I saw it on the internate...

New Blog!

2010-04-20T07:12:00.001-07:00

Check it out!

http://internate.tumblr.com/

About the Garden State...

2010-04-11T20:02:00.000-07:00

A lot could be said.

1. Chain stores rule the land: At least in North Central New Jersey, I saw no small number of the same stores I grew up with in suburban Chicagoland. Really, New Jersey was kind of like a giant suburbia (of New York, of course, at least once you leave the little portion surrounding Camden across the Delaware River from Philadelphia.)

2. Diners are wonderful. The food ain't gonna amaze you or inspire you (not in my sense of the terms, anyway) but it's still really tasty.

3. It's surprisingly beautiful. Lots of trees, grass, forests, and the like. I actually got the hell startled out of me when I was walking to my car outside at around 3 AM, in the dark I saw two large streaks dart behind trees. After I started breathing against, I realized they were deer.

4. Driving there sucks. Broadly speaking, you can't make left turns; you must drive past your destination, and turn right into what is called a jug-handle, where you loop around and can then left-turn onto the other side of the street and drive back. Roads merge weirdly (and dangerously).

5. The people are great. The clients were mostly wonderful, despite the immense difficulties they faced (and we sometimes faced in helping them). We had volunteers, many around our age, from a local church, many of whom were students at the community college we were housing people at. They were the best volunteers we could've asked for, working harder than anyone could've asked for, day after day. Them, along with my coworkers Britney, Sarah, and Celia, and the other Red Cross workers, made doing what we do possible.

New Jersey Floods, March 2010

2010-04-11T18:23:00.000-07:00

In the third week of March, I was "deployed" to assist in the mass care/sheltering of flooded-out residents of Somerset County, New Jersey. For a video of the flood damage, see the bottom of the post.

I ended up managing the shelter at night, from 8 PM to 8 AM (give or take a few extra hours each day). At the start, toward the end of mid-March, we had well over 100 clients at the shelter. These clients relied on the American Red Cross to provide safe housing, food, and basic needs while they work to find permanent housing (or repair their homes). We provided three meals a day, snacks around the clock, busing to nearby towns and schools, and internet access.

Doing this, however, is a real challenge--the Red Cross needs to be aware of all the clients who check in and out of the shelter, needs to know about medical/dietary needs, maintain security while letting shelter residents have a maximum of access reasonably possible to enter and leave. Residents need to get to work in nearby communities, and children to school, and we make it happen.

Personally, my job was making sure that the lights went out at 10:30 PM, came back on at 6 AM, and that breakfast was ready and waiting for the residents, with a staff of two other individuals and a nurse.

Top 5 shelter facts:
1. Children/teenagers don't always go to bed at 10:30, though their parents mostly do. It's good to have movies to entertain them.
2. Everyone loves snacks. This is obvious.
3. It's hard to count people in the dark, doubly so to get a precise head count.
4. Nobody likes it when you turn off the computers, but you'd be foolish not to do so at 10 PM.
5. Treating everyone equally well is one of the best institutional practices possible.

The goal of a opening a shelter, glibly put, is to close the shelter--by finding the residents new housing if they need it, or getting their homes into order so they can move back in. I personally didn't do too much in that way--the Red Cross Disaster Services Human Resources system is laid out systematically to differentiate functions of disaster operations, and that's Client Services' domain (as opposed to Mass Care/Sheltering).

I'm not a giant fan of the night shift (I thought I had given it up when I quit working at BP selling gasoline, smokes and snacks) but working in sheltering really gives you good insight into what we take for granted everyday, and was pretty rewarding as far as getting to help people goes. I'm proud of what I did, and while we never look forward to having another disaster, I know I'll be twice as ready next time around.

"Young Professional" lower-middle-class proto-bourgeois dietary review/What Should I Eat (on $100 a month)?

2010-04-04T19:13:00.000-07:00

As an AmeriCorps*State/National member, I enjoy both a "modest stipend" and access to the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (AKA food stamps). So, you might ask, how should a young man eat today on $100 per month?

For starters, on not much meat. First, it's a pain in the ass to cook. You got salmonella, E. Coli, and other fun little bugs so you gotta use it right. With everything else, you're pretty much okay throughout the rest of the process (safety-wise, anyway). Second, serious moral qualms are afoot; as my vegan friends assert (and vegetarians agree) we wouldn't like to see where at least 60% of these products are made. Three, it's pretty damn expensive (relative to everything else, at least). I eat meat a few times a week, most often when I eat out. When I do buy it, I strive to buy sustainably made Pennsylvania quality foods .

Fruits and veggies, folks. Veggies sauteed in olive oil, with pasta, in particular. Multigrain pastas (and breads in general) of course. Yogurts, mixed nuts, and sandwiches all play a big role in my diet.

I try to find more organic goods, despite the fact that it hasn't been proven more healthful; I'll presume that it's still better as a general practice not to use pesticides on the fruits we eat.

I'm more conscious of the addition of corn additives, such as high fructose corn syrup. Again, evidence isn't overwhelming, but it is far more convincing.

But don't believe me, believe my food pyramid!

More and Less Free in China

2009-12-25T19:03:00.000-08:00

I am currently working on a significant post about the Middle East, but it's taking a long time to compose. In the mean time, I'd like to note the plight of Liu Xiaobo.

A constitution whose guarantees are actively subverted by the government charged with administering them isn't worth the paper its printed on.

That said, it is unrealistic to believe that the Chinese Communist Party had any intention of actually providing any substantive freedoms in the 1984 Constitution, despite Wen Jiabao's statement that "We will make serious efforts to carry [human rights] out in practice", as stipulated by the 2004 constitutional amendments.

It is generally accepted that, since Mao's time, the People's Republic of China has become a more free country. Controversially, some commentators have suggested that in the past decade, China has become more amenable to free speech and a (more) free press; Kate Zhou, of the University of Hawaii, suggests that "China has been witnessing the success of unorganized, leaderless grassroots movements in bottom-up expansion of civil rights." The People's Daily--a state-controlled newspaper--has run editorials criticizing government policies, which is a dramatic shift (though nothing in these articles approaches criticism at any appreciable depth). Perhaps most importantly, massive public outcries on the internet have affected both policies, such as the about-face on the forced installation of Green Dam internet-filtering software on all computers, and incidents to the dropping of murder charges on a hotel employee who stabbed two Party officials who tried to rape her. In particular, the internet has opened a new world of communication for Chinese citizens in which to express their opinion, which is one reason why within China the internet is both heavily censored and monitored.

Yet China is, on the whole, not significantly more free. Freedom House's ratings have indicated a slight worsening of the freedoms, in fact. The recent sentencing of dissident Liu Xiaobo to 11 years in prison for "subverting state power" is undoubtedly meant to send a message to his ideological comrades: "Shut up, or else." Xiaobo was one of the authors of the Charter 08, a highly-charged document calling for serious democratic reforms. He had been, before the trial, held for a year by the police, much like many of the others who dared to speak out in favor of reform.

I don't remember where I first read this, but an important distinction should be made about the concurrent expansion and decline in freedoms--the dichotomy of the local and central Party. Many Chinese people trust Beijing--the central government--to act in their interests; the fiery growth of China's economy has a large roll in this. On the other hand, local/provincial governments and officials tend to be less adept at their jobs--from a efficacy and public relations standpoint--and, perhaps more importantly, are significantly more corrupt. It doesn't challenge the rule of the Chinese Communist Party to allow the citizens to vent their anger at local officials, but as the case of Liu Xiaobo shows, aim your words at the central government and you're asking for trouble.

China is a particularly difficult place to make predictions about, in no small part thanks to the secrecy of the decision-makers. The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences suggests that social unrest has grown over the past several years. As the BBC article notes, there have been at least "six large-scale popular protests - from taxi strikes to unrest in central China in June - involving tens of thousands of people." Barring the unlikely scenario of an economic downturn in China--the government's stimulus has been remarkably effective, despite fears of excess capacity--it is unlikely that any particular issue will bring people to the streets across the nation; non-ethnic-related civil protests have been by-and-large pegged to local incidents and policies. Unlike in Iran, there are no foreseeable national events that could trigger large-scale protests. No doubt, though, China's leaders will make every possible attempt circumvent the possibility; within China, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media applications have been blocked. And while young people in particular are adept at finding ways to communicate and coordinate, like in Iran, the central government is equally adept at controlling information and people--through shutting down of electronic communications (i.e. cell phone networks, like during the protests and violence in Xinjiang this past summer) to the use of force against their own citizens.

It stands to reason, though, that more freedom in China would be effective at mitigating tensions between the government and its citizens. Many of these protests stem from the anger generated from the government's inability to respond to legitimate complaints. This creates friction, wherever it occurs--take, for example, the Los Angeles riots of 1992. Of course, Beijing has made attempts to reform in a positive manner--intraparty democracy, for example. Yet, as the Economist reports, these efforts are an unabashed failure.

All in all, China's leaders might do well to take heed to the people's complaints; a little satisfaction would go a long way.

Important Findings

2009-12-15T18:17:00.000-08:00

Findings: As the BBC puts it, "Octopus snatches coconut and runs".

Analysis: No doubt, while fried calamari can be delicious, the veined octopus is quite ugly. That said, its use of hollow coconut halves as shelters is interesting. As Professor Tom Tregenza says in the BBC article, at first the half-coconut is merely a concave shell, but "the coconut becomes useful to this octopus when it stops and turns it the other way up and climbs inside it."

Law School Applications

2009-12-07T12:24:00.000-08:00

If you don't know, I'm in the midst of applying to law schools. I've completed many applications, am on the cusp of finishing a currently-too-long personal statement about justice and its pursuit, and this past Saturday, I took the LSAT for a second time.

The LSAT is a test, ostensibly designed to predict ones aptitude for legal work through the prisms of analytical reasoning (logic games), logical reasoning (arguments), and reading comprehension. These 100 questions, each of the utmost importance to one's future, are administered over roughly four hours on a Saturday morning, regimented and ruled by a regime so restrictive that no one but legal professions could have designed it--no discussing test questions outside the test (and you must rewrite a written paragraph in your "handwriting"--no printing!--certifying that you will not do so and that you are taking the test for the sole purpose of applying to law schools), no electronic devices whatsoever at the test, no mechanical pencils, no scratch paper, and perhaps the most important detail of all--all hoods must be turned inside out in the test room.

I took the test for the first time in Beijing, at the end of June, but I wasn't happy with my performance. How I did this second time around, though, only time will tell. For a Scantron test (in an age where the GRE, GMAT, and MCAT are all computer-based), it takes annoyingly long for the results to be sent to you--two to four weeks.

So I wait, and finish the rest of my applications--to schools on the East Coast (DC, New York, Philadelphia and beyond) and in the Midwest.

I like to think that lawyering--a oft-misunderstood profession--is in my blood; my grandfather attended New York Law School, and had a practice in Manhattan. It is understood that he was admitted to argue before the United States Supreme Court, and may have done so in some relatively minor cases, but beyond signed certificates from President Harry Truman and the Supreme Court, I don't know much else. Sadly, he died three years before I was born, so the particulars are likely lost to history. Further, my father testifies in federal and state courts on issues of intellectual property and economic damages.

I'll save the reasons why I want to go to law school, perhaps for another time. Suffice it to say, I see the law, beyond being something I've developed an aptitude for, as a means for people to settle their differences equitably. In particular, my undergraduate years gave me an appreciation for alternative dispute resolution, which allows people to, instead of litigation, find a reasonable settlement through mediation--saving both parties expense, time, and trouble. Much is to be admired about that, especially when one considers the heavy caseloads our courts have.

In the mean, time, though, you know where you can find me.

An Introduction to Pennsylvania/Props to Northern Liberties

2009-12-06T07:30:00.000-08:00

Sounds about right.

That said, Philadelphia's been growing on me. Last night, along with a couple coworkers, I attended an event at Fresh Melt Water , a pre-release party for a new album by Delphonic. Big ups to Stoudt's Brewing Company for their donation of free beer (especially the tasty pale ale), along with rappers Scanz, the Paxtons (from Chi-town originally!), and especially Sock, who killed it, as they say. If you're curious, Fresh Melt Water is a t-shirt shop (for those of you familiar with Des Moines, kind of like SMASH).

All that took place across Girard Avenue, in Northern Liberties, which as I mentioned before, is Philadelphia's hipster mecca--conveniently located about five minutes from where I live.

