to this very day.
Gym teachers, it’s time for me to hand in all those Presidential Fitness Test commemorative patches you gave me that made all us National Award Winners look so feeble next to the toned Presidential Award kids. Wanna know why? Because I accomplished something last week that I had never done before in my 22 years of life: I scored a soccer goal.
That’s right, last Friday we went to play pickup soccer at the DUT fields. Of course, now that we’re anywhere in the galaxy outside the USA, they refer to it as football (they also use the metric system: one issue on which I find it impossible to be patriotic, America just has it wrong). Turns out that everyone else here decided to do exactly the same thing, so we had to wait until enough of the 1.3 billion other people left before claiming our spot on the pitch. Since we only had enough people to stake a claim on half the field, we made friends with some other random Chinese dudes and played half field.
Now, I will admit that having a former D1 soccer player and a Columbian guy who’s been playing since he could breathe didn’t hurt my chances, but I’m also certain that ball wouldn’t have passed between the pair of sneakers we were using as goalposts had my foot not directed it in that direction first. All in all, a very satisfying game; we played for over two hours and beat our opponents by a few goals. So, gym teachers, let this stand as a point of pride for the nerdy and organized-sports-uninclined. I hope retirement has given you a chance to think long and hard about this.
Sincerely,
Jimmy
PS: So last night I read Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching (I killed off all the books I brought in the first week), and it's all about not taking pride in ones accomplishments yada yada yada. Thus, today, when I went back to play soccer, Karma kicked in and took out my left quad. I can now walk again...sorta. Go figure.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Dancing in the Streets
Our second day in Beijing (I wasn’t paying attention just now and almost typed Bangkok by accident), we made the circuit of the rest of the obligatory UNESCO World Heritage Site tour, stopping at the Temple of Heaven, Forbidden City, and Summer Palace. Even though I’ve only been here a week or so, I find myself constantly drawing parallels between China and Thailand (including accidentally peppering my rudimentary Chinese with slightly-less-rudimentary Thai), so I figured that these attractions, like their Thai counterparts, would be swarmed with tourists. I was pleasantly surprised to figure out that, with the exception of the Forbidden City, these major Chinese landmarks actually had Chinese people in them!
The Temple of Heaven is a series of buildings spread throughout what is now a large city park where past emperors would go to pray for good harvests, long life, and, if the modern activities that take place there are any indication, good cardio exercise. Wandering around, we were struck not only by the number of people playing shuttlecock (hacky sack with a large badminton birdie) and Tai Chi Ball (badminton with a beanbag thing), but also by their demographics. We were there at 9am on a Tuesday, and the Old Ladies Athletic Club were out in full force, most of them pulling off sweet behind-the-back-left-footed-heel- kick-save-maneuver-things. The Brooksby Village Asian Branch seems a little more active than their friends back home. As obnoxious T-shirt wearing wandering outsiders we got invited to play regularly. We repeatedly accepted, and repeatedly got flattened.
Towards the far end of the park we ran into some larger groups of people, both of which we heard before we actually saw. The initial group provided the first “whoa” moment of my time in China. For some background into this term, see my previous explanation at http://onenickinbangkok.blogspot.com/2008/07/exploring-northwest-territory-part-4.html (for some reason I can't make hyperlinks work, I guess we'll have to go with URL copy/paste. Speakers throughout the park had been playing generic Chinese music all day, but as we walked it quickly became apparent that something had changed. Moving closer, we discovered a crowd of at least 100 (I couldn’t see where it ended from where I was) all clustered around a guy standing on a chair who conducted the entire ensemble in multi-part song. Here are a bunch of random people standing around singing in the park who sounded better than a lot of organized choirs I’ve heard. This was really impressive. Now, it’s been shown that if you get a big enough crowd of people singing together, the group will agree on a pitch and sing reasonably in tune even if the individuals are completely tone deaf. You can ask anyone who’s ever joined the 39,000+ voice rendition of Sweet Caroline at Fenway Park. These guys, though, were on a whole different level, with complex harmonies and clear diction, at least I think so, they were singing in Chinese…
After the singers, came the dancers. Again, as we approached we heard the ambient music shift, this time into something that sounded like a cross between the Dance, Dance, Revolution soundtrack and the Spongebob Squarepants song. Public Jazzercize? Let’s do it. Our tour guide for the day had no clue why on earth participation in this activity was even an option and even seemed a little annoyed at the delay, but we ran away before she could talk us out of it. This group, like the singers, was entirely impromptu, leadership being determined apparently by who brought the boom box, so we didn’t feel too bad about jumping in. The moves were easy enough, imagine that last part of the Macarena where you put your hands on your hips and shake your butt back and forth on repeat for about five uninterrupted minutes and you’ll be pretty close. Yes, there are pictures. No, I can’t post them (yet).
