What A Week

This week has been a particularly interesting week around these parts for a few reasons.

1) I got a package from my brother and sister in the US, giving me a much needed restock of North America food supplies. they are not only delicious, but also aid me in avoiding catcalls by staying in my apartment for food, help my tummy-tums from getting too gurgly-googly, and help me to maintain my westernacity, something that is key to China allowing me to stay here.

The package also contained a huge selection of promotional CD's from Paste Magazine containing new music from various artists. This was like gold as I have been here for two years with only a two week sojourn back home in between. That whole time I have only supplemented the music collection I brought over with me with a large amount of bad Chinese pop and R&B songs that I learn to sing in order to improve my Chinese and entertain my students. This situation has lead to a bit of stagnation in my brain functions. The new influx of music will undoubtedly help my mental health, and also sets me up to have a sick party with all of my Chinese friends who are into the Indie music scene. That party will amount to me alone on a Saturday night listening to the CD's in my underwear, eating a snickers bar and drinking a half liter of Immense beer(no matter what that sounds like to you, to me it sounds AWESOME). I have yet to discover many Chinese friends that have a fondness for music that doesn't contain a heavy dose of electonic synthesizer. I swear when John Tesh cracks the Chinese music scene in five years he will become a god here.

2)I was finally able to capture on film something that I have been trying to capture for months, that being a child peeing on the street. This phenomenon, though common, is remarkably hard to photograph. The reason is simply because I feel bad doing it. I know from living here how embarrassing it is to have people staring at you, and taking a picture of that action would undoubtedly make the people doing it feel awkward. My goal has been to get a picture, since it is literally something I see about ten times a day, without anyone seeing me do it. The problem is that everyone stares at me while I am out, so it is unbelievably hard. Mothers often hold their children while they pee to make sure that they don't get any urine on themselves. A husband that sees me walking down the street will not hesitate to tap his wife on the shoulder and point me out, and the two, along with their sons baby penus, will continue to stare at me until I pass them by, ruining any chance that I had at a covert photo op...

Enter my new camera phone...

Now I can pretend I am sending a text message while actually taking pictures, and so today while waiting for a friend in front of a supermarket I was able to snap this shot...

This is not the clearest shot, and so my quest will continue, but at least you can get the idea. The best part about this picture was the process of taking. The reason I was able to snap this shot is because five minutes before taking this photo there was a girl who must have been 8 or 9 who dropped trow(sp?) right in front of me and began pissing, I fumbled for my phone and by the time I had it out and converted into camera mode she was already in her dad's car and they were pulling away. I thought I could find some consolation by taking a pic of the urine on the sidewalk and explaining the situation, but right as I was walking up to take a closer look a new car pulled in, and right as they hopped out the boy started to squat down to pee. The time was mine! The mother screamed at him "If you want to pee take off your pants!!" went over to help him out, and I giggled with delight at the opportunity I had stumbled upon. I still had to play it cool though since the father of the family got out of the car and immediately began staring at me. If you look closely you can see a few feet in front of the mom and son there is a wet patch, and that is the area that the girl had just peed not five minutes before.

3) This week while walking I saw a man going down the street here who apparently had seen my blog on pollution here in Zaozhuang and decided to develop a new futuristic low exhaust vehicle to help combat the problem of air pollution:

Not the fastest of vehicles, but it does help save on fuel.

And finally 4) Something occurred in the lines of an election somewhere or something??

Yes, this week the US presidential elections took place, one of the few national elections that becomes the focus of pretty intense international scrutiny. It is always fun to watch the election festivities from a foreign country for a variety of reasons. One being the media coverage in foreign countries is, of course, decidedly different. While in the US it is easy to get caught up in the mayhem of the 24 hour news networks coverage of things, that constant droning of often useless information which creates a difficult atmosphere to see issues clearly, or even to form a personal opinion, the media coverage in China has a lot less distractions. Here the news provides a lot less superfluous information, a lot less graphics, and a lot less shouting, thus making for a more tranquil environment to get a grasp of the important issues surrounding the election. But the media coverage in China also has topics of discussion that would never be heard in the US, especially during this election.

What I was most surprised about with the news coverage of the American elections here was the sheer amount of coverage that there has been. I watch the news every morning when I wake up before I go to work, and Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday morning of this week the first ten to fifteen minutes of the national news was totally dedicated to the American election. In addition, over the past two weeks the US election has been the top news story on Baidu news (Baidu is China's equivalent to Google) as much or more than any national stories. What really blew my mind was I was reading one article that was saying that the media coverage and national vigilance of the election this year was actually less than usual, and paled in comparison to some previous elections, the 1980, 92, and 2000 elections to name a few. This has been attributed to the fact that with the rise of China's international prominence the US election won't have as great an effect on the situation here as it used to.