It's interesting--Philadelphians will admit that the city is regimented so fully that they identify more readily with their neighborhoods (with fascinating names like Fishtown, Strawberry Mansion, Kingsessig, Manayunk, Nicetown, and Wissinoming, who wouldn't?) than they may the city-at-large. Maybe it's because of Philadelphia's large size, relative to its population, making it less dense than many other cities. Maybe it's because the bizarre shape of Philadelphia makes it difficult to identify oneself as being part of a side of Philadelphia. Hard to say.

Christmas Specials

2009-12-02T17:31:00.000-08:00

Some people believe I dislike Christmas.

This is patently untrue.

I do, however, dislike bad Christmas specials, and music.

Take, for example, the TV show "Bones" Christmas special. A mediocre show generally (formulaic doesn't even begin to cover it), the Christmas special was excruciating. To encapsulate, the cast (starring the tall, handsome Red State detective who believes--in religion, sports, policing, etc.--and the eponymous cool, calculating Blue state forensic scientist) is trapped, for some reason, in the lab solving a crime with their hologram computer. Of course, Bones doesn't like Christmas--but don't worry, by the end of the special, her holiday-related childhood disappointments are uncovered, assuaged, and she learns to love Christmas in front of a holographic Christmas tree.

Or take the movie "Elf" (the theme here is that they're on TV, and I'll be on my computer in the living room, where the couches are, and these will be on TV). Now, I generally don't like Will Ferrell, but I could appreciate this movie--conceptually--but Will Ferrell's magic snowball/Etch-a-Sketch skills, along with the ending involving Santa being chased by Central Park cops was simply awful. Really, really awful.

BUT!

Lest you think my Jewishness makes my feelings toward Christmas unceasingly scornful, let me provide you with counterexamples.

Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" is fantastic. Read the book. (The Muppet version's not bad either).

Or the Charley Brown Christmas Special. Clever and original!

I also like the song "Feliz Navidad"!

So there you go--good writing: Good. Cliche holiday specials? No thank you.

(End rant.)

What do you do for the Red Cross?

2009-11-11T09:07:00.000-08:00

I (sometimes) blog!

Philadelphia

2009-11-11T07:41:00.000-08:00

...is where I now live.

The City of Brotherly Love is a hell of a city, no doubt about it. In contrast to my last digs--Kunming-- Philadelphia is a city of extraordinary historical importance (Kunming is really old, granted, and interesting historical events have taken place there, but hardly Philadelphia-level).

A fact that really struck me was that, for many years, Philadelphia was the biggest English-speaking city in the world after London!

The former capital of the United States, where the Declaration of Independence was signed and the Constitution was composed--Philadelphia!

The city of murals--Philadelphia! (I really love the murals--it's like the city, even its (many) impoverished and empty neighborhoods, is a big art museum.)

The place where sports comes before hard news--Philadelphia! (...)

It's an interesting city, Philadelphia. It's strange to be here now, because honestly, since leaving Des Moines, if you consider living in Naperville living in Chicago (I'm well-aware that it isn't, but it's pretty close anyway), Philadelphia is the smallest city I've lived in. That is to say, Chicago is a lot bigger--size and population-wise--and Kunming, certainly in population, dwarfs both Chicago proper and Philadelphia.

Many New Yorkers who move to Philadelphia say it's "a lot more manageable." Now, theoretically, most cities--if not all!--are more manageable than New York City, but Philadelphia is nonetheless eminently navigatable, to say the least: there are two subways here in Philadelphia (in addition to buses and trolleys). Two subway lines! And one goes up and down Broad Street, the main north-south drag here--so you're not gonna get that one mixed up (the other goes primarily along the east-west pipeline of Market Street, 'til it starts going north to avoid spilling into the Delaware River).

I live in "Olde Kensington", or at least I do according to Google Maps. Kensington, today, lies more north and maybe more east, and has a more sinister reputation. Olde Kensington used to be home to a lot of industry--mainly textiles, but also metalworks and glassworks. Many of the factory buildings are lofts--an attractive, if expensive, option. It's not a glamourous neighborhood, but compared to more northerly locations it combines affordability with moderate quality.

Change of Venue (你好 y'all)

2009-10-30T11:55:00.000-07:00

So...it's been a little while since my last post. Okay, a really long time. Around April, the Chinese authorities decided it was time to crack down on that scourge of modern society, the blogger.

That said, real restrictions on the internet (Facebook in particular) came into force after I
left Kunming, following the riots between Han Chinese and Uighurs in Xinjiang. Facebook acres still hasn't been restored, three months later, much less Blogger.

This is ironic, as China's resilience to, and growth in spite of, the global recession, merely makes the continued rule of the Chinese Communist Party more entrenched.

That said, long story short, I've returned to America. And I've moved to the City of Brotherly Love, Philadelphia. And that's how my new adventures begin.

Off to Xishuangbanna

2009-04-29T05:51:00.000-07:00

After a hectic few weeks of teaching, I am off to visit tropical Xishuangbanna, which is the area of Yunnan province where a Thai-like people, the Dai minority, live, along with a smattering of other minority groups (and, of course, the omnipresent Han). Before Kaitlin and I get to Xishuangbanna (where we will encounter Kelli and Samantha, another teacher from YUFE), we will stop in Yuanyang, an area of Yunnan southeast of Kunming. The rice terrraces are supposed to be absolutely stunning at sunrise this time of year, so we--equipped with what will hopefully be the last camera I need to buy here--will see that, before going south. We will get into Jinghong, the capital of Xishuangbanna, on Saturday or Sunday, where we will go hiking in the jungle, and dine on the edge of the Mekong river.

We'll get back to Kunming a week from today. I'll stop by internet cafes on the way, so expect updates.

Smoking

2009-04-16T00:50:00.000-07:00

A few mornings ago, I visited a new fruit/tea drink place that opened up right near where I live. I tried to order watermelon blended with ice—a cheap and tasty drink that's available all over Kunming—but instead, I got a bowl of ice, covered with fruit, some green syrup, and a few peas and beans. It wasn't too bad, if far less portable and convenient than what I wanted. It cost less than a dollar (five yuan, to be exact).

While I was waiting, the man working there offered me a cigarette, which brings me to the subject of this post—smoking in China.

China could be considered a smoker's paradise. As many of my friends—at least half of whom smoke—can attest, cigarettes here are quite inexpensive and readily available. More importantly, cigarette smoking is not only socially acceptable, but often encouraged.

Yunnan, the province in which I live, has some of China's biggest cigarette companies, owing to the fact that they grow a lot of tobacco here. This may, of course, account for part of the prevalence of smoking in Kunming; having never been outside Yunnan, I can't comment on whether people smoke as much there, though I highly suspect they do.

The facts, however, could not be more clear: According to a BBC News article that I had my students read last semester, one out of three cigarettes currently lit around the world at this moment is being smoked in China. Of course, about one out of every six people on Earth are living in China, but there can be no denying how common smoking is here. I believe at least 1/4^th of my college students smoke.

It has been at least a month since I had my last cigarette, and probably two or three since I last bought a pack. In America, I smoked very little—though I will not deny that during my college years, I probably bought between 5-10 packs of cigarettes.

Why is smoking so prevalent here? First, cigarette, as I mentioned, are cheap. A pack of cigarettes costs between 8-20 yuan, for the most common brands. That equates to $1 to $3.

Second, they are readily available. You cannot walk two blocks in Kunming without coming across somewhere to buy cigarettes. More likely, you will encounter, on this hypothetical walk, three to four stores that sell them. Within a three minute walk from my apartment, I can think of at least eight places to buy them, including a store catering to smokers, several convenience stores, and two stores on campus.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, smoking is socially acceptable. You can smoke in almost any location here. Of course, in bars, restaurants, and hotel rooms; common at bus stops, on the sidewalk, and at building entrances. Infrequently, people may choose, with impunity, to smoke in enclosed locations and in your personal space—on the elevator, on a bus, sitting next to you at the cafe. Many a taxi driver I've driven with has chose to smoke—sometimes first offering me one, other times with no words to me at all.

Smoking is considered manly in China. Some women smoke, but by and large, it is a masculine activity, and you will often see groups of men walking down the street, puffing away. While the harmful effects of smoking are known to Chinese smokers, there are no widespread campaigns to discourage it. In fact, from my personal observation, many government officials (mostly men, of course) and employees themselves are smokers.

Still, there are signs of hope: More places, since I first came to Kunming, have become no smoking zones. Smokers may still be seen outside hospitals, but many have begin to ban smoking inside. Salvador's, one of the most popular Western cafes in Kunming, has both a no-smoking day, and a no-smoking floor. Of course, some places--the administrative building of my university, for example--have posted "no smoking" signs, though a smoker would likely face little vocal opposition for lighting up.

Education Update

2009-04-02T08:47:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy time for me, as I have taken on three jobs. Now, in addition to teaching classes of 40-55 college freshmen and sophomores (we just watched "Little Miss Sunshine" in my sophomore classes) I teach two private TOEFL classes (the American English proficiency test, as opposed to the British-popularized IELTS) per week to classes of 5-10, and one class for 8 to 11 year olds and one for 2(!) to six year olds. I thought 8-11 was difficult, which involved very basic English (we drew pictures of foods on the whiteboard the first Sunday and talked about their English names), but 2-6 is ridiculous. If you're wondering, all the two year old did was draw lines on her paper and play with her pinecone--when she wasn't yelling "Mama!"); she isn't understanding anything at all. The rest of the children struggled to read and remember the numbers zero through ten.

In some of my classes, I'm also having my students read a piece from the Economist called "The Next Great Wall," about protectionist trade barriers springing up across Asia. The piece, which is a major step up in difficulty for my students, is followed by me asking three questions, one at a time. First, "Do you think China should give its products price advantages by taxing imports?" Second, "If yes--should countries like Vietnam, India, the United States, and Germany do the same? If no--how might China encourage its local industries?" And lastly, "Should provinces in China be allowed to give price advantages to their own products?" It's produced a number of interesting responses. A number of students favor free trade and no protectionist barriers (and many talk about increasing the quality of products produced in China) but even more students seem to think that, since China is a developing country, that it should do whatever it takes to grow. About half of them go on to say that yes, other countries should do the same because each country should do whatever it takes to protect its industries, and half say no, developed nations such as America shouldn't put up trade barriers. I don't know what any of this really signals--if anything--but it does probably mean that as far as China's university students (of an international business school!) are not fully supportive of free trade.

All this work, however, will allow me to do more traveling (presumably). Maybe to Xishuangbanna at the end of the month. Suffice it to say, travel has become a real priority as my time in China grows short (not that I don't have three more months still). I've not had a chance to leave Yunnan, and it's not clear that I will. But the more of China I see, the better.

Xi Shan Picnic

2009-04-02T08:46:00.000-07:00

Recently, I bought a new camera--Just in time for a spring time picnic on Xi Shan. Since having last come to Xi Shan in January, the weather in Kunming has brightened a bit.

Havvah, Karl, Kaitlin and I took a bus out to Haigeng Park, which runs along the shore of Lake Dian. As I've noted before, the lake, sometimes refered to as the Pearl in the Plateau, is a lake for looking only. Years (decades, even) of dumping of sewage and industrial runoff have left the lake unsuitable for human use. But don't tell that to the Chinese people that take boat rides on it. Recently, it was announced that another 1 billion RMB ($146 million) will be spent to clean up the lake, but this happens every year.

Lake Dian, from the cable car.

We went up into Xi Shan, with a bunch of food. It took a good hour, at least, to find a decent place--somewhere quiet, flat, and not covered in trash--to have the picnic. The entire park was packed with Chinese visitors, as we hadn't realized that day was half-price ticket day.

It did make our eventual picnic all the sweeter, though.

Post picnic, we took a chairlift down the mountain.

More pictures can be found here.

"The Road Not Taken"

2009-03-12T19:37:00.000-07:00

My sophomore writing classes use a textbook, written entirely in English, on the subject of (English) research papers. It's not clear what business students are going to do with this knowledge, especially since it has become that the main interests of my students are basketball, Gossip Girl, World of Warcraft, and Prison Break. But, the students who actually care are the ones who will get the most out of it, at least.

Their book, though, includes one particularly interesting and potentially valuable thing: the full text of Robert Frost's famous poem "The Road Not Taken". A lot of my students, surprisingly, have expressed interest in reading poems (I've asked them for their input in designing the class). Next week, I'll have them read it and think/write about it.

