This is a little exciting

Ma and Pa that's your boy!
http://www.24en.com/subject/luodai/report.php

Hong Kong Sevens

This weekend I went to Hong Kong. Can I describe it in a word? Incredible.

Hong Kong has to be one of the most beautiful cities I've seen. It's
surprising to say that since it's a metropolis of skyscrapers holding
one of the densest groupings of people on the planet. But the skyline
is iconic and reflects off a huge harbour, the streets are clean and
full of character, and there's hiking, mountains, forests and
apparently beaches as soon as you get outside of the city proper. It
looks like a Chinatown in Manhattan, except cleaner.

A big shout-out to Tron brethren Andrew Rizkalla for hosting me around
the city all weekend. Rizkalla works along with many other foreigners
in the huge finance industry here, likely trading more money before
morning coffee than Leshan sees in a decade. I am grateful because
it's an expense place to stay. With one beer costing more than a
top-of-the-line steak dinner in Leshan, three days in Hong Kong equals
weeks....oh lets not do that math.

History: Hong Kong was a British colony up until 1997, when it was
handed back to the Chinese government. That's all you need.

Now Hong Kong is a "specially-administered region" of China that
residents cannot visit without a visa to cross a rather heavy border.
To protect it from itself? But Hong Kong is certainly not China; for
starters there's no incessant honking, no spitting, no overloaded
carts hauled around town, and no smoking in many public places.
What's stranger is to see anti-communist party posters, since the same
government would have you arrested and more for trying that 40 km
north on the mainland.

The weekend centred around a yearly tournament of 7-a-side rugby
played in short games of two 7-minute halves, paradoxically called the
Rugby Sevens. Everything I know about rugby I learned on wikipedia a
few nights before, but it's actually a pretty cool sport. Sort of the
opposite of soccer, and no faked injuries.

We spent most of our time in the South Stand with all the other
dressed up "freaks". My aluminum foil astronaut costume did require a
few field repairs, but paled in comparison to some of the other groups
we saw: teams of Incredibles, Japanese nuclear plant employees (too
soon?), and way too many black swans. Rizkalla's Gaddafi and female
bodyguard trouppe almost led to a few fights with some surprisingly
anti-Gaddafi folks. There was singing and dancing and merriment in
basically a two-day party in the stands. Couple that with a tour of
the free food and drinks in the private boxes and it was definitely
one for the books. I can confirm that I watched one game of rugby
too: Canada wins! (consolation round)

Getting to and from Hong Kong was surprisingly painful as I flew
through Shenzhen, the mainland China boomtown that serves as a cheap
flight alternative to Hong Kong. The flight was only two hours but
add in commute times on either end and it turned into an 11 hour epic
in both directions. I wish I could bore you with the details of my
just-in-time arrival in Leshan, 40 minutes before my first class.
Luck? Never.

Back to reality in Leshan, where, unlike HK, traffic doesn't
necessarily stop if the light is red. We are learning about natural
disasters this week. The discussion does turn to the 2008 Sichuan
earthquake, which had not only a huge destructive effect (well north
of me) but also psychological effect on the province. It's chilling
to hear my students talk about the school shaking for 3 minutes as
they ran outside, or how "I was worried about my relations and
friends".

As a short postscript, I just bought oranges and bananas at a great
price on the way home, and in a totally hassle-free Chinese
conversation. Doesn't get much better than that.

Bamboozled

This weekend I journeyed to the Sichuan Bamboo Sea, a large area of
land designated as a national park, tucked away in the south-eastern
corner of Sichuan province. And as the name suggests, if you're a
bamboo lover (and who isn't these days?) this is the sort of place you
could only dream about. And maybe they filmed Crouching Tiger Hidden
Dragon there!

Bamboo everywhere. Once you get over the initial thrill of massive
bamboo trees bent over the road making almost a bamboo tunnel there's
still a lot to enjoy. Sheer cliffs rise up 700m above the rolling
hills of rice terraces, and from the top the views are impressive if a
bit smoggy. There were impressively high waterfalls, some peaceful
walks through the forest, some lakes. In one area there was a
Buddhist and a Taoist temple carved into the cliff face, so you have
to sort of skirt along the side of the mountain through little doors,
low overhangs, and a cave and there were all these carvings in the
rock. Tough to describe all this but I enjoyed it.