Imagine an equivalent in the United States. Imagine if the nightly news or the Today show gave significant amount of news coverage for a week to the political process of a foreign country. It is something that simply doesn't, and probably never will, happen. I saw a Daily Show segment a couple of weeks ago where one of the correspondents compared the US to a really hot girl that all the guy countries want to fuck and all the girl countries are jealous of. Watching the foreign media's coverage of the US election I have to say that the metaphor seems quite appropriate. The US, like a really hot girl, is on the one hand annoyingly arrogant and self centered, but on the other hand mysteriously beautiful and alluring, both in spite of and because of it's arrogance. Living in China I have discovered that most of the older citizens I meet and even many of my students dislike some parts of US culture, and especially dislike it's foreign policies, yet at the same time are strangely attracted to me, to get to know me better, to learn more about English, and to learn more about what life in the United States is like.

Though, I do have to say that given the current international climate I would compare the US more to that same hot, popular girl in high school the summer after freshman year of college. She has put on ten to fifteen pounds, is still quite arrogant, not quite as attractive as she used to be, and she has more vices, including drinking. China is like a diligent nerdy guy from that same high school that used to view the US as an attractive, yet unattainable dream, who after freshman year of college discovered that being smart and studious is actually a positive quality, has gained confidence and some much needed social skills. Now China finds itself at a party talking with the US, and the US is wrecked. China's all the sudden thinking, "hey, I've got a chance." (look at the trade deficit info below)

This election has been historic in large part due to the racial element. It has been interesting seeing Chinese reactions to the election of an African American as President. The reactions have been varied. One thing that I have noticed over my years of living abroad is how quick citizens of foreign countries are to point out the problem of racial discrimination in the United States. I agree that the United States has a terrible history of racial prejudice and it is something that is important to contemplate in order to try and help all of humanity move on in the direction of a more tolerant society. The problem is that almost every country I have been in talks about the United States as though racial prejudice is unique to that region. Citizens of a given nation always seem to be unable to admit intolerance within their own country. The United States has many grotesque and blatant examples of intolerance, but that all comes from the fact that it is a country that has mixed together in its borders a remarkably diverse population. The United States has also, unlike many other countries, made some attempts at facing up to the mistakes of its past. In doing so it has left itself open to criticism from foreign countries who have little racial diversity, but has also paved the way for a country with some of the most tolerant areas I have ever lived in, along with the ability to elect a minority to it's highest office.

China often talks about how it is a diverse nation, boasting that it has 56 ethnic groups that live peacefully together. It is true that China is diverse in it's own way, but this diversity cannot be compared with that of the Untied States. China is diverse in the way western Europe was diverse 100 years ago. Though there are many different ethnic groups living in it's border who speak distinct languages or dialects, They are lacking in general large scale racial and religious diversity. Almost every ethnic group in China, with the exceptions of the Uigur minority from Xinjiang province and Tibetans, have relatively similar physical features, including black hair, what is referred to here as "yellow" skin, and brown eyes(the features that are so common that, as I have mentioned in an earlier blog, have been lauded in a number of popular songs). This leads to a modern environment where one white man walking the streets of a smaller city can habitually cause people to point, gawk, and giggle, and even yell. I won't even mention some of the comments that I have heard about black people here. Yet I am constantly lectured about the problems that the United States has with with it's race relations.

I watched a television interview on CCTV earlier this week after Obama had won. A reporter was interviewing two professors from two of the most famous Universities in China. One of the professors was from Beijing University, the University that is generally accepted as the best in the nation. When the reporter asked this professor what he thought of the significance of the election of the US's first ever African American President, he responded (and I paraphrase) " It is historic, but really, I like to say that Obama is a black man in appearance with a white gene." The reporter stopped for a second and asked the professor to elaborate. He responded, "He has the appearance of a black man, but in his actions and political thoughts he is just like a white man. And lets not forget the fact that he is not 100% black, his mother is a white woman." This is coming from a professor at the most respected University in the nation, being broadcast on national television. I was pretty blown away, and I am not entirely sure what he was trying to prove, but I can only assume that his purpose was to downplay the importance of the American's breaking of the Presidential color barrier. I can only assume that this man has met about 0 black people in his life. Just the fact that talk like that is accepted on TV here speaks volumes, because let's not forget that CCTV is government sponsored, so the reporters and interviewees are not supposed to make asses out of themselves like people are cable networks in the United States.