After our spontaneous workout, we drove off to the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace, both former residences of the Emperors of China. Any China tour book, or Wikipedia for that matter, will be able to give you much more efficient rundown of the fun facts pertaining to these two sites, so I won’t talk about them here except to say that they’re both very cool and very big and full of very large tour groups who will consume you if you stand in their way and will find their way into the background of every photo you take. They may also decide that you are interesting enough to warrant your own photo in their album, in which case one of them will furtively sneak over and attempt to “look casual” while posing near you with the standard Asian Tourist Peace Sign Picture Gesture. Trying to do this without attracting attention is impossible and utterly hilarious. I think they don’t want to just ask for the picture because they know we’d do something ridiculous in it if they did. Maybe we’ll eventually meet a brave soul willing to test us. Time will tell.
The Temple of Heaven is a series of buildings spread throughout what is now a large city park where past emperors would go to pray for good harvests, long life, and, if the modern activities that take place there are any indication, good cardio exercise. Wandering around, we were struck not only by the number of people playing shuttlecock (hacky sack with a large badminton birdie) and Tai Chi Ball (badminton with a beanbag thing), but also by their demographics. We were there at 9am on a Tuesday, and the Old Ladies Athletic Club were out in full force, most of them pulling off sweet behind-the-back-left-footed-heel- kick-save-maneuver-things. The Brooksby Village Asian Branch seems a little more active than their friends back home. As obnoxious T-shirt wearing wandering outsiders we got invited to play regularly. We repeatedly accepted, and repeatedly got flattened.
Towards the far end of the park we ran into some larger groups of people, both of which we heard before we actually saw. The initial group provided the first “whoa” moment of my time in China. For some background into this term, see my previous explanation at http://onenickinbangkok.blogspot.com/2008/07/exploring-northwest-territory-part-4.html (for some reason I can't make hyperlinks work, I guess we'll have to go with URL copy/paste. Speakers throughout the park had been playing generic Chinese music all day, but as we walked it quickly became apparent that something had changed. Moving closer, we discovered a crowd of at least 100 (I couldn’t see where it ended from where I was) all clustered around a guy standing on a chair who conducted the entire ensemble in multi-part song. Here are a bunch of random people standing around singing in the park who sounded better than a lot of organized choirs I’ve heard. This was really impressive. Now, it’s been shown that if you get a big enough crowd of people singing together, the group will agree on a pitch and sing reasonably in tune even if the individuals are completely tone deaf. You can ask anyone who’s ever joined the 39,000+ voice rendition of Sweet Caroline at Fenway Park. These guys, though, were on a whole different level, with complex harmonies and clear diction, at least I think so, they were singing in Chinese…
After the singers, came the dancers. Again, as we approached we heard the ambient music shift, this time into something that sounded like a cross between the Dance, Dance, Revolution soundtrack and the Spongebob Squarepants song. Public Jazzercize? Let’s do it. Our tour guide for the day had no clue why on earth participation in this activity was even an option and even seemed a little annoyed at the delay, but we ran away before she could talk us out of it. This group, like the singers, was entirely impromptu, leadership being determined apparently by who brought the boom box, so we didn’t feel too bad about jumping in. The moves were easy enough, imagine that last part of the Macarena where you put your hands on your hips and shake your butt back and forth on repeat for about five uninterrupted minutes and you’ll be pretty close. Yes, there are pictures. No, I can’t post them (yet).
