It's about time I wrote something here

Hallo from Lanzhou, capital of Gansu province, pretty much the middle of China. When I say "hallo" i mean it, I've been walking around town for a while, and it's one of those towns that when they see foreigners they either: 1. scream "HALLO" 2. shout and point "lao wai!" [foreigner] 3. just talk about me and giggle that I am there. This gets old fast. Makes me miss the not caring who you are in Beijing. But, this town is the jumping off point for seeing many cultural relics, and as it is the May 1 holiday, its time to get out of the city [which is infested with tourists anyway] and travel. I am meeting my friends tonight in this town, we will first venture south of here, then north to Dunhuang, [a short overnight train and then 5 hour busride from here], then back to Lanzhou to fly back to Beijing in one week. Took the train here, still feel like I am moving. It wasn't too bad, for a 20 hour ride, lots of sleeping, reading, listening to the man [of course] right next to me snore. The train is clean and passengers get to listen to train radio, which is blaring until 10 pm and then starts up again at 7 am! It's times like these that I swear by earplugs.
Looking out the window on the way here, noticed [once again] that every inch of this country is used, even the tops of mountains are terraced and cultivated. A number of countryside towns have satelite dishes in their courtyards, propped up by bricks. The only moment of color in these towns is the doors- colorful tiles, bright red sings with fortune-brining characters surround the door frame. Beijing is worlds away from here.
The cell phone necktie. For super convenient access, why not have your fancy schmancy cell phone dangling from your neck? The necktie comes complete with an ear piece, for hands free talking, and you can match it to all your outfits.
Right now I am in a swealtering internet cafe, I would guess it is about 85 degrees in here, but somehow they have mini glass bottle cokes, you know I love me some cokes, so I'm getting to my emails while waiting for my friends to arrive.
Ok, that's about the extent of creativity that I can mustur. I have a new email address, hotmail really does suck, should you want to write me please address it to:
maokelan18@gmail.com
peace

I am venturing away from Beijing soon

What holiday is that? May 1st. I don’t think we really celebrate that one in the US…
The Chinese system of vacation does not revolve around vacation days given to workers, here we have the highly effective system of public holidays, which means that the whole country takes vacation at the same time. A genius system, I give the country two years to get rid of it altogether because the infrastructure is already overburdened with this mega population, forget when they all want to travel together! So I am about to throw convenience to the wind and do some traveling myself. This Friday I will board a train from Beijing’s West station headed to Lanzhou, capital of Gansu province, a short 24 hour train ride.
http://www.chinaetravel.com/province/pr06.html
Gansu is that odd shape because its horrible mountainous, and through the middle runs the Silk Road. So, I’m doing the train part by myself, that will probably be lots of random chatting with other train passengers, sleeping, and a lot of beer. Meeting my friends in Lanzhou on the 1st. Who? My friend Anna, Italian, and her American boyfriend who lives elsewhere in China, and his American male friend who lives in Thailand. Should be a fun group. Haven’t made a whole lot of plans from there, but you get the general idea. Hope I can blog from nowhere’sville, or where ever it is I end up, keep y’all posted on china travels. I am really looking forward to going somewhere, I feel like I travel all the time in the US [well I do] and this is probably the first time in a very very long time that I’ve stayed put for almost three months!

Apparently my boss is in the Wall Street Journal

China's Growth Strains Family Ties

 --- As Children Prosper, Leave Home, Parents' Role Dims; A Tight-Knit Clan Frays

By Kathy Chen
2,405 words
13 April 2005
The Asian Wall Street Journal/ A1/ English
(c) 2005 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

To see the edition in which this article appeared,

click here http://awsj.com.hk/factiva-ns

NANCHANG, China -- This country's success is tearing the Fan family apart.

Fan Qun, a successful 39-year-old entrepreneur in Beijing, bought his parents a new apartment and takes them sightseeing in other Chinese cities. But he feels he has little in common with them anymore and less to say to them. His younger brother Fan Jun, 37, is reeling over a divorce, after his wife left him to pursue opportunities in southern
China. He is unemployed after a failed business venture and has been living with his parents for more than a year.

At a loss over how to deal with his family's situation, patriarch Fan Hanlin often retreats to his bedroom, usurped in his role of respected elder. His older son's social standing outstrips his, and his younger son ignores his advice. Mr. Fan's wife escapes by playing mahjong each afternoon with friends.

"Everyone is unhappy," says the elder Mr. Fan, 70.

For thousands of years, Chinese have made the family paramount, with generations often living together, and younger members deferring to their elders. Fathers were the head of the household. But opportunities born of China's move to a market-based economy over the past two dozen years are creating new wealth, new hierarchies and new strains. The scramble to keep up with neighbors, or one's own relatives, is testing
family ties, contributing to a rise in social problems.

Some 1.6 million couples divorced in China last year, a 21% jump from the year before, according to China's Ministry of Civil Affairs. In Beijing, there were 800 reported cases of domestic violence in 2004, double the number the previous year, according to the city's Bureau of Justice.

Younger Chinese are opting for privacy over extended-family living, and buying parents their own apartments. Others are putting their aging parents in nursing homes, as convenience trumps filial piety, an unheard-of violation of Confucian ethics. Over the past decade, the number of nursing-home residents has increased 40% to more
than one million.

Parents of young children are leaving their offspring in the care of relatives for years, as they seek better jobs far from home. Millions of peasants have left their rural homes for work in cities, while some professionals are going abroad. The trend is spawning China's own generation of latchkey children, numbering in the tens of millions.