I have also been intrigued with the discussion of how this race will effect Sino-American relations. In general the populace of China, or at least the students, have been overwhelmingly in support of Obama. This stems mainly from the fact that 1) he is black and they sympathize with the plight of minorities in the US (How many non-male non-Han people have been President, or any other major governmental position in China?) and 2)because the general populace here hates Bush. They see the Democratic party candidate as the "anti-bush," which remains to be seen. But that is the general populace. What has been interesting has been reading some of the op-ed articles in the Chinese newspapers, where I have been reading a few authors writing that McCain would be the better candidate because of his experience, and that the world would probably be safer with him in office. Words that strikingly echo those of the McCain campaign itself.

The truth is that the Chinese government has to be pretty sad to see Bush go. He has been like a gift from the gods for the leaders of China. Bush's foreign policy has given them plenty of fodder for criticism, and helped them to be able create a general anti-American sentiment throughout the country. The "war on terror" has given the government a premise to tranquilly go about hunting down enemies of the government. And Bush's economic policies have created such an enormous debt to China that the US's position in relation to the people's republic has suddenly become unfavorable. When reading articles that talk about the way that Obama's election will influence Sino-American relations the general thoughts are that it will have little influence in general since Obama is interested in keeping relations amiable, but that the focus of the relationship will shift away from foreign war issues and business relations to human rights and environmental issues, as well as a focus on eliminating the huge trade deficit the US currently has with China. While that might sound good to some people, not exactly what the CPC wants to hear.

Regardless of what anyone believes politically, this election has certainly been a hugely important one for the US and the world. I don't believe that Barack Obama will dramatically change the landscape of United States politics. Even if he really wanted to our political system and the 46 percent of Americans that didn't vote for him won't allow it to happen(that said, just becoming a bit more moderate and reserved than the Bush administration's policies will be a relatively great change). Yet his election has had some very positive consequences, mainly that of dramatically improving the image of the United States in the international community in just a matter of one week. Not only does it signal that the United States itself has accepted that many of the policies of the last eight years were a mistake(which is pretty important given the fact that much of the world has seen the Bush adminstration as a sort of extremist regime), but it also shown that the US has the confidence and tolerance to do something that nearly no other country in the world is capable of doing, electing a minority to lead it.

I was recently reading a friends blog where he was reflecting on the election, he mentioned how only in the wake of Obama's victory was he able to sort of reflect and realize how hard the last eight years have truly been. He had come to realize the fact that for a long time he had been living with a sort of dark cynicism that he was finally beginning to awaken from. He also mentioned how he has been somewhat hesitant to tell people that he was American due to its reputation abroad, and how maddening that is to be a bit embarrassed of where you come from. That struck a chord with me in a lot of ways. Starting in the year 2001 I have lived outside of the United States for five years, and the whole time I have been fairly uncomfortable discussing my home country. This is largely due to the fact that all that has been done by the government representing the people of the United States over that time has been very difficult for those coming from an outside perspective to understand. It does not help matters that I have found the policies utterly indefensible. I have often had to helplessly listen to groups of people around me rail on the US while I would vainly attempt to describe the parts of the United States I thought were admirable(namely the tolerance and free thought that can be found in many areas there) without having any real hard evidence to back my claims. The election of Obama is irrefutable proof that, despite all of mistakes the United States has made, despite all of the terrible injustices that citizens of the US have had to endure and still do endure, those experiences along with the remarkable diversity of the United States has helped to create an society that is becoming increasingly more progressive and tolerant(though I am still pissed about Prop 8), and in some areas already is wonderfully so. An environment where that very tolerance and diversity can produce some very beautiful things. For the first time in my adult life I have a solid, substantive reason, beyond just a feeling, to be proud to be from the United States.

But patriotism is overrated in my book anyway. Too often it is used as an excuse to be selfish. I was amazed this week to see how much coverage that the US election was getting in China. The fact is that the US is the focus of so much attention in so many countries all over the world. The reason is because of its stature and policies the US has a great influence over the whole world. The United States elections (disregarding the more serious corporeal influence our foreign policy can have in certain areas of the world)have the ability to create grudging resentment, or inspire millions. I can only hope that that might mean that the citizens of the US can take the challenge and the responsibility that that sort of position entails and step to the polls with more in mind than how much is in their wallet.

Happy Halloween！

Here we are, partying our faces off!! This is the party table at the front, serving water of course, like all sick parties do, gotta stay hydrated!


