Cell Phones and Hong Konglians

I had two days off from school today for "Sports Days," a super-serious Field Day from I gathered. Except not all the kids play. When I asked my classes who was doing what, about a third of the students were playing three or more sports while another third was going to "eat." I asked if it was an eating contest and was told that no, it is not. I was invited to participate myself in the form of a teachers parade at 8am. I declined. I used my two days to shop. Sounds girlish, sure, but I recently discovered a hidden wad of Chinese cash in a previously locked bank account and there were some goods that I needed that weren't nearby.

Tuesday I shopped for cell phones. I've become the master of the art of haggling. I went to the big electronics district of Shenzhen and spent two hours going to every cell phone both, pointing at the Sony Ericsson K750c [K chee-bai-wu], and punching numbers into my old cell's calculator and let the negotiations begin. Earlier I had found a very pleasant shop that offered me yellow tea as I examined the phone and bargained. Once I confirmed they had the best price, I went back and haggled a little bit more and got a 256 meg memory card extra.

It was still expensive, but I think it's worth it. I now have a 2-megapixel camera in my pocket all the time. I can take street pictures without getting all self-conscious. It's really, really hard walking around with my monster of a camera taking incognito shots of the street life. It's been bothering me a lot that I've all but stopped taking photos.

Still in the wealthy mindset after finding so much cash, I walked my roommate to a secret area that Lily showed me a few weeks ago. It's hard to describe. Bai Shi Zhou, our neighborhood, is a land of paradox. If you walk five minutes one way, you're in Real China. Horrible housing, people staring, dirty food. Cross Shennan Dao road and you're in a make-believe Dutch village cum hotel that supports Window of the World, an amusement park sporting replicas of all the wonders of the world. The "Golden Gate Bridge" crosses by our apartment and the "Eiffel Tower" is clearly visable from the bus stop. So are some oddly placed Roman [or Greek] column ruins jutting out of the tree line too.

So anyway there's this little plaza, I don't know what else to call it, hidden behind a 7-11 [chee shir-ee in Chinese, and yes, the have slushies (!!!!!)]. There's a couple little yuppie stores, imported wine and what not, and then it opens up to a beautiful lake flanked by French and Italian coffee houses on one side and an uber-nice and expensive [$12 a plate!] Italian restaurant on the other. I grabbed a Hawaiian pizza and a hot chocolate. $4. That's big money here. Of course, this plaza is largely empty.


Cody at the Plaza-Type Thing
Place



Girl running through the
streets of Bai Shi Zhou

Then today. I've been beating myself up about not exploring the surrounding areas more. Most weekends I just want to go out at night, veg all day. I'm tired. Goungzhou is a huge city just north of us with lots of old culture, Macao is the Portuguese take on Hong Kong bred with Las Vegas, and Zhuhai is supposedly the most romantic city in China. All are an hour away. It costs about $20 round trip to get to each place, which has been my excuse.

So I went back to Hong Kong. I had a mission. I needed jeans. I can find my waist size here, it's just the Chinese like their pants all emo tight. It's bad enough for the boys, but the girls waddle about with their giant stilleto heals and tight, tight pants that hinder lateral hip movement. I had read in Frommer's that there was a district in Honk Kong that hosted factory outlets of clothing being shipped stateside.

I took down the info and made a late exit. I had forgotten how much of a hassle it is getting there. Our subway is tediously slow, for one. Then you get to Lo Hou station and there are a million signs saying "Hong Kong" without a strong directional command. And then you go through customs. You always forget to grab and fill out the little form first. So you get out of line, fill it out, get back in. This time I got in the "Mainland Chinese Residence" line because I'm now a Chinese resident and the "FOREIGNER" line was long. I got through with only a little hassle. Now you go through faux-bird flu IR screening and go through Hong Kong customs. Now change your money and buy a ticket on the train. Now RUN into the train and grab a seat so you're not standing for the next 45 minutes. As Reagan says, "even if it's a little old lady... this is a fight for life, man... just push her on out of the way, son."