"The Road Not Taken", Robert Frost (1916):

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Spring is here!

2009-03-04T01:06:00.000-08:00

Spring has arrived to the "City of Eternal Spring."

Much of China has suffered from a drought for the past several months, and the northern parts of China have seen efforts to produce rain and snow via cloud seeding and the like. Here in Kunming, it barely precipitated at all for the past three months or more. Two weeks ago, the endlessly blue sky (a rarity among Chinese cities) contained its first clouds since early January. Over the past week it has rained, which is a really nice change. I don't think it's rained since November. I thought that the rain would clean up Kunming a bit--it's always dusty and dirty here--but I was completely wrong. Without proper drainage systems, the streets have become saturated with brown, muddy water. Still, any change is welcome at this point.

It's relatively warm, having reached the upper sixties last week--though it's a bit colder, and the sky is overcast right now. Facebook tells me that it was 71 in Des Moines, which would mean that it's warmer there in than here in Kunming.

Spring also means I've started teaching again. What with three sophomore writing classes, two freshmen writing classes and one freshmen speaking class, I'm have less classes than last semester, but I anticipate I'll be busy, especially if I take up private teaching.

I'm one week into teaching--this week was a lot of "two truths and a lie" and I can say that now, at least I feel like I'm earning my free time.

Last Week of Vacation

2009-02-23T19:56:00.000-08:00

Well, I've officially been on vacation for about six weeks now. I can say, without a doubt, that I wish I had spent more of it traveling. My parents were here for a week, Erik was here for two, and I was in Ruili and Tengchong for a week.

The rest of my time has been spent lounging around Kunming.

In some of my productive moments, I have:

-Studied for the Law School Admissions Test. I am registered to take the LSAT at the end of June, in Beijing. Then I will apply to law schools, and hopefully attend one of these fine institutions in 2010--hopefully, a school well-regarded in the area of international law.
-Read books: Between Hannah Arendt's writings on stateless persons and totalitarianism and Richard Rorty's essays (in particular, on human rights--whether there is something inherently special about human life, or whether human rights culture is merely the most pragmatically advanced and beneficial humanity has instituted (at least in part)) and George Orwell's essays, which my father left for me when he left...lot to read.
-Watching DVDs: 30 Rock is an excellent show.
-Riding buses randomly around Kunming to see the city.
-Running: While I have always been a staunch advocate of the "Walk, Don't Run" policy on life, I have started running, on the school's track or up the stairs (two or three times) of our apartment building. They say that idle hands are the devil's playthings--this is just more proof of that.
-Obviously, not blogged.

Next week, I begin teaching again. I have three sophomore writing classes, one freshman writing class and one freshman speaking class. I've taught these subjects before--though the possibility of three sophomore writing classes absolutely frightens me--but since this is the second semester, I need to diversify and change my lesson plans. I may do that in the next few days, but my hope is to enjoy these last few days of freedom to their fullest.

The end of my laptop

2009-02-15T05:49:00.000-08:00

I was working on an entry about spoken Chinese, but today, my laptop's hard drive failed. Before I had a chance to back up anything. I'll try to to recollect the entry and move on with my life, but it may take a while. After all, I now have almost no music.

Year of the Ox

2009-01-29T20:53:00.000-08:00

The Chinese New Year was this past Monday, and boy, was it a hoot. Celebrations began Sunday night. I went with another teacher from Drake to a close (Chinese) friend's home to celebrate it with his extended family. It was incredibly gracious of him and his family to invite us, I can certainly say it was one of the most rewarding (and delicious) experiences I've had in China.

A quick explanation--the Chinese New Year is based on the lunar calender, and runs in a twelve year cycle of animals that functions as the Chinese Zodiac. No doubt, you've seen the Chinese restaurant menus. 2009 is the year of the Ox. Unfortunately, since this is my first Chinese New Year, I have no point of reference as to if this year's was anything like last year's, but it really was something else.

Chinese people instinctively know that the Spring Festival is a time to spend with one's family at home, and almost everything closes for around 5 days (pity those poor people working at a store or restaurant that didn't close at all--a feeling I know all too well from my days working at the BP station on New Year's Day morning).

We arrived in the early evening, and sat with our friend watching Chinese acrobatics from past year's TV specials. Much like in America (except less Dick Clark and more dragons) Chinese families often watch TV coverage of special new year's events and coverage. We watched some of the news (it was CCTV-9, the English channel) which discussed everything from Gaza (coverage was realistic, showing the damaged and destroyed homes of Gazans and interviews with UN and NGO's about the damage to the infrastructure) to different countries (not the United States) celebrating the new year, and stories about the difficulties of travel during the spring festival and life in Sichuan province, where in May a powerful earthquake leveled many buildings.

After watching for a while, we took a big string of red, industrial-looking firecrackers outside. Stringing it to a pole, our friend let them, and we all plugged our ears as the firecrackers exploded in an intense shower of light, sound and debris (I got hit in the head by a soft piece of paper shrapnel).

As the smoke cleared, it became clear: the Chinese do not screw around with fireworks. And by that, I mean they screw around with fireworks a lot.

Having invented the firecracker, Chinese people appear genetically predisposed to its casual use. I saw no small number of children playing with them unsupervised. From my understanding, you don't need a license for any kind of fireworks, including the ones you see on the 4th of July.

For the next two days, fireworks and firecrackers continued unabated. Even five days later, they still went off.

After our initial firecracker experience, we had dinner. There was a dish of lima beans and goat cheese (rubing, in Chinese), a dish of fried pork fat with sugar (absolutely delicious), things that were like meatballs, chicken and fish dishes, and many other dishes that were fantastic. The food was so good that by the time I finished, I was almost painfully full. As we ate, we were encouraged to eat and eat more by the family, who all went out of their way to be generous to us foreign visitors on a day that is meant to be spent with one's family.

After dinner, we went to the roof and watched the fireworks, which were splayed all over the night sky. Undoubtedly, when it comes to fireworks, China is where it's at. Of course, there's no one place in particular to be--at least in Kunming. As I mentioned, the fireworks continued throughout the night.

After dinner, Kaitlin and I went to Nanping Jie, which is on the other side of town from my place and is kind of an endpoint of the downtown area, where there are a lot of restaurants and stores. We lit a red paper lantern, which, thanks to the square of wax hooked in at the bottom, rose into the sky like a glowing-red hot air balloon, drifting off into the sky and mingling with the other lanterns before we could see it no more. This was good, because we saw at least one lantern go up in flames before ever getting airborne, and the side of our lantern nearly caught on fire. At midnight, fireworks went off all around the city--quite like nothing I've ever seen. I must say, the Chinese New Year is a ridiculous celebration, and I mean that only in a good way.

Travel Update: Tengchong and Ruili, Western Yunnan

2009-01-27T21:59:00.000-08:00

So, we don't have internet at the apartment, and I've been locked out of my campus apartment indefinitely, what with the Chinese new year and all. I'll get to the New Year in my next post, but this one will detail my travels.

Last Saturday, Erik and I caught a sleeper bus to Tengchong, which is in Western Yunnan, not far from Burma. Eleven really bumpy hours later--I slept fairly well, even though I was between Erik and some mother and her husband and baby in the beds at the back of the bus--we arrived. It was 7 AM and very dark; we were tired and somewhat confused, and more or less lost. We walked around til we found a hotel that had decent prices (after waking up the teenage girl who was asleep in a bed behind the front desk). We checked in, put our stuff down, and a few hours later, we walked around, getting beef-soup-rice-noodles for breakfast and getting an idea of the town.

We then took a taxi 12 KM outside of town to a marshland. Tengchong is known for its volcanoes, which are mostly dormant, at least right now. Thanks to the volcanic activity, though, there are marshlands around the town, which are pretty rare in China. I have great pictures, they speak better than I can via descriptions. We later, in the afternoon, taxiied it to some crazy hot springs. (pictures here). Paying a seemingly outrageous 188 yuan--nearly 1/18th of my monthly salary--we entered the hot springs, armed with books and a lot of time to kill. We first went through a sequency of increasingly hot baths, from which we moved on to a lot of different baths--including a coffee bath, an alcohol bath, and more than enough medicinal baths. It really was pretty ridiculous.

We spent about 4-5 hours, and were rejuvenated. The next day, we traveled out to the geological park, where the volcanoes are. We wanted to do a hot air balloon, but it was too late in the day. We wandered through the park, and saw two 200,000 year old volcanoes. I went down into the center of the bigger one. It was different, that's for sure. The ground is dry and desert-like. It was really unlike anything I've seen in China so far.

The next day we left for Ruili, China. Ruili is near the border of Yunnan, China and Burma. We took a 9 AM bus, and got in--after the most winding mountain roads and then a long stretch of flat rural land--at arond 2 PM. After not being able to find the backpacker-friendly Mandalay Gardens hostel, we settled into a pretty nice hotel, at a discounted rate. After staying at a hotel that was kind of sparse--nicely furnished, but the sheets weren't changed and the room refitted in Tengchong, among other things--it was nice to go somewhere with key cards, a large marble foyer and air conditioning.

It wouldn't be until around 11 PM that we'd realize that the discount on the hotel may have been related to the prostitutes who opened up their "offices" along the sidestreet at night. Erik counted them, there are around 15 store fronts--not actual fronts, as there are no guises and there can be no mistaking their business for anything else. Ruili is an interesting place, having once been a major point for illegal trafficking of everything from arms to opium to jade from Burma to China--until about a decade ago, when the sentencing of smugglers to execution and the pouring of resources in from Beijing put a significant crimp in illegal activity. Of course, as soon as we stepped out of bus station here, a man offered Erik smuggled jade and marijuana. Still, it's obvious--from the suit shops for young, rich men to the video game parlours to the ridiculous club we've been to where police are stationed in and around building--that Ruili is still a place where the normally staid world of China is inverted.

In the evening, we went to the very-border town of Jiegao, where the actual border was. I wanted to sneak in to Burma, and we looked around, but it wasn't looking good. When Erik and I were about to give up, I spotted people sneaking through the fence, about 300 yards from the border. While I don't condone any this in normal circumstances, I couldn't say no to the opportunity, and through the fence I slipped. The pictures I've uploaded should shed some light on the situation; it was surreal. Whereas the Chinese side had a lot of pricey jade shops all over by the border, the Burmese side was merely boarded up buildings and some shanties, and a shop, where I bought a Sunkist soda and some playing cards. Then I slipped through the fence and disappeared again.

We spent the nights in Ruili at the club--the one club in town we could find, that is. It was surreal--we spent each night with a different group of young Chinese (and one Burmese) people, who generously offered us drinks. We toasted the Chinese New Year, and had a pretty good time of it all.

Our last few days in Ruili were interesting. I got a few interesting things to augment my life (Burmese longyi, a lamp for my room, etc.) By far, the most interesting happening was our eating at a Uighur restaurant. The Uighurs are Chinese Muslims, and these particular restauarant owners were actually from Xinjiang, the most northeast province in China, home to disaffected Uighurs and deserts. They weren't the most friendly people, but we began to talk, and they explained where they were from, where we were from, the weather in America, and so on. They expressed that Xinjiang is near Afghanistan, and then told us that they didn't like (former) President Bush and the fighting in Afghanistan. We told him we liked Obama, and the man then explained to us that we were white and Obama is black. It was educational. Unfortunately, the food was not good, and after choking down as much of it as I could in order to not appear unsatisfied, we left.

On our last day, we didn't do much. We sampled the local markets, which yielded three cans of the really delicious Archipeligo Brewing Company's Extra Stout beer. This beer, made in Burma under the direction of the Myanmar Brewing Company, tastes better than Guiness, and in a land of paltry, watery tasteless lagers, it was a welcome change. Presumably, this beer, along with the Burmese-made London Dry Gin and Grand Royal Whiskey, are vestiges of Britain's colonialism.

A few pictures

2009-01-22T19:49:00.000-08:00

Here are a few pictures, along with links to the full albums, that I've taken over the past few weeks.

Graffiti in Kunming and clowns on bicycles.

Tengchong, a city in Western Yunnan famous for its volcanoes, which are now dormant.

Behai marshland, one of the very few marshes in China. Thank the volcanoes for that, too. (Same album as above)

The hotsprings, also volcano-powered, had a bunch of different pools, in including a coffee pool and an alcohol pool. This was the alcohol pool (or part of it); the character on the giant wooden bucket is jiu, or alcohol.