In the Fan household, life followed traditional guidelines when the children were growing up. Mr. Fan, head of the household, taught physics at a high school and his wife, Luo Shuzheng, was an engineer in a state-run factory. They had three children -- two boys and a girl -- who excelled at school, and tested into prestigious universities.

Like other Chinese children, the Fans were expected to obey their father without question. "We required [the children] to sit still and didn't let them fool around," Mr. Fan says.

Usually, just raising his voice was enough, but Mr. Fan says he sometimes hit the boys. He still recollects with pride how, after he hit his younger son in an effort to improve his study habits, the boy scored so well on college-entrance exams that he ranked among the top students in Nanchang County.

The Fans were a tight-knit clan. Qun, the oldest, looked after his two younger siblings while their parents were at work. Many nights, their mother stayed up mending clothes and making cloth shoes for the children. Sundays were a rush of shopping, cooking and housework. Neither Mr. Fan's nor his wife's parents lived with them, but the couple
set aside part of their small income each month to give to their parents.

Like generations of Chinese, Mr. Fan and his wife, Ms. Luo, envisioned a life driven by filial duties for their own children: study hard, find a stable job, get married, produce offspring (preferably male) and support your parents in old age. But in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the Fan children were graduating from college, China's economic overhaul was opening up all sorts of new opportunities, in job
choices, lifestyles and ways to get rich.

Qun jumped at the chance to do something different. Bucking the trend among college graduates at the time to take a state-sector job, he opted for a marketing position in a joint-venture company of SmithKline Beecham, now GlaxoSmithKline PLC. He learned about the pharmaceutical business and Western marketing techniques, befriended American colleagues and helped the company successfully launch its Contac brand of cold medicine in China.

In 1996, he started his own consulting company, advising drug companies on doing business in China. Today, he says his company employs a dozen people, including his wife, Li Chunhui, and generates annual revenue exceeding 10 million yuan ($1.2 million). He says the company's after-tax profit is 15% to 20% of revenue.

As Qun prospered, the distance widened between him and his family in Nanchang, a city of 4.5 million about 1,250 kilometers from his new home in Beijing. He shares few details of his life in the city with his parents. They don't understand his business, he says, and wouldn't necessarily approve of his lifestyle. He and his wife each drive their own car, dine out frequently and retain two housekeepers, including one just to look after Wrong Wrong, their pet Pekinese dog. This year, they moved to a two-story house in a wealthy suburb.

His parents don't have a car or a housekeeper, rarely eat out and take pride in saving. "If my parents saw me spending this kind of money, I'd be embarrassed," Qun says, as he and his wife grab a coffee at a Starbucks shop on the way home from the office. He notes the few hundred dollars they spend each month on such luxuries as fresh beef, imported cookies, dog sweaters and a sitter for their dog is more than the his parents' monthly income.

In the past, Chinese families revolved around fathers and sons. But like other younger-generation Chinese, Qun views his first allegiance as with his xiao jiating, or small family unit centered around his marriage.

The couple have resisted suggestions by Qun's parents for them to have a baby. Instead, Qun's wife insists their Pekinese should be recognized as a "grandson," proclaiming the dog's surname to be "Fan." Qun says this offended his mother, and she once complained that he should find a wife "who listens more." In traditional China, a son would have quietly accepted such criticism. But Qun says he told his mother that if she had a problem with his wife, she should tell her directly.


"My main family is with Linda," he says, using his wife's English name. Like many of today's middle-class Chinese, the couple also have adopted Western names, a practice that is viewed in some circles as a sign of being modern and sophisticated.

His mother says she doesn't care how they raise their dog, but "you still need to have a child. How will you get by when you are old? Dogs can't take care of you."

These days, Qun sees his parents only a few times a year. Conversations tend to be about Nanchang friends or family, since his parents have different views on other subjects. "They always complain about how the government is unfair and society is unjust," says Qun. "I try to influence them . . . but I think they'll never catch up to my way of thinking."

Min, the youngest Fan sibling, also resisted her parents' traditional expectations. Ms. Luo says she hoped her daughter, after graduation from college, would return to Nanchang. Instead, Min settled in the southern city of Guangzhou, where she is married, has a child and works at a major Chinese insurance company.

Jun, the middle sibling, is still figuring out his place in the new China. Growing up, he says the constant message from his parents and school was: "If you just listen, you'll be successful, and society will take care of you." After college, he accepted a job at the Nanchang subsidiary of the state-run China Machinery & Equipment Import & Export Corp.

Working as a trader, he exported engines to other Asian countries and the U.S. and earned more than $10,000 in bonuses, he says. But after more than a decade on the job, his salary changed little, totaling about $200 a month.

In 1993, Jun married a fellow office worker, Zhu Yifang. Their employer provided them with a small apartment and they had a son in 1995.

After the baby was born, Jun's mother spent long stretches of time living with the couple, a traditional Chinese practice. But Ms. Zhu says she resented her mother-in-law's presence, which she regarded as interference. "It would have been better if the older generation didn't live with us," Ms. Zhu says. "But I couldn't refuse," she says.

Unlike wives in pre-reform China, Ms. Zhu could walk away, with more freedom and job opportunities. In 1999, she went to southern China to work as the sales agent for a construction-material company, leaving her husband to care for their son, then 4 years old. In 2000, the couple divorced. Today, Ms. Zhu lives in Nanchang with a boyfriend and earns more than $500 a month, she says, teaching English at a university and running her own English-language class.

After the divorce, in 2001, Qun offered his younger brother a job at his company in Beijing to market a vitamin supplement and oversee a handful of employees. Jun quit his state-sector job and accepted.