Halloween has come and gone, and as I look over facebook and see all of the pictures from American Halloween (I think that there is like a 700 percent increase in picture posting the weekend of halloween, unreal) I gotta say that despite the fun of an American Halloween, I am glad that this year I was in the People's Republic. Halloween might not be a traditional Chinese holiday, but they are learning how to perfect it with just the right combination of song, rollerskating, and forced interaction to make the holiday special. Our party was off the f--in' hook, as shown by the picture above that shows us getting warmed up for the hardcore partying that would occur. First let's take a trip through all of the craziest costumes that I saw on the evening to get an idea of the scene.

Joe and Carolyn, two of the other foreign teachers dressed up in some classic outfits that they brought back from the US. Can you guess my outfit? I'll let you know in a bit. This picture was taken during a 15 minute savage photo shoot when we first arrived in which we were surrounded by people, the ones behind watching, and the ones in front snapping. You can see how the person who took this picture couldn't help but get a piece of another person they were closely pressed up against to the right of them. I was getting majorly fidgety and frustrated during this session as I was feeling likely a mixture between a member of 98 Degrees, and King Kong.



Here is a costume that is more on par with what we saw for the evening:
Trannies

And that was about it. No one was dressed up, they just came to party and take pictures of other people dressed up. I had multiple people ask me why I didn't dress up, I responded that I had, and they didn't believe me, because to them a costume needs a mask. One girl even came up to me with a ghost mask and asked me if I wanted it, as though I would feel out of the loop if I didn't dress up.

And suddenly, the party began. Some boys from the Bio department decided to whiz in and show the English majors (90% girls) what studying life science is all about, with this, the first performance...





I never knew being a bio major was so f--in' hot!! Following these guys there were a few more standard party performances. One was a couple of girls singing an English song. Another was a group of 'bladers rollerblading to techno, which sounds a lot more awesome than it was. Before I knew it I was up. I knew I had to sing a song for the party, so I needed to choose a music star to be my costume. I wracked my brain to come up with a suitable singer/musician that could be a suitable representation for the whole of western music, and western culture in general, and finally only one name came to mind, that man is clearly Michael Bolton: (special thanks to the Nichol's and Beal Juke Box, without which I would have never remembered this beautiful little diddy)



Separated at birth?? To Chinese vieweres we look remarkably alike, which is sweet. Actually I only decided to be late 90's Bolton when my original plan of being flowing locks Bolton failed horribly as seen below...

Now lets take a listen of what transpired...




Funny thing about singing Michael Bolton in front of a huge gymnasium full of people is that it is a lot different than singing Michael Bolton alone in your apartment. Alone in your apartment you might be able to kid yourself into thinking that you have the heat, the passion, that steely glint in your eye to pull off a funny Bolton imitation. I got out there ready to blow everyone away and realized almost immediately that my voice had no where near enough bold sexuality to handle Bolton's song... maybe if I had worn the glittering wig. I even scared the living daylights out of that poor girl who kept bringing out the ballons to me (Which I just kept tossing up in the air as I became inebriated with the power of Bolton's rock. ) when I made my valiant attempt at imitating Bolton's end of song falsetto. That noise ended up sounding a lot more like one of the cackles you hear coming out of a cheesey haunted house around Halloween, so at least I hit the venue right. Though my version couldn't reach the levels of the true Bolton, I still managed to set a cuttingly sexy mood that made more than one student uncomfortable, a mood that had everyone wishing they were wearing masks and dancing ballroom style right before a huge orgy, like in "Eyes Wide Shut." And then, this happened...




This is Helen. If you have read this blog before you might already know her for her killer panda jokes. Helen is the fourth English speaking foreign teacher at our school, she is nearly seventy years old, refuses to talk with me (even when I say hello to her while passing her on the street and looking her in the eye), and has a penchant for booze(and like a good friend of mine once said, there is nothing hotter than older ladies who love to booze). Before this performance she indulged in a few, as I could smell it on her breath when she was sitting next to me at the party table. You can't quite catch the first thing she said when she went riding out on the broom, but it was"I am a Canadian Witch!"(dead serious) At which point I had to fight to stifle my laughter.

We made it through the games that she taught them how to play, and then it came time in the program for what was known as "Social Dancing," or directly translated from Chinese "Make friends dancing." I saw this on the program and immediately knew that it would be when I would have to make my exit. I knew that it would end up being a situation where the leaders would try to get everyone involved, and that no one would want to be involved, and it would turn into a huge awkward fest in which they would turn to the foreign teachers for dancing partners. But being the hard-nosed reporter that I am I stuck through the beginning of the Social Dancing to be able to document it, and see what it really was. It began in this fashion. The two MC's started telling everyone to dance, which of course, no one did. Then they put people on stage to dance and had students sing. The first few songs were like this...