Visitors from Far Away

2009-01-16T19:26:00.000-08:00

My parents came to Kunming this past Friday, 8 days ago (dadadadadadahoutian, in Chinese). (View accompanying pictures here!) Also, my friend from Drake, Erik Orvik, who was teaching in Shijiazhuang (in Hebei province, near Beijing) arrived the same day. This has made for quite the adventure.

I've been looking forward to entertaining guests from outside Kunming for a while now. Kunming is a great city--today the weather is sunny and warm--and it's a great place to visit China without all the hustle and bustle of real big city China ("China Lite", the New York Times calls it, in an excellent article). Having guests has allowed me to do the touristy things I haven't gotten around to, at the sacrifice of a significant amount of sleep. As well, I have had little time to come online and catch up on the news and Facebook. These are both unfortunate consequences.

Showing my parents around town was a real treat. We ate "across-the-bridge noodles" (guoqiao mixian, a Yunnan specialty complete with apocryphal origins), and had a generally great time visiting the Bird and Flower Market and Green Lake. I got an excellent chance to practice my Chinese，especially in the art of bargaining and economic interchange。

Erik accompanied us on many of these trips， including to the Bird and Flower Market， and he and I got in probably more time at the clubs and watering holes of Kunming in the past week than I had since Halloween.

Toward the end of the week, my parents and I, along with my friend Kaitlin, from New England, hiked Xi Shan. Of course, my parents hiked halfway down the taxi ride up the mountain, as my mother is not fond of mountains and long bridges (making Illinois a fine choice to live) while Kaitlin and I hiked upward. The mountains peak at 2500 meters (or possibly only 1889, depending on sources) which makes for one hell of a climb. But it was undoubtedly worth the labor, for the sights--amazing views, even though it was cloudy and somewhat overcast, Taoist carvings and sculptures, to mention a few--the clean air, and the quiet that you don't often find in Kunming (or any big city).

We visited the Kunming Zoo (pictures here), which was kind of depressing. I had been there once before with my students, who had all been there when they were younger and enjoyed going. Of course, the animals were great, but the conditions were rudimentary. Most animals had small, concrete cages that resembled cells. There was simply no attempt at giving most of the animals a relatively comfortable or realistic environment--further, a few of the animals clearly needed medical help, and all of them showed signs of stress or depression. People threw food to/at the animals, including some Chinese people feeding Sprite to a bear. But the peacocks, which are free range, were pretty nice.

At the end of the week, I had managed to finish all of my grades--a daunting task made no easier by the fact that when I brought them in, thinking I was finished, I was told I had done them all wrong and had to recompute them in 12 hours or so. On Friday, I saw my parents off to the airport, Erik and I bought our tickets to travel, and off we went!

The Semester Has Ended

2009-01-06T14:51:00.000-08:00

Well, having finally finished the weeks of effort that was my best of 2008 music list--and having left out such excellent albums as Beck's Modern Guilt, Shugo Tokumaru's Exit and a number of other worthy listens--I am free to write a quick update about life here.

My students took their final exams, and now I am left to grade them. It's moving slowly, but I'm compiling important data, like "If you could teach any animal to dance, what would you teach and why?" I'll share the results when I get done grading, which should be...

On Thursday, my parents come to Kunming! Technically, their plane gets in on Friday, about five minutes after midnight. My job, having finished grading, is to read and speak Chinese and curate an expert tour of life in Southwest China. Shouldn't be too hard.

My possible near-future plans--as my parents stay for a week, and then I have free time until March--are to go to Vietnam and Laos for a month. But those plans are still up in the air, so only time will tell how I'll fill this much-needed vacation time. Rest assured, dear reader, that there will probably be many Taoist or Buddhist temples, no matter where I go.

2008 in Music

2009-01-06T06:09:00.000-08:00

2008 was a good year for recalling other decades--though only time will tell what 2009 is like. The Cool Kids brought back the classic 80’s hip hop sound, the Last Shadow Puppets got their 60’s pop on (with a dash of James Bond-esque bravado), and Fleet Foxes’ self-titled album displayed sounds from a time ostensibly long ago. The Black Keys make Robert Plant reportedly “very happy”. But, of course, it was also a year for new sounds, from the “hip-pop” fusion of Why? to the self-described “Martian” flows of Lil’ Wayne. So here goes.

The Best of 2008

Why? – Alopecia: It's hard to describe the ranges of styles on this album; there's more diversity of thought in the music and lyrical subject matter than in other artists' entire careers. I've seen, for the first time, the label "hip-pop" used to describe Alopecia, which is a fair descriptor. The lyrics may be a bit overwhelming at first, but after a few listens they reveal themselves to be both sublime and surreal. Consider "Simeon's Dilemma"--probably the best song about stalking since "Every Breath You Take". Over descending piano arpeggios at a very deliberate 80 beats per minute, Yoni Wolf sings "Stalker's my whole style / And if I get caught, I'll / Deny, Deny, Deny". In the next song, "By Torpedo or Crohn's", he, half-rapping and half-singing, "Sleeping late I hear the sad horns of labor trucks sigh, my neighbor walks by, high heels click dry, like half a proud horse downbrook I hear somebody's babbling I mistook, for a cavalry..." and so on. An album unlike any I had heard this year.

The Last Shadow Puppets – The Age of the Understatement: I must admit, I was at first skeptical of The Last Shadow Puppets. But the more I listened to the album, the more I was won over. Composed of the Arctic Monkey’s singer Alex Turner and Miles Kane of The Rascals, The Last Shadow Puppets craft 1960's-esque rock that adds a liberal dose of 007 (certainly seen in the title track, whose video is an interesting, if a bit bizarre, romp through Russia). It's thoroughly enjoyable to hear Alex Turner's plaintive growl in "Separate and Ever Deadly": "When we walk the streets together / All the faces seem to smile back / And now the pavements have nothing to offer / And all the faces seem to need a slap".

Hot Chip – Made in the Dark: Hot Chip is a band with immense talent. Made in the Dark was an album that not only found itself on repeat on my iPod, but on my friends’ iPods too. After Hot Chip's excellent 2006 debut "The Warning", they capitalize on their strengths in crafting electro-rock dance anthems without losing any of their charm. Yet they also diversify their sound; the single "One Pure Thought" starts dramatically with a lone guitar grinding out the melody, on top of which the keyboards and beats eventually pile. For a sophomore effort, a great album.

Black Keys – Attack and Release: This album readily demonstrates how simplicity can be an asset at a time when there seem to be more sounds crammed onto some albums than since Glenn Miller and Count Basie were around. The Black Keys are a two piece outfit consisting of drummer Patrick Carney and guitarist/singer Dan Auerbach, and their blues-rock is both catchy and unrelenting. Produced by Danger Mouse (who also co-produced Beck's Modern Guilt) this album really captures a raw sound that really amplifies the qualities of the musicianship. This album was played and replayed more this summer than almost any other album, I think.

The Bug – London Zoo: Reviewers have noted the apocalyptic-future sound of this album, which is an apt reference. Kevin Martin, the man behind The Bug, has turned the booming bass and electronic rhythms into a time machine set to bring us to a future where, if nothing else, it is probably less-well lit. Best played with a good subwoofer. Contrast this album with last year's dubstep hit Untrue by Burial. Whereas that album evoked a dark, empty feeling using minimalist electronic rhythms, London Zoo manages to evoke the same with pounding dancehall beats.

Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes: Fleet Foxes really became the surprise hit of 2008, on par with Vampire Weekend, garnering accolades worldwide and earning spot #1 on Pitchfork's top 50 albums of 2008. As Wikipedia notes, The Guardian put it best, perhaps, calling this album "a landmark in American music, an instant classic." Their sound is enchanting and innovative in a way that is hard to describe. One label is “baroque pop,” which is fairly apt. Fleet Foxes really engender a focus on the musical qualities—melody and harmony principally. The music speaks better for itself better than I can write about it, so give it a list.

The Hold Steady – Stay Positive: It’s interesting for me to write about this album, because I think I enjoyed The Hold Steady’s previous album, Boys and Girls in America, more. But most importantly, I enjoyed both albums immensely. Much ado has been made about the fact that The Hold Steady ostensibly play bar music; that is, because they talk about getting trashed in bars (and, as per Stay Positive, on water towers), doing drugs, and the various debauchery that accompanies them. But this is at best, a minor point about The Hold Steady, because it’s not what they talk about, but how they talk about it. Via the use of recurring themes/imagery/locales/characters, Craig Finn and the rest of the band has managed to create a world—one that, at least in part, many of us can relate to—that is both vicariously exciting and abrasively real.

Cut Copy – In Ghost Colors: When I first heard this album, I was reminded of exactly why I don’t think the 1980’s produced much good pop music. Of course, the idealization of Wall Street, Ronald Reagan, and spandex—not to mention ridiculous haircuts and ugly cars—has helped set a bias amongst those of my generation against the very decade we were born into, but that can’t be helped. Cut Copy managed, however, to take the 80’s electro-pop sound and convert it into something more tangible for these times.

The Cool Kids - The Bake Sale: Whereas Cut Copy overhauled the 80's dance sound to great success in electronica this year, the Chicago duo--self-described as "the new black version of the Beastie Boys"--take that minimalist 80's hip-hop sound and revitalize it. Not that you'll hear much to clue you in that it's 2008--The Cool Kids rap about bikes (that is, bicycles), parties, money, ladies, and believe it or not, pagers. It's not what they say, in this case, but how they say it, and they say it right.

Silver Jews – Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea: This album, by a band who I only found myself interested in this summer, quickly took root as a favorite of the year. As an example, take the song “San Francisco BC”, a tale of crime and intrigue, that starts: "Old San Francisco, San Francisco B.C. /
I lived with my true love and she lived with me. / 'Romance is the douche of the bourgeoisie' / Was the very first thing she imparted to me / We had sarcastic hair, we used lewd pseudonyms / We got a lot of stares on the street back then." Notably clever.

Lil’ Wayne – The Carter III: An album that was, for much of America, impossible to avoid. The highest selling hip-hop album of the year, The Carter III differed from its predecessors by focusing less on the guns and drugs—though both are present—and more on the music itself, with songs like “Comfortable”—where Wayne, for the first time, seems to admit that it is possible that a woman has affected him emotionally—and “Dr. Carter”, an incredibly clever amalgam of medical imagery on the concept of “hip hop is dead”. That, and money, for as you know, Lil’ Wayne has “got money”—well over “a milli”. For a man who doesn’t write his rhymes beforehand, preferring to adlib, Dwayne Carter’s ability to come up with entertaining and original raps is unrivalled. On The Carter II, he boasts of being the “best rapper alive”. While I know a few others might quibble over that, The Carter III has given Lil’ Wayne some real compelling evidence.

Friendly Fires – Friendly Fires: Hailing from Britain, this electro-party-pop-rock band produced an album that made quick work of our Halloween pre-party, with goers asking "What band is this?" on a fairly regular schedule.

Santogold - Santogold: Like Kanye West, Santi White has made a successful transition from producer to musician. Under the name Santogold, her self-titled album created quite a stir—and, as the New York Times notes, a lucrative source of deals—in an industry that is predominately white and male. The songs on this album are fun to listen to and musically interesting—a winning combination. Take, for example, the song “Creator”. We find Santi singing rather strangely at the beginning, accompanied by a minimal beat that becomes more aggressive as the song goes on. These elements could have constituted a rather unpleasant song to listen to, but it works so well instead.

The Tallest Man on Earth - Shallow Graves: Shallow Graves is not a long album, and it's relatively simple: One Swede--Kristian Matsson--a guitar (and banjo) and a microphone. Matsson's lyricism (along with his fairly distinctive wail) has been compared to Bob Dylan, and though this is a compliment that has been bandied about a fair amount in recent years (for example, about Connor Oberst), the comparison isn't so bad. Memorable lines abound: "I'm gonna force the Serengeti / To disappear into my eyes...Well if I ever get to slumber / Just like a mole deep in the ground, / Hell, I won’t be found", from "I Won't Be Found". Sometimes haunting, sometimes lilting, and always interesting.