But he felt uncomfortable leaving his son in his parents' care, he says. He couldn't get used to Beijing or his new job. He had a hard time persuading retailers to buy the vitamin supplement, and after a year, the venture had incurred more than $60,000 in losses. He says the company didn't spend enough to promote the product.

Qun says his younger brother "approached the job like he was still at a state-run company . . . He got up in the morning, drank a cup of tea, and then did only what I told him to." He says Jun "often complains and finds excuses. . . . We live in different worlds."

Jun says that by his older brother's standards, "I haven't succeeded . . . but the goals he chooses are different from mine." He thinks Qun "doesn't necessarily like what he does, but he wants to earn money." His own goal in life, Jun says, is to first be a good father.

Jun returned home and last year moved in with his parents. That is a reversal of Chinese tradition, in which grown offspring typically provide for their parents.

Sitting on the apartment patio on a recent day, Jun sipped tea from a beer mug and pondered his future.

"I haven't thought through a lot of things, like how to raise my kid, how to be a model parent and how to live with my parents," Jun says. "I'm just considering the question, `How successful should I be?' People drive a [Mercedes] Benz; I don't have a car."

Mr. Fan and Jun often squabble over how to raise Jun's son, now 9 years old. "I tell [Jun] his son should go to sleep at 9 p.m. or he'll be tired at school. But I talk and no one listens," says Mr. Fan.

Jun says his father "has lived this long, but doesn't know what family is. You need to show love to your kid, but [the elder Mr. Fan] doesn't express his emotions."

After initially rejecting his brother's suggestion that he look for a job outside of Nanchang, Jun recently had a change of heart. He says he plans to visit Shanghai to explore an opportunity to work for a trading company there.

Economic changes have given people in China more money, but are also causing "more pressure" Jun says. "Some contradictions always existed in our family," he says, "but when life was simple, we just lived with them."

A flood of memories

I’m going to some law conference that for some reason my boss wants me to attend. Some hotel right off Wang Fu Jing- the 5th ave of Beijing- called the Peninsula hotel. Had to ask a friend just where it was. Running late as usual but have noticed that in this country that doesn’t matter much. I’m having a somewhat hazy morning after partying kinda late with hayley’s ex, Mr. Todd Arthur [are you picking up what I’m putting down?” hee hee]. Find the hotel, find a woman to direct me to the conference I’m attending. “Up the stairs”. The stairs. Huge white marble stairs. Flash back to my senior year, the first time I set my eyes on these stairs. I’m in a similar state of mind- except instead of being exhausted and hungover I’m quite inebriated for my 18 year old self. Senior prom. I’m uncomfortable in my silk alley purchased prom dress, girlie shoes, I think someone put make up on me and forced me to wear pantyhose, g-d help me. I stumble up these grand stairs laughing with my slew of dates [prom was a much more chill experience then] only to look up and see the principal of the school and [his wife] the guidance counselor waiting to greet us. Hope this isn’t a sobriety check. Back to this morning- I carefully reach the top of the stairs to see another familiar ISB [Int’l School of Beijing, common on now…] shining face- a guy I wasn’t particularly friends with, but he recognizes me, we chat, I get the phone number of an old class mate of mine whose also in BJ. Love those random connections. I rush to coffee in an attempt to keep me awake during the lectures, peer into the grand ballroom and see the kids form my geography class, English class, not in their traditional high school garb but all dressed up- glittering gowns. Tuxes. There Tim, looking as cute as ever, too bad I just don’t like the boys in that way. Mom always liked him, but word has it she’s gotta man. I size up the crowd and realize that most of the squares in my class did not follow the age old American tradition of [as we say in non- parents world] getting shitfaced prior to arrival at the famed prom; well that’s what I get for hanging with the bad kids. Back at the law conference. Coffee break. I look out on the day light and see my 18 year old self leaving the hotel, its 7 am and I’ve spent just a few short hours trying to sleep on the floor of my friends rented hotel room. I get in a cab on this beautiful blue sky summer Sunday morning, schlep home, which is 45 min even without traffic. On my ride home I recall some of the events from the early morning- recalling the feeling of knowing that this time in my life is coming to an end soon. Not only high school, not only china, those were major enough in themselves, but that this group of people will never be together again. Out school will be destroyed. Folk’s parents will move away, classmates will go to uni and get jobs in far away countries. We will all lose touch. I enjoy these random places in BJ like the Peninsula hotel and the slippery giant white staircase where I can take a trip down memory lane and jump into my 18 year old head. My next move was to gradumatate. Then take a solo trip home, stopping in Singapore to visit my sis. Spend 8 hours in the Tokyo airport, learn to shower in a sink. Arrive in Chicago. Stare at all the white folk, think I know them all, my first bite of reverse culture shock. Mom tells me Mema is dieing. We are sad, but as she says, shes lived a long life and is ready to go. But she always wanted to know what young Claire would get up to. As my mom and I joked, ‘good thing she missed the lesbian venture.’ You thought she had trouble adjusting to Mark’s nose ring… eating outside on the patio at Mema’s country club. Uncle Tom at the head of the table makes a toast, to Mema, although she is not with us, she would love to see us all eating together, all here together. I hope she would also love to see that young Claire off doing whateva it is that I’m doing…
Thanks for reading folks.