After our spontaneous workout, we drove off to the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace, both former residences of the Emperors of China. Any China tour book, or Wikipedia for that matter, will be able to give you much more efficient rundown of the fun facts pertaining to these two sites, so I won’t talk about them here except to say that they’re both very cool and very big and full of very large tour groups who will consume you if you stand in their way and will find their way into the background of every photo you take. They may also decide that you are interesting enough to warrant your own photo in their album, in which case one of them will furtively sneak over and attempt to “look casual” while posing near you with the standard Asian Tourist Peace Sign Picture Gesture. Trying to do this without attracting attention is impossible and utterly hilarious. I think they don’t want to just ask for the picture because they know we’d do something ridiculous in it if they did. Maybe we’ll eventually meet a brave soul willing to test us. Time will tell.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
“Only a true (uninfected) hero climbs the wall”*
*The following events occurred earlier this week. I’m posting the account unaltered
I’ve been in China less than 24 hours and I’ve already climbed the Great Wall, eaten duck brains straight out of the skull and cuttlefish roe soup, learned how to distinguish real jade from counterfeit, cut myself with my new knife, and swung by the Water Cube for a photo op. Yeah, I’d say it was a productive day.
We arrived in Beijing and were quickly greeted by a crew of masked technicians from the Chinese CDC before we could even rise the seats we’d occupied for the past 12 hours. Given past problems with SARS and avian flu, they’re not taking any chances with this whole H1N1 thing. As a result, every passenger on the plane was screened with a laser temperature sensor to ensure no feverous sacks of contagion (or “FSOC”) could infiltrate the People’s Republic. Not wanting to be labeled as such, I tried to suppress my lingering cough left over from senior week. Thankfully, I survived unscathed and was allowed to enter the country. The same cannot be said of one of our party, Pete, who made it through the first temperature screening but got pulled aside at the secondary temperature test before passing immigration. We stood outside the curtained area waiting for him, but when he emerged wearing a mask (and, to his credit, a wide smile), it became clear that he was in for the royal treatment. He spent two days in a Chinese hospital while haz-mat suit wearing doctors decided that, despite a temperature of 37.2 degrees (about 98.8 degrees F) he did not, in fact, have swine flu. As he’s studying in Beijing while we’re in Dalian, none of us have actually seen him since we got off the plane, but we hear via the almighty facebook that he’s bounced back nicely, and is getting along well with his new roommate from Kazakhstan.
While Pete enjoyed the scenery in flu quarantine, the rest of us set about our obligatory sightseeing for the short time we had in Beijing, starting with, of course, the Great Wall. En route to the nearest accessible section, which climbs up a mountain about an hour’s drive from downtown, we stopped at the Ming Tombs complex, a Chinese Valley of the Kings for the rulers of the Ming Dynasty. These Emperors chose to be buried in this specific out of the way spot because, situated between a mountain and a river, it has the best Feng Shui money can buy close to the capital. The next dynasty, the Qing, had to schlep its royal corpses miles away to find a place with similar good vibes.
While the tomb complex was interesting, we didn’t linger long enough to poke around the whole thing. Instead we headed off to the place everyone wants to go: the Wall. Unlike at the Tombs where we got detailed explanations of everything in the little museum, our tour guide decided that we, in fact, didn’t need no education, and turned us lose on the awesome landmark. As you’d expect, the place was packed with tourists, but, after 20 minutes of climbing, we found that our legs had a bit more oomph than those belonging to the Shady Acres Retirement Home tour group (matching red trucker hats and fanny packs included), and we promptly left most of them behind.