The population in China can be....oppresive, and the Bamboo Forest was
a good place to go to "get away from it all". I'm finding that I like
all the peaceful-temple-in-the-forest stuff not because of appearances
but because those are the only places in China not overrun with
people, noise, pollution, traffic, and people spitting. Even while
biking to the park, there's never anywhere that isn't settled, it's
all obvious farmland so finding a place to sneak a pee always makes me
a little guilty.

I also met another bike friend so had some company while touring
around, and someone to enjoy the wicked winding 15km descent back to
the hotel with. That evening the hotel owner's daughter joined us for
a long tea and, well, there was a lot of Chinese spoken but I think
I'm getting there! The trick is getting people to speak in Mandarin,
and to speak normally to each other. In Sichuan the language of
choice is Sichuanhua, or the Sichuan dialect, which is noticeably
different than Mandarin. Since the biking friend was from the
Cantonese part of China, they had to revert to Mandarin to
communicate. I'm a big believer in learning a language through dinner
table conversations, so it was welcome practice.

I was a little nervous about getting back to Leshan in time. For
starters, buses only run during the day and the last one back was at
4pm Sunday. And I was a good 70 km (3+ hours) bike ride from the bus
station. The school actually deducts money if I miss a lesson which
is sort of unfortunate. So what you can do in a weekend is a little
limited, though I will continue to be creative in my efforts. As it
was, I made it back to the bus station in the large city of Yibin with
about an hour to spare, giving me time for a riverside ride along the
Yangtzee River and a quick jaunt to the massive Wujiangye Liquor City
campus and factory. I don't know if the pictures convey how much this
place felt like Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory.

Anyway, I'm teaching the Seven Wonders of the World this week, and I
was pleased when my class suggested the Bamboo Sea as one of the Seven
Wonders of Sichuan. Worth the trip! They also were impressed by my
photos from Machu Picchu but I think a few of them recognized the
green sweater that I wear everyday to school, and must wonder if I
have any other clothes.

Looks like we got a chilly week up ahead, the combination of rain and
single-digit temperatures is misery on a bike. Where is the fabled
heat with stifling humidity that everyone talks about? Bring it on!

Salt frenzy

I was at the grocery store yesterday, buying a St. Paddy's Day snack
or two. There was a crowd of people gathered around a skid, furiously
tearing open box after box of some small bagged product. I figured it
must be some hell of a deal, so I squeezed my way in and grabbed a
bag. It was salt (I think it was called "Salt for eating"). It must
have been something special, people were filling up shopping carts as
if this was the greatest thing they'd ever seen.

I chanced upon a news article about this. Turns out there is a salt
panic gripping the cities of China as people worry about the salt
supply. Apparently some believe that eating lots of salt will protect
against radiation. People are concerned that the ocean has been
contaminated by the Japanese nuclear crisis to the point where, wait
for it, we will no longer be able to get salt from the ocean. Besides
the fact that the ocean is pretty big, we don't even get salt for
eating from the ocean.
http://english.cntv.cn/program/bizasia/20110318/104052.shtml
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-china-iodine-salt-20110318,0,5821296.story

Sometimes I wonder if China could ever graduate from a single-party
system to the d-word. It's things like this that make me believe it
will never be possible. In three days a rumour has caused a panic
that is almost out of control. Can you imagine if someone gets hurt
because of this? If someone gets a-salt-ed?

Fedex me a cheese!

When I first arrived here I wrote an "Apartment Comforts" list to try
and quantify the things I needed to get so that the apartment would
feel like home. The place isn't a dump, it's rather nice by Chinese
standards, but the six flights of stairs, no heating in the main room,
strange kitchen, squatter toilet and all that were a bit of a
surprise. I think this is called "culture shock". I wittled away at
the list, fixing the water heater, replacing all the dead bulbs,
getting most of the key groceries. This weekend I threw out the list,
having finally procured the last item: a plant.