Variations on a Rococo theme, Opus 33

Summer’s current man, think I told you about him before, ‘The Swiss’, plays the trumpet for the Beijing Symphony Orchestra. He got us tickets to see them perform Tchaikovsky Saturday night at the concert hall within the Forbidden City. The park and hall itself were really beautiful. Before the concert started, a long list was read both in English and Chinese to everyone in the hall, about what NOT to do in the auditorium. To retain an elegant atmosphere he tells me. No gum. No plastic bags. Cell phone have to be in the ‘noiseless position’, asking us to turn them off would go too far. Don’t walk about the theater. No children under 1.2 meters are allowed [unless they are white, I saw some very small white kids]. The list goes on and on. Don’t clap between movements [this happened anyway, the Chinese really have no idea]. There are about five orchestra members who are white, and only twice as many whiteys in the audience. The theater is 75% full. We listened to a bunch of Peter Ilyich’s opus’s, including Opus 33, which was Variations on a Rococo theme, which apparently was some period in European history, which the Swiss described as ‘opulent’. I enjoyed the music, it was great. Summer’s first classical music concert. I think she thinks its pretty boring, but she does listen to quite a variety of music, so I assume she got a bit of kick out of it. Would ask her but she hasn’t been home in… a while. Must be at the Swiss’s. His apt is no doubt nicer than ours, especially since a drunk friend of mine ripped off the bathroom light switch [which is just a cord hanging down] and now its rather dark in there. Well the late night construction lights from next door keep me from falling in.

E-Z Money. I got a call from my friend Lee, an American who works at That’s Beijing, the foreign ‘what’s happening’ magazine, who said she has Chinese friend that needs to borrow one of her foreign friends. My job? Pretend I work with this guy in his architecture firm, go with him to a meeting with some potential clients to show the clients that his company employees foreigners. He says its too expensive to actually employ foreigners, so he paid me $60 for four hours of sitting in the meeting looking Caucasian. Not a bad morning. Might even ‘work’ with him again. You know my extensive background in architecture!

Shout out to Kat-o, who is going to Australia at the end of the summer. Way to leave the country girl. I’m trying to figure out just who my audience is, so far I have: my fam, H.O’B, Berg, K&B, Lovely Linds, various 856 18th street-ers, who else?

A country of gape-ers. This morning I stopped my ride to wrok to watch a fight occurring across the street. I just stopped, right there in the bike lane, as did everyone else I was biking with. A crowd had gathered. Traffic was stopped. The fight was not even that good. The Chinese love to stop and watch.

Went back to my high school, or what is left. The main building, the original school building, has been turned into a health club. The gym in that building is the only real remnants of anything physical from my high school. The remainder of the grounds have been torn down, nothing remains. A little sad.

Dinner with the Wu’s, or old couples that don’t like each other. I asked Wu when he was going to retire. One year or more. I asked what he would do, I said, will you stay at home and argue with your wife? He said, “I will kill her and find a better wife”. I shamelessly and without thought retorted, “you should”. Watching what Yangling has done to prohibit her daughter’s independence and turn her into a critical nagging old woman sometimes makes me want to vom. I asked Wu Xia to come out with my friends to go dancing this Wed night because it’s ladies night and the disco is free. When she found out that we would get to the club at 10.30, that would be too late. Her mother grimaced. She would not go because that would make her mother mad. I asked, you are 25 years old, why are you still letting your mother tell you what to do? No response. I guess I just have such an innate reaction to rebel, to be independent, but I guess if I raised by her mother those feelings would quickly be squashed. Or never generate to begin with. It’s too bad that Wu got stuck with such a… person [resisting name-calling temptations]. The horrible family that Wu is currently driving for makes him drive them to Sunday night dinner, so he is not at home when I come over for dinner, which leaves me with Wu Xia’s premature nagging and Yangling’s constant criticism.

The Japan protests were not reported in Chinese newspapers. I didn’t get off my butt to attend neither. The story is, Japan is not admitting its WW2 atrocities, so the Chinese are pissed. Most countries tend to ‘forget’ the atrocities in their history, the US has not yet admitted its atrocities toward the Native people of our country, and China is very close to erasing their past about how much damage Mao caused, the extent of the Cultural Revolution, and there is no one to remind them. More on that later.

Should have more photos up tomorrow. Decided its time to get the ol hunking camera out, show y’all some of China.

Fact: China spends $45 per person per year on healthcare. For the US that number is $4700.

Accidents, death, and confrontation

No mom, not me, I am OK. Breathe a sigh of relief. But I thought it was a pertinent time to discuss the above topics, as China is a constant reminder that accidents happen, death happens, and of course not every purchasing event ends in ‘thank you’.

First, the grim topic: accidents and death. Riding my bike home yesterday I road by the saddest scene of a dog that was just hit by a car. Not a stray dog, someone asked me, there are no stray dogs in China, each and every dog here is someone’s pride and joy. He had no leash, but the woman standing over him, yelling something at him, was holding the leash of another cute little white dog. When will they learn to keep all their dogs on a leash? The dog was not dead, but still moving, which made me wish I was a Charlton Heston gun-touting American, no not to shoot the driver, but to shoot the dog, get him out of his misery. And the driver? Where was he? Nowhere to be found. A grim scene, but a good reminder that accidents happen, death happens, dogs die. Please keep your dog on a leash.

Pat’s words of wisdom on the subject: “dying not dieing. Who should know better than I? I'm in the business..”