Climbing further up, the crowds thinned more and more, to the point where we were among the only people in sight. Up here, the hugeness of this mammoth structure starts to hit home, and one wonders what the Mongol scouts who happened upon it first thought (my guess: “crap, that’s a bigass wall”). This is a structure like so many world landmarks (the Great Pyramid comes to mind) where pictures become a futile means of capturing its magnitude. Don’t even try.
On the way down, we did swing by the kitschy tourist stop about halfway up so one of our group members (let’s call him Mr. T.) could pick up his “Hero Card”. This is a really high quality piece of ID that displays clearly the carrier’s status as a hero, because, according to Chairman Mao, one cannot be considered a hero, or a true man for that matter, until he scales the wall. We all thought this was a hilarious product, and Mr. T. volunteered to acquire one for himself. Even funnier was our professor’s remark upon seeing the fruits of our day’s climbing: “You pay money for this?!?”
I’ve been in China less than 24 hours and I’ve already climbed the Great Wall, eaten duck brains straight out of the skull and cuttlefish roe soup, learned how to distinguish real jade from counterfeit, cut myself with my new knife, and swung by the Water Cube for a photo op. Yeah, I’d say it was a productive day.
We arrived in Beijing and were quickly greeted by a crew of masked technicians from the Chinese CDC before we could even rise the seats we’d occupied for the past 12 hours. Given past problems with SARS and avian flu, they’re not taking any chances with this whole H1N1 thing. As a result, every passenger on the plane was screened with a laser temperature sensor to ensure no feverous sacks of contagion (or “FSOC”) could infiltrate the People’s Republic. Not wanting to be labeled as such, I tried to suppress my lingering cough left over from senior week. Thankfully, I survived unscathed and was allowed to enter the country. The same cannot be said of one of our party, Pete, who made it through the first temperature screening but got pulled aside at the secondary temperature test before passing immigration. We stood outside the curtained area waiting for him, but when he emerged wearing a mask (and, to his credit, a wide smile), it became clear that he was in for the royal treatment. He spent two days in a Chinese hospital while haz-mat suit wearing doctors decided that, despite a temperature of 37.2 degrees (about 98.8 degrees F) he did not, in fact, have swine flu. As he’s studying in Beijing while we’re in Dalian, none of us have actually seen him since we got off the plane, but we hear via the almighty facebook that he’s bounced back nicely, and is getting along well with his new roommate from Kazakhstan.
While Pete enjoyed the scenery in flu quarantine, the rest of us set about our obligatory sightseeing for the short time we had in Beijing, starting with, of course, the Great Wall. En route to the nearest accessible section, which climbs up a mountain about an hour’s drive from downtown, we stopped at the Ming Tombs complex, a Chinese Valley of the Kings for the rulers of the Ming Dynasty. These Emperors chose to be buried in this specific out of the way spot because, situated between a mountain and a river, it has the best Feng Shui money can buy close to the capital. The next dynasty, the Qing, had to schlep its royal corpses miles away to find a place with similar good vibes.
While the tomb complex was interesting, we didn’t linger long enough to poke around the whole thing. Instead we headed off to the place everyone wants to go: the Wall. Unlike at the Tombs where we got detailed explanations of everything in the little museum, our tour guide decided that we, in fact, didn’t need no education, and turned us lose on the awesome landmark. As you’d expect, the place was packed with tourists, but, after 20 minutes of climbing, we found that our legs had a bit more oomph than those belonging to the Shady Acres Retirement Home tour group (matching red trucker hats and fanny packs included), and we promptly left most of them behind.
Climbing further up, the crowds thinned more and more, to the point where we were among the only people in sight. Up here, the hugeness of this mammoth structure starts to hit home, and one wonders what the Mongol scouts who happened upon it first thought (my guess: “crap, that’s a bigass wall”). This is a structure like so many world landmarks (the Great Pyramid comes to mind) where pictures become a futile means of capturing its magnitude. Don’t even try.