Actually, there is one thing on the list that I resigned myself to not
finding: cheese. You cannot get cheese here. It's not even a luxury,
it doesn't exist. Street vendors sell a cheese-less pizza bread.
Next time I go to the big city I will check every Western supermarket
I can. What I wouldn't give if one of you could Fedex me a block of
cheese....

This weekend was pretty relaxed, just worked on lesson planning and
exploring Leshan. We finally found the local market, it was less than
a 5 minute bike ride away. Right under our noses the entire time!
One of my favourite aspects of Chinese life is the markets, so full of
colour and energy. Hawkers yelling out their prices, tons of shoppers
milling about, every good and bad smell you can imagine. You can buy
everything from spices to animal bones to furniture. There is fresh
cut fruit and all sort of snacks and freshly baked cakes. And it's
all sort of a game, cause here none of the prices are fixed. The
"initial low-ball offer"? The "walk-away"? So many tactics to try.

There was an earthquake in southwest China on Wednesday, over 1000km
from here but still close enough to spark our interest. We didn't
feel it. I doubt you heard about it, and if you did it was probably
after the press embarked on "Earthquake-mania". It was fairly small,
but in a poorer region, and justifiably overshadowed by the Japanese
disaster.

Like the rest of the world, we are caught up with those poor people in
Japan, the scale of that devastation is shocking. Not nuclear again!
The pictures and videos are mesmerizing, maybe partly due to
lesson-planning procrastination. The prime minister said something
along the lines of: Japan's future will be decided by this crisis.
Those words reverberated with me. Because only after all the fires
are out and the initial dangers are gone can they finally worry about
rebuilding, repowering, and restocking the shelves. Rebuilding, with
a lot of questioning.

So we're rescheduling the natural disasters lesson!

China has been quick to send assistance to Japan, and the China news
agency (appropriately called CCTV), has been covering the crisis
fairly. But there is something here distinctly anti-Japanese. In a
few classes now I've had students call a classmate Japanese as an
insult. They were not happy in one lesson when I used a picture of a
"karate" master, so I quickly changed it to "kung-fu" master. Our
boss has told us to avoid political topics, specifically Tibet and
Japan. Must be a historical sentiment, maybe based on WWII Japanese
occupation (By the way, if you want a disturbing read, take a look at
the Nanking Massacre).

This week I'm teaching professions and school subjects. At the
suggestion of my boss, I'm drawing on my engineering experiences to
give the senior students some practical applications of math. It was
a tough lesson to plan but certainly raised more heads than usual.
I'm learning that the senior students are most likely to perk up
outside the structure of the formal lesson. Today they were the most
active when I just got them to bitch about their different subjects.
The juniors are still young enough to be genuinely interested if they
can follow what I'm saying, so using the powerpoint still works; their
lesson this week ends with a paper airplane "engineering" competition.
It's been a hoot so far, but it will be a miracle if no one gets an
airplane in the eye by the end of the week.

Anyway, got some big weekend plans on the horizon, time to go ticket hunting!

Mary, have you checked the children?

Part of my "Conquer Your Fears" lesson this week involves a scary
story section, where first I tell a scary story and then we try to
build a scary story as a class. On Monday I found that my classes
weren't really impressed with my (true) story about counsellors saving
a camper from a bear attack. Not scary enough eh?

On Tuesday I upped the drama and turned off the lights and used my
scariest voice to deliver a chilling rendition of the beginning of the
1979 film When a Stranger Calls. It's basically the story of a
babysitter who keeps getting scary phone calls, gets the police to
trace the caller, and determines the calls are coming from inside the
house she is sitting.

Well you have never seen a group of 80 kids so captivated. You can
see some of them squirm and even the older kids who would rather sleep
or do homework are watching carefully. Scary stories, a new
development in ESL education! If only I could think of a better
ending, I've decided to remove the murder sections from my tale, so
the ending is a little stale....

Big Big Buddha

This weekend I made the obligatory visit to the Leshan Giant Buddha.
I've sort of forgotten, over my first two weeks here, that Leshan is
much more than just a nice Chinese city where old couples practice
ballroom dancing in the park at night; it's a well-known spot in the
country and on the itineraries of most travellers to the region.
Dafo, as he is translated in Chinese, is the tallest Buddha sculpture
in the world, a UNESCO World Heritage site, and sees tens of thousands
of visitors each year. He's sort of a big deal (ha! puns).