Then ride. Ride. Ride. It's now been an hour and a half. You get to Kowloon. I get off at Hung Hom, the supposed paradise for not-skinny foreigners who want jeans at decent prices. I get out of the train station expecting this cornucopia to unfold, but alas, no one's heard of the names I'm dropping that I picked out of the Frommer's guide.

I ask five cabbies if they've heard of it. One has. "The factory?"

He drops me off. Everyone is standing outside the building and a police officer is talking to them. "Fire drill," I'm informed. I love that everyone speaks English in Honk Kong. I grab a bite to eat as I wait for my helpers to go back to work. I find a small restaurant, no English menu but the owner tells me that "I think chow mien is suitable for you." She brings me my plate, it has shrimp all in it. To jack up the price, of course. I'm rich 'cause I'm white, ya know? I pull my standard seafood lie and tell her I'm allergic to get out of paying the extra 10 HK$, giving the Internationally Recognized Hand Gesture of sudden choking death. It doesn't work.

Things kind of go downhill from there when I make it back to the building, Kaiser Estates, and note that absolutely none of the four downstairs corners has a clothing shop. Three of four corners, and even the second floor, support jewelry wholesalers.... but alas, TEFL teachers can't afford to dress themselves in jade with todays wages.

So I wander. Frommer's all but described the district as overflowing with cheap American surplus clothes, so I was bound to spot at least one, right? I walk for thirty minutes through alleys and roads looking before I stumble into a small store with jeans. Lots of jeans. I asked the man inside if he knew where I could find men's jeans and he ushered me inside, took my waist measurements, and started piling up jeans. Alas, Babylon!


Spring Field Store


"We have elastic! It's the latest fashion!"

I politely told my new friend that no, I would not like elastic jeans even if they are very popular in China. That, in fact, it was contrary to the very spirit of me having come so far for pants.

I'll skip all the small talk and waiting prior to me going into the dressing room and get right to it.

"Do you have a girlfriend," he asked.

"Wah bu yuu nu pengyou," I responded in Mandarin. I kept forgetting that even though they're Chinese, Mandarin is a second or third language for them.

"Ohhh! I have very beautiful girl in Shanghai for you! Do you want Chinese girlfriend?"

"Well...."

"How big is your penis?"

Let's stop right there for a moment. There wasn't a hint of abnormality in his voice. None. He might as well have been asking me where my hometown was. In my short acquaintanceship with this man I had detected earnestness, even likability... but not humor. It wasn't a joke. It was, to him, a very legitimate question. I quickly guaged the situation and realized I couldn't rightfully chuckle this one off. So I told him my best guesstimate.

He was genuinely concerned for his friends health and well-being. It turns out his question was directly related to whether or not he thought we would be physically able to copulate. He had very exaggerated [hopefully] notions on the comparative size differences between Asians and Caucasians. Luckily he changed the subject to my age.

My lesson two weeks ago with my students was about self-descriptions. If there's one thing that I had learned recently it was that the Chinese are a lot more self-aware and a lot less self-conscious than we are. I had many awfully cute girls describe themselves as "chubby" and maybe only one or two who really thought they were beautiful. I had truly ugly boys shout out 'UGLYYY!" as if their assigned role in this universe was to occupy one end of the bell curve. It wasn't in some American teen self-hating way, it was just an honest self-assessment.

"Ohh no, she is 40. You are much too young. Do you like fat girls? I have fat girl....."

Before I left he made me promise I would call him so we would have dinner when I come back to Hong Kong. He desperately wanted to set me up with one of four women that ranged from beautiful but fat to ugly but thin, for he was their proxy to all the young boys searching the industrial wasteland of Hung Hom for factory outlets...




A message to the mainland
Chinese: No spitting on
our trains!