DJ/rupture - Uproot: This album only entered my playlist a week or so ago, but it quickly earned it's place at the table. DJ/rupture, AKA Jace Clayton--who maintains an excellent blog here--is a Brooklyn DJ who recently returned from seven years in Spain and has DJ'd in 26 countries, and like the man, the music goes abroad. The sources include dubstep, reggae, hip-hop, and the like, producing a feeling that's both dark and warm, driving and deliberate. There's a dearth of information on this album on the internet, but it should suffice to say that this excellently crafted mix of complex sounds from global artists has been one of the most engrossing albums I've listened to in a while.

Esau Mwamwaya & Radioclit are The Very Best - "The Very Best" Mixtape: A lot of music has, especially in 2008, has borrowed from the various sounds, rhythms, and melodies of Africa. In spite of this, few African artists have found commercial success. European electro team Radioclit, in a genius move, team up with Malawian Esau Mwamwaya: They bring the beats, he brings the words. The remixes of Vampire Weekend and M.I.A. really rival the originals. A real breath of fresh air, all the more so sweet because it's free.

David Byrne and Brian Eno - Everything That Happens Will Happen Today: I wasn't alive in 1981 for My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, the first collaboration between Eno and Byrne. Everything That Happens Will Happen Today, though, combines the profuse and prodigious talents of the two men and the product is a warm and enjoyable album, one that may seem at first listen deceptively simple. Not a disappointment.

Honorable Mentions

Young Jeezy – The Recession: The Recession garnered one of the highest spots for a hip-hop/rap album on my iTunes, and it took a bit of thinking about to find out what was at the root of this album. Each item on the checklist is done well: the hooks are catchy, the rhymes are clever and creative, and though the album only topically covers the economic situation, Jeezy gets points for releasing the album two weeks before the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

Coldplay – Viva La Vida: This is an album that some might excoriate me for including, though many have come around to this albums qualities--notably excuding Sasha Frere-Jones, the New Yorker's pop critic. Nonetheless, with aural wizard Brian Eno's stewardship, Coldplay--borrowing pages from the playbook of Vampire Weekend and the Talking Heads--create fairly enjoyable songs employing Afropop inspiration and U2-like bluster, which is as much as can be asked from them. Sure, Chris Martin's lyrics are a bit underwhelming--I won't bother to reprint them here--but the music is an improvement, if nothing else.

Dr. Dog – Fate: Against all odds, I found this band via podcasts,which, for various reasons, I rarely ever find time to listen to. The band, which occupies a space next to Dr. Dre in my iTunes, plays sometimes Beatles-esque rock.

Connor Oberst – Connor Oberst: Connor Oberst, the singer-songwriter behind Bright Eyes, released an eponymous album this year that could well have been released as a Bright Eyes album, featuring interesting and well-written songs that have become the cornerstone of Oberst's career. A rose would smell as sweetly by any other name, right?

Kanye West - 808's and Heartbreak: I got to know this album intimately during my stay at the campus infirmary, hooked up an IV for four hours. Personally, I think Kanye is a fantastic producer--cf. "Comfortable" and "Let the Beat Build", the tracks Kanye produced on The Carter III--and a great rapper (for example, "Through the Wire", which he recorded while his jaw was wired shut after an accident). There was some trepidation, though, when I heard the album concept; messing with the winning formula (serious and honest raps over soulful samples) to substitute minimalist 808's and auto-tuned singing was a bit of a jump. 2008 may be either the climax of auto-tune mania--T-Pain had something to say about it (NSFW), if you hadn't heard--or merely part of the crescendo. Lil Wayne engaged in some auto-tuning of his own on The Carter III, but Kanye applies it in every song on the album (just as he appears on Young Jeezy's album). Nonetheless, insofar as Kanye wants to communicate his emotions--not exactly subtle--the album is a complete success, artistically if not commercially. The songs come together well, and for an album that came out relatively quickly, an interesting artistic turn.

Albums I am REALLY looking forward to:

Andrew Bird - Noble Beast, coming out on the 20th of July. Check out these interesting sounds from the bonus disc. One of the most virtuosic musicians recording today.
N.A.S.A. - The Spirit of Apollo, coming out in late February. Check out the fantastic megamix with all of your favorite artists.

2008: A Quick Retrospective

2009-01-01T19:52:00.000-08:00

2008 is a year few people will look back on and say, “What a great time.” As Havvah, a friend who’s also from Drake and in Kunming put it, “Almost nothing good happened this year.” Of course, we both specified the important caveat that was the election of Barack Obama, and a good year for Democrats generally. But overwhelmingly, 2008 presented greater challenges (and defeats) than any year since I was born. In particular, 2008 was marked by deeply unsettling fear.

A year ago, people feared the country would slip into a recession. Some optimists believed that it could be avoided, but they were far outnumbered by those who felt a premonition of severity. After the Sept. 15^th failure of Lehman Brothers, the entire foundation of the market system sank, as investors rushed to sell, depositors withdrew their savings, and institutions stopped lending. The system froze up completely, like pipes in an old house in a very, very cold winter.

The system, which worked so well when participants acted rationally, fell apart at the seams as fear took control. Of course, while the economic situation was undoubtedly the top story of 2008, there were plenty of other events, many of which only stoked the flames of uncertainty and doubt. The war in Georgia, the terrorist attacks (and subsequent/current tensions between India and Pakistan), the ravaging of African nations at the blood-stained hands of militants (like Somalia) and at the blood-soaked hands of cruel dictators (like Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe). Here in China, despite the unmistakable elation of the Chinese people at hosting the Olympics, between the devastating and tragic earthquake in Sichuan last May, the civil unrest in Tibet, the destructive power of the winter storms last January, and several other unfortunate events, the people have adopted a very ambivalent view of 2008. Even in the past few days, the crisis in the Gaza Strip has plunged the miserable and desperate Palestinians into a fierce, and potentially catastrophic—for all involved—conflict with the fearful and desperate Israelis.

Yet, despite these undeniably unnerving events, there is hope. Hope is exactly what President-Elect Barack Obama promised, and hope is exactly what he has brought to Americans. Many thought that it would be decades before America was ready to elect a black president, and I myself heard many ugly things about this prospect while canvassing this summer in Iowa. But it happened, and though the incoming administration faces great hurdles, more people are confident today in President-Elect Obama’s choices (i.e. his cabinet, if not so much is pick for the inaugural pastor) than on election day. Cautious, well-founded hope for the future—a strange concept perhaps—may be the best weapon we have against the irrational fear that has gripped much of the world this past year.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt famously said, “There is nothing to fear but fear itself.” These words are inspiring, not simply for the idea itself. Reflecting on the Great Depression can remind us that America has overcome myriad challenges. While the economic prospects for 2009 are daunting, they still remain nowhere near what they were in the 1930’s. Challenges make us stronger, and though this painful adjustment is something we had wished to avoid, what is important now is to overcome them.

Xi Shan and Dian Chi--the Western Mountains and Lake Dian

2008-12-30T07:39:00.000-08:00

Kunming's western district is named for these mountains.

Lake Dian is quite expansive--298 square kilometers--but the water is so badly polluted, it is rated Grade V, which makes it unsuitable for industrial or agricultural use. Officials have pledged $4.29 billion to clean the lake and hope to have it restored to its natural state by 2030. One can hope.

Kunming from the new apartment

2008-12-30T07:25:00.000-08:00

The International Business School area of Yunnan University of Finance and Economics. The big building in the foreground is the teaching building (mostly for non-freshmen) which I teach one class in. To the left of that is the administration building. In the top left corner is the Overseas Students Dormitory, where I used to live on the third floor. Top right, where my other apartment is--the Postgraduate Student Housing.

Nearing Finals Update

2008-12-17T07:09:00.000-08:00

I start giving finals to my students next week. That means the semester, believe it or not, is winding down. Indeed, it's past mid-December, and despite the Christmas decorations you find in all of the most Western-like stores, it doesn't at all feel like it. In fact, it's 60 degrees Fahrenheit (16 Celsius) outside. I miss the Midwestern winter far more, though, than I thought I ever would--which is to say, I miss the winter just a little.

I've moved into the new apartment (not the one where the fire was, the one next to that). It's very nice, and I've found that I can get hot showers if I synchronize them to the sun. Yes, that's right--if I shower at around 3 or 4 PM, I can have a hot shower, and boy, is it worth it.

I move into a new apartment, in a building about 7-9 minutes away; were it not for the locks on all the gates I live next to, it would be a 2-3 minute walk. But, it's on the 11th floor, and no curfew (I currently have to choose to return before 11:30 at night or be locked in). I will probably move there in a week or two.

I've noticed that my balance has gotten whole lot better since I started martial arts. I've learned all the taiji (known as tai chi in Wade-Giles) moves, which I hope soon to start doing with old ladies in the park (which is like, a 15 minute walk from here). This really has little consequence in my life, but I suppose when I get home I'll be much better at WiiFit.

Since it's December, I have no choice but to publish a list of the best music of 2008. Expect that in a week.

Learning Chinese: Reading

2008-12-14T01:06:00.000-08:00

Having been in Kunming for three and a half months, I can safely say that nothing so quickly and effectively reminds me of the remoteness of Kunming (from my American life) as the language. I've been learning Chinese actively (4 hours per week in one-on-one tutoring, anyway) for about five weeks. I present this as, at best, preliminary, and the "conclusions" I have come to so far about the Chinese language (zhongwen, 中文) are not necessarily correct--though I've done a lot of reading on the subject, I am still a beginner--but they are reasonable conclusions, at least.

Sinologist Bernhard Karlgren is quoted as saying, in 1929, that "the day Chinese discard [Chinese characters], they will surrender the very foundation of their culture." Yet, for the laowai (老外)--foreigner--it is an exceedingly difficult undertaking, and until one has sufficiently penetrated the language and achieved a working knowledge of everyday communication, a pervasive sense of one's linguistic inadequacy and illiteracy serves isolate a foreigner's experience of life in China and of China's heritage and culture. It's hard to describe this, but to illustrate, imagine walking down the street and attempting to read the signs on stores and restaurants and being completely unaware of their meaning. It is impossible to read the menu at a restaurant, and operating a washing machine is a Sisyphean task--as I write, the clothes I washed two days ago hang around my apartment, air-drying though still soaked, since dryers are unknown here.

But this is the bleakest picture of life here. When you put some time into learning to read Chinese, meanings come to reveal themselves to you--usually in mostly inexplicable ways. The association between a Chinese character and its meaning--through the layers of the character itself, what the character is when spoken, and what that means in English--is a problem of sheer memorization, the mapping of meanings transliterated and translated in one's mind. The connection between the character and its meaning, many times, seems arbitrary. Of course, in the end, all words are arbitrary; there is no more reason that a tree should be called a "tree" any more than it should be 木--mu--in Chinese. Nonetheless, in English, at least words have families and semantic similarities within families--something that doesn't seem to exist in Chinese. For example, take the Chinese word "wenming" (文明) meaning civilization. As you can see, it has the "wen"--文--character from "zhongwen" and the ming--明--character from Kunming. "Wen" refers to language, whereas "ming" is defined--insofar as it can be in English--as "bright or clear". Together, "language" and "bright and clear" make civilization.

Some words make more sense--Dian nao (电脑) means "electric brain", or, in English, computer. (For an excellent look at its construction in Chinese, read this) But there are many thousands of characters in Chinese--they say for everyday life, you need to know 3,000-5,000, and I maybe know 50--and it's one of the most challenging parts of Chinese--putting the word together with its sound and meaning. Ironically, looking at this chart comparing the origins (like the Oracle Bone Script) of ideographic Chinese characters to them today, one can see the trend away from more universally-recognizable images to overwhelming abstraction.

Complicating it somewhat is the difference between traditional and simplified characters. Simplified characters are characters that use less strokes (to write) in order to make it ostensibly easier to learn Chinese; the Communist Party of China introduced simplified characters fifty three years ago; traditional characters are used outside of the mainland, including Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau, and many overseas Chinese communities (including Chinatowns)--though this is slowly changing toward a greater worldwide co-existence of the two.

In a week or two, I'll finish this by posting my thoughts on speaking Chinese, which is itself another curveball, as a tonal language. Hilarity ensues.

My new apartment

2008-12-10T08:05:00.000-08:00

A fire started, due to me plugging in a heater tor the dimmer knob outlet. Ridiculous--luckily, I was able to simply blow it out, after it filled my room with smoke.

The perpetrating switch.

Big ol' mirror.

This has to be one of, if not the, nicest showers I've seen in China.

Pictures from my New Camera

2008-12-10T08:00:00.000-08:00

One view from the windows of my sixth story classroom.