Fun or what?! Then after about three songs they decided to turn down the lights, switch to R&B and get the party back to the mood it was in right after Bolton rocked everyone to the point they wanted to take off their outer-most layer of clothing. The leaders of the party kept sending freshman students out into the crowd to dance amongst them to force people into the mood. The MC's continued to yell at people to dance. Students kept coming up to me and asking me "why aren't you dancing?" "Why aren't you talking with people?" to the point that I finally made my famous claim that I make at all parties, that I was "very tired." and made my way to the bathroom before gracefully sneaking out the back door. But before I left all of the harrassment had become successful, some students left, but those that stayed were in freak mode by the end...


What did I say before about "Eyes Wide Shut?!" Needless to say that 5 minutes later, while I was making my way home in the cold, dark night, the group sex began.... and another successful Halloween is in the books

Alright, Let's Talk Pollution:

Me 4 years ago in Qufu with sweet ass hair, contemplating the processes that had occured to transform this waterhole into a cesspool over the time I lived there. All that green and trash is covering water. I immediately tore off my clothes and went swimming.

Campus businesses start pumping the coal early in the morning to power their shops.

Yesterday I was walking down the street in Zaozhaung central just to get out of campus, which is becoming a bit claustrophobic as I meet more and mroe people. As I was walking down the street I looked up and saw a girl riding her bike, crying as she pedaled along. I felt terrible. Really, is there anything worse than seeing a lonely soul by themselves in public who are so overcome with grief or frustration that they cannot control their emotions? It seems to be a fairly habitual thing in NYC, as I have seen separate people on the same subway trip crying to themselves as they ride. Yet I can't help but feeling terrible everytime I see it. What could possibly have happened that would make their emotions so uncontrollable that they can't simply wait to get home and cry themselves to sleep as I do nearly every night(Oops, did I just let that out?)?

As I was pondering the misery of that poor girl I continued to look at on coming traffic and noticed something peculiar. Many people were covering their mouths and reaching for their eyes in pain. For a moment I was really concerned before I began to realize what was really happening. The local bike commuters were not having problems combatting their emotions, as I had originally thought, they were instead combatting a much more sinister foe, the particualte matter in the air itself. I often wear sunglasses during evening bike rides here also just to shield my eyes from all of the dirt and debris.

This episode got me thinking about the environment here, like a lot of things do. In the months leading up to the Olympics Americans were treated to thousands of news articles about the terrible environmental problems of China. I have been a little hesitant to talk about the environmental problems here. Too often when referring to the environmental issues of China people talk about it as though this country is singularly brazen and malignant in its actions. This ignores a few important facts.

One is that China and the US are ranked 1 and 2 in the world respectively in coal consumption, with the US trailing China by a relatively narrow margin. They are also ranked one and two in oil consumption, with the US being number one, consuming more than three times as much oil per day as China. It is pretty hypocritical for Americans to talk about China's voracious appetite for energy. The US got away with developing its country utilizing unlimited amounts of coal and oil simply because it did it first. Second, Many of the drastic problems that China is facing is more related to the population issue than their environmental policies, and it is simply childish and stupid to blame a largely agricultural based society for having a large population(Especially when they were encouraged by the Mao government in the 50's to have more children, saying, "the larger the population China has, the stronger it grows." That is a healthy vision). And Thirdly, many of the Chinese people, in some ways, are more environmentally conscience than Americans. This doesn't come from any innate sense of respect for the earth so much as it comes from the realities of economics. Poor families tend to conserve more because they understand limitations, and often conservative use of materials saves money. People here care about using very little water, turning off lights in a room they are not occupying, and fully utilizing all parts of animals for food, because it is the most economical way to live. I have literally talked with some people here for half an hour about the environmental problems of China, and then heard them say, "oh, you know what I miss so much about home, is being able to take, like, a 20 minutes shower without running out of hot water!!" At this point I fail to control the reflex to give them an open palmed slap to the face.

These misunderstandings aside, I think that it is important to discuss the environmental problems around here because the situation is pretty critical. Most of the focus in the western media has been on the large metropolis' of Shanghai and Beijing, since those are the regions with the most westerners, and also a region in which Beijing claimed to be having the first ever "green" Olympics. Everytime I heard that I wanted to laugh or cry or spit or something. Anyway, what I think is even more telling about the environmental situation here is the life in smaller towns. Large cities all around the world have problems with pollution, what is startling here is the obvious environmental degradation that is occurring even in the countrysides, where it even seems that the greens are a little less green and the water seems a little, well...