Confrontation. Summer and I were walking to dinner last night, to meet her current man, “the swiss” [because we both cannot pronounce his real name, which sounds something like “Autie”] we walked by two well dressed men attempting to converse with a newsstand man. He asked, do you speak Chinese? And said, yes, meaning Summer speaks Chinese. He explained that he bought three cell phone cards [these cards are bane of my existence, the card that puts credit on your phone so you can use it] and one was bunk, like there was no pin number, he was ripped off. So Summer politely asked the already rage-filled newsstand man just what was going on, his response was rather unintelligible, because he was some country bumpkin and spoke the Chinese equivalent of banjo-speak [term courtesy of H. O’Brien, describing the dialect of some deep-kentuckiens, more on country bumpkins in a minute], in essence said something like it wasn’t his card. Don’t know how that works considering he sold the man the card. The German man talks back to the bumpkin, poking his finger into the bumpkins chest, which is not too smart, the Chinese are small people but they come with an army when the going gets tough, so I tried my diplomatic skills, telling the man, “mister, us foreigners all love china. We are in china to spend money. To give you money. Why are you causing us mafan [difficulty]? We don’t want to have to call the police or the embassy. If you sold him the card and the card doesn’t work, then it is your problem. Why not give the man back his money?” The German continues to yell at the bumpkin in English, then steals other phone cards that were on display, and leaves. So much for helping the situation, seems he used me as a distraction. Summer said the display cards are just for show anyway!

People regularly ask me what country I come from. I in turn ask them where they are from, because 9 times out of 10 the people I am buying my beer from are clearly not from Beijing. If you are from Beijing you can hear it immediately in the way they speak. They speak standard Chinese, the Chinese that I learned, and if you are from another place, they are sometimes unintelligible and speak banjo-talk. The city is slowly filling with ‘wai-di ren’, outside place people. I wonder how they are living legally.

To close, something I enjoyed hearing from one of my roommates from CU:　 “I’m happy that you finally made it back!!”　－Meredith. Thanks, Mers.

A day with Pat Wynne, finally, cuz I know y’all still have no idea who she is!

Pat Wynne went to high school with my mommy. Back in the day when ol’ Patty Newman was young on the scene. Pat didn’t give me anything too joocy about Patty way back when, except to say that they did party some, there was some craziness going on… which is good to hear. Said she was an alright girl, that momma of mine, sounds a bit like me in high school, ran with a chill crowd, knew the ‘cool’ kids but didn’t really want to be friends with them [because they mostly suck, and at least those kids from GHS now are recovering drug addicts, have babies, etc, whereas my friends are creating, doing, living in China, etc].

It was fun to take Pat Wynne around, show her my town. She was so appreciative of my touring with her, thinking it is mafan [difficulty or something] in my life, when really, any excuse to tell someone All Day about my favorite city, my life, etc, is a good time to me. Turns out I love to talk about China. And Pat was very interested. ‘

We started the day with a loop around Tiananmen Square, not much going there, walked straight through the Forbidden City, again not much going on there, so I took her to a place I once knew… we wandered down a windy hutong [alley] and I swear this woman had no confidence that I knew anywhere where I was [at this point she was asking me if I traveled with a map, I goffed at that one!] and we peaked in the first courtyard entrance door that was open, to speak to a young woman who had a badge with a familiar logo on it: ah, well if it isn’t the school I used to volunteer for when I was here in 2001.

Back at Hui Ling. It is not really a school so much as an organization for young adults with developmental disabilities, teaching them basic life necessities, giving them the confidence to ride the bus, go to the library, etc, it is more of a community. We sat down and had tea with Ms Meng, the Guangzhou woman who founded this school, who told me that since I left, the school had expanded greatly. In 2001, there was one school in Beijing and one in Guangzhou, now there are 7 more branches of the school in Beijing as well as in many cities around China. The English co-founder had since squeezed out some puppies and brought them back to England to raise them. So, they have little contact with the foreign community. Enter my white shining big nose face, and Ms Meng is trying to convince me to come back and work with them, not so much with the kids because we all know that was not my strong suit, but with connecting them with the foreign community, help raise some funds. Sounds like a good project to me, and it is true the my large nose and round eyes do now have quite a few contacts that could bring the big bucks in.

Pat and I continued our walking, got her on a barely crowded by Beijing standards bus, ate some typical Chinese food, wound through some alleys, rode the subway, rested briefly at my home where we met up with Won Park, my favorite Korean-American, who persuaded us to eat swanky Chinese food at a fabulous restaurant called South Beauty. The wine and Evian alone was $50! Ah, the food is good in this country.

Overall had a great day with Pat. If she comes to your town I highly recommend chillin with her. She is now off to live in Sydney, Australia, for a couple months, such an adventure. Pat, let me know how Sydney life is treating you!

I just got ripped off by the rombutan man

And just what is a rombutan? Here is a photo of a bunch of them.
http://www.anthropology.pdx.edu/ISLE/ISLEimages/classes/rombutan%20thumbnail.jpg
You rip off that rough exterior and reveal and white fleshy juicy almost lychee like fruit. I see similarities with this fruit to myself…
Even with my so-called Chinese speaking ability I am still getting ripped off! I have reached a level of frustration with my inability to recall words in Chinese that I once knew, to the point where I actually picked up a borrowed textbook and STARTED STUDYING AGAIN. Crazy I know. I do have to admit, the last time I was in China I had been studying Chinese for four and a half years straight, now I am back in this country after not speaking it for four years, so no wonder it sucks. It’s coming back to me rather quickly. I just find it ridiculous that I was at one point writing research papers in the language and now I can barely communicate with the waitress. I do still refuse to pay for classes, my goal is NOT to be fluent in any way, I love speaking my own language with my own peeps way too much, it keeps me sane, but I would like to get back to at least where I was when I last left.