Two Links

First is Joshua Samuel Brown's new blog, Stinky Tufu. I found him while trying to find a picture of the Shenzhen subway map. Awesome writing and a great description of our subways here. He writes for Lonely Planet. His blog basically has my theme, but it's set in Taiwan.... and he's more interesting 'cause he's being paid to, ya know, go see cool shit and write about it. And he's funnier. And he speaks Chinese fluently... ya know what, don't click that link. Please? Stay with me? Honey?

Second, I present you with The Six-Lesson Schoolteacher, a dark essay by John Taylor Gatto after receiving his third New York Teacher of the Year Award. He succinctly and clearly puts into words the thoughts that have been in my head for a long time and were confirmed while teaching last year. It almost reads as an intro to Foucault without ever name-dropping him and begs the question... just what are we trying to accomplish in the classroom? I'd love to hear a good rebuttal. Inspired by this MetaFilter thread.

Mahjong Cops

My 200th post :-) I've been writing seriously* for three years now. Dig around the archives if you'd like. Everything prior to July '06 are op-ed pieces written for the Spinnaker [my college newspaper] or the Folio Weekly [Jax alt weekly]. Mainly just liberal ideas I tried to present in conservative clothing with varying degrees of success. Everything since July has been my experience in China.

Thanks for reading.

* lol
____________________________________

So as soon as I figure out how to get money out of my credit union and into my Chinese bank account I'm going to buy a new Sony Ericsson camera phone with a 2mp camera. I had my old phone stolen/lost and I'm not taking nearly enough pictures with my bestial FZ-30. I'm used to taking landscape photos. I'm really just too big of a coward to walk up to a stranger and start snapping away while they're at work cooking or begging. Cell phones are so omnipresent here that I can snap away fairly incognito.

What I would have taken a picture of today [and likely lost my new investment] would have been the 25-30 police officers we saw marching in formation down the street as we were scouting for caramel bananas. I went Chinese and jumped across a busy street to follow them. Sixty of my closest friends followed suite. Rubbernecking is a national sport here. It's high entertainment watching a firetruck pass and then see 300 Chinese running after it.

The cops turned a corner into a big alley and broke into a trot. All of them had their special batons in hand: short metal pipes with flattened wedged edges for a bruising whack on the flat side and a bloody whack with the edge. The only people that carry guns are the guys who bring cash to and from banks. They also have flak jackets and a real armored vehicle. Like one I'd feel safe driving through Baghdad in. They carry shotguns, which I suppose is the weapon of choice for mowing down cash-starved crowds. I've repeatedly been told to stop making hand gestures at them suggesting that they want to shoot the foreigner.

Back to the cops.

The turned another corner and sprinted into a small alley and began piling into an apartment building. By this time everyone who could possibly see what was going on had piled up to watch them. Easily 150 people, with me at the forefront. In fact, when they broke into the trot I was told to back off by a sergeant I hadn't seen. I waited to see what what happen... but nothing was immediately apparent. I walked back to Hou Li and asked her what happened. She wouldn't ask anyone and we walked off at her insistence. Being the alley rat that I am I walked us in a complicated circle right back to the scene of the crime.

I begged Hou Li to ask someone what happened. She blushed and refused but kept walking with me back to the scene of the crime. I took matters into my own hand, "nay ga sh she ma?" [not pinyin, but translates to "this is what?"]. An older man told us the story... turns out it was an illegal gambling den of high stakes Mahjong. Apparently the cops likely went in, took the cash, and left. Go figure.

Walking home later I saw another great photo-op and a first for me - I present you with the mental image of a paddy wagon bus. A full-sized city bus with lights-a-blazing [cops always leave their lights flashing here] and a cage fitted inside. It was about half full. Guess some people didn't make enough at the Mahjong table that night.


Tags: Treyopia stories current events cops police China Chinese law gambling weapons mahjong mahjongg

A Distant Thank You

I didn't even realize it was Thanksgiving till yesterday, yet this morning I found myself suddenly sentimental if not a tad homesick...