On the way down, we did swing by the kitschy tourist stop about halfway up so one of our group members (let’s call him Mr. T.) could pick up his “Hero Card”. This is a really high quality piece of ID that displays clearly the carrier’s status as a hero, because, according to Chairman Mao, one cannot be considered a hero, or a true man for that matter, until he scales the wall. We all thought this was a hilarious product, and Mr. T. volunteered to acquire one for himself. Even funnier was our professor’s remark upon seeing the fruits of our day’s climbing: “You pay money for this?!?”
I don’t even know where to start
Wow.
I could try to sit here and discuss everything that’s happened in the last week or so, but I think my fingers would probably start bleeding from overtyping. They’ve already bled enough from when I sliced myself open trying to remember how to correctly peel a mangosteen, my favorite fruit in all the world that I discovered in Thailand. Instead of pulling a Julie Andrews and starting at the very beginning, I’m going to pull the classic “lazy blogger” maneuver and start by describing events in the present before attempting to revisit the past, rather than the other way around.
In case you’re just joining me, which, unless you’re Marie, you are since I haven’t bothered to send the link around until today, make sure to go back and check out the first few entries that describe how I got myself into this interesting position. What interesting position is that you ask? Why helping Red China’s government controlled try to tap presently unused offshore petroleum reserves as a means of fueling the countries continued ascent to worldwide economic dominance, that’s what. Just the sort of summer job that would have gotten me seriously blackballed in the 60s. Now, helping commies is one thing, and helping oil companies another, but helping commie oil companies? Well, now I just feel a little scummy.
A point of clarification: I had no idea that this was what I’d be doing here. I was under the impression that I’d be sitting at a computer all day running analyses of fluid flow in flexible pipes. I do have a computer to sit in front of (where I can finally post my subversive government-banned propaganda) in a nice clean cube farm with some other grad students, but it also looks like I get to run some actual tests on actual oil pipes. I had never seen actual flexible oil pipes until yesterday, but I can assure you that these are not the flexible pipes used to ferry beer around at my former workplace, the Neptune Brewing Co. (makers of the renowned “Beverly Brew”). These behemoths are made of layers of wrapped steel cable and rubber, a foot in diameter and maybe ten in length, and I get put in charge of the machine that pulls them apart, which is approximately the size of my bedroom. Hehe… cool.
I’m not sure yet what the details of these tests will be, or if they’re as dangerous as they look. I’ll post further bulletins as events warrant. Now that I’ve gotten through today, over the next few posts I’ll go back to document my arrival in China and our first few days in Beijing, that, due to some creative internetting, I’m finally able to share. I should point out that the Great Firewall of China actually does block this website. I kinda like the idea of well-dressed officials getting together around a big round table and discussing how to stop this crazy dissident named Jimmy, but I’m pretty sure they just block all blogs produced by blogger. Oh well.
I could try to sit here and discuss everything that’s happened in the last week or so, but I think my fingers would probably start bleeding from overtyping. They’ve already bled enough from when I sliced myself open trying to remember how to correctly peel a mangosteen, my favorite fruit in all the world that I discovered in Thailand. Instead of pulling a Julie Andrews and starting at the very beginning, I’m going to pull the classic “lazy blogger” maneuver and start by describing events in the present before attempting to revisit the past, rather than the other way around.
In case you’re just joining me, which, unless you’re Marie, you are since I haven’t bothered to send the link around until today, make sure to go back and check out the first few entries that describe how I got myself into this interesting position. What interesting position is that you ask? Why helping Red China’s government controlled try to tap presently unused offshore petroleum reserves as a means of fueling the countries continued ascent to worldwide economic dominance, that’s what. Just the sort of summer job that would have gotten me seriously blackballed in the 60s. Now, helping commies is one thing, and helping oil companies another, but helping commie oil companies? Well, now I just feel a little scummy.