Where I will be living in a few weeks.

The first restauarant I dined at, and the one I often eat at. Nice place.

A typical meal: Laonai yangyu, a sort of spiced mashed potatoes, chao bocai, a fried spinach and garlic dish, and tang cu liji, which is like the original version of sweet and sour pork.

A dog wandered in and sat down, but was not served.

My cat.

Thanksgiving

2008-12-05T20:30:00.000-08:00

Things I am thankful for:

-My family, who have always been there for me and a constant source of support, even despite the fact that almost every time they see me now (via video chat) I've literally just rolled out of bed.
-My friends--those here in China and back at home in America--whose company, sometimes through the magic of the internet, I enjoy every day. Were it not for you all, I may never have been told that Barack Obama won the election and that, apparently, the economy has changed since I left in August.
-A good job with opportunities unlike almost any other in a country that has taught me more about life in three months than I thought was possible about Beijing, bathrooms,
-My students, who often surprise and impress me with their innovative approach to education and provide genuinely amusing moments.
-The cat I took in, who more and more reminds me of myself during college.
-The heater I bought, which keeps me warm when I am in front of it.
-The new apartments I'm going to be moving into soon. I'll write more about that later.

I'm thankful for a lot of other things, but these were the first seven things that came to mind. I celebrated Thanksgiving with my friends George and Claire here, who made a wonderful dinner of real Thanksgiving foods while simultaneously preventing me from doing anything at all helpful. I'd call that a good Thanksgiving.

Election Recollection/Getting Sick in China

2008-11-24T22:12:00.000-08:00

I never got around to writing the about the 2008 Election, partially because it has become rather difficult to actually get to be able to write on this blog; generally getting to the blog is hard enough with ubiquitous "The connection has been reset" errors. (For an excellent summation of what its like living behind "The Great Firewall", read this article from the Atlantic Monthly.)

The election started Tuesday evening in China, and as I went to bed with little more than the news that it might rain in Virginia and that lines were long even earlier in the day. I woke up excitedly the next morning, and got online and began streaming video from the New York Times and CNN, finding that some of the eastern states had been called for Obama. About a half hour later, I left for a western cafe, Salvadors', to have breakfast and watch the results come in on my computer. After running into a friend from around town, I headed to a bar down the street--Wen Lin Jie, a confluence of non-Chinese restauarants and stores, also known as "Foreigner Street", around the province's most famous University, Yunnan Daxue). There, I watched CNN International via satellite. It really impresses upon you, the tremendous power of technology, that I could--in near real time--celebrate with everyone in Chicago--four Americans in southwest China, and never has a Beer Lao tasted so good.

My students were vaguely enthusiastic about President-Elect Obama. Most don't seem to care much about politics, or news.

-------------------------------------------------------

Last Thursday, not long after I woke up, I was feeling pretty badly. My stomach was rather upset, but I decided to go to class anyway--the school's policy, as per the guidelines that they handed out to us at the beginning of the semester, was that if you are going to be sick, you must notify the school three days in advance. I went to my first class, and I did not teach very well. I mostly had the students read by themselves. I dismissed the class a little early so I could return home and try to feel better. I went to my next class a half hour later, and after listening to restaurant reviews--which, in this class only, seemed to be more like recipe reviews--for about an hour, I let the students out about 25 minutes early, came home, drank some juice, and commenced to throwing up and the like. After trying to sleep for an hour and a half, interspersed with more vomiting and the chills, I decided I needed to do something about it.

About an hour later, I was at the campus medical center, feeling absolutely awful. After explaining my symptoms, the doctor directed me to get some medicine from the pharmacist downstairs in the center. This was, of course, without them ever taking my temperature, blood pressure, or pulse. After received the medicines, I was directed upstairs and made to lie down on the world's most uncomfortable bed. Not long after, an IV needle was put in the back of my hand, and I began to receive fluids. The first bottle was 500 mL, of a clear liquid I believe was saline solution, in, as they all would be, a glass bottle. About two miserable hours later--I was freezing cold and very uncomfortable--I was hooked up to the next bottle, somewhere around 100-200 mL of a light yellow liquid, which I believe was an intravenous anti-biotic. An hour later, they had a third bottle lined up (though I managed to explain that I needed to go to the bathroom, where I ended up going with the third bottle hooked up). The third bottle was between 200-300 mL, and took another hour and change to drain. By then, it had been about four hours since I was put on the IV, and it was dark outside, and I was exhausted.

I was feeling better, but I needed rest, so I came home and tried to sleep; between the cat and the temperature fluctuations in the room, it took me a while to get there. But what can you do. I'm feeling better today. I met with a girl who just passed the bar exam here in China today, and she's planning on taking the LSAT in June, so I think I'm going to work on the test with her so I can get some practice in it too. Other than that, though, the rest of the weekend will be midterms heavy. I should get to sleep now, though, because I'm pretty tired.

Two weeks later

2008-11-15T22:03:00.000-08:00

I apologize for the dilatory nature of my blog, how it ambles along chronologically without regularly scheduled updates. I assure you, reader, that life in China is different from one week to another, but sometimes these are subtle differences, and sometimes they just don't merit attention because they're not interesting or are entirely familiar to life in America, and my point in writing is not to bore you with the mundane. Sometimes you just don't feel like writing, too.

For those of you who want to know about the election's impact in China, I can tell you, in Kunming, there wasn't much of one. My students were but vaguely interested in the election

I've finished with almost all of my midterms, with just a few speeches on American cities outstanding. Unfortunately, grading is taking longer than I thought it might--Checking each paper against the internet for copying is necessary (and unfortunately, fruitful in instances of plagiarism.)

I've started taking Chinese lessons, and boy, is it helping. Of course, the greatest gains are to be made going from 0 to something. Right now, I know very basic phrases for conversation and a few dealing with restaurant-type and market-type situations. I'm learning to read a little bit, too. In the next few days, I'll elaborate on the difficulties of learning Chinese.

I've also started taking martial arts lessons, and boy, is that a trip. I'm starting by learning tai chi, which emphasizes things such as form and flow and harnessing momentums and so on. It's not easy, not least of which is that the guy who's teaching doesn't speak much English. But I'm learning, and that's what matters, and my understanding is that I'll be the American Jackie Chan when I return.

Also, I've volunteered to write and edit documents (likely from basic to advanced English) for the Yunnan office of the World Wildlife Fund, potentially dealing with issues like watershed management and mining--two issues of ever-growing importance, doubly so in China where environmental protections are just beginning to gain traction. It's necessary for the right infrastructure--physical and intellectual--to be built in order to preserve the natural beauty and viability of China's environment. Traveling outside of a big city, it's hard to avoid absolutely stunning scenery. Nonetheless, I haven't heard back from them yet, so hopefully I will soon.

Things I've Found Lately That Are Important

2008-10-27T18:49:00.000-07:00

1. Fritos - Corn chips are otherwise non-existent in Kunming, but one of the import stores just got some bags! I'm going to pay around $7 for a $3 bag of Fritos, but sometimes, you just gotta splurge--especially when it helps the American economy.

2. The Economist - Having become my favorite periodical, I've become resigned to the fact that you can't really get it here. As I noticed when I bought a copy at the Los Angeles Airport, waiting to board that China Airlines 747-400 to Taiwan, there is, among the magazine's price in Brazilian Reals, British Pound Sterlings, and Mexican Pesos, no price in Chinese Renminbi. I had since assumed that the magazine was not delivered here, perhaps due to its sometimes critical coverage, but at a bookstore here, I saw two copies! One was from mid-August--the same issue I grabbed from my residence in Des Moines before I left, and is now sitting on my fridge in the adjacent room here--with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn on the cover, and the other was a mid-September issue. Thanks to the internet, however, I need not concern myself with old magazines.

3. Diet Dr. Pepper - I picked this up at the same import shop that I got the Fritos at, for about 9 kuai. Expensive for a can of soda, but well worth it for the treasured taste of Dr. Pepper that is otherwise inaccessible here in China. My students, when the saw me drinking it, started laughing inexplicably and thought I was drinking beer.

I'll give a more comprehensive update on my life soon, but for now, I best be sleeping.

Modes of Conveyance: How I Get Around

2008-10-23T23:18:00.000-07:00

Life, lately, has been more busy than before; the time has come for my students to take their midterms, which consists of various permutations on the theme "American cities." Interestingly, many students find Miami, Houston, Seattle, Atlanta, Honolulu and Detroit to be worthwhile cities; demand was down for Chicago, New York, Washington DC, and Dallas. Nonexistent, unfortunately, were Midwestern cities like Minneapolis, Des Moines, and Omaha, among others. Some students needed to be told that Maryland, California, Hawaii, and Mississippi were states, not cities. So far, rough drafts have been rolling in, though they're not due until after this weekend. And I've had to talk to three students about copying from the internet, as words like "colloquialism", "citation," and "uptown" have lead me to (correctly) suspect the authenticity of the speeches.

Nonetheless, life remains relatively stable, and on that note, I will now detail the ways I get from point A to point B, for this is one of the more interesting traits of modern China.

Cars

The streets of modern China are filled, if not often clogged, with the results of a booming urban economy, new cars. It's rare to see a car here that appears older than ten years; indeed, most of the older cars on the road are taxis, which I will talk about in a bit. Around 560 cars are added to the road in Kunming each day, a rather troubling statistic as infrastructure improvements lag far behind. Volkswagons are fairly popular here, along with Toyotas; American cars exist, but are rarely seen. It is no surprise to see Mercedeses (is that correct?), Lexuses, and BMWs on the road, and even a few Hummer H2s have been spotted.

But none of this really relates to me, except insofar as I need to dodge these cars when I cross the street. How do I get around?

Buses and Taxis

The bus system in Kunming is quite useful for getting around, though I only know about five to seven bus routes. A bus ride costs 1 kuai, of which I earn 3600 a month. The buses themselves are pretty bare, having two seats on the lateral sides of the bus (one on each side) and two on each side in the back section. I only sit, however, when the majority of the seats (and thus, the bus itself) are empty; custom dictates that the seats generally be reserved for older people. In most cases, the seats are full, and often (especially on the 84 bus) the entire bus is crowded and getting through is a matter of pushing. Nonetheless, for the cost, buses can get you where you want to be if you're not in any particular rush.

If you need to be somewhere in a hurry, take a taxi. Interestingly, taxis in Kunming come in merely two makes--the Volkswagon Santana, and a smaller, less popular hatchback. All taxis are teal-colored, making it easy to see one coming and hail it. The first three kilometers are 8 kuai--making a taxi ride at least eight times more expensive than the bus--and after that, it's 1.8 kuai (or something like that) per additional kilometer. After 9 or 10 PM, prices go up. Of course, I've never paid more than 20 kuai for a taxi ride, and when taken with friends, the per-person cost is much lower; thus, taxis are efficient for getting around, if not cheaper than a bus. I will likely take a taxi home from the cafe I write this entry at, as it is raining and the buses aren't the most convenient option from where I am; I will pay around 8 kuai, as it is less than three Km.

By Other Means

Bicycles are popular here, but more common are the ubiquitous electric scooters, both of which glide silently along the sides of the roads in their own lanes, separated from the cars, buses, and trucks by concrete dividers. Electric scooters are very popular here, requiring no gasoline, no self-locomotion, and what appears to be a minimal competence for use (though I don't know if one needs a license or not to ride one.) They retail for around 3500 yuan, at least at Carrefour, the French-owned Wal-Mart-like department store. When I was walking around the old city of Dali during my vacation, I was unexpectedly hit in the back of the leg by one of these scooters, having absolutely no warning that it would happen. I was more surprised than anything else--certainly not injured--and the driver seemed very contrite, and worried that I was hurt.

Safety on the Roads

I won't say Chinese drivers are necessarily bad drivers--I haven't seen nearly as many accidents as I would've expected--but they are wildly aggressive. I can't count the number of times I've been in a taxi that has swerved into the oncoming traffic lane to pass another car (or two). Horns are honked in amounts that would otherwise shock and appall you if it weren't China. Drivers honk for any and all reasons imaginable, and from my room right now, every 10-20 seconds, the blasts are audible from my room.

