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.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
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.
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