I'm thankful for all the students who've grown with me in this fascinating career. I'm thankful for the students of Greenwood who had to endure a very green and, at times, emotionally wrecked new teacher who still thought getting angry at a class was helpful. I'm thankful for the students who showed me that I'm good at what I do by showing me their growth and staying in touch with me. I'm thankful for my fellow teachers at Greenwood, who served as both close friends and mentors and held my hand through some tough situations.

I'm thankful for my family. I'm thankful I have a sister who's my best friend. I'm thankful I have a father who reminds me of why I am who I am. I'm thankful I have a grandmother who can say simple words that mean so much, like "I'm proud of you."

I'm thankful I have friends as amazing as they are. I'm thankful I have people like Izak who's never turned a deaf ear or a cold shoulder. I'm thankful I have friends like Natasha, Beth, and Joel who've stayed in touch in my absence. I'm thankful I had people like Nick in my life and I'm thankful I know DJ because of him. I'm thankful I knew Richard long enough for him to convince me I was indeed a writer.

I'm thankful for the people of the Middle Kingdom for being so respectful, warm, and only curious at their worst. I'm thankful for having met people like Lyndsey, Brian, Gary, Daniel, Reagan, Dru, Cody and all the other expats here. I'm thankful for my Chinese friends like John Laoshi, Lili, Hou Li, Jessica, Zhong Yu, Victoria and so many others for spending time with me and showing me just how wonderful and [uncomfortably] generous the Chinese can be. I'm grateful of the wonderfully random circumstances that led me to befriend Nina, who inspired me to come here.

I'm thankful for my mentors, the people who help guide me through these changing years, like Dr. Halsall, Dr. Schwam-Baird, and my father. I'm thankful for you and the other people who read my blog and keep my motivated to maintain my artistic edge. I'm thankful for my muses, all the artists - musicians, photographers, writers, and wanderers - who keep me in touch with my spiritual side and remind me of the absolute beauty of it all.

Finally, I'm deeply deeply appreciative of the staff and financial supporters of Baptist Hospital, particularly Wolfson Children's Hospital. Everything they did for Jacob, my little nephew, was an incredible feat. And today they have my full confidence as they work on Carson, my very sick little niece.

Arrghh, there's no Chinese word for "get", as in "I will get the money from the ATM" or "let me go get her."

At this very moment, and no other, I support Bush on Iraq

In January of 2003 my friend Abe and I drove to Washington, D.C. to be a part of massive anti-war demonstrations. I came away disillusioned with my fellow doves. The moment I heard 50,000+ chanting "Free Palestine, End Zionism," I knew this had little to do with actual policy considerations. My reasons for being there were very different than almost everyone else's that I met. People there just didn't like war. I can respect that, but I can also see when war is necessary. In my estimate, this war wasn't necessary and I felt it was going to severely compromise our national security. Chemical and biological weapons were of little interest to me. Even if he had them, he couldn't use them without overwhelming retaliation.

What brought me to Washington was remembering how our reception was when US forces were deployed to Beirut and Mogadishu. In Beirut we lost 241 Marines in one day and I'm sure everyone's seen Black Hawk Down by now to know what happened in Mogadishu. In both cases, we went with the best of intentions. We certainly we're going to be entering Baghdad with even a shred of the nobility of those two previous Middle Eastern missions. The biggest difference in hypothesis and reality is that the Iraqi's gave us about two months to get our act together before they rebelled. I assumed the masses would be resisting us from day one.

When the war started, I refused to participate in any more demonstrations. I went to a candlelight vigil to honor all of the fallen - American and Iraqi - but I refused to demand a withdrawal of American forces, something almost all of activist friends wanted. When I asked what they thought the outcome of a sudden withdrawal might be, none of them had an answer. It was just a solution that sounded right.

Foreign policy does not have an "undo" button. During the Democratic primary debates in 2004, one of the candidates put it best; "saying 'I told you so' isn't a foriegn policy." As happy as I am about the Democratic sweep of Congress, I'm very worried about their Iraq policy. I don't think it's progressed much beyond the activist rhetoric or told ya so. Don't get me wrong, it feels good, but it isn't.