In a rush to get ahead, drivers here will enter an intersection despite the light changing to red, and wait until traffic clears to pass through. Yet, personally, I have not seen many accidents in the city--only one, with a van's side door hanging precariously from its damaged frame. Drivers here respond quickly to situations, always ready--though you might not expect it until the last possible moment--to slam on the breaks or switch lanes. Nonetheless, I've heard stories about terrible accidents, not surprising when running across the street is reminiscent, as Doug Owen suggests, as a real life "Frogger." Caution is not merely needed, but absolutely vital to survival. Returning from Dali, we saw three or four accidents, including a car flipped over in an inexplicable manner. Highways seem dangerous.

Long Distance Travel

The last thing I wish to opine on is my one experience of long distance travel. I took a sleeper bus from Kunming twelve hours northwest to Zhongdian, as my previous entry had detailed. Each person gets a small "bed", about 2ft by 5 or 6 ft, with a blanket. There is about 1-1.5 feet between my bed (in the middle of three rows) between the ones on the side. The ride is bumpy, smoky (my understanding is that smoking is not allowed inside, but that won't stop anyone), and strange. All things considered, though, my luggage, which was underneath by bed and checked by my tired hands every ten minutes to check its integrity (theft isn't something that happens often, but is common enough to warrant wariness), made it there in the same condition it came in. Unfortunately, Doug's crappy old cell phone disappeared, though it's not at all apparent that someone would want to steal it.

Anyway, that's all for now.

Life in Kunming in Mid-October: Teaching and...teaching.

2008-10-15T05:47:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been a little while since I wrote, and I thank those of you who've told me you like reading my blog--it's good to hear positive feedback. I haven't not written for lack of ideas--I've had an entry on transportation options (expect "Modes of Conveyance" in the near future) on the back burner of my mind for a while, but what with me following the election more closely than any one person need to and lesson planning, I just haven't really had a moment to sit down and type. Also, I sleep a lot, or I try to to varying degrees of success.

Despite the fact that teaching isn't really where my heart is, it continues to be both a learning experience for me and my students. I have three English corners a week now, which are like classes in the evening where English is spoken. The former two are supposed to be music themed, but this week, there was no audio equipment in the room. In the first, on Monday, I sat around with a group of girls--at their request--and regaled them with stories of America. They all wanted my phone number--which I don't give out to students--ostensibly so we could practice English, though one of them turned to me and said "You're handsome", leaving me slightly embarrassed but thoroughly amused. Going out with students, however, is undoubtedly unethical (especially freshmen and sophomores) I left them with my email, which is where they can reach me if they need English help.

My second English corner could have been titled "The Nate and Kelli Music Hour," as my computer and speakers provided all the goods for the music which Kelli and I chose; we played everything from Lil' Wayne, Kanye West, REM, Iron and Wine, Fall Out Boy (in my defense, I only have three of their songs), and so on. It was not until the last song, by Vampire Weekend, that they showed any outward interest in the music. I had a hunch, of course, that Vampire Weekend's intoxicating blend of pop, indie, and semi-African-esque sensibilities would appeal. In my classes this week, as well, I've begun playing a song a week, starting with the 1960 release of John Coltrane's monumental album, "Giant Steps," of which I play the title track.

In the third English corner, which took place tonight, we played games like Telephone and Make the English Teachers Sing. It was somewhat painful--I cannot sing well--but it will get better, and next week, I promised I would sing the American National Anthem, with all the vigor and verve that my love of America, amplified by how much I miss home, can bring. On plus side, one of my students gave me chicken with peppers--I'm looking forward to eating it, though I could really--REALLY--use a microwave these days.

Post-English corner, I went to a late dinner at a "barbecue" restaurant here. The way it works is, you pick meats and vegetables on sticks, they grill them and sprinkle them with spices, and dinner is served. Certainly no barbecue like American barbecue--which I will return to America and hopefully eat the first night--but decent food. It was a dinner with other foreign teachers, and some students in my writing class tomorrow--all freshmen. Suffice to say, by the end of the evening, we were all drinking some strong jar wine that is omnipresent in Chinese restaurants, and good and well-satiated on food and drink by the time we left. I'll write more in the near future, but I have class in about eight hours.

To Shangri-La! And then Dali.

2008-10-07T00:37:00.000-07:00

On Sunday night last night, I took a sleeper bus about 12 hours northwest of Kunming to Shangri-La. Shangri-La--which was before known as Zhongdian before the government changed the name to solidify its claim as the mythical city--is close to the Tibetan border and is heavily Tibetan, with a number of other minorities. The sleeper bus was a strange and not alltogether comfortable experience, as the "manager" of the bus station more or less conned me out of 50¥ by claiming my bag was too heavy. The rest of the ride wasn't too bad, but for the constant fear my luggage may be stolen or razored. I slept a few hours on it, and finally, around 10 in the morning, we arrived in Shangri-La.

Shangri-La is an interesting and beautiful town, and it's easy to see that it has developed into a rapidly modernizing tourist destination. An example: There is now a Banyan Tree Resort about 15 minutes outside of town that, for the cheapest suite, costs 3000¥ per night. As I earn a few hundred yuan more than that a month (thus allowing me, potentially, to stay there for one night without wiping out my entire month's pay) that was, predictably, out of the question. Nonetheless, the town is filled with stores selling all kinds of goods, including retail clothing you might find in a big city like Kunming. Thankfully, the signs on most of the stores were written in Chinese and an interesting, if not always correct, form of English, along with a smattering of Tibetan around.

I have a lot of good pictures up on Facebook here so you can see them if you want, including the breakfast of the morning I got there--an egg in milk (possibly of the yak), bread, and peppers. Quite good.. I highly recommend them--we visited a giant Tibetan Buddhist monastary, and it was quite the sight. Also, we went to another temple which had the biggest prayer wheel in the world. Big enough to take at least three people to turn it. We also ate Nepalese and Tibetan foods, and enjoyed a hot spring, as well as barbecuing some yak meat. I also met some interesting people--a former student of the International Business School of YUFE (where I teach) who now works for the central bank of China ( the People's Bank of China) and an older couple from the Netherlands, and an older French couple, with whom I spoke about Nicholas Sarkozy and living in France during the times of Jean-Paul Sartre and Michel Foucault. It was pretty great. Suffice it to say, Shangri-la is quite a relaxing place to visit, and I'll probably make it back there sometime.

Doug and I then split on Thursday with the third teacher we went to Shangri-La with, and headed about 8 hours south to the Ancient City of Dali, a city very popular with domestic (Chinese) tourists and backpacker expatriates. While the ride was horribly tedious and the seats uncomfortable for such a long ride, it was well worth it. It's quite amazing there, there is a giant mountain, named Cangshan--there are really everywhere in this province, of course, but this one was quite mighty--and a giant lake a file miles from it. A lot of western restaurants and a lot of touts selling their wares to anyone who would listen. We ended up riding horses up the mountain, though really the horses were tied together and lead by a Chinese man, so it was a little strange. But he lead us intrepidly and we ascended to a paved trail along the mountain, and some ridiculously beautiful (and dangerous) waterfalls that we climbed up and around. The Chinese are not much for safety precautions, so we did a lot of climbing and jumping, along with the tourists who didn't really seem fazed. We spent the rest of the time bumming around with what little money we had left, before coming back to Kunming.

I'd have some pretty amazing pictures, but on the way back to Kunming yesterday, about a half hour away, we switched buses unexpectedly, as the driver pulled over a gas station and basically ordered us off the bus onto a similar one. Ostensibly, he avoided paying a higher toll. In the exchange, I left my camera on the bus, and despite the helpful intervention of a guy and his Chinese girlfriend, it is all but certain that my camera is forever gone. I'll get a new one next month, but I really do wish I still had those pictures. I'll probably go back to Dali at some point, and Doug has some pictures that I can share, but this is really how China works--if you lose something (Doug's cell phone, for example, disappeared on the sleeper bus) you're probably never going to get it back.

By the way, the school more or less surprised me by telling me I need to write syllabi for my classes. I think it's not fair for them to ask this of me unless I can be called Professor Koppel.

"I need a vacation"

2008-09-27T22:37:00.000-07:00

I've been teaching for a month, and boy, how the time flies. It doesn't really, but it has finally come time for the National holiday, the "Golden Week" we get off in celebration of the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949.

Anyway, my plans are as follows: Tonight, I leave at 7:30 for Shangri-La (which, until a few years ago, was known by the less flashy name of Zhongdian). It is a twelve-hour ride northwest, with the town being in close proximity to Tibet, and a large Tibetan population. So, I expect, hopefully, yak-meat hotpot and Tibetan horseriding. For an idea of what I'm doing, go here: http://www.wikitravel.org/en/Zhongdian

Then, it's off to Dali, which is about seven hours north of Kunming, so I'll catch a night bus back from Zhongdian. Unfortunately, as usual, I've waited for the last moment to pack, so I need to cut this short, but rest assured, pictures and further updates will follow!

Toxic Goods

2008-09-22T06:47:00.001-07:00

Much has been made--rightfully so, of course--of the latest tainted food crisis in China, as Li Changjiang, who led the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine steps down. (The article, if you're still unfamiliar with the topic which I am addressing, gives an excellent summation.) The scandal involves, at the last official count by Chinese authorities, over 53,000 people--mostly infants--sickened by milk products, in particular dried milk formula, that were cut with the industrial chemical melamine to make the protein level appear higher. As the article states, "13,000 children remain hospitalized after drinking tainted milk formula and that 104 are in serious condition." Melamine, when combined with formaldehyde, is used to make plastics, and sometimes fertilizers as well.

China's recent history is replete with sordid affairs regarding the quality of its products. Last year, melamine contamination--believed to be meant, again, to cheaply make a product appear more protein-rich--was linked to the deaths of many pet animals fed food containing adulterated wheat gluten. As China.org.cn, an official news source notes, in 2004, 14 infants died from fake formula lacking nutrients. Millions of Chinese-made toys have been recalled due to lead paint used. And, as the New York Times so excellently covered in its Pulitzer Prize-winning series "A Toxic Pipeline," adulterated products, like toothpaste made with diethylene glycol, have been linked to deaths worldwide--an unfortunate consequence of the nature of globalization, along with the inability to trace the products back to their manufacturers.

Diethylene glycol, ironically enough, was the ingredient in so-called "Elixir Sulfanilamide" produced in 1937 which lead to the deaths of over 100 people, including scores of children. At the time, the Food and Drug Agency did not have the regulatory power over drugs it has today, and the only reason the poisonous Elixir Sulfanilamide was able to be confiscated was because elixirs were made with ethanol (alcohol) solvents, as opposed to diethylene glycol. This lead to the passage of the landmark 1938 Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, which strengthened the FDA--an great achievement for the American consumer.

There's a lot of room for pessimism about the future efficacy of the State Food and Drug Administration and the GAQSIQ in China, but there are reasons for hope, too. Never before has there been such a public health crisis of this proportion in China, and its very clear that the public is outraged by this. From the facts we've seen, while the local governments did nothing after finding out about the tainted powder, once the central government was informed, it acted fairly quickly, and decisively. It has already arrested over 19 people, and has promised "merciless" justice. And after last year's execution of Zheng Xiaoyu, former head of the SFDA, for taking bribes, one can only assume China means it.

Coincidentally, Sanlu, the infant formula manufacturer at the heart of the scandal, who had known for months about the effects of its product, is headquartered in Shijiazhuang, Hebei province--the same city where most of the other Drake students on the same program as I live.

Adventures in Culinary Delights

2008-09-14T04:03:00.000-07:00

On Friday night, I was invited to dinner, along with the rest of the foreign teachers, at a Tibetan restaurant by the administration that administers us. Yunnan province, bordering Tibet at it's northwest, has a sizable (though relatively small) Tibetan population, taking its place within the ethnic melting pot that makes Yunnan the most diverse province. Now, for all the beauty and ancient culture that makes Tibet wonderful, its food is not among its finest points (at least if Wikitravel and my experience are any confirmation; Wikitravel reads that "[t]he traditional Tibetan diet is largely limited to barley, meat (mutton or yak) and dairy products, with very few spices or vegetables...") By no means do I mean to impugn the food I ate--yak meat, butter tea (presumably made from yak butter), some sort of fried fish, and fresh sorts of vegetables. It was all pretty good, but compared with the Chinese food I've had, it was not outstanding. What was outstanding, however, was the show that accompanied it. There were people singing traditional Tibetan songs, dancing yaks (awesome!) and at one point, I joined a large circle of people--both those who worked at the restaurant and a number of Chinese people--and danced with them. It was pretty great; my only regrets were that I did not eat more and that I did not bring my camera. Quite a show.