And he was very impressive. His ears are taller than my entire body.
You can get very close, and descend down to his massive feet. Even
more impressive is that he's over a thousand years old.

Unfortunately, Chinese tourists also like to sightsee on Saturdays. I
was concerned standing at the entrance as busload after busload of
tour groups entered the park (usually in matching baseball caps
following a tour guide carrying a flag). Things seemed alright until
we reached Dafo's head: chaos. The lineup looked like something out
of Disneyland. I have advice for anyone going to see the giant
Buddha: go early...

The rest of the afternoon was much calmer, there are other temples and
buildings to explore in a scenic setting overlooking the rivers. We
descended the mountain to find some old tombs and an old bridge.
There were monks chanting, hill-top monasteries, and some nice hiking.
A great time. And worth every penny of my half-price student ticket
(UW student card, the gift that keeps on giving)

Sunday I went off biking in the countryside again, always enjoyable.
Starting to get repetitive pictures, it's as if I'm enticed to stop by
only the same three things: other people's overloaded bicycles,
pollution, and scenic bridges. Part of the ride was along an
above-ground pipeline, reminding me that while I galavant around over
here in China, there are still people fighting hard against corrosion
each and every day, not just back home but across the globe.
Corrosion truly affects us all.

I'm teaching my classes about fears this week. I used my first Far
Side cartoon in class today, I don't know if they got it. But damn
they're funny. Putting together the powerpoint presentation took
longer than expected, partly because you can only use Google Image
Search three times before the firewall shuts you down. Indeed, I've
had no problem reading Western media about the revolutions in the
Middle East and their perceived threat to the Chinese government, but
searching "scary spider pictures" has brought me much frustration.

Also cooked my first meal at home today. Delicious! The start of an
exciting week....

More Visa Concerns

Since entering the country on my Z (working-class) visa, I have 30
days to register as a foreign expert resident (boy have they got it
wrong if they get used to calling me a foreign expert). As if the
visa application process, which ended up delaying my trip by about two
weeks, wasn't enough, the headaches required to work in China
continue.

A representative from the recruiter (who lined up the job for me),
Andy, met me at the bus station at 11am on Friday. We proceeded to
the police station to register me to my address in Leshan.
Unfortunately, Andy did not have the address of the apartment in
Leshan. He also had neglected to consider that the police station
closes for lunch from 12-2pm (siesta?). I pointed out that I had to
teach from 2-4pm, as I had informed him the night before. Good
planning, Andy.

In situations like this, I'm learning that the best response is no
response. Offering suggestions or asking what is going on usually just
results in more confusion. We continue to the PSB, the
scaring-sounding government office that looks over all this sort of
stuff. It's getting awfully close to 2pm and Andy looks like a
dear-in-the-headlights every time I mention that I have to teach. I
give the phone number of my boss at school to Andy, to avoid having
any of this fall on my shoulders. They talk for a minute, and Andy
decisively sends me by taxi back to school.

Finally, after school, I return to the PSB and after some questioning,
some forms, and some money all my documents are accepted. What should
have taken an hour took up all of Andy's day and half of mine.
Hopefully nothing will have gone wrong when I go to pick up my
documents tomorrow (though my boss at school did tell me he received
all sorts of phone calls today from the PSB concerning my residency).
If my day was a bit of a headache, Sean's Tuesday spent getting a visa
extension was absolutely nightmarish in comparison.

This experience sums up two recurring themes in China: paperwork and
confusion. Do the two go hand in hand? Maybe it's too early to jump
to conclusions. However, the pile of evidence grows: Sean and I
walked into a bookstore the other day and said to a salesman the
Chinese word for 'English' (albeit not very well) several times. All
we got back were blank stares. What could two white guys possibly be
looking for in a bookstore?

All fun and games usually. Except a few weeks ago when I went to pick
up my passport that my recruiter had left at a hostel for me. "We
don't have your passport, a man picked it up". Imagine my surprise at
hearing this! (It all worked out, but you could almost see the steam
coming out of my ears).

Anyway, some frustration. Great place though. And soon I'll be a
resident and all visa worries will finally be over.