Apparently the actual blog about my day with pat wynne never came through. That will be the third time that that blog did not come through, so sorry pat and pat, but now you get the super condensed version. I am sure you can understand my frustration with the machines that disappear by beautiful prose.

Had dinner at the latest new restaurant near my home last night, a Dongbei food place, when I asked my new friend Hannah just where that was, she snidely responded, ‘the north east?’ [For those non Chinese speakers dongbei is literally east north]. Hannah is a rad girl, an ideal friend, from Decatur, yes the ATL baby, and she also enjoys teaching her Chinese friends slang that not even other young Americans can understand. Example: instead of saying ‘bye –bye’ [the Chinese love that one] she taught them ‘holla at a player when you see me on the skreeeeeeeeet’. Word. We had a good amount of laughs. She’s my gateway to a million and one lesbians, can’t wait to chill with them all.

The current job story: [since my father continues to ask] had a brief meeting with James [my boss] yesterday. This morning he left for Warsaw to go to Nicholas Hall’s OTC conference, wish I was going with him, but I guess I can get over it. He is definitely a man of a grand vision, details are just that, details. He has this whole plan for me, which works in a way that I help him start his China- specific OTC newsletter/journal, and he helps me become this… OTC expert/saleswoman extraordinaire. Still he does not focus on the actual goings-on of this massive project I am entrenched in, such as, how will I magically transform these hundred articles into a coherent journal that is not totally plagiarized? Haven’t got that far in discussions with him. Nor have we focused on the 1129 pages of uselessness that my Chinese coworker came up with. For some reason I have doubts about his researching abilities. But I am staying with the job, because to be honest I am about to be flat broke, I am down to my last… oh, about 80 bucks, which is pretty funny. I love a life with no credit cards and 80 bucks is actually a livable amount until I get paid in two weeks. Ha!

I just sent an invite to view my latest photo album, so if you didn’t get it, email me. There are a bunch of other albums in there, including some from friends that might not be all that parent- appropriate, so older peeps you are welcome to view them, but you know… all that jazz.

I have a phone number! Yes, a real phone that rings in my house and if you call me I don’t have to pay for it. My cell phone is… I would say four times as expensive to use regularly here than in the US. It is probably the only thing that is more expensive here that I purchase, but still it is sucking me dry. OK, the phone number is, with calling codes to call from the US to China, 011-86-10-6417-6714. So call me sometime, should you feel the need, but don’t surprised if I’m not there, I am rarely home when I’m not sleeping. But, good times to call are: Monday-Thursday 6pm to 11 pm. To figure out when that is where you are, check out http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedform.html

My friend Alison had a funny convo with Summer’s boss at my party, which she related some of which to me:　“he was hilarious. I was criticizing him for wanting to bring that Italian Barbie magazine [somehow this magazine ended up at my party] to china, saying it's the last thing china needs now that all these young girls are already having surgery and stuff to look more western, they didn't need Barbie too. and he turns it around and starts complimenting me. I guess that's Chinese, kiss up so someone stops criticizing you. maybe you should try that with the Wu's -- when they start nagging, start complimenting their drapes or something.”

At the end there she is relating to my constant bitching about how the Wu’s are such nice people, take such good care of me, but are Very judgmental [note the capital “V”!] of how I live my life, and also very questioning if I know what is best for me, which gets old REALLY fast. Turns out I’ve been living on my own and taking care of myself for… 8 years now, I think I know when I am cold and when I am full. Do we really need to have another discussion over the fact that I don’t want rice? That I have already eaten enough? Do I know that I am capable of biking across the city at 9 o’clock at night? And it would be one thing if it was just Yangling [mom] nagging me, but it’s WuXia too, which makes me want to chew off my arms and throw them at her sometimes. Really I’m over it, but maybe Alison is right, when they are judging/criticizing me, I will compliment their drapes? We will see how that goes over.

Adventures in Mushrooms

My new favorite restaurant is at the bottom of a major building/mall 7 min from my house. It is hot pot, and you sit at a counter, kind of dinner style, and you have your own hotpot. It’s just spicy seasoned boiling water, you cook everything in there [I’ll give the full description for those of you that don’t know]. Then I order tofu slices, lotus root, spinach, and lettuce which I eat raw, and dip everything in a sauce called ‘ma jiang’ which is like sesame/ peanut butter-y. So yummy. I would have a ma jiang IV if I could. For some reason the meat isn’t doing it for me. So then I try to sample different kinds of mushrooms, because they have so many that we don’t have in the country of Dubya. Last time I ate with Raleigh we tried “old person head” mushroom and this time Alison and I ate ‘monkey head’. I don’t recommend the monkey bit, can’t do the consistency. Ha! Nutritious and delicious. I’m losing the craving for Westerns food [I didn’t know I was going to be able to do this!] and it is SO nice to feel SO good after I eat, everything I eat here makes my body feel GREAT. As some of you may know [Linds, Son, thanks for your patience with my issues] I have some trouble with the typical American fare… anyway, I’m loving it. If I never use my kitchen once I’ll be ok with it. It’s VERY tiny, only two burners, that’s the only thing to cook on.