Now, last night, I was looking for somewhere to get dinner when I walked into what I quickly realized was a Sichuan huoguo--hot pot--restaurant. This has been high on my list of eats to eat, but the hot pot is big, and could easily feed four people or more. By the time I realized that it probably wasn't the best option for the evening, the staff had ushered me to a table and gave me a sheet in Chinese to indicate what I wanted. Seeing my complete inability to decipher it, a young man started talking to me in English, and, being hungry and a little overwhelmed (at this point, I believe half the staff or more was watching in amusement) I simply said yes to whatever he suggested.

They brought out a big bowl of red soup, put it into the big hole in the table (it rests upon a propane heater there) and fired it up. Soon enough, I was brought potatoes, lettuce, and noodles, the former two which were helpfully dumped into the soup for me. As I love spicy foods, I was totally digging the soup, which, once again, was obviously way too much food for one person. As I struggled with eating the awkward portions of chicken and beef--both in large part on and hard to separate from the bones--I talked with the young man and a girl who was working there. Their English was meager (they did not recognize that in English, the dish is called hot pot, though of course I should've known that in Mandarin it is huoguo--fire pot) but we had a pleasant conversation--the young man, as it turns out, is a fourth year at the International Business School, where I teach here at Yunnan University of Finance and Economics.

Finally, after filling up as much as I could without looking foolishly inept at eating, I paid (27 RMB--a lot for a one person meal of a Chinese food here, but for the amount of food I was served, not bad at all) and I promised I'd come back with my friends. At that point, they gave me five mooncakes, which I wrote about in my last entry.

As an update to that, another administrator from IBS (Int'l Business School) greeted me as I came back from a trip to the Kunming Botanical Gardens, and gave me a big bag. Inside: More moon cakes! I'm going to be eating these things for the next several weeks.

Also, some strange fruit that looked like giant pears.

For dinner tonight, I went down to the walking street, where many restaurants and street vendors sell food for students, and got spicy fried potatoes (they don't look great in the picture, admittedly) and some sort of almost-burrito-like thing, with egg, spices, lettuce, and something crunchy encased in some sort of crunchy exterior. I can't explain it, but for somewhere around 5 RMB for both, definitely a good deal.

Dinner:

Mooncakes, or why I have a five day weekend

2008-09-13T05:07:00.000-07:00

First things first: Last Wednesday, as I found out to my surprise, was Teachers' Day. Students, apparently, show their appreciation to their teachers on that day, and I certainly was no exception. My first class, the sophomore writing class, merely wished me a happy teachers' day. All of the foreign teachers here agree (myself included) that the sophomores, at least in comparison to the freshmen, are pretty listless. I've seen some of them doing math homework instead of the English exercises, but I will admit, the textbook for their class is pretty dry, and perhaps I haven't been doing enough to spice things up.

Nonetheless, my freshmen, as always were eager (enough, anyway) and I received a red Chinese knot and a potted plant, both of which adorn my room and class up the joint. The next day, I also received a card from another class. (A few of my students emailed me e-cards, which I foolishly clicked on, and received a virus that I could only get rid of by doing a system restore to a point before I read their emails.)

After my two Thursday classes and a fairly lengthy medical exam that the state (that is, the PRC) requires for all long-term visitors--I've never had an ultrasound done on me before, and I'll be pretty glad not to have it done again--my weekend had arrived. As I don't have classes on Friday or Tuesday, I have a five day weekend lined up.

Monday is the Mid-Autumn Festival, giving me that extra day bridging the weekend and Tuesday. I won't bother explaining the festival (there are several different stories about it--read more on Wikipedia's Mid-Autumn Festival page) beyond that it generally involves a husband, Houyi and Chang'E, a sort of immortality pill or elixir, Chang'E consuming said immortality item, and floating off into the moon, thus becoming the woman in the moon (as the Chinese see it).

I'll probably be celebrating it tomorrow night with one of my students and his family (an interesting prospect...) One way of celebrating is the eating of moon cakes--small pastries filled with some sort of paste (i.e. lotus seed, jujube, and other fruit-type fillings). It's a little like a giant fig newton with Chinese characters on it.

Now, along with my students' gifts, the school gave me a ton of oranges (I believe for Teachers' day) and a ton of moon cakes. Then, when I went to a restaurant tonight (which I will discuss in my next entry) they gave me some moon cakes too, five to share with my friends. Ironically, nobody I know, except myself, really likes these things--at least the harder, less filled variety that the school gave us--so my friends may give me their moon cakes too. I think I have a lot of moon cakes.

Update: Interestingly enough, I just read that this is the first official holiday for the Mid-Autumn Festival--in other words, the first time people get a day off. Pretty cool; Sohu.com reports an online poll saying 55.7% of respondents planning to spend the festival with their family (via Xinhua News Service.)

Taking stock of China (or, China taking stock in US)

2008-09-09T03:06:00.000-07:00

I read an interesting article on the New York Times yesterday, entitled "China's central bank is in need of capital". For those of you who may not know, a country's central bank is in charge of many things, including lending to commercial banks which in turn has a significant effect on interest rates and inflation. The gist of the article, thus, was that, having invested in American mortgage-backed securities and debt and seen the value of these investments fall, Chinese economists worry about the effects. The International Monetary Fund has warned the Chinese central bank that its capital base is too small; problematically, the Chinese investments have, after adjusting for inflation, generated losses, especially the investments in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that the Chinese government has made.

Perhaps most telling, however, is a point toward the end of the article: "[Victor Shih, a specialist on Chinese central banking] said the officials [at the People's Central Bank] blamed the United States and believed the controversial assertions set forth in the book “Currency War,” a Chinese best seller published a year ago. The book suggests that the United States deliberately lured China into buying its securities knowing that they would later plunge in value.

“A lot of policy makers in China, at least midlevel policy makers, believe this,” Mr. Shih said."

Certainly makes for sour grapes.

On a related note, I travelled to downtown Kunming, to the Bank of China, to exchange the last of my dollars for yuan. Yet I couldn't do so without my passport, which my school, Yunnan University of Finance and Economics, current has posssession of (and has had, basically, since I arrived here nearly two weeks ago) to get my residency permit.

Welcome to the Working Week

2008-09-06T01:51:00.000-07:00

The end of Thursday officially meant the end of my first week of teaching English. To be honest, the week ended up being slightly easier (at least, after Monday and Wednesday) than I thought it might be. But only slightly.

I had my students give speeches (in the speaking class) about their favorite parts of the Olympics. In my speech to them, I talked about the opening ceremony--which, for all of the minor controversies surrounding it (digitized fireworks, lip-syncing, etc.) remained an extraordinarily enjoyable and inspiring event. Many of my students also talked about the opening ceremony, explaining how it made them feel very patriotic and proud of their nation and its historical heritage. Many other students (especially the male ones) talked about the basketball. Chinese guys love basketball more than I could have ever imagined; I often see the numerous basketball courts around campus busy, day in and day out.

Suffice it to say, however, I believe my students may be growing weary of talking about the Olympics. So, I plan to engage them in a debate on Beijing's post-Olympics automobile policies.

Last night, I went to a club in downtown Kunming. The clubs here are pretty plush, replete with walls of flashing graphics and colors and decors that are impressive for both their design and presumable costs. Yet no amount of lights and TVs can save you from the horrors of really bad music (at intolerable volumes) and warm beer. Get this: You buy a staggering amount of beer (at least 30 bottles, where we were sitting), then you get shot glasses in which you put ice to cool the beer you pour in.

It just doesn't work. Of course, that's just me--plenty of people seemed to be having a good time.

I took a walk to get out of the club, and took a walk down a dark street nearby, and on my way back, I witnessed a guy and a girl fighting. The guy slapped the girl, and she kicked him and tried to punch him back, and from there, he began to really hit her. At this point, I ran to find the nearest police officer (who are generally everywhere, except I guess when they're really needed). When I found him, I tried to explain, through gestures and simple English, what was going on and where, but he seemed neither to understand nor really care. It was unbelievably awful. I left the club not long after, and that was the sordid end of the evening.

It's hard to deal with seeing with such things, but I am assured that this, unfortunately, is just how it is at this point in time. One can only hope for change sooner rather than later.

The First Classes

2008-09-01T06:17:00.000-07:00

I had my first two classes today. Both were freshman speaking classes, which I believe I rightfully dread, as opposed to writing, which is much easier to grade and correct. Each class had around 45 students in it, which could quickly become overwhelming as the classes are 90 minutes long.

The first class did not go so well. It appeared that all of the students had a different textbook than I do (which, I guess, isn't the case I have found out) and that confusion threw off my lesson plan. I had my students introduce themselves, and discuss their moving in experiences--not a good move. They became confused, and that activity ended up being a washout. I had them next stand up and talk about their favorite foods, which again, was more confusing for them I believe than not. By the time I got to the end of class and assigned them a one minute speech about the Olympics, I was sure I was finished.

The second class, however, provided me a chance to learn from my mistakes, and ended up going much more smoothly. I did mostly the same activities, but explained them more clearly. The students were audibly wowed when I walked in wearing my dark blue khakis and an orange collared shirt, and that seemed to persist (in a good way) throughout the class. When I explained that I had come to China to learn more about their culture and way of life, they clapped for me. It was very gratifying.

As my mother noted--a teacher herself--it's a trial and error process. If I needed any proof of that, I certainly got it yesterday. But I can only get better from here.

Settling Down

2008-08-30T20:14:00.000-07:00

I've been in China for about five days now, and it's been a surprisingly difficult transition. Despite my excitement about coming, such a complete break from the familiar--friends and family most of all--will take its toll on anyone. Compounded with my nervousness about teaching, I find myself daunted. I have six classes--two freshmen writing classes, two freshmen speaking classes (which meet twice a week) and as an added bonus, I now have a sophomore writing class. The textbooks are somewhat helpful, but they're old (dialogues about Nsync and the Backstreet Boys are probably too dated for my students to really appreciate) and I believe much of the important information is in Chinese, which I yet cannot read.

Nonetheless, I know I will persevere and prosper. As the RZA (of the Wu-Tang Clan, on his newest album "Digi Snacks") "If you ain't having a good time, you're wasting your time." Similar words from Minnesota rockers the Hold Steady: "You gotta stay positive." Or, as Lil' Wayne says to his hometown, New Orleans, regarding the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (doubly relevant, given the current threat of Hurricane Gustav) "I know the process is so much stress, but it's the progress that feels the best." Inspiring words.

But I digress.

All in all, though, Kunming is quite the city. Despite the incessant honking that, I believe, is characteristic of modern China everywhere, you can see that the attitudes of the Chinese are very hopeful, and rather content with modern life. In the history of China, perhaps entirely, there hasn't been a time where food has been so plentiful and consumer goods so readily available. This has, it would appear, lead to an attitude of consumerism familiar to any Western visitor. But I'll write more about that later.

I felt my first earthquake yesterday; the epicenter was near the Sichuan-Yunnan border, not terribly close but not terribly far away. I was lying on my bed as I felt a strange sort of swaying. There was no damage in Kunming, thankfully.

Interesting fact: In China, you can bring a dog into a bar with you. Not even one of those tiny purse-encased ones, but, as I saw last night, a pomeranian on a leash. Soon enough, these things won't surprise me.

2008-08-28T18:40:00.000-07:00

The bathroom. the floor is always wet, and there appears to be nothing I can do about that.
view from down the hall.
the first restaurant I ate in. The food was delicious, being sweet and sour pork, "granny" mashed potatoes, and some sort of tasty spinach concoction.

2008-08-28T18:29:00.000-07:00

View of the bedroom from the living room. Note anti-malarial medications on the fridge (which doesn't make things cold) and the water dispenser which gives water that I can drink, as opposed to the sink.
The foyer to my room. Haven't finished unpacking yet.
Bedroom. TV doesn't work, either.
the view of campus from my window.

The Mission

2008-08-28T17:41:00.000-07:00

Who: Me, Nate Koppel, a 2008 graduate of Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, having studied Politics and Philosophy.

What: Teaching classes of Speaking and Writing to students at Yunnan University of Finance and Economics.

Where: Kunming, Yunnan province in southwest China, the province on the border of Vietnam, Laos, and Burma. Kunming's population is around 6 million (including the surrounding area) making it the 16th biggest city in China.

When: September 1st until July, 2009.

Why: Living in Iowa for too long.