Where stand now is that the Democrats are preparing to push for a quick phased withdrawal. The biggest proponent of this, Rep. Murtha, is poised to become Senate Majority Leader as a reward for letting Americans be able to openly admit they want to quit. If a hawkish vet can say we lost, then hey... so say we all. Well, at least about 60% of the public anyway.

Bush has a different idea. If the rumors are true, he wants to make one last push to secure peace in Iraq through military might. He wants to call a regional summit send an additional 20,000 troops in an admittedly last ditch effort to secure Baghdad before calling it quits. Read that last sentence again. Bush is ready to call it quits. He wants one more shot before packing up. Know what? I support that idea 100%. We owe it to Iraq to try once more. Bush knows this is his last shot and he's going to give it his all.

A rapid American withdrawal right now would be disastrous for Iraqi civilians. There would be no governing power beyond militias. Staying for another four years is equally bad, but getting the best minds together for one last try, one last push to make things work, gets all the support I can give. This should be something we can all agree on.

The biggest thing the Democrats could do for peace - real peace, not just leaving the fight - is to make sure Bush invites Syria and Iran to the regional summit. Take a look at the map. When we leave, they'll be holding all the cards. Ultimately this is about them giving us a chance to have a say in Iraq's future, not, as it would seem, the other way around.

Tags: Treyopia China politics current events Bush Murtha Pelosi Iran Syria conference summit regional Democrats James Baker ISG Iraq Study Group Syria Iran War Iraq Withdrawl withdrawel defeat loose quit support protest activist ideas

To Tianjin and Back, Pt 2

Read Part 1

One of the problems with low-end Chinese electronics is that they suck on a whole new level. They're cheap and there's a damn good reason why. Chinese phone chargers and electrical outlets top the list. Sure, you can buy a phone charger for under $2 but it gradually stops working. I'm no electrical engineer, but I don't understand how you can get diminishing results from a charger. It's not an engine or computer, it either works or it doesn't, right? There are no buttons, no switches, and no adjustment knobs. Wires touch wires touching my cell phones special place giving it the negatively charged juice of life.

The only reason I bring this up is because the day I left for Tianjin I had no juice in cell phone even though it spent all night on the charger. This was a double cell phone folly because I was having to use my old phone after dropping my new one in a waterfall whilst mountain climbing. I was having to turn it on once an hour to see if, as I suspected, I would receive my departure plans from the company. I was expecting a "you fly out tomorrow morning," not a "your train leaves 3 hours after you get home from classes," but hey... minor details, right?

I spent an hour searching for a charger in the neighborhood around my school during my [2.5 hour] lunch break. After scolding two businesses for selling Motorola phones but supposedly no chargers I found a guy selling phone accessories out of a cart. I charged up and napped while waiting for my next class

The phone was important because this was a homecoming of sorts. I had a few Chinese friends in Tianjin that I desperately wanted to see. There were two teachers from the Jixian retreat when I first came to China. The other was my "Tianjin girlfriend," a one-on-one student of mine who was in grad school at Tianjin University. My last night in Tianjin I became the second boy she ever kissed.

My biggest fear was that I was going to get to Tianjin, run through whatever process I needed to do and get flown right back down to Shenzhen perhaps even Wednesday night. We have a teacher shortage in Shenzhen and I was sure it was extremely difficult to cover my classes. That's why I had assumed they would spend the extra $60 and fly me instead of playing with 27 hour trains. I was afraid then I'd have to pick who I wanted to see and snub others, if I had time at all. It didn't wind up being an issue. I wound up staying up north till Thursday. Furthermore, my "Tianjin girlfriend" was in Shandong for a chemistry conference. Sad, sure, but definitely logistically convenient.

* * *
It was like a dream coming back to Tianjin. I didn't realize how much I missed the city. It seemed strange to be returning to a city I used to call home that's so far from Florida. It's all so relative now. I forgot how well I knew it in those two short months I was there. I knew where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do. I missed the street food, wide roads filled with cheap taxis, and massive bike-lanes. The things I hated most about the city had changed for my arrival - there wasn't a hint of smog in the air and the weather was perfect.