THE PARTY WAS FABULOUS-O. highlights include: despite bucketing rain, and like any other city there are no cabs, even at 10 pm, when it is raining, still many many people showed up. Probably 30 altogether. Some attendees: Wu Xia, after saying that she definitely could not come, nor could her man who has an English test on Sunday, stayed for a while, being cute and chatting in the corner, LBX downing whatever alcohol was around, and Wu Xia, well I tried to get her drink, at one point I had her double fisting Bailey’s in one hand and red wine in the other! Ha! They were very cute. Glad she got to meet some of my friends. My new Euro friends- Anna from Italy, Bea from Switzerland, who only speaks 5 languages. Old roommates April, boyfriend “Da” [meaning big], Bri, Alison, Jeremy. A handful of Chinese friends of both Summer and me. Then there was the lesbian constituency. Hysterical! Hannah, new friend from Decatur [ATL BABY! WHAT UP!] brought her ever growing collection of young cute Chinese lez with fabulous English and an penchant for Bailey’s. Love ‘em. Then there are the Euro lez, most seem to be Italian and let me tell you they are LOUD and HYSTERICAL. So need to hang out with them more. I like that my party ends up being 50% straight and 50% downright queer. Wu Xia of course had No idea. So it was a bomb party, the apt was just big enough, lots of beer and wine was gifted so no one went home parched, and the neighbors were actually pretty chill. One neighbor came upstairs to ask us to turn down the music, I was in my room chatting with some folks at the time, so Summer talked to her, and kindly gave me the finger as I looked on while the neighbor was bitching and moaning. Love the American-isms Summer has picked up! She’s great. It’s nice to chill with a non-traditional Chinese girl, I think she is the first Chinese I actually feel a close connection to. So, we kicked everyone out at about 1 [maybe?] and went to a club to ‘get down’ as they call it… A good time was had by all. This morning my apt smelled like a frat house, delicious. Tried to get folks not to smoke in my house but that was Far from actually being a reality. Ah, this is Not the US!

Just ran into my neighbor while on my way to the internet café, we chatted for a bit. She lives right below me and was telling me that her husband has a heart illness, but didn’t seem particularly sad about it [not surprisingly the Chinese def do Not where their heart on their sleeve!]. She has a 26 year old daughter who still lives with them [of course] and who supposedly ‘speaks’ English [speak and study are very different, but her mother thinks she can speak it] and I am dieing to hang out with. Love having neighbors, my own little neighborhood. Everyone loved my house last night, it is very homey. I’ll take pictures, possibly even today, since I cleaned, and post them soon.

Question: are y’all that I haven’t heard from enjoying my blog? Are you even reading it? I know there are the addicts- folks, Linds, Hil, The Berg, anyone else read it religiously? Or do you check it occasionally and see I have written way too much for you to be bothered to read so you scan it? Is anyone getting offended or annoyed? Crying? Laughing? Overwhelmed with joy at my magical way with words? Give me your thoughts/ comments, would love to hear. Apologies for being so out of touch email-wise, its been a crazy week but I should be answering all emails next week as the ol’ boss is going to Warsaw for a week on Monday.

Some Ani brilliance for y’all:

so we're led by denial like lambs to the slaughter

serving empires of style and carbonated sugar water

and the old farm road's a four-lane that leads to the mall

and our dreams are all guillotines waiting to fall

i'm wondering what it will take for my country to rise, first we admit our mistakes and then we open our eyes or nature succumbs to one last dumb decision and america the beautiful is just one big subdivision

A day with Pat Wynne

Just wrote a ton, lost a bunch of it in an internet SNAFU. I'll re-write maybe tommorow but the gist of it is:
had a blast showing Pat Wynne my fav city.
party is tonight, hope we all can cram into my tiny apt.
yeah, that's pretty much it. The time now is... beer:thirty. Time to leave work.

Rainbow Country

I am currently eating Paella.

Yes, as in the Spanish dish. Went out to the bars last night and one of the girls I met up with did not want her leftovers [I did not eat at the expensive tapas restaurant but met them after] so I took them. It’s not very good. When my standard for European fare is The Med in Boulder, most Chinese chefs pale in comparison… and really Chinese food does my body so much better. No dairy, no wheat, no whatever else it is that I don’t do well with in Western food… but I could not pass it up if it’s free. The shrimp are unpeeled and the rice is dry.

Sat next to the cutest baby on the bus, his mother identified that we were both the year of the monkey. As older women get on the bus they wave and smile at the baby and the mother says grandma is looking at you! Say hi to grandma! It is very cute that the Chinese call total strangers grandma or auntie just based on their age. Too cute.

My job is… coming along. The news journal that I am compiling is kind of taking shape, now I am wondering how we will use all these other company’s articles without plagiarizing and being illegal, and illegal according to whom? Discussions with my boss about this are slow but it is coming together so I am sticking with it. And he is sooo nice to me- I asked him if I could take Thursday off to go sightseeing with an old friend of my mom’s, Pat Wynne, who is in town on business, and he said, sure, do you want to take the company driver? Such a nice guy. Last night I went with the driver to a department store to buy house stuff, when a house comes furnished yes it comes with a bed but no you cannot sleep directly on the mattress. You must first purchase a mattress pad, so I threw down $50 [a lot in this country!] for my Japanese super comf mattress pad. So far the only things I have bought in this country are for my bed! Seems that is the only thing I really need, house-wise.

Life is good here, I like the pace. I like the city- ness about it. In the US I seem to spend so much time by myself in my car. Here I pack my bag with my discman, journal, book, and head out, walking, bus, subway, out with the people. Taking the time to write Lindsay a letter while enjoying coffee at McDonald’s. Walking 20 minutes to the bar street, drink a beer along the way. Chatting with folks on the subway; while waiting for the light to change on my bike. It is working well with me. I also enjoy the people [meaning foreigners] I am meeting here, everyone who lives here are China fanatics like me, speak the language, they dig the scene. Smart folks. So we get along.

Ok I need to tear into this shrimp.