To be honest, this is Shanghai, the rest of the pics are all Qufu and Zaozhuang

There are so many clear examples, and so I will go over the major issues and just try to show some pictures to illustrate it. The most obvious problem that I see is the incredible accumulation of garbage that is everywhere. Littering is normal here and when there is as many people as there are here it can be devastating. Just yesterday I was riding on a bus back home after walking around town and saw a college student open up the window of the bus and toss out the wrapper of the chocolate she had just eaten. No one looks twice, because many people do it, there are no fines or even advertisements to prevent littering in the provincial areas. and it has its clear effects. Here are two pictures taken from the exact same field, one from a distance, the other up close and personal.

A street right beside the campus here, well outside of the city limits:

Everything that is not green or brown in the picture is all garbage, and the smell of this area convered in wet garbage is priceless. Here is a random street corner as I was walking to a friends house one evening.

and here is my personal favorite:

The sign on the tree says on it, "Disposing of garbage in this area is prohibited." This illustrates perfectly the success of the limited efforts at controlling littering in this area.

But garbage on the streets, while gross, is not the only form of pollution that I am confronted withon a daily basis. This last weekend while in Qufu I was discussing with the other American teachers apartment maintenance, and one of the biggest problems plaguing everyone trying to keep our floors clean. Dust accumulation happens at an uncanny rate here, all thanks to the fact that all of our campuses are powered by coal!

Isn't that gorgeous, our local coal fields at the University

Coal, what a wonderful thing, just looking at it you know that you are looking at something that is meant to make you sick. Not only does it power your college campus, but I also go down there when I don't have anything good to eat in my apartment, put it in a bowl, pour some milk in and have a delicious breakfast treat. My first year in China I was plagued by a cough that wouldn't go away, and would occasionally cough up balls of phlemb with specs of black in it(MMM). Three years later I can take solace in the fact that my body, like that of a smoker, has adjusted to the levels of coal dust in the air. I still, however, wake up and have to blow my nose almost every morning, and am amazed by how black the kleenex is after blowing. It is really mindlblowing to live in the countryside and still be concerned with air pollution. Yet I am reminded of the difficulties every morning when I wake up at 530 am to the sound of men shoveling coal into the back of their truck to use to power their restaurant for the day. It is even clearly visible, take a look of these pictures. One is taken the day after a rain storm cleaned the air a bit, and the second is taken on a random day this fall that I decided to climb the mountain:

The building in the lower right hand corner of the first picture is the same building as the large one in the middle of the second picture. The finger in the upper left hand corner of the second picture is reference to my incredible ineptitude in picture taking. Both days have a bit of sun, and you can see that neither is perfectly clear, yet the second picture is clearly murkier. Another look:

One more look directly at the campus:

And there are other issues also that I have mentioned before and will surely continue to mention, such as the water pollution that doesn't allow me to drink tap water here and has me eating worm medication, or the insane noise pollution that has me more annoyed than anything else.

I hope that people can see this and not just think, "Whoa China's pretty f$%#ed up." The problems that are occuring in China occur everywhere, and the methods by which China becomes polluted are learned from the countries that pioneered modern industrialization. The environmental difficulties in China are only more clear because it is a rapidly developing nation that is heavily overpopulated. I hope that the clear signs of environmental degradation in China can more be a wake up call for everyone to pay more attention to environmental issues rather than a catalyst for criticism of a country, a people, or a political system as it often seems to be when I read about it through certain media outlets.

Da Jing Xiao Guai (Much Ado About Nothing)

Whoa, it's been a while since I hit up the blog. Time to get used to doing this again. I had to take a break recently because life has gotten crazy with nothing in particular. Now, with no real aim in mind, allow me to chronicle what has been occurring in Shandong Zaozhaung recently, as it is, if nothing else, amusing.

You know alot of people might get busy with endless hours of work, or trying to care for their family. That isn't me. I am unmarried, have no children (That I know about, yeah!) and my official work hours are not excessive. Yet I still find myself racing around busy and tired most of the time. This is because of all of the different "very easy" chores that I am asked to do by co-workers, bosses, and students. (There is no more annoying phrase in the world than, "I think it is very easy for you." Even if it is easy for me, don't tell me that it is easy and make me feel guilty on the one hand, and fear failure on the other) Two random tasks are on my mind at the moment, so let me discuss those a bit:

To start, interviews: This is one of the weird things of living over here, my quasi-celebrity status that I have done absolutely nothing to deserve. Granted I do occasionally rock the stage with a stirring Chinese Pop performance or Backstreet boys song, but I think that more qualifies me for a brutal beating than celebrity. Over my years in China I have been interviewed more times than I can remember, by a number of different groups, from local television stations to school newspapers. This may seem to be an interesting experience, and it could be, if the interviews that I took part in were ever meant to be in depth, or even in the least bit different. But most of the creativity and depth of interviews can be taken out by censorship policies, along with the care that my hosts try to take to not offend me. Let me take you through a typical interview to give you an idea.