I began my day coming to the office. Coming up the marble steps into the company HQ, the first person I saw was my John LǎoShī [pronounced Laowsheer, Chinese for venerable/old teacher], my Chinese teacher. In a moment of instant recognition, we feigned a Hollywood reunion and ran towards each other for the bittersweet embrace of parted lovers. We went to Muslim noodles where I showed off my new-found Chinese skills and ordered for us and we traded stories of the past two months. I couldn't stop wondering wondering what it'd be like when I finally go back home to Jacksonville, how many lunches and dinners I'd have and with whom.

I spent the rest of the afternoon waiting for dinner with friends in my old hangout at the 4-story electronic store next to the company building looking for new headphones. I hadn't realized I missed playing with haggling over cheap electronics so much. I spent another two hours venting frustration with the local operation to the sympathetic ear of Brian.

Six O'Clock rolled around, it was time to catch a cab to He Xi District dinner with my two Chinese English teacher friends...

Take a Gander

Very Short Story Contest

Post in the comments section a guess as to how, exactly, I set my iPod on fire. Here are your clues: it still works, it didn't happen at my apartment, it was playing Iron & Wine's Our Endless Numbered Days when the damage occurred, I suffered small 2nd degree burns on one of my fingers, and the damage went beyond just my iPod.

Everybody who participates will receive, via email, the real story of what happened. That means that if you don't have a blogger account you need to put your email address in with your version of events. Let's see if fact is stranger than fiction :-)

It should be easier to make comments now... fire away!

Shenzhen Beggars

Many beggars in Shenzhen write their story in chalk in front of them. Typically, the younger they are the more inclined they are to curl up into a ball of shame and avoid eye contact with passersby. It's not uncommon to see students younger than me curled up against a wall with people standing around them reading their story begging for any assistance in paying for their college tuition.

According to my roommates loose transition, this man's story is that his son was a businessman gone bad who's in jail now for cheating people. The 70-year old man is now in the unfortunate position of having to support his granddaughter as well feed himself. It should be noted that elderly in China are almost entirely dependent on their children for financial stability.

As a side-note, the International Herald Tribune had an excellent write-up about how frequently elderly are being left behind now as parents spend all their money on developing their children's future. A very common site in Shenzhen are women as old as my grandmother picking through trash cans for recyclable bottles. Story here.





Tags: Treyopia photos photography China Chinese Shenzhen beggars, beggers, beggar, beggar, elderly, old, panhandling panhandlers poor poverty crime

Letter from Japan

Alvin Saha:

Hey, you don't know me, but I just happened to come upon your profile and I remembered that you used to write for the Spinnaker. I always thought that you wrote good stuff, so I sat down to read your profile, and found out that you are in China. I'm studying in Japan for a year, I've been here for about 6-7 months now, with about 5 more to go. What do you think about China and the political system? I was reading a little bit of your blog, but not very deeply, I must admit. What program are you teaching in China with? I've never been to China, but I've found that Japan is socially repressed and alienating. Oddly enough, it isn't just the gaijin (foreigners) who are alienated, but the Japanese themselves as well. To me, Japan, though a great nation (not to mention a helluva lot of fun), seems to have a large number of social problems that stem not from political repression, but rather societal values and the trouble that the younger generations are having with embracing liberal Western values and maintaining their traditional vales, which are often at odds with each other. Is China like this?

My response:

Hey Alvin,

I'm down in Shenzhen, China's first capitalist experiment [called a Special Economic Zone], teaching at a boarding school run by Beijing/Peking University. I'm teaching grades 3 - 6 right now. It's not quite what I was expecting to be doing but the job has grown on me a lot. I'm thinking next year I want explicitly aim to teach at a college. I'm assuming you're studying Japanese, right? My Chinese is coming along slowly but surely.