A point of clarification: I had no idea that this was what I’d be doing here. I was under the impression that I’d be sitting at a computer all day running analyses of fluid flow in flexible pipes. I do have a computer to sit in front of (where I can finally post my subversive government-banned propaganda) in a nice clean cube farm with some other grad students, but it also looks like I get to run some actual tests on actual oil pipes. I had never seen actual flexible oil pipes until yesterday, but I can assure you that these are not the flexible pipes used to ferry beer around at my former workplace, the Neptune Brewing Co. (makers of the renowned “Beverly Brew”). These behemoths are made of layers of wrapped steel cable and rubber, a foot in diameter and maybe ten in length, and I get put in charge of the machine that pulls them apart, which is approximately the size of my bedroom. Hehe… cool.
I’m not sure yet what the details of these tests will be, or if they’re as dangerous as they look. I’ll post further bulletins as events warrant. Now that I’ve gotten through today, over the next few posts I’ll go back to document my arrival in China and our first few days in Beijing, that, due to some creative internetting, I’m finally able to share. I should point out that the Great Firewall of China actually does block this website. I kinda like the idea of well-dressed officials getting together around a big round table and discussing how to stop this crazy dissident named Jimmy, but I’m pretty sure they just block all blogs produced by blogger. Oh well.
Friday, May 29, 2009
The Wasteland
I never thought I’d say this, but Rochester, New York is a pretty cheery place, or at least it seems that way after spending two days in the bustling metropolis of Potsdam*. No offense to the denizens of the village or the students and faculty of Clarkson University, but seriously, your town ranks pretty high on the “lame places of america” list. Between the weather, the architecture, and the total lack of anything other than a gas station and two pizza places in the surrounding environs, Potsdam’s dreary tops Rochester’s ten times over. We spent a day and a half in Potsdam completing paperwork, learning incidental Chinese, and “team building.” Especially satisfying was being given the rare opportunity to apply one’s Beakman’s World skills to balance 13 screws on the head of one screw. According to precedent, this activity is supposed to take an hour or so. What they failed to consider though, is that when you get a group of eight serious nerds together, the chances are pretty good that at least one of them woke up at 6:30 AM on Saturday mornings to watch a green-frocked professor and a guy in a rat suit talk about science. The challenge took us about thirty seconds.
Even though we were driving to the alleged stronghold of crappiness, at least according the writers of South Park and most of the members of my a cappella group (the Twilight Wanderers, find us on MySpace!) Canada is a breath of fresh air. The fresh air may smell weakly of pine trees and ham-like bacon, but after Potsdam, who cares? Unfortunately, we’re only here for another 5 hours or so, so I won’t get the chance to go find a source of poutine, the uniquely Canadian combination of French fries, cheese curds, and beef gravy that I desperately want to try. Instead it’s looking like we’re going to stay here at the Monterey Inn and watch the Nuggets lose. Hopefully I’ll find a place to post in China soon after we arrive. Once I confirm that the government doesn’t block Blogger**, then I can actually send this URL to some people. Not that I mind my only reader being my girlfriend Marie, but it’ll be nice to spread the word a bit. That’s all for the western hemisphere, now onward and eastward.
-Jimmy
*This is not the Potsdam of WWII conference fame. That Potsdam is in Germany, though it leads one to wonder how history might be different had Stalin, Truman, and Churchill met in upstate New York. They’d probably have beaten those former Nazis up even more, if only because they’d be in a foul mood.