A note on the sms.com thing

For those of you that received an email ["Guess what? You now have 1 friend that have invited you to their mobile network!"] from some sms company wanting you to sign up, I apoligize. Someone invited me and when I signed up they somehow got hold of my whole address book and spammed all of y'all.
SMS is text messaging, like writing short messages using cell phones, and the service does not even work in China. Wish it did.
Please delete any incoming requests to sign up!
Sorry!

I ate pig's kidney last night.

Turns out it was gross, but at least I tried it. LBX [Wu Xia boyfriend] likes delicacies, I call them strange meat but Wu says that its just more expensive, not weird. They were essential for my move yesterday. I have since acquired four chairs that are hands, you sit in the palm and rest on the fingers, in a rainbow [Queer power!] of colors, they spice up the apartment. Will take photos soon so I can post them on snapfish. The Wu Coalition helped me move, he has the minivan you know, and clean the new place, and were not too overbearing fortunately. My new place is awesome, although it has been a long time since I spent the first time in a new place by myself [Summer did not get her moving together until today]. My bed was excessively hard, and I left the windows open, so it was a cold hard night for me, and I found myself wide awake between the hours of 3 am and 7 am! Well at least I got a lot thinking done. About what I am not sure. Things I am working on in China. I am very busy here. I have decided [among other things] that I need to refocus all my energy into working, working hard at the job I currently have, and at furthering my job search. Git -r- done. If anyone sees any roundtuits they can send my way, I'd sure 'preciate it. My sickness seems to have finally left, it was never a full blown anything, but everyday I had a new symptom. Like my body was immunizing itself to all China sickness in one bout.

During this move I have noticed a problem that plagues china throughout: lack of standards. My bed sheet fit on my last bed, but now my new bed is just a bit too long. The landlords leaves all kind of crazy stuff in our apartment, from old soap and combs to a sewing machine table [the one where the machine hides in the table] that they refuse to take out. Very different from the US where you move in and you don’t get anything. Summer was complaining that the landlord is making us put the phone in our name, saying she did not trust us and she was worried we might be calling the US or Shandong province and not pay the bill. In the US you obviously put the phone in your name and pay whatever the hook up few is without hesitation. So it is interesting to see that all these points need to be renegotiated, there is not a standard practice for anything it seems. Having a Chinese roommate it ESSENTIAL, I don’t know how I would do all this without Summer! This Friday we are having a housewarming party, hopefully it won't get too out of hand…

I read this in the news today: “400 American civilians who call themselves "Minutemen" will guard the border between the US and Mexico. The group is composed of mostly retired men who have formed an all-volunteer civilian border patrol. For the next 30 days, they will rotate shifts around the clock to keep an eye on the Arizona-Mexico border. They're looking for illegal immigrants and smugglers who cross through a porous stretch of sun-baked desert in southeast Arizona. "I think it's a very high priority after 9/11," Inbody said. "There are hundreds of 'illegals' over that border just waiting to cross," he added.” From ABC news. Does this bother anyone else? Weren’t the 9/11 terrorists Saudis? Are Mexicans really a potential terrorist threat? Is it their ability to pick strawberries 12 hours a day for below minimum wage really threatening national security?

I went out with some friends Saturday night to a bar selected because it serves the cheapest beer in SanLiTun [$1.25 for a bottle of TsingDao] and ran into someone I briefly went to high school with here. He was a freshmen when I was a junior and we briefly hung out and played roller hockey in the parking garage of his diplomatic compound [Tai Yuan]. It was funny to see him, we briefly reminisced about high school life, and he recounted why he moved back to Beijing: he studied Chinese in college and didn’t feel too useful in the US. He feels he doesn’t know anything but Beijing. Also his family still lives here, turns out his father is a diplomat in the department of giving government grants, Fulbright’s to be exact, which my friend Alison here helped coordinate. Such a small world here in Beijing.

To close, another quote from The Dork of Cork:
"It is that greatest of mysteries: falling in love. Falling. An accurate word, suggesting as it does something that occurs independently of the will. The irresistible pull of gravity. A man falls from the roof of a building; he cannot by willing it impede his progress toward the ground. A man falls in love; he cannot check his descent.”

Job interview. "Tell me about your work experience...

IN CHINESE!!!" Are you ca-ca-ca-ca-crazy? Huh-what? Ok, so I had an interview with the level company, met with the woman who just moments before the interview started informed me that I should try to speak in Chinese for the company CEO that would be down shortly to interview me. It really brings a whole new meaning to an interview, when it is suddenly in another language… I mean, I can chat with the best of the Beijing cab drivers, but I have never really thought of how to describe how the operations part of my job at the remanufactured inkjet marketing online company specifically was established and how policies were set... Love that preparation. The job seemed ok, sales mostly, getting people to be the company's clients by showing off my big big nose and white skin and poor poor Chinese. [the Chinese like to repeat words to add emphasis] Would consider taking the job despite by deep hatred for sales were it not for the fact that this job is not even in Scarsdale, it's in Schenectady, just with lots more traffic in between. I just cannot justify moving to the east side of town, in the actual city, to live on the far far far west side of town. I mean I am talking like my neighbor is the Summer Palace. So it is not a good enough job [no matter what they pay, not like I am having trouble affording my cheapest moment in life ever] to spend most of my day schlepping out there. But I am glad went, but will stay at my cush researching for no real use job until something better [or at least more geographically desirable] comes along.

To end, some lyrics from the Police that I have been pondering:
Do I have to tell the story
Of a thousand rainy days since we first met
It's a big enough umbrella
But it's always me that ends up getting wet