Ey, it seems the problems are very different in our respective countries. The Chinese are very family oriented. I mean, I'd always heard that other countries are family oriented, but coming from a divorced family with a great deal of estrangement I always assumed that the other half of America with non-divorced households was "family oriented."

By family oriented, they mean things like my roommate given half of her $250 a month to her parents. They saved a lifetime for her college education and now she subsidizes their future retirement. There's also the dynamic that almost every household being single-child. Kids here are lavished with attention and whatever the parents can afford.

Alienation just isn't an issue that I've seen.

The issues most younger Chinese face is trying to find meaningful and prosperous employment. This is a country that turns old ladies into human lawnmowers. Every store and restaurant has about double the staff that it really needs. There's just too many people... even a college degree in accounting, like my roommate, won't get you too much in your hometown. A lot of them move to the bigger cities for work.

Even in places like Shenzhen, my city, where almost no one is local, people cling to what's left of "traditional" values. Mao destroyed a lot of what we'd consider traditional Chinese culture, but there's an air of prudence about. Girls aren't supposed to wear bikini's to the beach and most of the women I've flirted with have kissed, at most, one boy in their quarter century of life. Being far away from home doesn't seem to erode these values as much as you'd think.

"Modern" is in, but it means money... not culture or thought. There is no art scene to speak of like in Japan. There are no "scenes" at all pushing boundaries and asking troubling questions. Everyone just wants to make enough cash to survive and give their kids a better future. So no, there really is no clash between their take on modern and traditional values.

Glad to hear from you,
- Trey Menefee

Tags: Treyopia China Chinese Japan Japanese culture modern difference traditional

Thank You, America

A personal "thanks" for all of you who voted the right way. I am supremely grateful to the American people for sweeping out the trash that's been in Washington too long.

I'm not talking about the people who had ideas different than my own [admittedly, bleeding-heart liberal] leanings. American is a land with many ideas and they should all be represented in a democratic forum.

I'm talking about the overtly corrupt, inept, and horrifically partisan jackasses that put out negative campaign commercials taking the public for idiots by trying to tie their opponents to child molesters, Osama, and perhaps provide Photoshopped© images of them suckling at the man-goat hybrid teets of Satan himself. I'm talking about those that have allowed spending to go unchecked and policy unexamined for so long. I'm talking about the people who would name legislation written FOR the logging industry the "Healthy Forest Initiative."

Let's hope this new batch of freshmen Dem's do the right thing and work with the Republicans still in office to change the tone in Washington and start fixing the massive problems facing our nation.

For those who want to know just how bad things had gotten, Matt Taibbi did an excellent write-up for Rolling Stone: "Time to Go! Inside The Worst Congress Ever."

I end with this question, though: What changed? Besides Katrina and Foley, most of ineptitude and corruption were the same in 2004 as they were in 2006. According to the polls at the time, people were already getting disillusioned with the President and his party. They didn't like Bush, but they sure as hell didn't like Kerry and the Democrats enough to actually vote for them. Taking both houses of Congress was unimaginable even a year ago. What changed that?

Tags: Treyopia politics current events China Election 2006 mid-terms democrats republicans thank you analysis questions what changed

To Tianjin and Back, Pt 1.

There's something about the style of business in China that drives normal people insane and provides a preferred alternative lifestyle for others. Knowing, for instance, that I had 30 days to make it to Tianjin and back was a source of endless speculation about when, and how, I'd get there. The game gets more fun as the date gets closer and you wonder just how the hell they're going to pull it off. On Sunday I get a text message, "when do you need that Residence Permit?"

"Tuesday, I think. Wednesday at latest."

Bear in mind that Tianjin is to Shenzhen what New York City is to Miami. Same country, sure, even on the same coast, but no where close to each other. No response to my reply.

I had dropped my newly unlocked American cell phone in the water mountain climbing on Sunday and had to bring my crap Chinese phone to work the next day. The battery was nearly dead but so I had to turn it on for a moment to collect text messages after every class. There was no way they wouldn't be giving me the news of my visit. I was expecting a flight out the next morning.