**They do.
Even though we were driving to the alleged stronghold of crappiness, at least according the writers of South Park and most of the members of my a cappella group (the Twilight Wanderers, find us on MySpace!) Canada is a breath of fresh air. The fresh air may smell weakly of pine trees and ham-like bacon, but after Potsdam, who cares? Unfortunately, we’re only here for another 5 hours or so, so I won’t get the chance to go find a source of poutine, the uniquely Canadian combination of French fries, cheese curds, and beef gravy that I desperately want to try. Instead it’s looking like we’re going to stay here at the Monterey Inn and watch the Nuggets lose. Hopefully I’ll find a place to post in China soon after we arrive. Once I confirm that the government doesn’t block Blogger**, then I can actually send this URL to some people. Not that I mind my only reader being my girlfriend Marie, but it’ll be nice to spread the word a bit. That’s all for the western hemisphere, now onward and eastward.
-Jimmy
*This is not the Potsdam of WWII conference fame. That Potsdam is in Germany, though it leads one to wonder how history might be different had Stalin, Truman, and Churchill met in upstate New York. They’d probably have beaten those former Nazis up even more, if only because they’d be in a foul mood.
**They do.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Disoriented...again
This is all Google's fault.
I also partially blame the rise of wireless internet, because it makes it possible for someone like me to immediately obtain pages of information based on whatever crazy idea happens to start rattling around in my head like a BB in a tuna can. Following last summer's adventure in Thailand (and subsequent jaunt to Korea in the fall), I figured I'd give Asia a break for a while. However, a crappy job market and a propensity for mindless internet browsing led me to find a new job for this summer, this time in Dalian, China. Go figure.
For those who don't know me, my name is James (Jimmy) Trescott. For those who do know me, you'll all be quick to notice that my name is not really Jimmy Trescott. However, due to the reputed impenetrability of the Great Firewall of China, I've decided to write this new blog under a pseudonym to escape any possible problems that might come up because of the C-word (starts with a "c" and rhymes with "gensorship"). I have no idea how much of an actual problem this is in China, since I'm typing this initial entry from my kitchen at home, but come on, how cool is it to use a fake name to escape the clandestine gaze of "the man"? I don't know when I'll have another excuse to ghost write anything, so I'm ghost writing while the ghost writing's good.
I'll be heading out in about nine hours for middle-of-nowhere upstate New York (2.5 hour drive with mom, 1 hour flight, 1 hour cab ride). From there, I'll drive to Ottawa before flying to Beijing via Toronto. After the required Great Wall/Forbidden City visits, it's on to Dalian for the rest of the summer. I will post again as soon as I figure out internet connection details, but hopefully it won't take too long for me to figure something out.
Till then, cheers,
-Jimmy
I also partially blame the rise of wireless internet, because it makes it possible for someone like me to immediately obtain pages of information based on whatever crazy idea happens to start rattling around in my head like a BB in a tuna can. Following last summer's adventure in Thailand (and subsequent jaunt to Korea in the fall), I figured I'd give Asia a break for a while. However, a crappy job market and a propensity for mindless internet browsing led me to find a new job for this summer, this time in Dalian, China. Go figure.
For those who don't know me, my name is James (Jimmy) Trescott. For those who do know me, you'll all be quick to notice that my name is not really Jimmy Trescott. However, due to the reputed impenetrability of the Great Firewall of China, I've decided to write this new blog under a pseudonym to escape any possible problems that might come up because of the C-word (starts with a "c" and rhymes with "gensorship"). I have no idea how much of an actual problem this is in China, since I'm typing this initial entry from my kitchen at home, but come on, how cool is it to use a fake name to escape the clandestine gaze of "the man"? I don't know when I'll have another excuse to ghost write anything, so I'm ghost writing while the ghost writing's good.
I'll be heading out in about nine hours for middle-of-nowhere upstate New York (2.5 hour drive with mom, 1 hour flight, 1 hour cab ride). From there, I'll drive to Ottawa before flying to Beijing via Toronto. After the required Great Wall/Forbidden City visits, it's on to Dalian for the rest of the summer. I will post again as soon as I figure out internet connection details, but hopefully it won't take too long for me to figure something out.
Till then, cheers,
-Jimmy
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