To start out the interviews people will usually get me excited, explaining that the purpose of the interview is to examine American and Chinese culture. I enjoy doing this and so I would love to have a good conversation with someone about similarities and important differences between the cultures, and perhaps even some common misunderstandings. I will usually allow myself a bit of hope, thinking that perhaps this time the interview might be different. Then after buttering me up they bring the first question:

"Do you like Chinese food?"

An awkward moment of silence follows as I try to wrap my mind around the complexity of the question. There are so many directions I could go with it, originally my inclination is to go with, "excuse me?" But at the last moment a better answer comes to me and I respond,

"Yes."

This is met with a series of nods and smiles and a follow up,

"What is your favorite Chinese food?"

"Well I'm not sure, I have been here a long time and I like a number of different things, its hard for me to pick one favorite."

This answer doesn't get the same enthusiastic response from my interviewers, they need facts, I am straddling the fence here on the issue, and they need to get to the heart of it. They try a new direction,

"What about Dumplings?"

"Yeah, I like dumplings, I don't know if they are my..." at this point my answer is already confirmed, my favorite Chinese food is dumplings. Its the funny thing about asking questions that are unimportant, the answers become unimportant also, and so none of us really care about the outcome, the important thing is that time or space is taken up in a news report somewhere.

Moving on,

"Do you like Chinese culture?" or "Do you like China?" This is such an interesting question, because it is so simple, and yet says so much. This is the million dollar question that is asked of thousands of foreigner visitors to China every year, and plastered around the CCTV networks on a weekly basis in what I can only assume is a move to boost moral. First of all, how on earth is a coherent and thoughtful person supposed to answer that question? Second, why is it necessary to constantly watch foreigners praise the country you love? China is so clearly an interesting, culturally rich, and beautiful country, it should not be necessary to look outside for fulfillment. I don't care how many Newsweek articles I see on the culture of humiliation in China, I still can't understand how watching people answer set-up puffball questions can help improve a self image. My response?

"Of course, I have been living here for a long time, met a lot of great friends, people are so friendly, it's a wonderful place!" Add me to the list of soundbites baby!

Next question: This one will usually vary depending on the reason I am being interviewed. If I am being interviewed by the school the question will undoubtedly be, "How can we students improve our English more quickly?" I won't get into the details of that answer right now but I will just say that, guaranteed, by the end of the interview everyone in the room is speaking fluent English.

If it is not the school I could be getting asked about a number of things, from my opinions of the party I just watched, to what I think about Chinese folk art. I was interviewed twice by local television stations in the preview to the Olympics as two different men's "foreign friend." (I have so many friends, isn't it great?) The only reason that I knew them is because I can speak Chinese, am foreign, and they had something to do with the organization of the Olympic games. So people were like, "well, foreigners are in the Olympics, and you know... you get it right?..." I went to a few dinner's with both of the gentlemen, even sang some songs together to consummate our friendship and have not heard from them since the Olympics ended. But really at the time we were tight! In those circumstances I was asked to describe my relationship to my close friends. Phenomenal nonsense would ensue, but it would be pleasing to the public, and thats what is important. In one interview I was told to pretend I was a student of Kung fu ( the man was one of the organizers of the Olympics Wushu events)and was literally filmed doing this move as proof of my kung fu prowess...

Don't let the video fool you, I filmed this in my apartment and thus had to give an extremely controlled and slowed down version of my move, but I can assure that if I were outdoors or in a dangerous situation the power of my scream and the force of my blow would increase dramatically. Anyone standing very still directly in front of me or anyone with very sensitive eardrums would be at my mercy.

The final question in an interview will then usually once again be a call for a soundbite praising the People's Republic. Before the Olympics it was typically, "What sort of a good wish do you have for the Olympic games?" Where the correct answer was usually, "Jia You Beijing!"(Fire it up Beijing!) Now in my most recent interview I was asked what I thought about the response of the Beijing Government in the wake of the devastating earthquake in Sichuan province. I love the way that in certain circumstances it is wrong to refer to tragedies for some sort of political or personal gain, and other times it is just so right.

So I have lost a taste for interviews as time has gone on, and in turn have become a worse interviewee. People don't like to print or film what I say anymore because I have trouble spitting out the responses everyone wants to hear. It is just so interesting that the only questions that I am asked that treat me like a full grown adult have correct answers.