It came.

"Your train leaves tonight at 9:15"

My last class ended at 5:30. It takes 30 minutes to get home from school. It takes about an hour to get to the train station. I didn't have a single bag packed. I grumbled, but I was happy. I deeply wanted to go to Tianjin. I had Chinese friends I wanted to see, I wanted to have a drink with Brian and David at Ali Babba's, and I wanted to dine on street kabobs again. A short break from the heat and teaching duties in Shenzhen was also in order.

*** Trains ***


When you tell someone that you just got off a 27 hour train ride they look at you with pity. They imagine something akin to the 14 hour flight from NYC to Beijing doubled, but without English speakers. Maybe for some people it is - and I've certainly heard people complain about them - but for me it's not even close. It's actually one of the most comfortable modes of traveling.

Your body adjusts getting into them. Your bowels tighten to avoid the squalid bathrooms, your energy levels drop to a level appropriate for being stuck in such a cramped environment. It's the same thing as a stormy Sunday afternoon when all the works done. Your body just prepares itself for the day inside without any expectations of a long walk or much more than reading, looking out the window while sipping tea, or struggling to speak with your "roommates."

Chinese sleeper cars are arranged such that about 2/3's of the width of the car is split into about 10 different "rooms." Each room has six beds, three high, with a small night stand in the middle against the window. Across from each room is a table with two flip-down chairs below the luggage racks. A very narrow hallway, maybe a foot and a half wide, separates the beds from the tables. Get there early so you can put all your luggage on the racks. I was forced to sleep with all my belongings on my first trip because there was no more room for my stuff.

At the end of the cars are small squatter bathrooms unleashing your fury on the tracks below, hot drinking water dispensers for tea and instant noodles, and an ad-hoc smoker's lounge in the shifting passage above the actual connecting hitches of the cars. Every 45 minutes or so ladies come by with carts pitching [Chinese] overpriced baijo, beer, bottled water, instant noodles, and weird Chinese snacks. I accidentally ate dried squid from one of these carts thinking it some sort of shredded beef jerky. You can also jump off the train at longer stops for a quick pre-made dinner of dubious quality, but better than the "dinner" on the trains.

Cramped? Absolutely. Everything in China is, but the difference is that you have a 2.5x6 foot space all to yourself. If you have a middle or top bunk, that is. If you're on a bottom bunk, you unofficially trade off usable access to the night table for exclusive rights to your bed. The folks on top, who don't have the same headroom you have, use the bottom bed as a couch during waking hours. I was lucky to have a middle bunk my first two train rides, but karma caught up and I was the couch-giver on my way down from Beijing.

The beautiful thing about Chinese sleeper trains is that it showcases the true spirit of the Chinese. Food and drink rations become communal. I don't know if it's whether I'm a foreigner or not, but during lunch and dinner random strangers would reach around the wall and hand me a beer. Handfuls of fruits and nuts are always being shoved toward me. I even had one neighbor buy me a dinner in the restaurant car against my will. No matter how hard I tried, they would never take my own rations. It's hard for an American to adjust to the sheer generosity of Asians. You always feel awkward after accepting the gift. You can't not take the gift if you refuse twice and it's still being pushed forward with an eager smile.

The flip side is the innate Chinese curiosity mixed with the lack of any respect for privacy. People walk up and pull down your book to see what you're reading. Some will even try reading a little bit outloud. English-speakers will stop you in whatever your doing - eating, reading, spacing out - to practice their English. Neighbors try to talk with you know matter how much you try to prove you can't speak Chinese. Unlike in the streets, they're infinitely slower so that you have a chance to understand them. I eventually learned to use this as a prop for practicing Chinese by having passengers help me with pronunciations out of my dictionary. I'm not lying when I say I think my command of Chinese improved by 50% in those 50-odd hours.

To be continued...

Tags: Treyopia stories trains train travel China Chinese Tianjin Shenzhen