Other things that have been keeping me busy in ways I have no interest in being involved in... Standardized tests!! Yippeee! I won't even get into how ridiculous I think the standardized tests are, I think there are many people who sympathize, but taking a standardized test in China has been so much more difficult than I would have imagined. There is no online paying system developed yet here, so just paying for the exam was a frustrating endeavor, where I was made to wait in endless lines at multiple banks beofre finally succeeding.

Then in order to take the exam I have to take a 4 hour bus trip to the largest city in the province and spend a night there. The four hour bus trip is a pain in itself, but the worst part is that the city I am travelling to is Jinan.

A friend of mine once compared Jinan to Detroit, and I enjoyed this comparison. Now I don't know much about the city of Detroit and so I am sorry to those who love the city if they find this comparison insulting, but I know that Detroit does have the reputation of a tough city, and I would definitely use the term "tough city" to describe Jinan. The best way I can describe my feelings about Jinan is that I feel as though it has an endless supply of broken down unused train tracks, and as I walk down the street there I feel 100% more likely to get randomly hit in the back of the head with a crowbar.

Jinan is always a trip of endless frustration, people yell at me from different directions, somtimes in order get me to be their friend, sometimes to teach in their school, sometimes to get their freidsn to chuckle. But most of the time in Jinan people are yelling at you purely because they want you endless supply of foreign money. People sell you bottles of water for double the price, you have to negotiate with cabbies in order for them to use the meeter. My blood pressure doubles when I am inside the city limits. But this time around I did see a couple of interesting things. One was upon my arrival to take the exam on Saturday morning...

While probably half of the people in this area were people 30 or older, there still was a huge number of students out there at 7:30 Am on a Saturday. There is considerably less drinking and partying that goes on among students on Chinese campuses, as their dormitories are basically on lockdown(Boys and girls live in separate dorms, and each dorm has a guard at the door). The combination of early curfews and sexual frustration must also lead to early morning hoops, or jogging, which is no doubt healthier for the body than a 12 pack of Genny Cream Ale, four slices of greasy pizza, and sexual frustration, which more characterized my college life.

I busted out of Jinan as quick as possible with only a slight pause for a short yet passionate embrace in the loving arms of Pizza Hut ( a little light on the cheese this time, but I'm still yours my lady) and took a quick detour back to my old stomping grounds, Qufu. Qufu is a very small town in Shandong province that is the hometown of Confucius. The town is interesting and maddening in many different ways, and I have a sort of love-hate relationship with it. But this weekend I was loving it since I was just blowing through town to visit friends. I was also able to hang with a group of Waiguos, which was a great release. There are times you just have to let your Waiguo hang out. Qufu has a relatively large group of foreign teachers, mostly recent grads from my alma mater, Skidmore. The teachers over there are very cool, and afforded me much hospitality in treating me to an evening in which I could actually act American. The night's festivities included drinking games, mixed drinks, a spontaneous outbreak of the Macarena (I have a video of this but in respect to the participants in said dance I will refrain from putting it on the internet) and SCORPION WINE.

This little gem is pure genius. Scorpion wine is a Chinese alcohol that is fermented with scorpions. I am not sure if you can see it in the picture but there is a small scorpion in the bottom of each bottle. So what do you get when you mix Baijiu with scorpion venom? An interesting concoction that tastes like a scorpion just stung you in the eyeball and has the properties to PREVENT CANCER. That's right, it is a cancer preventing hard alcohol. It's so simple, yet it took 5000 years of cultural history to produce. Any day now they will be coming up with vitamin filled cigarrettes. The box of this liquor is full of explanations of the health benefits of the alcohol and is interesting to read. I decided to take it at its word and drank the whole bottle, and from my scientific examination I found that the side-effects of cancer prevention feel an awful lot like a ridiculously bad hangover. Never would have known.

So now I am back in the Zhuang, with no more interviews, and no tests for another month. Thats the way I like it, giving me time to ponder the deepest questions of life, and continue to write meaningless blogs.

This weekend we have a sick Halloween party, where no doubt there will be some crazy, sexy costumes, and some vocal sweetness in the form of Mr. John's greatest hits. I can't wait.

For Your Listening Pleasure

I am a bit late on noticing this broadcast from NPR, but I think that it is an interesting one. It helps to explain the strange position that Chinese and Chinese Americans are forced to live in with relation to the culture and country of their heritage and the United States. Living a sort of life between cultures, in some ways similar to my life over here.

It is an interview with a Chinese activist who has left China due to persecution and a Chinese American who partook in the Olympic Torch Relay in SF. This is talking mostly about the lead up to the Olympics, but encompasses a number of topics that are important to Chinese, Chinese-Americans, and all Americans.